The Other Side - Poll of the Week

Last weeks poll was a short one, so votes were limited, however, we still had 18 people check a box to pick which team would win the Indy 500. Even though there was a small sample size, I still cannot believe Target Chipsahoy Racing only got 2 votes. For a team that had the previous two Indy 500 winners, I expected them to be right up there with Penske, however, they were behind Penske and AGR, and tied with a team that has limited experience at the Brickyard in Newman/Haas/Lanigan.

This weeks question is a bit of a doozie. You're going to have to use your thinkers for this one as some math and guestimations will have to go into it.

Who will finish the 2009 point standings higher? Milka Duno, Paul Tracy, Stanton
Barrett, Vitor Meira, or Tomas Scheckter?

This one should be fun to see whose logic places who where.

Bartender Rumors #4

Well, another trip to the Gryphon means some more brews for you fine folks. The bartender fired up some cold ones to me to pass along to our faithful followers. Buckle up ladies and gents, here we go.

• He said Dallara is working pretty hard designing an F1 entry for 2010. He doesn't know if they will run it themselves or if they are doing it for someone else, but the braintrust at Dallara is definately working hard.
• Dale Coyne is still working to get his second car to the grid. A couple of deals have fallen apart, but, he is working hard towards making it happen.
• PT is only going to run races at for AJ when he thinks he can win, Quattro will run the rest.
• He says to expect title sponsorship talks to pick up again after this little slap on the wrist TG got from his family about spending too much money on the IRL.
• Conquest will only run road courses from now until the end of the year.

There you have it, another night, another hang over. Let me know what you guys think about this one.

RM, You're A Bad Boy

Robin Miller, I am thinking you're going to be in a bit of trouble for this one. Same with Bruce Martin. I think you two both might had done something not good today. Either someone fucked with you, or you fucked with someone else pretty poorly. Either way, you guys are going to take the fall for all of this I would believe.

Unfortunately, many people will no longer believe what either of you post. This isn't your run of the mill, "Conquest to run 2 cars in China" rumor, this is much bigger then that. You put out a story about someone losing their jobs, that someone is probably the most powerful man in American Open Wheel Racing. Something tells me that might have a little bit of backlash to it.

Either way, if you can't tell by now already, Tony George is still the CEO of IMSC. Now he is trying his best to subdue rumors he has either been removed from power or will be removed from power in the next couple of days or weeks.

Is TG still the big boss at IMS? Yes

Will TG still be the big boss in the near future at IMS? We aren't as sure as we were before.

If your a fan of what TG has done and were upset he was ousted from IMS, then be happy because he is still around. If you hate TG for what he has done in the past with AOWR, and were happy he was no longer in power at IMS, then be sad, you still have to put up with the man.

Tony George out?

Well, Robin Miller is at it again. He is reporting that Tony George has been ousted from the CEO position of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a board meeting late last night.

Apparently, Tony's siblings were upset with how much money he has spent the last few years in purses, cars, fees etc... is running the bank dry and they didn't want to be left with nothing. Understandable. However, personally, I could care less about the money at the moment. What I care about is what happens to the IRL?

Now that Tony George has lost control of IMS, this in no way can be a positive situation. IMS was a source of cash, a source of stability, and a source of tradition for the IRL over the last 12 and a bit years. When you think of the IRL, the first thing that comes to mind is Indy.

Now, I'm not saying that with Tony George out of power at IMS, the IRL will disapear from the Indianapolis, however, it doesn't make me comfortable that we don't have Tony George in power there anymore. If his siblings are upset with him spending so much money, could they in turn be upset with the IRL? I mean, if they really wanted to now, the Hulman-George family sans TG could really make things hard for the IRL.

And now that Tony doesn't have IMS to run anymore, he will probably take a more active role in the IRL's day-to-day business, and I'm not so sure I like that. I haven't been a fan of a lot of Tony George decisions. Now I'm not a TG hater like some people, I just don't nessicarily like his decisions all the time, but, I still don't think he is the right man for the job in the IRL.

I guess we are sort of stuck in limbo until all of this gets figured out in the near future hopefully. Most likely a press release will be put out to make it official amongst the media, and the IRL will have to put something out to explain what is happening and how this affects the ICS and FIL. Once that happens, I'll make sure to post it asap.

