In this edition of 'First Seasons,' Speedway Media catches up with James Hinchcliffe who recently competed for Andretti Autosport and will be calling races for NBC Sports in 2022. We will take a look back at his first year in racing and his early years of being in the sport.
INDIANAPOLIS (Friday, Dec. 10, 2021) – Alfred “Al” Unser, the second member of the Unser auto racing dynasty to win the Indianapolis 500 and the second INDYCAR SERIES driver in history to win four times at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, died Dec. 9 at his home in Chama, New Mexico, after a 17-year battle with cancer. He was 82.
Kansas City, KS - After a dominant race by the 2021 ARCA Menards Series champion, Ty Gibbs, a late-race caution played spoiler. In a green-white-checkered flag finish at the 1.5-mile speedway, the victory went to Nick Sanchez who rallied to claim his first-ever ARCA series victory in just 21 starts.
Colton Herta, starting deep in the field in 14th after being the fastest in both practice sessions took over the lead on Lap 34 after Helio Castroneves made his scheduled stop and held off Newgarden to win at home for the first time in his career.
Tim Wilkerson won in Funny Car, while Josh Hart upset Brittany Force, Kyle Koretsky defeated all-time great Greg Anderson, and Angelle Sampey picked up her 44th career victory over Joey Gladstone in Pro Stock Motorcycle.
Following a rough couple of weeks with a crash at Gateway and an engine failure at the Indianapolis Grand Prix, Chip Ganassi's Alex Palou fought back into the championship points lead with a victory at Portland International Speedway Sunday afternoon.
For the first time in 14 years, the ARCA Menards Series made their return to the famous Milwaukee Mile Speedway in West Allis, Wisconsin Sunday afternoon and we saw a familiar face in victory lane as Ty Gibbs scored his ninth win of 2021.
Torrence, a Kilgore, Texas native, spoke about his early ranks in the sport including transitioning from Alcohol dragsters to Top Fuel dragsters, his first start at Richmond in 2006 and his first victory in Atlanta of 2012. He also discussed various other topics surrounding the early years of his NHRA career.
The 2020 Truck Series champion from Alpine, California, led 17 of 163-scheduled laps and capitalized on a last-lap incident involving Austin Hill and Ross Chastain to achieve his first elusive career victory after 15 runner-up results.
Taylor Gray (ninth), Brandon Jones (10th) and Dean Thompson (11th) led Toyota with strong finishes in the second race of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season at EchoPark Speedway.
