Tag third, Hinch 14th for Detroit Grand Prix

For the first time this IZOD IndyCar Series season, James Hinchcliffe of Oakville did not make it into final Fast Six qualifying for a road or street course race and, as a result, will start Sunday’s Detroit Grand Prix in 14^th place.

But Montreal’s Alex Tagliani had his best qualifying attempt of the 2012 season when he finished third in Saturday time trials behind pole winner Scott Dixon and second-fastest Will Power.

Dixon, of course, drives for powerhouse Target Chip Ganassi Racing while Power leads the Team Penske contingent. Tagliani drives for the lesser-funded Bryan Herta Motorsport and is finally coming into his own with Honda power after having started the season stuck with the under-perfoming Lotus engine.

Andretti Autosport driver Hinchcliffe, who will enter the race tied with Helio Castroneves for second in the standings behind Power, was disappointed with his performance. He brushed the wall in the final corner on his second lap of the first round of qualifying and the car didn’t work as well afterward.

"I did the exact same thing at St. Peterburg and the car was okay there but this damaged the left rear. It was an easy fix, and the guys were able to fix it, so we would have been ready to go back out in the next round.

"With 60 seconds to go, our first lap was still in the top six but we just got bumped at the end. We should have been there (in the Fast Six) with Ryan (Hunter-Reay, his teammate, who qualified sixth).

Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti will go off 15^th, one position behind Hinchcliffe.

The lone woman in the field, Simona De Silvestro, who is the last remaining Lotus driver in the series, will start 22^nd in the 25-car field.

The series has lost a car since Indianapolis. Dragon Racing, which employs Katherine Legge and Sebastien Bourdais, went to court to get out of its Lotus contract and got Chevrolet engines for Indy.

But following the race, Chevrolet said it could only supply the team with engines for one car through the end of the season so the drivers are alternating, with Legge concentrating on the ovals and Bourdais the street and road courses.

Bourdais qualified 10^th on Saturday.

Other racing:

– For the second Indy Lights race in a row, David Ostella of Maple crashed out of the contest early. He finished 13^th and last at Belle Isle Saturday after qualifying eighth.

– Mark Martin won the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover, Del. It was his third pole of the season and the fifth he’s won at Dover. Jimmie Johnson will start beside him on the front row, with Ryan Newman third, Clint Bowyer fourth and Matt Kenseth fifth.

Kurt Busch once again got into it with a reporter after the race. After watching Busch exchange words with another driver on pit road after the race, and after he (Busch) brought up the subject of probation, a writer asked him if he was racing as hard as he could, considering he was on probation, and Busch replied:

"(Probation) refrains me from not beating the shit out of you right now, because you ask me stupid questions."

Kurt Busch is a professional entertainer and sportsman who should know by now that there are no stupid questions. He obviously can’t stand the heat so it’s time for him to get out of the kitchen.

– Joey Logano won the Nationwide Series race at Dover, with Ryan Truex Jr. second and Brian Scott third. Sam Hornish and Danica Patrick had another run-in, this time with Hornish putting her into the wall.

Logano is dominating the Nationwide Series this season but is in danger of losing his ride in the Sprint Cup because of poor results.

– Rain curtailed qualifying at Circuit ICAR for the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race on Sunday so owner points determined the lineup with Scott Steckly starting on pole, with D.J. Kennington right beside him. J.R. Fitzpatrick, who won the season opener at Mosport on May 24 (18^th, really) weekend will go off third.

– Joao Barboss and Darren Law won the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Belle Isle, finishing first in Daytona Prototype. Jordan Taylor and Paul Edwards were first in GT, driving a Chevrolet Camaro.

Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato, driving the AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Ferrari 458 (below), finished fourth in GT but continue to lead the standings in that class.

PHOTO BY JOHN jlarsen@photograffics.com]

Farewell Dick Berggren, ace pit reporter

Dick Berggren, who will retire Sunday as a pit road reporter for NASCAR on FOX  at the completion of the FedEx 400, is a journalist in the true sense of the word.

And what’s my definition of a journalist? Someone who is interchangeable among the media.

Yes, that means most of the "journalists" you encounter during your daily lives – the radio and TV reporters, the anchors, sports editors on newspapers, editors-in-chief of major magazines – aren’t, even if they like to call themselves that.

Like the late Pierre Berton, who wrote newspaper columns, books of Canadian history and magazine profiles, conducted interviews on radio and was host of any number of television programs – and he did much of that simultaneously – Berggren, who turned 70 last weekend, has a lengthy list of accomplishments in his curriculum vitae.

Besides being a writer and photographer (and a former college professor, by the way), he was the editor of Stock Car Racing magazine and the late, lamented, Open Wheel magazine before taking his talents and knowledge to television.

And do you know what sets him apart from most of the other reporters covering auto racing (and most other sports, come to think of it)? Like the original ABC pit road reporter and colour commentator, Chris Economaki, he actually asks questions of the people he’s interviewing.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard Berggren start a question with the worst four words in the English language:

"Talk to me about . . ."

So where did Berggren (known for years as "Dr." Dick Berggren because of a PhD in psychology he earned at Tufts University in Boston) come by his knowledge of virtually every kind of car racing going?

Because he’s a fan, primarily, who inhales everything he reads or hears about the sport. Second, unlike most "journalists" covering racing, he’s been Out There: for more than 20 years, he raced stock cars, sprint cars and (regular readers of this column know what’s coming next . . .) supermodifieds.

