Auto Racing Capsules: Busch holds off Bodine, wins Chicagoland trucks
JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — Considering just how well his previous weekend went, the last thing Kyle Busch wanted was a week away from racing.
Busch managed to stay busy — and keep winning — on a rare off weekend for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup series. He withstood two late challenges for the lead from Todd Bodine, and hung on to win the NASCAR Camping World truck series race at Chicagoland Speedway in overtime Friday night.
Busch was happy to keep his momentum going, and said it’s always satisfying to win with a truck team that he put together with himself as the owner.
"You know the hard work, and the blood, sweat and tears you pour into it with all your guys," Busch said.
Bodine finished second, followed by Ron Hornaday Jr., Johnny Sauter and Justin Lofton.
"Second stinks, but we’ll take it," Bodine said.
Busch was coming off a remarkable weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, where he swept the track’s truck, Nationwide and Sprint Cup races.
Busch has shown similar versatility at Chicagoland — he just spread it out over a few years. Busch won the truck race at Chicagoland last year. He also has a Sprint Cup and two Nationwide victories at the track.
It was Busch’s fourth series victory of the season and 20th of his career.
Busch did a tire-smoking victory burnout on the frontstretch, with his crew warning him on the radio to take it easy on the engine.
Afterward, Busch hinted that he isn’t winning every race he enters these days, even if it seems that way.
"Unfortunately, I’ve had some bad luck at the dirt track," he said.
Bodine leaves Chicagoland with a 236-point lead in the series standings over Aric Almirola, who finished sixth Friday. But the aggressive moves Bodine made to try to get past Busch in the closing laps were an indication that he wasn’t playing it safe just to score some more points.
"We’re here to win," Bodine said. "That’s what we’re paid to do."
Busch had dominated most of Friday’s race and was leading comfortably when Austin Dillon tangled with James Buescher with 26 laps to go, bringing out a caution.
Busch, Bodine and the rest of the leaders came to pit road, with the crews of Busch and Bodine both deciding to change four tires while others changed only two. Bodine came out ahead of Busch after a faster pit stop.
Hornaday led the field to a restart, but Busch immediately rocketed into third place and only needed a couple of laps to retake the lead, diving to the very bottom of the track to make the pass.
"I wasn’t going to beat Kyle," Hornaday said.
Bodine then caught up to Busch with 15 laps to go and stuck close to his rear bumper. Bodine briefly surged ahead by a nose with seven laps to go, but Busch closed the door and pulled away in the closing laps of regulation.
"He pinched us up in the wall," Bodine said. "I got under him going into (Turn) 3, and got loose."
Timothy Peters then appeared to blow an engine with three laps to go, sending the race into NASCAR’s version of overtime and setting up another showdown between Busch and Bodine.
Busch surged ahead on the restart, then pulled away.
NASCAR
Regan Smith gets new 2-year deal
DENVER (AP) — Regan Smith has signed a contract extension with Furniture Row Racing through the 2012 season to drive the team’s No. 78 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
Smith is running a full Cup schedule for the first time this season. His best finish so far in 2010 is a 14th at Atlanta in March. Last year, his first season with the team, he competed in 18 races with a best finish of 12th in the July race at Daytona.
The 26-year-old Smith, from Cato, N.Y., says he’s "happy and humbled" by the extension.
Smith, 2008 Cup rookie of the year, has competed in 83 career races in NASCAR’s premier series since his debut in March 2007 at Bristol. He also has 102 Nationwide starts and 23 in the Truck Series but has never won in any of the three divisions.
IndyCar
Briscoe wins pole for Chicagoland IndyCar race
JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — He might be Australian, but Ryan Briscoe is as quick with an American pop culture reference as he is on the racetrack.
Asked what his secret was to going fast on 1.5-mile oval tracks in the IndyCar series, Briscoe pulled out a famous Tom Cruise line from the 1980s jet fighter-jock movie "Top Gun."
"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," he joked.
