Power-ful performance rules Indy road course

IndyCar Series

INDIANAPOLIS — Will Power won the pole, then led every lap of Saturday’s Harvest GP on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and held off hard-charging Colton Herta by 0.839 of a second.

The Australian driver earned his fourth win for Team Penske on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile course. He’s won two of the last four IndyCar races and now has 39 victories, tying Al Unser for fifth on IndyCar’s all-time list.

“When you talk about the names, it’s amazing. These are people who are legends of the sport,” Power said. “I grew up watching these guys. I never imagined I’d hear my name mentioned with theirs.”

For most of the 75-lap race, Power was barely challenged.

Alexander Rossi finished third while points leader Scott Dixon struggled again. He finished eighth as defending series champ Josef Newgarden trimmed the lead from 34 to 32 points, setting up a showdown for the championship in the season finale.

Xfinity Series

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Justin Haley captured his third consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series superspeedway victory, winning the Alsco 300 to ensure his spot in the next round of the playoffs.

Haley capitalized after a backstretch crash involving his teammate Noah Gragson and Chase Briscoe, who won the first two stages. Michael Annett placed second, Ryan Sieg third, Gragson fourth and

Brandon Jones fifth.

Briscoe ended up 20th in the field of 37.

Truck Series

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Raphael Lessard, a 19-year-old Canadian rookie, gained his first career NASCAR national series victory in overtime under caution at Talladega Superspeedway.

Lessard was racing side-byside with Trevor Bayne on the final lap of the two-lap overtime shootout when a pack of trucks running four-wide triggered an accident that froze the field. Lessard won in a Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports — the first victory of the season for the organization from a driver other than Busch.

“I needed that. We had a tough season and this one feels very good,” said Lessard, who did not make the playoffs and had just four top-10 finishes before the Talladega win.

Lessard is the fifth foreignborn winner in the Truck Series. The teenager moved from Quebec to North Carolina in January, two months before the coronavirus pandemic upended his first fulltime season in an American national series.

The race was the first elimination race of the Truck Series playoffs. Christian Eckes, one of the contenders to race for the championship, was eliminated in a mixed day for Busch’s team. Lessard got the race win, but there will be no KBM championship this year.

Todd Gilliland was eliminated because a mechanical failure ended his race early.