IndyCar Wrap-Up: Chip Ganassi Racing's 2016 Season

The penultimate IndyCar Wrap-Up takes a look at Chip Ganassi Racing. While the team wasn't able to defend its title, it was one of two teams to win multiple races in the 2016 season and one of two teams to put multiple drivers in the top ten of the championship.

Scott Dixon had one of his worst seasons in his IndyCar career... Sixth in the championship

Scott Dixon

He entered as the defending IndyCar champion and his title defense started pretty well other than overheating issues at St. Petersburg. A 27-second pit stop to clear the radiators dropped him from contention for a podium but he still managed to finish seventh. Phoenix marked the 39th victory of Dixon's career after he led the final 155 laps of the 250-lap race. At Long Beach, Dixon gave Simon Pagenaud a run for it despite potentially being at the wrong end of a no-call on a blend line violation by the Frenchman. Dixon finished 0.3032 seconds behind Pagenaud in the closest finish in Long Beach history. His effort to get his first career victory at Barber after finishing on the podium in six of six races there were dashed when he was spun by Sébastien Bourdais but he rallied to finish tenth.

At the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, he started and finished seventh. He started 13th in the Indianapolis 500 but couldn't get up to challenge for the top five and settled with an eighth-place finish. Dixon suffered a gearbox issue in the first Belle Isle race and that dropped him a potential place on the podium to 19th. In the second race, Dixon ran up toward the front all race and settled for fifth.

The second half of the season started poorly for Dixon. An engine failure after six laps at Road America ended his race before he could really see if he could fight at the front. He appeared to be the only driver to give Josef Newgarden a run for it at Iowa but slipped back on the final restart and was dropped to third by Will Power. Dixon controlled Toronto from pole position but an untimely caution dropped him for race winner to a guy fighting in the back half of the top ten and all he could manage was an eighth-place finish. He ended the third quarter of the season with a suspension failure at Mid-Ohio after contact with Hélio Castroneves in the keyhole, leaving him with another 22nd-place finish.

At Pocono, Dixon started 19th and made his way through the final but never found himself contesting for the victory and he finished sixth. He was running in the top ten but was a lap down at Texas when he got into Ed Carpenter and ended his race. He rebounded at Watkins Glen where he led 50 of 60 laps from pole position and won by over 16 seconds to Josef Newgarden. In the finale at Sonoma, Dixon started seventh but radio and other electrical issues hampered his day and his 17th-place finish dropped him to sixth in the championship, the first time he was not in the top four since the 2005 season. 

Scott Dixon's 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 6th (477 points)
Wins: 2
Podiums: 4
Top Fives: 5
Top Tens: 11
Laps Led: 268
Poles: 2
Fast Sixes: 7
Fast Twelves: 10
Average Start: 6.25
Average Finish: 9.8125

Tony Kanaan still has at

Tony Kanaan

The Brazilian entered his 19th season in IndyCar in 2016 and he started his 19th season in 19th position at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The team's call to go off strategy early in the race put him toward the front but overheating issues dropped him as the race went on and he settled for ninth. He ran well at Phoenix but lost track position due to a late caution and he had to fight for a fourth-place finish. He hung around the top ten all day at Long Beach and finished sixth. More of the same followed at Barber, where he finished eighth.

He didn't even make it through turn one at the Grand Prix of Indianapolis after contact with Sébastien Bourdais put him in the barrier. Kanaan started 18th in the Indianapolis 500 and charged to the front. He was a contender for the victory late in the race with Josef Newgarden but had to get a splash and his dash barely got him fourth ahead of teammate Charlie Kimball. At Belle Isle, he finished ninth after hoping a strategy change would help him in race one. In race two, he stopped before a caution came up and it led to him finishing sixth.

At Road America, Kanaan had a great battle with Graham Rahal and he found himself charging down Will Power in the closing laps only to come up short in second position. A mechanical issue and bad timing of a caution dropped Kanaan from a top five finish at Iowa but he managed to come home in seventh. A call to stretch his fuel for 35 laps at Toronto led to him finishing fourth despite needing a splash-and-go with ten laps to go. Mid-Ohio was the one race all season where Kanaan never appeared to have it after starting 14th and finishing 12th. 

Kanaan overcame his past misfortunes at Pocono and finished a career-best ninth at the track. He benefitted from a batch of cautions late at Texas and it put him in position to duke it out with James Hinchcliffe, Graham Rahal, Simon Pagenaud and Hélio Castroneves. Fresh tires late were enough though and he settled for a spectacular third-place finish. A rear suspension issue cost Kanaan a possible podium at Watkins Glen. Contact with Mikhail Aleshin left Kanaan stalled in turn seven and all he could do was get back to where he started the race in 13th. 

Tony Kanaan's 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 7th (461 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 2
Top Fives: 5
Top Tens: 12
Laps Led: 37
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 3
Fast Twelves: 7
Average Start: 8.8125
Average Finish: 8.8125

Charlie Kimball matched his career best championship finish in 2016

Charlie Kimball

Not many season start with a top ten finish despite ending in the barriers but that was the case for Kimball as he was in the top ten all day but locked up the rear breaks in turn one but still was classified in tenth position. He qualified fourth at Phoenix but his race took a turn for the worst after chopping on Josef Newgarden left him spinning in turn one, earned him a penalty and dropped him down the order. All he could manage was 12th. Kimball had to fight from 15th position on the grid at Long Beach and despite all his work, three pit stops, fastest lap and all, he could only manage 11th. Barber saw him have a really good start but he settled in as the race wore on and finished ninth.

Kimball qualified second for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, the first front row start of his career. He was in the top five for most of the race and he finished fifth for the third time in three editions of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis. Like Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi, Kimball went 36 laps on the final stint but he was more conservative at the start of that stint than most as he was running laps in the 200-201 MPH range while the leaders were still going at 215-217 MPH. It paid off though as he matched his career best Indianapolis 500 finish in fifth, with Kanaan stealing fourth from him by 0.0255 seconds. Like Kanaan, Kimball went off strategy in the first Belle Isle race but only finished eighth. The decision to go off strategy in race two backfired and left him in 16th.

Road America saw Kimball quietly go from 11th on the grid to a sixth-place finish. He started eighth at Iowa but didn't have the pace of the leaders and fell back to a respectable tenth-place finish. Toronto saw Kimball start 17th, his worst starting position on the season but he was still able to make up some ground and finish 11th. Despite starting fifth at Mid-Ohio, Kimball lost some ground and all he could manage was eighth. 

Kimball saw Alexander Rossi go over his car on the pit lane at Pocono and contact with Hélio Castroneves in the same incident. Despite all that, he kept the car running and lost a lap but managed to complete 199 laps, only good enough for 15th. He was never a factor at Texas but he kept running and while other hit bumps, Kimball kept going and finished sixth. While others tried to save fuel at Watkins Glen, he went all out and made a late pit stop and charged again making his way up to sixth by the checkered flag. Watkins Glen was also marred by incidents with Graham Rahal and Will Power and a few drivers questioning Kimball aggressiveness. He cruised home to a ninth-place finish at Sonoma, which left him tied on 433 points with Juan Pablo Montoya but Montoya got the tiebreaker for eighth in the championship based on his victory at St. Petersburg.

Charlie Kimball's 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 9th (433 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 2
Top Tens: 11
Laps Led: 5
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 2
Fast Twelves: 6
Average Start: 10.9375
Average Finish: 9.1875

Max Chilton's rookie season was a learning experience

Max Chilton

The British driver made his IndyCar debut at St. Petersburg and just like the rest of his teammates; he too suffered overheating issues and had to make a late pit stop that dropped him to 17th. His first career oval race was a surprise as he started eighth at Phoenix and ran in the top ten the entire race and finished seventh. At Long Beach, he was cutting corners, literally and had to be warned for doing it but despite his occasional shortcuts he could only manage 14th. At Barber, Chilton had front wing damage and rear wing pod damage that slowed him up and led to a 21st-place finish.

