Continuing the Legacy of Uranium Capitol Speedway Jason Bodley & Codi Orozco

Uranium Capitol Speedway was established in 1969 and is one of the oldest tracks in New Mexico currently running. Unique in the fact that the track is member owned, “the track will be open as long as someone pays the property tax,” said Jason Bodley, President of the newly renamed track. Legacy Speedway “is really fan base and driver based. If you're a member, you can attend our board meetings, you can put yourself on our agenda to talk about issues at the track and I think that's what makes it really unique,” said Codi Orozco, secretary and PR representative. “I mean, I myself started as a spectator and now I'm a secretary and run their social media so anybody can step in and help. If you know you love racing, come on out and help us because it's a great place to be.”

Uranium Capitol Speedway became Legacy Speedway in late 2022. “People from all over New Mexico have raced here in Grants. A lot of people grew up here, so we wanted to keep that Legacy in our name and somehow to honor the past with moving into the future - so Legacy,” explained Codi. “We talked about a lot of names that were thrown out there but that's what ended up sticking.”

A typical Saturday night will include Cruisers, Hobby Stocks, Stock Cars, Micro Sprints and X-Mods. “We have a Hobby Stock Division. That class is very interesting because we had Albuquerque Stock Cars, which is a Hobby Stock with headers,” explained Jason. “And then we had the Grants Hobby Stocks which are the same car with stock exhaust and then there is the IMCA Hobby Stock. So, we've kind of put togeth- and we are moving forward with sanctioning.”

“Our X-Mod Division will be sanctioned as well,” said Jason. “We have received a lot of A-Mod drivers reaching out to us. We do not schedule A-Mods, because quite frankly, the division has dried up locally.” Codi added, “We just added the Mini Sprints, so they have been added to the (new) schedule.”

Legacy Speedway may have the best sunset view from the grandstands especially since “racing starts at sundown.” er a rule that encompasses them all so that our entry-level racing will allow these guys to come and compete. We have a Stock Car division,

It’s just a quick drive from Albuquerque, west on I-40, to enjoy some local hospitality and a track that is still a classic!

LegacySpeedway.com

BY JOHN HAVERLIN

TheNTT IndyCar Series returns to the streets of St. Petersburg on March 5 to begin its 2023 season. Will Power enters as the defending series champion, but expect the competition to be as strong as ever when the green flag waves on Florida's Gulf Coast.

There will be 27 full-time entries this year on the grid. Among them are the Team Penske trio of Power, two-time champion Josef Newgarden, and Scott McLaughlin, who looks poised to be a championship contender after a three-win campaign in 2022.

Chip Ganassi Racing should also be a title contender as Alex Palou returns for another season after a controversial summer around his plans to join Arrow McLaren versus his existing contract with Ganassi. He won the season finale at Laguna Seca and looked like one of the drivers to beat in the Indianapolis 500 along with teammate Scott Dixon. However, Dixon, the six-time series champion, got burned by a heartbreaking speeding penalty while leading during the final round of pit stops at the 500 last year and ended up finishing 21st after leading 95 laps.

And then there's Marcus Ericsson, who won the 500 with Ganassi. The Indy triumph was the most significant victory of the former Formula 1 driver's career. Due to the double-points system at the race, he led the championship for most of the summer.

But one of the rules IndyCar changed for the 2023 season is the double-point format for its marquee event. It has been abolished by the sanctioning body to help teams be rewarded for season-long consistency.

"While double points at the Indi- anapolis 500 has not altered who won the season-long championship, occasionally it has had a negative effect on the final position of the full-time teams," IndyCar president Jay Frye said. "As our entry list grows, this move will provide consistency for teams competing for championship positions while not diminishing the importance of 'The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.'"

There will be a delicate balance between raw rookie talent and seasoned veteran experience this season. Four drivers will run for Rookie of the Year honors, including Benjamin Pedersen, Sting Ray Robb, Marcus Armstrong, and Agustin Canapino. Veterans such as Alexander Rossi, who embarks on his first year as a McLaren driver, Tony Kanaan, who will retire after the 500, and "Spider-Man" Hélio Castroneves will appear on the grid, too.

