2017 NASCAR Predictions

The first set of 2017 predictions is here and we will look at NASCAR's top three divisions. Heading into 2017, Cup has a new title sponsor, there is a new rule to prevent Cup drivers from moonlighting in the lower divisions and more races will be starting later in the day than ever before.

1. Toyota Does Not Repeat as Manufactures' Champions in Cup
The Japanese manufacture ended Chevrolet's 13-year reign as top manufacture in the Cup series as the manufacture won 16 of 36 races to Chevrolet's 12 victories and Ford's eight victories. Toyota's margin of victory in the manufactures' championship was 25 points. I think Toyota will still be competitive and winning races but it is a numbers game and Toyota is looking at eight full-time cars, two of which belong to BK Racing. I think Hendrick Motorsports doesn't have that rough patch in the summer. Ford bulked up its lineup with Stewart-Haas Racing. The four Joe Gibbs Racing and two Furniture Row Racing entries are good but I think they take a step back and end up losing the manufactures' championship but by a close margin.

2. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Makes it to the Semifinal Round of the Chase
After having his 2016 season ended prematurely at Kentucky, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will return to full-time competition. Many are skeptical of his return especially with his history of concussions and many are concerned one big hit could end his career on the spot. However, I think Earnhardt, Jr. will pick up on where he left off. He was in position for a Chase spot when he was sidelined and I think he will drive smarter than ever. If he gets a victory early in the season, say before the All-Star break, the summer will be more about avoiding hairy situations and bringing the car home in one piece. Once he is in the Chase it is a crapshoot but I think his smart driving can get him to be one of the final eight.

3. Stewart-Haas Racing has Fewer Victories, Top Ten Finishes and Drivers in the Chase than 2016
After being a Chevrolet team dating back to the 2004 season after being a Pontiac team in Haas CNC Racing's first season the year before, Stewart-Haas Racing moves to Ford for 2017. Ford was the bottom three of the manufactures but also lacked depth. Outside of Penske, Ford's only other victory in 2016 was Chris Buescher's victory in the shortened Pocono race. Roush Fenway Racing hasn't won in two years. Richard Petty Motorsports had one top five and two top tens finishes in all of 2016. Stewart-Haas taking a step back isn't just because Ford might be down on Chevrolet and Toyota but transitions take time. Penske left Dodge after 2012 and moved to Ford and the team went from five victories to two and defending champion Brad Keselowski missed the Chase. Stewart-Haas Racing had six victories, 57 top ten finishes and three drivers in the Chase in 2016. Tony Stewart is gone and Clint Bowyer is coming off a disastrous season with HScott Motorsports but hasn't won in the last four seasons and scored fewer and fewer top five finishes and top ten finishes over that time. Kevin Harvick seems to be a lock for a Chase and Kurt Busch is consistent enough to make it. Outside of that, the team's first year with Ford could be a headache.

4. Jimmie Johnson is Fourth All-Time in Cup Victories by the End of 2017
By winning at Homestead, Jimmie Johnson capped his 2016 season not only with his seventh championship but with his 80th victory making him the seventh driver all-time to reach that mark in the Cup series. He is three victories behind Cale Yarborough and four victories behind Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison. He needs five victories in 2017 to reach fourth all-time. By winning three of the final seven races, Johnson ended 2016 with five victories, the most in the Cup series, making it the second consecutive season he won five races. In his 15 full seasons in NASCAR, Johnson has won five races or more in a season ten times. Even though he is 41 years you don't expect Johnson to slow down.

5. Less Than Five of the Chase Drivers are Different From 2016
The 2016 Chase saw five new drivers from 2015. Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, Tony Stewart and Chris Buescher in. Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Paul Menard and Clint Bowyer out. Looking at the 2016 Chase drivers, I can't see more than four not making it back. We know Tony Stewart won't be in the 2017 Chase so that is one spot. It is likely Chris Buescher won't qualify in 2017. Outside of that, it isn't just who won't make it but who will make it? Kasey Kahne has failed to make the Chase the last two seasons. Ryan Newman hasn't won since Indianapolis 2013 and had two top five finishes last season. Ryan Blaney could steal a race victory. Jamie McMurray and Austin Dillon finished 13th and 14th in 2016 and led between them 17 laps, all 17 laps Dillon were responsible for.

6. AJ Allmendinger Makes The Chase
The JTG Daugherty Racing had two top five finishes and nine top ten finishes in 2016 but as long as there are two road course races, Allmendinger has a shot at the Chase and eventually he will breakthrough again. However, not only does Allmendinger run well on road courses but short tracks. He finished second at Martinsville in the spring. He started in the top ten at both Martinsville races, both Bristol races, and at Richmond and Loudon as well as both road course races and Kansas. A few drivers will make the Chase on points. Allmendinger could find himself in one of those spots even if he doesn't win a race.

7. Erik Jones' Average Starting Position is 3.5 Points Lower than His Average Finish
Jones won the most races last year in NASCAR's second division and averaged a starting position of 3.1, the best of the full-time drivers. However, Jones' average finish was 11.6, the worst of the top four drivers in the championship. Furniture Row Racing is coming off a tremendous season with Martin Truex, Jr. and the alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing has helped bolster the team as a title contender and has allowed Jones to move up to the Cup series on loan. While Truex, Jr. had a great season and we are coming off Chase Elliott having a spectacular rookie season in the Cup series I think Jones will have a season that mirrors Ryan Blaney's 2015 season. Blaney averaged a starting position of 14.9 but his average finish was 18.5 in 2015. Jones may have benefitted from being on the team that is head and shoulders above anyone else in the Grand National Series but he has a tendency to get his nose in harm way. He might be able to carry his qualifying success into the Cup series but races are another thing and it could be a rough year for Jones.