Edit: The story is now being reported as false by Tony George and Mari Hulman-George. They say there was a board meeting, but that the meeting was typical and TG's leadership was not discussed at all in the meeting. This is a very odd situation. We've had both Robin Miller from Speed and Bruce Martin from SI.com reporting Tony George's firing as truth.

Either both RM and BM were mis-informed or flat out lied (I'd pick the first one), or Tony George is not aware of either his lack of a job at IMS or his impending firing.

Pressdog made a good point on twitter though, people both reported unification prior to it happening, and denied it after it had happened.

And from 16thandGeorgetown, we have video of TG dismissing the claims.

Stay tooned, I'll update this as more becomes available.

Multiple Notes

Bunch of news broke today. I go out with the lady friend for a few hours and return to see multiple emails and news reports having to do with the IRL. Scrolling through all the blogs, I see a whole bunch of new things and my mind hits IRL-overload. Let's see what I can talk about this time around.

Probably the most important thing is that Vitor Meira will be going home tomorrow. To go along with that, probably the most exciting news is that Paul Tracy will be in Milwaukee running in his place. The 40 year old former CCWS Champion will run this weekend for A.J. Foyt Enterprises in the number 14 car. No news if this will continue until the Canadian events where KVRT have agreed to run him already. As for now, take it as a one race deal. Personally, on a track like Milwaukee, I think Paul Tracy can compete and finish near the front. Aero doesn't matter as much here, and PT get's two extra hours of track time to get back to speed on the Milwaukee Mile. Instead of using that time to get reacclimated to a car, he'll be able to use that time to set his car up, giving him a big advantage over the other veterans. Score one for the guys in the blue masks.

It seems like Conquest is bailing from Milwaukee. They are no where to be seen on the entry list for this weekends race. Maybe this is the team that won't be competing after Indy like the bartender was talking about back in early May. You would have to assume they are atleast guarenteed for the two Canadian races if not more of the road courses.

One of the emails I got was from the Luczo Dragon Racing. Luczo Dragon hasn't won any races yet, and they may never win a race in the IRL for all I know, but damn, they have some sexy lookin' race cars. This weekend they will run the Marines car, and it just looks hot. If you thought the Air Force car was nice, add about 3 Megan Fox's to that and you've got this beautiful Marines livery.

LDR will run the USMC livery at Iowa, Richmond, Watkins Glen, Toronto, Edmonton, Ohio and Infineon on top of the Milwaukee race.

Over at Planet-IRL, Kohl found an article about Duncan Dayton's likely entrance to the IRL with Highcroft in either 2010 or 2011, depending when the new rules come out. He basically says it makes more sense to be in the IRL right now then the ALMS, and then pretty much confirms to the author the article that he'll be in the Indycar Series at some point somehow. I guess Patron and Scott Sharp like it here, either that, or ALMS fans drink more wine and champagne then Tequila. I could get used to Patron if they moved over to the IRL.

I stopped by the Gryphon tonight, spoke to the barkeeper again. I'll have that post up tomorrow morning. He did confirm that PT would be in the car at Milwaukee, but it was so sudden he didn't know about the other races. A couple nice tidbits so make sure you stop by at some point tomorrow folks.

Been a nice month

Well, I haven't been around as much as I have wanted to be to blog away. I have fallen off the pace of some fellow bloggers and am not happy about it. The past few weeks with lacrosse have been pretty hectic, hell, I had to miss the 500 because I was on a bus to the middle of nowhere to play a team we beat 18-1. Whatever, over the last little bit, I've missed lots of things to blog about.

So, I missed the chance to tell everyone how excited I am that I finally get TSN2 up in Canada, so I should be able to watch every race, relatively close to the actual time is it run. That means either more live blogs or some hardcore twitter time which is good news because I'd like to be more interactive on the race days if you guys are interested in it.

I didn't get a chance to talk about Carb Day and Wade Cunningham taking home his second Freedom 100 or Ana Beatriz taking one of the hardest hits I've seen from an IPS car at Indy. I don't like talking about the taxi cabs on here, because this is an anti-taxi cab blog, but, does anyone else think that Ana's crash was a bit like the crash Jeff Gordon had at Vegas in '08 where he hit the angled inner wall at a 90 degree angle? Ana hit a part of the inner wall that was not parallel with the outer wall, which means she hit it a sharper angle, causing higher G-Forces and greater chance for injury. This should be fixed for next year.

