Welcome to the first ever Rennsport weekend in review: A simple review of the results in most major racing series run this weekend and how those results effect their respective championship fights.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Six hours of rain delay intermission wasn't enough to stop Dale Earnhardt Jr from finally retaking the Harley J. Earl trophy. The veteran's career resurgence continues to trend upwards as he took the victory in the 56th Daytona 500 and practically clinched a seat in the first ever elimination NASCAR chase. Denny Hamlin, who finished second in the event, trails him by five points in the admittedly unimportant regular season championship standings.
Tonight seemed like as good a night as any to join Twitter. How is everyone doin? #2XDaytona500Champ http://ift.tt/1led2pL
— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) February 24, 2014
Then, Dale joined Twitter, and an hour after it was first reported to have happened, posted a tweet. Waiting for this tweet was fascinating to me, but if you weren't the type to be following it at the time, you probably wouldn't agree on that. He started with a simple message of victory, but before long it's just gonna be "I can't believe we did all that for a Zapdos only to get it stuck in the PC for a day LOL! #TwitchPlaysPokemon" and spiteful livetweets of Redskins games wherein he complains every time Robert Griffin III throws a screen pass when Pierre Garcon is wide open. Even if that does happen, as long as he doesn't follow his former employee Brad Keselowski in questioning the value of concussion testing, this can only be a good thing.
NASCAR Nationwide Series
Regan Smith's early stranglehold on the championship standings in the 2013 Nationwide series may have faded in the Summer like the paint on a poorly maintained late 80s Celica, but his second shot at that title started strong on Saturday when he took his first ever Daytona victory. This makes him the first Nationwide Series championship contender to win this race since the inception of the Nationwide/Cup championship designations split and the series leader heading into Phoenix. Potential championship contenders James Buescher and Brian Scott, meanwhile, had relatively difficult days and sit rather low in the standings, and are thus 19 and 20 points out of the lead, respectively. In the "ALL IMPORTANT" owner's championship, the JR Motorsports #7 leads, while the more legitimate contenders (The #54 JGR Toyota, mostly driven by Kyle Busch, and the #22 Penske Racing Mustang, primarily driven by Brad Keselowski) wait in the shadows in P2 and P3.
Is Kyle Busch going to win every NNS race he enters this year? No! Regan Smith's already won one! He'll probably get 24 of the 25, though. And two of the eight Sam Hornish Jr is scheduled to run in his car.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Kyle Busch won this race and it wasn't a Cup race, so let's just not talk about it all that much. Second place finisher Timothy Peters leads the driver's standings, while the #51 piloted by Busch leads the (Far less 'Important' than Nationwide, since Fox Sports actually knows how to broadcast a feeder series race...) owner's standings.
Will Kyle Busch win every race he runs in this series? Yeah, probably. But, they'll be the most interesting races Kyle Busch wins all year because Truck races are usually fun. So, hooray for that!
Formula 1
Everyone tested in Bahrain. All the cars broke. None of them were close to one another on pace. Let's just be happy that winter testing usually means nothing, because if it meant something this year, we'd be staring down a bleak year in European Open Wheel Racing.
The Renaults are still pretty awful engines right now, though, so any Red Bull Racing haters can briefly take solace in this fact before Renault inevitably fixes them and somehow finds themselves up 85 horsepower on the field while burning less fuel than anyone else.
Will Red Bull win every race this year? Somehow, they're going to blow 9 Renault engines in Australia (Three in the GP itself, all in Ricciardo's car. He'll go through two illegal mid-race engine changes!) and still win the season opening GP. You know it's gonna happen.
IndyCar Series
Is that what we're calling this series now? Man, that's an awkward name without a title sponsor. Mark Miles should probably fix that.
Nonetheless, many teams tested in Sebring this week. This seems to happen every week, and just as with every other week, lap times were not publicly released.
The big offseason news in IndyCar? Why, it remains that Juan Pablo Montoya has lost a lot of weight. Which, if you think about it, is a much bigger offseason change than any seen between 2003 and 2011.
Will Kyle Busch align with Red Bull Racing to win every IndyCar race this season? No, that seems unlikely. Red Bull Cheever Racing should be a thing again, though, and it should exist solely to employ Richard "Rico" Antinucci.
V8 Supercars
The V8s didn't even have an open test this weekend, but they get to action next weekend in Adelaide.
Every Other Series Not Mentioned Here
Don't worry, that series you're thinking of that you're mad we spurned for yet another NASCAR feeder class will show up here! It's just that this particular series not going on now, not that the author of this piece just wants to get to sleep and doesn't want to write "Not in action. The Balance-Of-Performance is still way out of whack." 75 more times. This will likely be a real thing come the heart of the season (Just like those weekly racing calendars we haven't published since late 2013!), and when that happens, you'll see all your favorite series here! Even that one weird Touring Car series you love that's probably racing this weekend and being ignored here!
Probably not all those random GT3 championships, though. You can only write "The McLaren broke, the Nissan had factory funding in an amateur championship for some reason and, somehow, none of the 95 Porsches and Ferraris won" so many times before you start repeating yourself/delving into a rant of what exactly an FIA silver rated driver is.
Rennsport Weekend Review - The Prodigal Son Returns