NASCAR
Blaney wins at Pocono: #21-Ryan Blaney won the Pocono 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway for his 1st career win. He took the lead from #18-Busch with 9 laps to go and held off #4-Harvick to get the first win for Wood Brothers Racing since Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 in 2011.
#4-Harvick finished 2nd followed by #77-Jones (career-best finish), #41-Busch, #2-Keselowski, #78-Truex, Jr., #42-Larson, #24-Elliott, #18-Busch, and #20-Kenseth.
Pole sitter #18-Busch won the first stage and finished 2nd in the second stage. He led a total of 100 laps but did not pit under the final caution and could not hold the lead on older tires. He finished 9th.
#43-Darrell Wallace, Jr., making his Cup debut, was caught speeding on pit road three times during the race. He finished 26th.
The second caution of the day came with 5 laps left in stage 2 when Johnson lost the brakes on his car and made hard contact with the outside wall hard. Behind Johnson, McMurray also lost brakes and slid into the wall. McMurray's car caught fire, but he got out quickly. Both drivers were ok. The race was red flagged for 23 minutes for track cleanup. #78-Truex Jr. maintains the driver points lead by 1 point over #42-Larson.
Stages 1 & 2 were won by #18-Busch and #42-Larson.
Jimmie Johnson talks skin cancer scare, return to Pocono
Associated Press
Jimmie Johnson put the beer on ice and held a muted victory celebration. The morning after he hoisted another NASCAR trophy in victory lane, Johnson was in New York to have a form of skin cancer cut out of his right shoulder.
Johnson surprised the auto racing community Monday when he tweeted that he was on a table having a procedure to remove a basal-cell carcinoma, a common and slow-growing form of skin cancer. Growing up in Southern California, Johnson was always outdoors when he wasn't out racing motorcycles.
"I could vividly remember a lot of sunburns," Johnson said. "That sun exposure on a mole, there's just consequences."
In his first public comments about the cancer scare, Johnson told The Associated Press on Friday he was diagnosed in January. Johnson's physician told the seven-time NASCAR champion during an annual checkup he had "a mole that was kind of changing shape." A biopsy confirmed he had skin cancer, but it had not spread and it was not a more severe cancer such as melanoma.
"Carcinoma doesn't spread. It doesn't go to the glands," Johnson said ahead of this weekend's race at Pocono Raceway. "They just have to dig it out and you're good to go. Once I understood that, my reaction to the `C' word calmed down."
The 41-year-old Johnson, married with two daughters, was told he could wait until the end of the year to have the carcinoma removed. Johnson couldn't wait that long. He knew he wanted it done in New York and the proximity to the track in Dover, Delaware, helped with the timing.
There was just one catch.
"When I explained to them I couldn't be sweat free or activity free for as long as they hoped for recovery, it just got tricky on when I could time it," he said. "I didn't want to wait until the end of the season."
After the procedure, Johnson waited about an hour for more lab work to make sure no additional cancerous cells were found. He was all clear, needed about 22 stitches and was out the door in about four hours.
The noted fitness freak was back on his bike on Wednesday and out for a run on Thursday. He was at the track on Friday and ready to race in the No. 48 Chevrolet.
NEXT RACE: This weekend at Michigan International Speedway; TV live on FS1 At noon on Sunday.
NHRA
TORRENCE, BECKMAN, ANDERSON, SAVOIE NOTCH VICTORIES AT NHRA SUMMERNATIONALS
Steve Torrence powered his Top Fuel dragster to victory Sunday at the 48th annual NHRA Summernationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. Jack Beckman (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Jerry Savoie (Pro Stock Motorcycle) were also winners in their respective categories at the tenth of 24 events on the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule.
Torrence secured his third victory of the season with a 3.857-second pass at 320.28 mph in his Capco Contractors dragster to defeat Antron Brown who ran a 3.932 at 306.74 in his Matco Tools dragster in the final round. He emerged victorious for the first time since winning back-to-back races in Charlotte and Atlanta, and has now reached the final round at five of the past six events. The win was only Torrence's second victory in 24 matchups against Brown in his career, and was his third career victory in Englishtown.