In fact, Berggren was one of a number of owners and drivers – future NASCAR stars Geoff Bodine and Tim Richmond among them – who were caught out in the late 1970s (he was building one) when Oswego Speedway in northern New York banned rear-engine supers, a decision (along with one made by the U.S. Auto Club to ban rear-engine sprints and midgets) that had a profoundly negative effect on the progression of short-track oval racers to Indianapolis.

But I digress.

Berggren was inducted into the U.S. National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2002 - he's also a proud member of other halls - and says that among the projects he’s got planned for his post-NASCAR career (as well as visiting as many short tracks as he can) is the building of an auto racing museum at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to celebrate the accomplishments of the racing community in the U.S. northeast.

Talking about accomplishments, I think his personal biggest and best was the founding in 1980 of the magazine Open Wheel. As I write this, I’m holding in my hands Vol. 1, No. 1 that is, as the cover says, "a collector’s first edition."

The cover photo was taken by Mike Arthur at Ascot Raceway in Gardena, Calif., and shows Ronnie Shuman in full flight in a sprint car on the dirt (which means sideways). Inside are features on Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell, Gary Bettenhausen, Roger Penske’s racing operation and lots and lots of some of the greatest racing photographs you’ll find anywhere.

Berggren, in his job during the Seventies as editor of Stock Car Racing, had increased – over time – the number of articles and features on open wheel racing appearing in that publication. At some point, the people in charge of Lopez Publications, which published Stock Car and other titles, gave him the co-ahead and Open Wheel was born, first as a quarterly and then monthly.

I don’t have a complete collection, but I have lots and lots. And all of them, in one way or another, trigger a memory.

– Vol. 1, No. 3, published in early 1981, has a striking cover photo of the late Stan Fox at the wheel of his Pabst Blue Ribbon beer-sponsored midget. Several months later, at Indianapolis Raceway Park for the Night Before the 500 midget races, I got to meet Fox. I’d consumed a little too much of his sponsor’s product, though, and in my enthusiasm I made an offer to buy the car. He was very polite about it, but told me to get lost.

– The May 1994 issue has a photo of Mares Stellfox on the cover. She ran with the ARDC midget club. When I announced at Oswego Speedway in the Nineties, I was sometimes a wise guy. One night I was interviewing her and I said, "So tell me Mares, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" And she got me good. "Norris, " she said, "I might be a girl to you but when I put on my helmet, I’m one of the boys."

– In the May 1986 magazine, Berggren himself wrote an incredible story about an incredible racer named Jan Opperman who’d twice suffered grievous head injuries and was confined to his parents’ home, requiring constant care. Opperman was one of the most interesting people you’d want to meet - a pot smoker who was a serious Christian. Before his second accident, I saw him at a sprint car race at the New York State Fairgrounds. It was delayed by rain. To fill in the time, Opperman borrowed the infield announcer’s microphone and delivered a sermon.

– The November 1988 Open Wheel contains a pleasant surprise. There, on Page 16, is an article about Canadian supermodified racer Gary Morton by – wait for it – me. Over the years, I was fortunate to have three articles published in Open Wheel (one on Warren Coniam and another about one of the great women of our time, Proud Mary Copeland of Indianapolis, Ind., who is now Mary Walsh of Knoxville, Tenn., who held up the start of a midget race at IRP one night by – well, use your imagination).

But enough about me. The really great writers who appeared in Open Wheel were John Sawyer (his stuff brings tears to my eyes every time I read it; in what other publication could you read Sawyer writing about Langhorne Speedway, or Don Branson, or Eddie Sachs? Bruce Ellis, Andy Fuscoe, Terry Reed (he wrote a great piece about the widow of Jerry Hoyt, who was killed at Oklahoma City about two weeks after they were married, after only knowing each other for about a month; she still visited his grave every day – years later) and Al Stilley, who wrote so lovingly and well about Indy cars.

And yes, Open Wheel’s racing photography was breathtaking: how about Jim Hurtubise powering out of four at Terre Haute in 1976 (photo by Steve Ellis) , or Steve Chassey at Springfield in 1986 (photo by Don Figler). You could frame those pictures and hang them on the wall in your living room because they were art.

Sure, there were the really bad times, too, and Berggren handled those stories with dignity and grace. His farewell to supermodified king Jimmy Shampine, an innovator like no other who was killed in, of all things, a modified race, still brings a lump to my throat.

I could go on and on – but it’s time to stop, just as Open Wheel itself was stopped shortly after the turn of the century when the publication changed corporate hands and the new owners killed it off.

So when Dick Berggren walks away from Dover International Speedway on Sunday afternoon, after completing his last assignment for NASCAR on FOX, I hope there’s something else on his mind besides that auto racing museum in New Hampshire.

Yes, I know he’s got Speedway Illustrated magazine going, and probably a book or two to write (an autobiography would be nice) but unless there’s a non-compete clause floating around in a contract he signed somewhere, I think he should give serious thought to reviving that much-missed magazine.

How does Open Wheel 2012 sound, Dr. Dick?

Randy Bernard should suspend IndyCar owners who have knives out

Last year, when an owner in the Indy Lights series tried to lead a revolt against management, he was suspended from competition until 2013.

Kicked out for 18 months.

Now comes word that certain people within the Indy car owners group are trying to lead a revolt against IZOD IndyCar Series President and CEO Randy Bernard.

Several high-profile personalities in the series have been identified by at least one reporter.  The owner (or owners) is  allegedly calling other owners and urging them to join in the revolt.

