Franchitti On Point, Tagliani Surprises

Well, turns out the lack of practice on a green circuit in Sao Paolo, the silly season musical chairs, and the overall talent level of the Izod Indycar drivers has produced some good results for fans during qualifying for the first race of the 2010 season.

After the track grinding was completed overnight, drivers reported no issues with the previously slick Sambodrome section of the track. Warmup was dusty due to the grinding but the end result was qualifying times about 5 seconds faster then practice times yesterday.

Dario Franchitti took the pole for todays race on the streets of Sao Paolo with a time of 1:27:73. Surprisingly, Dario was the only true championship contender from 2009 to make the Firestone Fast 6.

The surprise of the session was Alex Tagliani and his FAZZT Race Team who are participating in their first Izod Indycar race ever. For a team that wasn't even truly formed 5 months ago, they have managed their first front row start and Tagliani has a great opportunity to put his B&W Dallara in victory lane.

Here is what Alex had to say about his teams first Firestone Fast 6.

"This was a huge team effort. Qualifying is just pure speed and the time to show what the Bowers and Wilkins FAZZT Race team is capable of. We came here with confidence but we were a little bit nervous like passing our first exam. We knew we had studied hard and did everything that we had to do but it is when you get to the race track that you can compare your self to others. I think it's a relief now, we broke the ice and we know where we stand. It's a tribute to all of the work that the guys have done. It's not just about building a car to go race, it's about building a team. From last September to now it shows what a good group of people we have built. I want to give a big thank you to the Bowers and Wilkins people who are here at the inaugural event for the IZOD IndyCar Series, what a great result for them! I am hoping we have just as good results for today's race."

Finishing third in qualifying was Justin Wilson in his first race with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Seeing DRR near the front in qualifying is a good sign for the team and puts J-Dub at the front where he belongs.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, also in his first race with a new team will start fourth, right ahead of his teammate and local favorite Tony Kanaan who starts sixth. This could be a sign of the beginning of a resurgence for Andretti Autosport (formerly Andretti-Green Racing) as I cannot recall the last time 2 AGR/AA cars made the Fast 6.

In fifth, Will Power makes his competitive return to American Open-Wheel Racing after his devastating crash with Nelson Philippe at Sonoma in 2009.

Rookies in the field include Takuma Sato at KVRT who starts 10th, Simona de Silvestro at HVM/Team Stargate Worlds who starts 11th, Alex Lloyd at Dale Coyne Racing who starts 15th, Mario Romancini in Conquest Racing's Dallara who starts 20th, and Ana Beatriz in the third Dreyer and Reinbold entry starting 22nd.

With three Ganassi or Penske cars outside of the top five, and other experienced and fast drivers spread throughout the field, it will make for an interesting race with what should probably be a pretty surprising podium.

I'm going to throw it out there, I've got Alex Tagliani as my underdog to take the win, if you can call a second place qualifier an underdog.

However, it will be tough to take the race away from Dario unless he makes a mistake somewhere on the course. He thrives on street circuits and usually doesn't put a wheel wrong.

Make sure you guys tune into Versus in the USA and TSN2 in Canada at 11:30AM EST for the pre-race show with the green flag scheduled to drop at 12:00PM.

It should be an exciting race. It seems as though there are plenty of passing opportunities and drafting opportunities and observers were saying drivers were getting drafts of up to 6 or 7 car lengths to pass during practice.

Make sure you sit down and enjoy the first race of what should be a very exciting 2010 Izod Indycar Series!

Danica Patrick, Danica Patrick, Danica Patrick!

Well, whether you like her or not, you are going to be seeing alot of Danica Patrick over the next few weeks.

If you follow CSI:NY, you'll be seeing Danica playing the role of along side Antonia Sabato Jr. making his first TV appearance since appearing on his own reality TV show My Antonio.

Satabo Jr. will be playing Davi Santos alongside Danica Patrick who will be playing Liza Gray. I guess they will be "Formula car drivers" and will get into a fiery crash while driving an "expedition race" through New York City.

That episode will air February 10th on CBS.

On top of that, some sexy photos of the princess have been leaked ahead of her GoDaddy.com commercial that will air during the Super Bowl on February 7th. Apparently she'll be spoofing various "classics" like Flashdance and Wierd Science.

I haven't seen any of these movies, well I've seen part of Flashdance, but I was watching TV with my mom, and once they started talking about strippers and the language got bad, it got a slightly awkward.