Torrence now trails Brown by just seven points in the Top Fuel standings, while previous points leader Leah Pritchett fell to third with a first round exit in Englishtown.
Beckman earned his 25th career victory and first of the season with a 4.100 at 312.42 in the final round to defeat Ron Capps who ran a 4.143 at 299.66. This was Beckman's first win since St. Louis in 2016, and his first final round appearance of the season. With the win, Beckman sits at third in the standings as the fifth different Funny Car winner of the season. Capps maintained his lead atop the Funny Car standings with the runner-up finish in Englishtown.
Anderson secured the victory in Pro Stock after driving to a 6.613 at 210.44 to knock off Vincent Nobile who ran a 6.665 at 210.21. Anderson now has two victories on the year as he notched his first win since Phoenix. With the victory, Anderson now sits second in the points standings behind Bo Butner, who he defeated in the semifinals. Nobile sits seventh in the Pro Stock standings after his best finish of the year.
Defending Pro Stock Motorcycle Champion Jerry Savoie emerged victorious with a 6.918 at 192.85 to defeat Hector Arana Jr's pass of 6.862 at 195.62. Savoie notched his seventh career victory and first of the season. With his first victory of the season, Savoie now sits third in the Pro Stock Motorcycle standings, becoming the third winner in four events in the category. Arana Jr. is sixth in the standings following his best finish of the season.
NEXT RACE: This weekend's NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway; TV Sunday on FS1 at noon PT.
INDYCAR
Power wins wild one at Texas for 31st career victory
Will Power survived a Wild West night of racing at Texas Motor Speedway to win the Rainguard Water Sealers 600 and join a pair of greats on the all-time Indy car victory list. The Team Penske driver won the incident-filled race on the 1.5-mile oval, taking the checkered flag in the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet under caution ahead of second-place Tony Kanaan in the No. 10 NTT Data Honda from Chip Ganassi Racing.
The victory is the 31st in Indy cars for the 36-year-old Australian, tying him with Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy for ninth all time. It is also his second win this season and second at Texas Motor Speedway.
The frenetic Verizon IndyCar Series race featured 23 lead changes among seven drivers, though Power led a race-high 180 of the 248 laps. He won under the last of nine caution periods after four cars - including Takuma Sato and Scott Dixon battling for second place right behind Power - were involved in a crash in Turn 1 on Lap 244.
Power's win is the ninth at Texas Motor Speedway for Team Penske and the legendary team's record 191st victory in Indy car history.
Kanaan finished second despite being levied a 20-second stop-and-hold penalty after being involved in the largest incident of the race. On Lap 152, Kanaan, Hinchcliffe and Mikhail Aleshin went three wide into Turn 3. The cars of Kanaan and Hinchcliffe touched, ricocheting Hinchcliffe into Aleshin and triggering a mishap involving nine cars. No one was injured.
For the final 90 laps of the race, INDYCAR mandated competition cautions after every 30 green-flag laps so teams could change tires to account for abnormal tire wear on some entries, due in part to the newly repaved track surface.
A statement from INDYCAR, read, in part: "This action has been taken out of an abundance of caution as race conditions presented different conditions than seen in earlier tests."
Dixon retained the Verizon IndyCar Series championship lead despite finishing ninth after being collected by the spinning Sato on Lap 244. The Chip Ganassi Racing driver sits atop the standings after nine of 17 races with 326 points. Simon Pagenaud, who finished third in the race, is second with 313 points, Sato is third at 312, Helio Castroneves fourth with 305 and Power fifth at 286.
VIDEO: Rainguard Water Sealers 600 Highlights, www.indycar.com/Videos/2017/06/06-11-Texas-day-2-highlights
NEXT RACE: KOHLER Grand Prix at Road America, June 25.
SONOMA RACEWAY
- Wednesday Night Drags, Top the Cops and Sonoma Drift return on Wednesday
NASA hits the track this weekend: https://www.nasaproracing.com/events/2525
