Indy 2005 Notes

I’ll keep this brief this morning and elaborate more on all of the racing over the weekend tomorrow.

Yesterday may well have been the best 500 I have ever seen. As many as 6 had a shot at the end and the racing was ferocious all day long. Besides the winner, Wheldon, Patrick, Hornish Jr. TK and Mr. Judd all lead. I may be missing one there because of pit stops. It was just what the league needed.

There were some empty seats, but not many. Still, I hate to see them at Indy.As for Danica Patrick, I couldn’t have scripted it better. She was all the focus going in and didn’t disappoint. But when it counted I didn’t want her to win. She was solid all the way down to the end, but she did make several mistakes. She may be the real deal.

It was great however, that Dan Wheldon, who has been the best driver in the IRL over the past year, got the win. Hopefully the media will focus on Dan as well as Danica and help get this league moving.

2005 Indy Prognostication

Sunday marks the 89th running of the Indianapolis 500. Defending champion and stupid way of hat wearing Buddy Rice will not be there to defend his title. With Rice out only Julio, Kenny Brack and Buddy Lazier have won the race before and as you all know, Buddy doesn’t count.

So who will win the race this year? Let’s take a look at the field and see if we can narrow it down.

Andretti/Green Racing has just about put the kibosh on competition in the IRL over the past year. TK won the title last season and Gentleman Dan Wheldon has won 3 of the 4 races so far this year. Only Sam Hornish Jr. has kept AGR off the top of the podium for the season. TK is my pick to win the race and is starting from the pole. He knows his way around and is just so hard-nosed about it. Wheldon failed to impress during qualifying and there are all kinds of rumors about his tenure with the team. With that being said he has won three of the four races this season and I really doubt if Little Michael is going to show him the door. Dario “Mr. Judd” Franchitti seems to have what it takes to win races at this level, but I don’t see him taking Indy. He seems to grow bored or disinterested towards the end of oval races. Finally Bryan Herta”bees” rounds out this team. Herta has to be considered somewhat of a disappointment on this team. He doesn’t qualify very well and is pretty much at a loss on the ovals. His one run at St. Pete didn’t exactly paint him as the all fire hot road racer either. I think it is safe to say he will not win although he definitely has the equipment.

Rahal/Letterman Racing are the defending champs and are anxious to keep it that way. Danica Patrick is by far the most popular driver on the circuit and is rounding into her groove at just the right time. She was on the pole in Japan and is in P4 for the 500. She may win the 500 in the future, but I don’t see it this year for her. Kenny Brack is back. Kenny replaces Buddy Rice for at least Indy. He returns to the IRL for the first time since his horrific crash in the season ender at Texas in 2003. He proved to be a quick study this week as he qualified fastest of everyone on Saturday. The only question will be Kenny’s stamina. I think he is over the crash mentally, but physically this is a long race. He’s done it before and you can’t teach experience. Finally Vitor Meira rounds out the team. Meira has quietly gone about his business in the face of the media blitz with Danica and Kenny. His work alone makes me like his chances Sunday. His talent just may take him to the top in great equipment.

Panther Racing has three cars this year, although the Buddy Lazier effort is kind of an offshoot of the main team. Tomas Scheckter has a heavy right foot and it has got him in some trouble over his career in the IRL. However a more poised and mature Tomas may be reaching his potential at just the right moment. IF, and it is a big one, if he can stay out of trouble on the track and have good clean pit stops he will win the race. Not everyone can say that. Tomas Enge has been so-so this month but has run many laps getting ready for the race. I like the way Enge drives, but I don’t see this rookie as a threat for the Borg-Warner. Buddy Lazier is the 1996 winner, but those days are long ago. This team is one of the lower budgeted teams, but they have a lot of heart. If they can keep the Chevy under them all day and avoid trouble he could get there, but like Scheckter, that is a big if.

Marlboro Team Penske is the only team that has been able to beat AGR this season, but this is Indy and despite sitting on the front row, the Toyota is simply not the engine to have. Granted this team does all their own engine work, but as much as I like Sam and Julio I just don’t think they can bring home the bacon.

Whatever happened to Target/Chip Ganassi Racing? Well it looks like the Toyota just can’t keep up with the Honda’s. They have qualified poorly all season and it looks as though Scott Dixon is still dealing with not getting the Williams ride last year. He has been terrible. Darren Manning is back for the second time and hasn’t fared much better. Rookie Ryan Briscoe had to qualify on the second weekend because of a crash the week before. This team is down right now and I don’t see any end to their problems any time soon.

