What Didn't Chicagoland Have?

Well, last night I got to watch the Chicagoland Izod Indycar Series race from start to finish, and was I ever lucky I had an empty schedule for it. For the first time in a while, I did not have to work, play, drive, sleep, or anything of that nature that would make me miss part or all of a race.

I am not one to really enjoy the "foot to the floor" ovals as I feel they don't really take a whole lot of talent to drive, but one thing I will say is that they take balls (you girls have them too Sarah, Simona, Ana, Danica, and even Milka). That racing was definitely some of the closest we've seen all season, and I'd venture some of the closest of the last 3 or so years at Chicagoland. The number of cars on track was great to see and provided alot of excitement for the fans. A crowded track makes for a good oval race, and hopefully the people in charge will drop these silly regulations that only allow "x" amount of cars on tracks. Instead of simply changing them when more cars show up, just demolish the regulations instead, and avoid tracks that are short on pit stalls.

Chicagoland had the drama and storylines to go with the close competition. Will Power's lack of fuel (DOH!) and the point race tightening was definitely the main storyline of the final 20 laps or so, but what about Sarah Fisher running up front and getting Dollar General some good air time? How about seeing Marco Andretti smile for once after running a strong 3rd place finish after 200 good laps of racing? How about finding out Will Power can actually run ovals? Or what of KV Racing knocking 2/3 of their own team out of the race in the pits? Graham Rahal running top ten all day in his first 1.5 mile track since last season? Dan Wheldon putting the National Guard car on display in second place?

If you did not catch the race last night, you missed probably one of the most exciting races this season, and Kentucky seems to look about the same as 26 cars are looking to take the grid there.

I guess the only thing Chicagoland didn't have last night was, well, fans...

Bartender Rumors #6

I headed down to the bar tonight for a pint and a chat. Figured after a nice long weekend, drinking on a tuesday would be a positive. Turns out I was too early for our favorite bartender, so I had to sit around an hour or so, gave me time to enjoy beer.

Anyways, when he did show up, he was lively and entertaining. I had shown up with a few questions in hand from some tweeps on Twitter. I got those questions answered and got a couple other tidbits for your enjoyment.

@indy44 wanted to know what the bartender thought about his theory in regards to the 2009/2010 silly season. "Dixon to De Ferran, Danica to Ganassi & AGR running 2 car team with TK and Marco".

• He's not totally sure what is happening. Dixon all depends on the contract option, which no one seems to know if it is Dixon's option to return to TCGR in 2010, or Ganassi's option on Dixon for 2010. He says if Dixon can get out of the contract in 2010, Scott will be at De Ferran Motorsports asap. He says AGR runs three cars for Danica, Marco, and TK.

@PlanetIRLdotcom asked about where Dan Wheldon would end up in 2010.

• He said he had heard a possibility where Wheldon ends up at De Ferran Motorsports to team with Simon Pagenaud, but it is nothing substantial right now. Dan wants to go back to AGR, but they don't have an interest in him apparently. Dan will have to wait and see how the cookie crumbles.

For future reference, I will always post on my twitter page within a day of when I head to the bar, so if you have questions for him, just tweet me.

He also had this to say.

• He still expects Takuma Sato to be in a car at Homestead. Apparently Honda didn't want to break him in on ovals in front of his home crowd in case he had a bad outing.
• He said AGR is the only good team that wants to put up with Danica running both Nascab and ICS.
• He says to expect big things from HVM in 2010. Doornbos signed on with them for the rest of 2009 and all of 2010 because he was promised big improvements from his funding for the HVM Dallara's.
• J.R. Hildebrand to Panther? Jonathan Bomarito to Coyne?

That's all for tonight, I'll be visiting him on Friday night after the local Ribfest. Should be a good night, and I'll have something for you guys on saturday or sunday.

Back in 10...

Im sorry for those of you who actually follow the site regularily, but I'll be out of commission for a bit. I'm heading off for a lacrosse trip for 10 days or so.

I'll be doing my best to run into Darren Manning and Wheldon and Wilson and Conway as I'll be in Manchester, England for the trip. We'll be playing a few games and heading to London and a few other locations for tours and such.

Anyways, I don't know if you can do without my writing for a while, if you're having trouble, check out my fellow bloggers for the time I'm away. I'm sure they will be covering the fun stuff like Helio's trial, a Barber open-test (which is diminishing in cars by the day), and the fancy new website they are launching on the 24th (which is a special day I won't be around for... special for another reason...), and hopefully some driver announcements.

Anyways, wish me luck, I'll try to throw something up if I find the time, if not, talk to you in about 10 days.

Homestead and Versus

Well, day one of the Homestead Open Test for the ICS teams is in the books. The usual contenders were up front, with a few surprises. The test was led by Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe, and Dario Franchitti. Now the surprises start. Mario Moraes pulled a rabbit out of his ass and grabbed 4th overall for the day, followed by Power in his new ride, Andretti, and a good day from Robert Doornbos in the "Bobby D" sponsored car. Briscoe (setting up Power's car), Kanaan and Rahal round out the top 10. Stanton Barrett brought up the back end.

Seemed like Goodyear tire test as more then a few tires went flat, but I don't believe any incidents occured. All the ICS cars remained intact (there was atleast one crash from the FIL guys) which is good news since some of the teams don't need the crash damage this early.

NHL Racing put alot of miles on their cars today between Rahal, Doornbos, and "test driver" Milka Duno. Each car had more then 130 laps. Not sure if you have heard yet, but Milka at NHL is now the worst kept secret in the IRL, actually all of motorsports. Milka told the media to expect something next week.

After the testing was completed, on the sole camera set up at the test, you could see a group of cars led by Ed Carpenter circling the track at half or 3/4 speed. Carpenter was followed by the Versus liveried car of AJ Foyt IV. Don't get your hopes up for a Versus sponsored car at Vision (I'll talk about that in a paragraph or so), as this group circling the track was for a Versus promotional shoot. A chase car could be seen following the cars filming.

It seemed like a pretty positive day for the ICS teams, and today will see atleast one new car on track as Dan Wheldon makes his first appearance at the test with Panther after a National Guard promotion (I wonder what the soldiers thought of Dan and his pretty shoes) on tuesday. I still can't see how they can carry a foreign driver in a US National Guard sponsored car.

Anyways, back to the Versus car. If they really wanted to try and gain some viewership, Versus should sponsor AJ Foyt IV for 5 races, specifially Indy, Milwaukee, Iowa, Watkins Glen and Toronto. Why these 5 races? These are the 5 ABC races that will most likely get a larger viewing audience then any Versus race. On top of that, they don't need to advertise to people who are already watching a race on their own channel. Sure, it would stir up a bit of controversy, but it would boost the car counts up a little bit and you know that Vision is going to run atleast 2 cars in the I500, so why not make one of them a Versus car?