Speaking of Castroneves, the 47-year-old Brazilian driver has been continuing a career renaissance. He won the 2020 overall IMSA championship with Penske, the 2021 Indy 500 (his record-tying fourth), and three straight Rolex 24s at Daytona.

Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud were teammates at the 24-hour event as they are in IndyCar. They won the overall race with Meyer Shank Racing again, alongside British drivers Tom Blomqvist and Oliver Jarvis.

It was a historic weekend for sports car racing as the top prototype class (GTP) was reintroduced as a car that competed for the overall wins at Daytona and Le Mans. The

DPi era may have ended, but it didn't stop the No. 60 MSR Acura from earning the Rolex watches after the clock made two full rotations.

Newgarden ad McLaughlin made their debuts in the endurance race classic. They competed as teammates for the Tower Motorsports LMP2 entry and finished fifth in class. Finishing sixth in the class was Rick Ware Racing, which also featured an IndyCar driver -- Andretti Autosport's Devlin DeFrancesco -- and NASCAR driver Austin Cindric.

Jimmie Johnson spent two years racing in an Ally Financial-sponsored DPi in IMSA's four endurance races and two seasons with Ganassi's IndyCar team, but he's returned to his bread and butter of NASCAR as a team co-owner and driver of the newly named Legacy Motor Club (formerly Petty GMS Motorsports.)

As a seven-time champion in America's most popular series, it felt unusual to see him struggle so mightily in his brief IndyCar career. But let that be a testament to the skill and difficulty of IndyCar racing as the series embarks on the 102nd full year of U.S. open-wheel racing.

Can2023NHRACompetitionBeEvenMoreBrutalThanLastSeason?

BY SUSAN WADE

It’s hard to imagine what Josh Hart, the third-year NHRA Top Fuel team owner-driver, could be envisioning for the 2023 Camping World Drag Racing Series.

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“It’s going to be even better than last year,” Hart predicted. It has become cliché to say the competition in any season is more fierce than the year before. But in 2022, his class saw four different winners (including relatively new part-timer Tripp Tatum) to start the schedule. And Austin Prock, who squeaked into the Countdown via the “perfect attendance rule” rather than a top-10 performance, was the lone racer to win more than once in the playoffs. Steve Torrence, aiming for a fifth consecutive crown, stayed in the top five for all but the final event but never seemed to be a factor. He had an enviable season and finally hushed his doubters by winning at Brainerd and later at St. Louis, but his streak slipped away from him by midseason.

The Funny Car scenario was more predictable – or was it? Robert Hight won eight times in 12 final-round appearances – the best in the class since John Force won 13 of 18 outings in 1996. Hight led the standings for virtually all season. However, he lost the championship to Ron Capps by three points. And it wasn’t until the 12th race of the year that someone –Bob Tasca III – broke the HightMatt Hagan-Capps winners cycle.

“There are going to be a lot of people who are going to try to redeem their performances, and I think there are going to be a few people who want to make their own stamp on things. There’s going to be a lot of hungry people this year,” Hart said.

The Top Fuel category doesn’t have many new faces this year, but Hart and a handful of veterans have stocked their arsenals during the winter. Hart has a pair of brandnew Morgan Lucas Racing-built dragsters, ones he said are “the first I’ve ever had built for me, all designed the way we wanted it from scratch. I think we’re a top-five car, no matter what. We’re a little bit more ahead of the curve now than we were last year. We’ll be right there with ’em.”

Three-time champion Antron Brown came alive toward the end of the summer and ended up winning three races and ended as runner-up to two-time titlist Brittany Force. With that momentum, he’s sure to be more of a factor out of the gate. Justin Ashley, in contention until the final weekend, is, by consensus, a champion in waiting, and Mike Salinas has been coming on stronger every year since he broke into the pro ranks. Torrence wants to get back into his pulver- izing-the-competition groove. But the driver to keep an eye on in Top Fuel just might be eight-time king Tony Schumacher. With Joe and Cathi Maynard getting comfortable in taking over the decorated Don Schumacher Racing operation and bringing in Mike Neff, Jon Schaffer, and Phil Shuler as tuners, their Top Fuel headliner is planning to wake up the echoes cheering his fame.

