2022 Sports Car Predictions: Revisited

The 2022 sports car season was always meant to be a transition year. Big things are on the horizon, and a historic shift is about to happen. But there was still plenty of exciting races taking place this year. Many top teams went at it and put on some incredible races. Another a dozen predictions were made over the top three multi-class sports car series in the world. Let's see how they stood up after 26 races and over 148 hours of racing.  

IMSA

1. Chip Ganassi Racing will lead the Cadillac teams in victories

Correct!

Chip Ganassi Racing won three races in 2022, Long Beach, Belle Isle and Mosport. Cadillac won three races in 2022, Long Beach, Belle Isle and Mosport. 

Chip Ganassi Racing led the Cadillac teams in victories because it was the only Cadillac team to win a race in 2022. 

Action Express Racing had no victories for the first time since 2013. The #31 Cadillac was runner-up at Road Atlanta with Pipo Derani and Olivier Pla. The team had five podium finishes. JDC-Miller Motorsports was third, second and third in the first three races, but the #5 Cadillac didn't get on the podium after the opening three races.

2. European-based teams get at least four victories 

Wrong!

Only one European-based teams won a race. It was the #47 Cetillar Racing Ferrari at the 12 Hours of a Sebring in GTD with Antonio Fuoco, Roberto Lacorte and Giorgio Sernagitotto. 

We had no European-based winners in LMP2 despite High Class Racing, Racing Team Nederland and United Autosports running a few rounds. AF Corse didn't win despite competing in the endurance races. Every winner was an American team or a Canada's Pfaff Motorsports, which won five of ten GTD-Pro races.

3. At least five different cars win in GTD-Pro

Wrong!

Although, there were five different cars that won in GTD-Pro, we aren't going to count the 24 Hours of Daytona qualifying race. That wasn't in the spirit of the prediction. We are talking about championship races, and only four cars won in GTD-Pro. 

Porsche won five times, Lexus and Aston Martin won twice and Corvette won once. 

Lamborghini didn't win despite winning the 24 Hours of Daytona qualifying race with TR3 Racing. TR3 Racing was second at Sebring, but that was to Corvette in Corvette's only victory of the season. Even if Lamborghini got on the board in the 12-hour race, we would still be on four winning manufactures. 

BMW improved over the course of the BMW M4 GT3's first season, but the closes it got was second at Petit Le Mans. Mercedes-AMG didn't get on the board despite running most of the season with WeatherTech Racing. Acura only made one GTD-Pro start at Sebring. 

It didn't quite work out on this one.

4. At least nine drivers will have an IMSA start and a NASCAR Cup Series start

Wrong!

Only four drivers competed in IMSA's top division and NASCAR's top division in 2022. 

Those drivers?

Austin Cindric, Mike Rockenfeller, Kyle Tilley, Andy Lally.

That's it. That's the list. 

No Kyle Busch. No Chase Elliott. No Austin Dillon or Cody Ware. No Kyle Larson. No Ryan Eversley. No Spencer Pumpelly. No Conor Daly. No Joey Logano. No James Davison. No Joey Hand.

The usual suspects that would dabble in each didn't dabble as much as we have seen. With the introduction of the new car in the Cup Series combined with the lack of practice time around Cup events, I thought we would see drivers do a little more. 

This prediction was in trouble from day one at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The only Cup guy to enter was Cindric in a GTD-Pro entry for Proton Competition. This was going to rely on road course drivers getting calls to run in one of the six road course races. With the new car, we didn't see many one-offs at the road courses. 

After Daytona, it was clear we weren't going to see the Cup drivers pull through. Ryan Blaney wasn't going to run at Lime Rock Park. Justin Haley wasn't going to find himself competing at Laguna Seca. Nobody was going to run Petit Le Mans the day before Talladega. 

I cannot say this fell short when it didn't even reach half the predicted number of drivers. 

FIA World Endurance Championship

5. Toyota's winning streak does not reach 12 races 

Correct!

Toyota entered the 2022 season with nine consecutive victories in the world championship. Three more and it would have started the season three-for-three and won every race through the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 

Well, the 2022 season started with a bit of surprise. Toyota stumbled in Sebring and Alpine was there to scoop up its first victory in the Hypercar class. For good measure, Alpine also won the fourth round of the season at Monza.

6. There will be no consecutive race winners in LMP2

Wrong!

This went wrong in the final race. Entering the Bahrain finale, the LMP2 winners had been, in order, the #23 United Autosport Oreca, the #31 Team WRT Oreca, the #38 Jota Oreca, the #41 RealTeam by WRT Oreca and the #31 Team WRT Oreca. 

All I needed for some team other than the #31 Oreca to win.

What happened? 

The #31 Team WRT Oreca wins the finale, its second consecutive victory. 

Damn!

7. Corvette wins multiple races

Wrong!

Corvette's first season in WEC saw it win only once, the Monza round. The #64 Corvette was runner-up twice, Sebring and Bahrain, but it just couldn't get that other victory. It was fifth out of the five full-time entires, but only 33 points covered the five teams. 

The other four full-time entries finished the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which pays double points. The #64 Corvette did not finish, so it scored no points. If it had finished and been fifth out of the five races, it would have scored 20 more points and the five teams would have finished within 13 points of one another. 

It is sad it took this long for Corvette to have a full-time WEC entry. This was the final season for the GTE-Pro class, and next year will only have the GTE-AM class before a new "GT3 Premium" class takes over in 2024. Corvette will run a car next year with Ben Keating and Nicky Catsburg. Hopefully it will see a little more success. 

8. GTE-Am will have at least two teams break 100 points scored

Correct!

And this one was clinched even before the season finale. Entering Bahrain, the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin had 123 points and the #98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin had 103 points. 

After the finale, TF Sport had 141 points and took the championship while Northwest AMR ended up on 118 points.

European Le Mans Series

9. The pole-sitter will win at least two races

Wrong! 

Incredibly, the pole-sitter didn't even win a race in the ELMS this season.

The #31 TDS Racing x Vaillante Oreca started on pole position at Circuit Paul Ricard and Monza, but its best finish all season was tenth. The #88 AF Corse entry took the top spot at Imola, but finished 14th. Panis Racing's #65 Oreca was the closest pole-sitter to victory, finishing second in Barcelona from the leading grid position. The #37 Cool Racing Oreca and #34 Racing Team Turkey Oreca were fifth and sixth respectively after starting on pole position at Spa-Francorchamps and Portimão respectively.

That means since 2016, the pole-sitter has only won seven of 35 races, a winning percentage of 20%. To make it even more peculiar, the pole-sitter has only finished on the podium twice over the last two seasons, 12 races, after finishing on the podium in four of five races held in 2020. 

10. At least three races will not have a French winner in LMP3

Correct!

There were no French winners in LMP3. 

In fact, there were only two occasions where French drivers won all ELMS season. At Monza, the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca won overall with its all-French lineup of Paul-Loup Chatin, Paul Lafargue and Patrick Pilet. The only other time a French driver won was in the finale when Doriane Pin won in GTE with the #83 Iron Lynx Ferrari and co-drivers Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting.

11. At least four races will not have a German winner in LMP3

Correct!

There were no German winners in LMP3 either. 

Who won in LMP3? 

Two Americans (Maurice Smith (twice) and Charles Crews (thrice)).

Two Brits (Andrew Bentley and Mike Benham (twice)).

A Portuguese (Guilherme Oliveira (thrice)).

A Chilean (Nico Pino (thrice)).

A Dane (Malthe Jakobsen (twice)).

And a Dutchman (Kay van Berlo).

There were two German winners this season in ELMS, both in GTE. Pierre Ehret won at Circuit Paul Ricard with Rinaldi Racing, and Christian Ried won in Barcelona with Proton Competition.

12. There is at least one winner from the North American continent

Correct!

After not having one North American driver win a single ELMS race in 2021, how does 2022 start? With two North American winners!

American Maurice Smith won in LMP3 while Memo Gidley, in a one-off filling the Rinaldi Racing seat, won in GTE.

They weren't even the only American winners this season as we had three other American drivers win this year. We know about Charles Crews in LMP3, but Conrad Grunewald won in GTE at Spa-Francorchamps and Juan Manuel Correa was a member of the overall winning Prema Racing entry in the Portimão season finale. 

Six out of 12! A late flurry of correct predictions from the ELMS season got this to 50%. Nothing to brag about. A few of these were close. It could have been better. It could have been worse. Accept it for what it is. 

Musings From the Weekend: How Can Logan Sargeant Fail to Get a Super License?

There was no NASCAR. No IndyCar. No MotoGP. A few world championships were decided. A few seasons ended. There were some debuts and some farewells. A surprise pole-sitter and one that was unsurprising. A team closed down, and another is expanding. Schedules were finalized. Trips were booked. Some are open to future plans. Others are closing doors. It was wet. It was dry. A few people cried. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking. 

How Can Logan Sargeant Fail to Get a Super License?

The World Drivers' Championship is decided, as is the World Constructors' Championship and even the Formula Two title has been claimed. The final grand prix weekend of 2022 at Abu Dhabi is rather pedestrian on paper, but the main story of the weekend involves the American driver closes to a Formula One seat, and his future, like many others, will come down to Super License points. 

Logan Sargeant has a Formula One contract practically complete with Williams F1 for the 2023 season. The only problem is he is short of the requisite 40 Super License points, but he can reach that threshold in Abu Dhabi. 

Everyone keeps talking about what Sargeant must do this weekend to obtain a Super License. 

Between finishing third in the 2020 Formula Three championship and seventh in Formula Three last year, Sargeant has 27 Super License points, but he also has one point from completing at least 100 kilometers without any reprimands in the first free practice at Austin and picked up another point for completing second free practice in Interlagos. Entering the Abu Dhabi weekend, he will have 29 Super License points with the chance of adding another point in the first practice Friday ahead of the grand prix. He will still need at least ten Super License points and those will have to come from his Formula Two championship results.

It has been a respectable season for Sargeant. He won feature races at Silverstone and the Red Bull Ring. He started on pole position at Circuit Paul Ricard. Entering the final weekend, Sargeant is third in the championship on 135 points, and that would be enough for the Super License points required. It would get him all the points he needed without his previous results or practice sessions. The top three in Formula Two receive 40 Super License points. Sargeant will likely only need ten points, which would be sixth in the championship. To clinch sixth, he would just need to score 28 points over the Abu Dhabi weekend. 

Sounds simple? Well, of course it isn't that simple for an American driver.

One would think Sargeant sits pretty in third with three insurance positions behind him, but the Formula Two championship is rather tight in the top ten entering its finale. 

Sargeant has 135 points, but he is only nine points clear of Jack Doohan, Jehan Daruvala and Enzo Fittipaldi, and Liami Lawson is only 12 points back in seventh with Frederik Vesti 18 points back in eighth. Ayumu Iwasa and Jüri Vips both are within 25 points of Sargeant. 

We all know what the dream weekend is for Sargeant, but what is the nightmare? How does this go wrong, Sargeant drop from third to seventh in the championship, fall short of the 40 Super License point total, and leave Williams scrambling for a solution ahead of the 2023 season? 

The maximum of points a driver can be scored in a single Formula Two weekend is 39 points, 25 points for a feature race victory, ten for a sprint race victory, two for feature race pole position, one for fastest lap in the sprint race and one for fastest lap in the feature race. Points for fastest lap require a driver to finish in the top ten of that race.

With that being the case, anyone down to Dennis Hauger in 11th could leap ahead of Sargeant in the championship in the final race weekend. Not all eight of those drivers can jump ahead of Sargaent in the championship, but enough could knock him down to seventh and crush his dreams on the Arabian Peninsula. 

Twelve points is all that covers Sargeant, Doohan, Daruvala, Fittipaldi and Lawson. The top four in the feature race score 12 points or more. It could all go wrong in that race alone. 

Doohan, Daruvala, Fittipaldi and Lawson could sweep the top four in the final feature race while Sargeant ends up without a point in either race. Suddenly, Sargeant wouldn't have enough to qualify for a Super License. Lawson has won three races to Sargeant's two. The tiebreaker would go to Lawson. Sargeant could fall short of a Super License on a tiebreaker!

To add insult to injury, Vesti could finish fifth in the feature race, second in the sprint race and pick up a fastest lap and that would be enough to lift Vesti ahead of Sargeant in the championship and falling to eighth would mean Sargeant would lose him another two Super License points, only sliding him further from the Formula One grid. 

But let's pour more salt into the wound. Iwasa could finish sixth in the feature race from pole position while winning the sprint race and scoring fastest lap in the sprint race and now Iwasa would finish ahead of Sargeant in the championship on tiebreaker because the two drivers would finish level on victories, but Iwasa would have more runner-up results. Now Sargeant would be ninth in the championship and only score four Super License points. 

It could get even worse. Let's keep everything above the same, but instead Vips wins the feature race and gets 25 points while Doohan finishes third in the sprint race and seventh in the feature race. That would drop Sargeant to tenth in the championship, the final spot to award Super License points, and Sargeant would only get three Super License points in that case. 

The good news for Sargeant is that is rock bottom. He can finish no worse than tenth in the championship. There aren't enough points to go around for Sargeant to drop to 11th and he holds the tiebreaker over the likes of Fittipaldi, Vesti, Iwasa and Vips entering the weekend. But Sargeant's Super License is far from a guarantee entering the final weekend. 

Sargeant is the hero entering the weekend. I have written you the tragedy.

Champions From the Weekend

The #8 Toyota of Sébastien Buemi, Brandon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa clinched the World Endurance Drivers' Championship with a runner-up finish in the 8 Hours of Bahrain.

The #38 Jota Oreca-Gibson of António Félix da Costa, Will Stevens and Roberto González clinched the Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Drivers with a third-place finish at Bahrain.

The #51 AF Corse Ferrari of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi clinched the World Endurance GT Drivers' Championship with a fifth-place finish at Bahrain.

The #33 TF Sport Aston Martin of Ben Keating and Marco Sørenson clinched the Endurance Trophy for GTE-AM Drivers with a fourth-place finish at Bahrain.

Álvaro Bautista clinched the World Superbike Championship with finishes of second, fourth and second at Mandalika.

Dominique Aegerter clinched the World Supersport Championship with finishes of fourth and first at Mandalika. Niki Tuuli won the first World Supersport race of the weekend

Winners From the Weekend

You know about some champions and Niki Tuuli, but did you know... 

George Russell won the Brazilian Grand Prix, his first career grand prix victory and Russell also won the sprint race this weekend. 

The #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López won the 8 Hours of Bahrain. The #31 Team WRT Oreca-Gibson of Sean Gelael, Robin Frijns and René Rast won in LMP2. The #52 AF Corse of Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina won in GTE-Pro. The #46 Team Project 1 Porsche of Matteo Cairoli, Niki Leutwiler and Mikkel O. Pedersen won in the GTE-Am.

Mikel Azcona and Norbert Michelisz split the World Touring Car Cup races from Bahrain.

Thierry Neuville won Rally Japan.

Toprak Razgatlioglu swept the World Superbike races from Mandalika.

Coming Up This Weekend

Abu Dhabi closes out the Formula One season. 

Phillip Island closes out the World Superbike season.

The Macau Grand Prix will take place but feel rather domestic.

2022 NASCAR Predictions: Revisited

We have completed one of the most unprecedented NASCAR Cup Series seasons in its 74-year history. It began with a race in a football stadium with a bespoke common chassis. Composite body panels replaced sheet metal. Five lug nuts decreased to one. The rearview mirror was digital. That was revolutionary change in its own right but this season also saw 19 different winners, tying a single season Cup record. Sixteen winners occurred in the regular season and only one playoff driver qualified on points. 

With all the unthinkable things that happened, how did any set of predictions hold up let alone this one? We are about to find out. 

1. At least four teams are represented in the semifinals of the Cup playoffs

Correct! 

Five teams made the semifinal round.

Team Penske had two drivers, Hendrick Motorsports had two drivers, Joe Gibbs Racing had two drivers, Stewart-Haas Racing had a driver and Trackhouse had a driver. Four teams were represented in the final four with Penske, Hendrick, Gibbs and Trackhouse each having a representative. 

The first four teams were the usual suspects. I don't think anyone thought Trackhouse would have a driver in the final eight, but Ross Chastain made it and even went a step further to the final four. 

2. Kevin Harvick will have the largest positive gain in victories compared to the 2021 season

Wrong!

Harvick won twice, twice more than he won in all of 2021, but for this prediction to be correct he had to have the largest positive gain on his own. Well, Harvick didn't even have the largest positive gain in victories. That honor would go to Chase Elliott, who went from two victories to five victories, a +3 gain.

Harvick was +2. Tyler Reddick was also +2, as were Christopher Bell and Ross Chastain. Harvick made a positive gain, but not the largest, and a rather common gain this season. 

3. At least four drivers win at least four pole positions in Cup

Wrong!

We had two drivers reach four pole positions, Joey Logano and Kyle Larson, and then we had four drivers reach three pole positions (Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick). Six drivers combined for 20 pole positions. Then we had nine drivers claim the other nine pole positions with seven qualifying sessions cancelled due to weather. 

If a few of those cancelled sessions go differently than perhaps this prediction would have been correct. 

4. Alex Bowman will spend at least nine races inside the top ten of most points scored

Correct!

This one may surprise you considering how the season ended for Bowman. He started the year 25th in points after Daytona and 24th after Fontana. Then he won at Las Vegas, vaulting him up to eighth. He dropped to 11th after Phoenix but got back to ninth in points after Atlanta. 

He spent 15 consecutive races in the top ten in points from Atlanta to Atlanta and then dropped to 11th after Loudon. 

On points, he kept falling and was 12th after Daytona in August before missing five races late in the season after suffering a concussion at Texas. 

Bowman is a streaky driver. He hasn't ever really been able to put two halves of a season together. He had four top five finishes this season, three of which came in the first 11 races. He had 12 top ten finishes this season, nine of which came in his first 14 starts. He ended the season with one top five and three top ten finishes in his first 17 races. He went from batting 0.642 on top tens through Memorial Day to 0.1764 from the start of June through the end of the season. 

When he is good, Bowman looks like one of the best drivers in Cup, but when he is off, he is disappears. If he can find any consistency he will be a championship contender someday.

For the sake of this prediction, his 16 races in the top ten were plenty for it to be correct. 

5. Toyota will have at least five drivers win a Cup race for the second consecutive season

Correct!

And they only won in four different entries. Talk about efficient. 

Denny Hamlin was the first Toyota winner at Richmond, the seventh race of the season. Kyle Busch won two weeks later at the Bristol dirt race. Kurt Busch won at Kansas a week before Denny Hamlin's second victory of the season at the Coca-Cola 600. Christopher Bell won at Loudon in July. The fifth Toyota winner was Bubba Wallace at Kansas in September after he moved into the #45 entry when Kurt Busch was sidelined with a concussion. 