8. Championship Ineligible Drivers win more than 16 of the first 26 Grand National Series Race
NASCAR has new rules for full-time Cup drivers competing in the lower national touring divisions. While the likes of Kyle Busch, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski will be limited to ten races in the Grand National Series, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney and Erik Jones will be Cup drivers who can go beyond the ten-race limit. The race limits might not change much as Busch, Logano and Keselowski could still end up winning six races each but the likes of Blaney and Larson might get more starts and more starts without competition from the likes of Busch, Logano and Keselowski. This could be a rule change that NASCAR thought would fix a problem but end up not changing anything at all.

9. All Four JR Motorsports Drivers Make the Chase
The team had Elliott Sadler and Justin Allgaier make the final round of the inaugural Chase in the Grand National Series and now the team adds William Byron from the Truck series and Michael Annett. The bar is quite low to make the Chase in NASCAR's second division. Ryan Sieg was in the Chase and had no top five finishes and three top ten finishes the entire season. Blake Koch nearly was one of the four championship contenders and didn't have a top five finish. All four JR Motorsports drivers are going to end up with ten top ten finishes on accident. They will all be in the top 12 and don't be surprised if two are in the final four again.

10. A Rookie is in the Top Four of the Truck Championship
Last year, rookie Christopher Bell made the final four in the inaugural Truck Chase and William Byron was an engine failure away from making the final four and despite being eliminated, Byron still won seven races as a rookie. Noah Gragson replaces Byron at Kyle Busch Motorsports and Austin Cindric will run full-time for Brad Keselowski Racing. I wouldn't rule out either to make the Truck Chase and I wouldn't rule either out for the top four either.

11. Someone Becomes the 28th Driver to Win in All Three National Touring Divisions
This one might be the longest shot but active drivers who have won in two of the three national touring series are Ryan Blaney, Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, Daniel Suarez and Martin Truex, Jr. Truex, Jr. has yet to win in the Truck series, the rest haven't won in the Cup series. I think Elliott is clubhouse leader to accomplishing the feat.

12. There Will Not Be Any Fights In Any of NASCAR's Three National Touring Series
Last year, Spencer Gallagher and John Wes Townley looked like schmucks at Gateway and John Hunter Nemechek and Cole Custer looked like schmucks at Mosport. That's not going to happen again.

Round one of 2017 predictions are in the books. Look out for round two next week.

2016 Et Cetera Predictions: Revisited

We are in the final two weeks of 2016 and we are finally at the final edition of revisited predictions for this season in motorsports. Today, we look at multiple series and form of motorsports and what came out right and what was wrong.

1. MotoGP: Suzuki Scores At Least Three Podiums
Correct! All of Suzuki's podiums came at the hands of Maverick Viñales and not only did the Spaniard finished on the podium four times, he won at Silverstone on his way to finishing fourth in the championship. Now Suzuki will have to hope two new riders can build on the 2017 success as Viñales moves to the factory Yamaha team alongside Valentino Rossi and Aleix Espargaró heads to Aprilia. Andrea Iannone moves to Suzuki from Ducati and Álex Rins moves up from Moto2 after finishing second and third in that championship the last two seasons.

2. Indy Lights: The Champion Does Not Come From Juncos Racing or Schmidt Peterson Motorsports
Correct! Carlin's Ed Jones took the title by two points over Schmidt Peterson Motorsports' Santiago Urrutia. I had a feeling Jones would win it after nearly taking the title in his rookie season in 2015. I am not one of those perturbed at how Jones won the title. Sometimes too much focus is put on the final act instead of all the acts and when it comes to a championship that is decided on an aggregate of 18 races it is easy to believe the final race is what decided the championship but had Urrutia not spun in the Freedom 100 or dropped from second to ninth in first Road America race then he might have been in control of the championship entering the finale. He wasn't and Jones was in control and Jones did what he had to do to win the championship.

3. Super Formula: Honda Wins More Than Two Races
Correct! Honda won three times in Super Formula. Naoki Yamamoto won the season opener at Suzuka for Honda. McLaren reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne would win at Okayama in September and the final race of the season at Suzuka in October. Vandoorne was the top Honda driver in the championship by finishing fourth.

4. Super GT: James Rossiter Does Not Win the Suzuka 1000km
Correct! Rossiter was not able to make it three consecutive Suzuka 1000km victories. His car retired from the event and the #38 Lexus Team ZENT Cerumo of Hiroaki Ishiura and Yuji Tachikawa won the prestigious endurance race.

5. V8 Supercars: Red Bull Racing Australia Wins at Least Fourteen Races
Correct! Red Bull Racing Australia won 17 of 29 races this season in Supercars with the team winning seven of the final eight races to close out the season. Champion Shane Van Gisbergen led the team with eight victories, Jamie Whincup won seven times and Craig Lowndes won twice.

6. DTM: There Will Be At Least Two Driver Changes at Mercedes-Benz
Correct but barely. Compared to its 2015 driver line-up Mercedes-Benz had only one change at the start of 2016 with Esteban Ocon replacing 2015 DTM champion and Manor Racing-bound Pascal Wehrlein. The second driver change at Mercedes-Benz occurred when Ocon himself got promote to Manor Racing to replace Rio Haryanto and Felix Rosenqvist entered as Ocon's replacement.

7. WSBK: Nicky Hayden Scores At Least One Podium but Finishes Behind Michael van der Mark in the Championship
Correct! The Kentucky Kid had four podiums in 2016, including a victory in the wet at Sepang, the only non-British rider to win in World Superbike in 2016. However, Hayden finished fifth in the championship, 19 points behind van der Mark who had six podium finishes with him finishing runner-up twice.

8. WSS: Less than 25 Points Decides the Championship
Wrong! Kenan Sofuoglu locked up his fifth World Supersport championship with a race to spare and his final margin of victory in the championship was 74 points over Jules Cluzel.

9. World Rally Championship: Ford Wins at Least One Rally
Wrong! Although Ott Tänak came close on two occasions. The Estonian driver led Rally Poland but lost the lead on the penultimate stage to Volkswagen's Andreas Mikkelsen and the Norwegian driver beat Tänak by 26.2 seconds in the final results. At Wales Rally GB, Tänak won 12 of 22 stages, including sweeping six stages on the final day but finished second to Volkswagen's Sébastien Ogier by 10.2 seconds. Now Ogier moves to M-Sport and I have to think Ford is going to win a few times with the Frenchman in 2017.