Briscoe won the pole position for the IndyCar series race at Chicagoland Speedway, turning a lap average of 216.346 mph in Friday's qualifying session for Saturday night's race.
"The car today was just spot on," Briscoe said. "You never want to be too overconfident, but I was thinking after that run, I was like, 'Man, that's got to be hard to beat.'"
It's the third straight pole position start at Chicagoland for Briscoe, the defending race winner.
Joliet might be on the very outskirts of the Chicago metropolitan area, but it's still Briscoe's kind of town.
"We've been strong here the last couple years," Briscoe said. "I really enjoy racing around here. It's always exciting. It's a really wide track, it's pretty smooth and it's got smooth transitions off the (banked) corners. Really promotes good racing."
Dario Franchitti qualified second, followed by Will Power and Helio Castroneves — leaving Franchitti, who drives for Chip Ganassi Racing, surrounded by three Team Penske cars.
Power leads Franchitti by 59 points in the series standings with four races left in the season. Franchitti's Ganassi teammate, Scott Dixon, qualified a disappointing 15th.
"Yeah, I'm a little lonely up there," Franchitti said. "I don't know what happened to Scott during his run. He was pretty quick this morning, I don't know what the (heck) happened there but he was a little confused by it. So hopefully he'll be up there pretty quickly to help me out there. Otherwise, I feel like I'm getting ganged up on."
Marco Andretti qualified fifth.
Danica Patrick was 12th after her car got loose during her qualifying run, but she remained optimistic for the race.
"I had to lift a few times which probably caused me to lose some time, but it's a long 300 miles tomorrow night," Patrick said. "I have a great pit crew and I'm confident we will be able to move up during the race, but I wish we were starting farther up the grid."
Five women qualified for Saturday's race: Patrick, Ana Beatriz, Sarah Fisher, Milka Duno and Simona de Silvestro. According to IndyCar officials, it is the second time this season that a series-record five female drivers will compete in the same event — and the first time all five qualified for the race.
Briscoe — who won from the pole at Texas earlier this year and had the pole position at Kansas — credited his Penske team with making him fast on 1.5-mile ovals.
"You need a great car," Briscoe said. "I think there's so much precision involved with setting up the car on a 1½-mile oval. You need an engineer that understands how you're feeling and what you can do to find those limits without going over it. Because you step over the edge on one of these tracks, it's not very pleasant."
-- Chris Jenkins
Formula One
Alonso fastest in rain-soaked Belgian practice
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium (AP) — Fernando Alonso is confident Ferrari will improve upon its gains in the Formula One championship standings after leading the practice for the Belgian Grand Prix on Friday.
Alonso’s lap of 1 minute, 49.032 seconds on a dry Spa circuit was 11 seconds better than his leading morning time, which came on a rain-soaked surface.
Force India driver Adrian Sutil was second with a lap of 1:49.157, while McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton was third.
Ferrari has won three straight races at Spa and five of the last seven.
"Let’s hope it’s our strength that the car responded well in all conditions today," Alonso said. "You also need a little luck in these conditions as it can make it a bit of a lottery."
With rain in Saturday’s forecast and teams limited to three sets of extreme wet tires over the weekend, Alonso said qualifying could throw up some surprises.
"With these changing conditions you need to gamble a little bit in qualifying because you can gain two or three-tenths in one lap," the two-time champion from Spain said. "Having five drivers in the title fight in these conditions, you can quickly lose a lot of places."
Overall F1 leader Mark Webber celebrated his 34th birthday with the 18th fastest lap, while Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel was sixth, behind Renault driver Robert Kubica and Ferrari driver Felipe Massa.
Webber leads the championship with 161 points, followed by Hamilton with 157 and Vettel with 151. McLaren driver Jenson Button, who finished the day in seventh with a lap of 1:49.755, has 147 points. Alonso has 141.
Webber said Red Bull was not "going to lose any sleep" over the weather. The team has started from pole in 11 of 12 races.
