Musings From the Weekend: Soul Searching

The events of this past weekend have been anything but easy. Thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Kevin Ward, Jr. after he lost his life Saturday night at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in New York.

There are many things I'd like to say on the accident between Ward and three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart but I know little about the situation and feel it would not be proper to comment at this time.

I do recommend the articles written by Jerry Bonkowski on MotorSports Talk and Steve Cole Smith, Editor in Chief of Motorsport.com if you would like commentary on what happened Saturday night.

There is no easy way to transition from the above but here is a run down of what else got me thinking.

What If There Were No Double Points?
As IndyCar heads down the stretch, I wondered what the championship picture would look like if every race was treated the same? What if the Indianapolis 500, Pocono 500 and California 500 only paid a maximum of 54 points like the other 15 races? What if Indianapolis 500 qualifying merely set the field and all Ed Carpenter would have gotten was a point for pole?

If there is anyone that should be disappointed with double points, it should be Will Power. If there were no double points, his championship lead would increase by tenfold. Instead of leading his Team Penske teammate Hélio Castroneves by four, he have a 40-point cushion heading to Milwaukee with 467 points to his name. Simon Pagenaud would also have benefited as he would be third in the championship instead of fourth and 61 back instead of 64 back. Ryan Hunter-Reay would drop to fourth in the championship and would be 67 back, four more than his current margin to Power.

Scott Dixon would gain a position, cracking the top five in the championship and be 27 points closer (currently 108 back) to Power while Sébastien Bourdais would jumped from eighth to sixth and be 117 back. Juan Pablo Montoya would drop two positions and be 121 backs of his teammate. Tony Kanaan would gain a position and be 36 points closer to Power. Carlos Muñoz would drop from seventh to ninth in the championship and trail by 153 points.

A big mover would be Charlie Kimball. Kimball would round out the top ten in the championship instead of being thirteenth and instead of trailing his Ganassi teammate Ryan Briscoe by 25, he would be three points ahead of the Australian. James Hinchcliffe would also be ahead of a teammate had there not been double points. The Canadian would still be twelfth in the championship but would be 11 points ahead of Marco Andretti who would be thirteenth instead of tenth. Justin Wilson would still be fourteenth and Graham Rahal would jump from eighteenth to fifteenth ahead of Mikhail Aleshin and Jack Hawksworth.

Carlos Huertas would gain a position to eighteenth and some ground on his fellow rookies. Currently, the Houston 1 winner trails Aleshin and Hawksworth by 36 and 23 points respectively. With out double points, the three drivers would be covered by ten points. Josef Newgarden would take a dive from sixteenth to nineteenth in the standings. Mike Conway would not only be in the top twenty of the championship had there been no double point events but he would have a comfortable 25-point cushion to Takuma Sato and 34-point cushion to Sebastián Saavedra.

With one double points event remaining, I think it's impact hasn't been as great as initially thought. Some may have envisioned double points making it a free-for-all with half the field having a shot at the title in the final race. Luckily, that won't be the case. Double points will open the door for a few drivers to have a shot at the title. Instead of two horse races going into Fontana, maybe four or five drivers are fighting for the Astor Cup. I don't see that as a bad thing.

AJ Allmendinger Joins Exclusive Company
No, not the Chase. After doing some research, fifteen drivers had won in both IndyCar and NASCAR. Allmendinger became the sixteenth driver (Note: That number is unofficial as I could have let one slip pass the goalie. If I am forget someone, let me know on Twitter, @4TheLoveofIndy) to accomplish that feat with his victory at Watkins Glen on Sunday.

He joins the likes of champions, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Johnny Rutherford, Tony Stewart, Buck Baker and Juan Pablo Montoya; American legends Parnelli Jones, Dan Gurney and Mark Donohue and a few talent drivers who don't have big numbers but were more than capable behind the wheel.

The last driver to accomplished winning in both NASCAR and IndyCar before Allmendinger was Robby Gordon. Gordon had two wins in the 1995 CART season driving for Walker Racing. He led the final six laps at Phoenix after Emerson Fittipaldi had to make a late pit stop for fuel and Michael Andretti had to slow to conserve fuel to make the finish. Gordon would go on to win from pole position at Belle Isle later that June. Gordon made the move like many to NASCAR during the split and found success, winning for Richard Childress Racing in the 2001 season finale at New Hampshire and sweeping the road course races at Sonoma and Watkins Glen in 2003.

Another one of those talented drivers was John Andretti. While he never put up the numbers his uncle Mario and cousin Michael did, John was more than competent behind the wheel of anything he stepped into. He won the inaugural Gold Coast Indy 300 at Surfers Paradise in 1991. Two years prior, John won the 24 Hours of Daytona with Derek Bell and Bob Wollek as co-drivers. Six years after winning in Australia, John would get his first career NASCAR victory at Daytona, this time on the oval, thirty years after his uncle won the Daytona 500 but in July for the 400-mile July 4th weekend tradition. John would add another NASCAR win to his total driving for Richard Petty in 1999 at Martinsville.

