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.

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.

HVM Hurtin'

Now, at the beginning of the year, I figured HVM was pretty well off. Sure they were a one-car team, but they were a one car team with some dough behind them. PVDSA has been funding E.J Viso's Indycar career for '08 and '09, but this year, with the added engine bill ontop of everything they had last year, there seems to be a bit more of a budget crunch.

Before the first race of the year, there were whispers HVM was hurting for some coin. Mike King said they were going to have difficulty answering the bell and making it through the season. Well, so far, he has an average finish of just over 20th, and 2 of them have been mechanical failures, which can sometimes have connections to the lack of money (teams trying to make things last, not buying the best parts etc...).

How we are coming up on the month of May, and while HVM might be expanding it's team to two cars for the I500, it isn't expanding the amount of chassis' it has kickin' around. According to Is It May Yet (who seems absolutely giddy that it's that time of the year), the addition of Nelson Philippe to the HVM stable has come at the expense of Monsieur Viso's 13 T-car. HVM will instead run solely cars 13 and 31 with no T-cars entered for the race.

Well I'm sorry, but running through the month of May with two cars, hoping neither crashes, well... You'd better be liked by the big guy in the sky, especially if you consider who the driver of the #13 car is. You'd have to assume HVM is making some money off of this endeavor to help fund the rest of Viso's season, otherwise this risk would seem almost stupid. I mean it's nice to get two cars out of them for May, and it's nice to see Nelson Philippe out there, this time in an IRL sanctioned race, but come on, there must be another reason they are doing it, and I'm guessing it's money.

So I guess the rumors at the beginning of the season were true regarding HVM's money, or lack there of, and with a string of ovals coming up, this is where we'll see that lack of money hurt the most. Hopefully they can come out it relatively well at Indy and Mr. Excitement can provide some excitement for us all.

Barber Outlook

March 21st until March 23rd, the IRL will be holding testing for both the ICS and FIL series at Barber Motorsports Park. The FIL cars will be on track on the 21st for 7 hours while the ICS cars will take to the track for 14 hours on the course over the last two days.

The Homestead test in February brought 21 ICS entries to the track for testing. That number seems to be the low end opinion for the car count in 2009. However, I think we'll get a better feeling regarding the car count and the location of each of the free agent drivers once we see who shows up with who at Barber.

Expected cars are all those that tested at the Homestead test plus a second HVM car for Ryan Hunter-Reay. Things look like they are falling into place for RHR to land with his former team back in the CART days.

So, unofficially we are looking at a minimum of 22 entries for the test most likely.

2 Penske
2 TCGR
4 AGR
3 NHLR
2 HVM
1 KVRT
1 Panther
1 D&R
1 Foyt
1 Vision
1 Luczo Dragon
1 Dale Coyne
1 Conquest
1 3G/Beck

Now, this Conquest entry is not a guarentee due to their struggles finding money, but I would put my money on them making the trip with atleast one car. Eric Bachelart has found ways to run cars on shoe string budgets, and usually once all hope dies, he finds a way to make something work.

Now, the fun part about this test is trying to figure out who will show up for the test that wasn't previously around. Rumours are swirling around about 2 cars at various outfits. Let's do a run down of the 1-car teams and who might move to 2 cars for the test and/or the season.

KVRT - Jimmy Vasser has been quoted as saying they hope to have 2 cars from Indy on. So, it seems like they will be at one car to start the season.

Panther - No news regarding a second car to supplement Wheldon. Rumours of a second car over the off-season never came to be, atleast it seems that way.

D&R - Dreyer & Reinbold is much like Conquest where they seem to be able to put deals together to get cars on the track. Nothing has come out in rumors asides from the Wilson to D&R whispers earlier this off-season, but they seem to be quelled now that he is at DCR. They could surprise us with a second car at the test.

Foyt - Don't expect anything more then Meira out of Foyt until the 500, unless they have found some money to run IV but that is unlikely.

Vision - Tony George seems adament he isn't spending the money for a second car. Unfortunately it looks like he isn't going to give in, and will only run one car. IV will not be in the car at Barber.

Luczo Dragon - They are set as a one car team for 2009.

Dale Coyne - Dale Coyne has run 2 cars as far back as I can remember, mind you that isn't all that far back for some reason. But with rumours that he offered a second seat to Paul Tracy in front of Bruno Junqueira, you would think he is planning to run a second car. They could show up at Barber with two cars, without having to worry about heavy crash damage to a car like they did at Homestead.

Conquest - Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like they have found any money between the Homestead test and now. Hopefully they have and kept it on the downlow, but hope for 1 car from them. Eric Bachelart will probably find a way to get there.

3G/Beck - Unless something dramatic happened for the team, they will be a one car team for 2009, and expect Stanton Barrett to continue his ICS training at Barber.

Now, the other possibility we are looking at is Rubicon Racing. They are rumoured to have $6.5 million in sponsorship, and are looking at running Buddy Rice for '09. But the longer they wait to announce something, the longer I doubt they are actually going to make the grid this year. And you'd think they'd want to make it to a test if they are going to run a full season. We also have to look for Tomas Scheckter to land somewhere with his $2-3 million, Vision maybe?

Whatever way you look at it, the field looks deep with atleast 22 cars ready to hit the test at Barber and ready to hit the grid at St. Pete in about 3 weeks. Out of all the cars headed to the test, I expect atleast 21 of them to make the grid, plus atleast one more car to enter the competition. 22 cars in this economy seems like a pretty good number. Especially since the number of cars seems poised to grow after the I500, we seem to be in a good situation for the full season despite what some others are saying.

As a side note, the Sebring 12 hours (ALMS) is running this weekend, and in particular, Franchitti and Dixon are running for Acura with Patron and de Ferran respectively in their LMP1 cars. This leaves me wondering if Ganassi will run 2 cars at the Barber test on the first day, or if they will run 1 car with Alex Lloyd or no cars since the 12 hours ends at 10:30 on Sunday, the first day of the Barber test. Maybe they will use this chance to run Lloyd and another Lights driver to gain the bonus testing miles.

BTW, The Other Side Blog is closing in the next 19 hours, so make sure you drop off your vote for this years biggest storyline.

HVM Preparing Their Excuses Early This Year

It seems like HVM has found some associate sponsorship for Ernesto Viso's car the 2009 sponsorship. Looking at the picture on the IRL homepage that goes along with the Lucky 13? article, it seems they have Nestle and some other company I can't figure out along for the ride for 2009. That is good news for a smaller team. Hopefully some of that sponsorship can help turn RHR nosing around for a ride into RHR nosing around for wins in a second HVM car. There is some history between HVM and RHR as iZod boy ran for HVM (then known as Herdez Competition) in Champ Car in 2004, winning at Milwaukee.

In other news, in an attempt to think up excuses for Viso's accidents as a result of his aggessive driving style, HVM and EJ in particular have come up with an ingenious idea, let's change the car number to 13! EJ discusses his decision at Indycar.com.

And in a news release next week, HVM will announce their associations with Werner Ladder Company and the American Mirror Company. All pre-race interviews will be conducted under a ladder, and to prove how not supersticious Ernesto is, he will break a minimum of 1 mirror each qualifying day.

And at the end of the year, when things go poorly, Keith Wiggins and EJ can blame it all on the bad luck they've had due to their various associations and sponsorships, and they will switch to lucky number 07 for the 2010 schedule.