Welcome to Hooniverse’s weekly look ahead to who’s racing what and where this weekend. The next few days of racing feature an incredibly varied mix of everything from two-wheel racing to open-wheelers racing without the luxury of internal combustion. Several series wrap up their seasons this weekend while in California, Thunderhill Raceway may see the largest road race in history. Read about those, these, and more after the jump.

• The very first Formula E event.

• NASCAR and NHRA “playoffs” begin

• Two national GT series finales and a motorcycle series send-off

• Endurance season Down Under

• And other races with talent levels spread thick and thin

FIA Formula E Championship: Beijing Street Circuit Electric motors present a new paradigm in racing performance, so one could argue that this “first” all-electric racing series (It’s not really the first) debuting in Beijing may usher in a new era of motorsport. Or it may not. Who knows? The series will run as a standalone, one-day event on street courses in the middle of cities, hopefully to draw non-racing fans and create interest in electric cars whose primary noises will be tires wailing and straight-cut gears whining. I guess. Or something. This writer still isn’t 100 percent clear on the series’ aim(s), but the races will run around 45 to 60 minutes with a mandatory car change. You read that right: The drivers will engage in (pardon the pun) a Chinese fire drill in the middle of the race, since the spec cars (the Renault Spark) doesn’t have the battery capacity to run a whole race. The real gimmick to draw the vaunted “casual” racing fan is a reality show trick, where the top three votegetters on the Formula E website each get a five-second power bump to use in the race.  If there’s a redeeming value for actual racing fans, it’s certainly the quality of teams and drivers. Big motorsports teams have signed up for the first year, including Amlin Aguri (Japan), Andretti Autosports (U.S.), and Audi Sport Abt (Germany). More importantly, the driver lineups include rising stars like Sam Bird and Sebastien Buemi, former F1 veterans like Jarno Trulli and Nick Heidfeld, and journeymen Oriol Servia and Franck Montagny. The mix could be interesting with cagey veterans clashing with young upstarts. Or it could just be F1-style tedium. But, hey, any racing’s worth watching once. Right? Website: Formula E Championship. Event page. Weekend schedule. Entry list. Live coverage: Saturday @ 3:30 a.m. on Fox Sports 1 (TV).   NASCAR Sprint Cup: Myafibstory.com 400 (Chicagoland Speedway) By now, NASCAR fans are finally getting excited for the championship while non-NASCAR fans are probably fatigued from hearing about the series. There’s still two months to go, but The Chase has at last begun with 16 drivers now vying for the 2014 Sprint Cup title. Only 13 drivers picked up victories this year to automatically qualify for The Chase, but consistent finishes made a huge difference in getting Matt Kenseth in on points. He could play spoiler in the “playoffs.” The Chase begins in Illinois at Chicagoland Speedway, a 1.5-mile oval southwest of the city. Interestingly, Kenseth won last year’s race in Joliet and wouldn’t it be a good time to get a first win? Tony Stewart, who is not part of The Chase but will be back in his car, is the all-time top Sprint Cup driver at Chicagoland and a fourth career win there might be a much-needed morale booster after an unimaginable last couple months. Website: Sprint Cup site. Chicagoland Speedway site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Supporting series: Jimmy John’s Freaky Fast 300 Presented by Coca Cola (NASCAR Nationwide). Chevrolet Silverado 250 (Camping World Truck Series). Live coverage: Sunday @ 2 p.m. ET on ESPN (TV) and Motor Racing Network (Streaming audio/radio). Nationwide – Saturday @ 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2 (TV) and Motor Racing Network (Streaming audio/radio). Camping Trucks  – Friday @ 8:30 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1 (TV) and Motor Racing Network (Streaming audio/radio).   