Toronto Race Review

Well, I didn't get to catch the race live, but, thanks to the channel I moaned and groaned about not getting, which made many IRL races unavailable to me, I was able to watch most of the replayed race as soon as I got out from my lacrosse game.

And thank the Lord I was able to see most of it. I'm a road/street course fan, and I make no secret of that amongst many oval enthusiasts who read this blog. But even at the beginning of the season, I would had told you that atleast one of the two most exciting and best races this year would be an oval.

Now, I haven't seen every race myself, but, so far, among all the races I've seen, Watkins Glen and Toronto are both at the top of the list (Iowa is a close third). These races included passing! What a novel concept, one car going past another, for position, out side of the pits. There has been drama at both races, racers have put on some great driving, decent car counts, and no sense of knowing who would win.

Of course, Toronto, being my home track and seeing two Canadians running 1-2 part way through the race, it was special. And seeing PT picking off car after car at turn 3 was priceless. It's too bad Helio and PT got together, because they were both having a good run. I don't think there is anyone to blame, but Helio should had known PT wasn't going to give Helio the spot. PT isn't racing for points or a championship, he was racing for a win. I recall PT running down the inside of Bourdais at Denver in '06 with the same mentality.

And what a treat to see Tags run up front most of the race. You've got to feel good about seeing Alex Tagliani and Eric Bachelart having a good day. They scrapped everything they had together just to get out to the track for Toronto and Edmonton, and they are probably done after that. Hopefully they can have another good run and woo some sponsors for 2010. Only bad part about today was Tags taking out Scheckter on a dumb move. It sure did get Mona-Vie some airtime though.

Anyone have any objection to calling turn 3 in Toronto one of the most exciting right turns of the circuit? Did you see Dixon pass Wilson on the outside of turn 3? That takes balls to put your car out that close to the wall on the exit of turn 3.

Big day for Ryan Hunter-Reay who finally got a full race under his belt and came home with a 7th place finish. I'm sure that 7th place feels like a win after all he has been through this year.

At the end of the day though, I'm happy with the way things shaped up. Sure, the top five included 4 Penske and TCGR cars, and there was no PT or Tags involved in the podium ceremony, but, one of those Penske's was Will Power, and it was nice to see him run well. Also, seeing "Bad Ass" Justin Wilson run in the top 5 again was wonderful. DCR was running some Canadian sponsorship this weekend as well, with Leon's on both wings.

I enjoyed the race, and it seemed like a pretty good crowd was on hand, you could tell from all the boo's Helio got after the Tracy incident. But, it felt good to have the race back in Toronto and seeing the Indycars running down Lake Shore Boulevard again. I might had missed it this year, but I made a promise to my girlfriend that we'd do our best to keep next year's race weekend open so we could make it out there. I can't wait.

Scheckter to Quit Racing, Become Monavie Salesman

Sources at The Other Side have learned that Tomas Scheckter's big announcement tomorrow is in fact not what people are expecting.

People around the country are waiting on Tomas to announce either his part time or full time entry into the Indycar Series for the rest of 2009 with either Dreyer & Reinbold Racing or Dale Coyne Racing. However, we have learned that Mr. Scheckter will do just the opposite.

"He's done, he has found a new passion and we can't figure out why" said a source who asked to remain anonymous since nothing has been announced yet. "It is like that Monavie stuff has brainwashed him. He went into a meeting with the founder of Monavie with a Monavie Gel in hand, and walked out of the meeting a different person."

Tomorrow, Tomas will announce that he is taking a short hiatus from racing to pursue his new goal, being the top Monavie Salesman in North America (excluding Texas and the province of Quebec).

Apparently, part of his deal to run the Indianapolis 500 included him becoming a key distributor and salesman of Monavie products. As you can see above, Tomas was a walking billboard for the start up company during the last week of May as he pushed Monavie on everyone.

Further evidence of his decision to leave racing for the foreseeable future hit Twitter earlier today as Tomas was advertising job openings in his distribution team through tweets.

Email me at tomasenergy@googlemail.com if you interested in been part of my
monavie distribution team !!!!!!

Obviously, this story will not be confirmed until the press conference tomorrow at Texas Motor Speedway, but we this is all but confirmed. Also, rumored that Eddie Cheever will be joining this new distribution team as Scheckter's right-hand man.