This Week in Auto Racing August 6 - 8

This Week in Auto Racing August 6 - 8

Watkins Glen, NY (Sports Network) - It will be an enjoyable weekend of road course racing in both NASCAR and the IZOD IndyCar Series. The Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series wind their way through Watkins Glen, NY. The Camping World Truck Series competes on the Nashville Superspeedway oval. IndyCar will tackle the course at Mid-Ohio.

Sprint Cup Series

Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen - Watkins Glen International - Watkins Glen, NY

The Sprint Cup Series will run its second and final road course race of the season this weekend at Watkins Glen International in Upstate New York. The series competed at the Sonoma, CA course in June.

Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon are the "road course aces" at Watkins Glen, with Stewart winning here a record five times and Gordon having four victories.

Stewart claimed his most recent victory at Watkins Glen one year ago, a race that was delayed one day due to inclement weather. He conserved enough fuel late in the race and easily held off Marcos Ambrose at the finish for the win.

"It's a race that we always look forward to," said Stewart, who has finished either first or second in that last six races at Watkins Glen. "We've had a lot of success there, and it's just fun. It's like taking Sonoma and just multiplying the speed times three. It's just a lot faster track. It still has the same elevation changes, but you're just running a lot quicker. Both Sonoma and Watkins Glen are two places on the schedule that we really enjoy coming to."

Gordon holds the series record for most career road course wins. Five of them have come at Sonoma.

The last several races at both Sonoma and Watkins Glen have been wild affairs.

Last year at Watkins Glen, a spectacular multi-car crash occurred on lap 62 when Kasey Kahne got loose in turn nine and bumped Sam Hornish Jr., who spun hard into the tire barrier. Hornish then bounced back on the track and slammed violently into Gordon, who hit the barrier head on. Gordon spent additional time inside the track's infield medical center for evaluation, as a precaution for his recent back problems.

"I think the road courses are always intense and challenging in its own way," Gordon said. "I don't know if [Watkins Glen] will be as wild as Sonoma. In Sonoma, you can run side-by-side for half a lap on those double-file restarts. It's a special place.

"Watkins Glen is a lot faster, and you can't really run side-by-side up through the 'S's.' I don't think you'll see the same type of racing you saw at Sonoma, but you'll see a great race."

Gordon's wife, Ingrid, is expected to have the couple's second child in the coming days. Scott Pruett, a two-time Grand-Am Rolex Series champion and former NASCAR driver, is standing by if Gordon needs to leave Watkins Glen during the weekend to be with his wife.

In June, Gordon was a marked man in the Sonoma garage. Several drivers, particularly Martin Truex Jr., were furious with Gordon's aggressive driving throughout the 110-lap race.

Following the second restart on lap 61, Truex was running among the top-10, but Gordon slammed into the back of him and turned him around.

Gordon also tangled with Elliott Sadler and Kurt Busch during the 110-lap race. Gordon's Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jimmie Johnson, claimed his first road course victory in the series at Sonoma. Johnson benefited from Ambrose's costly mistake in the closing laps. Ambrose held the lead, but the Australian driver turned his engine off in an effort to conserve fuel. He slowed down on the track and lost the top position, as he fell to seventh. After the final restart, Johnson pulled ahead of Robby Gordon and then drove to his first road course win in 17 starts.

Can Johnson, the four-time defending series champion, establish himself as this year's "road course king?"

The Glen's been the better of the two tracks for me, so I feel real good about going back there," he said.

Ambrose, a road-course expert, certainly will be a favorite at Watkins Glen. He has yet to win his first Sprint Cup race, but he has finished second and third in the last two races here. Ambrose also has won the Nationwide race at The Glen in the past two seasons.

"Well it's the right course; that helps for me," Ambrose said. "The competition is fierce, and that track is high speed. It's got an old style feel to it. There's a lot of banking in the turns, and a lot of high-speed corners. It fits what I like in a racetrack. It fits my style pretty well."

Forty-six teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen.

Nationwide Series

Zippo 200 - Watkins Glen International - Watkins Glen, NY

The Nationwide Series will join Sprint Cup this weekend at Watkins Glen International. This will be the second of three road course races for Nationwide this year. Carl Edwards won the inaugural event at the Road America road course in Wisconsin two months ago. Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal is scheduled for August 29.

Marcos Ambrose will attempt to win his third consecutive Nationwide race at Watkins Glen. If Ambrose does so, he will join Terry Labonte as those drivers who have won three Nationwide events in a row here. Labonte won at The Glen from 1994-96. He also scored the victory in the inaugural race here in 1991.

Ambrose, a Sprint Cup regular, has yet to compete in a Nationwide event this year. He ran a full-schedule in that series from 2007-08 before he was elevated to Cup full-time last year.

Ambrose competed in just two Nationwide races during the '09 season, with a win at Watkins Glen and a second-place finish at Montreal.

"I've got a good base setup that I carry to all the road course races, and I really know what I'm looking for," Ambrose said. "We don't have to muck around with trial and error, and I pretty much engineer it from the seat, because I have such a clear vision of what I need to do to get around these places well. I guess I lacked that at some ovals and other places we go to."