I didn't get a chance to talk about PT's extension to do both Canadian races for the KVRT which is good news. The tickets probably sold at a much higher rate in Edmonton for the race then it would had earlier. I bet the tickets at Toronto picked up big time once he was announced. However, over at ChampCarFanatics.com they are probably laughing their asses off that their hero is being sponsored by the engine company they hate the most in Honda.

I missed a crash filled race. I've seen highlights and heard stories about the race, but it seemed like an average 500. Now, mind you, an average 500 is better then a good Kansas or Iowa, simply because it is Indianapolis, and Indianapolis makes everything better because of the history and the show they put on around it. And seeing Helio take the checkered flag is great. No one else deserved it more then him, thought I would had been happy to see just about anyone win, it was still a nice little touch to see Helio climbing the fence (to someone's dissapointment) then to see him in jail. He adds so much to the series outside of his publicity and talent. He is just an all around great guy. I don't like Penske Racing all that much, but I was happy to see him win even when he is in a Penske car.

How about T. Bell? He walks in second week and puts the KVRT #8 Herbalife car in 4th place? Not bad for a one-off. Maybe he will be lucky and talk Herbalife into sponsoring a second car at HVM for next season maybe? That would be sweet. Townsend Bell has, in my mind, with that drive, put himself on the list of drivers we should have in the series. Unfortunately, he seems to have lost William Rast sponsorship and is only hope right now is Herbalife. However, this is one guy who has proven he can go out and make friends with the higher ups which is good for his future.

My boy Tags wins Rookie of the Year at Indy which is nice. This decision might be more about the cheque accompanying the award then the award itself as it is a little extra cash flow for Conquest who is hurting.

Anyways, I doubt you folks want to read through all of this, I was just doing my best to catch up on all the news I haven't been able to blog about. I'll throw something up about the #14 car tonight and my opinions on who should or will get that drive. I'm also stopping by the bar tonight for a chit chat with the bartender. Hopefully he has some news from the weekend.

Bartender Rumors #3

After a tiring hard long weekend (yes, up north was a nice long weekend for us Canucks) refereeing some minor lacrosse, I needed to head to the pub to down a beer or two. I figured I might as well head down to the Gryphon and hope for my trusty bartender to be in. Unfortunately, he wasn't, but that didn't stop me from dulling the pain in my legs.

Anyways, I found out he was working last night, so simply out of curiousity I went down there and spoke to the man for a little while and shot the breeze with him about the IRL and Indy. He said he used to work with Tags and says he probably feels the worst out of any one that he had to take Bruno's seat. But he did give out a couple more rumors for the trusty readers, and he also confirmed one. He is getting a little crazy, think he might had been poppin' back a couple root beers behind the bar on his break.

• Dale Coyne is very happy that he and Scheckter were able to put a deal together. Apparently, they are both working trying to get the rest of the season secured. Dale is trying to talk Rockstar back into hopping on board with Tomas. A good result will most likely get Tomas a Rockstar/Z-Lines/Sonny's car for the rest of the season.
• He says Target Chip Ganassi is already signed on to run the VW engines if/once they enter the ICS. VW wants a top team and they promised big money for TCGR to run their engines. He says they are trying to grab another top team too, but they haven't settled an agreement with anyone.
• He confirmed Paul Tracy's participation in the two Canadian events. He says they are close with Geico on some other key American races, mostlikely Chicagoland and Texas.
• NHL Racing is working very hard on finding the sponsorship for Sebastien Bourdais for the rest of the season. If he gets let go from Toro Rosso, there might be some Red Bull money available for him.
• Unfortunately, unless Will Power does something miraculous at the I500, he is pretty well done for this season. Maybe one or two other races, but that is it apparently.
• Without the Herbalife sponsorship HVM signed for Indy and beyond, Keith Wiggins and his new partner didn't think they'd make it through the season.

Anyways, like I said in earlier versions, I don't know how much to think about these rumors, but a few of the things he has said have come to fruition, and he has told me a couple things the night before they have been announced (Servia and Tracy). Make what you will of it, but some of them make sense.

Let me know what you guys think about this stuff in the comments section.

The Other Side - Poll of the Week

Well, Bump Day has come and gone, and so has the last poll. The amount of cars bumped on Bump Day has always been a hot topic since the split, usually due to the lack of cars being bumped. However, since bimergification the number of cars trying to bump their way into the field has been high enough we have seen some bumping. Drama ensued near the end of the day with drivers pushing to get into the show. When 6:00pm on sunday rolled around, 3 cars were left off the starting grid, including Alex Tagliani, Stanton Barrett, and Buddy Lazier.