He started 11th for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis but was stuck in the middle of the pack and dropped to 14th. In his Indianapolis 500 debut, he started 22nd and ran a clean race and finished on the lead lap in 15th, the second best rookie behind the race winner Alexander Rossi. Belle Isle proved to be a horrible weekend for Chilton as race one ended after eight laps after a suspension failure and race two ended in turn one after being caught up in an incident with Takuma Sato and James Hinchcliffe.

His luck didn't get any better when the second half of the season began. At Road America, he started seventh but slipped back a few positions and then ran out of fuel that required his team to push him up the pit lane. He started fourth at Iowa, the sight of his first career Indy Lights victory the year before but once again he fell back and then spun late in the race exiting turn two. At Toronto, he wasn't much of a factor after starting 14th and falling to 18th. Mid-Ohio was another mediocre run as he dropped from 13th to 16th.

Like Indianapolis, Chilton kept his nose out of harms way at Pocono and he completed all 500 miles but only managed a 13th-place finish. At Texas, he was collateral damage after Hélio Castroneves and Ed Carpenter got together but he was able to finish the race albeit five laps down in 15th. He qualified sixth at Watkins Glen and was able to finish tenth. The season ended with Chilton qualifying 18th and finishing 16th at Sonoma.

Max Chilton's 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 19th (267 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 2
Laps Led: 2
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 1
Fast Twelves: 3
Average Start: 13.9375
Average Finish: 16.125

It is hard to say this was a good year for Chip Ganassi Racing when they didn't have a driver finish in the top five of the championship but with three drivers in the top ten of the championship, it is hard to say it was a bad year. This was the hardest year in terms of luck for Dixon in a long time. It's not that he has lost something. It is just he car let him down at Road America, which could have been a top five and he was driven to the curbs by Castroneves at Mid-Ohio. If it weren't for double points he would have finished fifth in the championship and would have been a point behind Rahal for fourth. It wasn't a bad year.

Kanaan and Kimball looked fine. The problem for each of them is they can't consistently control a race. Kanaan can go out and boss an oval or two and lead around two-thirds of the laps but he can't do that a half-dozen times a year and he can't do that on a road or street course. Kimball has never really had that ability and to be champion you need to be more than someone who can keep the nose clean and settle for seventh.

With Ganassi returning the Honda, we all wonder can the team be as dominant as they were in their three seasons with Chevrolet? Honda trails Chevrolet in terms of speed, most notably on road and street circuits. While Dixon won the 2013 title with Honda, that was a season where Honda had been picking up ground on Chevrolet as it was prior to aero kits and year two of their single-turbo development. Honda won nine of 19 races that season. In 2016, Honda won two of 16 races. It is hard to imagine Ganassi and by Ganassi I mean Scott Dixon being shut out in the win column even if he is in inferior equipment. The man won in a Panoz-Toyota in 2005 and 2006 for crying out loud.

I think it would be a good move for this team to retain all four of its drivers from the previous season. We know Dixon, Kanaan and Kimball are confirmed and we wait on Chilton, whose only options appear to be Ganassi or going with whatever KV/Carlin agrees to be. I think Chilton might stay for a second season with Ganassi because he knows the crew and he can build off of his rookie year instead of starting over at a team trying to find its identity. We can debate whether Chilton was an upgrade over Sage Karam (he wasn't) but he is a competent driver who can bring the car home.

If Chilton doesn't return, Ganassi will probably only run three cars unless someone with a couple million dollars comes walking by. Should Ganassi subtract to three entries, it could open the door for a potential third car at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports or second entry at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing but neither are guaranteed to happen just because an engine lease is available. 

Despite the switch to Honda, Chip Ganassi Racing will be fine. Three in the top ten of the championship might not be likely but Scott Dixon will find a way to be in the championship discussion. 

Musings From the Weekend: Taking A Stroll

It rained in Texas and it delayed Cup race to Sunday night and Carl Edwards won the race, clinching a spot in the finale after rain ended it after 293 laps. No driver has clinched a spot in the finale for NASCAR's second division. One man is on a roll in a truck. Audis got together at Shanghai. An American took a world championship or sort of took a world championship if you want to get technical. A New Zealander won on home soil and is on the verge of a championship. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.

Taking A Stroll
Canada has a new Formula One driver and his debut will come twenty years after Jacques Villeneuve became the first Canadian to win the World Drivers' Championship. Lance Stroll follows in his fellow French-Canadian's footsteps, as he will join Valtteri Bottas at Williams. The 18-year old Canadian is fresh off winning the 2016 European Formula Three championship after winning 14 of 30 races. While Stroll's on-track success is worth noting, it isn't what has people talking about his rise to Formula One.

Stroll is the son of multibillionaire Lawrence Stroll, who made his money in the fashion industry with Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors. The elder Stroll has gone on to buy Circuit Mont-Tremblant and fund his son's career. The younger Stroll knows his family's wealth has helped him reach his dream of Formula One but he believes his success has gotten him his seat and not his bank account. Although, his father has reportedly spent $80 million to get his son to Formula One including purchasing Williams a high-tech simulator that current drivers Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas couldn't use as it was calibrated for Formula Three. We may need to have another conversation at another time about how Lawrence Stroll is no different than any other sports parent and is trying to live out a dream through his child, an $80 million dream at that.

You cannot deny Stroll's success. He did win the European Formula Three title and won it handily over the field with 502 points to runner-up Maximilian Günther's 320 points. In 2015, he won the Toyota Racing Series championship in New Zealand and finished fifth in his first season of European Formula Three. In 2014, he was Italian Formula Four champion. He clearly has some level of talent beyond novice and when you consider in recent years drivers such as Sakon Yamamoto got to Formula One with minimal success in Japan and mediocre results in Europe's junior series, Stroll must be at least a half dozen steps ahead of him and can probably be able to get to a competitive speed.

Despite Stroll's success and wealth, if there is one thing that should be questioned before he moves up to Formula One next year is whether or not he is mature enough mentally and as a driver. Max Verstappen moved to Formula One as a 17-year-old after only one season in European Formula Three. While Verstappen impressed many as a rookie with Toro Rosso and earned a midseason call up to Red Bull in his sophomore season, where he won on his debut with the team at Barcelona, the Dutch driver has been under some fire for aggressive driving this season and has led some to question whether he moved too quickly to Formula One. He had only 47 starts in his car racing career before he joined Toro Rosso.

Verstappen's track record in European Formula Three was quite clean with no major incidents. That isn't the case for Stroll. He enters Formula One with a few blemishes on his record. During the 2015 season, Stroll had three instances of reckless driving and it led to him to be disqualified from one race and banned from another. At the time, I wrote Stroll's punishment should have been even greater than a one-race ban to send the message that these driving standards are not acceptable at this level and they won't be acceptable at the next level. Since missing that race at Spa-Francorchamps, Stroll has been a much smarter and safer driver and outside of an accident on his out lap in the first practice session for the 24 Hours of Daytona where he drove a Daytona Prototype for Chip Ganassi Racing, he hasn't put a wheel wrong. But how will he drive when he is against much more experienced and more developed drivers in a much more technical car?

The question shouldn't be about Stroll's success or about Stroll's money. It should be about if his experience is diverse enough to handle a Formula One car. Stroll has raced 109 times since he started driving race cars in 2014 but all those starts have come in European Formula Three, the Toyota Racing Series, the Italian F4 championship and the Florida Winter Series, the same series where Max Verstappen got his first taste of driving a proper racing car. I would argue Stroll does not have diverse experience when it comes to handling higher-level race cars with more power and downforce. I think Stroll and any other driver in his situation would benefit from running GP2, GP3 or even sports cars to diversify their skill set.

