GEARING UP

What’s happening in motor sports heading into this weekend:

1. NASCAR’s Sprint Cup drivers will get their first test of the Car of Tomorrow at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday at the Samsung 500.

The car, now mandatory on the Cup circuit, was phased in at 16 races last year, but the 1.5-mile, high-banked oval in Fort Worth wasn’t among them.

Hendrick Motorsports, whose Chevrolets dominated the series last year, has yet to find Victory Lane this season after six races.

Hendrick’s Jimmie Johnson, the reigning Cup champion, won the fall race at Texas last year. And his teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. won his first Cup race there in 2000.

But Texas is one of the few tracks where Jeff Gordon, another Hendrick driver and a four-time champion, has never won despite posting seven top-10 finishes in 14 starts.

2. The IndyCar Series is drawing fresh sponsorship dollars in the aftermath of its reunification with the other major U.S. open-wheel racing circuit, the Champ Car World Series.

DirecTV, the El Segundo-based satellite-TV company, said its high-definition (HD) service was named official sponsor of the IndyCar Series, starting with Sunday’s Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg street race in Florida.

The multi-year sponsorship, whose financial terms weren’t disclosed, includes placing the DirecTV HD brand throughout the series, including on all driver cars and uniforms and on in-car camera mounts.

The series said Coca-Cola also signed on as a series sponsor through 2010.

3. Scandal again hovered over Formula One as the series arrived on the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

The British tabloid News of the World this week reported that Max Mosley, president of FIA, Formula One’s governing body, engaged in sex acts with five prostitutes allegedly involving Nazi role-playing.

Amid growing questions over whether Mosley would remain FIA president, Formula One manufacturers BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Honda expressed disappointment over his behavior and called on FIA to investigate.

Mosley, in turn, reportedly threatened legal action against the newspaper and requested a special meeting of the federation. FIA said in a statement that the meeting would review “the widespread publicity following an apparently illegal invasion” of Mosley’s privacy.

Formula One last year was dogged by a spying scandal that resulted in the McLaren Mercedes team being fined $100 million for having secret technical documents belonging to rival Ferrari.

4. Jimmy Vasser, who won the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and the series title in 1996 before retiring to become a team owner, plans to race once more in the Long Beach race April 20.

Vasser, a Canoga Park native, will pilot the No. 12 car for KV Racing Technology, the team he co-owns with Kevin Kalkhoven.

The Grand Prix will be the final Champ Car race after the series’ acquisition by the IndyCar Series.

Vasser last drove a Champ Car, at Long Beach, in 2006. “I don’t expect to be fighting for the victory, having been out of the car for two years, but it will be a lot of fun,” he said.

5. In local racing Saturday night, late-model stock cars head multi-race programs at Irwindale Speedway and Perris Auto Speedway while sprint cars lead the lineup at Ventura Raceway.

--

Have a motor sports question for Jim? E-mail him at [email protected]

--

THE RACES

NASCAR SPRINT CUP

Samsung 500

When: Today, qualifying (Speed, 1:30 p.m.); Sunday, race (Ch. 11, 10:30 a.m.).

Where: Texas Motor Speedway (quad-oval, 1.5 miles, 24 degrees banking in turns), Fort Worth.

Race distance: 501 miles, 334 laps.

--

NASCAR NATIONWIDE

O’Reilly 300

When: Saturday, race (ESPN2, noon).

Where: Fort Worth.

Race distance: 300 miles, 200 laps.

--

INDY RACING LEAGUE

Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

When: Saturday, qualifying, 7:55 a.m.; Sunday, race (ESPN, 11:30 a.m.).

Where: Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. (1.8 miles, 14 turns).

Race distance: 180 miles, 100 laps.

--

FORMULA ONE

Bahrain Grand Prix

When: Saturday, qualifying (Speed Channel, 7 a.m.); Sunday, race (Speed Channel, 7:30 a.m.).

Where: Bahrain International Circuit (road course, 3.37 miles, 12 turns), Sakhir

Race distance: 192.09 miles, 57 laps.

--

All times Pacific

Associated Press

--

STAT OF THE WEEK

NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Jeff Burton, above, is the only two-time winner at Texas Motor Speedway, site of Sunday’s Samsung 500, and he’s the defending race winner.

--

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Fernando Alonso, two-time Formula One champion, on the track for Sunday’s race, located on the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain.

‘It is an unusual circuit because of the sand that can be blown onto the track.’