Motor Racing
- Formula One
- NASCAR
- February 12 – Budweiser Shootout
- February 20 – Daytona 500 – Trevor Bayne, a NASCAR rookie without a full-time Cup Series ride and starting only his second Cup race, becomes the youngest driver ever to win the race, on the day after his 20th birthday. He is also the first driver to win the race in his first attempt since the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959.
- June 12 – 5-hour Energy 500 – Jeff Gordon collects his 84th Cup Series victory, equaling Darrell Waltrip for the most Cup wins in NASCAR's modern era (1972–present).
- July 9 – Quaker State 400 – For the first time since 2001, a new track enters the Cup Series, with Kentucky Speedway making its debut. Kyle Busch's win, however, is largely overshadowed by massive traffic bottlenecks that reportedly prevented as many as 20,000 of the 107,000 ticketed fans from entering the track.
- July 16 – New England 200 – Kyle Busch wins his 49th Nationwide Series race, equaling the series record of Mark Martin. This was also Busch's 100th win in NASCAR's three national touring series, a feat previously accomplished only by Richard Petty and David Pearson.
- August 15 – Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen – Marcos Ambrose becomes the first Australian ever to win a Cup Series race.
- August 26 – Food City 250 – Kyle Busch takes sole possession of the career record for Nationwide Series victories with his 50th win.
- September 6 – AdvoCare 500 – Gordon wins his 85th Cup Series race, giving him sole possession of the record for Cup wins in the modern era.
- November 18 – Austin Dillon, at age 21, becomes the youngest driver ever to win a season championship in one of NASCAR's national touring series, winning the Truck Series title.
- November 19 – Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. wins the Nationwide Series title.
- November 20 – Tony Stewart wins the final race of the Sprint Cup season, the Ford 400, with Carl Edwards, the points leader entering the race, finishing second. The two drivers finish in the first tie for the season title in NASCAR history, with Stewart winning the championship by virtue of the most race wins on the season (five to Edwards' one). Stewart also becomes the first driver-owner to win a Cup Series championship since Alan Kulwicki in 1992.
- IndyCar
- May 29 – 95th Indianapolis 500 – Dan Wheldon
- October 16 – The season's final race, the IZOD IndyCar World Championship, is red-flagged after a fiery 15-car collision on lap 11, and abandoned once it is announced that Wheldon died from injuries sustained in the crash. Six other drivers suffered minor injuries. Dario Franchitti, who led in series points entering the race, wins his fourth series title.
- World Rally Championship
- World Touring Car Championship
Read more about this topic: 2011 In Sports
Famous quotes containing the words motor and/or racing:
“What shall we do with country quiet now?
A motor drones insanely in the blue
Like a bad bird in a dream.”
—Babette Deutsch (1895–1982)
“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)