One of the drivers Stroll ran off the road in 2015 was Antionio Giovinazzi, who was in his third-year of European Formula Three. While Giovinazzi played a role in that incident he has developed into one of the top prospect in European junior formulas and he has done so by running many different disciplines. He finished second in the European Formula Three championship that year and won the Masters of Formula Three race at Zandvoort and made his DTM debut. In 2016, Giovinazzi won two races in the Asian Le Mans Series with Sean Gelael, he leads the GP2 championship as the series heads to its finale later this month and he has been respectable driving for Extreme Speed Motorsports in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

What makes Giovinazzi's success any less impressive or less deserving than Stroll? This is where the money separates Stroll from Giovinazzi and a handful of other successful drivers hoping to break into Formula One. Stroll has earned the right not to be completely dismissed because of his wealth but his success and talent aren't the only reasons why Williams has signed him. Let's throw money and age out of the discussion and just take pure on track results. What makes World Endurance Drivers' Champion, three-time Le Mans winner and soon-to-be-former-Audi factory driver André Lotterer any less qualified than Stroll for that Williams seat? When you consider two DTM drivers (Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon) have been promoted to Formula One in the last year, a factory LMP1 driver wouldn't be a crazy hire. In another era, Lotterer would have had to be one of the top contenders for that seat but we live in an age where teams would rather take a risk on unknown youth than veterans that know all the tricks in the book.

We don't know who Lance Stroll is as a race car driver and that should a bigger concern than how much money he brings. We have one season where he made mistakes and was dangerous and another where he was calm and quick. That isn't a clear picture of who he is and isn't any clearer than the picture Max Verstappen portrayed to us when he was heading to Toro Rosso and now look at all the question that are raised about Verstappen. We will wait and see whether Stroll reverts to his 2015 form and becomes another young hazard or if he continues to make strides off his 2016 success and be praised as a gem of a signing for Williams.

Champions From the Weekend
The #36 Signatech Alpine-Nissan of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stéphane Richelmi clinched the FIA Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Drivers after a fourth-place finish at Shanghai.

Winners From the Weekend
You know about Edwards but did you know...

The #1 Porsche of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard won the 6 Hours of Shanghai. The #26 G-Drive Racing Oreca-Nissan of Romain Rusinov, Will Stevens and Alex Brundle won its second consecutive race in LMP2. The #67 Ford GT of Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell won its second consecutive race in GTE-Pro. The #98 Aston Martin of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda won its third consecutive race in GTE-Am.

Jamie Whincup and Shane Van Gisbergen won the Saturday Supercars races from Pukekohe Park Raceway. Mark Winterbottom and Whincup split the races on Sunday.

Kyle Larson won the NASCAR Grand National Series race from Texas. Johnny Sauter won the Truck race, his second consecutive victory.

Coming Up This Weekend
The Brazilian Grand Prix marks the penultimate round of the Formula One season.
Valencia marks the final round of the MotoGP season.
Phoenix marks the penultimate round of the NASCAR season.
Motegi marks the final round of the Super GT season and it is a doubleheader.
Marrakesh marks the second round of the Formula E season and the first African round in series history.

Friday Five: Shanghai, Texas Tripleheader, Pukekohe

The first weekend of November marks the beginning of the end for many series. Penultimate rounds take place in China and New Zealand while all three NASCAR national touring divisions head to their antepenultimate round of the season at Texas Motor Speedway. Championship could be wrapped up in the eastern hemisphere.

6 Hours of Shanghai
The penultimate round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship takes place at the Shanghai International Circuit for the fifth running of the 6 Hours of Shanghai.

Four teams are still alive of the World Endurance Drivers' Championship with the #2 Porsche of Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas on top with 140 points despite having not finished on the podium since their dramatic Le Mans triumph in June. The #6 Toyota of Mike Conway, Stéphane Sarrazin and Kamui Kobayashi won at Fuji three weeks and they are 23 points back of the #2 Porsche after three consecutive podium finishes. The #8 Audi of Oliver Jarvis, Lucas di Grassi and Loïc Duval are Audi's final hope to win a championship as the trio trails the #2 Porsche by 28.5 points with two races remaining. The defending champions of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard are still alive for the title and they trail their Porsche teammates by 46.5 points.

The FIA Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Drivers could be clinched this weekend. The #36 Signatech Apline-Nissan of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stéphane Richelmi led with 171 points and has a 38-point lead over the #43 RGR Sport by Morand Ligier-Nissan of Filipe Albuquerque, Bruno Senna and Ricardo González. Signatech has finished on the podium in the last six races while the RGR Sport group has four consecutive podium finishes. A podium finish will clinch the championship for Signatech.

The GTE-Pro championship is wide open. The #95 Aston Martin of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen lead with 119 points, nine ahead of the #71 AF Corse Ferrari of Davide Rigon and Sam Bird. Darren Turner trails his Aston Martin teammates by 15 points. Twenty-four points back is the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado, who have four consecutive podium finishes. Both Ford GTs are alive as the #66 Ford of Stefan Mücke and Olivier Pla sitting on 92 points with the #67 Ford of Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell staying alive on 79.5 points after victory at Fuji.

Three teams are fighting for the FIA Endurance Trophy of GTE-AM Drivers. The #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Emmanuel Collard, François Perrodo and Rui Águas have 155 points after winning two races and having six podiums from seven races. Thirty-three points back is the #98 Aston Martin of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda, who have won four races and have five podiums but have retired from two races this season. Khaled Al Qubaisi and David Heinemeier Hansson are 41 points back and Patrick Long joins them in the #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche.

The 6 Hours of Shanghai will begin at 11:00 p.m. ET on Saturday November 5th.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Jimmie Johnson clinched a shot at his seventh NASCAR Cup championship after winning at Martinsville and seven drivers look to join Johnson in the finale with a race to spare at Texas.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth are tied for second in points with 4,039 points. Their teammate and defending champion Kyle Busch is two points behind them in fourth. Joey Logano is the first driver on the outside looking in with 4,033 points. There is a sizable gap between Logano and Kevin Harvick in sixth as the 2014 championship is 12 points behind the Penske driver. Kurt Busch is two points behind his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate. Carl Edwards rounds on the top eight on 4,005 points.

Johnson heads to Texas having won five of the last nine Texas races including four consecutive victories in the autumn race at Texas. His average finish of 8.3 is the best among all active drivers with at least three starts at the track. Kenseth has the second-best average finish among active drivers at 9.5 with two victories but he has finished outside the top ten in the last three Texas races. Edwards has three Texas victories, the second-most at the track but he has not won there since 2008.

Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch each have two victories at Texas. Since sweeping the Texas races in 2010, Hamlin has finished outside the top ten in eight of his last ten Texas starts. Kyle Busch won at Texas in April has finished in the top five in six of the last seven Texas races. Logano won at Texas in April 2014 but in his eight autumn race starts he has finished outside the top ten in six races with an average finish of 20.75. Kurt Busch won the 2009 autumn race at Texas and he has three top ten finishes in the last four Texas races. Harvick is the only Chase driver to have yet to win in the Cup series at Texas. He has seven top ten finishes in his last nine Texas starts.

The Cup race will be at 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday November 6th.

NASCAR Xfinity Series
After two weeks off, the NASCAR Xfinity Series returns to action.

No driver has clinched a spot in the final race at Homestead as Kyle Busch won the race at Kansas. Elliott Sadler finished second at Kansas while Daniel Suárez finished third and the drivers are tied on 3,039 points. Seven points behind Sadler and Suárez is Blake Koch, who picked up his fourth top ten finish of the season with a ninth at Kansas. Justin Allgaier and Erik Jones are tied on 3,027 points for the final spot in the final race but Allgaier holds the tiebreaker after finishing 14th at Kansas, one spot ahead of Jones. Two points behind Allgaier and Jones is Ryan Reed with Brendan Gaughan sitting on 3,010 points and Darrell Wallace, Jr. a point behind Gaughan.

