Flag goes up, drama unfurls

By Brian Hilderbrand

Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

Baseball might be mired in the dog days of August, but the past two weeks have been anything but boring for motor sports fans.

The first race weekend of the month started innocently enough with NASCAR's Busch Series making its inaugural visit to Canada for a road-course race in Montreal. The race ended in confusion and controversy as two drivers - race winner Kevin Harvick and perennial bad boy Robby Gordon - performed celebratory burnouts at the start/finish line. NASCAR officials had to physically block Gordon, who had been black flagged with two laps remaining, from entering Victory Lane. Incensed by Gordon's behavior, NASCAR President Mike Helton made him sit out the Nextel Cup race the next day at Pocono Raceway.

While Gordon watched the Pocono race from the sidelines, Las Vegas native Kurt Busch posted a dominating win on the triangular course and bumped beer-car rival Dale Earnhardt Jr. out of 12th place in the points standings. Only the top 12 drivers after the Sept. 8 race will be eligible to compete for the series championship during the final 10 races of the season.

NASCAR's traveling circus stopped this past weekend in Watkins Glen, N.Y., for the Nextel Cup Series' second road-course race of the season. If the on-track action wasn't enough to keep fans glued to their television sets, Harvick and Juan Pablo Montoya provided comic relief by engaging in a half-hearted shoving match after crashing into each other late in the race.

On the track, series points leader Jeff Gordon surprised everyone - Tony Stewart included - by spinning out while leading with two laps remaining and handing the win to Stewart.

NASCAR hasn't had a monopoly in the industry this month when it comes to providing fodder for the highlight reels. Eleven days ago, IndyCar driver Dario Franchitti was involved in a spectacular crash at Michigan International Speedway in which his car became airborne before landing on another car.

Franchitti, the 2007 Indianapolis 500 winner, emerged from the wreck unhurt but suffered a severely bruised ego Saturday night in an eerily similar accident when he ran over another car after the checkered flag had waved in the race at Kentucky Speedway.

And to think, there still are two more race weekends this month.

Busch in a Toyota?

Kyle Busch, the Las Vegas native who announced this week he would drive for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series beginning in 2008, likely will be behind the wheel of a Toyota next season.

JGR President J.D. Gibbs has not denied rumors the team will switch from Chevrolets to Toyotas next season, and Busch sounded an awful lot like someone who was going to be driving a Toyota next year.

"You know, I've got a lot of great friends over at Chevrolet and have developed a strong relationship with those folks," Busch said Tuesday. "Hopefully I can still have that whether or not we do decide to switch over here at Joe Gibbs Racing."

Busch said he took JGR's rumored switch to Toyota into consideration when he picked the team over Dale Earnhardt Inc., which fields Chevys.

"Do I feel like Toyota has struggled a little bit this year? Sure, I have. Do I feel like Joe Gibbs and everybody here can try to turn that around? Certainly.

"If they're looking in that direction, more power to them."

He's No. 1

Despite suffering a first-round loss Sunday in Brainerd, Minn., Rod Fuller of Las Vegas maintained the lead in the National Hot Rod Association's Top Fuel points standings heading into the final race of the regular season.

Fuller leads Brandon Bernstein by 93 points going into this weekend's race in Reading, Pa., and can clinch the No. 1 spot heading into the second stage of the "Countdown to the Championship" by winning one round during Sunday's eliminations.

Only the top eight drivers in each of the four professional categories after Sunday's race will be eligible to win a world championship.

8

Dario Franchitti's points lead over Scott Dixon with three races remaining in the IndyCar Series season.

125

Career NHRA national-event Funny Car victories for John Force, who defeated Kenny Bernstein in Sunday's final in Brainerd, Minn.

"He is showing everybody that age isn't that big a factor in this game. I'm four years younger than him and that means that if he can continue stepping on the gas like he is, so can I."

NHRA Funny Car driver John Force, 58, on fellow drag racing legend Kenny Bernstein, 62. Force beat Bernstein in the Funny Car final Sunday in Brainerd, Minn.