Dale Jr. takes over Cup points lead - MotorSportsTalk

Let’s recap what happened on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway: Kyle Busch took the win thanks to Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin wrecking on the final lap (which wound up sending an awake and alert Hamlin to the hospital), Tony Stewart fought Logano on pit road in post-race, and oh yeah, Dale Earnhardt Jr. seized the Sprint Cup points lead.

It’s not everyday that NASCAR’s most popular driver gets buried in the news. But indeed, through all of the end-of-race madness, Earnhardt finished second to move ahead of Brad Keselowski (who finished 23rd) by 12 points for the top spot in the Cup standings.

“I wasn’t racing up there so I couldn’t really get a good view of it, but I was running around the bottom of the corner, and I knew they were going to ‑‑ they were slowing up and battling real hard, so I was just trying to get what I could get,” Earnhardt said of the final lap.

“I felt like on the back straightaway, Kyle had the best shot at winning the race because [Logano and Hamlin] were slowing down running so hard. Just lucky we were able to get by on the inside there.”

Earnhardt had to do a lot of work to make sure he was in position to capitalize on the Logano-Hamlin incident and get his runner-up finish. On a pit stop under yellow with 84 laps remaining, an issue with the right-rear tire caused him to tumble from 3rd to 22nd. But he quickly made up positions when the green flag came back out.

A four-tire stop and chassis adjustment on his final round of service enabled him to return to the Top 5, and he was running fourth at the time of Logano and Hamlin’s run-in. With Logano going into the Turn 4 wall and Hamlin sliding hard into the inside retaining wall, Earnhardt passed the pair for his second consecutive top-three result at ACS.

He is the only Cup driver to start the season with five consecutive Top-10 finishes.

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”