Jones leads all championship-eligible drivers with four victories but has only 17 top ten finishes. He is the only Chase driver to have won at Texas in the Xfinity Series as he took his first career victory at Texas in the spring of 2015. Sadler has three victories but leads all drivers with 27 top ten finishes from 30 races. Suárez has eight consecutive top ten finishes. Koch's best finish this season was eighth at Richmond in April and Bristol in August. Allgaier is tied with Suárez with 24 top ten finishes but Allgaier has only led 26 laps from 30 starts. Reed has started in the top ten in only four races this season. Gaughan heads to Texas coming off the heels of his worst finish of the season, 31st at Kansas. Wallace, Jr. has one top ten finish in the last seven races.

The Xfinity Series race will be at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday November 5th.

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
After his victory at Martinsville, Johnny Sauter has clinched a shot at the championship at the final race of the season at Homestead as five drivers are vying for the final three spots. Sauter leads all drivers this season with 16 top ten finishes from 20 races.

Christopher Bell is second in the championship with 3,029 points and is one-point ahead of Timothy Peters. William Byron leads the Truck series with six victories but he is on the bubble with 3,025 points. Nine points behind Byron and the first driver on the outside looking in is two-time Truck champion Matt Crafton and has finished outside the top fifteen in the last two races. Ben Kennedy is ten points behind Byron after finishing 18th at Martinsville.

Sauter and Crafton lead all championship-eligible drivers with two Texas victories each. Crafton has five consecutive top five finishes at Texas and ten consecutive top ten finishes at the track. Byron won at Texas in June in what is his only start at Texas. In two Texas starts, Bell has finished eighth and 32nd after an engine failure on the first lap in June. Peters has finished sixth in the last two Texas races but he has only one top five finish and five top ten finishes in 17 starts at the track. Kennedy has three consecutive top ten finishes at Texas with his best finish being fourth this past June. Toyota has won five consecutive Truck races at Texas.

The Truck race will be at 8:30 p.m. ET on Friday November 4th.

Pukekohe
The penultimate round of the Supercar championship takes the series to the lone New Zealand round in the championship at Pukekohe Park Raceway. Five drivers are alive for the championship and a New Zealander leads the way.

Shane Van Gisbergen heads to his home country coming off his sixth victory of the season at Surfers Paradise and he finished on the podium in all four races in the Enduro Cup portion of the season. Van Gisbergen has 2,812 points, 148 points ahead of his Red Bull Racing Australia teammate Jamie Whincup. Whincup won the second half of the Surfers Paradise weekend. Craig Lowndes makes it a clean sweep of the top three for Red Bull Racing Australia but he has only won podium in his last six races. Volvo driver Scott McLaughlin is coming off a double podium weekend at Surfers Paradise and he trails his fellow New Zealander by 461 points. Bathurst winner Will Davison is the final driver mathematically eligible for the title but he trails by 577 points with only 600 points left on the table.

Holden and Ford have alternated winning the last seven races with Whincup winning two of the three races held at Pukekohe Park Raceway last year. This year's visit to Pukekohe will have four races. Whincup is tied for second-most victories at the track among active drivers with Garth Tander on three. Jason Bright leads all active drivers with four victories at the track. Van Gisbergen and McLaughlin each have a victory at their home track with McLaughlin winning there in 2013 and Van Gisbergen in 2014. Davison also won one of the three races at Pukekohe in 2013. Lowndes has never won at Pukekohe but has two runner-up finishes, four podiums, nine top ten finishes and 17 top ten finishes in 32 starts at the track.

Two races will be held on Saturday November 5th at 2:25 p.m. and 4:45 p.m. local time. The other two will be on Sunday November 6th at 2:25 p.m. and 4:45 p.m. local time. 


Over/Unders
1. Over or Under: 12.5 laps between the LMP1 winner and LMP2 winner?
2. Over or Under: 0.5 Chase drivers finishing outside the top 25 of the Cup race?
3. Over or Under: 3.5 Chase drivers in the top five of the Xfinity Series race?
4. Over or Under: 62.5 laps lead by the Truck race winner?
5. Over or Under: 135.5 points between Shane Van Gisbergen and Jamie Whincup after Pukekohe?

Last Week's Over/Unders
1. Under: The gap between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton is 19 points.
2. Over: Toyotas lead 371 laps at Martinsville.
3. Under: British riders combined for three points at Sepang.
4. Over? Because Niki Tuuli didn't race.
5. Under: Yuji Kunimoto and André Lotterer were the only drivers to score 30 points or more.

Predictions
1. The GTE-Am championship is not wrapped up at Shanghai.
2. Martin Truex, Jr. is one of the top three Toyota finishers in the Cup race.
3. The average speed for the Xfinity Series race will exceed 136 MPH.
4. A non-Chase driver wins the Truck race.
5. Craig Lowndes wins at least one race and is on the podium for at least one other at Pukekohe.

Last Week's Predictions
1. A Ferrari driver finishes on the podium (Wrong. You probably know the story by now).
2. Jeff Gordon finishes ahead of at least two of his teammates (Correct. Gordon finished sixth ahead of Chase Elliott and Kasey Kahne).
3. A rider that hasn't finished on the podium in the last two races finishes on the podium at Sepang (Correct. Jorge Lorenzo finished third).
4. Neither Superbike race from Qatar features an all-British podium (Wrong. The second race was an all-British podium).
5. André Lotterer wins at least one of the two races (Wrong. Lotterer finished second in both races).
Last Week: 2/5 Overall: 15/30

IndyCar Wrap-Up: Ed Carpenter Racing's 2016 Season

The antepenultimate IndyCar Wrap-Up brings us to everybody's favorite little team that could and overcome adversity. CFH Racing morphed back into Ed Carpenter Racing after only one season after Wink Hartman withdrew his funding after the decreased prices in the oil industry. Despite the shift in the front office, the team didn't take a step back on the race track.

Josef Newgarden's final year with Ed Carpenter Racing turned out to be his best

Josef Newgarden
The Tennessee-native had another career year, however it started out slowly at St. Petersburg. He qualified 11th and set fastest lap in the race but electrical gremlins ended his day after 47 laps. At Phoenix he completed all 250 miles but not without incident as Charlie Kimball chopped him in turn one and he was caught out by a caution but was able to rebound for a sixth-place finish. Long Beach was a good day with a tenth-place finish but he wasn't able to challenge the front-runners. He returned to Barber a year after his first career victory. He started third and was in the top five all race and was running fourth late but made a daring pass on Will Power in lapped traffic to get the final spot on the podium.

After having a top four qualifying time disallowed for the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, he started 25th, last on the grid and worked his way to about 15th but couldn't make much more ground. A blend line violation dropped him to 21st in the final results. He qualified in the middle of the front row for the Indianapolis 500 and was in the top five pretty much for the entire race. After Ryan Hunter-Reay and Townsend Bell took each other out and James Hinchcliffe slipped back a few positions, it appeared it was falling into Newgarden's hands. However, Alexander Rossi ran the fastest race and Carlos Muñoz jumped Newgarden during the final splashes dropping him to third. At Belle Isle, Newgarden was the one who had to conserve fuel and he dropped from a top ten finish to 14th. In race two he started 17th but fought his way to fourth with a little help from a timely yellow.

At Texas, Newgarden ran at the front after starting in the top five and was in the wrong place when Conor Daly lost it exiting turn four. Newgarden fractured his collarbone and hand in the accident. It appeared he would miss a few races but he returned with screws in his shoulder for Road America. A spin in qualifying relegated him to 20th on the grid but he fought his way to eighth. Just a month after his injuries Newgarden qualified second at Iowa and went on to lead 282 of 300 laps in root to his first career oval victory. Newgarden could recapture the magic at Toronto. Juan Pablo Montoya hit Newgarden exiting turn two, dislodging the right rear tire guard and forcing him to pit. He would then slam the turn five barrier on lap 58.

He started third at Mid-Ohio but for the second consecutive race a Penske driver clipped him and forced him to make a pit stop. This time it was Will Power and while Power went on to finish second, Newgarden battled his way back to a tenth-place finish. It was another impressive showing on a 2.5-mile oval for him as he started second again but this time finished fourth after Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay worked their ways to the front. While 20 drivers restarted the Texas race, Newgarden got a night off before heading to Watkins Glen. He started 12th at the famed road course and stopped just before the Mikhail Aleshin caution. In position for a top five finish, Newgarden conserved enough to coast to a runner-up finish, about 16 seconds behind the dominant Scott Dixon. In the finale, Newgarden qualified tenth and ran in the top ten all race before finished sixth. He missed third in the championship by two points to Hélio Castroneves.

Josef Newgarden's 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 4th (504 points)
Wins: 1
Podiums: 4
Top Fives: 6
Top Tens: 11
Laps Led: 313
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 3
Fast Twelves: 8
Average Start: 9.4375
Average Finish: 9.9375

It wasn't a bad rookie year for Spencer Pigot

Spencer Pigot
The 2015 Indy Lights champion started his IndyCar career by taking his scholarship to Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing where Pigot ran at St. Petersburg and both Indianapolis races. His debut saw him start 21st and finished a respectable 14th behind fellow rookies Alexander Rossi and Conor Daly. In the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, Pigot started 18th and worked his way to 11th. He had an accident during Indianapolis 500 practice and ended up starting 29th. He had a respectable race under he ran out of fuel under caution and finished five laps down in 25th.

It appeared Pigot's season was done after fulfilling the scholarship but he was signed to run the remaining road and street courses for Ed Carpenter Racing after Indianapolis. Pigot went to Belle Isle no previous experience working with the team. He started 21st in race one and had a good race going until being penalized for hitting pit equipment, dropping him a lap down and to 17th. He started a position better in race two but a suspension failure left him with an 18th-place finish.

His first permanent road course race was at Road America and started 17th but worked his way up to ninth-place, his first career top ten finish. He started 21st again at Toronto and managed 19th. Pigot stopped early at Mid-Ohio after starting 19th and benefitted from an early caution that vaulted him to the top ten. He held his ground and came home with a seventh-place finish. Pigot tried to stretch fuel at Watkins Glen and ended up finishing 15th. His season ended prematurely at Sonoma as a gearbox issue halted him after 35 laps.

Spencer Pigot's 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 21st (165 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 2
Laps Led: 0
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 20.7
Average Finish: 15.7

Things aren't going the right direction for Ed Carpenter as a driver

Ed Carpenter
The oval-only schedule has been looking more and more like a bad idea for Ed Carpenter and 2016 was another step back for the owner-driver. The season started well, and earlier than usual for Carpentry as he qualified fifth at Phoenix and was running in the top ten but got in the marbles exiting turn four and hit the barrier. At Indianapolis, he started 20th, his worst starting position in the race but worked his way to the front only to have an engine expire just prior to the halfway point of the race.

He qualified seventh at Iowa and was in the top ten all race until a gearbox issue cost him dearly and dropped him to 18th, finishing 16 laps behind his victories teammate Newgarden. He had another engine failure at Pocono, this one coming just over a quarter of the way into the race after he started tenth. At Texas, Carpenter ran at the front all night and for a moment appeared to be the only driver who could challenge James Hinchcliffe. Then he got into an incident with Scott Dixon and five laps after that he go into Hélio Castroneves and Max Chilton exiting turn four and his race and season was over 25 laps before the finish.

Ed Carpenter's 2016 Statistics
Championship Positions: 25th (67 points)
Wins: 0
Podiums: 0
Top Fives: 0
Top Tens: 0
Best Finish: 18th (Iowa and Texas)
Laps Led: 1
Poles: 0
Fast Sixes: 0
Fast Twelves: 0
Average Start: 11.5
Average Finish: 21.8

This is a team in transition and I don't know where it is going. Josef Newgarden is gone and Ed Carpenter should shake his hand and give him a kiss on the cheek for all he did for that team. Now the team is without its golden boy and one-and-a-half seats open. Talk about big shoes to fill especially for a low-funded team. The next step for the team is crucial and losing Jeremy Milless to Andretti Autosport hasn't helped the team.

There are plenty of drivers out there but can any of them replicated half of what Newgarden did? Newgarden turned the team into a championship contender. Conor Daly isn't going to be able to do that in 2017. Maybe after a year or so but whether it is Daly, Spencer Pigot, JR Hildebrand, Sage Karam or whomever it could be in the #21 Chevrolet the goal should be to at least finish in the top ten of the championship.

Pigot deserves more than two-thirds of the season and running the road and street courses with the Indianapolis 500. Is that enough of a splash for the #21 Chevrolet? Then comes Ed Carpenter. While the owner-driver only does oval races and there were only five in 2016 and there will be six in 2017 and he had mechanical issues ends his day in two races, Carpenter was running at the finish of one race and that was 16 laps down. He is 35 years old, turns 36 years old in March and while he might not want to hear it and he might still have plenty in the tank, maybe he should consider stepping out of the car for the abbreviated season he does and have two full-time cars going for the championship. Funding is hard to come by but if Carpenter wants to run himself in a third-car for all the ovals beyond Indianapolis, that is fine but I think the best thing for the team would be two full-time cars.

Considering entering the 2016 season this team lost the support of Wink Hartman, Newgarden and company persevered and ended up with fourth in the championship. Now the team has lost Newgarden, the technical guru Milless and the team doesn't appear to be in that much better of a financial situation. The team has only been around since 2012 and Ed Carpenter Racing has been the poster team for entering IndyCar and becoming a contender. The team faces its greatest obstacle as it enters a new phase of its existence.

1000 Words: IROC

Friday marked the tenth anniversary of the final IROC race. Don't feel bad if you had forgotten about it, where it was, who the winner was and who took the final championship. Martin Truex, Jr. won the race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the second consecutive year he won the finale after he won at Atlanta the year prior. Tony Stewart clinched the IROC XXX championship with a third-place finish that day and he had won the two races prior at Texas Motor Speedway and on the road course at Daytona International Speedway. 

I don't know why I was infatuated with IROC. Looking back, I might have been the only one that cared. Maybe it was just because it was another race to watch and the realest thing we had to an all-star, best vs. best competition in motorsports even though it wasn't that close to being a true best vs. best competition. If you watched the final decade of IROC, you would have known that it was a NASCAR-heavy series. 

Take the final season as an example: Five full-time Cup drivers (Stewart, Truex, Jr., Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman and Mark Martin, who won the IROC title in 2005), the Trucks champion (Ted Musgrave) and filling the second-half of the field was Max Papis, two years removed from winning the Grand-Am title, the defending Grand-Am champions of Wayne Taylor and Max Angelelli who split a car, with Taylor taking the bookends of the season, the seven-time ARCA champion Frank Kimmel who was working on his eight, Sam Hornish, Jr. who finished third in the IRL championship and two victories the year before, Scott Sharp who was coming off fifth in the 2005 IRL season and won a race that year, and Steve Kinser who became IROC's 12th man for the final few seasons. 

IROC rarely was an international race of champions. The series never raced outside the United States. It never made a trek to Canada to Mexico. In fact, all 30 champions were Americans and the only one that wasn't American-born was Mario Andretti. The inaugural season in 1973-74 featured ten Americans but had two World Drivers' Champions in Emerson Fittipaldi, who would win the title in 1974 and Denis Hulme. Peter Revson made it three Formula One drivers on the grid and he won two races in the 1973 season. Defending Can-Am champion Mark Donohue won the championship. George Follmer, 1972 Can-Am champion, was the second Can-Am driver on the grid. Bobby Unser, A.J. Foyt, George Johncock and Roger McCluskey represented USAC. David Pearson, Bobby Allison and Richard Petty represented NASCAR. 

The series tried to draw out the best from Formula One. Fittipaldi did another season. Ronnie Peterson, Graham Hill and Jody Scheckter participated in the second season. James Hunt did one season and pulled out after the first race of his second season to focus on Formula One. Jacky Ickx and Gunnar Nilsson contested the 1977-78 season. The 1979 and 1980 seasons featured a qualifying format with three races for eight NASCAR drivers, eight USAC drivers and eight road racing (Formula One, IMSA, etc.) drivers with the top four advancing to a two-legged finale with one race on a road course and one on an oval. In those seasons Alan Jones, Clay Regazzoni, Patrick Depailler, John Watson, Niki Lauda and Keke Rosberg all contested in the series. 

