Good news for all you NASCAR Ford fans.
Carl Edwards, despite rumors of a big salary and $10 million signing bonus dangled by Gibbs Racing, has renewed his contract with Roush-Fenway Racing. Meanwhile, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Rick Hendrick have a handshake deal to extend Junior's contract with Hendrick Racing, with a contract due to be signed within the next 30 days. So you can take those two players out of the Silly Season sweepstakes.
Congratulations to Paul Menard on his first Sprint Cup victory last Sunday at the Brickyard. Menard is the 14th winner, and the third first-time winner this season. The victory gives him a shot at a "wild card" berth in the Chase. It was particularly sweet for his dad, John Menard, who has been trying to get an Indy 500 win for 30 years. Strategy played a big part in the race, with a lot of cars that ran up front most of the day finishing mid-pack due to fuel strategy. And Jeff Gordon (who turned 40 this past Thursday) demonstrated that he has still got the fire in his belly with his late-race charge to second place. With five wins at Pocono, look for him to be strong tomorrow.
This weekend the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck series are at the "tricky triangle" of Pocono Raceway, while the Nationwide series visits the very fast 7/8 mile Iowa Speedway. Penske Racing driver Brad Keselowski was originally scheduled to commute between the two tracks to run the Nationwide and Cup races, but a testing crash earlier this week at Road Atlanta left him injured. He will not run in Iowa, and may need a relief driver for Pocono. After hitting a non-SAFER barrier wall at 100 miles per hour and being airlifted to a local hospital, Keselowski tweeted to his Twitter followers, "Guess I need a reminder, COT or not, this racing is still dangerous."
Speaking of dangerous, I'm not sure why NASCAR still has two races a year at Pocono. Sure, some safety improvements were made after Elliot Sadler's horrific crash there last year, but the track is still outdated. It is also neither a true oval nor a real road course, and not many drivers are really fond of it. Personally, I'd like to see another road course added to the Cup schedule in place of the second Pocono weekend. Road America would be great, as the Nationwide races there the last two years have demonstrated. Laguna Seca or Mid-Ohio would also be interesting, but both tracks have some pretty tight corners to fit 43 stock cars through.
Speaking of Mid-Ohio, that's where the IndyCar series is running this weekend. I did some announcing there years ago on Champ Car weekends, and it is an awesome facility. Penske driver Will Power will be doing his best to pick up some more points on leader Dario Franchitti. Those two have distanced themselves far enough from the rest of the field to make the championship a two-horse race, and Power wants to make up as much ground as possible during the next few road course races.
Tomorrow may be the last time at Mid-Ohio in an Indy car for Danica Patrick, according to the latest buzz. Bob Parsons, CEO of her primary sponsor GoDaddy.com, said that he expects Patrick to run full-time for JR Motorsports in the NASCAR Nationwide series as well as select Sprint Cup races for Stewart-Haas Racing. Parsons also believes that she will also run the Indy 500 as well as one early-season Indycar series race as a warm-up to the 500.
Formula 1 fans will have to go through withdrawal for the next three weeks, as the series takes its summer hiatus. The next race will be on August 28 at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium, one of the fastest circuits on the tour. At mid-season, McLaren and Ferrari seem to be gaining ground on the Red Bull juggernaut. Red Bull has won every pole position and six of the season's 11 races, but the last three wins have gone to Ferrari and McLaren. Can you say momentum?
