Enjoy two thrilling finishes from the weekend’s Stateside racing

Great action from Nascar this weekend, when Jimmie Johnson held off Tony Stewart to win the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 by less than a second. Johnson’s win secured him third seeding in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, behind leader Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.

Sunday’s IndyCar event saw an even closer finish, and a new champion for 2008. Watch it after the jump…

Scot lasts just one season in Nascar

Dario Franchitti, a man who is rightly best-known as Mr Ashley Judd, is leaving Nascar after just one season, to return to IndyCar in 2009. The Scot, who won the Indy 500 last year, will replace fellow Brit Dan Wheldon and team up with Scott Dixon.

Dixon is delighted with the news (perhaps because Wheldon has a reputation in the IndyCar paddock as being a bit of a dick, whereas Dario is a bit of a dude). The Kiwi said: “We saw each other over the weekend and I thought there must be some rustlings going on. To have a driver like Dario on our team is going to be spectacular. We’re going to be a force next season.”

The most awesome trophy in motorsport?

In case you didn’t get the connection between Nashville and country music, the winner of the Firestone Indy 200 at the Nashville Superspeedway is presented with a customised guitar. This year, the lucky recipient was New Zealander Scott Dixon, who extended his lead at the top of the IndyCar championship table to a whopping 63 points.

Even Billy Ray Cyrus wouldn’t be seed dead playing that thing.

IndyCar pace setter wins third race of season, in Texas

Scott Dixon, winner of this year’s Indy 500, stretched his lead in the IndyCar championship with a split-second victory over Helio Castroneves at the Texas Speedway last weekend.

The picture is deceiving, as both cars were cruising at around 90mph when they crossed the start/finish line - a late crash involving Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay meant that the race ended under waved yellow flags; so Castroneves was not allowed to overtake Dixon.

Many disgruntled fans were seen leaving the Texas track even before Dixon took the chequered flag. This is a big problem for IndyCar; the series should not allow its races to finish under a yellow flag - it’s the second time in a week that a late crash has forced an IndyCar race to end like that. Ryan Briscoe won in Milwaukee under the same conditions; on that occasion Dixon was the frustrated driver stuck in second place.

British IndyCar star escapes injury after his car flips

Here’s our very own Dan Wheldon, being helped away from his wrecked car, after a scary-looking crash during a practice session for last weekend’s IndyCar event at the Texas Motor Speedway. The Englishman’s car veered off line, hit the outside wall, and then flipped over on the infield grass. He escaped serious injury, and went on to finish fourth in the race, which was won by Dan’s team-mate, Scott Dixon. It was Wheldon’s fourth top-five finish in the past five races.

Watch video footage of the crash below…

New Zealander wins minor U.S. race

If you were as absorbed as us in Sunday’s Monaco GP, then you might have missed the result of some smallsville hick race in Indianapolis on the same weekend.

Scott Dixon, pictured above with his huge winner’s trophy (looks a bit like an upside-down Dalek, no?), took the chequered flag, thereby making good on his pole position, which he secured more than one week ago - being Yanks, they stretch out the race weekend to almost one month.

British IndyCar star has American ivories, and then some

Here’s Dan Wheldon (left), celebrating with team-mate Scott Dixon after the latter secured pole position for this Sunday’s Indy 500.

Wheldon was born in Sutton Coldfield. How many people from Sutton Coldfield do you know with teeth like that? They’re fricking ridiculous, at least two sizes too big for his head; they look more like dentures than real teeth. His dentist must like practical jokes. Dixon, a New Zealander, has a fine set of teeth too, but he can’t compete with the scary white tombstones jumping out of Wheldon’s mouth.

Compare Dan’s silly new teeth with his old set: