Re: Racing "Did You Know" Thread

[gone-sovereign]

David Pearson wasn't always the calm, patient driver that most had come to know him as. In 1964, he was driving for Cotton Owens, whose Dodge Hemi engines had consistently classed the field that season, taking eight race wins in total. But Pearson was known as an impatient driver back then. In his early years he was over-aggressive early on, which sufficed to say, culminated in a lot of torn up cars. He had a problem with pitting -- more often than not, he'd come flying into the pits, so quick that it would send crew members running back behind the pit wall and costing the team precious time on pit road.

Try as he may, Owens could not convince Pearson to take care of the car and take it easy on pit road. It became to be such a problem, that Owens reasoned the only way Pearson would listen to him was if he came out of retirement and showed Pearson himself. So he did just that -- Pearson, as well as Owens, both entered a race at Richmond in September 1964. Owens started third, and out-qualified Pearson, who would go on to finish 2nd in that race. Take a wild guess as to who Pearson lost to?

Yup, Cotton Owens.

[Spannerhead29 (Nelson)]

This Xfinity race going on right now (visitmyrtlebeach.com 300 @ Kentucky, Fall 2016), have had 3 drivers with the same surname crash. Blake, Brandon, and Erik Jones.

[Rovenami]

I'm not sure if this fact was already posted here or not, but in the 2002 Formula One season, Ferrari's Constructors Championship point total is equal to the sum of every other team that participated in the season, including the Arrows team which ran out of funding after the German Grand Prix. Just goes to show that they were the team to beat during that time in F1.

[flyingturns89]

This season, Jamie McMurray became the first driver to qualify for the Sprint Cup Series Chase without leading a lap in any of first 26 races.

[gone-sovereign]

With about 20 laps left in the 1982 Indianapolis 500, Rick Mears had rear-ended Herm Johnson on pit road in lieu of his final pit stop while running second to eventual race winner Gordon Johncock. Because of this pit road collision, Herm, who ran a business painting helmets, had trimmed a message on his rear wing for his next race which read: "Rick, if you can read this, you're too close."

[PRAWBLEMS]

This Xfinity race going on right now (visitmyrtlebeach.com 300 @ Kentucky, Fall 2016), have had 3 drivers with the same surname crash. Blake, Brandon, and Erik Jones.

To add to surname factoids, a driver named Smith has never made the Indy 500. The only one to attempt was Arciero-Wells driver Mark Smith, who went 0-2 in 1994 and 95.

[Spannerhead29 (Nelson)]

This Xfinity race going on right now (visitmyrtlebeach.com 300 @ Kentucky, Fall 2016), have had 3 drivers with the same surname crash. Blake, Brandon, and Erik Jones.

To add to surname factoids, a driver named Smith has never made the Indy 500. The only one to attempt was Arciero-Wells driver Mark Smith, who went 0-2 in 1994 and 95.

Saw that fact posted the other day when Regan Smith pointed that out.

[The_Wall_91]

Since Formula 1 started keeping track of the Constructors Championship, 6 teams have won that title only once.

Brawn
Benetton
Tyrrell
Matra
BRM
Vanwall

[The_Wall_91]

Lance Stroll will become the 12th Canadian to race in Formula 1

[PRAWBLEMS]

All-time winningest driver at Thunder Road and 2002 ACT champion Phil Scott is the Republican nominee for governor in Vermont. This is his logo.

Update: He won!

[Rovenami]

With Sauber scoring points in Brazil, this is the first time since 2009 that every constructor has scored at least one point in a single Formula 1 seaon.

[Rovenami]

The Rosberg's became the second father-son pairing to win a Formula One World Championship with Nico winning it in 2016 and Keke winning it at 1982.

[Spannerhead29 (Nelson)]

The Rosberg's became the second father-son pairing to win a Formula One World Championship with Nico winning it in 2016 and Keke winning it at 1982.

To further that point

1962: Graham Hill
1982: Keke Rosberg
2002: Michael Schumacher

34 years later

1996: Damon Hill
2016: Nico Rosberg
2036: Mick Schumacher?

[gone-sovereign]

Despite his more recent attempts, Alex Zanardi has never raced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in any racing league in his entire career. Which is kinda surprising.

[Alta]

Despite his more recent attempts, Alex Zanardi has never raced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in any racing league in his entire career. Which is kinda surprising.

They were talks about in 2014 i think but nothing ever came to fruition.

He did get to run a Open Wheel car one more time though at Eurospeedway in 2003.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgMz33lc7Dc

[navycook75]

Despite his more recent attempts, Alex Zanardi has never raced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in any racing league in his entire career. Which is kinda surprising.

They were talks about in 2014 i think but nothing ever came to fruition.

He did get to run a Open Wheel car one more time though at Eurospeedway in 2003.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgMz33lc7Dc

He wasn't too bad either.

He ran the 13 laps he didn't complete in 2001 shortly before the 2003 race and his fastest time would be quick enough for 5th on the grid.

[SpeedDemon37]

With Greg Biffle not being retained by Roush Fenway Racing for the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, there is only one remaining driver-team combination in the series that has existed since the Winston Cup era.



Jimmie Johnson has driven the #48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports since his rookie season in 2002, while Biffle drove the #16 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing from his rookie season in 2003 through the end of 2016.

[gone-sovereign]

Paul Goldsmith sat on the pole position for the 1957 Rebel 300, with Curtis Turner behind him in third. Both drivers made separate bets with different groups of gamblers before the start of the race, each of them betting that they wouldn't lead the first lap. Come the start of the race, Goldsmith is leading off of Turn 4 at the end of the first lap, with Turner behind him. Both drivers are jamming on the brakes, tires smoking, trying to give the other the race lead. Curtis Turner lost his bet, and lead the first lap.

(This story comes from the mouth of Smokey Yunick, who suggested this occurred at the 1957 Southern 500. The details he provided is contradictory to that race, though, so I had to clean it up a little bit. It's still a good story, so I wanted to share it.)

[kriswascher97]

There's a championship in Italy that's called the F2 Trophy but it only uses outdated F3 cars

[PRAWBLEMS]

The Camping World Truck Series has had quite a diverse field of competitors over it's 18 year history, including 19 female drivers and 2 African-American drivers as well as an openly gay driver in Stephen Rhodes, and drivers from Mexico, Canada, Japan, Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Scotland, Chile, India, Finland and even a driver from Monaco.

Update: The Camping World Truck Series has actually had 6 African-American drivers (Darrell Wallace Jr., Bill Lester, Willy T. Ribbs, Tim Woods III, the infamous Bobby Norfleet, and Preston Tutt, who raced the 2001 round at the Chicago Motor Speedway in Cicero.)

[navycook75]

found this fact on Reddit. (and copypasta'd from Wikipedia)

The man on top of the Borg-Warner trophy is an unclothed man waving a checkered flag. Because this man is depicted naked, after the tradition of ancient Greek athletes, the trophy is most often photographed so that the man's arm is swooping down in front of him.

[gone-sovereign]

Following the conclusion of the 2016 season, there have been 313 race winners total in NASCAR's Top 3 series. With combined win totals across the Top 3 series, the Top 20 all-time winningest drivers list looks like this:

1. Richard Petty - 200
2. Kyle Busch - 170
3. David Pearson - 106
4. Jeff Gordon - 98
5. Dale Earnhardt, Sr. - 97
5. (Tie) Darrell Waltrip - 97
7. Mark Martin - 96
8. Kevin Harvick - 95
9. Bobby Allison - 86
10. Cale Yarborough - 83
11. Jimmie Johnson - 81
12. Carl Edwards - 72
13. Matt Kenseth - 67
14. Tony Stewart - 62
15. Brad Keselowski - 57
16. Greg Biffle - 55
16. (Tie) Ron Hornaday, Jr. - 55
16. (Tie) Rusty Wallace - 55
19. Lee Petty - 54
20. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. - 50
20. (Tie) Junior Johnson - 50
20. (Tie) Ned Jarrett - 50

NOTE: This does not include non-points races, races in NASCAR's Convertible Division, or races in NASCAR's Sportsman division, which preceded what is now the modern Xfinity Series.

[SpeedDemon37]

The fifth race of the 1999 ARCA Bondo/Mar-Hyde Series (Racing Series) season was originally scheduled to take place on a street circuit.

After hosting a single CART Indy Lights event in 1997, the brand new Hutchinson Island Street Circuit in Savannah, Georgia failed to bring CART to the island or even retain Indy Lights for the following year. Promoters paid a lot of money for ARCA to race there in 1999, but the event was cancelled when they decided that the island wouldn't have proper accommodations to host such an event (many were still under construction). The race was initially postponed to 2000, but once again it would not come to be.

http://savannahnow.com/stories/022699/SPTnoarcarace.html#.WH0rqPkrLIU

[RetrogradeRenegade]

Kasey Kahne has never bettered the mark he set in his rookie year of 13 top-5 finishes.

[SpeedDemon37]

Found this amazing little story within the following article;

http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/story/benny-parsons-nascar-hall-of-fame-class-of-2017-amazing-final-touch-1973-championship-winning-car-012117

Like all the inductees, Parsons will have a car in the Hall of Honor at the NASCAR Hall of Fame for the next year.

Parsons won the NASCAR Premier Series title in 1973 and his friend Tex Powell, a veteran racer, tracked down the car Parsons won the championship with and restored it.

“[After] they put that car together there was only one piece missing, and it was the gas cap, and back then it was blue and the car was orange,” said Terri Parsons.

“One of the crew guys that helped put the car back together, made the comment, ‘Too bad we don’t have the original gas cap,’ and Tex Powell said, ‘Wait a minute,’ and he went out to his brand new Cadillac Escalade, got the gas cap off … and brought it back inside and said, ‘I’ve had this on every car I’ve ever owned since 1973.’”

[AntmanB]

Drivers From the Winston Cup Era that will still be racing a Full Schedule in 2017
Jimmie Johnson
Dale Jr
Harvick
Kenseth
McMurray
Newman
Kurt Busch

[gone-sovereign]

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway almost became land for housing development. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States was thrown into the Second World War. Consequently, the 1942 running of the Indianapolis 500 was cancelled, as auto racing in the United States was banned for the remainder of the war. During the war, the speedway fell into a state of disuse. Many of the locals conceded that the speedway would likely be sold to land developers after the end of the war.

Three-time Indianapolis 500 champion Wilbur Shaw returned to the speedway in November of 1944 for a government-approved Firestone tire-test, and was appalled by the dilapidated state of the speedway. He frantically sent out letters to the automobile industry, searching for a potential buyer to reopen the speedway as a public venue. He was approached by Terre Haute businessman Tony George, who purchased the speedway in November 1945 for $750,000.

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Speaking of World War II, here's a bit of trivia from the interwar period: Richard Seaman was a pre-war Grand Prix driver from Britain. He rose to success in the early 1930's, winning many Voiturette races such as the Coppa Acerbo and the Swiss Grand Prix, before he was invited to drive for the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix team in 1937. Against the wishes of his mother, he signed on to the German team, rising to prominence very quickly. He won the German Grand Prix in 1938, giving the Nazi salute on the podium. He became one of Hitler's favorite drivers.

He was killed in an accident in the 1939 Belgian Grand Prix, succumbing to injuries sustained when he crashed into a tree while leading the race. This occurred three months before the invasion of Poland sparked the Second World War.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Terri O'Connell, a female race car driver from Corinth, Mississippi, was actually born a man. Under her birth name J.T. Hayes, she won championships across the United States in go-karts, midgets, and sprint cars, amassing more than 500 race wins. She competed in a single NASCAR Winston Cup Series event in the 1990 GM Goodwrench 500 at Rockingham Speedway, driving for the Donlavey Racing team. She completed ten laps before she was flagged by NASCAR.

O'Connell was born with gender dysphoria, and never psychologically felt like a man. She underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1994 after a near fatal accident three years prior, and legally changed her name. Though she supports LGBT+ groups, she rejects the label "transgender", insisting that her gender issues were corrected with the sex reassignment surgery. She currently owns and operates an art and apparel business, called Dangerous Curves Society. She continues to compete in many different forms of motorsports nationwide, including modifieds, late models, and sports cars.

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Earlier in this thread, SpeedDemon37 had mentioned the cancelled CRL event at Talladega. It would not have been the first time open-wheel cars took to a high-banked superspeedway for a race event: The 1959 USAC Daytona 100 was a prime example as to why it's a bad idea. USAC officials visited the the Daytona International Speedway during its construction, and were impressed by what they saw -- so impressed, that they negotiated with Bill France to hold a Championship Car race there. France invited USAC teams to conduct pre-season testing and exhibition speed runs on the new surface, wherein cars were averaging better than 170 miles per hour -- nearly 25 miles per hour faster than the current track record for Indianapolis. Driver Marshall Teague had been fatally injured in an accident while testing a Champ Car at the speedway in February, but USAC refused to call off the race, set for April.

