Formula 1 is idle, IndyCar is done for the year, and that leaves the week of September 14-21 to everybody else. It is a deceptively loaded seven days: an elimination race at the meanest half-mile in NASCAR, a national-event drag race at a track that has never held one, a Belgian collection going out entirely without reserve, and roughly 300 cars sitting in a Colorado field waiting for somebody to start bidding. Here is what is actually worth your time, with times and links.
Monday night: the Outlaws come back to Colorado
World of Outlaws Rocky Mountain Rumble, El Paso County Raceway, Calhan, Colorado. Tonight. Pits at 2 p.m. MT, grandstands at 5, hot laps at 6:30, and a 35-lap feature paying $12,000 to win on a quarter-mile semi-banked clay bullring. Twenty-three cars entered.
The hook is simple: the Outlaws have not raced in Colorado in about a decade. Reserved seats run $40 advance, adult general admission $35, kids 6-12 are $10, under five free, pit passes $50. Streaming on DIRTVision if you are not within driving distance of Calhan, which most of you are not.
Tuesday: 100-plus cars, zero reserves
RM Sotheby’s, The Willy Michiels Collection, online, closes Tuesday September 15 at 6 p.m. CEST (noon Eastern). More than 100 cars and motorcycles across 28 marques and about a century of production, all of it in Aalst, Belgium, and all of it offered without reserve.
No-reserve single-owner sales are the cleanest read you will get on where a market actually sits, because nothing is protected and nothing gets bought back. Watch the mid-tier lots rather than the headliners. That is where the honest pricing lives. Buyer’s premium runs 15 percent plus VAT to €200,000 and 12.5 percent plus VAT above that.
Thursday through Saturday: Bristol decides who goes home
NASCAR at Bristol Motor Speedway, September 17-19. All times Eastern.
- Thursday: ARCA’s Bush’s Best 200 at 5:30 p.m., then the UNOH 250 Craftsman Truck Series race at 8 p.m. on FOX/FS1, with MRN and SiriusXM on radio.
- Friday: Food City 300 at 7:30 p.m. on The CW, PRN radio.
- Saturday: Bass Pro Shops Night Race, Cup Series, 7:30 p.m. on USA Network, with in-car camera coverage on MAX and PRN on radio.
This is the one that matters. 2026 is the first season back on the Chase format, with the top 16 Cup drivers, a ten-race run and a points reset that hands the regular-season champion a 25-point bonus. Saturday is the cutoff race of the opening round, after Darlington and World Wide Technology Raceway, which means four cars are done. Bristol’s concrete, its tire falloff and its habit of turning a lapped-traffic situation into a demolition derby make it one of the worst places on the schedule to need a good finish.
The Truck Series Chase, which runs top 10 over seven races, starts Thursday. New format, first elimination, at Bristol. Plan accordingly.
Friday through Sunday: NHRA’s first time at a new track
Dodge NHRA Great Lakes Nationals presented by MOPAR, US 131 Motorsports Park, Martin, Michigan, September 18-20. Gates and midway open 9:30 a.m. Friday, 8:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Nitro qualifying Friday at 1 and 3:30, Saturday at noon and 2:30. Eliminations start Sunday with Top Fuel at 10:30.
Three things make this one genuinely unusual. It is the first NHRA national event ever held at US 131, one of four new venues on the 2026 calendar. It opens the Countdown to the Championship, so the points reset and the season effectively restarts. And it is race 15 of 20 in NHRA’s 75th anniversary season, with national-event drag racing returning to Michigan. A brand-new surface for a Countdown opener is a real variable: nobody has a book of notes on this place, and that tends to reshuffle qualifying order in ways that matter by Sunday. Coverage on NHRA.TV and FOX, with the PA feed on 103.1 FM if you are there.
Friday through Sunday: sports cars on the Brickyard
IMSA TireRack.com Battle on The Bricks, Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, September 18-20. The WeatherTech main event runs Sunday from 3:10 to 5:50 p.m. Eastern on NBC and Peacock. Qualifying is Saturday from 5:05 to 6:20 p.m.
Eleven GTP cars, ten LMP2, ten GTD Pro and 13 GTD. It is the penultimate round before Petit Le Mans at the start of October, so championship math is live in every class. The support card is unusually good: the Michelin Pilot Challenge IMS 120 Saturday at 2:30, plus two rounds each of Porsche Carrera Cup, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and Mazda MX-5 Cup. Peacock carries the whole weekend.
Friday through Sunday: Goodwood does Italy
Goodwood Revival presented by Dunlop, Goodwood Motor Circuit, West Sussex, September 18-20. The largest period-dress historic meeting in the world, restricted to the 1948-1966 era, and the 2026 theme is La Dolce Vita: a Maserati tribute and a Targa Florio historic race. Helio Castroneves makes his Revival driving debut. Parking is free and children’s tickets are free.
