There are few events in the world with cars this amazing on them. I’m still trying to figure out how to write or talk about Pikes Peak, and I may have to go in person before I truly can, but the basic truth of it is this: It is one of the purest displays I’ve ever seen of the symbiotic individuality of car and driver.

I consider this supporting evidence for one of my boldest NASCAR predictions, and I might as well put it on record here on the site: I am convinced that General Motors is going to plunk down the money to accelerate Connor Zilisch’s career — possibly towards the Cadillac Formula 1 team — by getting him into the Hendrick Motorsports #48 as soon as it becomes available. People don’t buy it because they think Justin Marks and Trackhouse are going to be able to hang onto him. I do not believe they will be able to make him champion quickly enough.

The one compelling argument I had heard against my prediction is that Carson Hocevar was a shoo-in for the #48. Welp. No he ain’t.

After nearly a week of weather delays, NASCAR finally forced the Clash to happen last night, and from the beginning of practice to just past halfway through the race, we were looking at a classic. The last-chance qualifier was one of the best short-track races the NextGen car has ever put on, for my money. In the main event, exciting prospects such as Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch looked to be in strong positions, especially as the weather got dicier. There was some drama about whether they could keep going, NASCAR declared the race wet, everybody changed tires, and we more or less thought NASCAR had finally found its balls and had set us up for an all-timer.

Folks, it was not an all-timer.

Ryan Preece — a real, honest-to-god race car driver — won handily, his first win in a Cup car, and that was nice and deserved. It was fun to celebrate afterwards, but it was hard to enjoy during the race.

Kyle Larson started on pole, but he ended like this:

Forgot to post last night. This car has seen some things.

[image or embed]

— John Newby (@johnnewby.bsky.social) Feb 5, 2026 at 8:54 AM

Chase Briscoe became my public enemy no. 1 by taking out everyone I wanted to win this race in one fell swoop, and even as plucky drivers continued to try to win the race, the same old boring guys kept constantly wrecking each other and neutralizing any progress. It was a 50-mile race that took three hours. They dropped it from network straight to FS2 after it was clear it wasn’t ending anytime soon. In short, NASCAR is back, baby. Hell yeah.

Here’s the highlight reel. I’m sure it’ll be funnier this way.

Following on the news that McLaren is getting out of GT4 racing to concentrate on launching its hypercar and reviving its GT3 program, McLaren Automotive’s head of motorsport Giorgio Sanna has made some fairly concrete-ish promises that we’ll learn about a new GT3 car this year that will not be another evo of the 720S. I might feel slightly let down if it’s just the 750S GT3. I want to see McLaren Automotive enter a new phase as it goes to the top class.

I have not seen a single sign yet that Mick Schumacher is not going to be totally ready for his first IndyCar season. On the contrary, he sounds fascinated, engaged, and excited. I am eager to see the results.

McLaren seems fully ready for a new year of IndyCar. Their new 86,000 sq-ft shop is now open for business, and their three liveries managed to become distinguishable from one another.

I want to be very clear that I am almost entirely indifferent to this news, but there is one reason I’m glad to see it.

It seems to me that the people responsible for the almost-entirely-bad media decisions in motorsports have been slow-walking the actual test of the widespread conventional wisdom that people whose primary value is large audiences who watch their videos on social media can be taught to drive race cars and thereby benefit the sport. If I were using this theory to justify my salary as the cHiEf iNnoVAtiOn ofFicER at some racing series headquarters, I would be hesitant to test it, too, because if the influencers suck at driving, it would all fall apart.

Given that, I applaud the courage in letting these guys race in a NASCAR event on NASCAR’s biggest weekend, which is at the beginning of the year. It rips the band-aid off, and if they’re actually good, fine, they can do another race or two this year, and if they aren’t, now we will all finally know.

I feel obligated to follow up on my recent criticisms by reporting that Williams did indeed build a Formula 1 car this year, and it has indeed driven around on a race track, and it will indeed be on the grid in Australia.

FloRacing is possibly the only good deal in motorsports streaming, but surely that is a growth strategy that will not last forever. It is big news, therefore, that Flo has bulked up enough to expand into the Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television (FAST) market, which I’m actually beginning to believe might someday break the dam and liberate us from legacy broadcasting models. The FloRacing 24/7 channel — which is already available on the streaming service and is a good option when there’s nothing on live — will now be available on Prime Video and Fubo, i.e. on ways to watch streaming TV that a meaningful number of people already use.

NASCAR has already been an important partner with Flo, with lots of NASCAR Regional racing (including the Whelen Modified Tour) streaming there, and in related news, Flo will now simulcast some big races with NASCAR’s own FAST channel, which is really good, and which is now available right in the NASCAR mobile app in advance of this season. It’s finally almost easy to watch racing!

It is hard to win the title of worst streaming service in motorsports. The competition is so fierce. But to date, the fiawec.tv offering was definitely up there. Geoblocking in countries with TV agreements was the least of its worries; the app was terrible and the stream was unreliable. It wasn’t good at anything it was supposed to do, and it was too expensive. Today, though, that service is gone, and an info page explains that there will be a new FIA WEC+ streaming service this year with global rights. No geoblocks! What a concept!

Denny Hamlin is really going through a Dark Night of the Soul in the classical sense. My desire grows ever stronger for him to get the happy ending of finally winning a championship, but spending the season in pain doesn’t seem like the easiest way to go about it.

Every Formula 1 team has to have an AI sponsor now, so that’s not especially weird. Not every F1 team’s AI sponsor is one owned by the team’s ownership group, but that kind of self dealing is hardly unprecedented, either. What’s concerning is that TWG AI is the sponsor that brought us the horrendous livery we’ve seen so far on Andretti Global’s Formula E team and Will Power’s IndyCar.

Everything we’ve seen from Cadillac F1 so far has this nice, understated, black/white/silver thing going, but their test livery did not suggest impeccable taste. Are they going to sully the car with neon booger green? Will Cadillac be the new Kick Sauber?

The FIA European Truck Racing Championship is a fun enough series that I may eventually decide to cover it race by race on Turning Fortune, but I mostly consider it a pleasant diversion, and the FIA probably does as well. It is certainly interesting that the FIA wants to take over soup-to-nuts management of the series rather than just sanctioning it. This suggests that it’s not the most commercially successful racing series out there, and the FIA doesn’t want to lose it altogether.

This isn’t the federation’s first move of this kind, though; last year it took ownership of the FIA World Rallycross Championship, too. Now, it has enlisted the World Rally Championship promoter group to help with that, and they’re getting close to finding a new commercial rights holder for WRC that may take rallycross over as well. Maybe the truck racing thing is a similar sort of transitional stewardship arrangement. But if not, and the Ben Sulayem administration is trying to diversify its revenue streams away from Formula 1 dependency by getting commercially involved in racing, it’s surely going to run back into the legal trouble that explains why, for example, Formula 1’s commercial rights are held independently from its sanctioning rights.

Australian tin top racing legend Craig Lowndes, 51, has found himself out of a ride for the Bathurst 12 Hour. It seems he only considered two options, and he doesn’t seem too bothered given his full Supercars plate this year (including continuing his wildcard Bathurst 1000 drive with a new team), but it’s still a slightly solemn moment given Lowndesy’s role in making the 12 Hour what it is today.

Nicki Thiim (of being-robbed-of-2026-Daytona-24-class-victory fame) will become the first factory driver of the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo in DTM this year. He’s joining Nicolas Baert to expand the Comtoyou Racing to two cars. Aston hasn’t done great in the GT3 era of DTM so far, but Thiim is an animal, so hopefully that will kick things off. Thiim is also contesting the 2026 GTWC Europe with the same team and car.

Nothing in sports car racing is on a roll like the Mustang. Ford is building out Mustang as a platform so broadly and comprehensively — road cars and race cars alike — that I don’t think it will shock anyone if this year at Le Mans they announce that the prototype will be branded Mustang as well. And meanwhile, they’re making their entry-level racing more competitive with other programs, open to more kinds of cars, and available in more places.

This guy is having a dream start to 2026. It’s going exactly the way a grassroots racer dreams of. He won the Chili Bowl, and that seems to have landed him a full-time ride in the most legendary dirt sprint car series. Let’s keep an eye on him.

Alice Buckley’s inexorable march to Supercars was slowed by injury while kicking everyone’s ass in TA2 cars, but she’s back and more dangerous than ever. Super2 is getting pretty notorious for its barriers to entry, including enormous costs and equipment that is no longer relevant to main game Supercars (although they are quite a hoot on track). That means if it’s worth it to you to race Super2, you mean serious business. And rather than take some premium ride with one of the main game farm teams, the Buckley family team is going to do it themselves.

Just to be clear, this will make Buckley the fourth woman ever to compete full-time in Super2 and the only woman in Super2 or Supercars at all this year. When (not if) she moves up to the main game, she will become the second-ever woman driving full-time in Supercars (Simona de Silvestro being the first), and the first one native to Australia.

I suppose that if the President of the United States — and one not known for his operational excellence, at that — decrees that your racing series race on the streets of the capital immediately during a time of incredibly high political tension, and you’re at least trying not to actively worsen the situation, it would be a good idea to hire the promoter used by all the Washington-area sports teams. Of course, the trade-off is that now there are more people whose job it is to make sure the event actually happens.

If liveries could win championships, it would be over already.