Kyle Busch is perhaps Ambrose's biggest threat for a three-peat at Watkins Glen. Busch has accumulated nine wins in his 17 Nationwide starts this year, including victories at Iowa last Saturday and O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis the week before. He is one win away from tying the series record for most victories in a season with 10, a record he shares with Sam Ard.

One more win in either the Sprint Cup, Nationwide or Camping World Series will give the 25-year-old Busch his 75th career victory in NASCAR.

"It's pretty big," Busch said. "It's a lot of them, but it's not quite where I want to be. The big number is 200, so hopefully I can get there. We're 25 away from cracking halfway there, and I might be able to get it here in the next two years, so that would be pretty cool."

Richard Petty holds the all-time record with 200 wins in NASCAR's premier series.

Busch has finished second to Ambrose in the last two Nationwide races at Watkins Glen.

Last year, Ambrose passed Busch late in the race, with a maneuver Ambrose called a "dive bomb," and one Busch referred to as "cheap-shotted."

Forty-two teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Zippo 200.

Camping World Truck Series

Nashville 200 - Nashville Superspeedway - Lebanon, TN

For the first time this year, the Camping World Truck Series will run at Nashville Superspeedway twice in the same season. Nashville picked up a second date for the 2010 truck season when the track's owner, Dover Motorsports, announced last October the closure of its Memphis property.

The series traditionally has competed at Nashville in the summer time. During the first weekend in April, Kyle Busch spent his Sprint Cup off-week by winning the truck event here. He will not compete in Saturday night's race due to his Cup and Nationwide Series obligations at Watkins Glen, NY.

Last Saturday when the trucks ran at Pocono for the first time, Aric Almirola slightly cut into Todd Bodine's points lead after Almirola finished fourth, compared to a 12th-place run for Bodine. With the 25-race season just past its half-way point, Bodine holds a 149-point advantage.

Four-time and defending series champion Ron Hornaday Jr. continued to tumble in the standings after a 29th-place finish at Pocono. Hornaday dropped to seventh in points (-268).

When the series raced at Nashville last year, Hornaday extended his series record to five consecutive race victories. He became the first driver to win five in a row in one of NASCAR's three national touring series since 1971. Richard Petty and Bobby Allison both did it in the Cup Series in 1971.

Hornaday also won a truck race at Nashville for the first time, as he finally earned his long-awaited Gibson guitar trophy.

"It's cool to look back on it and remember the win," Hornaday said. "I was just so excited to finally get that beautiful Gibson guitar. That is a very cool trophy. The thing about Nashville is that [Kevin Harvick Inc.] has run very well there with both our Truck and Nationwide programs. When we were in Nashville earlier this spring, Kevin and I just missed the set-up by a little. We have notes and are better prepared to go back to Nashville. I know we're going to have a great truck. I hope we have the same result as last year."

Hornaday's sixth and final win during his 2009 championship season came at Nashville. He had been without a victory this season until two weeks ago when he took O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis.

Thirty-four teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Nashville 200.

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES

Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio - Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course - Lexington, OH

After running its last two races in Canada, the IZOD IndyCar Series returns to the United States with this weekend's Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Mid-Ohio is the eighth of nine road/street course events on this year's schedule. The series will conclude road/street course racing for the season in two weeks at Sonoma, CA.

Last month's race at Edmonton turned out to be a bizarre finish and an expensive outcome for Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves.

Castroneves was leading in the closing laps at Edmonton when he was issued a black flag for blocking his teammate, Will Power, just after the final restart. He failed to take the drive-through pit-lane penalty.

At the conclusion of the race, Castroneves was penalized 20 seconds and placed at the tail end of the lead lap, which resulted in a 10th-place finish. Castroneves had crossed the line first, but Scott Dixon was awarded the win.

Castroneves was furious with the outcome of the race. He confronted two officials on pit road and made physical contact with one of them after he exited his car.

As a result, IndyCar officials earlier this week fined Castroneves $60,000 and placed him on probation for the remainder of the year for his post-race outburst at Edmonton. The Brazilian driver recently met with officials in Indianapolis to discuss his actions.

"I regret what occurred following the IZOD IndyCar Series race in Edmonton, and I apologize for my behavior, as I let my emotions get the better of me," Castroneves said in a statement. "Although my disappointment with being black- flagged while leading the race with just a few laps to go will probably always remain with me, I understand and accept the league's decision to penalize me for my reaction.

"I am ready to move forward, and I'm hoping to add to Team Penske's success at Mid-Ohio this weekend."

Heading to Mid-Ohio, Power holds a 50-point lead over Dario Franchitti, the defending series champion, and a 71-point advantage over Dixon, who is Franchitti's Chip Ganassi Racing teammate.

Power could clinch the series' new road/street course championship on Sunday. Earlier this year, IndyCar announced the expansion of its championship format, with the highest-scoring oval and road/street course drivers winning separate titles, starting this season.

So far, Power has won four road/street course events -- Sao Paulo, Brazil; St. Petersburg, FL; Watkins, NY and Toronto.

After Sonoma, the series will run its final four races on ovals.

The October 2 season-finale at Homestead will determine the oval titleholder and the overall IndyCar champion.

Dixon won last year's race at Mid-Ohio. He also scored the victory in the inaugural event here in 2007.

Twenty-seven teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio.