- Halmar Friesen Racing announced Tuesday in Sherrill. N.Y. that Ferris Mowers will serve as the primary sponsor of Stewart Friesen's No. 52 Toyota in six NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races in 2023.
- Rick Ware Racing, in an exclusive to DailySportsCar.com, announced their 2023 IMSA plans Friday. Pietro Fittipaldi and Eric Lux will drive the No. 51 ORECA 07-Gibson full-time in the LMP2 class. INDYCAR regular Devlin
DeFrancesco will be in the car for the four Michelin Endurance Cup races, while Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric will be in the car for Daytona.
- Kelly-Moss Road & Race announced Friday that both Kay van Berlo and Alan Metni will move up from Porsche Carrera Cup North America to
drive the No. 91 Porsche 911 GT3 R full-time in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship's GTD class in 2023. Metni is the defending Pro-Am champion and brings years of experience in 911 Cup cars, which are not the easiest cars to drive. Metni is also the founder of iFLY, a chain of indoor skydiving centers, which will likely serve as the team's primary sponsor.
The team also announced new sponsorship from Flex-Box, which has supported the team in the past. They intend to make a future announcement in regards to their plans for the sprint races.
- Team Korthoff Motorsports announced that Mikael Grenier
will replace Stevan McAleer for the full season alongside Mike Skeen in the No. 32 Mercedes in IMSA competition. Maximilian Goetz and Kenton Koch will join in as well.
- Motorsports In Action announced Friday that they will return to IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge action full-time in 2023
after sitting out the 2022 season. The team has acquired a new McLaren Artura GT4 for the returning Jesse Lazare and Alex Filsinger, who drove for AutoTechnic Racing last year in SRO America's Pirelli GT4 America SprintX.
- Saturday night was the season opener for both Monster Energy AMA
Supercross and the inaugural Super MotoCross World Championship at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The opening night was a pretty wild race.
Justin Barcia led early in the race, but Eli Tomac was able to run him down and take the lead. A subsequent crash dropped Barcia down the order to an
11th-place finish. Tomac held a steady lead until an error resulted in a crash that dropped him to fourth.
Malcolm Stewart inherited the lead for the next few laps before Chase Sexton ran him down, took the lead and nerfed Stewart off the track. Stewart later crashed out of the
race.
Sexton made a couple of unforced errors late that allowed Tomac back into the battle. He took the lead late and held on to take another victory. He ended up 2.778 seconds ahead of Cooper Webb at the finish. Sexton was third, then Dylan Ferrandis and Ken Roczen.
In the 250cc West class, Kawasaki's Austin Forkner crashed hard right at the start of the main. He was carted off by the Alpinestars Safety Team, but no update has been released on his condiition.
Jett Lawrence claimed the holeshot and led flag-to-flag to take the victory. He won by 5.259 seconds over RJ Hampshire. Cameron McAdoo was third, then Mitchell Oldenburg and Max Vohland.
- The Dakar Rally has had to deal with unusual weather issues. Heavy rains on Tuesday led to flooding in the northern part of Saudi Arabia. That led to Tuesday's stage being curtailed for cars and trucks. Flooding in Ad Dawadimi meant that a bivouac (paddock) could not be set up there, resulting in three stages being modified. Finally, the seventh stage for the bikes was cancelled due to the overall fatigue involved for the competitors, combined with
additional heavy rains.
In the Bikes, Daniel Sanders won stage three on Tuesday and snatched the overall lead from Mason Klein after Klein lost seven minutes. The big story here was that Ricky Brabec crashed and was forced to withdraw due to a back injury.
Stage four saw Joan Barreda Bort take the win over Pablo Quintanilla, Skyler Howes, Toby Price and Adrien van Beveren. Sanders ended up eighth and dropped five minutes to Howes.
Stage five saw Sanders finish 21st, nearly 27 minutes behind stage winner van Beveren. That was enough to cost him the overall lead to Howes, who finished fifth behind van Beveren, Jose Ignacio Cornejo, Price and Mason Klein. Howes' lead was two minutes and seven seconds over Price with Sanders dropping back to eighth.
Stage six saw Luciano Benavides claim the win by 56 seconds over Howes. Price was third, then Barreda Bort and Kevin Benavides.
Following the cancellation of stage seven, Sunday's eighth
stage saw a number of the top contenders riding together in the dunes. Ross Branch took the win by three minutes and 15 seconds over Sanders. Klein was third, then Quintanilla and van Beveren.
Through eight stages, Howes has a mere 13 second advantage over both Kevin Benavides and Klein. Price
is just under two minutes back in fourth, while Quintanilla is fifth. Van Beveren is two minutes, 49 seconds back in sixth.
In the Cars, Carlos Sainz was leading entering stage three, but had a suspension issue that cost him nearly an hour. Sainz's son, Carlos Jr., could only watch as he and
his co-driver Lucas Cruz worked on the Audi RS-Q in the middle of the desert. While Guerlain Chicherit won the stage, Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah took the overall lead.
Stage four was won by Sebastien Loeb, who has proven very quick, but fragile. He tends to have a quick day, then a day with
problems. Here, he won by only 13 seconds over Stephane Peterhansel, then Sainz, Al-Attiyah and Yazeed Al Rajhi.
Stage five saw Loeb roll his No. 201 in the dunes. Despite this crash, he still finished ninth, just under 20 minutes behind.
Al-Attiyah claimed the stage win and extended his overall lead. Sainz was second, then Peterhansel, Al Rajhi and Chicherit. By this point, Al-Attiyah's overall lead was over 22 minutes.
Stage six was more of the same as At-Attiyah claimed another stage win to continue to pull away. This time, he beat Loeb by nearly three and a half minutes. Henk Latigan was third, then Chicherit and Vaidotas Zala.
Stage
six saw Audi's race plans fall apart as both Peterhansel and Sainz flew off the same dune and suffered severe damage. Peterhansel was concussed in the crash and has no memory of the landing. Co-driver Edouard Boulanger was airlifted to the hospital, ending Peterhansel's rally. Sainz lost 25+ hours, including a penalty of 18 hours from the organizers, ending any chance of a decent finish.
The seventh stage saw Al Rajhi take the win by nearly nine minutes over Zala, with Chicherit third. Giniel de Villiers was fourth in his Toyota, then Brian Baragwanath. Loeb won Sunday's eighth stage by two minutes and 11 seconds over Al-Attiyah, then Sainz ,Lategan and Jakub Przygonski.
Through eight stages, Al-Attiyah currently leads by one hour, three minutes and 46 seconds over Lategan. Lucas Moraes is third, then Loeb, who is an hour and 52 minutes back. De Villiers is fifth. Sainz is way down in 100th.
Guillaume de Mevius leads in the T3 Lightweight Prototype class by three minutes and 19 seconds over Austin Jones. Seth Quintero is third, but over an hour back.
In the Trucks, Ales Loprais leads by 16 minutes and 17 seconds over Martin van den Brink.
Janus van Kasteren is third, then Martin Macik and Mitchel van den Brink.