Now, this is the first Weekly Poll you folk have gotten right. Congratulations, and go ahead and gives yourselves a pat on the back. Mind you a minority of you chose the correct answer, I'll still give it to you since you picked it more then any other one answer. I think anyone that picked 5+ cars was just hoping a whole lot, though it was possible.

This weeks question is as follows.

"Which stable will the 93rd Indy 500 Champion come from?"

Mind you, for practical reasons, Alex Lloyd's pink sensation car will be lumped in with Target Chip Ganassi for this poll.

Have some fun with it, and let me know who you think will win by voting, then tell me why in the comments section. I'd love to hear your reasons.

Tagliani to Conquest #36

Bye-Bye Bruno. Alex Tagliani is taking your spot in the number 36 car for the I500. It is being confirmed by everyone and their brother almost that the unluckiest guy and maybe stupidest team from bump day will still be running their main man in the big race.

Bruno Junqueira is being replaced by Alex Tagliani in the Conquest #36 car.

I'm not sure which sponsors will be on the car, probably a mix of the #34 and #36 car sponsors, but, I would be mighty pissed if I were All Sport and I were not on a car. Maybe this gives more meaning to the phrase "coming back from the dead" for the King Tut car of Tags?

I'm not sure what to think of this. I personally have grown a bit upset with Bruno the way he treated Dale Coynes men last year, however, I admire that he dug around and found sponsorship, or atleast got into a car when a team found sponsorship. His hardwork made me like him a bit more again. However, I'm happy to see Tags in the 500 now, even after his team screwed up by not getting him in the show in the first place, but I'm sad to see it's happening this way. Not sure how to react to this one as a fan or a Canadian.

Give me your thoughts on this. I want to know how to be cool, so I'll react like you folks do.

Junkyard Dog

Well, we can add a 36th car to the field. 16th and Georgetown picked up that WishTV in Indianapolis is saying Bruno Junqueira will be running the #36 Conquest machine tomorrow and attempting to qualify the #36 car for the I500.

Good news indeed, and Bump Day seems to be getting a little bit more exciting. Any more driver announcements will be past last minute, but maybe we can get to 37 or 38 cars if Buddy Rice and/or Jacques Lazier or anyone for that matter come up with anything.

Also rumors Alex Barron will pilot the Team 3G machine if Stanton Barrett can't put it in the show are heating up. Barron was in the Team 3G garage yesterday. If Barron can run some laps in the car, maybe it will convince them to run Barron instead of Stuntcar Stanton, or atleast help SB find some speed. (Just realized I used Sebastien Bourdais' initials for Stanton Barrett, sorry for the confusion, but Stanton Barrett is still nowhere near as fast as Bourdais)

Right now, the qualifiers who are looking risky are Milka Duno, Stanton Barrett, Bruno Junqueira, Nelson Philippe, and Buddy Lazier. You would think 3 of these 5 will be 3 cars attempting to get into the field on bump day, unless there is some unforeseen accident later today.

Does anyone else find it ironic Milka Duno will never be drinking milk at Indy? I sure think it's relatively foooooonnnnny.

Day of Truth

Well, today is the last day before the final qualifying days at Indy take place. As of now, we are short on cars, to make bump day exciting anyways, but rumors are flying around about potential drivers and teams and different combinations and such.

The worse offender in all this has been Tomas Scheckter who has been rumored to go to 1 team (Team 3G) about 3 times now in different circumstances, and rumored to be in cars at 3 other teams (Conquest, Dale Coyne, A.J. Foyt Enterprises) for the 500-Mile race. Finally, it seems he has landed at Coynes growing (in performance, not size) operation. He has brought a sponsor to the fold, however, no one really knows who that sponsor is since there has been no mention of it yet.

16th and Georgetown has heard rumors Buddy Rice either has or is close to sponsorship to lock up a ride in the 500 which would boost the car count for qualifying and bump day up a bit more.

On top of Tomas Scheckter, we also have a minimum 3 other guys running 2nd week engine packages. These include, T. Bell, Indy 500 Champ Buddy Lazier, and super-sub Oriol Servia. Servia and Bell jumped into the cars yesterday and ran fast while Lazier is taking a bit longer getting up to speed in the older Hemelgarn ride. Townsend and Oriol both have the luxury of jumping into well prepared cars for teams who have either done well or are doing well in Rahal-Letterman and KVRT.