Bernard let the world know about this insurrection on Tuesday night with (what else?) a Tweet:

“It is true that an owner is calling others trying to get me fired,” he said in reference to a team owner. “I have had several owners confirm this. disappointing.”

I hope that Randy Bernard suspends the owner, or owners, from competition for the next 18 months, exactly like the Indy Lights owner was kicked out for doing pretty much the same thing.

The Indy Lights owner is Mark Olson, and his crime was protesting against what he thought was favouritism being shown toward one owner in particular. and soliciting support for his position from other owners. The League acted swiftly and decisively: it told him to take a hike.

Bernard has to do the same thing with the one or two owners in the big league who are trying to stab him in the back.

If he doesn’t move to exert control immediately, it will only be a matter of time before he is either fired himself, or forced to resign.

The fact that I’m even writing about this is appalling.

Can you imagine this happening in NASCAR?

Neither can I.

They started to build the trackfor the Honda Indy Toronto this week — “they” being about 200 construction workers under the watch of Jim Tario, director of operations.Over the next six weeks — 39 days to be exact (“we work five days a week until a week or two out and then we go to seven days,” he said in conversation) — those people will construct a world-class racing circuit through the CNE grounds and out along Lake Shore Blvd. W. using more than 2,000 steel-reinforced concrete barriers each measuring 12 feet in length and three feet in height.

“It takes us six weeks because we want to do it right and to make it safe and we can’t work where we close down the whole site, which is the case at some events,” he said. “There are always things going on here (Exhibition Place).”

It doesn’t take as long to take it down — 21 days, to be exact.

The race, with the exception of one year, has been an annual summertime fixture going back to 1986 and many things have changed — the construction of the Direct Energy Centre, the renovation of the old Automotive Building into the Allstream Centre and the construction of BMO Field, among them.

But Tario let it be known on Wednesday that there are still some pieces of catch fencing around that were new when the race first started.

“Some of the original ‘panels’ of catch fencing were built so well that they’re still useable today,” he said. “But just about the entire track has been redone. The blocks are higher, the fence is higher.”

Tario, who is director of operations at the IndyCar races in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Sao Paulo, Brazil, as well as Toronto, has been doing this job since the very first Molson Indy.

Does he still get excited?

“I enjoy the challenges,” he said. “There are always challenges because, although the basic circuit remains the same, there have to be adjustments. But you can say that I like my work.”

And the people he works with like him, too — so much so that in 1991, when the race took place shortly before he got married, they presented him with a video tribute that was played the morning of the race on the giant video screens that encircle the race track.

There were very few people in the stands; the video was full of all sorts of inside jokes along the lines of eulogies normally heard at funerals.

You know the kind: “You’re getting married, your life’s over” —  that sort of thing

The best line came at the end when his sweetheart Susan said: "He's not dead, he's just getting married."

However, there were  some people around who saw that video and but missed hearing the last line.

At about 11 o'clock that morning, Stan Clinton, then-president of the American Racing Press Association, walked up to me in the media centre.

"God, isn't it awful about that fellow Tario?" he said.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"Such a young, robust guy and now he's dead, " he said.

"Dead! That's awful. When did it happen?" I said.

I mean, I'd seen Jim sitting in his little golf cart earlier that day, watching the spoof video his pals had put together for him, but you never know.

"It was on all the big TV screens this morning, " Stan said. "They had tributes to him, and everything."

"That was a joke, " I said, shouting.

"He's not dead, he's just getting married."

My voice got louder.

“HE’S NOT DEAD, HE’S JUST GETTING MARRIED!”

"Holy cow, “ said Clinton. "I'd better go tell the others."

"What others?"  I said.

"I've been telling all the photographers that Jim Tario died," he said.

"I have to go tell them that he's still alive before they see him riding around in his golf cart and think they’re seeing a ghost.”

Time for an IndyCar green-white-checkers finish

It’s time for the IZOD IndyCar Series to go to a green-white-checkers finish.

The reason people were booing at the conclusion of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday was not (I don’t think) because Dario Franchitti won it for the third time but because, for the third consecutive year, the race ended under the yellow.

This used to be the way it was in NASCAR but they wised up after the fans became restless and demanded change. The result is very exciting: a flat-out dash for the cash over two laps, winner taking all. The fans like it and that’s what it’s about.

The purists will argue against it, of course, but the IndyCar brass should not listen to them. This is show business and it’s 2012 and it’s time for a change.

The fans want to see racing right to the end, so give it to them.

And now, the rest of the news:

This weekend, starting with the Detroit Grand Prix, the Indy cars will begin four consecutive weekends of racing. Following a weekend off, they'll then reconvene in Toronto for the Honda Indy July 6-8. The Detroit race, incidentally, will be televised by ABC and TSN2 at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

Said Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe, who qualified second at Indy, finished sixth and who will be racing at Detroit's Belle Isle Park for the first time:

"The first four races (of the season) went very well for us. The Go Daddy car has been very competitive on road and street courses. Coming off the '500,' where we had the pace as a team but not the (race) results we wanted, we are very anxious to get back on track and get the Andretti Autosport cars back up front. This is my first time racing at Belle Isle so I'm looking forward to learning a new track. Being a hometown race for Team Chevy, it will be very important race for us and we'll all work hard to get a Bow Tie back in victory lane."

