Motor Sports Weekly News

By: Drew Hierwarter

Since NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series had the weekend off, the “good ol’ boys” of the Formula 1 circuit took up the slack and gave us side-by-side racing and wheel banging passes for position! Really, they did! Sunday, at the Hockenheim Circuit in Germany they held an F-1 event and a race broke out. McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton got the victory and with it the lead in the World Championship points, but to do it he first had to battle past Felipe Massa’s Ferrari and then Nelson Piquet, Jr., who was leading for the first time ever in his F1 career.   

It all started when Timo Glock suffered a rear suspension failure that led to a vicious, car shredding crash. Glock was unhurt but the resulting safety car period scrambled the field as some cars pitted while others stayed out, including Lewis Hamilton. On the restart, Hamilton streaked away from the pack trying to build up enough of a lead to get in a late fuel stop. He didn’t quite get enough before he was forced to stop for fuel and he came back on the track in fifth place. But he had easily the fastest car all day and watching him work his way back to the front, passing cars as he caught them, was a treat that is all too rare in F1 today. 

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Back in the good ol’ US of A where, instead of sophisticated, highly engineered, technically superior missiles on wheels, we race pick up trucks, NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series was in action at Kentucky Speedway. As is typical for this series there was close racing and hard fought battles for position throughout the pack and all race long. But the pass of the race has to be the one Johnny Benson pulled off to take the lead with 31 laps to go. He went into turn 3 in third place and came out in front after diving to the bottom and going four wide to pass Michael Annett, Dennis Setzer, and Chad Caffin.  

“I had a tremendous run off Turn 2 and got alongside [Setzer],” Benson said. “We both had good runs on [Annett], and we made a dash to the corner [Turn 3]. I expected [Setzer] to turn left, and he did and I had to turn left. I had the best spot. This track is extremely difficult to pass on. I think we had one of the few trucks able to hug the bottom, and that was a key to winning.”  And win he did. Benson now leads the series points by only one point over Matt Crafton and five over Ron Hornaday. Rick Crawford is a “distant” fourth, a mere ninety-two points back.  

All three of NASCAR’s professional divisions head to Indianapolis next weekend, with the trucks and the Nationwide Series in action at O’Reilly Raceway Park and the Sprint Cup Series runs the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.