The Fernandez Racing stable is an interesting situation. Adrian is running the team of Scott Sharp and Kosuke Matsura. Meanwhile he has teamed with Mo Nunn for a ride in Sunday race. Last season AF really came on strong at the end of the season, but this year he hasn’t even really raced since because of a lack of funds. Still he has to be considered a threat. Kosuke has had a rough year and is probably anxious to get back in everyone’s good graces, but I don’t see him as a potential winner. Scott Sharp is a definite threat. He is starting in P3 and has a good car. Scott Sharp would be a hugely popular winner with the IRL fans.

Newman/Haas is sending Bruno and Seabass over for the one off 500. Bitter old Paul Newman still won’t make the trip. Good riddance you old goat. As far as the team goes they are a threat. Bruno has run well here and if the rain would have occurred 15 minutes earlier or later last year he may have won. Seabass has only come into Champ Car and won everything in site. He seemed to struggle early on in May and looked a little frightened. I don’t see a win, but a good finish could be in the cards.

The rest of the field looks like also-rans.

AJ has IV, Larry and Mike in the show. Mike has the experience, but he is starting last and his chances in that car are pretty much nil. Still, look for him to finish ahead of his team mates. Dreyer and Reinbold bring Roger Yasukawa and Jeff Bucknum. Roger has been here before and may surprise with his finish, but he won’t win. Bucknum, the 41 year old rookie has not shown anything.One of the biggest disappointments has to be Red Bull Team Cheever. Eddie is clearly out of his element as a car owner. He burnt his bridge with Buddy Rice a couple of years ago, ran off Tomas Scheckter and now his team of Alex Barron and Patrick Carpentier are among the slowest on the grid. Carpentier has even been rumored to be on his way out as word of conflicts between him and Eddie have been making the rounds. This team would have to pull the upset of the century to make the end of the race, let alone see victory lane.

Vision Racing is just a joke. A lot of people want them to fail, but their reasons are not all the same. Some just hate FTRG and want to stick it to him. Others want to see him fail so he can see how it works in the IRL and to see how tough it is for the little guy. He is going to fail. I like Jeff Ward’s tenacity and drive, but in this car it looks like he would need divine intervention to win. Special Ed is probably still in over his head in an Indy Car.

Sam Schmidt’s driver, Richie Hearn has been here enough to know his way around, but he won’t win. Look for Sammy’s team to pull a decent finish. Playa del Racing has Jacques Lazier aboard. They should have a decent run, but don’t look for them in the top three at the end of the race.

“Momma wants you” Marty Roth has to be considered one of the real longshots to win this thing. And finally Jimmy Kite, who is replacing the injured Paul Dana is probably going to be lapped by the 1/10 mark of the race.

So in order of chance they have to win, here is my lineup for Sunday. As a gauge, if you are listed below Scotty D I really don't think you have a chance to win.

TK
Scheckter
Vitor
Dan W
Bruno
Scott S
Kenny
AF
Sam
Julio
Buddy
Dario
Patrick
Seabass
Enge
Mike
Herta
Manning
Scotty D
Jacques Lazier
Hearn
Disco Briscoe
Kosuke
Roger Yasukawa
Alex Barron
Patrick Carpentier
AJ IV
Larry Foyt
Jeff Ward
Kite
Roth
Jeff Bucknum
Ed Carpenter