"Today was a bit of a messy day with the changing conditions, but it was actually pretty good for us," said the Australian, who leads the field with four victories this season. "There are a few quick guys out there, but we’re not slow either."
Hamilton said his McLaren was well-suited to a track. It’s been the only other team to have won besides Ferrari since 1999.
"It would be better for the fans if we had more tires and we could go out and drive more," said Hamilton, the 2008 champion. "It feels a little bit silly to be here, prepared all this time and just sit in the garage all the Friday. I wish we had more tires."
Alonso’s time came on his last lap after stewards had red-flagged the track with 15 minutes remaining as it deemed there "may be spectators in a dangerous area." That left only five minutes for teams to go all out on a dry surface for the first time, and the leading teams were close.
With temperatures expected to stay similar through Sunday, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari’s duel for the title may not be so straightforward. Force India showed good pace at a track where it finished second last year.
"Dry conditions would be the best thing for the top teams tomorrow," Alonso said. "Any different conditions give the possibility for small teams to risk ... and have a very strong race."
Even Michael Schumacher believed the mixed conditions could help Mercedes despite dropping 10 places from qualifying as a penalty for nearly forcing Rubens Barrichello into a wall at the Hungarian GP.
"We’ve had a very mixed day, so it’s been impossible to judge," Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn said.
Rain engulfed the Ardennes countryside circuit for most of the day until the start of the afternoon session, with a GP2 event red-flagged between the two practices.
Teams have practice Saturday before qualifying to find the right balance for the conditions before Sunday’s 44-lap race.
-- Paul Logothetis
ALMS
Council set to vote on Okla. City Grand Prix event
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma City council will vote Tuesday morning on a deal that would bring a Grand Prix race to downtown for at least the next five years, Mayor Mick Cornett said Friday.
The vote on the city's proposed contract with Oklahoma City Grand Prix LLC comes after months of negotiations, and Cornett said that while he's hopeful it will be approved, he's not certain it will be. As mayor, Cornett chairs the council.
"I've had years to think about this," he told The Associated Press. "The council hasn't, and much of the public hasn't. This is one of those issues that really hits home with people or really doesn't. ... There are a lot of logical conversations that need to take place in the community and the council."
A group now led by local businessman Trent Ward and longtime local sports executive Brad Lund began negotiating with the city in March. Their group wants to bring an American Le Mans Series race and other related events to the city over the July 4 holiday weekend next year.
The group will make a 10-year commitment to the city, although the contract will be for five years with a negotiating period after that, Ward said. The contract calls for the city to pay $7 million for an urban race course and for his group to pay that amount back over a 10-year period, he said.
"It's not an understatement to say the city is on a roll," Ward said. "We are setting a precedent for the rest of the country to follow, that it's time to move forward and when you do, good things happen."
The race's route has not been determined, and Cornett — who has called hosting a Grand Prix race "a priority of mine" — said is something to decide another time. The mayor said the event could draw up to 100,000 fans and bring $30 million into the local economy.
But he also acknowledged that the council "needs to be convinced there is no subsidy involved" because "in these economic times you've got to be very careful with taxpayer dollars."
According to the ALMS Web site, the series either has held or will hold races this year in cities including Long Beach, Calif.; Sebring, Fla.; Monterey, Calif.; Tooele, Utah; Lakeville, Conn.; Lexington, Ohio; Elkhart Lake, Wis.; and Braselton, Ga.
-- Murray Evans
ARCA
Sheltra wins ARCA race at Chicagoland
JOLIET, Ill. (AP) — Patrick Sheltra has won the ARCA race at Chicagoland Speedway, his second straight victory in the stock car racing series.
Sheltra led 84 of 100 laps and won by 1.669 seconds over Steve Arpin. He became the second driver with multiple victories and back-to-back victories this year, joining Arpin.
Sheltra, a native of Indiantown, Fla., was coming off a dirt track victory in Springfield, Ill. on Sunday.
Grant Enfinger finished third, followed by Frank Kimmel and Craig Goess.
