This Week in Motorsports - October 28

by David Vodden

Kofoid’s win was not the Saturday night main event but a result of accumulating the most points over three days at the legendary event that supports the Make A Wish Foundation to the tune of over a million dollars since the show began. It is put on by fan, Dave Pusatera, who wanted to see fast cars start in the back and racers juggled so that no one driver or group of drivers has an advantage. Do the drivers mind? Not if you consider there were eighty-nine-winged sprint cars in the pits on the first night. Kofoid won that main event and finished fourth on Saturday night behind 15-year-old Ryan Timms, Colby Copeland, and D. J. Netto. A full house enjoyed seeing the best 360 sprint car drivers pass to get to the front and race side by side, lap after lap, to win. Great stuff put on by a fan and not a promoter who is intimidated by car owners and gives them all the want thinking that doing so builds loyalty and attendance. It does neither.

Kyle Larsen won again in the NASCAR Cup series playoff race at Kansas. That makes Larsen two-for-two in what is the final round before the four finalists are determined in the championship battle. While it looked like he dominated the race, he did not. He won the first Stage and then faded a bit before coming back to win the race. He achieved and all-time laps led record eclipsing Jeff Gordon’s former number. He also recorded his second cycle of winning three Cup race in a row, twice in the same season. The last NASCAR driver to do that was Dale Earnhardt in the early eighties. Larsen is unquestionably the favorite to win the Cup title for 2021 but that cannot be determined. All it takes is one mistake, one bad break and the winner of the last race of 2021 in Phoenix, Az. becomes the champion. Chase Elliott was a long shot winner last year as was Joey Logano when he won the title a few years before. There is just too much luck involved but it is what it is. Elliott got second behind Larsen in the Kansas race with Kevin Harvick third, Kurt Busch fourth and Denny Hamlin fifth. The final four that will go head to head in Phoenix will likely be Larsen, Hamlin, Elliott and one surprise from Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, or Kyle Busch. Which one do you think will make it to the final?

On Saturday in Kansas child racer Ty Gibbs drove grandpa’s winningest Toyota #54 to victory over Austin Cindric, A. J. Almendinger, Justin Haley, and Ryan Seig. Young driver Noah Gragson was a victim of a one-off teammate who caused a crash that took him out and dropped him below the cutoff line for the Xfinity final four. All three NASCAR premier racing series, the trucks, Xfinity cars and Cup cars will have four drivers who will race to see who among them is the champion based on the highest finisher of that four at the last race in Phoenix. It is reported to be sold out.

Max Verstappen won for the seventh time this year in Formula One at the only America race in the twenty-two race global series. It was at The Circuit of the Americas, a track funded by the state of Texas. He added twelve points over his closest combatant for the title, Lewis Hamilton who finished second. Verstappen’s teammate at Red Bull, Sergio Perez, finished third with Charles Leclerc and Daniel Ricciardo completing the top five. The title fight remains very much in contention as the series moves to Mexico before going across the sea to wrap up the 2021 series.

Thunderhill continues with a solid schedule of events leading up to the 25-Hour Endurance auto race the first weekend in December.