After IROC's first hiatus after the 1980 season, Formula One drivers never returned and the series became a NASCAR vs. IndyCar vs. sports car series. The series did get a little more international. The tenth season in 1986 featured the Germans Klaus Ludwig, Hans Stuck and Jochen Mass but other than those three it was guys named Unser, Elliott, Yarborough, Waltrip, Gant, Rahal, Haywood and Mears. In fact, outside of the 1979 and 1980 seasons with the three-race qualifying format, the series never featured more than three international drivers in a season.

While the first season was entirely on road courses with three races at Riverside and the finale on the Daytona road course, the series did a complete 180º turn by its final years. During the 1980s, there was a mix with races on the ovals and road courses but by 1992 all races where on ovals and it would be that way until the final season. Daytona typically opened the season. Michigan was regular on the schedule from the mid-1970s until the turn of the 21st century. Talladega was on the schedule often. Riverside hosted 16 races before it closed. 

The series bounced from track to track. Outside of Daytona, Riverside, Michigan and Talladega, the track that hosted the most IROC races was Indianapolis, which hosted IROC six times. The series raced at Atlanta and Watkins Glen five times, Darlington, Fontana, Mid-Ohio and Texas three times, Cleveland, Charlotte, Chicagoland and Richmond twice. Nazareth was the only track to host only one IROC race. 

Could IROC exist today? I remember around the end of IROC that Jeff Burton said something that the changing landscape of motorsports made the series obsolete, as more series were becoming single-spec series in certain elements. IndyCar was down to just Dallara and Honda. NASCAR was going to the Car of Tomorrow. The other issue was cars were being developed for a four-race series. The length didn't justify the costs. The length of races would be friendly today as most races took around an hour (except for the final road course race at Daytona which took nearly 90 minutes because IROC didn't count caution laps) and could be scheduled nicely in a television window. The actual length of the schedule wouldn't be a good thing. The final season had a race in February, April, July and October. We live in a hyper-attentive world in 2016. It can't be too long but it can't be too short. 

Would drivers do it? I am sure there are drivers that would want to compete for the love of racing but drivers are surrounded by bubble wrap more than ever. The issue would be getting drivers that are desirable. You could probably get Trevor Bayne to do it but could you get Kyle Busch? Formula One drivers wouldn't be allowed to. The difficult thing is getting it to work around every driver's schedule. When NASCAR drivers became the core of the grid, races were held on NASCAR weekends.

The biggest issue is money. What company is going to pony up the millions of dollars it is going to take to support a purse large enough to draw top drivers, cover the costs of the cars and be able to draw eyeballs to the television set, computer screen and get people into the grandstands? 

For kicks and giggles, let's just brainstorm how IROC could exist in this messed up world that we call the year 2016 or rather let's imagine it for 2017 because today is the final day of October. What would it look like? I see a balance, two ovals and two road courses. Open the season at Daytona on the oval during Speedweeks, preferably the Friday evening before the Truck race like it was in the final few seasons. After that there will be a somewhat lengthy hiatus as the next round would be at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Carb Day. The penultimate round would take place at Montreal on the Saturday of Canadian Grand Prix weekend. The season ends the last weekend at June at Road America on Saturday and in conjunction with the IndyCar race. 

The car would need to be something that is already in existence and readily available. Spec Miatas or Porsche Carrera Cup cars would make sense but the issue with both is having them race on ovals. I am sure it can be done though. The roster of drivers needs to be diverse but what series to choose from and should there be a limit of amount per series? It would be nice to see the champions from Formula One, IndyCar, NASCAR, WEC, IMSA, Supercars, USAC, World of Outlaws, DTM and a few other drivers sprinkled in. For pure fantasy let's imagine a grid with Lewis Hamilton, Simon Pagenaud, Kyle Busch, Romain Dumas, Dane Cameron, Shane Van Gisbergen, Marco Wittmann, Donny Schatz, Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Harvick, Scott Dixon, Alexander Rossi, Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber, Pipo Derani and Sébastien Buemi. 

I might be alone in this boat of missing IROC. In fact, I am not sure if anyone outside of the United States knew IROC existed. I guess that just adds to the oxymoronic nature of the series. I remember when Tony Stewart won the title he said he would return the $1 million prize for an IROC race at Eldora Raceway in 2007. Unfortunately, that never happened. In a way, Stewart's IROC idea and the charity Prelude to the Dream all-star race sparked interest in major series racing on dirt and has led to the NASCAR Truck race at Eldora in July. 

IROC is gone and is likely never going to comeback. The money does flow through motorsports like it once did and the appetite doesn't appear to be there. It was fun while it lasted.

Musings From the Weekend: Montoya is Moving On by Staying Put

Lewis Hamilton kept his championship hopes alive with a victory at Mexico City but Nico Rosberg could clinch the World Drivers' Championship with a victory in Brazil in two weeks. Max Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo all finished third yesterday. NASCAR had scoring issues despite having electric timing and scoring. A Welshman ended 2016 on fire but an Englishman took a championship for the second consecutive year. Marc Márquez fell again. There was a photo finish; André Lotterer was a bridesmaid three times on Sunday and the Asian Le Mans Series season started in Zhuhai. Today is Halloween. Here is a run down of what got me thinking.

Montoya is Moving On by Staying Put
I was watching the world feed of Friday practice for the Mexican Grand Prix. The fifteen minutes prior to the green light turning on and the clock striking two in the afternoon local time was full of shots of fans waving at the camera, drivers walking in the paddock and being stopped for a photo or autograph and other guests at the track. The audio isn't great. It's good if you like the sound of ambiance of a race weekend. The PA announcer letting fans know when the next session begins, the beeping noises from a garage stall and occasionally the cameras pick up a conversation. Most times the conversations are about nothing. At 2:46:33 p.m. ET on Friday, the conversation eased dropped on was truly something.

Juan Pablo Montoya was at the track this weekend doing commentary for the Latin American coverage. He was hanging out in the Williams garage for part of the day and probably meeting old friends and former co-workers. I joked he was there putting feelers out for a return and gauging how interested teams would be in a guy who left Formula One a decade ago. At 2:46:33 p.m. ET, Montoya wasn't at the Williams garage. He was in the Red Bull hospitality area with Christian Horner and Dr. Helmut Marko sitting around a table, Horner to his right and Marko ahead of him. The camera was close enough to catch the conversation. Marko asked, "what are your plans for next year?" Montoya answered, "I am going to stay with Penske. Do Indy only next year." And then the background noise picked up and between the ambiance you could here him mention sports cars and Le Mans but the exact wording of his sentence wasn't clear. Montoya follows by saying, "I wanted to stay in Indy but..." and the camera and audio fades away to a scenic shot of the Mexico City skyline.

Montoya could be yanking our chain. How couldn't he have seen the camera? But he could have underestimated the strength of the microphone and in what he thought was a semi-private sit down with his former boss (Montoya drove for Marko in the 1997 International Formula 3000 Championship) and former competitor (Montoya drove against Horner in International Formula 3000 in 1997 and 1998. Montoya finished second and won the championship those two years. Horner scored one point and zero points in those respective seasons) it appears he has revealed his future plans to the attentive listeners. I have to believe he is telling the truth. Why would he lie to Marko and Horner, especially when his history with the two men dates back nearly 20 years? A journalist, I could see him lying to. The man who gave him his first break? I have to think Montoya wouldn't lie to Marko.