Hight, Capps, and Hagan each have three Funny Car titles and are just as ravenous for a fourth championship. But don’t be surprised if cagey Cruz Pedregon joins them in the class stratosphere. He has his dream-team crew plus legendary tuner Lee Beard hovering over the set-up, and this combination, headed by John Collins with help from Rip Reynolds, quietly goes about setting records and pulling off surprises. Tim Wilkerson has joined forces with the Maynards and looks to be an even more potent contender. Of course, John Force easily could add to his unprecedented 155 victories. Joe Morrison has made the switch to Funny Car from Top Fuel, as has Alex Laughlin in the Jim Dunn entry.

In Pro Stock, five-time champions Erica Enders and 101-time winner Greg Anderson will top the lineup. But this could be the year “The Kids” start taking over. Dallas Glenn, Kyle Koretsky, Aaron Stanfield, Troy Coughlin Jr. remain aggressive, and young Mason McGaha is improving all the time. Camrie Caruso, the 2022 rookie of the year, has teamed with newly reorganized KB Titan Racing (with Eric Latino partnering with Anderson). So she’s poised to start earning trophies, catching up with teammates Glenn and Koretsky.

A new look and new rider (Gage Herrera) give Vance & Hines a fresh shot at another title, as fourtime champ Eddie Krawiec is eager to be back on top. Current and six-time champion Matt Smith isn’t slowing down, either.

Daytona 500 win breaks recent struggles for Stenhouse, JTG-Daugherty

By Jonathan Fjeld (Photos Courtesy Getty Images / TRE)

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and JTG-Daugherty Racing capped off years of hardship and hard work with a win in Sunday’s 65th Daytona 500.

Stenhouse and JTG-D won in their 12th and 15th attempts, respectively. They started 31st but Stenhouse made it from the rear to the front twice on a day where track position was essential. The second time was after a speeding penalty under green, followed by a miraculous caution that allowed him to move from 22nd to 4th within 11 laps.

In the first overtime, Stenhouse moved from 6th to 1st and fended off a challenge from Joey Logano to win the Daytona 500 under caution in double-overtime.

Stenhouse broke a 199-race winless streak, dating back to the July 2017 Coke Zero Sugar 400, also at Daytona. JTG-Daugherty Racing also broke a 302-race winless streak, dating back to their first win as an organization in August 2014 at Watkins Glen.

Getting To The 500 Win

Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s NASCAR career has been defined by bursts of promising speed here and there.

With Roush, he won the 2011 and ’12 Xfinity titles after nearly being fired for wrecking so many cars as a rookie in 2010. In those two championship years, Stenhouse won 8 races – many of them featuring close battles with Cup drivers. Then, in Cup, he struggled for four years until he broke out with 2 wins and a Round of 12 berth in 2017.

In 2018 and ’19, however, his performance slumped enough for Roush to let him go for 2020. JTG-Daugherty picked him up and, again, Stenhouse showed hope but never a consistent season from start-to-finish or even a win. JTG-D has also experienced similar glimmers of hope and chances at wins since they won in 2014, but haven’t elevated into a weekly contender for wins.

Above all else, the organization battled outside factors, like the COVID pandemic. Co-owner Tad Geshickter remarked that they had to go “back to Ramen noodle cups and sleepless nights” at the beginning of the pandemic.

“COVID was not a good time for a tem of our size. There was a lot of back and forth and people wanting to change contracts, and it was a tough two years,” Tad Geshickter said. “During COVID, there were lines at the gate and people saying, ‘hey, we could buy your charter and we want to grow our team,’ and we all talked about it. But we all decided it was not the right thing to do.”

Through it all, Kroger stuck behind

JTG-Daugherty – and Tad and Jodi Geshickter didn’t give up on Stenhouse.

“Personally, I feel like he’s got the spirit of a winner and I like what he represents as a person. I see flashes of brilliance in what he does. I felt like he could do it. I felt like he could get the job done, and I never questioned that,” co-owner Jodi Geshickter stated.