Toyota only won eight races this year and Bell had the most with three. Martin Truex, Jr. didn't despite only leading one fewer lap than Bell. Strange year. 

6. At least one driver who misses the Cup playoffs has at least ten top ten finishes or more

Correct!

We had more than one driver, we had five! 

It started with Martin Truex, Jr., who missed the playoffs despite being fourth in points at the end of the regular season, but only one spot was left available for a non-race winner and it went to Ryan Blaney, who has third in the championship, three points ahead of Truex. Truex had 15 top ten finishes. That was good enough for the prediction, but this season gave us more. 

Erik Jones had 13 top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs, and Jones won a race. Bubba Wallace had ten top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs, and even Wallace won a race. Chris Buescher had ten top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs, and even Buescher won a race. Michael McDowell had 12 top ten finishes and didn't make the playoffs. 

Fifteen top ten finishes is a good year, but it was the fewest for Truex in a season since he had five in 2014. This was the fifth time in six seasons Jones has had at least 13 top ten finishes. Wallace had 12 career top ten finishes entering this year and he picked up ten more. His previous most in a season was five in 2020. This was Buescher's first Cup season reaching double figures in top ten results. McDowell entered this season with 17 career top ten finishes and he increased his career total by 70.5% this year alone. He had 12 top ten finishes combined over the previous four seasons and had 12 this year alone. 

With 19 different winners, 16 in the regular season, this was a crazy year where the likes of Truex and Jones, two drivers who were in the top 16 in points at the end of the regular season and that is normally enough to make the playoffs, didn't. We also saw the new car level the playing field and teams were inconsistent with greatly regularity. There were weekends where all the Ford teams were off or all the Toyota teams. A team could be great for five weeks and then off the next six. What a wacky year. 

7. A Ford driver will not finish fifth in the Cup championship

Correct!

This was not the fifth consecutive year of a Ford driver finishing fifth in the championship because Toyota driver Denny Hamlin wound up fifth, the best of the rest non-championship four drivers. Hamlin got fifth by a single point over William Byron. Then there were 25 points between Hamlin and Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney, who finished tied on 2,354 points, but the tiebreaker went to Larson, leaving Blaney eighth in the championship, the closest Ford outside the top four. 

Chase Briscoe was ninth, making it three Ford drivers in the top ten while Ford's other playoff drivers were Austin Cindric in 12th and Kevin Harvick in 15th, significantly stunted from a 100-point penalty handed late in the season. Harvick did finish exactly 100 points behind Cindric. 

8. There will be at least ten four-tire pit stops under ten seconds

Correct!

According to Racing Insights, there were 54 four-tire pit stops under ten seconds this season, the fastest of which was 8.382 seconds by the #45 23XI Racing pit crew at Fontana, and the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew had the most sub-10 second pit stops with 12. 

The teams blew this one out of the water. They were quick, and pit stops felt more vital this year. It felt like we saw more swings with teams gaining or losing four of five spots on pit lane than previous years. That trend will likely continue forward.

9. The ARCA pole-sitter will have a faster time than the Cup pole-sitter in at least one of the shared race weekends

Correct!

And it happened sooner than I expected. It happened at the first race at Daytona. I figured even with the new car the Cup series would still be quicker at Daytona. But that wasn't the case. How did it look over the eight shared weekends?

Daytona: ARCA (183.113 mph vs. 181.159 mph)

Phoenix: ARCA (133.769 mph vs. 132.709 mph)

Kansas: Cup (179.581 mph vs. 175.730 mph)

Charlotte: Cup (183.68 mph vs. 175.16 mph)

Michigan: Cup (190.703 mph vs. 184.89 mph)

Watkins Glen: Cup (125.147 mph vs. 119.123 mph)

Kansas: Cup (180.608 mph vs. 175.856 mph)

Bristol: Cup (128.382 mph vs. 126.478 mph)

It should be noted Cup and ARCA also ran together at Talladega in the spring and Pocono, but qualifying was cancelled on both occasions for ARCA. 

I think as we saw the new Cup car be developed, the teams found more speed and even with the horsepower package the Cup teams weren't held back. ARCA scored early and then was shutout for the rest of the season. 

10. Daniel Hemric will win more races but not make the championship four in the Grand National Series

Wrong and Correct!

Hemric returned to his winless ways despite switching to Kaulig Racing for 2022. Considering Kaulig has been a regular race winning team for the last few seasons, Hemric had no victories and he only had three top five finishes all season, fifth at Las Vegas in March, fifth at Atlanta in July and fourth at Homestead in October.

He only led 66 laps all season, 48 of which came in the first two races. Hemric started on pole position for the Daytona season opener. He led 663 laps the year before and 440 in his previous full season in this division in 2018. 

Hemric had made the final four in each of his three full seasons at this level. This year, he ended up ninth in the championship and was a first-round elimination. 

11. There will be a minimum of five new playoff drivers in NASCAR's second division

Correct... but only just. 

Noah Gragson, Justin Allgaier, A.J. Allmendinger, Brandon Jones, Daniel Hemric, Riley Herbst and Jeremy Clements all returned to the playoffs this year. Seven drivers. This prediction was correct with no margin for error.

It helped that Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton and Justin Haley left for the Cup Series. We were guaranteed at least three different drivers. We also had two 2021 race winners who weren't full-time that were full-time in 2022, won a race this year and made the playoffs, the eventual champion Ty Gibbs and championship finalist Josh Berry.

Who are the other three changes? Austin Hill won the Daytona season opener and made it in his first full season. Sam Mayer made it in his first full season. Ryan Sieg made it back to the playoffs after being 14th last year. 

Who were the other two drivers out? Myatt Snider won at Homestead in 2021 and then ended up 18th in the championship this year after leaving Richard Childress Racing for Jordan Anderson Racing. Jeb Burton did not make it with Our Motorsports after making it in 2021 with Kaulig Racing. 

12. John Hunter Nemechek will win at least three races on tracks shorter than 1.5 miles

Wrong!

Nemechek only won twice all year, so he didn't even reach the pre-requisite for this prediction. He won once on a track shorter than 1.5 miles, which came at Darlington. His other victory was at Kansas. 

There were a few short track races where he came close. The first was in NASCAR's second division, where he was leading on the final lap at Richmond before being moved when Ty Gibbs bumped him entering turn three. Nemechek was leading late at Knoxville before finishing second. He led the most laps at Indianapolis Raceway Park and was leading when the green-white-checkered finish occurred before being knocked back to tenth. He was also second at Richmond in Trucks and fourth in the Truck finale at Phoenix with a decent number of laps led. 

This one was close, but Nemechek didn't quite close out races. 

That is 8.5 out of 12! Not bad. Down from 11 out of 12 last year, but there wasn't much room to move up. 

Career Retrospective: Kenny Bräck

This offseason I have decided to bring back the Career Retrospective, but instead of looking at contemporary drivers, I wanted to take a look back at some of the cult heroes in IndyCar, drivers who aren't necessarily remember for the number of race victories and championships, but for things they did on track that gained the respect of many and left them struck at their ability. 

The final part of this three-part series will look at a past champion and a past Indianapolis 500 winner, one you likely forgot won both despite competing for three teams that are still on the grid. He was even the fastest Indianapolis 500 qualifier once, and a key figure in one of the best IndyCar races held in the 2000s.

It is Kenny Bräck.

Where was Bräck coming from?

Sweden, but in terms of his racing career he started karting in Sweden as a teenager in the late 1970s. When Bräck turned 19 years old, he started competing in Formula Ford in his native country. He was champion at 20 and started looking to compete in Great Britain.

Bräck's career stalled out a bit in the late 1980s as he competed in some Formula Three Sweden events. It wasn't until 1989 he ran in British Formula Three, but only part-time as he lacked the budget for a full season. In 1990, he contested the Formula Opel for the first of two seasons, finishing eighth and ninth in the championship in those respective years. His career took a step away from single-seater competition in 1992. He ran the Renault Clio Cup Scandinavia championship and won nine of ten races, easily taking the title. 

Surprisingly, Bräck came to America in 1993 to run the Barber Saab Pro Series. He won his first two starts and five of the first six rounds. He ended season as champion while competing against the likes of Jerry Nadeau, Geoff Boss and current McLaren CEO Zak Brown. 

Bräck was also becoming a popular junior driver in the Renault ranks and ran three Renault Clio International Cup races in 1993, winning two of them and finishing on the podium in the other. The Renault results led to a test with Williams at Circuit Paul Ricard spending half a rainy day in the car. 

With help from Renault Sweden, Bräck moved to International Formula 3000 with a back-marker team, Madgwick International. He failed to score points in the first five races but was third in his sixth race at Spa-Francorchamps in wet conditions and ended up 11th in the championship. Year two with Madgwick saw significant improvement. He had five top five results in eight races, including his first victory at the Magny-Cours season finale to place him fourth in the championship. 

Super Nova Racing had its drivers go 1-2 in the championship in 1995 with Vinceznzo Sospiri and Ricardo Rosset. Super Nova hired Bräck for the 1996 season. Bräck won the season opener and three of the first five races and was quickly in a tough championship battle with Jörg Müller. Entering the Hockenheim finale, Müller led Bräck by three points after finishing on the podium in eight of the first nine races while Bräck had seven podium finishes up to that point. 