Why would Montoya choose Penske's offer of just the Indianapolis 500 and some sports car program that is still a mystery when he says he wants to stay in IndyCar and was rumored to be a possible driver at Ganassi, Foyt and ECR? First, he knows that race is worth more than the championship. Win the Indianapolis 500 and you get around $2.5 million. Win the IndyCar championship and you get $1 million. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what is the better deal and Montoya knows Penske is always in contention at Indianapolis. Second, the three teams listed above probably wanted/needed Montoya to bring money and at 41 years old he probably doesn't want to open his checkbook or search for sponsors and you can't blame the man. Two Indianapolis 500 victories, an IndyCar championship, seven victories in Formula One, two victories in NASCAR and three 24 Hours of Daytona successes is enough to show that Montoya deserves to be paid up front and rest in his hammock during the offseason, not go boardroom to boardroom begging for dimes. Third, he has a chance to make history in sports cars and the schedule would be a little more relaxed the IndyCar schedule.

If what the microphones picked up turns out to be true, the IndyCar landscape is on the cusp of a significant shift in 2017. Conor Daly was one driver who was also rumored for the seats at Foyt and ECR just like Montoya. Has his life gotten a little bit easier and could the same be said for Spencer Pigot? The fight for the #21 ECR Chevrolet is still a contentious one as Daly, Pigot and JR Hildebrand are all vying for it but regardless of who ends up in the #21 Chevrolet, a driver who has been on the periphery the last few years will get a ride with a team that has challenged for the championship. Daly could be marked as the favorite for the second Foyt seat as Tony Kanaan and Montoya were the other drivers seriously linked with Foyt and both are staying with Ganassi and Penske respectively. Barring a cruel winter, I think Daly is in for a treat come 2017.

What about the fourth Ganassi? It appeared it was either Montoya, retaining Max Chilton or that entry falling off the grid. Montoya is out and unless Ganassi is talking to someone else behind the scenes it appears Chilton is either going to return or that seat will disappear. I think this bodes well for Chilton, who wanted to know sooner rather than later whether Ganassi were going to retain him or not. While Chilton's father owns interest in Carlin and Carlin could be getting in bed with KV, I think the younger Chilton knows success is more likely if he stays with Ganassi for a second season than going to an operation in transition for his sophomore season.

Montoya's second IndyCar spell lasted a year longer than the first and he showed, despite almost a decade and a half after he dazzled us winning the CART title as a rookie and then winning the Indianapolis 500 as rookie, he is truly one of the greatest races of all-time and a throwback to a bygone era when a driver running multiple disciplines was a norm. Now it appears he hopes to continue to climb the stairs of greatest to a level where only Graham Hill breathes: Triple Crown winner. All that is in Montoya's way is 24 hours at Le Mans.

Champions From the Weekend
Jonathan Rea clinched his second consecutive World Superbike championship with a second-place finish in race one from Qatar. He finished third in race two.

Yuji Kunimoto won the Super Formula championship after a victory and sixth-place finish in the season finale at Suzuka.

Johann Zarco clinched the Moto2 title with his victory at Sepang.

Winners From the Weekend
You know about Hamilton, Kunimoto and Zarco but did you know...

Jimmie Johnson won the NASCAR Cup race from Martinsville and will have a shot for his seventh championship at Homestead. Johnny Sauter won the Truck race.

Andrea Dovizioso became the ninth different winner in MotoGP this season by winning the Malaysian Grand Prix. Francesco Bagnaia won in Moto3.

Stoffel Vandoonre won the second half of the Super Formula doubleheader from Suzuka.

Chaz Davies swept the World Superbike races from Qatar, his third consecutive race weekend swept. Kyle Smith won the World Supersport finale by 0.006 seconds over Kenan Sofuoglu.

Sébastien Ogier won Wales Rally GB, his fourth consecutive victory of the season.

The #35 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca-Nissan of Gustavo Menezes and Ho-Pin Tung won the Asian Le Mans Series 4 Hours of Fuji. The #1 Jackie Chan DC Racing Ligier-Nissan of David Cheng, Pu Jun Jin and James Winslow won in LMP3. The #38 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GT3 of Marco Cioci, Rui Águas and Nasrat Muzayyin won in GT.

Coming Up This Weekend
The FIA World Endurance Championship heads to its penultimate round of the season in Shanghai.
NASCAR returns to Texas for the antepenultimate round for all three series.
Supercars head east to New Zealand for its penultimate round.

Friday Five: Mexico City, Martinsville, Sepang, Qatar and Suzuka

The final weekend of October sees races from Appalachia to the Persian Gulf. Formula One returns to its new favorite party site and the championship could be decided this weekend. While we aren't sure about the title in Formula One, three championships will come to an end this weekend and two will see a champion crowned, one of which will be done at night.

Mexican Grand Prix
The antepenultimate round of the 2016 Formula One season takes place at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City for the Mexican Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton is fresh off his fourth victory at Circuit of the Americas and he looks to sweep the North American races after winning in Montreal in June. Hamilton decreased the margin to teammate Nico Rosberg in the World Drivers' Championship to 26 points as the German finished second after benefitting from being able to pit under the virtual safety car, jumping Rosberg ahead of Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo. If Hamilton wins the final three races and Rosberg finishes second in each of the final three races, Rosberg would take the championship by five points. Rosberg won last year's Mexican Grand Prix with Hamilton finishing second. Rosberg could clinch the title with a victory and Hamilton failing to score any points.

Daniel Ricciardo could clinch third in the world championship at Mexico City. The Australia has 277 points, fifty clear of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. Barring either Kimi Räikkönen or Max Verstappen winning the Mexican Grand Prix, if Ricciardo scores one point more than Vettel this weekend third in the championship will be his, matching his best finish in the world championship, which occurred in 2014. Vettel has finished fourth in the last two races while Räikkönen and Verstappen both retired at Austin. Five points separate the Finn and Dutchman in the championship while Vettel is only seven points clear of his teammate.

Sergio Pérez heads home seventh in the championship on 84 points and has finished in the points in seven consecutive races. Pérez finished eighth in last year's Mexican Grand Prix. He is three points ahead of Valtteri Bottas and 30 points clear of his Force India teammate Nico Hülkenberg. Fernando Alonso's fifth-place finish in Austin jumped him ahead of Felipe Massa in the championship and is two points behind Hülkenberg. Massa is three points behind Alonso with 49 points.

Carlos Sainz, Jr.'s sixth-place finish at Austin has him on 38 points while Romain Grosjean has 29 points, four clear of Daniil Kvyat. Jenson Button's two points at Austin increases his total to 21 points. Kevin Magnussen has seven points. Jolyon Palmer, Pascal Wehrlein and Stoffel Vandoorne are all tied on a point. Esteban Gutiérrez heads home and looks to score his first point since the 2013 Japanese Grand Prix. Sauber drivers Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr are each still looking for their first points of the season. Esteban Ocon has not scored in his first six starts.

The Mexican Grand Prix will be held at 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday October 30th.

Martinsville Raceway
NASCAR is down to its final four series in the Cup Series and eight drivers remain championship eligible.

Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano enter after winning the three races in the previous round. Johnson ended the second round on top of the points with 3,100 points. Kurt Busch was second in points, one behind the six-time champion. The 2004 champion has finished in the top ten in all even-numbered Chase races but his best finish in odd-numbered Chase races is 13th but his worst finish in the Chase is 15th. His fourth-place finish at Talladega was his best of the Chase and best since finishing fourth at Kentucky at July.

Logano was third in points, 11 points behind Johnson with Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch rounding out the top five, a point and five points behind Logano. Kenseth and the defending champion Busch had finished in the top ten in all five Chase races prior to Talladega, where they and Carl Edwards rode at the back of the field. Harvick and Edwards ended tied on points with 3,082 points. Harvick has won two races in the Chase while Edwards has only two top ten finishes in the Chase. Denny Hamlin was the final driver to make the semifinal round after advancing on tiebreaker over Austin Dillon. His third-place finish at Talladega was his best finish of the Chase.

