[Buddhaheart]

"Thousands of drivers like Mr Hughes test themselves on America's hundreds of small dirt tracks, hoping to win $1000, $100, or even just a trophy."

The author says that this sentence contains just one subject and one verb which are : thousands and test and hence is a simple sentence ..

COMMENT: The subject is indeed ’Thousands of drivers like Mr. Hughes’ where the head noun is ‘drivers’ and the verb of the predicate is ‘test’.

But isn't win too a verb in the above sentence. I agree with the author when he says this is a simple sentence but his identification of subject and verb seems to be incorrect ..

COMMENT: Yes and no. ‘Win’ as in “I win!” is a verb, a finite one. However, ‘to win’ in your question statement is an infinitive (verb infinite) with his distinct marker ‘to’. An infinitive doesn’t function as a verb although it derives from a verb and is verb-like. It functions more as noun, adverb or adjective than a verb.

‘To win’ is the direct object of the verbal ‘hoping’. It functions as a noun and takes ‘$1000, $100, or even just a trophy’ as its objective complement.