If you are a racing fan, you might want to pull an all-nighter Saturday into Sunday. Do whatever it takes. Sleep all day, go on a caffeine binge, mix your coffee with Red Bull just don't pull an AJ Allmendinger and take adderall. Whatever you do, do not fall asleep Saturday night because from 7:00 p.m. ET to 5:00 a.m. ET there will be plenty you will not want to miss.
Let's start in Charlotte for the fifth race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup. NASCAR stays home in North Carolina as Matt Kenseth looks to hold off Jimmie Johnson while the likes of Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch and the other eight drivers in the Chase look to keep their championship hopes alive. Gordon will start on pole and joined on the front row by Harvick. Harvick is coming off a dominating performance as Kansas last week and he won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte in the spring. But they won't have their work cut out for them as Johnson starts fourth. Matt Kenseth was the lowest qualifying Chase driver and start twentieth. Kenseth starts between two drivers making their Cup Series debut with Brian Scott ahead of him in nineteenth and Kyle Larson twenty-first.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. turned 39 on Thursday and he will start sixth for his 500th career Sprint Cup Series start on Saturday night. A win for Junior and he would become the third driver to be victorious in their 500th career start joining Richard Petty and Matt Kenseth.
While the Cup guys will be lining to take the green at Charlotte, 9598.8 miles away, the V8 Supercars will also being taking the green for their biggest race of the year, the Bathurst 1000. Jamie Whincup leads the points standings as he and co-driver Paul Dumbrell look to keep up momentum from winning the Sundown 500 a month ago and pick up their second consecutive Bathurst 1000 victory. Holden has won the last five Bathurst 1000s and are in good position to extend that streak to five as the GM manufacture has won twenty-three of twenty-nine races in 2013 with Whincup himself having scored nine wins so far.
Whincup was fastest qualifier ahead of Ford driver Mark Winterbottom in second. Winterbottom is look for his first Bathurst 1000 victory and he is paired two-time Bathurst 1000 winner Steven Richards. Jason Bright was third ahead of 2010 V8 Supercars champion James Courtney and his co-driver, four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Greg Murphy. Shane van Gisbergen was fifth ahead of Whincup's teammate and five-time Bathurst 1000 winner Craig Lowndes. 2009 Bathurst 1000 winner Will Davison was seventh ahead fellow Ford driver David Reynolds in eight and the Gary Rogers Motorsport Holdens of Scott McLaughlin and Alexandre Prémat. These ten drivers will compete for pole in the top ten shootout on Saturday.
Other notable starters: Three-time Bathurst 1000 winner Garth Tander qualified eleventh, the all-star pair of Mattias Ekström and Andy Priaulx in eighteenth, 2005 Bathurst 1000 winner Todd Kelly is twenty-third ahead of his brother, two-time Bathurst 1000 winner Rick Kelly. Two-time Bathurst 1000 winner Russell Ingall and co-driver Ryan Briscoe will start twenty-fifth.
For about three hours, you will have the opportunity to flip back and forth between Charlotte and Bathurst before Bathurst takes over and the sights of Mount Panorama will take you into Sunday morning. As the Bathurst 1000 draws closer to the finish, the start of the Japanese Grand Prix will draw near as Sebastian Vettel looks to clinch his fourth straight title with what would be his fifth consecutive win and Fernando Alonso finishing ninth or worse. Vettel has won three of his four starts at Suzuka with his worse finish being third in 2011, a race in which Vettel clinched his second career title.
While Vettel looks to have a coronation at Suzuka, there are plenty of other battles to watch out for. The Lotus teammates of Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean are coming off a fierce battle for the second spot on the podium at Korea last week. Grosjean has only finished ahead of his teammate on three occasions this season. Nico Hülkenberg looks to keep his points scoring streak going. The German has scored points in the last three races including two top fives and matching his career best finish of fourth last week at Korea. Daniel Ricciardo looks to picked up the pieces after retiring from the last two rounds. Meanwhile Esteban Gutiérrez, Valtteri Bottas, Caterham and Marussia look to not only score their first points of the season but first points of their careers.
After the corks pop and Bizet's Carmen Overture plays, the Formula One races nicely transitions into the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix from Sepang. Marc Márquez leads Jorge Lorenzo by thirty-nine points as the rookie looks to inch closer to a World Championship. Márquez won the 2011 125cc race at Sepang while Lorenzo has one win in Malaysia, the 250cc race in 2006. Last year, Dani Pedrosa won the MotoGP race giving him wins in each the three class at Sepang.
Once the bikes quiet down, it will be about 5:00 a.m. ET. I don't know about you but it seems like after all that racing, it would be the perfect time to find a diner, get some french toast and sausage and start Sunday off on a good note. As for sleep? Who needs it?
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