10. World Touring Car Championship: There Will Be More Race Winners Than in 2015
Correct! In 2015, seven drivers won a WTCC race. In 2016, 11 drivers won a WTCC race. Those 11 drivers were Robert Huff, José María López, Tiago Monteiro, Mehdi Bennani, Tom Coronel, Gabriele Tarquini, Nick Catsburg, Tom Chilton, Norbert Michelisz, Yvan Muller and Thed Björk.

Another set of predictions and another time of getting eight predictions correct except this time it was eight from ten. That is it for revisiting 2016 predictions. Feel free to look back on the revisited predictions for IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula One and sports cars. 2017 predictions will be here soon and maybe sooner than you think.

Musings From the Weekend: Turn to Sports Cars

Another week is here and there was a race in Sepang. Alexander Rossi got his face put on the Borg-Warner Trophy. Tony Stewart wore glasses and talked to Robin Miller. Romain Grosjean will go ice racing next week in the French Alps. This is the last Musings From the Weekend of 2016 but don't worry. In the final two weeks of the year there is plenty to come. Another set of predictions revisited, the For The Love of Indy Awards, a Christmas list, a trip back to 1966 and predictions for 2017. But until then, here is a run down of what got me thinking.

Turn to Sports Cars
We are just under two weeks until Christmas and most of the IndyCar grid is known. The only openings left are at the mess that is the will-they-won't-they KV-Carlin marriage and the road/street course portion of the season in the #20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet. Outside of that, unless a team like Dreyer & Reinbold Racing returns to full-time competition or Schmidt Peterson Motorsports expands to three cars, there are one-and-a-half seats remaining and a plethora of drivers circling as the music plays.

Who is still standing? Spencer Pigot, RC Enerson, Gabby Chaves, Dean Stoneman, Santiago Urrutia, Kyle Kaiser, Zach Veach, Luca Filippi, Matthew Brabham and Félix Serrallés just to name a few and who knows if anyone else is on the fringe hoping to jump throw from the periphery and steal a seat from those who have spent months battling.

It is tough to break into any single-seater series. There are two dozens seats if you are lucky and at most five open up in the offseason and the limited testing has made it difficult for young drivers to breakthrough as teams stick to the experienced veterans who know the cars, circuits and all the ins and outs. Not to mention that most seats come with a price tag that even the most successful young can't afford.

In the case for IndyCar, unless you win the Indy Lights championship or have $10 million in the bank that you are willing to split from, you likely aren't breaking into IndyCar. The openings where all a driver needs is a helmet like Conor Daly at Coyne or the Foyt seats are rare and they are even rarer for rookies. Either you need to be a once in a generation stud on track or be really likable by a team owner to invest in.

Knowing what it will take to make it to IndyCar, drivers that don't win the Indy Lights championship or have $10 million in the bank should look to sports cars and IndyCar teams should jump on the opportunity to facilitate these drivers switching careers. IndyCar teams should get involved because it could deepen their talent in the stable. Let's say an IndyCar driver is having a disappointing season and likely won't return the next year or needs to be replaced mid-year or has to miss a race due to illness or injury. If an IndyCar team owned a sports car team and had one or two drivers with Road to Indy experience or IndyCar experience it would allow for a natural replacement. Plus, tying up talent can be a strategic move by a team as it could keep a talented, young driver away from a rival for a period while a team could wait for an opening in its IndyCar program.

The good news for IndyCar teams is there are plenty of sports car options to choose from. A team could stay domestic and run in IMSA or Pirelli World Challenge. In IMSA, a team could run a DPi, GTLM or GTD. If a team goes the GT3 route, it could go to PWC and maybe field two cars. If a team wants to be a little more adventurous, it could attempt the FIA World Endurance Championship with either an LMP2 program or GTE program.

With that said, what could potential IndyCar-sports car teams with IndyCar wannabes look like? Andretti Autosport has a history of running a LMP2 program and a few drivers looking for work have history with Andretti Autosport. Dean Stoneman ran for Andretti Autosport in Indy Lights in 2016 and it doesn't appear he is likely return to Indy Lights in 2017. Matthew Brabham raced for Andretti Autosport in Pro Mazda and Indy Lights. Brabham has been demoted to a silver driver rating for 2017 making him more precious than gold. Brabham can be slotted into a WEC LMP2 team or GTE-Am team and be just as quick as some of the professionals and give a team an upper hand compared to teams with an actual gentleman driver.

While it would be a stretch for Andretti Autosport to jump into WEC LMP2, maybe it could use Brabham's family relations to enter the world's stage. Matthew's uncle David Brabham successful crowdsourced the Project Brabham effort about two years ago to enter WEC LMP2 but the team has yet to make it to the grid. Perhaps the combination of resources could allow Stoneman, Matthew Brabham and David Brabham to compete full-time. An Andretti-Brabham partnership would be one of historic portions and most would love to see the marriage. Who knows? It could allow Mario another shot at Le Mans. He is a bronze after all.

Dale Coyne Racing doesn't have a history in sports car racing but the team has had a few respectable drivers in IndyCar the last few seasons who want to be full-time but can't breakthrough beyond a handful of races here and there. While Coyne wouldn't likely go compete on the world stage, IMSA makes sense for the team. Coyne found a gem in RC Enerson last year and he is one you don't want to let go. A DPi program could keep Enerson occupied until something opens up in IndyCar. Who could join Enerson? Why not Luca Filippi? The Italian has had some good runs and we have seen plenty of top GP2 drivers run well in sports cars plus he could become somewhat of a mentor to the young Enerson.