Mid May 2005

IRLTime trials are complete and the field is set for the 89th running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. There was a surprise bump when Mike hopped in the 48 car and bumped Little Arie out at 5:30. Of course the move was not without controversy or conspiracy theory.Frankly I found the whole day rather surreal. First Big Arie was on TV talking about Jrs. chances. He thought Jr. was listening to him, but that he really needed laps and that he was doing it the hard way by having to learn in the race. Strangely enough, Jr. didn’t make an appearance on the track until 3:00. He wasted 3 hours when he could have been on the track, getting comfortable in the car and getting up to speed.As the day wore on, word of Mike’s arrival permeated the Speedway and finally the 48 car was rolled on to pit lane and sent out to practice.Jr. had already put his car in the field but his time was weak. 49 laps later Mike stuck her in the show with an average over 217. Jr. mounted one last charge but was way short. It just really puzzled me that Jr. wasn’t out earlier. I did notice a trace of trepidation on Arie’s face at noon. I’m not sure he thought Jr. was ready.Now there has been talk that Brian Barnhart actually went to Foyt and presumably Toyota to get the 48 car in the field because the 98 wasn’t fast enough. As much as I have come to dislike Barnhart over the past weeks, I find this conspiracy theory absurd.Anyway, Sunday is race day. I like Tony Kanaan to win the show. I’d rather the chick not win. This year at least. My guess is that Friday’s Carb Day will be very uneventful. Right now the weather looks good for the weekend. Keep your fingers crossed.F1The Monaco GP post mortem is ugly. For the record Kimi won the race going away. It was his second win in two races and he has led every lap of both. There were a couple of stupid incidents on the track however that warrants mentioning.First let me say that in the field there was some of the best racing I had ever seen at Monaco. But there was some ugliness as well. First it was the Sauber teams’ little stunt, or more precisely, JV’s shunt. When is this dickhead going to learn? Coming off the front stretch, this imbecile takes an ill-advised line to overtake his team mate Felipe Massa. He doesn’t stick the move and ends up running Mass off the road effectively ending any chance of either of them getting any points.Villeneuve has pretty much sucked since 1999 and his own arrogance makes him dangerous. Peter Sauber has to be fed up and needs to can his ass today.Late in the race Schummi was up to a bit of nastiness himself when he ran the Sandwich out of room coming out of the tunnel and made a pass in the chicane. The move was dangerous and against a team mate. On the next lap he did the same thing to brother Ralf and his Toyota. Ralfie is steamed and said that one of them could have been killed. Schummi said he wasn’t on no damn day trip and pretty much told Ralfie to shut the fuck up. This could get good. Schummi is struggling unlike he has at any point in his career and the frustration mounts with each passing race. With Toyota getting things together the two may spend more time together on the track.

Kenny Back at Indy

2004 Indianapolis 500 winner Buddy Rice has been medically ruled out of the 2005 race after suffering injuries to his back last week in practice for the 89th running. After 16 or so hours of speculation, Rahal-Letterman Racing has named 1999 winner Kenny Brack as Rice's replacement.Rice will continue to be evaluated as to his participation in the IRL for the rest of the season.Brack who was hurt in a horrendous crash at Texas at the end of the 2003 season replaces Rice who ironically replaced Brack. I have my doubts about Kenny. He hasn't run an Indy Car in a year. He did a practice last year at Richmond and was nowhere near ready. Everything I had heard from him made me think he would not be racing at this level again. I like Kenny. He won for AJ, but I am really skeptical about this one.Honestly I think Kenny will run today and find out he still isn't ready. What then? There are other good drivers out there, but are any of them up to RLR standards? Today will be interesting. I wish I was out at the track to see what he is able to do.

Stupid IRL Tricks

Just when I thought it was impossible for the IRL to be any more Mickey Mouse they go and pull a stunt like this! What is this stunt? It is the POC call made by Brian Barnhart on Saturday. At 12:15 pm this genius decided to close the track for the day. It was one of the lamest moves in IRL history, and God knows these buffoons are masters at lame moves!Now I could care less about the $10 I spent to get in. What galls me is the bullshit reasons for the call.We left home at about 11:15 to head to the track. On the radio they were talking about how it had quit raining and the trucks were on the track getting it dried off. Having seen the track be dried in about an hour last year at the 500 I knew we were going to see some qualifying. We had no sooner got to the Pagoda when the announcement came. The track was closed for the day.Disgusted and disappointed we moved over to the seats to see if any of the people we were supposed to meet had shown. I engaged a yellow shirt in a brief conversation and was just lied to. It is like fucking Nazi Germany out there. Toe the company line at all costs. This dumb bastard first told me it takes 3 hours to dry the track. (Company line) I told him that was BS since it was dried fast last year at the race. Next he told me there were puddles this (about a foot using his hands to show me) deep on pit lane and on the track. There is no way there were any puddles that deep anywhere on the newly paved track and for God’s sake, it hadn’t rained that fucking hard. Next he tried to tell me that another storm was coming in. Do these people think we are stupid? We saw the radar, he was lying.Barnhart’s arrogance was the motivation for this call. He had his precious little new format and he was afraid to miss any time for it. Therefore the couple of thousand people who went out there got screwed. Oh sure we could have used Saturday’s stub to get in on Sunday, but I couldn’t go yesterday and I am sure I wasn’t the only one. Instead the Speedway just makes more money for nothing. Too bad it didn’t rain on them yesterday.I love the Speedway, but it seems I become more disillusioned with it each and every day. The powers that be out there are completely wrong on so many fronts. For some reason they think they can just put the Indianapolis 500 out there and everyone will come running. I got news for you FTRG and all of your cohorts, THOSE DAYS ARE GONE!!

