1997 in Sports - Motor Racing

Motor Racing

  • March 21 – death of John Nemechek (27), NASCAR race driver
  • Stock car racing –
    • Jeff Gordon is the youngest driver ever to win the Daytona 500 on February 16
    • NASCAR Championship – Jeff Gordon
  • Indy Racing League –
  • Indianapolis 500 – Arie Luyendyk of the Netherlands
  • Champ CarCART Racing – Alex Zanardi won the season championship
  • Formula One Championship – Jacques Villeneuve of Canada
  • V8 Supercars Australia
    • Championship Series won by Glenn Seton in a Ford Falcon EL.
    • Bathurst 1000 for V8 Supercars won by Russel Ingall and Larry Perkins in a Holden Commodore VS.
    • Bathurst 1000 for Super Touring won by Jim Richards and Rickard Rydell. Rydell setting a shootout lap of 2:14.x, fastest super touring lap ever around the mountain at that time.
  • 24 hours of Le Mans – the team of Michele Alboreto / Stefan Johansson / Tom Kristensen won, driving a TWR–Porsche
  • Rallying – Tommi Mäkinen won the World Rally Championship
    • the team of Piero Liatti / Fabrizia Pons won the Monte Carlo Rally driving a Subaru Impreza WRC97
  • Drag racing – Gary Scelzi won the NHRA "Top Fuel" championship.

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Famous quotes containing the words motor and/or racing:

    “The motor idles.
    Over the immense upland
    the pulse of their blossoming
    thunders through us.”
    —Denise Levertov (b. 1923)

    “Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
    —Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)