NHRA: Carolina Nationals (zMAX Dragway | Charlotte, NC) While NASCAR begins its championship run, the NHRA also starts its title run, the Countdown to the Championship. The number of races is half of NASCAR’s Chase (six instead of 12), but they both start and end on the same weekends. The Countdown resets the points for the final six rounds, giving the “regular season” points leader a 30-point lead with every subsequent position holding a 10-point gap back to the next position. Unsurprisingly, 16-time Funny Car champion John Force leads his class headed into the finale, but Doug Kalitta leads the Top Fuel category and is searching for his first championship in the category. In Pro Stock, Erica Enders-Stevens dominated the first half of the season, but poor showings late in the year dropped her behind twice-champion Jason Line. If Enders-Stevens can make up the 30 points to win the championship, she’ll be only the third NHRA female champion alongside Angelle Sampey and Shirley Muldowney. Website: NHRA site. zMAX Raceway site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Entry list. Live coverage: Eliminations Sunday @ noon ET on ESPN.com (live streaming) and @ 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.   Pirelli World Challenge: Miller Motorsports Park (Tooele, UT) World Challenge headlines this weekend at Miller with the series finale for 2014. PWC usually operates as a supporting series for bigger series, but the sportscar sprint-racing series tops the banners this weekend, even with NASCAR’s development series on the schedule. Heading into this weekend, the points in the top GT class are extremely close with Cadillac driver Johnny O’Connell leading rising star Mike Skeen by just 42 points. A win nets you 30 points over second place, so that is a very narrow lead with two races on the docket. In the Touring Class (A) category, Jason Wolfe leads Shea Holbrook by just 36 points, so expect that championship to go down to the wire. That pair have raced hard all year and will keep it exciting. The best part? You can watch it all live for free. In the K&N West race, points leader Greg Pursley has won three of the five series races at Miller in the past. Current points runner-up Dylan Lupton is on a tear, however, and should make it interesting. The U.S. Touring Car Championship was originally slated this weekend as a support series for the World Touring Car Championship round at Sonoma Raceway, but the WTCC canceled that round, prompting USTCC to finagle their way onto the billing at Miller. Website: PWC site. Miller site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Entry list. Supporting series: NASCAR K&N West, United States Touring Car Championship. Live coverage: Live streaming on World-ChallengeTV.com. See weekend schedule for times.   Formula Drift: Showdown (Texas Motor Speedway) The U.S.’s drifting championship runs its penultimate round at TMS, just one week after the Red Bull Air Race’s visit to Fort Worth. So very extreme, Texas Motor Speedway is. Grassroots favorite Chris Forsberg leads the championship points by 59 points from Fredric Aasbo, so a strong showing from Forsberg and a bit of luck could all but clinch Forsberg’s second Formula D championship. Plenty of drivers will want to play spoiler, including surprise Evergreen Speedway winner Darren McNamara. Like World Challenge, you can watch it streaming online for free all day Saturday or catch the replay on the series website. Website: Formula D site. TMS site. Weekend schedule. Supporting series: PRO 2. Live coverage: Saturday live streaming on Formula Drift website via DailyMotion.   MotoGP: San Marino (Misano World Circuit) Motorcycle wunderkind Marc Marquez has proved beatable in the last two round, though it will likely not matter. Marquez’s 89-point lead with six rounds remaining all but guarantees him a second consecutive world championship with more to come, by the looks of it. This round finds the riders at Misano in Italy, a twisty and technical circuit that will likely favor Marquez when it’s all said and done. Website: Moto GP site. Misano site. Event page with wekend schedule. Supporting series: Moto2. Moto3. Live coverage: Sunday @ 7 a.m. ET on Fox Sports 1 (TV).   AMA Pro Road Racing: New Jersey Motorsports Park The biggest news for AMA Pro Road Racing has very little to do with this race, excepting that it’s the final AMA Pro Road Racing event in history, likely. Last week, a new group led by Wayne Rainey announced they’d take over American professional motorcycle racing and reorganize it under the name “MotoAmerica.” What does that mean? Well, it means that the series will follow FIM rules in its sanctioning, which will hopefully improve the quality of the competition and of presentation because, frankly, it can’t get much worse than this year’s. Website: AMA site. NJMP site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Entry list. Live coverage: Live streaming on FansChoice.tv. Check weekend schedule.   