Spencer Pigot is coming off his rookie season in IndyCar and while he could return to run road and street courses in the #20 Chevrolet again that isn't a guarantee. Zach Veach just completed his third season in Indy Lights and finished fourth in the championship. Pigot can't go down and Veach is ready but there is no room for him to move up. Neither might be on the IndyCar grid in 2017 but maybe Ed Carpenter could expand his team's horizon. Instead of prototype though, perhaps ECR could look toward PWC and run a pair of GT3 cars for Pigot and Veach, plus it would allow Pigot and Veach to be at five IndyCar races as PWC runs on IndyCar weekends at St. Petersburg, Long Beach, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Sonoma. ECR could find a silver-rated driver and run a car at the four North American Endurance Cup races in IMSA. Seeing as how GM's only GT3 car is Cadillac and there aren't customer Cadillacs, maybe ECR could run Audis or Porsches.

There is a lot of young talent on the fringes of IndyCar and if team owners are smart, they would make sure to lock it up before someone else gets there hands on them. Just thinking about how the likes of Simon Pagenaud, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Conor Daly and J.R. Hildebrand have all been free agents in recent years with no rides, you can never have too many horses in the barn. Pagenaud and Hunter-Reay have gone on to win championships. Daly is in a paying ride with AJ Foyt Racing as is Hildebrand. In five years, which driver who couldn't break into IndyCar in 2017 ends up being one of the contenders on the edge of major success? And how many team owners will be asking themselves why didn't they lock that driver down when he or she was unattached?

Champions From the Weekend
By winning the Sepang 12 Hours with Christopher Haase and Robin Frijns in the #15 Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS, Laurens Vanthoor won the inaugural Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers' championship and Audi won the inaugural Intercontinental GT Challenge manufactures' championship.

Winners From the Weekend
You know about the #15 Team Phoenix Audi but did you know...

The #26 B-Quik Racing Team Audi of Peter Kox, Henk Kiks and Daniel Bilinski won in the GTC class at the Sepang 12 Hours. The #69 Aylezo Ecotint Racing Ginetta of Zen Low, Dan Wells and Darrren Burke won in GT4. The #100 Toyota GT86 of Takashi Oi, Hitoshi Matsui, Takashi Ito and Kenny Lee won in the Touring class.

Coming Up This Weekend
The Gulf 12 Hours.

2016 Sepang 12 Hours Preview

This weekend's Sepang 12 Hours marks the 17th running of the endurance race and this year's edition marks the third and final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge.

Thirteen of the twenty-car cars entered for the race belong to the GT3 class. Audi won last year's race with Belgian Audi Club Team WRT and this year Audi is represented by two Team Phoenix entries. Laurens Vanthoor is the only returning driver from last year's winning driver combination and he will head the #15 Audi with Christopher Haase and Robin Frijns joining him as co-drivers. Haase won the 2010 Sepang 12 Hours with Peter Kox and Tunku Hamman in the Arrows Racing Lamborghini. Vanthoor also leads the drivers' championship with 33 points and looks to bookend his 2016 season with another endurance race victory after winning the Dubai 24 Hour in January. This will be Laurens Vanthoor's final race with Audi as he will move to Porsche for its IMSA GTLM program in 2017.

René Rast, Markus Winkelhock and Pierre Kaffer will drive the #16 Audi. Rast started his season with a victory at the 24 Hours of Daytona in the GTD class with Magnus Racing and he is coming off his first class victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship after he won in LMP2 at Bahrain with G-Drive Racing. Winkelhock and Kaffer both haven't won since 2014. Winkelhock's most recent victory was the 2014 24 Hours of Spa with Vanthoor and Rast as co-drivers. Kaffer's most recent victory was at Virginia International Raceway in GTLM was Risi Competizione Ferrari. 

Bentley leads the Intercontinental GT Challenge manufactures' championship with 51 points; two over Mercedes-Benz but Bentley has not entered a car for the finale. The lone Mercedes-Benz entered for Sepang is the #52 SAITAMA TOYOPET Green Bravo SLS AMG with former IndyCar driver Naoki Hattori leading the PRO-AM line-up with Taku Bamba, Takayuki Hiranuma and Shogo Matsuyama. With Mercedes as the de facto leader in manufactures' championship, Audi trails the fellow German mark by four points and McLaren is 15 points behind Mercedes-Benz. 

K-PAX Racing will be the lone McLaren on the grid and the #9 650 S GT3 will feature Pirelli World Challenge champion Álvaro Parente; Supercars and Blancpain Endurance Series champion Shane Van Gisbergen and Blancpain Endurance Series champion Côme Ledogar. Parente and Van Gisbergen won the Bathurst 12 Hour with Jonathon Webb, the first round of the International GT Challenge in February. Van Gisbergen trails Vanthoor by six points in the drivers' championship. 

Five Ferraris are entered at Sepang with the #50 Spirit of Race 488 GT3 of Michele Rugolo, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Pasin Lathouras leading the prancing horses and is the only all-pro line-up. Asian Le Mans Series regular Nexus Infinity will have Adrian Henry D'Silva, two-time Sepang 12 Hours winner Dominic Ang Ding Xiong and Garnett Patterson in the #27 458 GT3. Carlo van Dam, Frank Yu, Piti Bhirom Bhakti and Tanart Sathienthirakul will drive the #11 Singha Motorsports Team Ferrari 488 GT3. Super GT driver Hiroki Yoshimoto leads the #35 HubAuto Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 with Morris Chen, Shinya Hosokawa and Hiroki Yoshida rounding out the line-up. The only AM entry in GT3 is the #75 T2 Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3 of Gregory Teo Bee Tat, David Tjiptobiantoro and Christian Colombo. 

Manthey Racing comes with two Porsche 911 GT3Rs. Le Mans winners and future full-time Porsche LMP1 drivers Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber join Patrick Pilet in the #911 Porsche. Frédéric Makowiecki, Richard Leitz and Michael Chistensen will drive the #912 Porsche. Porsche leads all manufactures with four victories in the Sepang 12 Hours but has not won the event since 2008. 