Did You Know: Hinchcliffe, who is tied for second in the standings, is the only driver to have finished every lap of every race in the first five IZOD IndyCar Series events. He is also the only driver to have qualified inside the Firestone Fast Six in each of the first four road and street circuit events this season.

Speaking of other Did You Know stuff from the Indy 500, the IndyCar media service sent these tidbits along this week: Dario Franchitti joined Helio Castroneves as three-time Indianapolis 500 winners in the fewest number of starts (nine). Louis Meyer won for the third time in his ninth start, but it was his 10th Indianapolis 500 because he drove as a relief driver in his rookie year. … Jean Alesi was the third driver in Indianapolis 500 history to start and finish 33rd in the race. Both Dempsey Wilson (1960) and Ronnie Duman (1966) started and finished 33rd. Duman was caught up in that huge crash on the main straight in ’66 that eliminated nearly a dozen cars. … The 500 on Sunday represented the eighth time that Castroneves completed the full 500-mile distance. He joined Ted Horn and A.J. Foyt as the only drivers to have completed the full 500 miles eight times without the aid of a relief driver. The use of relief drivers was a common practice at the Indianapolis 500 before World War II.

The winner of the first Indy 500, Ray Harroun (who was relieved for 35 laps mid-race by Cyrus Patschke) received $10,000 cash, which was a fortune in 1911. Dario Franchitti won $2.47 million last Sunday, which is good but not great in 2012.

Speaking of people named Hinchcliffe, James's father Jeremy did a great pre-500 interview on the CBC last Sunday morning. Care to listen? Go to www.cbc.ca/freshair and click on the Sun., May 27, show (on the main web page). 

A big weekend is coming up at Toronto Motorsport Park. The Canadian Motorcycle Drag Racing Association will present the Eastern Nationals. Should be fun. And the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series stock cars will be at Circuit ICAR (Mirabel Airport), north of Montreal.

Drag racer Ike Maier of Vaughan will be driving not one but two top fuel dragsters this season. He'll see action this coming weekend in the NHRA Full Throttle Toyota Supernationals at Englishtown, N.J., driving the Nitro Express dragster of John LaPorte Racing. That car was previously piloted by Antron Brown. At other NHRA meets this season, including the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis on Labour Day weekend, Maier will be strapping into the cockpit of the Paton Racing top fueler, a ride he's handled in previous seasons. "I have certainly got my hands full this year," said Maier, which is a bit of an understatement if you ask me.

Meantime, last weekend in Calgary, constantly changing weather conditions didn’t slow down reigning Canadian Rally Champions Antoine L’Estage of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., and co-driver Nathalie Richard of Halifax who notched their second victory in the 2012 Canadian title championship with a resounding win at the Rocky Mountain Rally.
 
L’Estage and Richard wheeled their Yokohama-sponsored Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X through rain, snow, mud and dry conditions over the two-day event to post a decisive 1 minute 39-second victory, their third consecutive sweep of the event and the fifth time L’Estage has won that particular rally.

Teammates and championship rivals Patrick Richard of Squamish, B.C. and Alan Ockwell of Toronto finished second in their Subaru Rally Team Canada entry. Crazy Leo Urlichich of Toronto and his British co-driver Carl Williamson impressed with a solid third place, also in a Subaru.

L’Estage/Richard top the Canadian Rally Championship standings after two wins in the first two events of 2012. The pair won the snowy Rally Perce Neige in February to give them a commanding lead in the series with 44 points to the 31 tallied by Urlichich/Williamson. 

Thanks to old friend Doug Mepham for that report.

Super Sunday: Kahne, Franchitti and Webber win

All of Super Sunday's races were won by previous winners of the featured events.

When Kasey Kahne won the NASCAR nightcap, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, it marked the third time he'd won the Memorial Day weekend classic.

At Indy in the afternoon, Dario Franchitti won what used to be called the 500 Mile International Sweepstakes for the third time while overseas - morning here, afternoon there - Mark Webber won the Grand Prix of Monaco for the second time.

All three races were interesting, with some more exciting that others. In that regard, Indianapolis topped the bill for surprises and tension, Monaco was a close second and Charlotte was - well - not exactly a nail-biter. 

At Charlotte:

Kahne, who joined Hendrick Motorsports this season, won his first race for the corporation when he cruised home to record his 13th career win in Sprint Cup competition.

Denny Hamlin finished second and Kyle Busch arrived home third. 

Kahne drove about a thousand miles in competition at Charlotte Motor Speedway this weekend, starting with a World of Outlaws sprint car race at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Friday night and continuing through the 300-mile Nationwide Series race Saturday.

A star, Kahne's last victory was at Phoenix in November 2011. He will win lots more races before he's through.

Greg Biffle arrived home fourth, Brad Keselowski was fifth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was sixth, Jeff Gordon was seventh, Kevin Harvick was eighth, Carl Edwards finished ninth and Matt Kenseth was tenth. Complete results.

Notebook Jottings:

- It was kinda boring. Sorry, have to say it. After the dogfight that was Formula One in Monaco, and the edge-of-your-seat spectacle that was Indy, the Coke 600 was somewhat of a letdown.

Yes, they had 31 lead changes among 11 drivers, but they only had four cautions. About the only time the crowd came alive was near the end of the race when Dale Jr. took the lead for about a second. 

You could hear the cheers over the engines.

- If it was borintg to watch, if must have been boring to drive it. At one point during the last 100 miles, Keselowski's spotter began singing to him. To keep him awake, perhaps?

