February is over and now we are into March. Surprisingly, we are already into many championships. NASCAR has started, the World Rally Championship is two rounds in, the 24 Hours of Daytona was a month ago, even IndyCar's season opener is behind us. We will be getting to MotoGP, Formula One and the FIA World Endurance Championship shortly, but there was plenty to celebrate from the shortest month of the year.
Quarter-Miles
February began with NASCAR's Clash exhibition race run at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a temporary quarter-mile oval.
A few things might need to be ironed out, but the event was a success. The race was good. The crowd was fantastic. I was fortunate to attend, and the atmosphere was riveting. I haven't been fortunate to attend a Bristol race, but there haven't been many racetracks where I have felt the crowd's reaction. Fittingly for a football stadium, it felt like a football game. The setting of the Coliseum I am sure also helped.
For an exhibition, it is what NASCAR needed. The heat races and last chance qualifiers provided the necessary tease, and the main race was enthralling. On a quarter-mile, it is sensory overload. You cannot hear any announcer over the public address system. There is always a car directly in front of you. The car might only be going 70 mph, but you miss stuff. I was seated on the exit of, I guess what we would call turn four, even though there were really only two turns, and I missed Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. spinning right in front of me. I was looking across the track at the leaders. The cars aren't going fast enough for the skid to draw attention through the roar on track.
NASCAR has an option for the next two years running the Clash at the Coliseum. The event did come in over budget in terms of track construction, but NASCAR has something when it comes to this quarter-mile format. NASCAR's biggest issue is being NASCAR and running things into the ground. It needs someone to save the sanctioning body from itself. There shouldn't be four or five quarter-mile races a year, but I think there is room for the two exhibition races or one of the two exhibition races to be on a quarter-mile or shorter short track each year.
There are more options than you think. Texas Motor Speedway should have already announced the All-Star Race will be run on its quarter-mile oval typically used for Legend car races. It might not be the Coliseum, but it would be 100 times better than an All-Star race on the 1.5-mile oval.
Texas, Charlotte, Atlanta and Las Vegas all have quarter-mile ovals on the front straightaway. Las Vegas even has the 3/8-mile bullring on its property. Kentucky Speedway was abandoned but Kentucky has a quarter-mile on its front straightaway. That could be the track's saving grace.
After seeing a few concrete barriers cracked during the Clash, I am skeptical of taking a NASCAR Cup car to an existing quarter-mile such as Slinger Speedway in Wisconsin or Anderson Speedway in Indiana. I am concerned the infrastructure will not hold. But we know the SAFER Barriers at Texas, Charlotte, Atlanta and Vegas can handle a Cup car. We also know with no barriers on the outside of those tracks there is a reduced chance of damage.
I think NASCAR can have a happy medium with its quarter-miles. I would love to see the Clash and All-Star race rotate or the Clash be at a stadium and the All-Star bounce between the quarter-miles at existing NASCAR facilities. The key thing is for NASCAR to remember the importance of moderation, keeping these events limited to at most twice, maybe three times a year. The best thing NASCAR can do is not go overboard... which is painstaking for NASCAR.
Austin Cindric Gets It
The big winner of February was Austin Cindric, winning the Daytona 500 in his eighth career NASCAR Cup start and his second Daytona 500 start.
I want to give some appreciation to Cindric because I think Cindric gets it. Cindric loves motorsports. His upbringing nurtured that. With his father Tim working mostly for Team Penske during Austin's life, specifically on the IndyCar program but also overseeing the NASCAR and sports car programs, and with Austin's mom Megan being the daughter of Jim Trueman, IndyCar car owner famously of Bobby Rahal's 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner, Austin saw it all growing up and had an openness to everything. He was never shoehorned down one path.
Cindric started in single-seaters, but his height prevent him from truly pursuing the Road to Indy and path to IndyCar. He went to sports cars, was able to run the Bathurst 12 Hour twice before turning 18 years old, including being paired with German touring car legend Bernd Schneider and Mercedes-AMG GT3 specialist Maro Engel. Cindric competed in Pirelli World Challenge before ending up in NASCAR.
To a certain extent, every race car driver enjoys racing. Cindric has a passion for it. This isn't something he just happens to be good at and does. He has a deep interest in the history. We see it in the little thing. His helmet is inspired by Greg Moore's design. Cindric loves the Indianapolis 500, not like, love. He has a dedicated viewing point at the track. Unfortunately, his day job is going to prevent him from enjoying that race this year. Perhaps he will be able to hang around for the start, but he has a race later that night in Charlotte that he cannot afford to miss.
Cindric has gotten a lot of flak because he is the son of a team president. Many see him as benefitting from circumstance, and he did, but when you see the other drivers who he races again in the NASCAR Cup Series, he is really no different. Cindric beat Ryan Blaney, the son of a former Cup driver at Daytona.
Chase Elliott is the son of a past Cup champion.
Austin and Ty Dillon are both sons of a former driver and grandsons of a current team owner.
Harrison Burton's father won nearly two-dozen Cup races.
Corey LaJoie and Todd Gilliland both had fathers compete in NASCAR with success mostly in the lower divisions.
Cody Ware drives for his father.
Cole Custer's father is also a NASCAR team president.