European Le Mans Series: Paul Ricard Circuit The ELMS returns to the site of preseason testing in the south of France for a four-hour endurance special. Ricard’s unmistakably immense runoff and tricolore kerbing are perhaps their most famous qualities, but the very long straightaways and mix of twisting sections make car setup something of a balance between low-drag setups and high-downforce configurations that can give cars drastically different ways of recording similar lap times. From a technical nerd standpoint, that’s great in and of itself, but it can also make for splendid racing. That was a very long sentence. Website: ELMS site. Ricard site. Event page with weekend schedule & entry list. Live coverage: Live audio streaming throughout weekend on Radio Le Mans website.   V8 Supercars: Sandown 500 Rule Number One in V8 Supercars: Never doubt Jamie Whincup. The Holden/Red Bull Racing Australia driver struggled through the season’s first half, but he’s found his form in the last handful of weekend to eliminate Mark Winterbottom’s substantial lead and then obliterate it. Whincup now leads by Frosty 135 points and has hit his stride at the perfect time, heading into the three-race endurance part of the Supercars season, where races are worth more points. Whincup’s teammate, Craig Lowndes, is truly the master of endurance season with five Sandown 500 victories and five more in the Bathurst 1000, but Whincup will benefit from having an experienced second car in his garage. Winterbottom has won at Sandown and Bathurst before so he’s not out of it, but he’ll certainly have an uphill battle at Sandown’s super-fast 1.9-mile circuit, where drivers can clock 70-second laps. Website: V8S site. Sandown site. Event page. Weekend schedule.  Supporting series: Porsche City Index Carrera Cup. V8 Utes Racing Series. Touring Car Masters. Australian GT. Live coverage: Only watchable stateside with V8 SuperView subscription service.   DTM: Lausitzring BMW has completely dominated the German touring car series this season from the outset. With three rounds remaining, BMW driver Marco Wittman needs only score 11 points to clinch his first DTM title (Fourth place nets 12 points, a win 25). As he has won more than half the rounds to date and second-place Mattias Ekstrom would need to sweep the final three races (He has yet to win this year), it seems pretty well sewn up for Wittman. Wittman’s teammate Maxime Martin has one of the three other race wins, so BMW Team RMG’s 67-point lead seems quite safe in the team points. So is it still worth watching? Well, if you’re an Audi fan, you may tune in to see if any of the eight Audi drivers can manage a win for the four rings. Somehow, Audi only trails by 18 points in the overall manufacturers’ points. It would sure be a hell of a story to see a make win a manufacturer’s championship without winning a single race, but if any mark would do it, surely Audi would be that team. Website: DTM site. Lausitzring site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Supporting series: Porsche Carrera Cup Germany. ATS Formula 3. Superbike IDM. Lotus Ladies Cup. Live coverage: Sunday @ 3 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network.   World Rally Championship: Rally Australia The last WRC round really had it all and when the German vineyard grapes finally got their peace, Hyundai driver Thierry Neuville nabbed the first win not only for himself but also for Hyundai and hedid so at current juggernaut Volkswagen’s home rally. Did I mention that Neuville rolled his Hyundai into a vineyard during the rally shakedown, too? Drama, drama galore. Now, the series shifts to the far corner of the world, Australia’ east coast. The gravel and tarmac rally traverses some gorgeous parts of the Australian wilderness on roads that sit atop ridges and dive down into gullies, surrounded by fauna that looks positively alien. The elevation changes leave a lot of the rally around blind curves so expect the most technically gifted drivers to finish well. Volkswagen’s Sebastien Ogier leads by 42 points headed into Australia over teammate Jari-Matti Latvala. Ogier is the defending Rally Australia champion while Latvala has never done better than second Down Under. Website: WRC site. Rally Australia site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Spectator guides and maps! Live coverage: Live stage timing and streaming audio on WRC Live.   British GT: Donington Park Like Pirelli World Challenge, British GT’s championship will be decided this weekend with two hours of racing. Unlike PWC, the British GT race is a single two-hour race. Headed into the final round, Oman Racing Team’s Aston Martins took over the team championship from Ecurie Ecosse by 12 points, though Ecurie Ecosse’s Marco Attard should take the driver’s title in the team’s Z4 this weekend. Website: British GT site. Donington site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Entry list. Supporting series: British Formula 3. Aston Martin GT4 Challenge UK. Ginetta GT5 Challenge. Volkswagen Racing Cup. Live coverage: None live.   