Marvin Musquin wins back to back MX races at Southwick

By Jun 29, 2019, 5:42 PM EDT
Rich Shepherd, ProMotocross
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For the second straight week, Marvin Musquin scored the overall win at The Wick 338 in Southwick, Mass. to shave a few points off Eli Tomac’s points lead.

Musquin won Moto 1, finished second in Moto 2 and banked 47 points to gain five on Tomac for the day.

“Winning Southwick means a lot,” Musquin said on NBC Sports Gold after finishing second in Moto 2 and winning the overall.

Musquin had to keep Tomac at bay for two reasons. Most importantly, he desperately needs the points that would have swung with the pass if he want to have any hope of catching Tomac for the championship.

More Importantly, he is a racer and racers want to win.

Counting the Moto finishes in his head, he worried for a moment that Zach Osborne’s pair of podium finishes might displace him from the top. Then he realized the 1-2 he would come home with provided the overall win – but only if he stayed in second. If he lost the spot to Tomac, the tiebreaker would go to Osborne.

So Musquin dug even deeper and held Tomac at bay.

“I charged pretty hard because Tomac was charging from behind, but he kind of gave up at the end and I was glad,” Musquin said. “Zach rode really well; I couldn’t do anything (with him).”

Osborne took consolation in winning his first career Moto. With a 3-1, he finished second overall.

“It’s awesome to get a win and get it out of the way on a gnarly track,” Osborne said after the race. “I was close last weekend, but I didn’t have anything at the end.

“And the same today. If there had been an attack, I’m not sure if I could have withstood it.”

Tomac faded to fifth early in Moto 1, but he was able to recover and climbed back to second in that race. Considering how badly he has performed in the first races this year, this was almost as good as a win.

Tomac got an even worse start in Moto 2 and ended Lap 1 in ninth. As has been his trend all season, he charged back to the lead pack and finished third in the race. His 2-3 allowed him to take third overall and minimize his points loss.

Cooper Webb finished 4-4 and finished fourth overall.

Rounding out the top five was Jason Anderson with a 7-5.

It was a disastrous day for Ken Roczen. He fell to 12th in Moto 1 after fading badly in the second half of the race. Moto 2 was more of the same. Roczen raced among the top five early, but as the clock clicked down into the single digits, he faded again and finished 10th. With a 12-10, Roczen finished ninth overall and lost 22 points to Tomac in the championship.

Roczen’s loss at the end of the race was privateer John Short’s gain. The Texas rider who made the long haul to Massachusetts made the pass for ninth on the final lap.

Another feel-good story on the day belonged to Fredrik Noren, who took his new factory Suzuki to a fifth-place finish in Moto 1. He backed that up with a seventh in Moto 2 and finished seventh overall.

Aaron Plessinger returned to the field this week and finished 18-16 for a 16th ovrall.

450 Moto 1 Results
450 Moto 2 Results
450 Overall Results
Points Standings

The top three in the 250 points standings are there for a reason.

Finishing 1-2-3 in Moto 1, Adam Cianciarulo, Justin Cooper and Dylan Ferrandis rode nearly the entire race in the top three.

Cianciarulo would go on to win the Moto and that gave him enough momentum to head into the second race and capture his fifth overall win in the first six races. With a 1-2, he bettered Ferrandis’ 3-1 by one position.

“I try to make good decisions as I’ve matured as a racer,” Cianciarulo said. “You just learn and luckily I have a great team I can learn from and lean on.

“I managed the race for sure. I’m not sure if I had Dylan’s pace in that (second) Moto; He’s really fast here; really fast in general. He rode great. He deserved that one. I think I rode smart. Made good decisions.”

Ferrandis did all he could in Moto 2 by passing Cianciarulo just past the halfway mark and then stretching his advantage to 10 seconds. Last year’s winner of this race won the second Moto for his second straight race win in the past two weeks.

Ferrandis slipped outside of the top three in Moto 1 briefly, but got a much better start than he has all season. That made a huge difference.

Cooper finished third overall with a 2-3, giving all three points’ leaders a sweep of the podium positions.

Ferrandis gained three points on Cooper, who currently sits second in the standings. He lost two points to Cianciarulo, however, who now has a 23-point advantage over Cooper and is 37 points ahead of Ferrandis.

RJ Hampshire was the best of the rest in both Motos. Finishing 4-4, he landed fourth in the overall.

Shane McElrath earned his best Moto finish of the season with a sixth in Moto 1. He almost backed that up with an equally strong performance in Moto 2, but his seventh in that race was good enough to allow him to round out the top five.

Seventh in Moto 1, Brandon Hartranft also earned his best Moto finish of the season. Like McElrath, he slipped one position in Moto 2 and finished eighth. He landed seventh on the overall grid.

250 Moto 1 Results
250 Moto 2 Results
250 Overall Results
Points Standings

Moto Wins

450MX
[5] Eli Tomac (Hangtown II, Pala I & Pala II, Thunder Valley II, WW Ranch II)
[3] Ken Roczen (Hangtown I, Thunder Valley I, High Point II)
[2] Marvin Musquin (WW Ranch I, The Wick I)
[1] Blake Baggett (High Point I)
[1] Zach Osborne (The Wick II)

250MX
[5] Adam Cianciarulo (Hangtown II, Pala II, Thunder Valley I, High Point II, The Wick I)
[3] Justin Cooper (Hangtown I, Pala I, Thunder Valley I)
[2] Dylan Ferrandis (WW Ranch II, The Wick II)
[1] Hunter Lawrence (High Point I)
[1] Chase Sexton (WW Ranch I)

Next race: RedBud, Buchanan, Mich., July 6

Season passes can be purchased at NBC Sports Gold.

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‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
IndyCar Detroit downtown
James Black/Penske Entertainment
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DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

INDYCAR IN DETROIT: Entry list, schedule, TV info for this weekend

JOSEF’S FAMILY TIES: Newgarden wins Indy 500 with wisdom of father, wife

Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and two red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500