Motor Racing

It seemed a star-studded marriage: James Stewart, a three-time champion of off-road motorcycle racing, signed a multiyear contract with the Yamaha motorcycle team of Joe Gibbs Racing of NASCAR fame. The plan also was for Gibbs to provide a path for Stewart to pursue his goal of becoming a NASCAR stock car driver when his motorcycle days were over. But only seven months after announcing their union, Stewart and Gibbs recently parted ways and Stewart has signed with a new team, Yoshimura Suzuki, for both motocross and supercross.

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis 500 will be run for the 96th time Sunday, but several things will be different about the venerable race this year. All the drivers are using a new car that's untested in 500 miles of race conditions at the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The car has enhanced safety features and there are multiple manufacturers providing engines, versus only one engine maker before. Danica Patrick, having moved to NASCAR, isn't here for the first time in eight years.

Veteran driver Dan Wheldon, who won the Indianapolis 500 for the second time this year, died from injuries suffered Sunday when his car was entangled in a horrific 15-car wreck early in the IndyCar series' season-ending race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Englishman was 33. As the 34-car field moved through the first turn of Lap 11 on the 1.5-mile oval track at speeds of more than 200 mph, Wheldon was running 25th when cars began spinning in front of him. As the cars piled up in an instant, Wheldon's No. 77 car slammed into another car in front of his and went airborne before crashing into the fence in Turn 2 and briefly catching fire, video replays showed.

Sunday of Memorial Day weekend is like Christmas for gearheads and a day many casual fans also turn their eyes toward some of motor racing's most popular events. The day kicks off with the Grand Prix of Monaco, where Formula One drivers maneuver through the streets of picturesque Monte Carlo. Sebastian Vettel of the Red Bull Racing team has won the F1 championship the last two years, but there have been five different winners (including Vettel) in the first five races this season.

Officials for Circuit of the Americas, a $300-million racetrack being built in Texas for Formula One's return to the U.S. market, said Sunday they have launched the ticketing process for buying premier seats to the inaugural race Nov. 18. After considerable uncertainty in recent months about whether the track would get Formula One approval to put on the race, the series put the race on its 2012 calendar and construction has accelerated at the...

1909: Street paving bricks — 3.2 million of them — are laid over the entire 21/2 -mile track. 1911: Ray Harroun and his Marmon Wasp win the first 500 in 6 hours 42 minutes. 1912: Ralph DePalma leads 196 of the first 198 laps and is ahead by 51/2 laps when his car breaks down. 1917-18: No race because of World War I. 1919: Howdy Wilcox is the first driver to qualify at more than 100 mph. 1925: Peter DePaolo needs 21 laps of relief to have his blistered hands bandaged, but he gets back in the car and wins the race.

Todd Burns of Riverside led all 50 laps to win his second NASCAR late model race of the season before a crowd of 5,510 Saturday night at Irwindale Speedway. In other races, Doug McComb of Thousand Oaks won the 40-lap NASCAR super stock event and Mike Wright of Joshua Tree won the 40-lap MSRA Pro-4 modifieds race.

It seemed a star-studded marriage: James Stewart, a three-time champion of off-road motorcycle racing, signed a multiyear contract with the Yamaha motorcycle team of Joe Gibbs Racing of NASCAR fame. The plan also was for Gibbs to provide a path for Stewart to pursue his goal of becoming a NASCAR stock car driver when his motorcycle days were over. But only seven months after announcing their union, Stewart and Gibbs recently parted ways and Stewart has signed with a new team, Yoshimura Suzuki, for both motocross and supercross.

Brad Keselowski got a huge push from Kyle Busch to take the lead with a lap to go Sunday, then used a calculated move to prevent Busch from taking the win away from him at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. A nine-car accident with four laps remaining brought out the yellow flag, setting up a two-lap overtime sprint to the finish. Keselowski ended up in Victory Lane for the second time this season, and continued a hot streak for team owner Roger Penske , who won for the first time in the Sprint Cup Series at Talladega.

Kyle Busch capped a perfect weekend in Virginia on Saturday night by winning the spring NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Richmond for the fourth consecutive year. The victory snaps a 22-race winless streak for Busch. It came a day after he went to Victory Lane for the first time as a Nationwide Series team owner, celebrating brother Kurt Busch's Friday night win. Busch beat Tony Stewart off pit road on the final stop of the race, which came after a caution for debris with 13 laps to go. He then pulled away from Stewart on the restart with nine laps left and wasn't challenged for the victory.

For some big-name NASCAR drivers, it's time to get moving. Jeff Gordon, Jamie McMurray, Jeff Burton, AJ Allmendinger and Kasey Kahne are among those mired deep in the Sprint Cup Series standings after eight races, and they need to start posting strong finishes if they hope to make NASCAR's title playoff this fall. That Gordon, a four-time Cup champion, and Kahne are struggling is especially notable because they drive for stock car racing powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports, whose other drivers are five-time champion Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. But as the series heads to Richmond (Va.)

Simona De Silvestro was among the most promising young drivers in IndyCar racing a year ago. Then she went to Indianapolis. As she made a practice lap for the Indianapolis 500 in May, the suspension on De Silvestro's car broke while she was traveling 220 mph. The car slammed into the wall and slid down the track, upside down and on fire. The Swiss driver was lucky to escape with only serious burns on her hands, and she later managed to qualify for the big race. But De Silvestro, who finished 31st in the 500, had sustained another injury: a crisis of confidence.

IndyCar's top drivers are taking a back seat to the main focus of this weekend's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach: Their new race car. After using the same car and only Honda engines for several years, the Izod IndyCar Series this season rolled out a new chassis and allowed teams to choose engines from three suppliers: Honda, Chevrolet and Lotus. The new car, which features added driver-safety features, already was being developed when Dan Wheldon was killed in a multi-car accident at last season's finale in Las Vegas.

Friday in Long Beach was a day better suited for ducks than drivers. That was not a good thing, because this is the weekend of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Plenty of drivers are on hand, all itching to exercise their right foot, none seeing much positive in the rain. Except for one, the driver with the surname so famous that his every touch of the clutch is scrutinized. In sports, it is one thing being "the son of," but try being "the son of and the grandson of. " Marco Andretti is 25. He drives for Andretti Autosport, owned by his father, Michael Andretti, 49, a highly successful IndyCar driver, who started in 1984 and drove his last race in 2007.

Helio Castroneves used a bold pass of Scott Dixon to win the IndyCar season opener Sunday through the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla., where he celebrated with a tribute to the late Dan Wheldon . Castroneves stopped his Penske Racing Chevrolet in Turn 10, which this year was renamed Dan Wheldon Way in honor of the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner. After climbing the fence, his traditional victory celebration, he ran to the street sign and patted it, then emotionally doubled over against the wall.