News and notes
While the Nextel Cup Series takes this weekend off, the Busch Series remains hard at work as they invade Mexico City's Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course for Sunday's TelCel-Motorola 200. After having a left-right chicane on the circuit's main straightaway for the past two years to slow the cars down, the 2007 running will have the full frontstretch, allowing drivers to approach the 170-180 mph range before having to brake for the right-hander turn 1.
Nine Nextel Cup drivers will participate in the race, including defending event champion Denny Hamlin, Roush-Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards and David Ragan, and NASCAR neophyte Juan Pablo Montoya. The race will be on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. on ESPN2, but will also be shown online at NASCAR.com.
While the Busch boys are away, the Nextel Cup squads will play with their new toy -- the Car of Tomorrow. Fifty Cup teams will test the COT today and tomorrow at the .533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway in eastern Tennessee. NASCAR's chassis of the future will make its race debut on March 25 at Bristol for the Food City 500, the first of 16 appearances this season. If you've got SPEED Channel, you can catch two 30-minute specials on the COT tests tonight and tomorrow night at 7 p.m.
Meanwhile in the IndyCar universe, the news has died down a bit following last week's two-day open test at Homestead Miami Speedway. Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Dan Wheldon was the fastest throughout the two days on the 1.5-mile oval; his fastest lap of the session came on day one at 214.858 mph. Following him on the overall time charts were defending IndyCar Series and Indy 500 champion Sam Hornish Jr. (214.178; day two), Andretti-Green Racing's Tony Kanaan (214.119; day two) and Marco Andretti (213.944; day two), and two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves (213.869; day two). The twin tests were ran at night under HMS's lighting system in order to simulate what the drivers will face on March 24 at the Miami track in the prime-time season opener, the XM Satellite Radio Indy 300.
Finally, America's lone Formula One racer will keep his seat in the grand prix series. After being up in the air for several weeks, Scott Speed was confirmed on Saturday as the second driver for Scuderia Toro Rosso for 2007. Speed, a native of Manteca, Calif., did not collect any points last year in his first F1 season with STR, a team owned by Red Bull energy drink that serves as a 'junior' team to the bigger Red Bull Racing entry. The American was the slowest of the 17 drivers in testing yesterday in Bahrain, but he and teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi should get a boost from the Ferrari engines that STR gets this season. F1 kicks off March 18 in Melbourne, Australia.
