- Late Saturday night, Logan Seavey was able to get back around Cannon McIntosh on a restart and held off a charging Tanner Thorson to win the 37th Annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals at the
SageNet Center in Tulsa, Okla. McIntosh was third, then Shane Golobic and Emerson Axsom. Our own Bryan Keith breaks down the weekend in Tulsa in Thinkin' Dirty at Frontstretch.
- Richard Childress Racing announced Monday that Netspend, a provider of prepaid debit cards to consumers, will serve as a primary sponsor of Kyle Busch's No. 8 Chevrolet in selected
races in 2023. No official number of races was given. The blue and orange colors debuted Monday during a test session at Circuit of the Americas. The sponsorship will first appear in a race back at COTA in March.
- Last weekend, the ARCA Menards Series held two days of preseason testing at
Daytona International Speedway ahead of next month's season opener. Friday saw Joe Gibbs Racing's William Sawalich go fastest overall with a lap at 183.094 mph. The lap was a little more than a tenth of a second faster than Andy Jankowiak. Brayton Laster was third fastest, then Nick Sanchez and Jacob Perry.
While Sawalich was fastest overall, he will not be in the ARCA season opener in February. Sawalich is 16 and ineligible to race at Daytona. However, he was eligible to participate in the test sessions.
Saturday's timesheet was dominated by Venturini
Motorsports. Toni Breidinger was fastest overall with a lap at 183.228 mph. The lap was a mere four-thousandths of a second faster than teammate Amber Balcaen. Jesse Love was third, then Gus Dean. The times suggest that the times were all set at the same time with the four Venturini drivers running in a draft. Emerling-Gase Motorsports' Patrick Emerling was fifth.
Over the two days of testing, 62 different drivers got out onto the 2.5-mile tri-oval. More than 20 of those drivers have never started an ARCA Menards Series race.
- Avalanche Andretti Formula E's Jake Dennis
won the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season opening victory in Saturday's Mexico City e-Prix. His margin of victory was 7.816 seconds over Pascal Wehrlein. Lucas di Grassi was third, then Andre Lotterer and Jake Hughes.
- The Dakar Rally is now complete with Kevin Benavides taking his
second win in the Bike category, while Nasser Al-Attiyah dominated to win the Cars category. Austin Jones won in the T3 Lightweight Prototype category, while Janus van Kasteren won in the Trucks.
In the Bikes category, Luciano Benavides won the ninth stage right after last Monday's rest day
over Toby Price, Skyler Howes, Tosha Schareina and Romain Dumontier. The stage also saw Joan Barreda Bort crash out of the rally.
Stage 10 saw Ross Branch take the win over Adrien van Beveren, Michael Docherty, Kevin Benavides and Matthias Walkner. The fourth-place finish was enough for Kevin
Benavides to take the overall lead over Howes, who finished 15th.
The push into the Empty Quarter saw Luciano Benavides win again on Thursday with Daniel Sanders second, then Price, Howes and Quintanilla. That was enough for Howes to retake the overall lead by 28 seconds over Price.
The second marathon stage Saw Jose Ignacio Cornejo take the win by 49 seconds over Sanders. Price was third, then Walkner and Kevin Benavides. Price's third-place finish allowed him to take the overall lead by 28 seconds over Howes.
Stage 13 Saturday saw Kevin Benavides claim the win and gain more than two minutes on his immediate rivals. Docherty was second, then his brother Luciano. Van Beveren was fourth, then Price. Prior to the stage, Mason Klein, who was 10th overall, withdrew due to pains from a previous crash. During the stage, Walkner, who was ninth overall, crashed out and had to be airlifted to the hospital.
Kevin Benavides entered the final stage a mere 12 seconds behind Price. He then went out and won the final stage, which resemble something of a mud waller due to the unseasonable rains. That was enough to give Kevin Benavides the overall Bike victory by 43 seconds, the closest margin of victory in the history of the class. Howes was third,
then Quintanilla and van Beveren.
In the Cars category, no one was giving Al-Attiyah a fight. He already had a lead of over an hour prior to the rest day.
The
race's second week was something of a party for Sebastien Loeb, who won six consecutive stages in order to recover from issues in the first week to get all the way back up to second overall.
Carlos Sainz's terrible Dakar continued in stage nine when he front-flipped his Audi less than
four miles into the stage after jumping too fast off of a dune. He thought he was out on the spot, but managed to finish the stage. He then chose to withdraw.
Al-Attiyah's margin of victory was one hour, 20 minutes and 49 seconds over Loeb. Lucas Moraes was third, then Giniel de Villiers and Henk Lategan.
- Guillaume de Mevius was in decent position to win the T3 class until he broke during Stage 11 in the Empty Quarter. The mechanical issue cost de Mevius 90 minutes and took him out of the hunt.
De Mevius' issues gave a healthy overall lead to Austin Jones. He was able to hold on to beat his teammate Seth Quintero by over 52 minutes for the class victory. De Mevius had to settle for third. Cristina Gutierrez was fourth, while Francisco Lopez was fifth.
The Truck class saw Ales Loprais leading after the ninth stage. However, during that stage, Loprais hit an Italian spectator, resulting in that spectator suffering fatal injuries. As a result, Loprais chose to withdraw in respect of the fallen fan.
Loprais' withdrawal resulted in van Kasteren taking over the overall lead. Van Kasteren had to deal with Martin van den Brink early on in the week, but Martin van den Brink lost more than two hours in Stage 13 to eliminate himself from contention. Van Kasteren ultimately took the overall win by one hour, 14 minutes and 34 seconds over Martin Macik. Martin Van den Brink ended up the better part of three hours back in third, followed by Mitchel van den
Brink and Jaroslav Valtr.
