Exciting is in the eye of the beholder

First of all, after my lack of posting for a while, I must apologize. I've been relatively busy and this blog was shoved to the back burner, and for that I'm sorry. I know there are a few people that regularily read this blog and hopefully it wasn't too much for you to have to do without for a while.

Next thing on my to do list is to congratulate Dario Franchitti on a strong run to the 2009 IRL Indycar Championship. Dario was consistently fast and made the fewest mistakes of all the championship contenders, and subsequently won the championship because of it. Of course, there was some luck sprinkled in there at times (ie: the finale at Homestead).

Many of the forums I've visited the last few days seem to have arguments regarding the excitement level of the finale. I've seen posters saying this race was on par with the '09 Richmond debacle while some posters talk about the race being one of the more exciting races of the year for various reasons.

First of all, I think that if you are one of the people upset that most of the field was one or two laps down by about midway through the race, maybe Nascab is better for you? I mean, Nascab is the series that throws debris cautions to keep a number of cars on the lead lap. They are the series that pushes pack racing down our throats (and I know, we had Chicagoland, but I don't think that pack racing was the planned).

At Homestead, we saw the three fastest cars on the track show in a class of their own. They were the best on saturday, and they deserved to be that far ahead of the rest of the field. Look at any of the Indianapolis 500's from 1980 to 1990. They had a large number of cars laps down at the finish, hell in 1984, Rick Mears put the rest of the field 2 laps down on his way to the victory.

Briscoe and Dixon battled for the lead most of the race, with the 2 points for the most laps led a very important factor in determining the championship winner. I'm not sure if you noticed how loose Briscoe was running, he was all over the track. Any lap he could had lost it, and thrown the championship away. But, I was on the edge of my bed (yea, I couldnt watch the race live, because I'm Canadian, and I lost the online feed with about 40 laps to go... But I did get to see the end of the race on tape delay) hoping Briscoe wouldn't lose the little bit of grip he had.

And watching the battle for the lead was fun to watch, any given lap for a while, Dixon or Briscoe would pull ahead. Drafting down both straights and pulling alongside in the corners side by side, with the cars dancing around underneath them. Then knowing Dario was there if anyone made a mistake.

Versus did an awesome job of showing the battle for the championship and playing it up very well. I know listening to the race later on that night I was still excited even though I knew who won the race already. They played up the fuel mileage on Dario's part vs. Briscoe and Dixon running full out very well. Seeing which strategy would end up on the top step of the podium and with the winner's trophy in hand was fun to see play out.

Dario was a deserving winner and definately deserved the championship, as did the other two candidates. But knowing Dario ended up with the title keeps a smile on my face and is a very good story heading into 2010.

Conquest Confirms 3 More Races

With Alex Tagliani leaving Conquest, effective immediately according to his column for RDS in Canada, Conquest have landed a couple of other drivers to fill their driver line up for the rest of the year.

Nelson Philippe will compete for Conquest at the snoozer called Sonoma and the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Sonoma will be the first race Nelson has competed since Indy where he finished 25th for HVM Racing alongside E.J. Viso, and it will be his first road course race in a Dallara. This will be Nelson's third stint with Conquest after about 1 1/2 seasons with the team in the Champ Car World Series. It's unknown at the moment if Nelson is bringing his "i drive green" sponsorship (if there was even any money involved in this sponsorship) with him to Conquest.

And 2004 ICS Rookie of the Year and Indianapolis 500 ROTY Kosuke Matsuura will run for Conquest in Japan at the Motegi track Jack Arute so elegently describes as an egg. Matsuura is a veteran of 64 ICS races. He is the second Japanese driver entered into the Motegi event alongside Roger Yasukawa with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing.

The car count for Motegi actually looks pretty good for an overseas race. Looks like we'll have atleast 21 for the race, and if you still believe Takuma Sato will run the race with someone, it would make three Japanese drivers in the race, which would tie the most ever Japanese drivers in a CART or IRL race at Motegi.

It's good to see Conquest getting a couple more races in, but it's too bad it can't be full time from here on out. They seemed to have something set up for 2010 though according to Tags, but it involved multiple drivers. We'll see what happens.

Tags is another question mark for 2010. He seemed pretty confident that he would have a full time ride in 2010, and he mentioned his strong runs at Indy and Toronto opened some doors for him. Maybe AGR wants him to help set cars up for their younger guys? He can be quick, but he really has a knack for setting cars up. It's what he was known for in CCWS and CART, and Conquest raved over how much they learned from Tags running their car.

By the way, Homestead should be a nice turn out for cars. I'm counting 25 or 26 right now if Vitor is able to get back in the car in time.

Editor's Note: Nelson Philippe will be carrying the "i drive green" colors for Conquest as per Racer.com.