As much as I could live with or without Danica, I realize her value to the IRL and the Izod Indycar Series. Her sex appeal and her uniqueness appeals to the masses. Even though she hasn't been shown on television in 2009 as the face of the IRL, she still is the face of the Izod Indycar Series in the public eye. Seeing her on television, especially networks that don't show IICS races, can only be a good thing. It has the possibility of getting a couple new faces following Danica and following the IICS.

Now, with the Izod sponsorship, I hope they have some pull with NBC and ABC and CBS and FOX to get some Indycar talent onto some of their shows.

Why not have Danica Patrick guest star on Two and a Half Men? She could catch the eye of Charlie Sheens on screen brother, simply for him to find that he can't keep up with the speed at which she lives?

How about getting Tony Kanaan and Hideki Mutoh into an episode of Desperate Housewives? He might not be able to get a girlfriend, but TK can set Hideki up with some one night stands.

What about getting Graham Rahal, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Justin Wilson, Dario Franchitti, Will Power, and Ed Carpenter to join Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in demolishing a house. Then the IRL can donate a few thousand bucks to the family and the new house.

Milka Duno could play a depressed Indycar Driver who needs to be treated by Dr. House.

What about having Graham Rahal making an appearance on the Young & The Restless or having him host SNL? Hell, if Wayne Gretzky could do it, why can't a handsome, articulate Graham Rahal do it?

Point is that seeing these drivers on various network TV shows would help grow the Indycar brand, as well as getting the drivers known to the public. Instead of solely doing it on air, let other people take advantage of the drivers in a way that helps the series grow.

Positive growth of the drivers means a positive growth for the Izod Indycar Series.

The Day Is Here

Boy, the IRL is good at keeping secrets aren't they? I mean todays announcement could be anything from the sale of IMS to the announcement of new cars for the Indycar Series and FIL.

Obviously, if we are told anything except for the title sponsor announcement today when the IRL officials gather at IMS, I think there will be a revolt. Robin Miller, Curt Cavin, and anyone with a brother who has an uncle working on an IRL team somehow has some inside info on the Izod deal worth approximately $10,000,000, of which, will be split among the teams, the series, marketing, and finding Ryan Hunter-Reay a real ride (Hooray!).

This is all good news, and it is pretty obvious it is going to happen today around 2:00pm. I'm hoping, somewhere in there, is a hidden announcement about Brazil. If that happens, I'll fall off my seat and finally breath easily.

So where does RHR land? According to both Cavin and Miller, he will join Tony Kanaan, Danica Patrick, and Marco Andretti at Team Michael Andretti Green Motorsports Racing. Miller says that 7 digits of the Izod title sponsorship is geared towards sponsoring RHR in a real ride (sorry AJ, you just don't count anymore), and Cavin is saying RHR is keeping his mouth shut seeing how he has signed a non-disclosure agreement with whatever team it is.

So, let's look at the big picture here. In 2010, we will have Izod sponsorship for the "Izod Indycar Series". Add to that, that we will most likely see Izod on the car of RHR in 2010 in a major way. We should also see HER Energy in 2010 at NHL Racing with Alex Lloyd behind the wheel. Don't forget about the APEX Brazil money we should see coming into the series if we get a race finally confirmed in Brazil.

All in all, 2010 is shaping up to look alright. I mean, considering most people think the sky is falling, I think we will do alright.

Let Danica Go To Nascab

I know, I ripped into Danica earlier this summer on the blog, and I got a good amount of heat for doing it. People couldn't believe I was ripping a strip off of the IRL's princess, oh well, these things happen. And if I ever feel the need to do it again, I probably will.

However, I will admit one thing, she has done rather well since then, staying in 5th place, even after a bunch of road courses which are her weak point. Even I have to give her credit. Being the best of the rest, atleast in terms of points, is a great accomplishment. Who knows, if she was in a Ganassi or Penske car, she could be near the top of the points standings and battling for a championship with two races to go.

So yes, I just gave her some props for her good runs. Bookmark this posting because it won't happen all that often.

Being an IRL blogger, I'm well aware that she is our biggest ticket in 2009, and probably will be for about 2 or 3 years along as she sticks around for a while. She brings in big ratings, is our biggest known driver, and her car consistently has the highest ROI in the end of season ratings.

If she happened to dissapear from the IRL and Indycar Series, it would hurt. But the latest rumors going around, specificially, Danica sticking with the IRL while doing a few ARCA, Trucker Series, and Busch League races for Tony Stewart's team could turn into a positive overall for the IRL.

