MOTORSPORT: Next up another NASCAR title for Penske?

Having retained its Bathurst 1000 victory but copped a huge fine, Roger Penske’s racing empire could end up having the most successful year of its more than half-century existence.

As the NASCAR season comes to its climax in the US, 82-year-old Penske has two of the eight drivers still in the fight for the Monster Cup title, despite a chaotic weekend for his team in Kansas.

His defending champion, Joey Logano, and youngster Ryan Blaney are in the hunt in his Ford Mustangs, against three Toyota Camrys fielded by legendary gridiron coach Joe Gibbs, another Mustang run by the team of Tony Stewart and Gene Haas, and two Chevrolet Camaros.

Penske’s third NASCAR driver, 2012 champion Brad Keselowski, was eliminated from the ‘play-offs’ at the weekend.

All three Penske Mustangs led briefly at Kansas Speedway, but Toyota man Denny Hamlin dominated, taking his fifth win in 32 races this year.

Keselowski fluffed a late restart in the wake of teammate Blaney hitting the wall and littering the track with debris.

Blaney, who won a ‘play-off’ round at Talladega recently, recovered to finish 21st at Kansas and Logano wound up 17th, but 19th for Keselowski – having dropped from 13th – bundled him out of championship contention.

“I didn’t quite do good enough on the last restart and that was it,” Keselowski. “I did think we were OK (to make the cut), but obviously we weren’t. In the end it just didn’t work out.”

Keselowski may have got through if Hamlin had taken the white flag for the final lap an instant sooner.

Bonus points for winning the first stage of the Kansas race kept Logano’s title defence alive but he too had run into trouble with a late spin.

Four rounds remain, with only the top four drivers to fight out the title at Florida’s Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 17 after races at Martinsville in Virginia, Fort Worth in Texas and Phoenix, Arizona.

Penske conquered Bathurst eight days ago with Scott McLaughlin and Frenchman Alex Premat, and New Zealander McLaughlin is certain to be the Supercar champion for the second year.

The American automotive tycoon and iconic team owner known as ‘The Captain’ extended his Indianapolis 500 record to 18 wins this year with another Frenchman, Simon Pagenaud, and won yet another IndyCar series title with American Josef Newgarden.

Toowoomba’s Will Power is his third IndyCar driver and won the 2018 Indianapolis 500 and the 2014 IndyCar series for him.

On the same weekend as Bathurst, Colombian former Formula 1, IndyCar and NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya and American Dane Cameron won the International Motor Sports Association sports car championship in America for Penske.

In its 53-year history, Team Penske has won more than 500 major races and 36 championships.

While Penske still has two drivers contending for the NASCAR title, the long-mighty Chevrolet team Hendrick Motorsports has only one – Chase Elliott, who was second at Kansas and remained in the battle courtesy of Keselowski’s exit.

Citroen has entered a third car for next month’s Rally Australia as it strives to secure a seventh straight world title for French driver Sebastien Ogier.

Ogier, whose first four successes came with Volkswagen and the next two with M-Sport Ford, trails Toyota’s Estonian star Ott Tanak by 28 points going into next weekend’s penultimate WRC round, Rally Spain.

Norwegian Mads Ostberg will drive the third Citroen C3 at Coffs Harbour on November 14-17. Finn Esapekka Lappi is Ogier’s regular teammate in the second C3.

New Zealander Hayden Paddon is entered in an M-Sport Ford Fiesta for the final Rally Oz at Coffs before the Antipodean round of the WRC goes to NZ next year – perhaps only as a once-off until a new Australian location is found.

Australia’s international Porsche racer, Matt Campbell, finished the Blancpain GT World Challenge America with a pair of class podiums on a ‘roval’ – a combination of a banked oval speedway and an infield road circuit – in Las Vegas.

Campbell crossed the line first in class in a Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R in the first of the weekend’s two 90-minute races, but that became third – and seventh outright – after a 22-second penalty on him after contact with an Acura NSX that sent it off into the grass.

Campbell climbed through the field and put the Porsche in line for its second class podium, which it retained despite his co-driver, New Yorker Anthony Imperato, incurring a drive-through penalty for sending another Porsche off the track.

Versatile veteran Barton Mawer won the World Time Attack Challenge in Sydney at the weekend.

Mawer lapped Sydney Motorsport Park in his RP968 Porsche in one minute 19.277 seconds – just 0.14 seconds slower than Daniel Ricciardo’s F1 teammate Nico Hulkenberg’s track record in an A1 GP open-wheeler 12 years ago.

Only a red flag for debris on the track – from a delaminating tyre off Garth Walden’s Mitsubishi Evo – prevented Supercar driver Andre Heimgartner clocking a better time than his 1:21.867 in a Nissan Silvia.