Trifeca Recap

As all 3 NASCAR series travel to the northeast for the weekend, it's time to recap last week's races.

FORMULA ONE (Monaco)
As it was expected, the Monaco Grand Prix was dominated by Mercedes. It looked like Lewis Hamilton was onto winning his 2nd race in Monte Carlo until a late-race crash by Max Verstappen changed plans.  The safety car was deployed and Hamilton pitted (eventually finishing 3rd), while teammate Nico Rosberg stayed out on track and won his 3rd consecutive race on the legendary street circuit.  With 6 races down, Hamilton leads Rosberg by 10 points.  The series is off this weekend before going to Montreal on June 7th.

INDIANAPOLIS 500
What...a...race!!!  The Indy 500 proved once again that the race was exciting as usual.  However, there were a lot of lead changes, and the race was dominated by Team Penske & Chip Ganassi Racing.  The two race teams combined to lead 193 of 200 laps.  After Conor Daly's engine blow up and Sage Karam found the wall on the 2nd turn of lap 1, the race was underway.  Ganassi's Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan took turns leading laps, while Penske's Simon Pagenaud was also fighting for the front most of the race.  50 laps from the finish, Kanaan crashed out, giving way to Dixon holding off Penske Racing drivers Will Power & Juan Pablo Montoya towards the end.  4 laps from the finish, Montoya passed Power for the lead and went on to win his 2nd career Indianapolis 500 finish, the first in 15 years for the Colombian native.  The difference between the 2 races was that in 2000, Montoya dominated and this year had to fight back from 30th place to the front.  With the series racing 2 events this weekend in Detroit, Montoya leads Power by 25 points in the standings.

NASCAR
For the most part, the Coca-Cola 600 was a clean race, but the question was who would win.  In the first 500 miles, the race was dominated by Kurt Busch and then Martin Truex, Jr., who was looking to win his first race in nearly 2 years.   However, a caution flag with 62 laps to go had drivers like Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. coming onto pit road for a final stop, incase the race goes green rest of the way.  That gamble paid off while Truex and other drivers were forced to make green-flag stops and gives Edwards' his first victory of 2015 and his first with Joe Gibbs Racing, making him the 9th driver to secure a Chase spot for the title.  The Cup series, as well as Xfinity and Truck, will race this weekend at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware.