Ralph Dale Earnhardt Sr. was an American professional stock car driver and team owner, who raced from 1975 to 2001 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series, most notably wrecking people while driving the No. 3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing.
Valentino Rossi is an Italian former professional motorcycle road racer and nine-time Grand Prix motorcycle racing World Champion. He won premier class World Championships with both Honda and Yamaha. Nicknamed The Doctor, he is widely considered to be one of the greatest motorcycle racers of all time, with nine Grand Prix World Championships to his name, seven of which were in the premier 500cc/MotoGP class. He is also the only road racer to have competed in 400 or more Grands Prix, and rode with the number 46 for his entire career. He had previously requested that the race number continues to be used in upcoming seasons, and not retired.
Anthony Wayne Stewart, nicknamed Smoke, is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver, current NASCAR team co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, and current co-owner of the Superstar Racing Experience. He is a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion as a driver, winning titles in 2002, 2005, and 2011. As a team owner, he has won NASCAR Cup titles in 2011 with himself and in 2014 with Kevin Harvick as drivers. Throughout his racing career, Stewart has won racing titles in Indy, midget, sprint, and USAC Silver Crown cars. He is the only driver in history to win a championship in both IndyCar and NASCAR.
Brands Hatch Circuit is a motor racing circuit in West Kingsdown, Kent, England, United Kingdom. Originally used as a grasstrack motorcycle circuit on farmland, it hosted 12 runnings of the British Grand Prix between 1964 and 1986 and currently hosts many British and International racing events. The venue is owned and operated by Jonathan Palmer's MotorSport Vision organisation.
North Wilkesboro Speedway is a former short oval racetrack located on U.S. Route 421, about five miles east of the town of North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, or 80 miles north of Charlotte. It measured 0.625 miles (1.006 km) and featured a unique uphill backstretch and downhill frontstretch. It held races in NASCAR's top three series, including 93 Winston Cup Series races. The track, a NASCAR original, operated from 1949, NASCAR's inception, until the track's closure in 1996. The speedway briefly reopened in 2010 and hosted several stock car series races, including the now-defunct ASA Late Model Series, USARacing Pro Cup Series, and PASS super late models, before closing again in the spring of 2011. The track is currently being renovated for another reopening.
The Ambetter 301 is a 301 lap (318.458-mile annual NASCAR Cup Series stock car race held at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire.
The DuraMAX Drydene 400 presented by RelaDyne is a 400-mile (640 km) NASCAR Cup Series stock car race held annually at Dover Motor Speedway in Dover, Delaware in the spring.
The Folds of Honor Quiktrip 500 is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race held at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia. The race is sponsored by QuikTrip, along with the nonprofit organization Folds of Honor, and is run as the fifth race of the Cup Series. Ryan Blaney is the defending race winner.
A victory lap is a term used in motorsports to describe an extra lap of the race track after the conclusion of a race. This lap, driven at reduced speed, allows the winning driver to celebrate their victory and gives the spectators an opportunity to congratulate and honor the competitors. Commonly, trackside flag marshals will wave their flags in a gesture known as the FIA salute or the Monkey Dance in the US. It is not uncommon for marshals to clap or wave their hands at drivers as a gesture and sometimes the drivers wave back in response.
Langley Speedway is a race track located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. Langley Speedway is a paved short track measuring 0.395 miles in length. It is one of the flattest tracks in the region with only six degrees of banking in the corners and four degrees of banking on the straights. In November 1970, it became the site of the last NASCAR Grand National Series race before the series was renamed the Winston Cup. The track is located in front of NASA's Langley Research Center on Commander Sheppherd Boulevard.
The 62nd 500 Mile International Sweepstakes was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on Sunday, May 28, 1978. Danny Ongais dominated the early stages of the race but eventually dropped out with a blown engine. Al Unser Sr. dominated the second half, and held a large lead late in the race. However, Unser bent the front wing of his Lola during a pit stop on lap 180, causing his handling to go away over the final twenty laps. Second place Tom Sneva charged to catch Unser's crippled Lola but came up 8 seconds short at the finish line – the second-closest finish in Indy history to that point. Unser held off the challenge, and became a three-time winner of the 500. It was Al Unser's third Indy victory in the decade of the 1970s, and the fifth of nine overall victories by the Unser family.
The NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour (WSMT) was a stock car racing series owned by NASCAR and operated in the Southeastern United States as part of its Modified Division. The series began in 1989 as the Southern Modified Auto Racing Teams (S.M.A.R.T.) before NASCAR took over the series in 2005. The Whelen Southern Modified Tour used nearly identical rules as its northeastern-based counterpart the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour.
The Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix was an IndyCar Series race held at the Phoenix Raceway in Avondale, Arizona, United States. USAC moved the fall race and added a spring race to the newly built Phoenix International Raceway in 1964. The race became a CART event in 1979, and joined the Indy Racing League in 1996. It was held continuously through 2005.
The Singapore Grand Prix is a motor racing event which forms part of the Formula One World Championship. The event takes place on the Marina Bay Street Circuit and was the inaugural night race and first street circuit in Asia designed for Formula One races.
The 2007–08 A1 Grand Prix of Nations, Great Britain was an A1 Grand Prix race, held on May 4, 2008, at Brands Hatch, Kent, United Kingdom. It was the tenth and last meeting in the 2007-08 A1 Grand Prix season.
Valtteri Viktor Bottas is a Finnish racing driver who competes in Formula One with the Alfa Romeo team, having previously driven for Mercedes from 2017 to 2021 and Williams from 2013 to 2016. Bottas has scored 10 race wins and 67 podiums. He contributed to five constructors championship wins for Mercedes, and has been drivers' championship runner-up twice, in 2019 and 2020.
The Southern 500, officially known as the Cook Out Southern 500 for sponsorship reasons, is a NASCAR Cup Series stock car race at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, United States. The race distance is 501 miles (806 km) and consists of 367 laps. From 1950 to 2003, and again since 2015, the race has been held on Labor Day weekend. The Southern 500 is largely considered one of the Crown Jewels of the NASCAR calendar, and has been nicknamed NASCAR's "oldest superspeedway race." For decades, the race has been considered by competitors and media as one of the more difficult and challenging races on the NASCAR schedule, owing much to the track's unusual, asymmetrical egg-shape, rough pavement, and overall unforgiving nature. Darlington Raceway itself has a long and storied reputation as the "Track Too Tough to Tame."
The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg is an IndyCar Series race held in St. Petersburg, Florida. In most years since 2009, the race has served as the season opener. The race is held annually in the spring, with the exception of 2020, when it was postponed until October due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Max Emilian Verstappen is a Belgian-Dutch racing driver and the 2021 Formula One World Champion. He competes under the Dutch flag in Formula One with Red Bull Racing. He is the son of former Formula One driver Jos Verstappen.
Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc is a Monégasque racing driver, currently racing in Formula One for Scuderia Ferrari. Leclerc won the GP3 Series championship in 2016 and the FIA Formula 2 Championship in 2017.
