It seems that once again Tony Stewart may be starting another late season run on the NASCAR Nextel Cup championship. After twenty races without a win, Stewart totally dominated Sunday’s race in Chicago, leading 108 of the 267 laps and finishing off th day with his trademark climb up the fence to salute the crowd from the flag stand. 

Jimmie Johnson looked to be the only person with any chance of catching Stewart until his right rear tire exploded in spectacular fashion sending Johnson into the wall. Matt Kenseth made a run at Stewart over the closing laps, even getting the car nose in front for a few seconds, but it wasn’t to last.  Perhaps the most entertaining drive of the day came from Dale Earnhardt Jr. who was up in the top five when he lost power steering, even though he dropped down to 19th he appeared to be having great fun wrestling the car around the circuit.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Tony Stewart
2. Matt Kenseth
3. Carl Edwards
4. Kevin Harvick
5. Casey Mears
6. Kurt Busch
7. Jeff Burton
8. Ryan Newman
9. Jeff Gordon
10. Clint Bowyer

Following on from last week’s road course victory at Watkin’s Glen it seems that the pendulum in the IRL has swung in favor of Gannasi driver Scott Dixon, who scored his second sucessive win at Nashville on Sunday afternoon.

The race had originally been scheduled for Saturday night until a sudden downpour caused it to be postponed until the following day. The rain also had the effect of washing away most of the rubber and the result was a single groove race track that made it treachorous for anyone getting off line. AGR’s Tony Kanaan was an early victim of the slippery surface as he lapped Sarah Fisher. While there were few incidents, Kanaan aside, the single groove made overtaking difficult with lapped traffic becoming a major source of iritation for many drivers.

The early part of the race was dominated by championship leader Dario Franchitti with pressure from the Ganassi duo of Dan Wheldon and Dixon. When Wheldon bravely tried a pass around the outside Dario moved up to block and opened the door on the bottom of the track. Dixon siezed the moment with a brilliant move that saw him go from third to first.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Scott Dixon
2. Dario Franchitti
3. Danica Patrick
4. Sam Hornish Jr.
5. Marco Andretti
6. Helio Castroneves
7. Scott Sharp
8. Dan Wheldon
9. Darren Manning
10. Vitor Meira

The Toronto leg of ChampCars swing through Canada proved to be a chaotic and incident packed race with only 8 cars left running at the end.  Team Australia’s Will Power emerged victorious through the crashes, rain and spins.

It all started on the opening lap with an incident invloving Paul Tracy, Tristan Gommendy, Jan Heylen and Katherine Legge. Oriol Servia looked set for a possible victory as he was leading Sebastian Bourdais and Justin Wilson until he started to run low on fuel.

In the rain Wilson slid into Ryan Dalziel, while last week’s winner, Robert Doornboss slid into the rear of championship rival Bourdais, taking him out.

The only finishers were:

1.  Will Power  (Team Australia)
2.  Neel Jani  (PKV)
3.  Justin Wilson (RSPORTS)
4.  Simon Pagenaud (Team Australia)
5.  Bruno Junqueira (Dale Coyne)
6.  Robert Doornbos (Minardi Team USA)
7.  Ryan Dalziel (Pacific Coast Motorsports)
8.  Alex Tagliani (RSPORTS)

Scott Dixon once again showed his mastery of the historic Watkins Glen road course over the weekend with his third straight IndyCar Series win at the venue. Although other drivers held the lead at various points during the race, it was clear from the drop of the flag that Dixon was the man to beat.

The race’s biggest surprises were from the Penske duo, with Helio Castroneves apparently spining himself off the road and out of contention; while team mate and oval track specialist Sam Hornish Jr. came home second. Hornish’s race was marred by a wheel to sidepod banging incident with AGR’s Tony Kanaan that would have post race consequences when a pit lane brawl broke out between the Hornish and Kanaan crews.

The IRL’s current hottest driver, Dario Franchitti came in third to retain his championship leada,d head fellow AGR drivers Kanaan and Marco Andretti.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Scott Dixon (Ganassi)
2. Sam Hornish Jr. (Penske)
3. Dario Franchitti (AGR)
4. Tony Kanaan (AGR)
5. Marco Andretti (AGR)
6. Buddy Rice (BR)
7. Dan Wheldon (Ganassi)
8. Kosuke Matsuura  (Rahal)
9. Darren Manning (Foyt)
10. Jeff Simmons (Rahal)

The large crowd at this weekend’s British F1 Grand Prix at Silverstone were willing rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton to win, but had to watch him settle for another podium placing.  Despite Hamilton gaining pole position in qualifying the race was dominated by the visibly quicker Ferraris. Felipe Massa stalled his red car on the grid and had to start from pit lane. The sheer speed of his Ferrari coupled with an excellent drive saw him carve his way up from the back of the field to a 5th place finish.

Meanwhile at the head of the field, Kimi Raikkonen (above) once more showed the pace that had given him victory in France last week. The only way he was headed was when McLaren deliberatly short fueled Fernando Alonso’s car to give him a tempoary lead after the first round of pit stops.  As soon as the field settled into place after the last round of refuleeing Kimi sailed away to an apparently trouble free and effortless win.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Kimi Raikkonnen (Ferrari)
2. Fernando Alonso (McLaren)
3. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
4. Robert Kubica (BMW)
5. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
6. Nick Heidfeld (BMW)
7. Heikki Kovalainen (Renault)
8. Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault)
9. Rubens Barrichello (Honda)
10. Jenson Button (Honda)

Just to show how fast Kimi was, here’s some on-board footage from the race…