Any place, any time, any way necessary. Kyle Busch went from a lap down to a winner at a track that has haunted him.
And when things are going your way, as they are for Busch, you also catch a break when you need it.
Busch was leading the Aaron’s 499 on the last lap, the potential sucker hole at Talladega, but a 12-car crash behind him brought out the caution and ended the race.
The green-white-checkered rule doesn’t apply if the caution comes out after the white flag.
The only real surprise in Sunday’s Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway was which Target/Ganassi Racing driver won.
Scott Dixon dominated the first three-quarters of the 200-lap IndyCar Series event, but unlucky timing on his final pit stop cost the New Zealand native. That allowed Dan Wheldon to cruise to an easy win over Andretti Green Racing’s Tony Kanaan, with Dixon recovering from seventh to third over the final 27 laps.
Dixon led 145 of the first 152 laps before pitting for his final scheduled stop. While he was in the pits, the yellow flag flew for Buddy Rice’s Turn 2 accident, costing Dixon the lead to Wheldon.
Lewis Hamilton battled to a podium finish at the Spanish Grand Prix as Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa secured a Ferrari one-two. Raikkonen’s 17th grand prix win - from pole position - left the Finn with 29 points, nine clear of closest rival Hamilton, and catapulted Ferrari back in front of BMW Sauber in the constructors’ standings. Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who started on the front row for Renault, retired on lap 35 with a blown engine but he had already fallen down the field after being the first driver to refuel. Massa, winner in Bahrain, had got past double world champion Alonso at the start while Hamilton slotted into fourth place after muscling past BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica from fifth.
Dominio Ferrari nel Gran Premio di Spagna. A vincere è Kimi Raikkonen che precede sul traguardo Felipe Massa, per la casa di Maranello è la seconda doppietta consecutiva, per Raikkonen il secondo successo stagionale e il diciassettesimo in carriera, per Massa è la definitiva conferma dopo le prime due deludenti gare. Partito dalla pole position, Raikkonen ha anche fatto segnare il giro più veloce completando un dominio che è stato totale durante quasi tutto il weekend. Al terzo posto il pilota della McLaren Lewis Hamilton.
Troy Bayliss secured a double race win in Holland to stretch his World Superbike Championship lead to 70 points.
The Australian had put his Xerox Ducati on pole position and also took both race wins at Assen as he continued to dominate his final series before retirement.
Bayliss took his points total to 178 as Spaniard Carlos Checa moved up to second in the standings after two podium finishes at Assen on the HANNspree Ten Kate Honda.
Bayliss was delighted with his perfect weekend which saw him add his second double race win of the season to pole position. Race 1:
The final weekend in which American open-wheel racing is split into two entities certainly started with a bang.
With a third of the IndyCar field watching from Long Beach, where the Champ Car World Series is gathered for its grand finale, Danica Patrick scored her long-awaited first IndyCar Series victory. She claimed the rain-delayed Japan Indy 300 by 5.86 seconds over Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon.
Patrick led only three of 200 laps, and she certainly didn’t have the fastest car on the Twin Ring Motegi oval nestled in the mountains northwest of Tokyo. Her win was the product of a disciplined final stint that allowed her to stretch a 22-gallon tank of ethanol further than anyone else.
Jorge Lorenzo’s ‘inevitable’ debut MotoGP victory has come at only his third attempt, after the reigning 250cc world champion fought past arch-rival Dani Pedrosa and team-mate Valentino Rossi during Sunday’s Portuguese Grand Prix. Having qualified on pole for a perfect third time in a row, Lorenzo lined up on the front of the Estoril grid with sporadic rain drops falling - adding further drama to the proceedings - before fellow front row starters Pedrosa and Rossi stormed ahead of him into turn one. Rossi wasted no time in shuffling ahead of the world championship leader, with Lorenzo also taking advantage - then passing the fellow Fiat Yamaha of Rossi to take the lead by the end of lap one.
Lorenzo felice per la prima vittoria in MotoGP: “Ringrazio il team. Rossi? Dovevo passarlo in quel momento”. Pedrosa: “Complimenti a lui”. Valentino: “Risultato giusto ma la mia moto è veloce, ho fiducia per le prossime gare”.
A little white lie by crew chief Chad Knaus helped Jimmie Johnson drive to his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory of the season.
With leader after leader diving for the pits to take on gas in the waning laps of Saturday night’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, Knaus was a constant presence on the radio, telling Johnson he had a big enough lead to slow way down.
Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team rider Noriyuki Haga could not have had two bigger contrasts in his raceday at Valencia, taking a superb win in the second 23-lap contest, but crashing out of the opener at high speed.
His team-mate Troy Corser was rewarded for a consistent first race ride with a podium finish in third, and then went on to score a fighting fifth in race two.
Corser’s podium came in a race where 20 riders finished and there were many high profile incidents. Corser was a lonely third eventually, some seven seconds from the win. Haga crashed out of race one, losing the front at the first corner on lap four as he tried to make up for qualifying 10th in Superpole.
In race two Haga led for the second half of the race, and his margin of victory over championship leader Troy Bayliss was 1.551 seconds. Corser, who had been pushing hard throughout and got tangled up with Ruben Xaus for some time, found it impossible to keep his early pace and finished eight seconds from his team-mate.
Il pilota italiano Lorenzo Lanzi si e’ imposto in gara-1 del Gran Premio di Valencia, terza prova stagionale del Mondiale Superbike. Il pilota azzurro, in sella alla Ducati 1098 RS 08, ha approfittato dello scontro che ha visto protagonisti all’ultima curva il tedesco Max Neukirchner e lo spagnolo Carlos Checa: i due piloti hanno dato vita ad un ultimo giro ricco di emozioni, prima della caduta avvenuta a pochi metri dalla bandiera a scacchi. Lanzi ha preceduto al traguardo gli australiani Troy Bayliss e Troy Corser. Solo 16esimo Max Biaggi.
Noriyuki Haga (Yamaha YZF-R1) ha vinto gara 2 a Valencia nel terzo appuntamento del Mondiale di Superbike. Haga ha preceduto di 1”551 l’australiano Troy Bayliss (Ducati F08) e di 2”903 lo spagnolo Carlos Checa. Nono posto per Max Biaggi (Ducati RS08). Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati RS08), che aveva vinto gara-1, ha chiuso invece dodicesimo. Race 1:
Confetti was falling and liquids were spraying as Carl Edwards celebrated Sunday’s Sprint Cup victory at Texas Motor Speedway.
But two of the most important people outside of the driver were missing from Victory Lane. Robbie Reiser and Bob Osborne.
Reiser, Roush Fenway Racing’s general manager and Edwards’ interim assistant crew chief, was headed for the airport. Osborne was at his North Carolina home.
Reiser, better known as Matt Kenseth’s crew chief before this season, chose to skip the celebration much to the surprise of team owner Jack Roush and Edwards. Osborne had no choice, serving the fourth race of his six-race suspension by NASCAR.
Graham Rahal, in his first IndyCar Series start, takes the checkered flag at the rainy, Honda Grand Prix of St. Peteresburg. The large crowds on all three days at St. Petersburg brought a smile to George, who saw series newcomer Graham Rahal become the youngest (at 19) to win a major American open-wheel race Sunday. Friday’s crowd alone appeared larger than the combined total for the two-day IndyCar opening weekend at Homestead, which was estimated as the largest ever for an IRL race at the South Florida oval.