Twenty seven cars were initially slated to run the race, but seven cars withdrew. Bob Veith and Jerry Unser were both taken to the hospital due to injuries sustained in separate accidents during practice and qualifying sessions leading up to the race. Dick Rathmann qualified on the pole, but George Amick turned the fastest lap of the weekend, clocking in at 176.887 miles per hour. An estimated crowd of 10,000 showed up to watch the Saturday race, despite a projected 30,000 leading into the race. Jim Rathmann assumed the lead early on in the forty-lap race, swapping the lead with Rodger Ward briefly, then leading the rest of the way en route to victory. However, an accident on the final lap of the race took the life of George Amick, when he spun exiting Turn 2, tore out a section of guardrail, went airborne and flipped several times. The average speed of 170.261 miles per hour set the world closed-course record for 100 miles, but the events of the weekend lead USAC officials, participants, and the media to the unanimous conclusion that the Daytona International Speedway was unsuitable for Champ Car racing.

[Alpineopossum]

In 2004, the Jaguar Racing F1 team was sponsored by the film Ocean's Twelve for the Monaco Grand Prix. As part of a promotion, the team decided to embed a flawless diamond valued at as much as $300,000 into the nose cone of both of the Jaguar R5 F1 cars. The diamonds were reportedly not owned by the team but were on loan from Steinmetz, an Israeli gemstone company who was sponsoring the team.

Christian Klein, the driver of the car, experienced a steering problem with the car, and crashed out early in the race in the treacherous hairpin section of the course. Officials lifted the car over the barrier with a crane and set it down next to the track. With the roads leading back to the pits closed for racing (and with the damage being too extensive to repair in time to return to the race) the decision was made to leave the car in the location, unattended, for the remainder of the race. Klein returned to the team's garage without the diamond, still inside the front of the car. One of the officials from the team said of the accident "At that point, I probably should've been worried about the car or the driver. But, I must admit, my immediate thought was for the diamond."

The team's other car, driven by Mark Webber, went to the garage with gearbox problems and was unable to rejoin the race. After the race, won by Jarno Trulli, was over, the team went to the site of the crash, where they made an alarming discovery: the diamond was nowhere to be found. Whether it was knocked off of the car in the crash or removed afterward is unclear, but it was widely assumed that a fan had grabbed the diamond and some point during the race.

The diamond (which neither Steinmetz nor Jaguar Racing could find someone willing to insure) has never been found.

[The_Wall_91]

Romain Grosjean qualified 6th, the same spot he finished in last year's Australian GP and is the highest starting position in Haas' brief history

[navycook75]

The winners of the first races of the 2017 season in F1, Formula E, WRC, and Indycar are all named Sebastian or Sebastien. (Vettel, Buemi, Ogier, and Bourdais)

What makes this stat even better is that all 4 have or had Red Bull sponsorship.

(got this From Reddit)

[Alpineopossum]

All-time winningest driver at Thunder Road and 2002 ACT champion Phil Scott is the Republican nominee for governor in Vermont. This is his logo.

Update: He won!

In that vein, he isn't the only racing driver involved in politics.
Twelve time F1 race winner Carlos Reutemann retired from racing in 1982, and soon after entered Argentine politics. He became governor of his home state, and was widely speculated to be a presidential candidate in the 2011 elections. Reutemann explored a run but decided against it. He remains in the Argentine Senate however, and is a political ally of the President, Mauricio Macri.


Also, the FIA Formula 3 European Series grid includes a driver from Austria named Ferdinand Zvonimir von Habsburg. His great-grandfather was the last Emperor of the Austro Hungarian Empire. If the Austro-Hungarian monarchy still existed he would be next in line to be emperor.

[gone-sovereign]

We had been talking about this tonight in the GOMA Discord, so I figure I might as well post it here.

The "Jigger Award" was an award handed out after the Indianapolis 500 from 1969 to 2014, given to the driver with the hardest luck through qualifying. The award was conceived in reflection of Leon "Jigger" Sirois' qualifying blunder for the 1969 running -- the first weekend of time trials were marred by rain, and Sirois was the first in line to qualify. His first three laps clocked in at above 160 miles per hour, but his team waved off his attempt after he completed his fourth lap, believing that the speed would have been inadequate to make the 500. Rain fell before the next car set a time, and washed out the rest of the weekend. That meant that had Sirois' crew not waved off the attempt, he would have had enough speed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, and would have likely sat on the pole for the race. He made several more attempts to start the race, but DNQ'd each time. The award was the brainchild of Dick Mittman, writer for the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association (AARWBA), and was given out at the annual AARWBA Indianapolis 500 breakfast.

Here's a list of award recipients, if you need a good laugh.

[The_Wall_91]

With Max Verstappen's podium in China, Red Bull became the 6th F1 team to reach 100 podiums. Brabham, Lotus, McLaren, Ferrari, and Williams also have over 100 podiums.

[The_Wall_91]

Ferrari locked out the front row for the first time since France 2008.

[gone-sovereign]

1957 Indianapolis 500 winner Sam Hanks is a distant relative to Abraham Lincoln through Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks. By the same token, Sam Hanks is also related to actor Tom Hanks.

[navycook75]

The Sochi podium was Bottas, Vettel, and Kimi. While that isn't worthy of being in this thread, what is interesting is that Bottas finished first for the first time, Vettel finished second for the 22nd time, and Kimi finished third for the 33rd time.

[The_Wall_91]

Formula 1 has 1 country that has produced the same amount of winners as drivers, that country is Poland with Robert Kubica and his only win coming in Canada

[SpeedDemon37]

- With the addition of Charlotte Motor Speedway as NASCAR's newest road course, 2018 will be the first Cup Series season since 1987 in which there will be three road course races. It will also be the first season since 1964 in which there have been more than two road course venues.
- The 1964 season was also the most recent of two Cup Series seasons in which there were a record four road courses on the schedule: Augusta*, Riverside, Bridgehampton, and the Glen. The other was 1957, in which the series raced at Willow Springs Speedway**, Titusville-Cocoa Airport**, the Glen, and Kitsap County Airport.
- The first road course visited by the Busch Grand National Series was Road Atlanta, in 1986.
- The 2018 Xfinity Series season will be the first ever to feature four road course races.
- The first road course visited by the Truck Series was Heartland Park Topeka, in 1995 (the series' first season).

I did not include the Daytona Beach circuit as a road course. If one were to do so, then 1957 would have hosted five road courses.

* The race at Augusta actually took place in 1963, in an era when each season would begin the previous November.
** The races at Willow Springs and Titusville each took place in 1956.

[The_Wall_91]

The top 5 in tonight's Xfinity race all had career best finishes

[PRAWBLEMS]

Following this week's amazing underdog story, Jeremy Clements is technically the first Xfinity series owner-driver-winner since Dale Jr. last year at Richmond: though considering their respective equipment, the last of a success like this probably goes back further than that.

[Backmarker]

Here's a neat visualization of the history of F1 driver lineups in the last 10 years. Would be interesting to see if someone could make one for the NASCAR Cup Series.

[PRAWBLEMS]

Here's a neat visualization of the history of F1 driver lineups in the last 10 years. Would be interesting to see if someone could make one for the NASCAR Cup Series.

Good luck with that once you get down to the Jay Robinson level of ownership, lol

[Alpineopossum]

In the entire existiance of the NASCAR Nationwide Series (2008-2014), 54.9% of the races were one by either Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards, or Joey Logano.

Every other driver that competed during that time combined one a little over 45 %

24 % of Nationwide races were won by Kyle Busch.

[navycook75]

There are nine people in the Cup series who has less than one point.

George Behlman has .695
Don Pruitt has .67
Charlie Blanton and Larry Richardson both have .62
Jimmy Hailey has .615
Randy Huchison has .53
Tommy Coates has .5
Bobby Ore has .44
Ronnie Childress rounds this out with a mere .3. With that he's also the person who has the least amount of points in the Cup series.

[navycook75]

With the announcement of Bill Elliott running the Road America Xfinfity race, this is the first time a Hall of Famer will race in all three series.

[SpeedDemon37]

- The 2018 Daytona saw car #3 take the victory, with car #43 as the runner-up. Prior to that race, the last NASCAR Cup Series event in which this occurred was the 1987 Valleydale Meats 500, in which Dale Earnhardt won over Richard Petty.

- The first season in which the Daytona 500 was the season-opening race for the NASCAR Cup Series was in 1982.

- The 1975 Daytona 500, to date, is the only running of the event to have had no cars with a single-digit number start the race.
- #0 (Clyde Dagit), #3 (Tom Culbertson), #5 (Neil Castles), and #8 (Ed Negre) all failed to qualify for the race.

- I'm actually not quite positive if this is accurate, but I believe that the 2002 Daytona 500 is the only one to date in which two trios of brothers have competed. Geoff, Brett, and Todd Bodine, as well as Rusty, Mike, and Kenny Wallace all took the start.
- The average finish for the Bodine brothers was 16.67 (best; Geoff, 3rd-place).
- The average finish for the Wallace brothers was 23 (best; Rusty, 18th-place).

[navycook75]

just found this out on r/Nascar but

This Daytona 500 will be the first 500 since 2001 where the 3, 36, and 40 are in the same race.

[navycook75]

I posted a pic of this fact on the Discord but...

Teo Fabi has 3 pole positions in F1 but never managed to lead a lap.

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