If we don't see the cars by today, or hear news about someone hopping in a car tomorrow for qualifying day practice or bump day practice, I doubt we will see the cars. Hopefully we get a couple more because right now we are stuck on 13 driver/car combo's trying to qualify for the final 11 spots. Hopefully A.J. Foyt throws Jeff Simmons or someone in his third entry and has them bump Milka out or something like that to up the field.

The Other Side - Poll of the Week

Alright, well last week, I asked which One-Off driver would qualify the highest for the big show, and, well, most of you were wrong. I picked Alex Lloyd, along with one other person. And to think, I'm last place in the UOWWB Indycar Fantasy league, someone must be cheating.

A whole bunch of you chose PT and Scott Sharp, which weren't bad ideas, except PT had a rough time of it on Pole Day, while Scott Sharps crew were probably liquored up from all that Patron and maybe Mr. Sharp himself was as well. Who knows, but, maybe that attributed to Scott's crash?

Anyways, Pink Lloyd took the show grabbing the last spot on pole day sitting 11th. Hopefully we'll have better luck guessing this weeks answer.

How many cars will be bumped on bump day?

Scroll down a bit, and on the right you'll see the poll. Make sure you vote this week, there could be a prize awarded?

Pink Lloyd or Pink Panther?

Kaaveh Akbari, Director of PR for Sam Schmidt Motorsports, got a bit of a surprise yesterday just before he left for home. After qualifying on the first day, bumping into the first 11 near the last minute, Pink Lloyd must had been feeling pretty good. He was qualified for his second Indy 500 and had some time to relax without worrying if he'd be in the field. Apparently, this is how he relax's.




Well, safe to say, Mr. Akbari was none to pleased. As you can tell from the youtube clip, he plans on getting back at the "Her" driver. I suggested buying some pink lingerie and replacing his firesuit with the lingerie, but I don't know how that would go down. Leave your ideas to get back at the Pink Panther in the comments section and I'll pass the best ones along to D&R's PR man, and see if we can have a bit of fun.

Tweet Day... erm... Pole Day

Tweeting is replacing the blog for today folks. I will be following T&S the best I can since we dont get any (insert Meesh cuss here) TV coverage in Canada. Safe to say I'm not pleased right now, but I will do my best to keep up to date on Twitter.

There are also plenty of other bloggers tweeting away, along with a bunch of teams and drivers. Take a peek, you might enjoy hearing a whole bunch of different perspectives. Hey, you can even join in with us.

Being Ed Carpenter's Teammate...

Is not a good idea, not the last couple of years anyways at Indy.

It's safe to say A.J. Foyt IV begged Facebook.com to let him start the fan page for Not Being On Fire after being set on fire twice during the Month of May, once during a crash, and once during a refuelling accident in pit lane. Then once he got to the race, he had a forgettable one, finishing 21st, 20 laps down, the last of any cars running at the finish. Safe to say he would had liked to had been elsewhere last year, probably somewhere he couldn't catch fire.

And now this year, Ed Carpenter's new teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, who has started the season strong with a second place finish in the season opener and a decent result at LB, gets the distinction of being the first driver to hit the wall during the Month of May. Ryan lost the back end at speed coming out of turn 2. These things happen, but when interviewed afterwards, his body language spelt p-i-s-s-e-d o-f-f! He says something broke in the back right which caused him to go around. Not the best way to start the month.

Now there is plenty of time for Ryan Hunter-Reay to turn his luck around, but as of now, Ed Carpenter seems to be his teammates Kryptonite of late. Maybe Davey Hamilton knew something when he took his sponsorship to Dreyer & Reinbold this year.

Twitterthon

Just for anyone who is interested, there is a hell of a twitterthon happening when cars are on track between fans, the United Open Wheel Word Butchers members, and teams and drivers. Take a peak for yourselves if your interested.

On a side note, Bobby D just took top spot on the speed charts. What else does NHL Racing have to do before we group them with the heavyweights and start calling them the Frantic Four?

Just a heads up, your opinions are very much appreciated in the comments section. I enjoy talking with you about IRL stuff, so just drop a line on the comments section or something like that.

Full Throttle

The Month of May has finally hit full throttle (don't worry, no Charlie's Angel's sponsorship, although that might not be a bad thing come to think of it) with the track open to all cars finally. All rookies have completed their ROP and with the green flag for practice, 28 car-driver combos have seen the track this morning.