The two drivers were fighting for the lead in the finale with Müller ahead after starting on pole position. Bräck made a pass attempt on Müller and the two drivers made contact, ending Müller's race while Bräck continued. Bräck was shown the black flag during the race and lost what was a certain victory which would have given him the championship. 

Bräck had a few Formula One suitors approach him during the 1996 season. He turned down test driver offers from McLaren and Benetton to join Ligier with the promise of racing in 1997 with team owner Tom Walkinshaw. However, Walkinshaw had a falling out and purchased Arrows, bringing Bräck along with him. Arrows had significant financial issues and led to Bräck exiting the team.

What did IndyCar look like when Bräck started in the series?

Broken. The Split had just occurred. We were in the middle of the second Indy Racing League season, all oval races and visiting a handful of circuits while CART still possessed most of the other historic ovals. Because of the initial plan for the IRL season to span to calendar years and end with the Indianapolis 500, the second IRL season began in August 1996. However, plans soon changed and the the 1996-97 season would run through October 1997 before the third season would take place entirely in 1998 in a traditional timeframe. 

Due to this scheduling, Loudon and Las Vegas each hosted two races. The IRL visited eight different tracks, four one-mile tracks (Loudon, Phoenix, Orlando and Pikes Peak, three 1.5-mile intermediate ovals (Las Vegas, Charlotte and Texas) and then Indianapolis. 

CART had just completed a season without going to the Indianapolis 500. Team Penske, Newman-Haas Racing, and a handful of past Indianapolis 500 winners weren't there in May 1996. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis 500 had guaranteed starting positions for the top 25 teams in the IRL were locked into the race with any additional entries left to fill in the final eight positions. 

Created to increase opportunities for American drivers, the IRL created opportunities an opportunity for foreign drivers as well. Marco Greco, Roberto Guerrero, Eliseo Salazar, Stéphan Grégroire, Affonso Giaffone, Vincenzo Sospiri and Fermín Vélez were all IRL regulars.

It was a piecemeal grid in the IRL. CART veterans Eddie Cheever, Scott Goodyear, Arie Luyendyk and Roberto Guerrero were cornerstones for the series. Tony Stewart was the poster boy for the USAC developed drivers. Davey Hamilton was another short track standout competing on the national stage. Drivers that were stuck in the junior series such as Buzz Calkins, Mark Dismore and Robbie Buhl got a shot at a higher level. Even some less noted junior drivers got a shot, Mike Shank included. John Paul, Jr. was able to make a full-time open-wheel comeback thanks to the IRL. Many other drivers got a break during this period whether they were of the utmost talent or not. 

How does IndyCar look now?

We are back to a single IndyCar series and have been that way for 15 seasons. 

The quality of the grid has been at its highest level for quite some time. There is plenty of domestically developed talent through the Road to Indy system, but IndyCar has a mix of drivers who topped out in the top European junior series and some came from Formula One. It is still as internationally mixed as it was back in 1996-97, if not slightly more international. There is a balance to the grid's identity.

Road and street courses greatly outnumber oval races. There were only four oval tracks on the schedule in 2022 and only Indianapolis and Texas remain from when Bräck first competed in IndyCar. The schedule begins in early March and the final race is run in early September, the weekend after Labor Day in 2022.

Of the teams that competed in the 1996-97 IRL season, only A.J. Foyt Racing is still on the grid and it couldn't get a car to finish in the top twenty of the championship. Of the CART teams from that time period, Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and Dale Coyne Racing are still around. Andretti Autosport's heritage goes back to Team KOOL Green. Mike Shank is now an IndyCar team owner and an Indianapolis 500 winning team owner to boot. 

What did Bräck do in-between?

First, he started knocking on doors. Bräck returned to America after his Arrows fallout and was looking for a test. Bräck found a seat at Galles Racing, who lost its main driver Davy Jones in testing and had Jeff Ward run one round. Bräck joined at the Indy Racing League round at Phoenix in March and finished 11th despite an accident. 

For his maiden Indianapolis 500, Bräck qualified 15th but was caught in the infamous pace lap incident and didn't even take the green flag. Results were hard to come by that rookie season but he was fifth at Charlotte and Loudon and drew the attention of A.J. Foyt.

Moving to the Foyt team for the 1998 season, Bräck had a slow start to the season, but was sixth at Indianapolis and third at Texas. Despite having only one top five finish through six of 11 races, Bräck still had an outside shot at the championship as no driver took control of the season. He picked up his first career victory at Charlotte. At the next race, Jeff Ward crashed out of the lead at Pikes Peak and opened the door for the field with Bräck beating Robbie Buhl and Tony Stewart. He made it a hat trick of victories when he passed Ward with 14 laps to go at Atlanta and this gave Bräck the championship lead with two races remaining. 

A fifth at Texas gave Bräck a 31-point lead entering the Las Vegas finale. Any finish in the top eight would secure him the title. Tony Stewart spun early in the race and when Davey Hamilton was taken out in an accident on lap 130, Bräck had the title clinched. 

The 1999 season will be remembered for Bräck's Indianapolis 500 victory, a race where he led 66 laps, the most in the race, but Bräck did not take the lead for the final time until the start of the final after Robby Gordon's fuel gamble came up about 2.75 miles short. Bräck was one of the best drivers of the 1999 season but finishes of 22nd and 24th in the first two races were difficult to overcome, though every driver had bad results that season. 

Bräck entered the Texas season finale 15 points behind Greg Ray, who had won three times but finished outside the top twenty in five of the first nine races. Ray started on pole position with Bräck in fifth. Bräck found himself in the lead during the middle of the race and on his way to the championship until a wheel bearing failed and Ray took the title. 

The IRL success caught the eye of those across the aisle. Bobby Rahal offered Bräck a ride in CART for the 2000 season and Foyt allowed the Swede to jump sides. 

New series, new tracks, but success followed. Bräck was on the podium in his fifth start. He was runner-up at Cleveland to first-time winner Roberto Moreno. He scored a third at Road America and another runner-up finish at Surfers Paradise. It led to Bräck finishing fourth in the championship ahead of the likes of Paul Tracy, Jimmy Vasser, Hélio Castroneves, Michael Andretti, Juan Pablo Montoya and Cristiano da Matta. Bräck was 75 points clear of the next closest rookie Oriol Servià. 

For his sophomore season, Bräck opened like gang busters. He won at Motegi and Milwaukee. Four top five finishes from five races had him in the championship lead. There were a few dips in results during the summer. An accident at Michigan with Max Papis while battling for the lead took points off the board. He won again in Chicago, but that race was his only top ten finish in a five-race period. He dropped to second after Road America and then third after an eighth in Vancouver. 

Bräck had the best car at the Lausitzring, leading 82 laps and he left Germany with a ten-point championship lead over Gil de Ferran. At Rockingham, the race was shortened by 70 laps due to a lack of practice after persistent rain in the lead up to the race. Bräck and de Ferran started on the front row and proceeded to go back-and-forth for 140 laps. The swapped the lead four times, including a memorable battle in the final two laps that saw the de Ferran make a spectacular move on Bräck to take the victory. 

Returning to America, Bräck had a five-point lead over de Ferran, but de Ferran won the next race at Houston and was third at Laguna Seca while Bräck was seventh and 25th in those respective races. Bräck entered the penultimate round at Surfers Paradise needing to score five more points than de Ferran to keep the championship alive. Set back with a poor qualifying run, Bräck charged up to fifth, but de Ferran finished fourth, scoring two more points over Bräck and clinching the title a race early. 

Bräck moved to Chip Ganassi Racing for the 2002 season. He scored a few good results, but not with the same consistency as he did the prior two seasons. Added to the mix was Scott Dixon, who joined the team after PacWest Racing shutdown after only completing the first three races. Bräck had a handful of accidents, many at the start of races and he let a victory get away from him at Rockingham. The season ended on a high at Mexico City with a victory, but decisions had already been made for 2003. Bräck would not continue with Chip Ganassi Racing as it moved to the IRL, but Bräck would re-join the series as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing also crossed the aisle.

Back in the IRL, Bräck picked up like he never left. He had three top five finishes in the first five events and was fourth in the championship. He had seven top ten finishes from the first nine races, but the second half of the season took a nosedive. Bräck retired from three consecutive races at Michigan, Gateway and Kentucky. He was fifth at Nazareth but then had at accident at Chicagoland and finished 15 laps down at Fontana. 

Bräck was competitive at the Texas season finale, attempting to salvage a respectable conclusion to the season. He was running fourth with 13 laps remaining when he and Tomas Scheckter made contact entering turn three, sending Bräck into the catchfence, tearing the car apart. Bräck suffered fractures to his sternum, femur, vertebra and ankles. He would later suffer a collapsed lung and a pulmonary embolism after being transferred toe Indianapolis Methodist Hospital for recovery. 

After numerous surgeries, Bräck was released from hospital and tested an IndyCar again in June 2004 at Richmond. After Buddy Rice was injury in the lead up for the 2005 Indianapolis 500, Bräck accepted the call from Rahal to return to competition. He was a third day qualifier and had a four-lap average of 227.598 mph, the fastest qualifying run of the month, but he had to start 23rd. 

In the race, Bräck was making progress forward, but a broken wishbone ended his race after 92 laps, placing him in 26th. 

After the race, Newman-Haas Racing contacted Bräck about a possible ride in the future. Three months later, Bräck decided he was set to step away from IndyCar racing. 

What impression did Bräck leave on IndyCar?