The final two GT3 entries are full-time Super GT entries in the GT300 class. JLOC entered the #88 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 for Manabu Orido, Kazuki Hiramine and Adrian Zaugg. The final entry is the #30 APR Toyota Prius for Koki Saga, Kota Sasaki and Hiroaki Nagai. APR won once in Super GT this season and Saga finished second in the GT300 championship with co-driver Yuichi Nakayama 

The remainder of the Sepang 12 Hours entry list is composed of three GT4 entries, four GTC, four touring cars and two MARC Focus V8s.

The Sepang 12 Hours will begin at 11:00 p.m. ET on Friday December 9th. 

Over/Unders
1. Over or Under: 3.5 retirements at the Sepang 12 Hours?

Last Week's Over/Unders
1. Under: Michael Caruso scored 129 points at Homebush.
2. Over: Two LMP3 cars finished on the lead lap in class at Fuji.
3. Over: 33 drivers completed 600 laps or more at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.
4. Under: Three Americans were mentioned in the Racer.com story on the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout.

Predictions
1. The #30 APR Toyota Prius finishes in the top eight overall.

Last Week's Predictions 
1. Someone other than Shane Van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup will win at Homebush (Wrong. Whincup won race one from Homebush and Van Gisbergen won race two).
2. There will be at least four European drivers represented in the three class winners (Correct. Nine European drivers were represented across LMP2, LMP3 and GT at Fuji.).
3. The Ryno Racing Ginetta finishes in the top five overall (Correct. Both Ryno Racing Ginetta finished in the top five overall).
4. A driver between the ages of 18 and 19 win the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout (Correct. Nineteen-year-old Oliver Askew won the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout).
Last Week: 3/4 Overall: 28.5/53

2016 Sports Car Predictions: Revisited

There are a handful of major races remaining on the calendar year and two notable races remaining are the Sepang 12 Hours and Gulf 12 Hours. Despite these two sports car races remaining, we can look back on predictions made for sports cars this season.

1. FIA WEC: All Three LMP1 Manufactures Score Over 200 Points
Correct! Porsche won the World Endurance Manufactures' Championship with 324 points while Audi finished second with 266 points in its final season in LMP1 and Toyota rounded out the top three on 229 points. It is not surprising Porsche won the title considering it won six of nine races, although what is surprising is Porsche didn't put two cars on the podium once all season. Audi's final season was arguably its toughest season but despite all there troubles and losing a victory after being excluded after Silverstone, Audi still finished ahead of Toyota, which had a much better season than 2015.

2. Ferrari Locks Up A GTE Title Before Bahrain
Wrong but it couldn't have been much closer! The #83 AF Corse Ferrari held a 25-point entering the season finale at Bahrain and all the team had to do was complete 70% of the race to be classified to win the GTE-Am championship.

3. IMSA: A Race Victory Falls Into Ligier's Lap
Correct! But it didn't really fall into Ligier's lap; they earned those victories, all four of them. Extreme Speed Motorsports was the best car at the 24 Hours of Daytona and Pipo Derani dazzled everyone at Sebring with a pair of daring passes to get the #2 Ligier to the lead. Then Michael Shank Racing won at Laguna Seca and closed the season with a dominating victory at Petit Le Mans with Extreme Speed Motorsports making it a Ligier 1-2 finish.

4. BMW Wins At Least Seven Race Between the Two GT Classes
Wrong! I got this one massively wrong. The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing BMWs were shutout in the win column in 2016 and the Turner Motorsport BMWs only won twice in GTD. I thought the RLLR BMWs would win three or four races and have one car contending for the title and I thought Turner would do the same considering how strong their driver line-ups were.

5. Pirelli World Challenge: Patrick Long Finishes in the Top Two of the Championship
Correct! To be honest, when Patrick Long announced he was going to be competing full-time in Pirelli World Challenge for EFFORT Racing Porsche, I thought he was going to win the championship but knowing that Johnny O'Connell had made it habit of winning the PWC title, I left a little wiggle room and I am glad I did because Long finished second in the championship but had he settled for second in the finale at Laguna Seca and not tried to pass O'Connell for the lead on the final lap he would have won the title. He didn't, he went off the road and Álvaro Parente went on by to win the title for K-PAX Racing McLaren. But considering EFFORT Racing pulled out of PWC midseason and Long had to move to Wright Racing, second in the championship is very impressive considering his season nearly ended before the month of May.

6. Four Different Manufactures Are Represented in the Top Five of GTS
Correct! And it was actually five different manufactures represented in the top five of GTS. KTM's Brett Sandberg finished ahead of Ford's Nate Stacy, Chevrolet's Lawson Aschenbach, Ginetta's Parker Chase and SIN's Scott Heckert. Let me also mention that in sixth was Lotus driver Scott Dollahite and in seventh was Maserati's Mark Klenin.

7. Blancpain GT: Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Wins a Specific Championship
Correct! Enzo Ide won the Blancpain Sprint Series title in the #33 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT Audi after winning four races and seven podium finishes from ten races.

8. The Average Grid Size for Blancpain Sprint Series Will Be Above 20 Entries
Correct! The average Blancpain Sprint Series grid was 36 cars in 2016.

9. European Le Mans Series: Jota Sport Scores Fewer Podiums Than in 2015
Wrong! Technically, Jota Sport didn't compete in the European Le Mans Series in 2016 but technically it did as it competed under the G-Drive Racing banner after the two teams formed a partnership. The #38 Gibson-Nissan finished on the podium four times in six races, won the bookends of the calendar and the team took the championship after it had eluded the team the last few seasons. The trio of Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell and Giedo van der Garde were stellar and deserved the title.

10. The Average LMP3 Grid Exceeds Eight Entries
Correct! The LMP3 grid ballooned to an average of 19.1667 entries per race. The smallest LMP3 grid was 17 at the Estoril finale. In fact, there were 17 entries that ran all six rounds. LMP3 has become a great success although I wonder how the grid will fair next season with LMP3 cars being allowed to compete full-time in the Michelin Le Mans Cup and the 24H Proto Series. There could be a slight dip but I still expect more than a dozen LMP3 in ELMS next year.