Johnny Mantz lives in NASCAR folklore as the winner of the inaugural Southern 500. Starting 43rd on the 75-car grid, Mantz put truck tires on his Plymouth to withstand the hot, rough surface at Darlington Raceway. It was Mantz's third career start and would prove to his only NASCAR victory. Flash-forward two years prior. Mantz was the first driver hired by J.C. Agajanian and it only took the pairing four races to get into victory lane on August 15, 1948 at Milwaukee after starting third.

Chuck Stevenson won four IndyCar races including two in 1952 at Milwaukee and DuQuoin on his way to the 1952 AAA National Championship, winning the title by 30 points over that year's Indianapolis 500 winner and J.C. Agajanian driver Troy Ruttman. Stevenson would win again at Milwaukee in 1953 and 1954 and continue racing in American open-wheel racing until 1965. During that time frame, Stevenson made two NASCAR starts. His first start was on October 9, 1995. Stevenson drove for 1925 Indianapolis 500 winner Pete DePaolo at Memphis-Arkansas Speedway in LeHi, Arkansas and his teammate that day was Johnny Mantz. The two drivers would finish 29th and 30th with Mantz completing three more laps than Stevenson. Just over a month later, Stevenson would win at Willow Springs Speedway in Lancaster, California after leading 56 of 80 laps. Marvin Panch led the other 26 laps that day and Stevenson allegedly was edged Panch out by 500 feet. Johnny Mantz finished third that day in what would be his final NASCAR start.

Al Keller's lone victory came in the NASCAR Speedway Division, NASCAR's open-wheel series which ran in 1952 and 1953. Over two years, the Speedway Division ran ten championship races. Buck Baker won the inaugural Speedway Division race at Darlington in May 1952. Keller won his second start for the Speedway Division at Lakewood Speedway just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Keller started fifteenth that June day, third to last on the grid and won the race by a lap. Two years later, Keller won at Oglethrope Speedway in Savannah, Georgia by two laps over Buck Baker. Just under three months later, Keller put his name in the NASCAR record books by winning the first NASCAR road course. The race took place on June 13, 1954 on a two-mile circuit at Linden Airport in Linden, New Jersey and Keller took the checkered flag driving a Jaguar.

Finally, Jim Hurtubise may be remember for his antics, from driving to qualify a front-engined for the Indianapolis 500 from 1975-1981, having five cases of chilled beer under his engine cover as he sat in line on bump day and stealing Bob Harkey's car and turning laps around Indianapolis Motor Speedway until stopped by the police. Antics aside, there was a time when Hurtubise was a promising driver. He won in his third IndyCar start at Sacramento in 1959. At his Indianapolis debut in 1960, Hurtubise was within a mile per hour of become the first driver to run a four-lap average over 150MPH and was the fastest qualifier, 2.4MPH faster than the pole sitter Eddie Sachs. Hurtubise would win at Langhorne just a few weeks after his Indianapolis 500 debut and would win at Springfield the following two years. Hurtubise dabbled in NASCAR and in his eleventh start, he won the 1966 Atlanta 500, his first major feat after suffering severe burns at Milwaukee in 1964

We are currently in a time period where drivers do not branch out and try different disciplines of motorsports on a high level and seeing Allmendinger run the Indianapolis 500 and a handful of IndyCar races last year and winning at Watkins Glen on Sunday gives hope that drivers are still going to jump from seat to seat experiencing all they can. Kurt Busch ran The Double this year. Juan Pablo Montoya is talking about doing The Double. Why couldn't Allmendinger attempt it? We know he can drive both and now, we know he can win in both.

Winners From the Weekend
You know about Marc Márquez and AJ Allmendinger, but did you know...

João Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi won their third race of the IMSA season and extended their championship lead at Road America. Renger van der Zande and Mirco Schultis won in the PC class, their second win of the season. Giancarlo Fisichella and Pierre Kaffer won in GTLM, the first win of the season for Ferrari in GTLM. Dane Cameron and Markus Palttala won their third race in GTD, the most in the class this season.

Mika Kallio and Efrén Vásquez won in Moto2 and Moto3 respectively at Indianapolis.

Naoki Yamamoto and Frédéric Makowiecki won in the GT500 class in the Super GT race at Fuji Speedway. Takuto Iguchi and Kota Sasaki won in GT300.

Marcos Ambrose won the Nationwide Series race at Watkins Glen. Four of his five Nationwide Series victories have come at Watkins Glen.

Coming Up This Weekend
IndyCar heads to Milwaukee.
MotoGP is going to Brno.
NASCAR returns to Michigan.
DTM goes to the Nürburgring.
Stock Car Brasil will be at Cascavel.