Bräck will be forever remembered for his Texas accident, and that sadly overshadows his ability as a driver. 

He survived one of the worst visual accidents in IndyCar history, but it was a reminder of the worst possible outcome during the IRL era on high-banked intermediate ovals. For years, we were waiting for that accident. Then it happened with Bräck and nothing really changed to decrease the likelihood of those accidents. Races kept taking place at Texas, Chicagoland, Kansas, Kentucky and Homestead with the cars flat out, side-by-side for 300 consecutive miles average 220 mph. There were a few other big accidents. Ryan Briscoe was knocked out of the 2005 season due to an accident at Chicagoland. Nothing changed. The regulations remained. 

It was never a case of "if" the Bräck accident would happen again. We knew it was going to, and when it did it ended the life of Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas. Then things changed. 

Bräck did comeback from that accident but it is forgotten because it was only one race, and one where he was overshadowed by Danica Patrick's Indianapolis 500 debut. 

I try to remember Kenny Bräck as one of the few drivers who crossed the lines during The Split and succeeded on each side. He went to the IRL and quickly became a champion and won the Indianapolis 500. Then he went to CART, which was a more talented series and quickly showed he was championship material. It was a time where a driver's credentials could easily be dismissed, but Bräck showed he was one of the top drivers of the period. 

We also have to acknowledge that if it wasn't for Kenny Bräck, we might not have Marcus Ericsson, the 2022 Indianapolis 500 winner, in IndyCar. Bräck managed Ericsson in the early part of Ericsson's career. If Bräck wasn't there to guide Ericsson in those early days, Ericsson might not make it to the top European junior series, might have never made it to Formula One and in turn not ended up in IndyCar and driving for Ganassi. There is a chance even if Ericsson found success competing in Europe, he may have never considered the United States as an option because his mentor likely wasn't going to have the background of Bräck's. 

We don't talk about Bräck that often in contemporary IndyCar, but his actions are still affecting the grid over 15 years after he made his final start even if we don't realize it.

Musings From the Weekend: What Does It Mean To Be Champion?

Suzuki had a fond farewell to its time in MotoGP.  Team Penske made more history. All that anger produced nothing of substance. Honda had great races in Motegi, but Nissan concluded great seasons. Indy Lights changed its name, because that is what the problem was. Cadillac completed a test. Jimmie Johnson became a team owner and will be returning to a familiar grid in 2023. NTT Data will sponsor a different team next year. Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson will likely have rather normal Mays next year. Hardware was handed out. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking. 

What Does It Mean To Be Champion?

There were many championships awarded this weekend, and not just on pavement. 

Champion has a definition, but what does it really mean? What is its purpose? 

A general consensus would define a "champion" as the "best," but a champion requires some format to determine who is the best, and we have seen many different ways to produce a champion. 

In motorsports alone, the customary practice is to award points for finishing position and the driver to aggregate the most over the course of a season is champion. It is a widely accepted practice, and it has been used for over a century. 

The one exception has been NASCAR with its playoff format, originating as the "Chase" and introducing resets to the championship standings in the later stages of the season. For nearly a decade now, the resets now occur four times and race victories carry increased weight in determining who will be champion. 

Max Verstappen recently clinched the World Drivers' Championship with four races remaining. Verstappen has now won 14 races with two remaining. He could still match the record 18 podium finishes in a single season, which he set last year. The most victories any other driver could get is five. Verstappen could end this season with anywhere from nearly three times to over five times the number of victories as the next closest competitor. 

Such dominance is clearly the best, unquestionable a championship level. Verstappen clinched the championship over a month before the finale, but that should be the case. There is no need to reset. It would just be delaying the inevitable or potentially providing a false picture of the season if Verstappen had a bad race befall him at the wrong time. 

With NASCAR, the championship has been boiled down to one event. All the other races set the table, but what truly decides who is champion is one race. A bad day and there is nothing to fall back on. No points scored or race victories earned prior will bring home a championship. A driver could win three to five times the number of races as the next closest competitor and not be champion. 

Is the champion the best or the best in the system presented? What do we really want? 

NASCAR is set on having the championship coming down to the final race. It forces everyone to watch until the end, but such a system can wash away the results of a season very easily. Whether it is Formula One or MotoGP or most other championships, the championship could make it to the finale, but if someone is good enough, it could be decided earlier. 

MotoGP didn't reset the points at any point during the season and the championship went to the finale, though there was a moment this summer when it appeared it could be clinched sooner and clinched by a different rider than the one that won the title. A season played out uninterrupted. Fabio Quartararo and Francesco Bagnaia both had great days, and both had dismal days. 

This season both riders were clear of the field and then appeared to have tossed the championship away at certain points. Each rider can look at points where they let points slip away, whether it be Bagnaia's three retirements in the middle of a stretch of winning six of nine races or Quartararo twice falling at Assen or falling at Aragón or Phillip Island struggling in changing conditions in Thailand. It wasn't one race result that decided who took the trophy but all of them.  

Every sport has seen an evolution in how a championship is decided. 

This year was the first season under the expanded playoff format in Major League Baseball with three wild card teams. When the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies, the fifth and sixth seeds in the National League, met in the League Championship Series, it did cause angst around baseball circles as the National League had three 100-win teams, including the 111-win Los Angeles Dodgers, the best team in baseball, and none of them won a playoff series. 

Baseball is a 162-game season. It is large enough of a sample size to know who is best and many felt more must be done so the regular season means something. Unlike motorsports, baseball is an unbalanced competition. Those 162 games are not the same for everyone as teams play divisional opponents more than non-divisional opponents and the interleague opponents are entirely different in some cases. 

A playoff is an equalizer for this disparity. Philadelphia did play the Washington Nationals, the worst team in baseball, 19 times and went 16-3. If every team faced Washington 19 times, there is a high probability Philadelphia does not make the playoffs, but with Philadelphia making it as the final wild card team, it had to run the gauntlet, going on the road for the wild card series and not getting a home game until game three of the divisional series. Philadelphia overcame the disadvantage playing on the road, defeated San Diego and made it to the World Series. 

However, in the American League, the 106-win Houston Astros started 7-0, making the World Series in the fewest number of games possible and then beat Philadelphia in six games to claim its second championship in six seasons. 

Motorsports is different from baseball, and most team sports. Everyone is competing against one another in every race. Everyone is competing against each other two-dozen or three-dozen times. There isn't a case where a pair of drivers only compete twice against each other all year and both those meetings came before April 22nd or a case where two drivers in the same series never race against one another. We have enough examples of who is the best among the drivers from these races. We don't need a blank slate to figure out who is the best in one race. We don't need a final race to put the final two or four against one another for the first time.

The champion should be the best. Sometimes it will be obvious but when it isn't it should be because the competition was close, and two or more competitors had nothing between them to the very end. It should be a case where it feels like neither deserves to lose, but someone must be second. The champion should feel right and rarely feel questionable.

Champions From the Weekend

You know about the Houston Astros, but did you know...

Francesco Bagnaia clinched the World Riders' Championship with a finish of ninth at Valencia.

Augusto Fernández clinched the Moto2 World Championship with a finish of third after Ai Ogura fell out of the Valencia race.

Joey Logano clinched the NASCAR Cup championship with his victory at Phoenix.

Ty Gibbs clinched the NASCAR Grand National Series championship with his victory at Phoenix.

Zane Smith clinched the NASCAR Truck Series championship with his victory at Phoenix. 

The #12 Team Impul Nissan of Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette clinched the Super GT GT500 championship with a runner-up finish at Motegi.

The #56 Kondō Racing Nissan of Kiyoto Fujinami and João Paulo de Oliveira clinched the Super GT GT300 championship with a 19th-place finish at Motegi.

Winners From the Weekend

You know about some results from Phoenix and Motegi, but did you know...

Álex Rins won MotoGP's Valencian Community Grand Prix, his second victory of the season. Pedro Acosta won the Moto2 race, his third victory of the season. Izan Guevara won the Moto3 race, his seventh victory of the season.

The #100 Team Kunimitsu Honda of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino won the Super GT race from Motegi. The #55 ARTA Honda of Hideki Mutoh and Iori Kimura won in GT300.

Coming Up This Weekend

Formula One's penultimate race of the season from Interlagos. 

The 8 Hours of Bahrain closes out the FIA World Endurance Championship season.

Rally Japan closes out the World Rally Championship season. 

World Superbike has its penultimate race weekend at Mandalika. 

Career Retrospective: Bruno Junqueira

This offseason I have decided to bring back the Career Retrospective, but instead of looking at contemporary drivers, I wanted to take a look back at some of the cult heroes in IndyCar, drivers who aren't necessarily remember for the number of race victories and championships, but for things they did on track that gained the respect of many and left them struck at their ability. 

This is part two of a three-part series and it will look at a driver who was on the cusp of Formula One and competing for a seat with a driver who would end up winning a world championship. After losing the Formula One shot, he came to the United States and was a regular championship contender almost immediately, but that title never came and many have forgotten how consistent he was in his relatively short IndyCar stint. 

It is Bruno Junqueira.

Where was Junqueira coming from?

The Brazilian was a rather late bloomer, but a quick riser once in the junior ranks. 

Junqueira didn't break into car racing until he was 20 years old, and he immediately won the Formula Three Sudamericana championship. These results led to support from Brazilian oil company Petrobras, a sponsor of Williams F1, and Petrobras brought him to International Formula 3000 in Europe.