At one point early in the session, Quattro and Meira held P1 and P2 for a few minutes which was nice to see. I'm sure Tex snapped a picture of the scoring tower for future reference.

Scott Sharp and Paul Tracy, my two one-off bets, are running respectively in the top ten early.

As for one-offs, it is safe they say they have the sexiest livery's on pit lane. I mean, it seems every one-off has a refreshing paint scheme to it, and is a nice change from the red and white we are used to seeing.

A bit concerned as to where Will Power and his number 12 car is. He is yet to take to the track this morning.

And as I type, HCN just broke 223.

I'll be back on later for more updates.

34 Confirmed

Once you count 1 Rahal-Letterman car (Servia) and the third KVRT car (Townsend Bell), we've just hit 34 cars confirmed. So we've basically confirmed bumping, unless someone doesn't make it to qualifying due to crash damage or something along those lines.

With Rookie Orientation finishing tomorrow due to the rain, we should see who is here for the full month tomorrow.

So let's recap the confirmed one offs.

• A.J. Foyt IV - A.J. Foyt Enterprises
• Buddy Lazier - Hemelgarn
• Scott Sharp - Panther
• Paul Tracy - KVRT
• Nelson Philippe - HVM
• John Andretti - D&R
• Davey Hamilton - D&R
• Alex Lloyd - Sam Schmidt
• Townsend Bell - KVRT
• Oriol Servia - RLR
• Will Power - Penske

Sure, I threw Will Power in there as a one-off, simply because the kid is in such a difficult position, and he is basically a one-off unless HCN or the Briscoe gets hurt (knock on wood) at some point during the season.

This has to be the most talented one-off fields since the split. You could make a strong argument for atleast 10 of the 11 to have a full time ride in the ICS, and you could pick 3 winners from this group (Power, Tracy and Sharp) and multiple outside bets (Servia, Lloyd, Foyt IV, and Bell). I'd be willing to bet money (with odds of course) that one of the one-offs will win this years version of the 500.

Whatever happens, this years race is shaping up to be quite a doozy. This much talent + the most historic track in the world = A Dream, and we get to live it.

Edit: Jeff over at MyNameIsIRL has informed me that Stanton Barrett's lack of sponsorship might drop him out of 500 contention.

Bartender Rumors #2

Well I went back to the pub last night in hopes that our former IRL team member would be tending the bar again, and well, he definately was. He said he checked out the blog and saw what he told me on the blog and laughed. Anyways, he said he'll keep feeding me the goods as long as I keep leaving him a nice tip, which I think I can do. He also told me he likes seeing his stuff online.

Anyways, I picked up his hours for the next two weeks so I can head in there a few times to get some news. Anyways, here's what he gave me last night.

• Rahal-Letterman Racing would return to Indianapolis this year for sure (confirmed this morning with Servia landing the ride).
• He says Patron is very impressed with Panther Racing level of professionalism. He says Patron has three options for 2010, they will either start their own ICS team, not join, or they will stay on board with Panther. It all depends on what Sharp does this year at Indy, and how much air time they get during the race.
• Takuma Sato is basically guarenteed a ride at Motegi with someone. Honda is already putting together a pit crew of ALMS guys to work on his car that weekend.
• Jacques Lazier is basically set for Indy this year.
• PDM Racing likely won't be at Indy. They were trying to get Jimmy Kite into their car for the second week but they are running out of time fast.
• Rubicon has plans for a second week entry (Conquest's second car) only if Buddy Rice can't find a ride.

So there you go, take it or leave it, but I've got them all written down on this napkin here beside me. I'll head back on friday or saturday, maybe Saturday incase he has some opinions on qualifying.

Feel free to discuss his news in the comments section.

Juuunnnniioooorrrrr

Push-to-Pass tested in Kentucky Derby

I'm not sure how many of you saw the Kentucky Derby yesterday, but it turns out 50-to-1 winner, Mine That Bird, had some help.

Danica Patrick at Mid-Ohio and Snoroma in 2007 tested a new steering rack, basically a Power Steering substitute for the ICS Dallara's in race. This aid helped move her towards the front of the pack on those two road courses while she was usually qualifying mid-pack in 2007 on road and street courses.

For those of you who didn't see the race, the clip is provided below.



