Indy Hangover 2004

F1 It’s been a slow couple of weeks since the back to back weekends of Monaco and the European Grands Prix. Most of the teams spent last week testing and now are winging their way to North America for Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix followed a week later by the US Grand Prix. Despite the slow schedule and the “drudgery” that comes with the middle of the season, especially one where one guy has won all but one race, there never seems to be a shortage of rumors. First of all the highly anticipated new McLaren will apparently not be ready for the track this week which probably means it won’t make its debut until the French Grand Prix a fortnight after Indy. Second, the Jacques Villeneuve thing just keeps hanging around. Williams for their part isn’t saying anything. Villeneuve’s camp seems to be floating rumors of a Williams test, although they do say nothing has been confirmed. I still think that the teams passing on Scott Dixon opens the seat up for the 1995 Indy 500 winner and 1997 World Champion. Mika Hakkinen also got into the mix last week. Rumors of his return were squashed Friday though as the Finn decided not to leave retirement. IRL Look for 24 cars to take the green flag this week at Texas in what has become one of the most competitive and exciting races on the schedule. Roger Penske has sent an editorial to the NY Times expressing his desire to see the IRL and OWRS back together. Odd that Roger would want that. Is it because the IRL needs more teams and he feels there are strengths on the other side, or is he just trying to be benevolent and offer them a chance at survival. Either way, unless FTRG gets his way there will be no changes. I still believe there will be 4 road course races next year on the schedule. Four is an okay number by me. Long Beach, Watkins Glen, Road America and another real race track would be fine but no street races. No Toronto, Denver, Belle Isle, Vancouver or St. Pete. For OWRS part, they seem willing to negotiate, but then why wouldn’t they? I just would hate to see what all they try to push through. I welcome a few road courses. For the drivers they have to be more fun, but for the fans they aren’t as exciting. This whole thing will probably get a lot uglier before it gets better. Indy was down on ratings again this year and there were noticeable empty sections in the North Vista. OWRS for what its worth drew a paltry 20K to its race in Milwaukee. I seriously doubt if the two groups ever get together, but the rumors and innuendo that should permeate the next few weeks should be fun! NASCAR Congrats to Mark Martin who won the crashfest on Sunday at Dover. Martin who hadn’t won since 2001 was able to hold off Tony Stewart and a charging Jr. and avoid the mishaps that took out half the field to win. The race was marked by two big accidents that took out the leaders and a host of other cars. The first one was on a restart. Kasey Kahne and Jeremy Mayfield were the leaders but were back in the pack due to pits stops when Mayfield was spun and took out 11 cars including himself. Later with Kahne leading the race, he slipped in some oil laid down by Casey Mears car and hit the wall. Martin and Stewart were able to see what was happening and stay out of harms way, but the crash collected another 8 cars. Earlier in the race NASCAR kept a yellow flag out to try to determine where Newman was supposed to be after a penalty, but I don’t think they got it right. Dover is a good track for those boys. It is almost always a good show and Sunday didn’t disappoint.