11. Asian Le Mans Series: Ferrari Will Not Be Shut Out From Another GT Podium
Wrong! While the #27 Nexus Infinity Ferrari won at Buriram, Ferrari was shutout of the podium at the final race of the 2015-16 season at Sepang where the #5 Absolute Racing Audi took the victory ahead of the #91 Team AAI BMW and the #3 Clearwater Racing McLaren with the #27 Ferrari finishing fourth.

12. There Will be At Least One Race Where the LMP3 Winner Finishes Ahead of the GT Winner
Correct! In January at Buriram, the #1 DC Racing Ligier-Nissan won in LMP3 and finished ahead of the GT winning #27 Nexus Infinity Ferrari and in the 2015-16 season finale at Sepang, the #1 DC Racing Ligier-Nissan won again and finished ahead of the GT winning #5 Absolute Racing Audi.

Another set of predictions and another eight for 12 showing. Don't forget to check out the other revisited predictions for IndyCar, NASCAR and Formula One.

Musings From the Weekend: What to Expect From the Locals?

Nico Rosberg retired! And everybody is applying to join Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. NASCAR had an award show. Takuma Sato was confirmed at Andretti Autosport. And there was actual racing! A champion was crowned in style. There was an LMP3-GT battle that lasted 25 hours. There was a slightly shorter endurance race in Japan. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.

What to Expect From the Locals?
Almost a month ago, I stated my astonishment in the Americans signed up for full-time IndyCar competition in 2017. You have the usual suspects of Ryan Hunter-Reay, Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti, Charlie Kimball and Josef Newgarden all returning. Young studs such as Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly returning for their second full-time years and J.R. Hildebrand returning to full-time competition after three years of part-time rides.

John Lingle, author of the Hard Luck Lloyd, commented that they have to win. He isn't wrong. The grid could be 90% American but if they can't win and be competitive it doesn't really matter. I thought about looking back to the so called glory days of CART just to see how many Americans were competing, how much Americans were winning and contending for championships. Of course, Americans were pretty much the only drivers in town for the 1960s, 1970s and most of the 1980s. Emerson Fittipaldi's entrance to IndyCar could be argued as the moment the IndyCar door opened to international drivers (Or Teo Fabi. Maybe we should give Teo Fabi the love considering he finished second in the 1983 CART championship and the following year Fittipaldi, Roberto Guerrero and Arie Luyendyk all made their IndyCar debuts but I digress).

Throughout the late-1980s, you had Fittipaldi win a few races a year but majority of the race winners were still Americans. Even in 1990 Americans won 14 of 16 races with the exceptions being Luyendyk at Indianapolis and Fittipaldi at Nazareth.

I decided to look back at the previous 25 years because it encompasses the years prior to the split, the split and reunification. I also looked at drivers who you could classify as being a regular driver. To be classified as finishing the 24 Hours of Le Mans a car must complete 70% of the winner's distance. In this case, a driver who runs at least 70% of the races will be considered a regular.

I thought about writing a synopsis for the last 25 years in IndyCar, which would be covering 38 seasons thanks to the split but that would be very lengthy so here is a chart instead.

What I will write is that since 1992, an average of 4.405 races have been won by Americans in a season with a median of four. The average amount of American drivers to win in a season is 2.675 with a median of two. The average amount of American drivers in the top ten of the championship is 3.783 with a median of three. The average amount of regular American drivers is 7.75 with a median of eighth.

With eight American drivers confirmed as regulars in 2017, it would be the most regular Americans on the grid since reunification. The last season to see eight regular Americans was the 2007 IRL season and while four Americans finished in the top ten of the championship, only one finished in the top five of the championship (Sam Hornish, Jr. in fifth) and Hornish, Jr. was the only American to win that year with his lone victory being at Texas.

I think the more important thing is to look at is where IndyCar has been the last few seasons. IndyCar has had multiple American winners each of the last six seasons. Since 2011, American drivers have won at least three races a year with 2015 being the high point at six victories. While six doesn't sound like much when you consider the schedule has ranged from 15 to 19 races in that timeframe and at the end of CART's formidable years, Americans would win one to three times in a 20-race season.

Another note that should be made is that some years when Americans dominated, the success came at the hands of one or two drivers. Take the 1994 season where Americans won 10 of 16 races but Al Unser, Jr. won eight of those, including the Indianapolis 500, on his way to the championship that season. Michael Andretti won the other two races. Of course there was the 2001 IRL season where seven Americans were responsible for winning 12 of the 13 races that season. The one not won by an American was the Indianapolis 500, won by the full-time CART driver Hélio Castroneves. That year in CART Michael Andretti's win at Toronto was the only time an American stood on the top step of the podium and he was the only American of four regulars to finish in the top ten of the championship.

I have dug through all this because I am curious, what does the IndyCar fan base want from the American drivers? If Charlie Kimball went out in 2017, won six races including the Indianapolis 500 and won the championship but he was the only American winner and one of two American in the top ten and the other was Ryan Hunter-Reay in ninth, would that be good enough? If six different Americans won one race in 2017 and one of them won the Indianapolis 500 but only three finished in the top ten of the championship and the best ended up in sixth, would that be good enough?

There is hope that American success will rejuvenate the image of IndyCar and bring fans back to the TV set, computer screen, tablet or through the gates and IndyCar can have a sliver of the relevance the series once had. IndyCar won't return to the days of USAC where Americans were pretty much the only drivers on the grid and it isn't likely that Americans sweep the top four in championship and take eight of the top ten but in recent years the current crop of American drivers has been holding their own to the precedent set over the last two and a half decades.

To some, Americans locking up the championship and the Indianapolis 500 should be yearly occurrence but there is nothing wrong with Josef Newgarden, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal winning at Barber, Iowa, Mid-Ohio and Pocono.

