LONG POND, Pa. -- Verizon IndyCar Series team owner/driver Ed Carpenter visited several media outlets in New York on July 3 and joined reigning series champion Scott Dixon at Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 4 to serve as judges for the 99th Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating contest.
Complete with striped jerseys, the drivers counted the number of hot dogs downed in the 10 minutes. Joey Chestnut, who broke the world record last year with 69 dogs consumed, successfully defended his title for the eighth consecutive year. Carpenter had the official count of 61 in buns.
That's about 23,790 calories, 1,189.5 grams of fat, 60,390 milligrams of sodium, 2,245 grams of carbohydrates and 793 grams of protein. An American eats an average of 70 hot dogs a year.
It was a big day for Chestnut, who proposed to his girlfriend before the event.
“Hot dogs on the Fourth of July in America — and you tell me, what’s better?” said George Shea, CEO of Major League Eating.
Paul Page, chief announcer for the IMS Radio Network, hosted the event for ESPN.
In the Big Apple, Ed Carpenter discussed being both an owner and racer with the hosts of "Squawk on the Street" on CNBC. He also was interviewed on "SINow," NBCSN's "Sports Dash," "Good Day New York" and toured the New York Stock Exchange.
Foyt returns to Pocono for first time since 2000
A.J. Foyt returns to Pocono Raceway for the first time since the July 2000 NASCAR stock car race -- as team owner. He missed last July's Verizon IndyCar Series race because of recovery from surgery.
Foyt competed at Pocono 17 times in the 19 years that the track hosted Indy car races (1971-89). A.J. Foyt Racing fielded a car for Sammy Sessions in 1972 after Foyt suffered injuries in an accident in DuQuoin, Ill. In 1983, Foyt's team only competed at Indianapolis (his father died that May). At Pocono, he had eight top-10 finishes, including four victories ('73, '75, '79, '81). The 1981 victory was Foyt's last as a driver in Indy cars.
He also competed in two USAC stock car 500-mile races, starting and finishing second in 1971, and winning the pole and finishing seventh in 1973.
"It was a driver's racetrack and you had to get your car to handle," Foyt said of Pocono Raceway. "Of course, the cars you have today they do handle a lot better than the old cars and it's easier to get them handling. It's a different type of racing now than it was in my time."
Of note
Juan Pablo Montoya will be making his first Verizon IndyCar Series start at Pocono Raceway. He had one top-five and four top-10 in 14 NASCAR Cup Series races. ... Bob Harkey, 84, a six-time Indianapolis 500 starter and 85-race Indy car starter overall, is the grand marshal of the Vintage race at Pocono Raceway this weekend. ... Simon Pagenaud of France and Mikhail Aleshin of Russia use much of the Schmidt Peterson Motorsports race shop to display their soccer skills (below).