Big American Racing Weekend

We are under one week until Thanksgiving and two major championship are to be contested in the United States. The obvious one is the final round of the NASCAR Sprint Car Series, where Brad Keselowski leads Jimmie Johnson by twenty-points. The other is the penultimate round of the Formula One season, the United States Grand Prix taking place at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Sebastien Vettel leads Fernando Alonso by ten points.

United States Grand Prix
The Circuit of the Americas opens this weekend and from what I have seen from practice, this is a really demanding race track and the race should be fun to watch. Vettel led practice one by nearly a second and a half over Lewis Hamilton and was over two seconds quicker than Alonso. If Vettel scores fifteen points more than Alonso this weekend, he will wrap up his third World Drivers' Champions with one race to go in Brazil. This weekend at Austin marks the 100th Grand Prix of Vettel's career which oddly enough began at the 2007 United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis, where the German became the youngest driver to ever score points in a Formula One race.

Circuit of the Americas becomes the tenth different venue to host a Formula One race in the United States joining Indianapolis (USGP and Indianapolis 500), Watkins Glen, Riverside, Sebring, Dallas, Detroit, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Long Beach.

NASCAR's Final Race
Brad Keselowski is coming off a sixth place finish at Phoenix, which gave him the point lead after Jimmie Johnson had an accident which relegated the five-time champion to second in the points. Keselowski is looking to join Bobby Labonte as the second driver to win the NASCAR Cup and Grand National (Nationwide) Series titles in a career. Keselowski could also become the first Cup champion from the state of Michigan. This also could be Dodge's first driver's champion since Richard Petty in 1975. Ironically, Dodge is scheduled to exit NASCAR at the end of 2012 and Penske Racing will be moving to Ford engines for 2013.