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.