Obviously, if she does run a few races in tin tops (which in my opinion, is a terrible career move for her, because she will most likely fail miserably), it most likely points towards her departure for Nascab in 2011 or 2012.

However, any fans she gains over there could follow her over to the Indycar Series race on ABC and Versus. Hell, if she is able to battle for the points title in 2010 in the ICS, as well as run competitively in some tin tops, she might even get some rednecks to tune in for the points race simply to follow her, and to see how Nascab's princess is doing. If these people happen to tune into Chicagoland and see the fabulous 3 wide racing these heroes put on in a few weeks ago, then maybe these Nascrap fans stick around to watch a little more often.

These additional fans might help turn Graham Rahal, Alex Lloyd, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Tomas Scheckter and Ed Carpenter into more mainstream guys. Nascab fans know how to get behind a driver, and maybe they can do the same and teach some ICS fans to do the same.

Overall, Danica going to race in the various Nascrap series basically gives the IRL free advertising with potential for very high return on investment.

Thus, let her race tin tops. Whether she decides to leave full time for the taxi's or not, she will be doing the IRL a favor while trying them out.

I Don't Like Danica Patrick

I went on Twitter today and asked for some advice about what to write. I was told that there is always something new with Danica Patrick, which spurred my creative juices. So I figured, "Hell, I can write a rant about Danica Patrick, and enjoy myself while doing so".

I don't like the fact that Danica gets paraded around as the IRL show girl. Luckily, it has declined a bit this year, but, I still find it terribly annoying that a driver who won 1 race in 5 years (74 starts) is the face of the IRL. Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck with this situation as she is the biggest name we have, since we can't seem to produce stars to carry the series. I guess we need multiple American Women to get even more popularity for our drivers.

The fact that she is creating headlines simply by showing up in Nascab shops is annoying as hell, and the fact she is eating it up in the media by waiting it out until the end of the season to announce her future plans.

I have nothing against women in racing, in fact I think it's a positive to see both men and women competing together, but it bothers me when I see Danica being treated differently then the rest of the boys. She keeps saying she just wants to be one of the boys, and just be another driver, but then she throws herself on the cover of Sports Illustrated in less clothes then Pamela Anderson usually wears.

Problem is, if she leaves, the IRL is relatively screwed. If ratings drop, which they most likely will unfortunately, if she leaves, it will be twice as hard to grow and develop new faces for American fans to grab a hold of as their own. To grow stars, we need people watching when Ryan Hunter-Reay beats the big dogs again and steps on top of the podium, or when Graham Rahal and Justin Wilson battle it out in the late laps in a historic Indycar race. If no one is watching, then no one cares how great these battles and drivers are.

Unfortunately, as much as I dislike Danica, I realize the need we have for her in the league. I guess if people hate Paul Tracy while agreeing he would be an asset, Danica could be put in the same boat unfortunately. Maybe Danica pushes some of the same buttons PT pushes with fans, some people love them, some people don't, but either way, they are both huge news makers when they are driving, or talking about driving, or pushing someone on TV in pitlane.

If Danica leaves, it's a huge blow, but that won't stop me from hating seeing her do well. I guess I know how all these PT hater's feel.

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.

Gotta Feel For Ryan

You know, Ryan Hunter-Reay probably thought he was set for this season once he landed that gig with IZOD over the fall and winter of 08/09. He must had figured he'd be in the Rahal Letterman Racing car, with Ethanol and IZOD sponsoring the car. He would contend for wins on most courses again, pushing the RLR car to the top of the grid.

He was happy at RLR, and RLR was happy with him. Then it all started to unravel.

All of a sudden with the worsening economic condition, RLR loses Ethanol sponsorship, and with the sudden loss, are without a major sponsor for 2009. After looking around, making efforts to sign a new primary sponsor for the car, they are unable to find the funds nessicary to run the full season. Instead of taking lesser funds to run around near the back of the pack, Rahal decides to pull his team for 2009 and tells Ryan to look for another ride.

Right about at this moment, I'm thinking something along the lines of "&$%#" went through RHR's head.

A race winner from 2008 at Watkins Glen, an American, an awesome driver, and the face of the biggest marketing promotion the IRL has ever seen, he was out of a ride for 2009. So, what now?