- It's not often you see a Chad Knaus-managed team screw up but it did during Jimmy Johnson's final pit stop. The signal, reportedly, for Johnson to go is when the jackman drops the car; the problem was that the gas man wasn't finished and had to run after the car to haul the gas can hose out.

The botchup might have cost Johnson a higher finish (he was 11th). But the TV camera caught Knaus looking either dejected or ready to fire everybody. Whichever, he wasn't happy and he doesn't fool around. Somebody on that team might be looking for a new job Monday. 

- I saw something in this race I haven't seen for years. At one point, Earhardt drove right between Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski to put a pass on both of them. The last time I remember seeing that was at the CNE Speedway in the Fifties when Norm Brioux, driving the yellow Puddicomb Motors car, would frequently split cars to make passes.

It was a long day. The Monaco GP came on TSN at 7:55 a.m., the Coke 600 finished after 10 p.m. See ya later.

Earlier:

Auto racing is a game of inches at speeds none of us pedestrians can ever really understand.

James Hinchcliffe of Oakville came within nine inches of winning the pole for the Indianapolis 500 - that's what 10 miles of time trials at 220-plus miles an hour turned into when the slide rulers came out to aid calculations - and it was a mistake of inches mid-way through Sunday's spectacle that cost him a shot at victory.

The 96th Indianapolis 500 was won, in the end and for the third time, by Dario Franchitti of Scotland and Nashville, with his Target Chip Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon of New Zealand and Indianapolis second and Tony Kanaan of Brazil and Fort Lauderdale third.

Hinchcliffe was sixth, behind Oriole Servia of Spain who was fourth and Ryan Briscoe of Australia,  who was fifth after pipping "Hinch" for the pole last weekend.

Justin Wilson of England was seventh, Charlie Kimball of England eighth, Townsend Bell of Santa Monica ninth and Helio Castroneves of Brazil and Fort Lauderdale, tenth.

The second Canadian in the 500, Alex Tagliani of Montreal, finished 12th. Complete results.

For the third year in a row, a crash on the final lap meant the classic finished under a yellow flag.

Two years ago, Franchitti's car was running on fumes and he was in danger of running out of fuel on the final lap when Mike Conway hit a slowing Ryan Hunter-Reay and was catapulted into the safety catch fence. The yellow saved Franchitti's race and victory.

Last year, J.R. Hildebrand ran wide on the final corner while trying to pass a slower car and crashed into the wall, handing the victory to Dan Wheldon.

This year, Takuma Sato tried to pass Franchitti going into the first turn and crashed, with the ensuing yellow freezing the field with the Scot in the lead.

Sato said afterward that Franchitti crowded him down onto the white line and his front left tire caught the "ledge" that has been the undoing of drivers going too low into that turn for years. (Yes, that's "ledge" with an "l".)

TV replays, however, showed that Franchitti gave the Japanese driver a "lane" in which to attempt his pass and he just couldn't pull it off.

In Hinchcliffe's case it was just a small loss of concentration that kaiboshed his race. He'd been running top five, or near it, for most of the race and appeared ready to make a charge for the front in the closing laps.

But when the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series rookie of the year went into the pits for tires and fuel with less than 50 laps to go, he missed his marks - paint on the asphalt of his pit stall where the team wants him to stop the car exactly.

If he does it correctly, they can attach the fuel hose for a fillup and replace four wheels in less than nine seconds. Take more time than that and your race can be compromised.

"Hinch" went past the marks a half-dozen inches and the crew had to pause to pull and push him back into position - something that added three or four seconds to his stop and saw him rejoin the race outside of the top ten.

It was a credit to his talent as a racing driver that he was able to battle back to sixth from 12th; if his pit stop had been flawless and he'd returned to battle nearer the front, he might have been in a better position to try for the win.

Said Hinchcliffe - who led the race three times for five laps and who was the star of a very humourous Go Daddy (his sponsor) TV commercial  before the race:

"You know, I'm getting sick of this number six. Every time we finish sixth, we've had more than that on the table and for one reason or another we haven't put it together.

"On that last stop, I overshot the (pit) box by a mile and really put us back there and I feel terrible for it. I think we had the pace for third or fourth place."

There were a number of other crashes but none of the drivers was injured.

The most scary involved Conway, who wound up sliding along the fence with his car on its side and the open cockpit facing the fence. It was a collision with a fence post that Killed Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas but Conway wasn't hurt.

However, the accident was eerily similar to the one he had at Indy two years ago in which he suffered some pretty serious injuries.

The drive by Franchitti was vintage Dario, in that at the first pit stop he was hit from the rear by E.J. Viso and was turned into the wall, damaging his front nose cone and wing. The Ganassi crew managed to get him turned around, fueled up, tires changed and a new nose attached without losing a lap.

When the lights turned back to green, he was 28th; by the time he went to the pits the next time, he was up to third - a magnificent run by a magnificent Indy car driver.

Notebook Jottings:

- Because of illl health, Jim Nabors recorded Back Home in Indiana in Hawaii and they showed him singing the song with palm trees in the background. Much as he's been loved over the years, it's time to pass the torch and let someone else sing.

- Nobody - nobody - seemed ready for any of the restarts. The green would wave and all of a sudden there was a traffic jam. Hinchcliffe complained that guys were hanging back and anticipating the green, thus giving themselves a God-almighty run to catch up and pass the leaders. Maybe, but I'm not so sure. It looked like some guys were on it and other guys were napping.

