BIRCH RUN, Mich. (WNEM) – There are 1,100 NASCAR model cars and trucks on display in a memorial museum at the Birch Run Speedway.

The NASCAR room is in memory of Jeffrey Dobson, who put together the collection. He passed away, and his museum needed a new home.

Family friend Dana Wiltse knew where the cars could go so many others could enjoy them: at his friend Andy Suski’s speedway.

“It melts my heart. I know Jeffrey, his son, was one of my good friends and I know the time and effort that goes into having something like this. And to have Andy Suski be able to continue it and keep it so the public can enjoy it, this means everything,” Wiltse said.

Jeffrey’s dad, Jimmy Dobson, was able to see the NASCAR room’s new home that’s keeping his son’s memory alive.

He’s 96 years old and in poor health, so seeing the room was very special for him.

“It makes me feel proud that we had this after my son died at 42, and it’s certainly a tribute to him and my family. My daughter, and I had six children and I only have one left and I brought her here today to show her off,” he said.

This Friday, May 2, you can check out this memorial museum and watch some races for Birch Run Speedway’s opening day.

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The current NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship leader, Alex Palou, will have a new look for the 2025 Children’s of Alabama Indy Grand Prix this weekend as his #10 Chip Ganassi Racing Honda will sport a Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) livery.

The HRC livery is the same one previously run by Yuki Tsunoda at the HRC crossover event in Las Vegas last fall—an event in which Tsunoda, coached by CGR racer and six-time IndyCar champ Scott Dixon, got behind the wheel of an IndyCar for the first time.

Now, it will be Palou’s turn to take the striking red, white and blue livery to the track as he tries for his fourth win in three races to start the 2025 season—following victories at St. Petersburg and Thermal and a second-place finish at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The strong start to the year has Palou 34 points ahead in the championship as he looks for his third title in a row and fourth in just five years.

The three titles with Alex Palou and four of Dixon’s six titles make up just part of the 14 total championships Honda has scored with Chip Ganassi Racing. Other Honda-CGR championship winners include Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi, Juan Pablo Montoya and Dario Franchitti.

In addition to celebrating the success Honda and Chip Ganassi Racing have had over the years, the livery brings awareness to the new HRC US business ventures announced in the last six months. This includes the HRC performance parts business which debuted at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas last November, and will feature genuine HRC parts for Acura and Honda road cars. Meanwhile, the HRC Originals clothing line was launched at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach earlier this month.

Quotes

David Salters (President, Honda Racing Corporation USA): “We are excited to be the primary partner on the #10 CGR Honda at Barber Motorsports Park. We’ve had a very successful long-term partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing and both of us have seen a lot of success from that collaboration. Alex Palou has done an incredible job the last few years and to kick off this 2025 season and coming on board the No. 10 car seemed liked a great opportunity for visibility around the HRC brand and our new performance parts business.”

Chip Ganassi (Owner, Chip Ganassi Racing): “Over the years, we have had many successes working with Honda, winning multiple championships and Indianapolis 500s. We are looking forward to partnering with them at Barber on the No. 10, and hope Alex and the team will continue their successful start to the year.”

Honda Racing PR

Hall of Fame racecar driver Tony Stewart cruised by CBS Chicago downtown on Wednesday.

The motorsports legend will be back behind the wheel next month at the Route 66 Nationals in Joliet. Stewart is a native Midwesterner himself — from Columbus, Indiana 40 miles south of Indianapolis.

The three-time NASCAR Cup champ shifted his gears to drag racing after two decades in NASCAR. Last year, he took over driving duties from his wife, Leah Pruett, and recently became a first-time father at 53 when his son, Dominic, was born in November.

Stewart said he still has some smoke in the tank when it comes to racing. The 2024 NHRA Rookie of the Year won his first Top Fuel race a little over two weeks ago in Las Vegas.

“Finally got our first win at Vegas — at a four-wide event at that — so yeah, it was nice to finally get the first one under our belt, and you know, I told our crew guys at the end of the day when we had our team meeting, I said, ‘The best part of this is here on out, we get to go to the track and show up, and we don’t have to worry about answering questions: ‘Are you, or when are you going to win a race,'” Stewart said. “We’ve got that. We’ve checked that box off. Now we can show up and just race on the weekends. And people don’t really understand how much pressure there was to win that first race.”

Stewart said bringing a baby along to the racetrack puts a little extra pressure on his wife — but it’s great nonetheless.

“We’re at the racetrack. We have him at the track, and she still works full-time in the track. So her schedule is a little busier and a little more hectic,” he said. “You know, for me, I love it. I mean, I love the fact that when we’re at the drag races, we have our hospitality trailer and tent there, and entertaining our guests and our sponsors, and knowing that he’s literally 30 feet away from the trailer that I’m racing out of all day, and I can go out there and check on him.”

Stewart added that he is done with NASCAR, but he’s more than happy to have fans who enjoy both NASCAR and drag racing.

“Zero chance here we’re going to see me back in NASCAR. It is fun to meet people that watched us forever — a lot of these people know more about me than I know about me at this point, it seems like — but it’s fun to see a lot of NASCAR fans coming to drag races, and the overwhelming response at the end of the day was, ‘We had no idea.’ When you ask these fans like, ‘Well, what’d you think about it?’ They’re like, ‘We had no idea.’ I remind them like, ‘Hey, you can still watch NASCAR — you can just add this!'”

The Route 66 Nationals are happening at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet May 16-18.

NASCAR sensation Connor Zilisch has been ruled out of Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway and has been replaced by Cup Series driver Kyle Larson, who will drive his No. 88 Chevrolet. Zilisch suffered lower back injuries after a major wreck at Talladega last week, but plans to return as soon as possible.

Zilisch remains one of NASCAR’s top prospects and made his Cup Series debut earlier this season at the age of 18. Zilisch is currently sixth in the Xfinity standings in his first season as a full-time driver, but Larson will be behind the wheel for the Andy’s Frozen Custard 300.

“Connor Zilisch will miss Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway due to lower back injuries sustained at Talladega Superspeedway,” Trackhouse Racing wrote in a statement. “The Trackhouse Racing development driver plans to return to the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet as soon as possible.”

JR Motorsports then announced: “Kyle Larson will sub for Connor Zilisch behind the wheel of the No. 88 Chevrolet this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway as Zilisch continues to recover from a lower back injury sustained last weekend at Talladega.”

Zilisch proceeded to thank Larson, as he wrote on X: “Thank you to @KyleLarsonRacin for stepping up for me this weekend and everyone who has helped me through this process. Doing everything I can to be back as soon as possible.”

The 18-year-old was leading on the final lap at Talladega, but spun following a push from Jesse Love and crashed hard into the inside wall. Zilisch was able to walk from the car without assistance, but was clearly shaken up and was instantly evaluated at the infield care center.

Speaking after the race, Zilisch said he felt grateful to be walking, and added: “Yeah, I’m okay. That’s one of the wrecks where you move your legs and make sure everything feels okay afterwards. So, very grateful to drive safe JR Motorsports race cars.

“Our WeatherTech Chevrolet was as fast as Xfinity Mobile. We were in the right spot, just, yeah, I haven’t really watched it close enough to know what happened. But yeah, grateful to be up and walking.”

Zilisch later posted another update on social media, as he wrote on X: “Sore today but more than anything just upset that I couldn’t close that one out for my team. If we keep putting ourselves in position to win races, it will come. Thank you to everyone who reached out to make sure I was okay.”

DON’T MISS…

One of those who checked in on Zilisch was Love, who shunted him before the eventual wreck occurred. Love ended up finishing the race in third, but refused to comment on the incident until he’d spoken to the young driver.

Love attempted to explain his race before commenting on the final lap, as he said: “I just got really good pushes there at the end. I was able to lift enough off of [Turn] 2 to get big pushes.

“I kind of thought we made our bed and were not in a good spot to win, and then I was able to get Austin [Hill] connected to me and he was able to give me some good pushes down the backstretch for a few laps. It was definitely tough how that ended. I hope my friend is okay.

“I’m not going to comment on what I thought happened there yet. I just want to go check on him and make sure he’s alright. Looked like a really hard hit, and he really hasn’t taken many hard hits yet.”

Denny Hamlin said on Monday’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast that it would cost teams $2 million to take part in NASCAR‘s proposed “Run What You Brung” rules package for next month’s All-Star Racce at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Mike Forde, NASCAR managing director of racing communications, said on Wednesday’s “Hauler Talk” podcast that Hamlin’s estimation is incorrect.

“Denny talked about how this would potentially cost $2 million if we went ahead and did this. I think his math was off by about $2 million,” Forde said. “But actually, it could cost $0 or potentially save teams money, believe it or not. I’m sorry, Denny. But I did text with Denny, and I told him you can listen to the ‘Hauler Talk’ podcast on Wednesday for all the goods.”