Justin Haley's uncle Todd Braun owns his charter, took it from Spire Motorsports to Kaulig Racing, and Braun owned a race-winning team in NASCAR's second division.
Even Brad Keselowski's father owned a team in the Truck series. Throw David Ragan in there, whose father competed in the Cup Series.
Thirteen drivers out of the 40 that started this year's Daytona 500 had a family member significantly involved in NASCAR. That is over a quarter of the field. Cindric isn't an anomaly. What makes him different? I think the Penske tie is it. People can forgive or at least justify why certain drivers can benefit from nepotism and why others cannot. In Cindric's case, he is viewed negatively, but what people miss is how much Cindric is just like them, a motorsports fan and but also a respectful driver with immense talent.
Cindric would probably provide the best bench racing conversation of the current NASCAR Cup Series field. I hope people come to see that in 2022.
March Preview
This is our Sebring/FIA World Endurance Championship preview.
This will be the first Super Sebring weekend since 2019 after the last two years were cancelled due to the global pandemic. WEC will be first to race on Friday March 18 with the 1000 Miles of Sebring scheduled for a noon start and will either be 1000 miles or eight hours, whichever is reached first. The 12 Hours of Sebring is the next day, Saturday 19 at 10:10 a.m. ET.
For WEC, this is the second year of the Hypercar class, and while Toyota was expecting some manufacture competition, it will be delayed. The Peugeot program will not make its debut until the Monza race in July at the earliest. Toyota will still take on the Alpine A480, a grandfathered Rebellion LMP1 car, and the privateer American Glickenhaus, which will have one full-time entry.
Toyota still has Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López in the #7 GR010 Hybrid. Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley remain in the #8 Toyota, as Ryō Hirakawa joins the team replacing the retired Kazuki Nakajima.
LMP2 is full to the brim with quality entries, 15 cars in total. Team Penske is entered as preparation for the Porsche LMDh program coming in 2023. Penske is basically a professional team but a pro-am lineup on a technicality, as Emmanuel Collard has been downgraded to silver due to his age and will be alongside Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr.
United Autosports is back with two stacked entries with Filipe Albuquerque, Phil Hanson, Will Owen, Oliver Jarvis, and Paul di Resta spread across its two entries. Sébastien Bourdais and Nico Müller will be sharing a car for Vector Sport. Prema has expanded to LMP2, and it will field a car with Robert Kubica and Louis Delétraz as two of its drivers.
Daniil Kvyat is scheduled to drive for G-Drive Racing. António Félix da Costa will continue with Jota and Will Stevens will be one of his co-drivers. Robin Frijns and René Rast are paired at Team WRT. Esteban Gutiérrez returns to real world racing with Inter Europol Competition with Alex Brundle as a co-driver. Sébastien Ogier will drive for the Richard Mille Racing Team!
It is not the top class, but LMP2 is the one to be most excited about.
Corvette is finally running a full-time GTE-Pro entry. Tommy Milner, Alexander Sims and Nick Tandy will share the #64 Corvette to take on the tag teams of AF Corse with Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado as defending champions while Miguel Molina has Antonio Fuoco as his new co-driver. Porsche has Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz together again with Michael Christensen returning to the full-time role alongside Kévin Estre.
GTE-Am has its own share of familiar names: Toni Vilander and Nick Cassidy (AF Corse), Ben Keating and Marco Sørensen (TF Sport), Sebastian Priaulx and Harry Tincknell (Dempsey-Proton Racing), Nicki Thiim (Northwest AMR).
As for the 12 Hours of Sebring, Meyer Shank Racing won the 24 Hours of Daytona in January, and the team has shuffled its lineup. With Hélio Castroneves pre-occupied in Texas for an IndyCar race, Stoffel Vandoorne will join Oliver Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist in the #60 Acura.
JDC-Miller Motorsports won at Sebring last year. Tristan Vautier and Loïc Duval return and will have Richard Westbrook new to the line-up.
Ryan Hunter-Reay returns to the 12 Hours of Sebring but with Chip Ganassi Racing in the #01 Cadillac alongside Sébastien Bourdais, who won last year with JDC-Miller, and Renger van der Zande. The #48 Action Express Racing will have an exhausted lineup at the end of this race. Kobayashi, López and Rockenfeller are both doing double duty.
Ricky Taylor will be the most rested Wayne Taylor Racing driver, as Albuquerque and Stevens are both running the day before. Pipo Derani is going for his fourth 12 Hours of Sebring victory in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac. Tristan Nunez and Mike Conway are each going for their first Sebring victory alongside Derani.
In other classes, DragonSpeed will have Juan Pablo Montoya and his son Sebastián paired with Henrik Hedman. Pfaff Motorsports looks to sweep the 36 Hours of Florida with Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Felipe Nasr.
Five different teams have won the last five 12 Hours of Sebring. Cadillac has won three of the last five years, but all of those victories have been in odd-numbered years.
Other events in March:
MotoGP season opens at Qatar this upcoming Sunday and then visits Indonesia later this month.
Formula One opens with two rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in successive weekends.
IndyCar has one race: Texas.
NASCAR returns to Austin at the end of the month, and hopefully the rain does not return.