The 2017 crop of American drivers is very talented. Hunter-Reay and Rossi are Indianapolis 500 winners and Hunter-Reay has a championship. Newgarden is entering his prime as he moves to Penske and coming off consecutive career-best seasons. Rahal has been in the top five of the championship the last two years. Hildebrand returns after a few years away but him, Daly and Rossi have all driven Formula One cars in recent memory. Kimball is a consistent driver. Andretti isn't his grandfather or father but you wouldn't rule him out to win the Indianapolis 500 and it wasn't that long ago that he finished in the top five of the championship. Not to mention the likes of Sage Karam, Spencer Pigot and RC Enerson are all on the sidelines, under the age of 24 and have shown promise in their handfuls of IndyCar starts.

IndyCar doesn't have to worry about not having any Americans on the grid any time soon and from what we have seen already, it won't have to worry about if the Americans can be competitive.

Champions From the Weekend
Shane Van Gisbergen clinched his first Supercars championship with a third-place finish in race one from the Homebush Street Circuit. He capped off his championship weekend by winning the second race on Sunday.

Winners From the Weekend
You know about Shane Van Gisbergen but did you know...

Jamie Whincup won the first race of the Supercars weekend at Homebush Street Circuit.

The #8 Race Performance Oreca-Judd of Struan Moore, Giorgio Maggi and Fabian Schiller won the 4 Hours of Fuji. The #26 Tockwith Motorsports Ligier-Nissan of Nigel Moore and Philip Hanson won in LMP3. The #5 DH Racing Ferrari of Michele Rugolo, Stéphane Lémeret and Matthieu Vaxivière won in GT.

The #45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Audi of Darren Law, Johannes van Overbeek, Dion Von Moltke and Mike Hedlund won the 25 Hours of Thunderhill. The #57 Ryno Racing Ginetta G57 of Colin Braun, Parker Chase, Ryan Carpenter, Randy Carpenter, Colton Herta and Bryan Herta won in the ESR class and finished second overall.

Coming Up This Weekend
The Sepang 12 Hours.

Friday Four: Homebush, Fuji, Thunderhill, Laguna Seca

We have entered the final month of 2016 but the motorsport season is still kicking. A championship ends, another reaches the halfway point and an endurance race is held in Northern California. Plus, a young driver will become $200,000 richer at Laguna Seca.

Homebush Street Circuit
The final round of the 2016 Supercars season is the Sydney 500 from the Homebush Street Circuit, which will be hosting the Supercars for the final time. The round has been the season finale every year on the calendar since the inaugural running in 2009.

The championship will come down to one of two drivers and both drive for Red Bull Racing Australia. Shane Van Gisbergen enters with the championship lead on 3,089 points, 191 points ahead of Jamie Whincup. Van Gisbergen heads to the finale with seven victories and has eight consecutive podium finishes. Whincup has six victories this season, including three victories and five podium finishes in the last six races.

Van Gisbergen could become the third New Zealander to win the Supercars championship and be the first to do it since Jim Richards won his fourth title in 1991. The other New Zealander to take top honors was Robbie Francevic in 1986. Whincup is looking for his record extending seventh championship. Van Gisbergen and Whincup have combined to win the last eight races on the Homebush Street Circuit with Whincup holding the advantage of five victories to Van Gisbergen's three.

Craig Lowndes is trying to make it a clean sweep of the top three of the championship for Red Bull Racing Australia but Lowndes has not finished in the top five in the last eight races. He holds a 21-point advantage over Volvo's Scott McLaughlin, who has four podium finishes in the last six races. Will Davison rounds out the top five in the championship with 2,403 points, 19 points ahead of his former teammate and defending champion Mark Winterbottom.

Chaz Mostert is seventh in the championship on 2,235 point and is the top driver without a victory. Michael Caruso is the top Nissan driver in the championship in eighth on 2,110 points, 27 points ahead of Tim Slade. Garth Tander rounds out the top ten in the championship with 1,976, 12 points ahead of Fabian Coulthard and 27 points ahead of James Courtney.

The first race of the weekend will take place at 11:45 p.m. ET on Friday December 2nd. The season finale will take place at 11:40 p.m. ET on Saturday December 3rd.

Fuji Speedway
The second round of the 2016-17 Asian Le Mans Series season takes place at Fuji Speedway.

The #35 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca-Nissan of Gustavo Menezes and Ho-Pin Tung won the season opener at Zhuhai and will be joined by Thomas Laurent this weekend. Korean driver Tacksung Kim finished second at Zhuhai in the #24 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier-Judd and he will be joined by Jonathan Hirschi and Mark Patterson this weekend. The #25 Algarve Pro Racing Ligier-Nissan finished third at Zhuhai but the only returning driver is Michael Munemann, who will be joined by Andrea Roda and Andrea Pizzitola. The final LMP2 entry is the #8 Race Performance Oreca-Judd of Giorio Maggi, Struan Moore and Fabien Schiller.

Nine cars are entered in LMP3. The #1 Jackie Chan DC Racing Ligier-Nissan of David Cheng, James Winslow and Pu Jun Jin won the season opener by over two laps in class over the #26 Tockwith Motorsports Ligier of Nigel Moore and Phil Hanson. The #85 G-Print by Triple 1 Racing Ligier of Hanss Lin and Julio Acosta finished third in the season opener but only Lin is on the entry list for Fuji. The ARC Bratislava Ginettas finished fourth and fifth in class with the #4 Ginetta of Miro Konopka, Darren Burke and Mike Simpson ahead of the #7 Ginetta of Neale Muston and Konstantins Calko.

Fifteen cars are entered in the GT class. The #38 Spirit of Race Ferrari of Rui Águas, Marco Cioci and Nasrat Muzayyin won the season opener ahead of the #61 Clearwater Racing Ferrari of Mok Weng Sun, Keita Sawa and Matt Griffen. Key Cozzolino and Corey Lewis finished third at Zhuhai and they will be joined by Super GT driver Yuhi Sekiguchi in the #6 VS Racing Lamborghini. The #5 DH Racing Ferrari finished fourth in Zhuhai and Michele Rugolo will be joined by Matthieu Vaxivière and Stéphane Lémeret. The #2 Absolute Racing Audi of Cheng Congfu, Stephen Lin and Alessio Picariello finished fifth in class at Zhuhai.