- I know Dan Wheldon was killed last year and that he was the defending champion. I'm glad they awarded his widow the replica of the Borg-Warner Trophy and I know how guys like Franchitti, Dixon and Kanaan were feeling because they were his buddies. I could even go along, I suppose, with the handing out of sunglasses of the type he wore to everybody who entered the gates on Sunday. But when they drove his car out on the track for a commemorative lap, it was too much. Auto racing is a dangerous sport and it's supposed to be. It's not baseball. I hope they will now stop.

- The TV people seem to think that us dunces have to be entertained every single second we're tuned in and obviously can't just enjoy auto racing for what it is: cars in a car race. And in their zeal to keep our little minds alert and occupied, they keep putting their noses into corners they should leave alone.

Case in point: Pit reporter Jamie Little tries to talk to Michael Andretti, who has five cars in the race. It's a disaster, of course, because he can't talk to her and listen to his drivers at the same time.

I would love to see one of those pit reporters be ambushed by another reporter while they're in the middle of a live report and see what their reaction would be.

- The IndyCar safety team (and the officials who direct them) are still appalling for a major league operation. Case in point: Josef Newgarden stalls on the backstretch and pulled onto the grass. No debris, no contact, just a car stopped off the track. The safety crew goes to retrieve the car. This takes six laps.

SIX LAPS???

I want to take them all to my favourite short track in the world, the Oswego Speedway in northern New York, and let them watch the safety crew there in action. Those men know how to do it. I know: I rode with them for nearly 15 years.

- The 34 lead changes among 10 drivers beat the previous record of 29, recorded in 1960 when Jim Rathmann, who won, duked it out with Roger Ward and they traded the lead back and forth literally the entire second half of the race.

- The race took just less than three hours to run, with an average speed of 167.734 mph. Marco Andretti - who crashed later while dicing with Oriol Servia - set the fastest race lap of a tad over 220 mph.

- Thanks to TSN, we saw all the races on Super Sunday. But somebody was seriously asleep at the switch when there was a restart with about 16 laps to go at Indy and a commercial ran long and WE MISSED SEEING IT.

All of a sudden Tony Kanaan is leading, and HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?

Earlier:

Mark Webber became the first winner of auto racing's Super Sunday this morning when he captured the Grand Prix of Monaco for Red Bull-Renault.

In so doing, he became the sixth winner of an F1 Grand Prix in six races so far in 2012 - a record.

One false move and the order would have been changed for the first four finishers at Monaco, who flashed across the finish line within 1.3 seconds of each other.

Nose to tail after Webber came Nico Rosberg for Mercedes, Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari and Webber's teammate, Sebastien Vettel. A hiccup further back came McLaren-Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, followed two seconds later by Ferrari driver Felipe Massa.

Positions seven through 10 - Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg in Force India-Ferraris, Kimi Raikkonen in a Lotus-Renault and Bruno Senna in a Williams-Renault - were back a bit.

It was a thrilling Monaco from start to finish because the circuit is so narrow and the confines so tight that anything could happen at any time to change the outcome of the classic.

It was Webber's second Monaco victory, his first coming in 2010. Vettel won it last year and now Webber's done it again, giving Red Bull a hat trick in the principality.

Alonso now leads the world championship of drivers, while Red Bull is again leading the constructors championship.

On to Montreal now for the Canadian GP in two weeks.

For a full report of the Grand Prix of Monaco,  click here

Notebook Jottings:

- While the Indianapolis 500 (next up on this Triple Crown race day) might be the biggest race in the world, the Grand Prix of Monaco is the most prestigious. The money, the glamour, the setting and the presence of the royal family combine to make this particular race  the most important.

- Funniest line: as Kimi Raikkonen peels out of the pits, just missing a Force India tire changer, retired driver and now colour commentator David Coulthard says: "You couldn't pay me all the money in the world to do that job."

- Some guys race fair, some guys race hard: Jenson Button, leaving the pits, was hard-pressed to beat Heikki Kovalainen on the run up the hill to Casino Square. It was nip and tuck but as Button exited the blend line, he let Kovalainen go.  Shortly thereafter, Vettel left the pits and it was nip and tuck up the hill in a race with Hamilton. Vettel suddenly cut across in front of Hamilton to block him as they approached the square. Vettel must have cut it so close at the end of the blend line to have been able to chop Lewis. I wanted to see a replay but no luck. 

- Second funniest line: Lewis Hamilton radio transmission to his team - "They keep dropping things from the pit wall and hitting me in the head." Huh?

- They had a wonderful helicopter shot from high above and I wished they'd used it more often. I remember ABC's Wide World of Sports doing Monaco in the early Sixties when Phil Hill was trying to catch Bruce McLaren and they used a helicopter (or blimp) shot almost constantly. Very dramatic and very, very exciting.

- There was a monster crowd. People everywhere - except in one apartment/condo building. The balconies are always empty there (unlike everywhere else). You see it, a pink building on the right, as the cars pass through the hairpin. There is never anybody on those balconies. Toward the end of the race, one guy wearing a white shirt came out and stood for awhile on one balcony, then disappeared. I wonder what it's like to be rich - and bored.

- Jean-Eric Vergne, who drives for Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari, was in the points and heading for what might have been the best finish of his rookie season.

It was raining slightly toward the end of the race and the television commentators were musing about the possibility of changing tires. Suddenly, Verge went to the pits for intermediates.

The move backfired because the half-rain tires didn't do anything to improve his lap times and he eventually finished 12th, a lap down.

