- Former Cup driver Stanley Smith passed away Wednesday at the age of 71.  Smith competed in 28 Cup races with a best finish of 21st in the 1991 Winston 500 at his home track, Talladega.  Away from the track, Smith ran his own company, Stanley Smith Drywall, which focused on multi-family housing and dormitories.  His Cup career ended after suffering a basilar skull fracture and a torn left carotid artery in a crash in the 1993 DieHard 500 at Talladega.  Despite the seriousness of the injuries, Smith's impact was overshadowed at the time by Jimmy Horton flipping out of the track at the same time.  
 

Smith was hospitalized for 40 days after the crash and permanently lost the use of part of his face, but still managed to recover.  Years later, he returned to late model racing in the Southeast, eventually winning the Snowflake 100 in 2000 and a NASCAR Southeast Series race at Kentucky Speedway in 2004.  We at Frontstretch send the Smith family our condolences.

- Walkenhorst Motorsports' Nicky Catsburg, Augusto Farfus and Sheldon van der Linde claimed overall in Saturday's Kyalami 9 Hours in South Africa.  The race was dominated by Team Honda Racing, but the Walkenhorst team pitted first to switch to wet tires when thunderstorms descended upon the circuit in the eighth hour.

About a lap later, everyone else was mandated by officials to swap to rain tires.  The race restarted, but it took only a lap or so for the race to be put back under yellow.  Heavy rains had made the track unraceable.  The remaining 64 minutes were run at a reduced pace, giving Walkenhorst the win.

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