10 'MOST INFLUENTIAL' FOR WEEK OF MAY 31

POWER PLAYERS for the week of May 31: This week's 10 most influential people in the Business and Politics of Motorsports, as selected by long-time journalist/publicist and industry insider Michael Knight. 

  1. Jimmie Johnson -- His fourth win in 13 Sprint Cup races this season was a record 10th at Dover International Speedway. 

  2. Derrick Walker -- IndyCar's racing president is on the spot after an unsettled Indy 500 qualifying weekend and controversial red flag and confusion if Detroit race two was a timed event or not. Now he needs to ensure superspeedway aero kits don't cause flips, and do produce exciting racing, on the Texas Motor Speedway high banks. The event needs a big boffo race for itself, given ticket sale declines of last few years,  and to further drive momentum post-Indy 500. 

 3. Eddie Gossage -- What difficult issues and decisions will the Texas Motor Speedway president have to deal with in aftermath of the terrible Texas floods?

  4. Dave Pericak -- The director of Ford Performance, who has an engineering background, is The Man for the Blue Oval at racetracks with Jamie Allison switching to the production side of the company.

  5. Mike Helton -- NASCAR's vice chairman holds a closed-door meeting with selected drivers -- including Cup champion Kevin Harvick -- at Dover. No specific details released.

  6. Antron Brown -- Top Fuel points leader leads the 10,000 horsepower nitro racers into Englishtown, an NHRA major. 

  7. Paul Tracy -- CART's former bad boy is telling it like it is in the NBCSN booth during IndyCar races. 

  8. John Oreovicz -- ESPN.com writer is a primary source for racing information on a weekly basis, especially IndyCar, as the long season moves on post-Memorial Day.

  9. Dale Blaney -- The All-Star Circuit of Champions regular becomes12th different World of Outlaws' feature winner this season. Those who can take the fight to Donny Schatz help make the Outlaws the greatest show on dirt.

10. Nils Wittich -- The acting race director of the Formula 3 European series canceled a scheduled third race at Monza due to bad driving which caused numerous incidents earlier in the weekend.

[ more next week . . . ]