The racing weekend that was - UPDATED

In Formula One, in Australia:

Kimi celebrating his victory

As this race was not aired in my neck of the woods, I can't comment on it... other that it was won by Kimi "The Iceman" Raikkonen, followed by the Spaniard Fernando Alonso and reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel.

A very strong start for Lotus which will make my father unbearable until the next F1 race!
For details about the Australian F1 race, please click here.

In NASCAR, at Tennessee:

Aerial view of the Speedway

At the very exciting short track that is Bristol Motor Speedway, the final 100 laps of the race had some epic battles for the lead, and the top ten positions.

Brad Keselowski and Kasey Kahne ran door to door for what seemed an eternity. No matter what Kahne tried, he could not complete the pass and when they hit traffic on the back stretch he tried his best but lost control for a brief moment. As he fought to regain control Keselowski was able to pull away. While this battle for first place took place, Kyle Busch was running a strong in third and briefly took second from Keselowski.
After the last caution of the race, caused by a tire failure on Jimmie Johnson's car, Kasey Kahne held off a series of battles to win the Food City 500, followed by Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Kurt Busch and Clint Bowyer.

Unfortunately for the two strongest cars of the race, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth saw their races end in spectacular fashion. As Gordon lead the race, his car shot up the embankment and hit the wall and was later collected by Kenseth who had no place to go.

As NASCAR tightens its grip on the Sprint Cup series, especially on the behavior of the drivers, it is interesting to see what NASCAR will do after a shoving match occurred after the race. After battling for the lead with Gordon, Joey Logano slipped back a bit and allowed former teammate Denny Hamlin to catch up with him. As the former teammate rounded turn one, Hamlin bumped Logano causing him to spin out. This type of behavior is a flagrant display of unsportsmanlike conduct. However, what Logano did after the race in going to talk to Hamlin while he hadn't climbed out of his car yet, wasn't much better. Let's see how the governing body will handle this situation.
At the very least the NASCAR drivers are not as sterile as the F1 boys!

Below a short video of the Logano-Hamlin shoving incident.

 


In NHRA, at the Gatornationals:
I will write this piece as soon as I see it on Monday,s o please bare with me and do check back. In the meantime, some pretty cool picts of Saturday qualifying at the Gatornationals can be seen in Dragzine's picture gallery. To view these, please click here.

Update:
Well, as I thought previously the Gatornationals was well worth the wait (until rebroadcasted on Monday).

In Top Fuel:
Antron Brown defeated Clay Millican with a low et of the meet at 3.761. Brown gave his team owner Don Schumacher (DSR) his 200th win. Quite impressive if you ask me.

In Funny Car:

Gray vs Worsham in the finals

It was great to see Courtney Force sticking it to the ol' man. In a staging duel, she held up her own and went in last. And then beat him too! She is now 3-1 against her famous father.

In the finals, Johnny Gray defeated Del Worsham with a 4.05 to 4.10. He jokingly mentioned that even though he would be retiring at the end of 2013, he would do his very best to give the youth a very hard and though time this year.

In Pro Stock:

Finals: Johnson vs Coughlin (far lane)

In the doorslammer category Mike Edwards continued on Sunday to dominate the field when he bashed out a 6.473 that matched his national record pass from qualifying. At the time, he had four of the five quickest passes in class history this weekend. However, a severe tire shake cost Edwards his race against Jegg Coughlin Jr, who went on to defeat Jason Line on a holeshot, 6.532 to 6.501.

The finals of Pro Stock saw two Mopar's and teammeates going mano-a-mano. At the stripe it was Allen Johnson who had lady luck on his side throughout Sunday, winning on a holeshot, 6.535 to 6.514.

In P/S Motorcycle:

With some drastic rule changes coming too late for the harley boys to adapt, clearly had them at a disadvantage. And so it was.

But it couldn't have turned out any better, well I guess he could've won, for Steve Johnson after getting to the final round in Pro Stock Motorcycle since back-to-back runner ups in Chicago and Englishtown in 2010. He kept going rounds and getting great TV exposure, even though he didn't have any major sponsors.

Finals: Arana II vs Johnson (far lane)

The Arana's went head to head in the semis with Sr having to back down. And even though Johnson had lane choice over Arana II, last year's rookie still got the win.

Congratulations to all the winners!

To see the NHRA recap of the race, please click here.

Thanks for reading.

Source: Formula One, Fox.com, Dragzine.com, NHRA.
Photo credit: Newsobserver.com, Motorauthority., NHRA.