Well it turns out, now that the race is completed, Mine That Bird and jockey Calvin Borel were secretely testing out a new Push-to-Pass system for horse racing which provided them with the extra horsepower to pull off the upset.

Much like the Champ Car World Series used, and the IRL uses to a lesser extent and in a different manner, when pushed, the horse is able to use a bit of extra horsepower for about 10 to 15 seconds.

"It's basically like taking a Red Bull in the middle of a race for a horse, without the wings" said an anonymous trainer. "They wanted to make things a little more exciting, and well, I think this system needs a little refinement, but once it's all worked out, it will make horse racing a whole lot more exciting."

It is unclear at this point in time if the system will be implemented on all horses for the Blackberry Preakness Stakes or if it will continue to be worked on in a trial basis.

Over at ChampCarFanatics.com, CCWS loyalists are now claiming that Thoroughbred racing has stolen another one of it's ideas, the same way they believe every single element they had was stolen by another series or league somewhere in the world, much the way F1, and now the Indycar Series has copied the Optional Tires.

The IRL is also doing it's best to get Mine That Bird jockey Calvin Borel into Marty Roth's second entry at the Indianapolis 500 saying "If he can get a 50-1 underdog to win the Kentucky Derby, he should be able to help Marty Roth make the field."

The Other Side - Poll of the Week

Alright, well last week, Poll was all about Will Power and the options Roger Penske had in regards to his signed talent. Well, some of you spoke, and a large group of you thought he would simply run him at Indy while the rest basically though he'd either ship him off to another team or run 3 cars full time.

I guess I was the only one who thought he'd run him until he dropped out of the points race. Oh well, I guess I'm a tad different then the rest of you.

So this weeks question is all about the current 1-off entries. Who will qualify the highest of the current one-offs? Right now we have 8 one-off entries, so scroll down the page a bit and let me know who you think will qualify the highest by voting in the poll, and let me know how high you think they'll qualify in the comments section, I'd like to hear your opinions.

Bartender Rumors

Alright, so due to my lack of TSN2 which doesn't allow me to watch many of the IRL races on television, I hopped into my local bar. No, not to drown my sorrows or to cuss out TSN, I went in to find out what it would take to get the bar to show the Versus races on television for all those in attendence to see. Well, apparently, they show every single ICS race in the bar, because, listen to this, the bartender used to work for "a high ranking IRL team". I spoke with the bartender, and he told me he worked for whichever team he is talking about for about 4 years, and has spent another 7 or 8 years working for lesser teams and in different series. He also told me he worked for a CART team in the late 90's for a bit. He says he stopped working for the IRL team in '06.

Anyways, I'm pretty shocked at all this, considering the obvious random events that have just occured, and I'm a beer or two deep. So anyways, we get to talking Indy and Indycars and racing in general.

Finally, I brought up the blog, and he promised he'd check it out. But he brings up the fact that he still talks to alot of the guys at the old shop via email and such. Right about now, I'm about two hours in at the bar just talking to the bartender, and about 4 or 5 beer deep. All of a sudden, he starts tossin' out these, I don't know what to call them, predictions I guess. He keeps telling me these things are going to come true in the future, but he doesn't exactly have a timeline for them all.

By this point, I'm not really sober. Safe to say a cab was on the way, not one of the ones that fly into fencing either. But some of the things he is saying sound actually possible. Anyways, I did the best I could to remember what he was saying, and wrote a couple things down. So here you go, I am not proclaiming these as fact, just passing along what he shared with me regarding all things IRL. He did give me permission to share these with you folks.

• Dale Coyne has 2 cars entered at the I500, but the second car isn't for Bruno like everyone says. He says a young American will fill the seat.
• He says NHL has a third car ready for Seabass at Indy if he ends up losing his ride with STR in F1.
• Atleast one former CCWS team will not compete after Indy if they don't impress the sponsors.
• Keith Wiggins has found someone with deep pockets to invest in HVM Racing with him.
• Tags will be with Conquest at Indy.

So like I said, I don't know if any of this is true, these are just the lines I'm being fed by the server of alcohol. However, everything he was saying seemed to sound about right and he said he is going to bring me some old swag from his racing days if I drop in on a race day.

Anyways, I've decided to make this bar a permanant fixture on my schedule. Not sure where it will fit in, but I know I have to find out when I'm working so I can get some good stories out of this guy about working in the garages and such.

Oh, and let me know what you guys think about the lines he is feeding me.