Allmendinger in For Fontana
AJ Allmendinger will make his IndyCar return at the season finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California on Ocotber 19th driving for Penske Racing. Allmendinger is racing at Watkins Glen this weekend in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race for JTG/Daugherty Racing where he was seventh and eighteenth fastest in the two respective practice sessions. Fontana will be Allmendinger's sixth IndyCar race of the season. He made his season debut at Barber, where he qualified and raced well before stalling in the pit lane dropped him to nineteenth. After a twenty-third at Long Beach, Allmendinger started fifth and finished seventh in his first Indianapolis 500, despite having to make a pit stop to adjust his seat belts, which had come undone on track. The following week at Belle Isle, Allmendinger had two first lap incidents end both his races at the doubleheader and left him with an injured wrist. Since that time, Allmendinger has gone on to win the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Road America driving for Penske, will compete in next week's Nationwide race at Mid-Ohio and has picked up a few Cup races for Phoenix and JTG/Daugherty Racing.
USCR to Fox
United SportsCar Racing's debut season will be shown by Fox Sports Group on Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 after announcing a five year deal yesterday. USCR joins the three NASCAR national touring divisions, MotoGP and recently announced FIA Formula E starting in September 2014 as Fox Sports racing properties. Fox also has the rights to streaming USCR online as a part of the Fox Sports GO platform. The deal also includes the rights to Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge races. The first United SportsCar Racing event will be the 2014 24 Hours of Daytona next January.
NASCAR at the Glen
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series are at Watkins Glen this weekend, the final road course event for the Cup Series this season. Practice on Friday was hampered by rain. In the first practice, Sonoma winner Martin Truex, Jr. and defending Watkins Glen winner Marcos Ambrose led the session with Carl Edwards third. 2010 Watkins Glen winner Juan Pablo Montoya was fourth with Casey Mears rounding out the top five. Kyle Busch was sixth with AJ Allmendinger seventh. Clint Bowyer, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top ten.
In second practice, Edwards was fastest with 2004 Star Mazda Champion Michael McDowell second fastest. Clint Bowyer was third ahead of Montoya and Keselowski. Jimmie Johnson was sixth ahead of Kyle Busch and New Hampshire winner Brian Vickers. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was ninth with Kurt Busch rounding out the top ten. Max Papis was twenty-seventh and thirtieth in the two practice sessions substituting for an injured Tony Stewart. Papis will be in the third qualifying group later today. Other notable drivers positions in qualifying groups include road course ringers Boris Said and Ron Fellows in group four, Jimmie Johnson in group five, Earnhardt, Jr., Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon Greg Biffle and McDowell in group six, Kyle Busch, Allmendinger, Bowyer, Keselowski and Hamlin in group seven and Truex, Jr., Ambrose, Edwards, Montoya and Mears in the eighth and final group.
IndyCar Drivers Racing
Off weekend for IndyCar means their drivers get to drive behind the wheel of other machines this weekend. Simon Pagenaud will drive for Level 5 Motorsports in the American Le Mans Series race at Road America tomorrow. Pagenaud is filling in for the injured Ryan Briscoe, who is still recovering from a broken wrist suffered in the IndyCar race at Toronto one month ago. Sébastien Bourdais and Justin Wilson are also at Road America but they be driving for 8 Star Motorsports and Michael Shank Racing in the Rolex Sports Car Series race. Meanwhile, IndyCar championship points leader, Helio Castroneves is done in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil as he will be competing in Stock Car Brasil. Castroneves already had an accident in practice yesterday.
Road America
Both the Rolex SportsCar Series and American Le Mans Series are competing at Road America this weekend with the Rolex Sports Car Series racing today and ALMS tomorrow. Dane Cameron put the #42 Sahlen's BMW/Riley Daytona Prototype on pole position. Wayne Taylor Racing's pair of Max Angelelli and Jordan Taylor start second ahead of the Ganassi duo of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas. Bourdais and Wilson start fourth and eighth respectively with DP points leaders Alex Popow and Ryan Dalziel starting seventh. Alessandro Balzan and Leh Keen are on GT pole with Sylvain Tremblay and Tom Long on GX pole. The Rolex Sports Car Series race can be seen later today on SPEED at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr were fastest in ALMS second practice yesterday by nearly five seconds over the Extreme Speed Motorsports #02 HPD ARX-03b of Ed Brown and Johannes van Overbeek. Scott Tucker and Pagenaud were second quick in the LMP2 class ahead of Tucker, Marino Franchitti and 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP2 class winner Ricardo González. Tony Burgess and Chris McMurry were second in LMP1 ahead of the DeltaWing of Andy Meyrick and Katherine Legge.
Dirk Müller and John Edwards was fastest in GT ahead of the two Vipers of Dominik Farnbacher and Marc Goossens and Jonathan Bomarito and Kuno Wittmer. The Corvette of Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin was fourth with their teammates Jan Magnussen and Antonio García fifth. Colin Braun and Jonathan Bennett were fastest in PC with Henrique Cisneros and Sean Edwards fastest in GTC. ALMS from Road America can be seen at 3:00 p.m. ET tomorrow on ABC.