Early May 2005

Today concludes rookie practice for the Indianapolis 500. So far Danica Patrick has been the fastest of the group with Patrick Carpentier and Ryan “Disco” Briscoe close behind. Tomorrow the whole group will take to the field and we will be looking for any surprises that might creep up. Probably most won’t occur until next week.Today I am going to look at the impact FTRG has on US open wheel racing and if he is good or bad for the sport.Back in 1994 Tony George approached the powers that be in CART seeking a board membership. Depending on whom you believe, George was offered a token, non-voting position and laughed out of the meeting. Keep in mind this was the man who for all intents and purposes owned the Indianapolis 500 which CART was still anxious to participate in as it was the key to their season.As we all know, George left that meeting and formed the IRL. Now I have documented the various versions of TG’s “vision” when he created the Indy Racing League and how it has veered more and more off course as time has gone by. IRL fans can sneer when their league is called “CART II” but how can anyone really argue the point?But for all of George’s bluster in the early days of the IRL, I honestly thought he had the best interests of open wheel racing in mind. Nowadays, I have a pretty good idea he not only does not have the best interests in mind, but is focused squarely on killing Champ Car. Now FTRG and his lieutenants rarely ever speak of Champ Car, and boy do his supporters like to bring that up. But do we really have to look any further than what has happened over the past few years to be convinced. Engine leases, an influx of foreign drivers and finally street and road courses. On top of this, is there any doubt that more road courses are on their way? Already there is talk about Toronto and Montreal as well as what will probably be an attempt by the IRL to take Long Beach and then even doing Road America.As they say, actions speak louder than words.Then there is last years fiasco at Portland. The contract with Champ Car was up and it looked like they were going to struggle to get back together. The IRL swooped in and entered discussions for a race in the Rose City. As it turned out, FTRG simply bid on the race in an attempt to raise the price and keep CC out. I have no doubt that FTRG never intended to race at Portland and his intentions were just to injure an already bleeding competitor.The same can be said about the CART bankruptcy hearings where George was intent on buying CART and killing it. The judge saw this and awarded the assets and the bankruptcy to the Three Stooges, Gerry Forsythe, Kevin Kalkhoven and Paul Gentilozzi. George thought he could throw some money around and get his way.You see, there are ways to kill your competition without being an ass or by just throwing money around. What he did in court was make an ass of himself and strengthened what became Champ Car and solidified its fans. If there was a chance they would ever be back at the Speedway, it was gone then. Same with Portland. It also gave CC a bunch of free publicity which they seized upon. Granted they probably aren’t going to make it, but they would be gone by now had George been patient.He is so bent on the end of CART or CC that he can’t see the problems with the IRL. I don’t mind the foreign drivers, but it would be nice if some Americans could get in. I’d like to see diversity in products and equipment. More of a run what you brung mentality. FTRG will continue to be in bed with the Honda’s and Toyota’s until they tire of his series. He’ll continue to add street and road courses until he has all but squeezed out the ovals. He will continue to stomp on tradition at Indy where a steady downturn in interest and attendance have occurred over the past 10 years. The fans who have left because of the change of vision or because they are CC fans aren’t ever coming back, no matter how many road courses he runs. He not only is bad for open wheel racing, he probably will be the one credited with killing it in America.

F1 Barcelon

In Barcelona, the F1 teams have completed Friday’s practice sessions and are working on the first round of qualifying setups and race readiness. The F1 teams minus BAR. The FIA effectively gave BAR Honda the death penalty for the season by banning them for two races (one being Monaco) and excluding them from the points chase. The FIA’s ruling comes about after the scrutineers found the BAR to be 5Kg underweight after the San Marino Grand Prix.
In my opinion the penalty is overly harsh, but BAR has decided not to fight it. This indicates to me they knew what they were doing and have decided to take their medicine. But the ramifications go deeper and the ever swirling conspiracy theories in the paddock are cranked up to full.
BAR Honda will have to sit out the series premier event in a fortnight when F1 goes to the historic street course in Monte Carlo. How much money will that cost the team? Forget about money per point, the high profile race in Monte Carlo is a showcase and BAR will not be there. Buttons and Takuma have contract issues that the team will have to deal with before the end of the season. I wouldn’t expect Taku to go anywhere, but Buttons tried to escape to Williams last season. If he fails to achieve certain status by mid-season he can leave the team. Not sure where he would go, but if Nick Heidfeld is doing poorly at Williams he better watch his donkey.
One of the more compelling theories about the penalty is the GPWC v. F1 (FIA) battle. BAR Honda is one of the leaders in the fight to control the sport. Many are saying this is the FIA’s way of getting back at them for their insubordination. May be. After all, there is so much money riding on F1 that any attempt to wrestle control away form Max and Bernie is bound to be looked upon as taking food off of their tables.
So BAR sits this weekends Spanish GP and then Monaco. They return at the Nurburgring at the end of May for the European GP. The question is, what is their motivation for the rest of the season?