Tony George, realizing the need to have RHR in the series for 2009, if for only the IZOD campaign, began making some phone calls. All of a sudden, rumors of RHR to HVM Racing start up, and things get serious when HVM announces they are putting Ryan in a car at a Sebring test. Just as that happens, Dale Coyne also jumps into the mix and tries to land RHR for the '09 season. However, when the deadline comes to put a deal together, and either HVM or DCR were unable to do so, Tony George snapped him up and put him in the number 21 car at Vision Racing.

Well, this is a positive for Ryan, as Vision is probably ranked higher then HVM and DCR for most drivers. He is getting a ride in a decent squad with a teammate and some real money behind him. Not only is Ryan happy, but IRL fans are pleased with the inclusion of RHR in the 2009 ICS.

So a week before the season, Ryan is confirmed, and gets fitted for a seat at Vision. All of a sudden, St. Petersburg is upon us, and Mr. Hunter-Reay puts in a performance no one, including himself, expected. Ryan finishes runner up to Ryan Briscoe during his first week in the Vision car, and all of a sudden, expectations for 2009 sky rocket. Ryan Hunter-Reay, whether realistically or not, is not considered a major player for the 2009 championship, and fans of the Indycar Series are thrilled with his result.

But ever since, Ryan has been plagued by less then expected results. A string of races out of the top ten has put Ryan in tenth place, 59 points back of points leader Scott Dixon. A terrible month of May and a rough race at Kansas has put Ryan behind the 8-ball for the '09 season. A promising start has turned into a dissapointing streak of races, and it has continued with another difficult qualifying performance at Texas, where he struggled to out pace Jacques Lazier in the Team 3G machine.

Whether it is the car, the engineering team put around him, or perhaps difficult communication amongst the team, RHR is not where he should be right now. He has to be wondering how he got to this point, when over the winter, he and RLR were considered the next team to jump into the Big 3/4 status.

Unless things change for the better, RHR will be stuck in the mid-to-back of the pack for the rest of '09. And that isn't where this great, young American deserves to be right now.

Being Ed Carpenter's Teammate...

Is not a good idea, not the last couple of years anyways at Indy.

It's safe to say A.J. Foyt IV begged Facebook.com to let him start the fan page for Not Being On Fire after being set on fire twice during the Month of May, once during a crash, and once during a refuelling accident in pit lane. Then once he got to the race, he had a forgettable one, finishing 21st, 20 laps down, the last of any cars running at the finish. Safe to say he would had liked to had been elsewhere last year, probably somewhere he couldn't catch fire.

And now this year, Ed Carpenter's new teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, who has started the season strong with a second place finish in the season opener and a decent result at LB, gets the distinction of being the first driver to hit the wall during the Month of May. Ryan lost the back end at speed coming out of turn 2. These things happen, but when interviewed afterwards, his body language spelt p-i-s-s-e-d o-f-f! He says something broke in the back right which caused him to go around. Not the best way to start the month.

Now there is plenty of time for Ryan Hunter-Reay to turn his luck around, but as of now, Ed Carpenter seems to be his teammates Kryptonite of late. Maybe Davey Hamilton knew something when he took his sponsorship to Dreyer & Reinbold this year.

Happy Anniversary AOWR

Well, it's been about a year now since the shizz went down. About a year ago, it was announced the CCWS would more or less fold into the IRL and they would become one. Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven sat down in front of 20 or 30 CCWS/IRL drivers and made the announcement live on SPEED TV (probably their last meaningful coverage of AOWR at its highest level). The mood was high that day, as enthusiasm for a new era began and things started happening very quickly. Decisions had to be made quickly in regards to the schedules, cars had to be delivered from IRL shops to CCWS shops, and personnel had to learn new cars as well as crack out some new sponsorship dollars.

Everyone seemed content to put in the extra hours between getting things organized and making things happen because it was a major step forward for the Indy Racing League and AOWR in general. Fans were getting more excited about the prospects of one series and the competition and talent in that series would be stronger then ever.

The season went off without too many issues (a couple occasions CCWS cars couldn't race due to practice/qualifying practice, or the lack of a race-worthy car). Hell, even a couple of wins by NHL showed that the CCWS teams could be competitive in this new environment, atleast on road and street circuits to begin with. Even by the end of the year, the competition had leveled out as many CCWS teams were competiting for top 10 positions at the finale.