For the 1998 season, he was paired with Italian Giovanni Montanari at Draco Engineering. A mid-pack team, Junqueira only had two finishes in the points, a sixth in Austria and a fifth at Hockenheim, leaving him 18th in the championship, but teammate Montanari did not score any points. 

In 1999, Petrobras signed a technical agreement with Super Nova Racing, which had won three of the previous four International Formula 3000 drivers' championships and had won four consecutive teams' championships entering the season. He was paired with Max Wilson, Jr. in an all-Brazilian lineup, and Junqueira scored a podium at Silverstone and a victory at Hockenheim. He wound up fifth in the championship. 

Junqueira had been in contention for the Williams F1 seat for the 2000 season, but he was also facing competition from British Formula Three driver Jenson Button. Button had finished third in the British F3 title with three victories from 16 races. It came down to a testing shootout at Barcelona. Button was 0.16 seconds quicker than Junqueira, and Button was awarded the ride.

Junqueira remained in International Formula 3000 for a third season and started with a runner-up finish at Imola. He was fifth at Silverstone but won the next three races at Barcelona, Nürburgring and Monaco. He suffered a dip in form over the summer before winning the penultimate race at Hungary, giving him a seven-point championship lead over Nicolas Minassian lead entering the Spa-Francorchamps season finale. 

Minassian had to win the finale to take the title. The Frenchman was running second at one point in the race, but could not catch Fernando Alonso, and Minassian ultimately fell to third at the checkered flag, covering for what was a poor day for Junqueira, who finished ninth but took the championship by three points. 

With the Williams option taken, Junqueira moved to Chip Ganassi Racing, which had two open seats as Juan Pablo Montoya had moved to Williams and Jimmy Vasser left for Patrick Racing. Joining Junqueira at Gannasi was his 2000 title rival Nicolas Minassian.

What did IndyCar look like when Junqueira started in the series?

It was a place where the top drivers for the European junior series could compete if they couldn't make it to Formula One. A handful of successful International Formula 3000 drivers moved to IndyCar during this period.

Juan Pablo Montoya had won the International Formula 3000 championship in 1998 and moved to CART the following year. After winning the 1995 International Formula 3000 championship, Vincenzo Sospiri went to the Indy Racing League when his Formula One plans fell through and Sospiri finished second in his fifth career start at Loudon. Gil de Ferran was fourth and third in the 1993 and 1994 seasons respectively and then joined Hall/VDS Racing for the 1995 CART season, where he won in the final race of his rookie year at Laguna Seca.

Chip Ganassi Racing double-dipped when hiring Junqueira and Nicolas Minassian. Justin Wilson was third in the 2000 season, would win the championship in 2001 and after a taste of Formula One, Wilson would become an IndyCar regular. Sébastien Bourdais moved to CART a year after taking the International Formula 3000 championship, and Tomáš Enge, Bourdais' main title rival would join the IRL in 2004. 

Five of the six International Formula 3000 champions from 1998 to 2003 contested at least one full season in North American open-wheel racing, starting with Montoya and ending with Björn Wirdheim, who ran 2005 Champ Car season with Dale Coyne Racing after spending a year as Jaguar F1's test driver. The only champion in that span who didn't run in IndyCar was Nick Heidfeld. 

Not only were there many European trained drivers in IndyCar circles, there were also a great number of Brazilians. 

Junqueira entered a CART paddock that already included de Ferran, Cristiana da Matta, Hélio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Christian Fittipaldi, Roberto Moreno and Maurício Gugelmin. Junqueira's former International Formula 3000 teammate Max Wilson, Jr. also made his IndyCar debut in the 2001 CART season. 

This isn't taking into consideration Felipe Giaffone and Airton Daré were Brazilians competing full-time in the IRL. Eleven Brazilians were regular competitors in the North American open-wheel scene at the start of the 21st century.

How does IndyCar look now?

Only one Brazilian competed full-time in the 2022 IndyCar season, Hélio Castroneves. Only one other Brazilian competed during in the 2022 IndyCar season, Tony Kanaan. 

For the first decade of the 2000s, IndyCar was as much a Brazilian series as it was an American series. De Ferran won multiple championships. Castroneves won multiple Indianapolis 500s. Da Matta and Kanaan became champions. Junqueira was a race winner. 

Vitor Meira would soon enter the IRL and showed competitiveness. Raphael Matos was champion in Indy Lights and the Atlantics championship. Ana Beatriz, Jamie Camara and Mario Romancini won in Indy Lights and each made the move to IndyCar. Romancini was the top rookie finisher in the 2010 Indianapolis 500 in 13th. Mario Moraes had a few flashes of speed. Enrique Bernoldi even moved to IndyCar after a spell in Formula One.

IndyCar had already competed in Rio in the late from 1996 to 2000, but the series made a return to Brazil with a race in São Paulo in 2010 due to the success of the drivers in the series as well as business relationships that saw IndyCar use 100% ethanol, most of which came from Brazilian sugar cane. 

 

However, as Brazilians financial boom ended in the early 2010s, combined with the lack of tobacco sponsorship, which funded many Brazilians in the 1990s and early 2000s, the country produced less IndyCar drivers, and not just IndyCar drivers but Formula One drivers as well. Many drivers have remained in their home country to compete in the Stock Car Brasil championship. Even Rubens Barrichello went back to compete full-time in Brazil after his one and only IndyCar season due to Brazilian sponsors being more interested in him competing domestically than abroad in IndyCar.

The European-trained talent is also quite scarce compared to when Junqueira entered IndyCar. None of the previous ten GP2/Formula Two champions have raced in IndyCar and the most recent GP2/Formula Two champion to run in IndyCar is Romain Grosjean after he spent a decade in Formula One before moving to IndyCar in his mid-30s. 

Champions aside, even top five drivers aren't coming to IndyCar. Callum Ilott and Christian Lundgaard have and they could be leading a new wave of Formula Two drivers moving to IndyCar when Formula One opportunities do not arise. We forget Alexander Rossi was second in the 2015 GP2 championship before he moved to IndyCar, but the drivers coming straight from the European ladder system to IndyCar is much rarer than it once was. 

We are seeing drivers come from Super Formula (Álex Palou), Supercars (Scott McLaughlin), Formula E (Felix Rosenqvist) and NASCAR (Jimmie Johnson), but the Formula Two to IndyCar route has been rather unexplored until recently. 

What did Junqueira do in-between?

The rookie season had flashes of potential, but Chip Ganassi Racing was either on fire or ice cold tin 2001. Junqueira started on pole position in his third career start at Nazareth, the race famously remembered as Scott Dixon's first career victory. 

Ganassi returned to the Indianapolis 500 that year. Junqueira and Minassian had Tony Stewart join the three-car Ganassi effort. Stewart qualified seventh while Junqueira was 20th on the grid and Minassian was 22nd. Stewart spent much of the race at the front and led 13 laps, but Junqueira kept gaining ground. At the checkered flag, Junqueira was fifth with 200 laps, 500 miles completed and a position ahead of Stewart. Junqueira was the second-best rookie in the 2001 Indianapolis 500. The top rookie was race winner Hélio Castroneves. 

There were high and low moments over the rest of Junqueira's rookie season. He was fourth at Milwaukee the week after Indianapolis but then had one top ten finish in the next seven races. At Road America, he qualified tenth in wet conditions. The rain carried over to race day and the conditions were so poor, the race started behind the pace car. 

Junqueira spun early after contact with Christian Fittipaldi and dropped to 20th. After a number of cautions, Junqueira found himself at the front of the field, especially as other top drivers ran into issues, including Michael Andretti, who bent stressing column after Andretti made contact with Fittipaldi. Due to the pace of the race, the checkered flag would come at the two-hour limit. Junqueira led the final ten laps and took the checkered flag on lap 45, ten laps short of the full distance. It was the high point that season as Junqueira ended up 16th in the championship. 

In his sophomore season, he won the third race of the season at Motegi. Through seven races, he had three podium finishes and four top five finishes after having only three top five results in his entire rookie season. He went back to the Indianapolis 500 and won pole position with a four-lap average of 231.342 mph. Junqueira led the first 32 laps but stalled on his first pit stop. Gearbox issues took him out of the race after completing over 87 laps. 

He was second in the championship after Portland and later won at Denver, but Cristiano da Matta's form was difficult to beat. Da Matta had six victories in the first 12 races, and he was on the podium in six of the final eight races and 11 races total. Da Matta clinched the title with three races to go, but Junqueira held on to second. 

For 2003, Chip Ganassi Racing moved to the Indy Racing League, ending its participation in CART. Junqueira did not make the move and remained in CART, moving to Newman/Haas Racing and taking over the seat vacated when da Matta moved to the Toyota Formula One program. Junqueira even drove the #1 car. He opened the season with five consecutive top five results and top five finishes in 11 of the first 12 races, taking the championship lead after his victory at Road America. 

Unfortunately, Junqueira hit a skid in the final six races. His only top five finish was his Denver victory while Paul Tracy won twice and had four finishes in the top six. Tracy won the title by 27 points.

Junqueira had another strong start in 2004 with four runner-up finishes in the first five races, and he led the championship after Milwaukee, but his teammate Sébastien Bourdais won three of the first five and four of the first six. Bourdais won six times while Junqueira won twice and had seven runner-up finishes in 14 races, putting him 28 points behind his a teammate Bourdais and as vice-champion for a third consecutive year. 