1/4 Post Report

Sorry to have been away so long during the season, but finals come first and there hasn’t been a whole lot to report on in the racing world. But let’s start with some F1 news.F1Unfortunately the first of the CBS F1 races was the San Marino Grand Prix. Allegedly it was a great race and unfortunately I missed it. Fred Alonso won but Schummi was a close second and word has it that if there were a couple more laps, he may have won.JV finally scored a couple of points and his fans are all dancing in the streets. I’m sure they will be back on the sidelines after this weeks Spanish GP.On the political front, the nine team consortium that was to bring Bernie, the FIA and the F1 championship to its knees took a severe blow when both Red Bull and Jordan/Midland broke ranks and attended the FIA meeting on April 15th along with Ferrari. This is certainly a blow to the consortium and may have further reaching impact with people like Kevin Kalkhoven who may have had the infrastructure to start up the F1 rival series.Speaking of Kalkhoven, him and Gerry Forsythe’s ownership of Cosworth took a hit last week as Red Bull announced an agreement for 2006 and 2007 with Ferrari. This leaves the Cosworth owners as having only the CCWS and Minardi as customers. While they have a steady stream of business with the CCWS as it is the only allowed engine, Minardi can pull the plug at any time. Besides, the R & D for F1 is cost prohibitive and may be more than KK can handle as CC continues its money woes.This week at Spain, look for wild crowds as points leader Fred Alonso comes home and has to be considered a favorite for the race. Will Ferrari be back in the hunt? Can BAR overcome its early season troubles? Will JPM be healed from his “tennis” injury? The show is back on Speed so get up early Sunday and find out!!IRLIt’s May and that means Indy 500 time!! The track opens Sunday for ROP and Tuesday for the real deal. With the new qualifying setup in effect, it should be interesting to see if there is any more excitement generated.Going in I will only say that I expect Tony Kanaan to win the race.Last weekend the IRL put on their annual Japan show. Gentleman Dan won yet again, his third in four races this season. Scheckter nearly made the finish, but ran out of gas two laps from the end.An interesting thought came to me yesterday as I was putting together the 500 pool for this year. How much of the crowd at the 500 are really race fans and how many go just because it is the 500? I thought about the people I had spoken to hear at work and it was funny to hear some of the comments. Things like “Is Arie driving this year?”, and “Who is Michael and Little Al running for?” It got me thinking that Oliver Trucking, I was the only one who could name a winner of one of the races so far this season in the IRL. That put me at about 2% of the Oliver employees who are race fans (IRL). Okay, pretty much as I figured.So I posed the question to race fans in my address book. I found 6 bona fide fans out of 154 contacts. I posed the question such that do any of the 6 think there are 10%, less than 10% or more than 10% real race fans who will be at the Indy 500 on May 29th. We’re talking about approximately 25,000 people.My thoughts are this. There are maybe 10% that would know who had won an IRL race earlier in the season. This is the definition of a race fan for what I am talking about. I think there is probably less than 10%. I think most people who go to the 500 are there for the event. I base this on TV numbers and attendance at the previous races. 8k showed at Phoenix. Those are probably 8k real fans, but that left nearly 80%of the stands empty. All of the sudden at Indy, 32 times more race fans show up. It just doesn’t stand to reason.Now the CCWS fans want to claim that race fans no longer go to Indy. I’ll give them this, that I believe the empty seats at Indy are “race fans” who have sided with the CCWS or against FTRG. But the fact is, Indy is still the single biggest one day sporting event in the world.The fact is also that the people who just come because of the event are what makes any event as large as Indy. Does anyone really think that everyone at the Daytona 500 is a race fan? As far back as I can remember, there have been the “Indy” fan. Those people who only go to one race a year and are there for the party and the atmosphere and not the race itself.I’m going to delve into this a little deeper over the summer and see if I can get a handle on who is a race fan and what makes them such.See you all at the track Sunday!NASCARTalladega 1 is in the books and Jeff Gordon wins again. Jimmy Johnson has turned into a one man wrecking ball and the taxicab boys go into May and the long boring middle of the season begins! Wake me up for the Allstate 400!