Yes, you're reading this on Wednesday. It was supposed to come out on Sunday night. I've got a lot going on, okay? Fine, I don't, I'm just lazy. Anyway, here's what happened in motorsport last weekend.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Kevin Harvick won in just his second start for Stewart-Haas Racing, and for that matter, just his second Cup race without the support of Richard Childress Racing. His SHR #4's dominance serves not just as a reminder that he is eternally a championship contender, but also as a reminder that Rodney Childers, also new to SHR, is one of the best crew chiefs in the NASCAR paddock.
Dale Earnhardt Jr is a new man, apparently. After winning the Daytona 500 last week, he qualified 5th on for Phoenix this weekend, ran in the top 5 all day, and proved the only thing resembling a challenge to eventual race winner Kevin Harvick late. Perhaps most interestingly, however, is that he and crew chief Steve Letarte made a gamble on fuel that the pair would not have made in any previous year of their partnership, the first real proof of someone racing differently thanks to the series's new championship system.
Speaking of that new championship, Earnhardt leads the meaningless regular season standings over Brad Keselowski. He and Harvick are of course the only winners on the season, and thus the only two with any real security for the Chase to speak of. More importantly, Casey Mears is 11th in the standings. Let's hope that holds, somehow!
Australian V8 Supercars
The 2014 season began with a three-race Clipsal 500 weekend. The first of these three races was a relatively boring Jamie Whincup runaway.
Then, come the end of race 2, Scotty McLaughlin gave it some jandal and, well, shit got real. Craig Lowndes won that race, but an incredible podium in what was only Volvo's second V8 Supercars race, resulting directly from an unbelievable battle between the young Kiwi McLaughlin and experienced champion Whincup.
Sunday brought a 250 kilometer finale, and though it wasn't ever as stunning as the incredible bout waged at the end of race 2, it saw a surprising win for HRT's James Courtney, a slew of controversial penalties (Most notably one that saw race leaders Rick Kelly and Shane Van Gisbergen forced to take a drive through penalty after they were accused of jumping a restart, primarily because Jamie Whincup held back behind them) and a rather vicious rollover for Brad Jones Racing's Jason Bright, who escaped uninjured but totaled his VF Commodore racer.
Craig Lowndes leads the championship, while reigning champion Jamie Whincup sits in seventh. The next points paying V8 Supercar race is nearly a month away, returning on March 29th in Symmons Plains.
NASCAR Nationwide Series
Kyle Busch won. In entering the race, he gave you a chance to save yourself two hours of the race.
Thanks, Kyle!
Daytona winner Regan Smith leads the NNS-drivers-only standings by 5 points over Trevor Bayne. His competition for the title last year is entirely absent, thanks to the promotion of Austin Dillon and the falling-off-the-face-of-the-earth of Sam Hornish, Jr, so he should theoretically roll to the championship.
NASCAR Truck Series
Just kidding, they're off for a month and a half. I hope you weren't too excited about NASCAR's best series, because you don't get to see much of it!
Formula 1
Another Bahrain test done, another blitz of press releases wherein Red Bull Racing hilariously implies that they didn't expect the season to start in mid-March. Fun stuff!
Unless you're Red Bull Racing and you're suddenly right back where you started after four straight championships. I doubt it's fun for you then.
World Superbikes
Last weekend's Philip Island season opener for WSBK saw wins for Suzuki's Eugene Laverty and Aprilia's Sylvain Guintoli. Why wasn't this mentioned last week, then? Good question! Probably not because your author forgot that WSBK existed, because that'd be a hilariously problematic oversight for a weekly general racing overview to make!
Next week, there's NASCAR racing at Las Vegas and... Probably something else? The weekend after that, which brings with it the 12 hours of Sebring, the Australian Grand Prix and the year's first taste of top level short track racing in the form of NASCAR at Bristol, is the one worth looking forward too, but there's racing next weekend as well, so get excited!
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