The Other Side Poll - 2009 I500 Starters

I posted the question to my loyal yet vote lacking readers. Thanks to those of you who voted. I'd like to try and get some more votes to make these a little more interesting.

How Many Cars Will Attempt To Qualify For The 2009 Indy
500?

Those of you that voted, many of you voted for either 36 or 38 cars to visit on qualifying day. Obviously this poll has as much importance as a tit on a nun, but it is still interesting to see what you guys are thinking. It's odd because 2008 saw 37 cars attempt to run in the only 500 on the schedule. So maybe you are following the post-bimergification trend and going with that number, or your simply pulling a number out of your rear end, but either way, this number sounds about right.

There will be about 23 or 24 cars on the starting grid in 2009 for the average ICS race, with 26 last year the norm. So we could probably say there will be one or two less cars attempt to qualify. Makes sense, but we could also see some more one-car entries with the larger interest post-merger. It's really a gamble on guessing the exact number.

Anyways, I'll guarentee we see more then 33 cars attempt to qualify which is what matters.

Anyways, the question for this week (if you care) is as follows.

Who will be the top non-Big 3 team in 2009?

Hopefully you guys throw up your opinions in the comments section as well as on the actual poll.

One KVRT Car, Until 500 Anyways

Well, according to the article on Indycar.com it sounds like KVRT is starting the year with one car.

"He's still young and learning a lot, but we were impressed with him last year,"
said Vasser, who is hopeful that he and co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven will assemble to funding to add a second car to the grid starting with the 93rd Indianapolis 500. "When you can be on par with or quicker than Bruno Junqueira on a road course, that's saying something. And he was really getting racy on the last few ovals and he's still on a steep learning curve. He's doing a great job."

So I guess we can count on one car from them for sure for the first three races, and hope that they get either PT or Servia (or another ride buyer) into the second car from Indy on. Maybe they are hoping their second car wins the 500 so they can use that money to run 2 cars the rest of the year?

I am still in awe of how Kalkhoven can run only one car when he is a friggen billionaire. I guess he and Tony could team up and run a team, then we'd have two rich guys run a car each, and they would still never win.

I Just Watched Driven...

Over the christmas break, while I was shopping for my girlfriend, I saw Driven on sale for 4 dollars. I had never seen it, and I had heard bad things, but I figured it was an important film to watch for an AOWR fan.

I was wrong. It's just not good at all. It's horrible actually.

Everything from the terrible politics of a race team to the horrific crash scenes on tracks. And any CART fan from back in the day, and even some common viewers could tell that one race would feature scenes from multiple different tracks. There were patches of grass at the Toronto Molson Indy, seriously. I even noticed while they were racing around the German ROAD COURSE, that they were on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. If your wondering why I threw Road Course in caps, it is because Germany was an oval (unfortunately, the oval where Alex Zanardi had his accident).

Anyways, don't waste your time with this masterpiece of shit. It's terrible. Even Sly admitted this was a waste of his time. And I wish I could attribute some of CART's downfall to this movie, actually if you really wanted to, you probably can. I mean, it would had turned me off AOWR if I had seen it.

Anyways, a side note, this movie cost $72 million US to make, and grossed $36 million US. Maybe that is where CART's money went (just kidding, it was an independant film, and CART actually made money off it).

You'd think after spending $72 Million they'd probably have some better graphics, but the terrible crash scenes actually look like Playstation 1 images from the old CART game.

Anyways, don't waste your time, and go out and get Grand Prix if you are in need of a racing fix. Hell, too bad someone can't do a film like that these days about 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.

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?

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.