CHATTANOOGA, TN – Throughout history, people have always asked the question: “what would it be like if Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali met in both their primes?”  Comparisons of legends against the latest phenomenon have always left us to ponder the what ifs.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a Tyson vs. Ali heavyweight match up but we did have some fun this week putting together a flat out drag race between a low tech for this day and age 1971 Dodge Challenger and a 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack Electric.

On paper the numbers suggest this could be an equal race.  The 71 weights a thousand pounds less and has 150HP more than the new contender, but the future has some advantages.  Electric motors don’t have the same torque curve the old school Hemi has.  Every bit of power and torque is available the second you touch the throttle.  Just for fun we ran them against each other few times and the old school charger ended up with some fuel pressure issues that wouldn’t let us declare an overall winner.

We did bring in two guests to help with our High Tech vs. Low Tech grudge match.  Edward Parker from Mtn. View Dodge and Matt Welch owner of Pandora’s European Motorsports.

The new Charger impressed me, and even the engine sounds I felt like fit. The car sounds like something from Tron.  “It’s got 670 horsepower, 627 pound feet of torque. And as an instantaneous, it’s also got which we just tested, a PowerShot, which gives you an immediate 40 more horsepower at the front as you hit the gas or not. The gas pedal, the electric pedal,” says Parker.

Matt has raced motorcycles professionally, and worked for various teams in Nascar and the Indy car series. We talked about the future of racing and how the next generation will never have the frustration of rebuilding a carburetor and they will end up programming cars on laptops and devices instead.  I had to ask with his experience, do you thin we will ever see an all-electric Daytona 500 or Indy 500?  “I don’t know that we will see a, race of that caliber that’s all electric. Maybe in my kids lifetime, but maybe not ours,” says Matt. “We’re definitely headed that direction. I think in five years, half of my showroom will be electric. I think half of your showroom will be electric. Like it or not, it’s coming.”

Comparing this new tech to the low tech, I can take the engine out and have any performance shop in the world rebuild.  I can make upgrades, changes and ultimately make it a street cruiser or full out race car.  But what happens when the motors or batteries die in the electric?

“You have to bring it back to the dealership. Once you’re done with it. The dealership will send it back to the factory to where it’s basically recycled, and they’ll take the parts that are good and refurbished them and then put them back out, parts. But it’s completely recyclable. You can’t turn around and rebuild it like we can these like the carburetors. There’s nothing you can do with that” says Parker.

My personal concern with electric cars is that it will be similar to your cellphone and will have to be upgraded and replaced every few years.  The technology is obviously still too new to be sure, but like it or not – electric cars are most likely here to stay.

The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series standings have taken a surprise twist this week, without a single race being run.

Kyle Larson took the season lead on Sunday at the Kansas Speedway, smashing the track record for Cup Series laps led in a single race, but a late penalty has seen a number of drivers shift in the standings.

Chris Buescher has dropped a dozen places this week (from 12th to 24th) after being punished for a front bumper cover violation, having been docked 60 points (plus five playoff points) for the infraction.

That penalty has dropped him well below the playoff cut line, with Ryan Preece’s 251 points now the 16th driver in after Buescher fell from 284 to 224, now with seven drivers between him and the post-season once race wins are taken into account.

RFK Racing were also hit with a $75,000 fine, with crew chief Scott Graves suspended for the next two races on the Cup Series calendar.

With that said, let’s take a look at the latest Cup Series standings in full.

READ MORE: NASCAR Cup Series 2025: All-Star Weekend start times, schedule and how to watch live on TV

NASCAR Cup Series standings after Buescher penalty

NASCAR HEADLINES: Cup Series driver hit with major penalty as Kyle Larson replacement revealed

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All dogs go to heaven, but not all retired workhorses see green pastures. I’ve stumbled on far too many semi-trucks parked for good and left to rot, even though they looked to be in great shape when the driver hung up the keys. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened with 1997 Brickyard 400 winner Ricky Rudd’s iconic Tide-liveried NASCAR hauler. It’s been in the care of Earl Brooks for more than two decades, and after locating it on Google Maps following years of searching, I got the chance to sit down and talk with Mr. Brooks. As you’re about to see, he has some great memories with this old Ford.

“This story of how I acquired the Tide truck starts with my mentor in the trucking industry, Mr. G.C. Fleig, president of Fleig Leasing, Inc,” Brooks told me. “Mr. Fleig was a longtime supporter of NASCAR, and one of the original supporters of Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon. He was also close friends with Bill Davis Racing.

“Mr. Fleig introduced me to Buddy Stafford, owner of Piedmont Ford Trucks of Greensboro, North Carolina. Mr. Stafford was known to have flown many people to the races on his private plane. It was in knowing these two exceptional businessmen that my opportunity arose to buy the NASCAR transport trucks after they were turned in by the teams to get new ones.”

Already, you can tell that Brooks had quite the arrangement. He explained that he was visiting the Piedmont Ford service shop when he was approached by “a professional-looking gentleman” who turned out to be the truck’s former driver. When he learned that Brooks had purchased the rig, affectionately dubbed the “Tide Ride,” he instructed him to have the truck fully checked out.

When Brooks asked what the problem was, the man replied with something along the lines of, “No problem, but the cruise control was set at 120 mph because we’d all race each other to the next track.” He followed that up with a tale about being pulled over by an Arkansas state trooper, who clocked him at 103 mph after he’d slowed down some. When Brooks asked what that cost him, he responded: “Every souvenir I had in the truck.” Good ol’ boys, indeed.

The Tide Ride lives in Roxboro, North Carolina, and has for quite some time. Brooks owned a small trucking business and farmed tobacco when he purchased the Blue Oval, so it was used alongside his others to transport harvested crop to the market in Danville, Virginia. He told me that these race trucks helped his drivers take pride in their work, and because of that, they were more satisfied at the end of every long haul.

The truck itself is a 1993 Ford Aeromax with an N14 Cummins engine, a 13-speed transmission, and 706,733 miles on the clock. A company named Spevco out of Pfafftown, North Carolina, applied the paint—seven layers, not counting the clear coat—and it’s still holding up magnificently after years of sunlight, rain, and everything in between. Brooks notes that only a small portion of the clear coat shows any wear, adding that it was finished “before there was such a thing as wraps.”

If all this has you excited, Brooks asked me to mention that he’d potentially sell the Tide Ride—but only if you’re going to treat it well. He already turned down one offer from a fellow trucker who planned to use it for hauling logs. “I could not stand to sell it for that,” Brooks lamented. “If there is someone who wants to preserve NASCAR history, I would entertain an offer for the truck.”

Too bad I already have a classic Ford to keep me busy. Otherwise, this thing might be headed to the Ozarks to live with me.

Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com. Or, if you’d like to make an offer on the Tide Ride, please reach out to Mr. Earl Brooks: piedmonthemp@gmail.com

In addition to the usual challenge of actually winning the Indy 500, for 2025 drivers and teams must now contend with a new and potentially decisive factor for this year’s edition of the Greatest Spectacle In Racing: the hybrid unit has its formal premiere at the 2.5 mile oval of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

IndyCar introduced its new hybrid drivetrain on July 2024 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Since then, it has raced on every type of racetrack, except a superspeedway. This is changing at the Indy 500, where competitors are trying to tame the hybrid unit and understand its effect on qualifying trim and, more importantly, the race on May 25.

While teams have been able to test the hybrid at IMS since last year, and everyone ran it during April’s Open Test, the formal practice for the Indianapolis 500 marks the point at which everything must work perfectly, as the most important race on IndyCar’s schedule approaches.

Added weight

For Josef Newgarden, the two -time reigning Indy 500 champion who strives for the three-peat driving Team Penske Chevrolet #2 car, the most important thing is not what the hybrid itself does, but the added mass to the cars.

“The big reason it’s driving differently is not necessarily the hybrid interacting with the car. It is the weight of the hybrid. That’s where you are getting all the comments”, Newgarden said on Wednesday after practice.

Newgarden commented on how the extra weight of the hybrid system challenges the tires, and forces teams to adjust the weight distribution. This is one of the main issues everyone is trying to solve before the green flag.

Josef Newgarden, Team Penske

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

“Why is the car different? It is just the weight is up. You’re 100, 110 pounds heavier. That’s a lot of mass percentage-wise that you are adding to this car. It’s saturating the tires more. It’s just moving around. The CG changes a little bit. It raises slightly. Your weight distribution is shifted depending on where teams are putting it. That’s what people are trying to figure out right now.”

“You add 100 pounds to this thing, it’s almost like adding 200, 250 pounds to a stock car. If you said, Hey, guys, we’re going to bolt 250 pounds to these stock cars, see what you think, I bet they would all go, Okay, this drives differently, and now we have to counteract it.”

Hybrids will be more important at Indy than any other race

IndyCar has already used the hybrid on road and street courses, as well as on different kinds of ovals at Iowa Speedway, WWT Raceway, and the Milwaukee Mile last year. However, according to Newgarden, the impact it will have on racing will be unlike anything seen at other facilities.

“The hybrid itself and the utilization, I have said this. I do think it’s very important here. It’s more important at this track than anywhere we’ve gone because of the drag level. We’ve not run in a superspeedway configuration yet with this hybrid, so it’s very, very low drag on the cars. Because of that, they’re very power-sensitive.”

“Any time you use something to add power, you feel the magnification of it here more than anywhere else. When you are using the hybrid on the straightaway, it makes a very big difference.”

When to deploy and when to regen

Indycar Hybrid decal

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

The way drivers deploy and regenerate the hybrid during the Indianapolis 500 could also impact the outcome, especially if the race ends in a close finish, as has been seen many times before.

“Where are you are regenerating it and where you are using it, to either pass or defend or for whatever situation, I think there’s repercussions for burning it, and there’s certainly reward for utilizing it correctly,” Newgarden concluded.

Who will master the hybrid for the first time in the Indy 500? The answer will come in less than ten days.

Photos from Indianapolis 500 – Practice 4

We have ourselves an abbreviated odds board this week. We’re actually lopping off nearly a third of the usual field of entries.