The 2004 season also saw Junqueira return to the Indianapolis 500 as Newman-Haas Racing made its Indianapolis Motor Speedway return for the first time since 1995. Junqueira qualified fourth and led 16 laps, ultimately finishing fifth in the rain-shortened race. 

After three consecutive years ending up second in the championship, Junqueira was poised for a title push in 2005. He was third in the season opener and won the second round of the season at Monterrey to give himself a one-point championship lead over Bourdais. Newman-Haas Racing was at Indianapolis again with both drivers. Both cars showed decent speed with Junqueira qualifying 12th and Bourdais in 15th. 

Junqueira was running sixth when overtaking the lapped car of A.J. Foyt IV entering turn two on lap 78. Foyt IV came down on Junqueira entering the corner and spun the Brazilian into the wall. Junqueira suffered a fractured vertebra and was out for the rest of the Champ Car season, ending his title hopes. 

Able to make a full recovery, Junqueira returned for the 2006 season with Newman-Haas. He won pole position for his fifth race back at Portland and finished fourth before ending up second at Cleveland. However, he did see a dip in form that season. He had runner-up results at Denver and Road America, but ended up fifth in the championship. 

After four seasons with Newman-Haas, Junqueira moved to Dale Coyne Racing for the 2007 season. Combined with the Panoz DP01 chassis and Coyne's master strategic skills, Junqueira wound up scoring three consecutive podium finishes during the season and finished seventh in the championship, the best championship result for a Dale Coyne Racing driver at the time. He remained with the team through reunification, but the team like many of the Champ Car teams struggled to catch up with the Dallara-Honda set up. He was sixth at Watkins Glens and seventh at Belle Isle, but ended up 20th in the championship. 

Without a full-time ride for 2009, Junqueira settled for a Indianapolis 500 one-off with Conquest Racing but the car did not take to the track until Bump Day. He easily made the field, ending up 30th and over 6/10ths of a mph above the bubble. However, Conquest Racing's Alex Tagliani was the final car bumped from the field. With Tagliani's sponsorship, the Canadian replaced Junqueira in the race and ended up finishing 11th, the top rookie and earned himself Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year honors. 

Taglaini repaid the favor the following year with his own team FAZZT Racing Team. However, it was again a Bump Day entry and his first practice laps were only a few hours before his first qualifying attempt. Junqueira made eight practice laps before his qualifying run. When he took his four-lap run, he completed it at 225.662 mph, the seventh-fastest qualifying speed of the weekend and nearly a mile per hour faster than the next best car during the Bump Day qualifying session. 

Though showing impressive speed in qualifying, Junqueira was out of the race on lap eight after a spin. A.J. Foyt Racing put Junqueira in its extra car for Indianapolis the following year and he qualified 19th. However, this year was a season remembered for Ryan Hunter-Reay not qualifying for the race and Andretti Autosport and DHL purchasing the Foyt entry, leaving Junqueira replaced from the Indianapolis 500 for the second time in three years. 

Junqueira had transitioned to full-time sports car participation in 2011, but he made one final IndyCar start at Baltimore in 2012, substituting for Josef Newgarden, who fractured his wrist the week prior at Sonoma. Jumping into the car cold turkey, Junqueira qualified 20th and finished 19th out of 25 cars after having been caught in an early accident and nursing a wounded car for most of the race. 

What impression did Junqueira leave on IndyCar?

Not one of the most unheralded drivers in recent IndyCar history, Junqueira deserves more respect than he gets, but he drove during a complicated time. 

 

He showed up as the CART/IRL Split was evolving and flipping and he wound up staying on the CART/Champ Car side driving for the best team in the series and happened to be paired with one of the best drivers of the decade. In a way, Junqueira and Sébastien Bourdais got the best out of each other. Junqueira was runner-up in the championship in three consecutive seasons. You don't accidentally do that. 

The disappointing thing is Junqueira broke his back in what was his best chance at a championship. He took the 2004 championship to the wire and started 2005 with a competitive set of results. We will never know what the 2005 season would have looked like if Junqueira had not been injured. 

Oriol Servià stepped into that car and finished in the top five in ten of the final 11 races, including seven podium finishes. Add the 265 points Servià scored over those 11 races to Junqueira's total from the first two and Junqueira would have had 324 points, 24 fewer than Bourdais' final points total, but, and with all due respect to Servià, Junqueira was a much better driver. There likely would have been two or three races Junqueira would have drawn more out of the car and turned a simple second or third into a victory.

Also, Bourdais didn't have a great run of form after Junqueira's injury. Servià finished ahead of Bourdais in three of his first four races with the Newman-Haas Racing, and in that span Bourdais had only one podium result. If Junqueira had been in for those races, I think he would have punished Bourdais for leaving points on the table and Junqueira could have controlled the championship into the summer and pulled out a title. 

But we will never know. 

That missing championship aside, Junqueira's raw speed at Indianapolis stands out. His 2010 effort remains one of the most unappreciated performances of the 21st century. He did eight practice laps in a backup car that hadn't been properly set up and then put up the seventh fastest qualifying run of the month for a new team and he qualified ahead of two Andretti Autosport cars, four other full-time entries and Paul Tracy, who failed to make the race.

The same way we never know what Junqueira would have done if he wasn't hurt in the 2005 season, what would have happened if Ganassi took him to the IRL along with Dixon for 2003? We only saw a glimpse of his oval prowess due to the schedule shifting when he entered the North American open-wheel racing. He didn't make that many oval starts in comparison to some of his contemporaries. He only made one start at Michigan and two starts at Fontana. He likely would have been competitive in that 2003 season running on the intermediate tracks as well as the superspeedways. 

But we will never know.

Eight career victories aren't nothing. You don't get lucky eight times in any professional motorsports series even during a split. Even with eight victories, the roll of the dice might not have gone in your favor. In Junqueira's case, he had a good roll, but with a slightly different roll it could have been something greater. 

Career Retrospective: Tomas Scheckter

Last IndyCar offseason, I took the time to look over a handful of drivers who were transitioning in their careers after being regular fixtures on the grid for the better part of the previous decade and more. It was a chance to appreciate the talents we had seen on track and look at how IndyCar had changed over their careers.

This offseason I have decided to bring back the Career Retrospective, but instead of looking at contemporary drivers, I wanted to take a look back at some of the cult heroes in IndyCar, drivers who aren't necessarily remember for the number of race victories and championships, but for things they did on track that gained the respect of many and left them struck at their ability. 

This is part one of a three-part series and it will look at a spectacular raw talent that showed flashes of speed few rookies have matched since but who unfortunately developed a habit of wrecking race cars and not pulling out the results. This identity was unshakable, but he mesmerized the fanbase and earned acclaim for his dazzling drives.

It is Tomas Scheckter.

Where was Scheckter coming from?

Son of 1979 World Drivers' Champion Jody Scheckter, Tomas Scheckter had developed in karting in his native South Africa. At 18 years old, he moved to Europe, competing in British Formula Vauxhall Junior against the likes of Takuma Sato. 

The following year saw a move to the Formula Opel Euroseries, a series that could claim Mika Häikkinen, Rubens Barrichello and Pedro Lamy as past champions. Scheckter won eight of 20 races in the 1999 season, breaking the single-season victory record that Häikkinen, Barrichello and David Coulthard had all previously shared.

Formula Opel success led to a taste of Euro Open by Nissan (what would eventually become Formula Renault 3.5) at the end of the 1999 season. Scheckter entered the season finale at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia in a one-off entry. He won pole position for both races ahead of the championship leader, a man named Fernando Alonso. Scheckter won the first race of the weekend with Alonso in second. Alonso won the second race and clinched the championship while Scheckter was second.

The 1999 results led to a full-time ride with Stewart Racing in the 2000 British Formula Three season, where Scheckter won twice and was second in the championship to Antônio Pizzonia, but Scheckter was ahead of Sato, Narain Karthikeyan, Gianmaria Bruni and Andy Priaulx.

The Formula Three success led to much attention from Formula One teams. Scheckter tested for the Jaguar Racing at Silverstone in August 2000, where he ran comparable times to the team's test driver Luciano Burti. McLaren entered Scheckter in its junior team for the final four races of the International Formula 3000 races that year and he was runner-up in his second start. 

Scheckter ended up signing with Jaguar as its test driver for 2001 while also running full-time in Euro Open by Nissan. He won pole position for eight of 16 races, winning four times and standing on the podium 11 times, but he ended up second in the championship behind Franck Montagny. However, Scheckter was fired from Jaguar Racing after he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in May of that year.

With no ties to Formula One, Scheckter's career ventured elsewhere. 

What did IndyCar look like when Scheckter started in the series?

It was the middle of The Split, but the transition in power had started. 

In 2002, Team Penske had flipped to a full-time Indy Racing League. Chip Ganassi Racing had expanded to run an IRL entry for Jeff Ward while still competing in CART. Mo Nunn Racing was even straddling the divide. More teams were dabbling in the Indianapolis 500, and CART was losing steam. 

Panther Racing was the defending champion with a single-car. Hemelgarn Racing was a regular championship contender. A.J. Foyt Racing had won six races over the previous five seasons and was coming off a top five championship finish. Kelley Racing and Blair Racing were other competitive entries. 

Al Unser, Jr. drove for Kelley. Arie Luyendyk was part-time for Treadway Racing. Eddie Cheever was driving for his own team with Red Bull sponsorship and expanding to include the young Scheckter. Raul Boesel was bouncing around searching for a victory. Eliseo Salazar was still on the grid. 