Johnson and Hamlin lead the Chase drivers in victories and average finish at Martinsville. Johnson has eight victories and an average finish of 7.5 while Hamlin has won five and an average finish of 9.5. Kurt Busch has two victories at Martinsville while his brother scored his first cup win at Martinsville in the spring and Harvick has one victory at the short track. The elder Busch brother has the worst average finish at the track of the Chase drivers at 21.2.

Jeff Gordon returns for his 47th Martinsville start substituting for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Gordon won for the ninth time at Martinsville last October and he has 29 top five finishes and 37 top ten finishes at the track. He is tied with Richard Petty for most top ten finishes all-time at Martinsville. Gordon has been running at the finish of all 46 of his Martinsville starts and has completed 22,769 of a possible 22,890 laps.

The 500-lap race from Martinsville will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday October 30th. 

Malaysian motorcycle Grand Prix
Two weeks after clinching his third MotoGP championship and one week after falling while leading at Phillip Island, Marc Márquez heads to Malaysia trying to get his sixth victory of the season. Márquez retired from last year's race at Sepang after contact with Valentino Rossi where the Italian was ruled to have intentionally knocked the Spaniard off his bike. In seven starts at Sepang, Márquez has two victories with one coming in his 2010 125cc championship season and the other in his 2014 MotoGP championship season.

Valentino Rossi is currently second in the championship and could cement himself as vice-champion this weekend. He has 216 points holds a 24-point advantage over his Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo. Rossi has the most Malaysian Grand Prix victories with seven, six of which have come at Sepang. Jorge Lorenzo has never won in MotoGP at Sepang. His only victory at the track was in 2006 during his 250cc championship season.

After consecutive third-place finishes, Suzuki's Maverick Viñales sits fourth in the championship and is 11 points behind Lorenzo, the man he will be replacing next year at Yamaha. Viñales won at Sepang in 2011 in the 125cc class and won in 2014 in Moto2. The last Suzuki victory at Sepang was in 2000 by Kenny Roberts, Jr. Dani Pedrosa will miss this weekend's race due to a collarbone injury. It is his third consecutive race missed. Pedrosa had won three of the last four MotoGP races at Sepang and he is tied with Mick Doohan and Max Biaggi for second all-time in Malaysian Grand Prix victories with five. Hiroshi Aoyama substitutes in for the injured Spaniard.

After winning his second race of the season at Phillip Island, Cal Crutchlow sits on 141 points and is four points ahead of Andrea Dovizioso. Pol Espargaró has 117 points, 20 behind Dovizioso. Andrea Iannone is set to return after missing the last four races due to a fractured vertebra. Iannone has 96 points and is ninth in the championship. Héctor Barberá rounds out the top ten with 84 points, two ahead of Aleix Espargaró.

MotoGP's Malaysian Grand Prix will take place at 3:00 a.m. ET on Sunday October 30th.

Qatar
The final round of the 2016 World Superbike season takes place at Losail International Circuit in Qatar. The championship will be one of the two Kawasaki riders Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes with Rea all but assured to take the title.

Rea leads Sykes by 48 points with 50 points left on the table. For Sykes to take the title he would need to sweep the weekend and have Rea fail to score two points or more. Rea holds the tiebreaker with nine victories to Sykes' five victories. Rea has 21 podiums from 24 races while Sykes has been on the podium on 19 occasions.

Ducati rider Chaz Davies enters the season finale having won the last four races and five of the last six. He has 15 podiums this season. Davies will finish third in the championship. Honda riders Michael van der Mark and Nicky Hayden are fourth and fifth in the championship. The Dutchman has 255 points to the American's 228 points. Hayden is the only non-British rider to win this season after he won in the wet at Malaysia. Ducati's Davide Giugliano sits on 197 points, two ahead of BMW rider Jordi Torres.

Qatar also marks the final round of the World Supersport season. Kenan Sofuoglu locked up the title with his victory at Jerez. Three riders are within seven points of second. Swiss Kawasaki rider Randy Krummenacher sits on 129 points, five ahead of MV Agusta's Jules Cluzel and seven ahead of Honda American rider P.J. Jacobsen. Krummenacher won the season opener at Phillip Island but only has two podiums since. The Frenchman Cluzel has won two races, at Buriram and Magny-Cours. Jacobsen has four podiums, including runner-up finishes at Donington Park and Misano. The quiet star of Supersport has been Finnish Yamaha rider Niki Tuuli, who has finished second-place in each of his three Supersport starts this season. He finished ninth in his Supersport debut last year at Donington Park.

The first Superbike race will take place at 1:00 p.m. ET on Saturday October 29th. The Supersport finale will be at 12:15 p.m. ET on Sunday October 30th with the final Superbike race starting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Suzuka
A dozen drivers are still alive for the Super Formula championship as the season heads to the season finale doubleheader at the Suzuka Circuit.

Yuhi Sekiguchi leads with 28 points after he scored his second victory of the season in the most recent round at Sportsland SUGO. Four and a half points behind Sekiguchi is Yuji Kunimoto, who won the second half of Okayama doubleheader. André Lotterer trails by six points but has only one podium this season, a second at Motegi. Two-time Super Formula champion Kazuki Nakajima sits on 20 points and has finished second at Fuji and Okayama.

Defending champion Hiroaki Ishiura and McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne are tied on 19 points. Both drivers won at Okayama with Ishiura taking the rain-shortened race in May while Vandoorne won the first race of the doubleheader in September. Three and a half points behind the two Honda drivers is 2013 champion Naoki Yamamoto, who won the season opener at Suzuka. João Paulo de Oliviera has 12.5 points after a victory at Fuji but he has only finished in the points in two other races.

Tomoki Nojiri and James Rossiter are tied on 12 points. Koudai Tsukakoshi has 11 points and Daisuke Nakajima is alive on 10.5 points.

The first race of the doubleheader will be at 8:45 p.m. ET on Saturday October 29th with the final race of the 2016 season taking place at 1:45 a.m. ET on Sunday October 30th.

Over/Unders
1. Over or Under: 19.5-point gap between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton after Mexico?
2. Over or Under: 250.5 laps led by Toyota drivers at Martinsville?
3. Over or Under: 28.5 points scored by British riders at Sepang?
4. Over or Under: 2.5 finishing position for Niki Tuuli in the Supersport race?
5. Over or Under: 2.5 drivers finishing with 30 points or more in the final Super Formula championship?

Last Week's Over/Unders
1. Under: Six cars finished on the lead lap in the United States Grand Prix.
2. Over: Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell, Darren Turner, Alex MacDowall and Andrew Howard were all victorious at Estoril.
3. Over: Martin Truex, Jr. and Brad Keselowski both caused cautions for engine failures.
4. Under: There were 14 lead changes between the two Supercars races at Surfers Paradise.
5. Under: Nicky Hayden started seventh at Phillip Island.

Predictions
1. A Ferrari driver finishes on the podium.
2. Jeff Gordon finishes ahead of at least two of his teammates.
3. A rider that hasn't finished on the podium in the last two races finishes on the podium at Sepang.
4. Neither Superbike race from Qatar features an all-British podium.
5. André Lotterer wins at least one of the two races.

Last Week's Predictions
1. Haas F1 scores points at its home race of Austin (Correct. Romain Grosjean finished tenth).
2. The #38 G-Drive Racing Gibson-Nissan finishes ahead of the #46 Thiriet by TDS Racing Oreca-Nissan in the race (Correct. The #38 Gibson won and the #47 Oreca finished ninth in class).
3. At least one driver outside the top twenty of the championship gets a top ten finish at Talladega (Correct. Brian Scott finished second and his teammate Aric Almirola finished eight).
4. Holden does not sweep the Gold Coast 600 for the third consecutive season (Wrong. The Red Bull Racing Australia Holdens of Shane Van Gisbergen/Alexandre Prémat and Jamie Whincup/Paul Dumbrell split the Gold Coast 600).
5. A rider running in the top five falls in turn four at Phillip Island (Correct. Marc Márquez fell in turn five while leading the race).
Last Week: 4/5 Overall: 13/25