Japanese Super Formula: Autopolis Japan’s open-wheel series features quite a bit of championship intrigue headed into this round at Autopolis’ 2.9-mile circuit in the country’s south. Headed into the previous round at Motegi, Kaz Nakajima led Andre Lotterer by 3.5 points; Lotterer took that round off to drive for Caterham in F1 and Nakajima managed only two points while young hotshot Jose Paulo Lima de Oliveira won the round to take the lead over Nakajima by a single point with Loic Duval just 1.5 points back from there. Got all that? If you’re a sportscar racing fan and de Oliveira’s name isn’t a household one the way Nakajima’s, Lotterer’s, and Duval’s names are, just wait. He’s fast enough that he should get a top factory LMP1 seat in the very near future. Website: Super Formula site. Autopolis site. Event page. Supporting series: All Japan Road Race Championship. Live coverage: None in the U.S.   World Series by Renault: Hungaroring Renault’s one-make weekend leaves the Clio Cup cars at home with just the formula cars racing this weekend. The top Formula Renault 3.5 finds young Carlos Sainz firmly in the championship lead. This series is a major feeder for F1 and with young Max Verstappen jumping from Formula 3 to F1 next year, don’t be surprised if Sainz (whose father was a rally champion) pops up in a competing ride in the near future. Website: WSBR site. Hungaroring site. Event page with weekend schedule. Entry list. Supporting series: Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0. Live coverage: None live in the U.S.   GT Asia Series: Sepang International Circuit (Malaysia) Information is admittedly hard to come by on this series, but the series offers an Asian venue for GT3-spec cars and world-class drivers to drop and take a spin around F1-caliber circuits. The championship standings show a number of names familiar to European sportscar fans: Rob Bell, Stefan Mucke, and Alex Yoong have been around the GT block a few times, but veteran Asian drivers like Keita Sawa can hang with the best of them. Website: GT Asia site. Sepang site. Weekend schedule. Supporting series: Touring Car Series Asia. Live coverage: None in the U.S.   BOSS GP: Brno BOSS stands for “Big Open Single Seaters” and is basically the series where F1 and IndyCar chassis go for retirement. The cars gets repurposed and reclassed to race each other. It’s not the highest stakes game in the world, but at a time when people love to winge about modern F1 and IndyCar technology, this is a nice alternative. Website: BOSS site. Brno site. Event page. Weekend schedule.  Supporting series: Volkswagen Castrol Cup Poland. Live coverage: None in the U.S.   British Truck Racing: Snetterton 300 Big-rig racing. Chris Haining can tell you how awesome it is. If you’re anywhere near Snetterton this weekend, just go. Website: BTRC site. Snetterton site. Event page. Weekend schedule.  Supporting series: UK National Legends Cars. Caterham Graduate Championship. British SuperKart. Pickup Truck Championship. Live coverage: None in the U.S.   ARCA: Federated Car Care Fall Classic presented by JayC Food Stores (Salem Speedway | Salem, IN) ARCA visits Salem twice a year and series veteran Frank Kimmel is master of the 0.55-mile oval, winning nine times and recording an incredible 29 finishes in the Top 5 with just 41 starts. Kimmel has yet to win this season yet only trails Mason Mitchell and Grant Enfinger (each of whom are considerably younger but have also had success at Salem) in the points. Website: ARCA site. Salem site. Event page. Weekend schedule. Entry list. Live coverage: None.   24 Hours of LeMons: Thunderhill What can we say? This is LeMons on the “Thunderschleife,” hunderhill’s new five-mile configuration and the series is attempting to set the record for largest motor race in history. With 242 cars registered, it’s almost certain to set the record and the best part is, I’ll be there alongside Hooniverse’s resident mad scientist, Tim Odell. Read more about the race here. Website: LeMons site. Thunderhill site. Event page with weekend schedule. Entry list. Hooniverse preview. Live coverage: Live timing on Specialty Timing and on Race Monitor.   Did we miss a race? Are you going to the local dirt track this weekend or surfing the cones in a parking lot with the local club? Maybe driving Targa Newfoundland, whatever the hell that is? Tell us about it down below in the Comments section. [Lead photo copyright 2014 Hooniverse/Eric Rood | Other photos: Formula E, Formula Drift, V8 Supercars, Japanese Super Formula, Snetterton Circuit]