2020 Motorsports thread.

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A new top driver might be making his debut this season. 17 year old Sam Mayer won both the truck race and the ARCA race at Bristol tonight. He just turned 17 on June 26th and he wasn't old enough to race at some of the tracks prior to that.
 
Harvick holds of Kyle Busch for the win at Bristol.
 
I saw this article about Hailie Deegan on the BBC.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/motorsport/54167928

Seeing 17 year old Sam Mayer win in two different series got me thinking about how people get into driving race cars. I'd always thought they worked their way in through the lower ranks. In the old days of racing, that might have been the case. I was involved in dirt track racing in the 60s and 70s and saw a lot of talented drivers. In those days most of the drivers were involved in building their own cars but there were teams that had drivers that knew nothing about the workings of the cars.

Anyone who has raced knows that it costs money to go fast. Most of the fastest cars had somebody with deep pockets backing them. Some people enjoyed owning a car. I was one who liked to build a car that could compete with the people who had more money. It isn't only the cost of the car itself, it's having the time to work on it and race it. Most people had jobs that would only allow for racing on weekends. I knew some very good drivers who might have been able to race in the bigger series but never got the chance.

Currently, there are two paths into racing. One is to have a lot of financial backing and the other is to show a lot of talent. Showing that talent still requires a lot of financial backing to get on a race track with equipment capable of running up front.

This is why most racers come from families with a lot of money or a history in racing. Some sponsors want publicity and having a driver that draws attention is what they want. Danica Patrick was a good fit for Go Daddy because being a pretty young woman in a sport with mostly men brought the publicity they wanted. To be consistent in racing takes a good team. The driver has to be able to tell the crew chief what the car is doing and the crew chief needs to know how to use that input to make the car better.

In the various teams in the various levels of motorsports, there are drivers running what should be very similar cars that aren't getting similar results. Danica was an example of that at Stewart-Haas as Kevin Harvick runs up front, the other three cars aren't doing as well. This year all 4 cars made it into the top 16 and there are three left in the top 12 with the fourth car at 13th.

While a female driver might garner the extra publicity, that will also draw extra scrutiny if she doesn't finish well. There is also the specter of bad publicity if a woman would be seriously injured or die in a race car.

There are likely many people who could drive better than many drivers in the top series who just never got the chance to do it.
 
Bottas fastest in both practice sessions today. The only driver within a second of his time was Hamilton. The Mercedes were also very good on long runs on both the medium and hard tires.
 
Big drama in qualifying second session. Hamilton set the fastest time in the first run but had it deleted for exceeding the track limits so he had to make another run. He was doing well when Vettel crashed behind him hard enough that they red flagged the race with 2:15 remaining. Leclerc came close to hitting Vettels car. A fast lap is 1:33 so the outlap had to be fast to get around to the start/finish in 2:15. Mercedes were running on the medium tires in Q2 so they could start the race on them but they switched Hamilton to soft tires for his last run. The other cars lined up on pit road well before the red flag ended so Hamilton was in the back of the line and just barely made it to the line. He set a fast enough time to get to Q3 then set a very fast time in his first run in Q3 and improved it on his second run to take the pole. Verstappen took second as Bottas had to settle for third and Perez got 4th.

Hamilton went from a possible 15th starting position to the pole with his last second run in Q2. His problem is he will be starting on soft tires and almost certainly a 2 stop race while Verstappen and Bottas are starting on mediums and a possible one stop race.
 
Lewis on pole. Max splits the mercs. Lewis barely got out of Q2. Had a time deleted and seb crashed red flagging a decent lap. Had to switch tyre strategies and do his Q2 time on softs. So that will be interesting. I think it works out for him, as he got pole. If he can keep the lead, he can dictate the pace when his tyres start to go off early.
 
Lewis has to go to the stewards. Let’s see what comes of it. I can’t see them giving him a reprimand. But who knows.
 
Pretty exciting qualifying. Didn't think Lewis was going to get that lap in. The guys composure and focus is unreal. He just gets it done, shakes off the nonsense and puts in the fast laps. Strategy should be interesting tomorrow for him.

It's got to be very frustrating for Valtteri. Looked good all weekend and just can't put it together, even giving a tow to Max to get out qualified. Has to hurt even more with how difficult of a day Lewis had and he still gets it done.

I wonder if Lewis sandbags in practice. Bottas has looked really good in practice quite a few times but on qualifying day he's outmatched.
 
Hamilton won't set the record today. He's upset with his strategist for the weekend. First in Q2 when he exceeded the track limits and had his lap time deleted, he wanted to make another run immediately to have a time but they brought him in. That got him caught out by the red flag when Vettel crashed behind him as he was on a fast lap. Then they sent him out late on the soft tires and he just barely got a lap in. He ended up with the pole but had to start on the soft tires.

Before the race, he asked if he was allowed to do practice starts in a different location because of rubber build up in the normal area and he was told that he could which caused the 10 second penalty.

Then he wanted to stay out longer on the soft tires as he was setting fast times but they called him in to put the hard tires.

Then they wanted him to push hard on the new tires and he had to tell them that the tires wouldn't last until the end of the race if he did that.
 
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