Ten American drivers were series regulars. The top ten in the championship was nothing but Americans and Brazilians. Only one European driver was full-time in the IRL. 

The IRL was still oval only, but the schedule was experiencing some growth. It was up to 15 races and visiting some new venues. It wasn't only teams switching side during the Split. Fontana, Nazareth and Michigan joined the IRL schedule in 2002 after being CART events. Homestead, Kansas, Richmond, Nashville, Gateway and Chicagoland had all joined the schedule the season before. Three of those tracks had just opened the year before. 

How does IndyCar look now?

Twenty years later, Fontana, Michigan, Homestead, Kansas, Richmond, Nashville and Chicagoland are no longer on the schedule. Neither are Phoenix and Kentucky either. Fontana is about to become a short track. Nazareth has grown over. Pikes Peak is a shell of its former self. Texas is down to one race. 

Of the 14 tracks that hosted a 2002 IRL race, only Texas, Indianapolis and Gateway are currently on the schedule, and Gateway didn't host a race from 2005 through 2016. 

Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing are still around. Panther, Kelley, Hemelgarn, Blair, Treadway and Cheever are not. 

Red Bull has just won its fifth World Constructors' Championship in Formula One and it has won six World Drivers' Championships since it entered the series in 2005 after purchasing the assets of Jaguar Racing. 

There were only eight American regulars in IndyCar in the 2022 season, but there were six different nationalities represented in the top ten of the championship. Nine European drivers were series regulars, three of which finished in the top ten of the championship. 

What did Scheckter do in-between?

Absolutely stunned us with his pace but left us flabbergasted at his inconsistency as a rookie. Scheckter qualified third on debut at Homestead, his very first oval race. He started behind the defending series champion Sam Hornish, Jr. and the defending Indianapolis 500 winner Hélio Castroneves. Scheckter's boss Eddie Cheever started next to him in fourth. 

The teammates battled hard in the opening laps and Cheever ended up in the wall on lap three after fighting with Scheckter. Cheever was out of the race while Scheckter would finish sixth. Scheckter started in the top five of his first four starts, but he finished outside the top twenty in three of them. He lost an engine at Phoenix, but had an accident with Hideki Noda at Fontana while in a contending position and the same happened at Nazareth.

Entering the Indianapolis 500, Scheckter was far from one of the early favorites, but he went out and took the lead on lap 33 after starting tenth. He led 85 laps and was leading with 28 laps to go until he hit the wall exiting turn four, ending his race. 

The qualifying pace remained, but so did the retirements. He started on pole position at Texas and led 107 laps, but burned up a clutch. He had another pole position at Kansas, led 101 laps and had an accident while leading with 11 laps to go. 

Patience was running out and Scheckter was under the threat of being fired. Michigan was last chance saloon as Cheever brought in Buddy Rice to fill a third entry to put pressure on Scheckter. The South African responded with his third pole position of the season. In a fierce battle late, Scheckter held on to win after leading 122 of 200 laps with Rice in second. In his post-race interview, Cheever was not overflowing with joy. It was a race victory, but Cheever was ready to can Scheckter and Scheckter did the one thing to assure he couldn't be fired after Michigan. 

The victory put Scheckter tenth in the championship, the top rookie with four races remaining. With his ride safe for Kentucky, he ended up with his second worst starting position in 17th. On lap 90, he and Airton Daré had an accident and Scheckter was dismissed from Red Bull Cheever Racing after the event. 

Scheckter did not compete in the final three races, and lost Rookie of the Year by 15 points to Laurent Redon. While his accidents were a concern, his speed earned him a contract with Chip Ganassi Racing for the 2003 season as the team moved entirely over to the IRL with Scott Dixon. 

Unfortunately, the reputation developed in Scheckter's rookie season could not be shaken throughout the rest of his career. Dixon won the championship, but Scheckter had accidents in three of the first five races of the season, including at Texas after leading 145 of the first 173 laps. His fourth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 was overshadowed with his poor performances. The qualifying pace was still brilliant, but even when Scheckter got to the finish, his race results were not quite enough to impress Ganassi and he was dismissed after the 2003 season despite finishing seventh in the championship. 

Though fired twice in two seasons, there was still interest in Scheckter. Panther Racing brought him on after Sam Hornish, Jr. left. However, Scheckter joined Panther as Chevrolet was hitting a low point in the IRL. He retired from ten of 16 races, only half were due to accidents. In 2005, Panther Racing was the only Chevrolet team on the grid, but Chevrolet made big strides. Scheckter won pole position for the season opener... and then proceeded to crash out. 

Scheckter crashed out of four of the first five races. He won from pole position at Texas, and picked up six top five finishes, but the damage was done, and combined with Pennzoil sponsorship leaving Panther, Scheckter was out of another ride. 

For 2006, he found a landing spot at Vision Racing, and honed in his consistency, suffering only three retirements, finishing tenth in the championship. In 2007, he again was tenth in the championship with only three retirements, one of which was not his fault at Michigan, but as reunification took place, Scheckter was on the outside of the full-time grid. 

Opportunities popped up in part-time entries. Luczo-Dragon Racing, under the ownership of Jay Penske, brought Scheckter on for six races. He qualified in the top ten three times and started 11th in the Indianapolis 500, but he retired from five of six races. His best finish was 21st. He found another part-time opportunity in 2009 splitting the #23 Dreyer & Reinbold entry with Milka Duno plus running a third car at some events while driving a second car for Dale Coyne Racing at the Indianapolis 500. He had three top ten finishes in 11 races, his best result being sixth at Iowa.

In 2010, Scheckter became a super-sub. After his Indianapolis 500 one-off, he filled in for an injured Mike Conway at three races for Dreyer & Reinbold, and then Scheckter ran two for Conquest Racing. For 2011, his first race was with KV Racing, run in partnership with the SH Racing, at the Indianapolis 500. He started 21st, but kept the car moving forward in the race, including a restart that saw him pass 14 cars, and through the hectic final laps with cars stretching fuel, Scheckter crossed the line in eighth. 

Later that season he filled in for the injured Justin Wilson at Loudon for Dreyer & Reinbold. He made a second start in the KVSH entry at Baltimore. Sarah Fisher Racing entered Scheckter in the #57 entry for the Las Vegas season finale. He qualified 23rd and was caught in the lap 11 accident that claimed the life of Dan Wheldon.

What impression did Scheckter leave on IndyCar?

Anytime a driver makes a daring pass on an oval, usually on the outside on a restart, comparisons are instantly drawn to Scheckter. 

His flare captured a segment of the fanbase that still resonates today. With all the excitement Scheckter brought, he could never escape his crash-prone identity. His rookie season is something of legend. He had seven fastest laps as a rookie, all on ovals, a track style he had never raced on prior to that season. Sébastien Bourdais had seven fastest laps or more in three consecutive Champ Car seasons from 2005 to 2007, but since reunification, only three has a driver reached five fastest laps in a season (Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon in 2009, Josef Newgarden in 2017). In the IRL/IndyCar Series, Scheckter's seven fastest laps remain the single-season record. 

Few rookies come close to the raw pace Scheckter exhibited. It is why he won two races despite not driving for the largest teams. If he had developed any sense of control, Scheckter could have been champion. Champion is still a stretch, but he could have been a regular race winner, at least on ovals. 

Scheckter entered at a strange time in IndyCar. He is also one of a handful of these drivers with a strict road course background that inexplicably came to IRL/IndyCar when it was entirely ovals or majority ovals and shined brightly. At no point in IndyCar was Scheckter considered a potential well-rounded driver that could compete on road courses. He was winning against some spectacular road course talents in Europe, arguably could have had a shot in Formula One, and yet he is remembered as an oval maestro.  

The career lasted a decade and ended on IndyCar's darkest day in the 21st century. Scheckter will also be forever remembered as one of the drivers not to return to IndyCar after Dan Wheldon's accident. Las Vegas was also the final race weekend for Paul Tracy, Alex Lloyd, Davey Hamilton, Vitor Meira and Buddy Rice. IndyCar was also transitioning to the DW12 chassis. Entry shortages would soon follow, but if Wheldon's accident have never happened, would October 16, 2011 have been the final day Scheckter and the rest competed in an IndyCar race weekend?

Scheckter's career was dipping, but he still was worth the roll of the dice. He was only 31 years old. There was plenty of career ahead of him if he needed it. The same could be said for Lloyd, who was only 27 years old. It is stunning Meira never got a race in the DW12-era and he was 34. Tracy, Hamilton and Rice were all at different points in their career, reduced to part-timers. Stepping away for them wasn't drastic, but for the other three, there was still significant time on the clock.

After Las Vegas, Jody Scheckter was vocal about the incident and the danger of racing on ovals. It would have been one thing for his son to walk away from IndyCar and race elsewhere, somewhere safer. Scheckter quit cold turkey. Las Vegas was his last professional motorsports outing. 

He went on to run his family business, a farm, raising livestock and producing dog food. During 2020, Scheckter let the world know he had suffered a series of strokes a few years prior and had a heart operation at the Mayo Clinic. 

It is sad that we lose touch with some of these drivers. Scheckter wasn't around for only 15 minutes never to be seen again as a one-off. He was around for a decade and stood out more than most. Life changes and not everyone remains fully involved in the series after they are done. It is ok to move on, but we shouldn't completely lose touch. 

As time passes, Scheckter will become an even greater folk hero. There is a generation that will tell tales of this blistering South African who showed no fear making a run even if it didn't always pan out.