Now with a full off-season to do some aero work and run some more oval tests, the former Champ Car teams are now in a position to compete full-time, and they will be expected to compete for the entire year. These teams have seen a lot of cars the last few years. Hell, the last three seasons have seen 3 different cars (2006 Lola, 2007 DP01, 2008 Dallara). If anything, the CC guys should be able to figure out new cars better then the IRL teams simply due to experience. This season will prove a better example of the depth of the field in the ICS with the so-called Big 3 maybe expanding to the Big 4 with NHLR looking strong in pre-season.

Even with the bad luck timing of the world-wide economic downturn, the ICS still looks like it will be in a good position this year. Indycars provide a better bang-for-your-buck then Nascrap and seem to have weathered the downturn better then the taxi's have. The IRL fields look to be a consistent 23 or 24 cars throughout the season, possibly (I doubt it, but I'm trying to be positive here) hitting 26 at certain times of the stars line up just right. We had 21 at the off-season test, and we can probably add a car for DCR. Add in what seems like a good bet of RHR at HVM and Tomas Scheckter landing somewhere since he has a bit of cash lying around and we are at 24. Now if the stars line up and Conquest manages to get 2 cars for the full season and KVRT or Vision find the money to run PT or Foyt IV then we are at 26 cars.

But what I'm really looking forward to is the second anniversary of the unifibilesbianficationmerger. Many economists are looking at the US economy rebounding in late 2009, so we will start to see more sponsorship money available for motorsports and hopefully the IRL can take advantage of that if things go well through this season and attendance numbers stay up and TV viewership grows a bit. We could use a good year out of the I500, TV-numbers wise so we could use that to sell 2010 sponsorship. Maybe get Michael Andretti back into a car again. Seeing Michael contend again might up the number of viewers up a bit. Anything to help the 2010 sponsorship season would be needed to keep the momentum going forwards.

If we can push forward, we can hopefully see some of these 1 car teams move back to 2 car teams in 2010 and make a push for more paid-drivers and hopefully see some of the old teams like Fernandez come back and RLR return. There are even some rumors of de Ferran Motorsports being interested in the IRL down the road.

Anyways, things are looking up for Open-Wheel in general and we should be happy because everyone of us are along for the ride. We all get to be a part of the growth of AOWR in North America. It will continue growing as it does, each of us will be as proud as the driver, team owners and management of the IRL.

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.

Shamrock Racing Announces It Two Drivers for the 2009 Season

Thank you very much for being here everyone on such short notice. This announcement came together quickly once this sponsorship deal was put agreed upon. In this tough economic time, we are happy to have Happy Go Lucky Shamrocks on our sidepods for the 2009 season in time to compete with the top teams in the IRL.

Now I'd like to introduce to you our newly formed lineup. Both drivers will be driving our new Honda powered Dallaras.

Please welcome Justin Wilson and Ryan Hunter-Reay to the Shamrock Racing.

Obviously by now, you know this is a fake press release. RHR and JDub would love to see a Shamrock Racing become a reality so they could have a ride in '09. If I had found a sponsor to go racing it would had been done by now. Actually, that might be a story for another time, when I was in discussions to start up a new Champ Car team with a strong backer (now that I think of it, I will probably go take a look to see if I have the paint scheme renderings on the computer downstairs still). Anyways, back to the topic at hand.

This entry is in response to the UOWWB Question of the Week. If you aren't aware of the question, it asks which 2 unemployed IRL drivers would you employ for your raceteam. Since Paul Tracy wasn't included in the list, I chose Justin Wilson and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Personally, I feel these are two of the most talented drivers without a ride in '09, with maybe only Servia competing for that second spot with RHR. I think between RHR and JW, they would cover both the strengths of the Oval and the Streets and Road Courses of the IRL. RHR would be the team leader on ovals, while Wilson would take control on the twisties.

I also think that both these men are the easiest to sell to sponsors as drivers. RHR is a pure-bred American with a good attitude. He probably brings a little bit of money with him from iZod as well. Justin sold shares of himself to try and get into F1, and after that, CCWS. I'm not sure how many of you got to know him last year, but he has an awesome personality to match his driving skills.

And I think the main reason I'd choose these guys, asides from their talent, is they are some of the hardest workers in AOWR, and they should not be out of a ride in the first place. It's unfortunate the way things went down, but someone has to throw them a rope. Both these guys have been kicked while they were down, and it seems this will happen again if no one steps up and helps them out.

I think these two gentlemen would give Shamrock Racing a fighting chance at podiums and the odd win with their diverse skills on Ovals and right hand turns. They have the skill, the drive, and the speed to drive with the best of them, and they'll put butts in the seats for the IRL.