The 4 Hours of Fuji will start at 10:45 p.m. ET on Saturday December 3rd.

25 Hours of Thunderhill
This weekend marks the 15th running of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.

Flying Lizard Motorsports won last year's race and returns with two cars. The #45 Audi has Darren Law, Johannes van Overbeek, Dion von Moltke and Mike Hedlund as the line-up with Thomas Sadler III, Andy Wilzoch, Will Owen and Charlie Hayes in the #74 Porsche.

Bryan Herta returns to competition for the first time since 2008 in the #5 Ryno Racing Team Ginetta LMP3 car. His son Colton joins him as well as Colin Braun, Parker Chase and Ryan Carpenter. Herta isn't the only former IndyCar race winner in the event. Al Unser, Jr. returns for another year in the #52 JFC Racing Wolf with Ryan Eversley, Miles Jackson and Todd Harris as his co-drivers.

Le Mans winner and runner-up in the 1996 Indianapolis 500 Davy Jones drives the #19 Patent It! Panoz GTS with Paul Edwards, Anthony Lisa, Steven Lisa and Chuck Hemmingson. Indy Lights race winner Sean Rayhall leads the #67 One Motorsports/Desert West Radical with John Falb, Todd Sluher and Jesse Menczer.

Mazda has entered three Global MX-5 Cup cars. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitcher C.J. Wilson is entered in the #55 Mazda with Taz Harvey, Richard Fisher and Scott Clark. Michael Brockman, Ben Robertaccio, Camden Jones and Thomas Bogar make up the #56 Mazda. Liam Dyer, Spencer Brockman, Mark Abouzeid and Steve McAleer are in the #70 Mazda.

The 25 Hours of Thunderhill starts at 2:00 p.m. ET on Saturyda December 3rd.

Mazda Road to Indy Shootout
While not occurring this weekend but in the middle of next week, one driver will win a $200,000 scholarship to compete in U.S. F2000 in 2017. Eighteen drivers from eight countries head to Laguna Seca for the two-day Mazda Road to Indy Shootout.

Team USA Scholarship winners Oliver Askew and Kyle Kirkwood lead the driver line-up heading to Laguna Seca. Peter Portante, who made 30 U.S. F2000 starts from 2013-15 and has four career podiums, will participate after finishing runner-up in the F1600 championship to Neil Verhagen, who also won the Formula F1600 championship at the SCCA Runoffs but Verhagen will not be participating in the Shootout. Texan Trenton Estep won the Toyo Tires F1600 championship in Canada. Another Texan in the Shootout will be Skip Barber Racing Series champion Timo Reger. Oklahoman Nigel Saurian qualifies after winning the Formula Continental championship at the SCCA Runoffs.

Pacific F2000 champion Tim de Silva and Formula Car Challenge representative Jonathan Sugianto both hail from California. Pittsburgh's Matthew Machiko qualified after winning the Formula Mazda championship at the SCCA Runoffs and at 25 years old, he is the oldest driver in the competition. Austin Garrison rounds out the Americans in the competition after winning the Rotax MAX Challenge.

There are eight international drivers coming to the United States to compete in the Shootout. Scottish Formula Ford 1600 champion Neil MacLennan, Mountney Formula Ford Super Series champion Oliver White and BRSCC F1600 champion Niall Murray all come from across the Atlantic. New Zealander Michael Scott earned a spot after winning the New Zealand Formula Ford Championship, the same series Scott Dixon won almost twenty years ago. Australia's Will Brown finished second in Australia Formula Ford and won the Australia Formula Four championship.

MMSC MRF F1600 India Championship sends championship runner-up Karthik Tharani to the Shootout. Mexican Axel Matus won the Formula Panam Championship and the final driver in the Shootout is Mazda Road to Indy Brazil champion Marcel Coletta, the youngest driver in the competitions at 14 years of age.

Unlike a traditional race weekend, the drivers will be split into four groups and each group will get three-30 minutes sessions on Tuesday December 6th. On Wednesday December 7th, the drivers will be split into four groups again and each group will have another 30-minute session. In the afternoon, the 18 drivers will be split into two groups and each group will have a 30-minute qualifying session before the 30-minute simulation race, which will be held at 4:30 p.m. ET.

The winner of the Mazda Road to Indy Scholarship will be announced at 6:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday December 7th.

Over/Unders
1. Over or Under: 162.5 points scored this weekend by Michael Caruso at Homebush?
2. Over or Under: 1.5 LMP3 cars on the lead lap in class at Fuji?
3. Over or Under: 10.5 cars completing 600 laps in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill?
4. Over or Under: 7.5 American drivers mentioned in the Racer.com Mazda Road to Indy Shootout recap?

Last Week's Over/Unders
1. Over: Nine cars finished within a minute of Lewis Hamilton at Abu Dhabi.
2. Over: There were six retirements during the GP2 weekend.
3. Under: Santino Ferrucci scored two points at Abu Dhabi.
4. Under: José María López ended the 2016 WTCC season with 381 points.

Predictions
1. Someone other than Shane Van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup will win at Homebush.
2. There will be at least four European drivers represented in the three class winners.
3. The Ryno Racing Ginetta finishes in the top five overall.
4. A driver between the ages of 18 and 19 win the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout.

Last Week's Predictions 
1. One of the top six in the championship retire from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Wrong. The top six all finished).
2. At least one GP2 race features two drivers from the same country on the podium (Wrong. Six podium places, five nationalities but Sergey Sirotkin and Artem Markelov finished on the podium in separate races).
3. Charles Leclerc wins one of the GP3 races this weekend (Wrong. Leclerc's best finish was ninth).
4. Citroën puts two cars on the podium in each race from Qatar (Half right. There were two Citroën's on the podium for the second race).
Last Week: 0.5/5 Overall: 25.5/49