Forde’s comments prompted a response from Hamlin. The 23XI Racing co-owner fired a shot at Forde.

“Oh it cost us nothing to run a race team now,” Hamlin tweeted. “Whew, this business is easier than I thought. BTW, Great stats on Sunday!”

NASCAR proposed the package to teams in an effort to help fix the short track racing product. In the Next Gen era, performance at historic tracks such as Martinsville and Bristol hasn’t been up to standard. But the teams rejected the proposal. Hamlin said it came down to money.

Denny Hamlin explains why teams rejected ‘Run What You Brung’ proposal

“We’ve been very transparent in the fact that this car cost $300,000,” Hamlin said. “Do the math real quick. If I put my three cars on the racetrack and just to build this wild, illegal car, I’m going to destroy it and now I lose one more car out of my fleet. I only get seven cars per door number. So, that’s three cars that are wiped out of my fleet that I’m not going to get a replacement for because I’m not going to get a replacement car if the car has damage to it if you wreck it. You have to show NASCAR that it’s wrecked, bent or whatever and you need another chassis. I can’t afford to lose that out of my rotation.

“We used to have 14 cars, now we’re down to seven. The whole cost-cutting thing was to shorten up how many cars we have in our stable. Can you ask for another chassis? Sure, but I’m gonna spend $1 million just on parts and pieces. We haven’t even developed anything yet. So, just in parts and pieces to replace all this sh*t we’re gonna modify, we’re gonna spend a sh*t ton of money. And it only pays $1 million to win. It’s paid $1 million to win for 30 years. It’s not that cool anymore. Even if one of my cars won, I don’t see this as even remotely breakeven proposition.”

Forde pushed back on Hamlin’s reasoning. He explained why “Run What You Brung” would have cost teams $0 or even saved them money.

“His reasoning and what he threw out there was that if the car cost $300,000, he has three cars, he would destroy every single part in that car trying to make it the best they can by modifying every part to its max ability,” Forde said. “So, $900,000 worth of parts that are now obsolete because they can’t be used anywhere else except the All-Star Race. Part two is they would be building parts, creating parts with their partners at Joe Gibbs Racing which would cost another $1 million. All put in, almost $2 million for this race that ‘only’ pays $1 million to the winner. That’s incorrect.

“What we presented to the teams is you cannot modify any parts, you cannot build new parts, you can’t create any new parts. Everything still had to be single-sourced. But there was a list of things we were going to allow teams to do.”

Forde continued, “If you didn’t want to do anything, if you didn’t want to come up with any idea, you can just build your cars, what you could have done is use body panels that aren’t race ready for a Talladega or a Coke 600, but probably too good for a show car and use it for the All-Star Race. So, you could have used sort of like hand-me-downs which they do now, but it’s hand-me-downs that’s not up to snuff for a points race, you could have used it there and actually save some money. The teams are not going to do that, but maybe a smaller team would.”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The two teams suing NASCAR asked a judge to dismiss the sanctioning body’s counterclaim in court Wednesday.

In a 20-page filing in district court in North Carolina, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports opposed NASCAR’s motion to amend its original counterclaim. The teams argued that the need to amend the counterclaim further demonstrates the weakness of NASCAR’s arguments, calling them an attempt by NASCAR to distract and shift attention away from its own unlawful, monopolistic actions.

NASCAR’s counterclaim singled out Michael Jordan’s longtime business manager, Curtis Polk. Jordan is co-owner of 23XI Racing.

The legal battle began after more than two years of negotiations on new charter agreements — NASCAR’s equivalent of a franchise model — and the 30-page filing contends that Polk “willfully” violated antitrust laws by orchestrating anticompetitive collective conduct in connection with the most recent charter agreements.

23XI and Front Row were the only two organizations out of 15 that refused to sign the new agreements, which were presented to the teams last September in a take-it-or-leave-it offer a mere 48 hours before the start of NASCAR’s playoffs.

The charters were fought for by the teams ahead of the 2016 season and twice have been extended. The latest extension is for seven years to match the current media rights deal and guarantee 36 of the 40 spots in each week’s field to the teams that hold the charters, as well as other financial incentives. 23XI and Front Row refused to sign and sued, alleging NASCAR and the France family that owns the stock car series are a monopoly.

NASCAR already has lost one round in court in which the two teams have been recognized as chartered organizations for the 2025 season as the legal dispute winds through the courts. NASCAR has also appealed a judge’s rejection of its motion to dismiss the case.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

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