Bonhams runs its Collectors’ Motor Cars and Automobilia sale on site Saturday September 19, with automobilia opening at 10:30 BST and the cars starting at 1 p.m. BST, which is 5:30 and 8 a.m. Eastern. 206 lots. The two to watch are a 1936 Aston Martin 2-Litre Speed Model competition two-seater, chassis L6/713/U, estimated at £500,000-600,000, and a 1991 Jordan-Ford 191 Formula 1 car, chassis 191/3, at £350,000-525,000. The Jordan is the interesting one, because early-90s F1 chassis have been quietly climbing while everyone watched the 1960s cars.
Friday through Sunday: sand season opens
Sand Sports Super Show, OC Fair & Event Center, Costa Mesa, California, September 18-20. Friday 4-10 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific.
Four hundred-plus exhibitors of sand rails, UTVs, ATVs and everything bolted to them. This year includes a Proving Grounds experience powered by King of the Hammers, with builds and demos from DRT Motorsports, RPM Powersports and Polaris. It is the biggest sand and side-by-side trade show in the country and functionally the start of dune season, which means it is also where next year’s parts pricing gets set. Go if you are buying anything for a UTV in the next twelve months.
Friday and Saturday: the Outlaws close out California
World of Outlaws Dennis Roth Classic, Stockton Dirt Track, Stockton, California, September 18-19. Both nights: pits at 2 p.m. PT, grandstands at 5, hot laps at 6:30, 35-lap feature. Tickets $40 to $90, pit passes $50 to $100, DIRTVision streaming. Stockton’s first time hosting the Dennis Roth Classic, and the end of the four-race California swing.
Thursday through Saturday: Knoxville, but for late models
Lucas Oil Late Model Knoxville Nationals, Knoxville Raceway, Knoxville, Iowa, September 17-19. Three nights on the half-mile, with the SLMR Late Model Series joining Saturday. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series points fight is genuinely tight going in, with Brandon Sheppard, Hudson O’Neal and Devin Moran separated by about a hundred points. FloRacing has it.
Saturday: 300 cars in a Colorado field
VanDerBrink Auctions, the Born Family Estate Collection, 20801 County Road 78, Eaton, Colorado. Saturday September 19 at 9 a.m. MDT. Roughly 300 classic cars, pickups and panels, plus vintage porcelain signage, sold live on site with online bidding through Proxibid. Preview Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Three generations of one Colorado family did the collecting. The lot list runs from a 1912 Ford Model T touring and a 1932 Ford roadster custom through a 1955 Chevrolet NAPCO pickup, a 1957 Pontiac Super Chief four-door wagon, a 1968 Galaxie 500 convertible and a 1938 International panel, and out the other side to a 1995 F350 with the 7.3 Power Stroke.
Read the terms before you register. Buyer’s premium is 8 percent on site and 10 percent online, everything sells as-is, and removal is within 10 days. VanDerBrink’s own listing warns that cell service at the site is unreliable and pushes bidders to show up in person, which tells you something about how the online bidding is likely to go. We covered what the fifty-cent opening bids actually mean here, and if you are planning to buy at any field sale, the evaluation basics are worth a read first.
Friday through Sunday: the concours that added an 80s class
Cobble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Cobble Beach Golf Resort, Kemble, Ontario, September 18-20. Tour d’Elegance Friday, Cars and Coffee Saturday, main concours Sunday with gates at 9 a.m. and awards at 2 p.m. Eastern.
Eleventh running, and the 2026 program features Mercedes-Benz at 140 years plus Peter Brock talking through the Daytona Cobra Coupes. The detail worth noting is a new class called Oblivion Avenue for 1980s and 90s cars. When a traditional concours starts making room for the malaise-adjacent stuff, that is a market signal, not a novelty.
Also running
MotoGP, Qatar Airways Grand Prix of Austria, Red Bull Ring, September 18-20. Note the calendar shift: Austria moved out of its traditional August slot into late September for 2026.
The 80th Revival AAA Glidden Tour kicks off Monday September 21 out of Dover, Delaware, running through the 26th. Pre-1943 cars only, AACA or VMCCA membership required, with stops at Hagley, the Marshall Steam Museum and the Air Mobility Command Museum, a Cape May-Lewes ferry crossing, and parade laps at Dover Motor Speedway on Friday. Entries closed August 1, so this one is for spectating.
Bonhams’ Autumn Automobilia Auction runs online September 11-24, 288 lots, if you would rather buy a sign than a car.
What is not happening
Worth saying so you do not go looking. F1 is between Spain and Azerbaijan. World Superbike is idle after Magny-Cours. WRC is done until the next round after Chile. Mecum’s next sale is Nashville on September 22-26, just outside the window, and Barrett-Jackson does not run again until its November digital sale. Goodguys wrapped Colorado last weekend and does not return until Texas in October. Hershey’s AACA Eastern Fall Nationals is October 6-9, not this month.
One scheduling note if you are traveling: NHRA’s own event guide labels the Great Lakes Nationals times as Central, but Martin, Michigan is in the Eastern zone. Confirm with the track before you set an alarm.
About the Author