The commentators talked about a bad decision by the team. A cynic might suggest they'd made the change at the request of Red Bull, who were covering all their bases in the closing laps and needed hard data to help in their decision-making.

Hey, when it comes to F1, they leave no stone unturned. Years ago, I interviewed a "go-fer" for BAR. His job on race day? Regardless of the weather, he had to leave the circuit and drive exactly one mile west (where rain usually  comes from) and sit there from start to finish. If it started to rain, he radioed in the information and kept the team informed as to its intensity.

Yes, BAR had radar in the pits but still had a man on the ground to confirm/dispute what was on the screen. As I said, no stone unturned.

So I wouldn't be surprised if Red Bull asked Toro Rosso to try out the intermediates to see how they performed - just in case. The loser? Jean-Eric Vergne.

Norris on NASCAR, Monaco & Danica

Saturday evening update:

Brad Keselowski won Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Charlotte, with Denny Hamlin second and Kyle Busch third. Kevin Harvick finished fourth and Elliott Sadler arrived home fifth.

Danica Patrick, everybody's favourite punching bag, qualified third (must have been a fluke) and finished 13th.

Unless my math is wrong, that means she finished ahead of 30 other drivers who were in the race - but she was just lucky, I guess.

All of her critics can drive better than her, of course. I mean, the guy who argued against me in the Wheels Smackdown this week contends that if she hadn't taken her clothes off to get to where she is today that she'd be lucky to land a ride at a local dirt track.

(By the way, the top woman jockey in North America, a Canadian, is naked in the current issue of Vanity Fair. I have never seen Danica Patrick naked. But I digress.)

According to the Nationwide standings, she's in ninth place. In the seven years she drove in IndyCar, she finished in the top ten in points six times, had a career high finish of fourth in points and finished second in races twice.  Her first time at Indy, she set the fastest time all month and came about as close as Hinchcliffe did to winning the pole.

But I guess I'm the one who's delusional, thinking she's got talent.

Of much more interest, however, is the continuing rumour that Michael Andretti will enter a team in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series and will partner with Dodge.  Neither Andretti nor Dodge will deny that talks have been going on, according to various Internet sites.

Some of the reports even include the names of potential drivers, Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch being prominent.

First, I suggest it will happen. Why not? Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi are Indy car owners who run teams in NASCAR so why not Andretti?

Second, Michael Andretti in recent years has branched out to become involved in not only Indy car racing but sports promotion generally. 

He was partners with Kevin Savoree and Kim Green when Andretti-Green Promotions rescued the Honda Indy Toronto from oblivion. Although that company doesn't exist any more, Andretti operates a sports marketing subsidiary of Andretti Autosport that is promoting races this season in Milwaukee and Baltimore.

Third, here is the clincher.

I have a friend who was prominent in Indy car racing public relations going back years. This person was offered employment by Andretti Autosport before this season began but then the offer was suddenly withdrawn, with no explanation.

Only afterward did my friend find out that Andretti had decided to hire, instead, someone with extensive experience in NASCAR. Jade Gurss, who is head of corporate communications for Andretti, started the original NASCAR truth-and-rumours-for-insiders blog back in 2004 and recently published a book on Dale Earnhardt Jr.

If you're considering a foray into NASCAR, it's probably better to have someone experienced in that sport than not and explains, for me anyway, why my friend got screwed in favour of someone from Down South.

So count on Andretti Autosport going to NASCAR.

And the driver? Ryan Newman will never leave Tony Stewart's team so long as Stewart is in charge there. They're a couple of short track guys at heart and birds of a feather stick together.

But if you're looking for a shoe who's done a good job for Dodge in the past, look no further than Kurt Busch, who happens to be available. The fact that, emotionally, he's still 6 shouldn't deter a potential employer from at least considering him.

Earlier Saturday:

Michael Schumacher won the pole for the Grand Prix of Monaco in his Mercedes Saturday but will have to start sixth in the classic on Sunday because of a penalty levied against him at the last F1 race in Spain.

So Mark Webber, who finished second in time trials for Red Bull-Renault, will go off first, with Nico Rosberg, who qualified third for Mercedes, starting second.

Confused yet?

And Pastor Maldonado (Williams), who qualified ninth, will drop back to 19th because of a 10-grid-position penalty he incurred after the last practice session for exhibiting anti-social behaviour of the type usually found in kindergarten playgrounds.

He retaliated against something Sergia Perez (Sauber) apparently did - both cars were damaged as a result of the incident - and it distressed everyone from the stewards, to team owner Sir Frank Williams, to the TV announce team no end.

"Pole position at Monaco, Michael; congratulations," Mercedes' Ross Brawn said over the team radio, moments after the 43-year-old Schumacher - who first won a pole at the storied circuit in 1994 when he was a child in his 20s - crossed the line in first with a time of one minute, 14.301 seconds. 

So. the lineup tomorrow:

Webber (1:14:381); Nico Rosberg (Mercedes-1:14:448); Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes-1:14:583); Romain Grosjean (Lotus-Renault-1:14:639); Fernando Alonso (Ferrari-1:14:948); Schumacher; Felipe Massa (Ferrari-1:15:049); Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus-Renault-1:15:199); Sebastien Vettel (Red Bull-Renault-no time, as he didn't go out in Q3) and Nico Hulkenburg (Force India-1:15:421, who was moved up from his 11th position after Maldonado was banished to the back).

Jenson Button of McLaren-Mercedes was the only one of the big names to not make it into the final, pole-qualifying session. The best he could turn was a lap of 1:15:536, which was only good for 13th fastest.

This was Schumacher's 69th pole. The last time a driver over 40 won a pole in a Grand Prix was Nigel Mansell in 1994.

The day was gorgeous with hardly a clould in the sky, which makes you wonder about all the empty seats for qualifying. If you can afford to purchase a grandstand seat for the Grand Prix of Monaco, why in the world would you not use it? I mean, they are not cheap.

Talking about currency, the announcers - David Coulthard, Eddie Jordan - were wondering why Sir Frank would allow Maldonado to go out for final qualifying after what he'd done. "He'll give him a good talking to later," said Jordan.

First, I don't think Frank Williams will say anything. And Pastor Maldonado does what he wants with that team. He ponied up in the vicinity of $46 million of Venezuelan government money for that seat, which means he drives when he wants to drive or else Hugo Chavez will be on the phone to somebody.

And the bottom line is, without that $46 million, Williams F1 isn't in business.

Two quick bits of short track news: Jarrett Andretti, son of CART and NASCAR star John Andretti and nephew of Mario Andretti, will race full-time in the supermodified division at New York's Oswego Speedway this season, starting June 2. He'll pilot a rocket prepared by Jim Paternoster and Shawn Muldoon as well as continuing to race sprint cars and midgets in the midwest. This was the route his father took to the big time and is most unlike other youngsters who tend to concentrate on road-racing ladders. . . And David Ostella of Maple, after a best-ever qualifying effort in Indy Lights, crashed out of Friday's Freedom 100 at Indianapolis when he was caught up in a five-car pileup. He wasn't hurt physically, but his feelings sure were. He'd gone off fifth, which is pretty good in that company.

Norris blogs on Monaco, Indy and the Coke 600

Just a quick thought to start off:

Everybody in IndyCar talked about the need to get away from "pack racing" after the accident last October at Las Vegas that killed Dan Wheldon. As a result, the series has refused to return to Vegas and, with the exception of Texas Motor Speedway, won't race on 1.5-mile tracks or tracks that are highly banked for that reason.

Indianapolis is the first oval the series has run on since that accident and there are new cars. Don't be surprised to see pack racing on Sunday. I don't think you can get away from it, regardless of where you go or what you do.

Meantime, Joey Saldana won the first race of the weekend Friday night at the Dirt Track at Charlotte, the World of Outlaws Showdown.  He started fourth in the 30-lap sprint car feature and was pretty much in control once he got the lead.

Sprint Cup drivers Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne started the feature and, although both showed flashes of brilliance, weren't really factors. 

Sammy Swindell and Steve (King) Kinser made things interesting for awhile but suspension problems killed Swindell's race and a flat tire did in Kinser.

Saldana, a second-generation sprint car star (his dad, "Little Joe" Saldana, was a USAC sprint car racer in the Seventies who also drove in the Indy 500), won his third Outlaws feature of the season.

The Outlaws tour includes a stop at the Brantford-area Ohsweken Speedway at the end of July. Tony Stewart will be back to defend his race win of a year ago.

Meantime, across the street at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Aric Almirola won the pole for the Coca-Cola 600 that will be held Sunday evening. Marcos Ambrose will start beside him on the front row. Danica Patrick will start her third Sprint Cup race of the season from the 40th position.

It was blistering hot in Charlotte Friday and forecasts in central Indiana are calling for an extremely hot day Sunday for the Indianapolis 500.

Speedway officials are telling the expected 200,000-plus spectators to wear hats, drink lots of fluids and use a lot of sunscreen. I predict if it's that hot that many (if not most) of them will go home.

There have been Indy 500s held previously when the temperature was in the 90s (Fahrenheit, of course)  but that was years and years ago.  Entertainment options weren't as many or as varied as now, so people toughed it out. They'd paid their money and they wanted the show and if it was hot, so what?

Nowadays, creature comforts are paramount, so people won't hang around if it's stifling.

I feel sorry for the drivers; they can't go anywhere. They're strapped in their rockets from start to finish and they'll be wearing three-layer firesuits and underwear, gloves and balaclavas and I guarantee you it will be hot, hot, hot for them.

Let's hope the teams keep a close eye and pull their driver, or drivers, out of the race if anything seems amiss. In 1953, driver Carl Scarborough died after being overcome by the heat. 

The only Canadian to win the Indianapolis 500 - officially - was Jacques Villeneuve in 1995. I say "officially," because many people think Paul Tracy won in 2002 but the Indy Racing League ruled the yellow light had come on for a crash before Tracy completed passing Helio Castroneves.

James Hinchcliffe could win on Sunday. He's been fast all month, he qualified second (missing the pole by a blink) and he's got a good team behind him.

"Hinch" talked to the media earlier this week. Here is a partial transcript of that conversation:

MODERATOR: Talk about this Sunday's race. It's been a rain-free month of May. You've had plenty of opportunity to be on the course in the IZOD IndyCar Series car. What kind of race do you expect on Sunday?

HINCHCLIFFE: It's a race of unknowns. This is the first time anybody will run this car for a full race distance on an oval. With the heat we're expecting on Sunday, that throws a question mark into the mix. We just don't know how this car is going to race.

As much as we try to run around in packs in practice, when you have all 33 cars on track running flat out and racing properly, it's a very different game than what you see during practice. 

You're going to have to be flexible on your strategy, you're going to have to adjust the car at pit stops and inside the cockpit, stay ahead of the changing conditions. That's sort of the nature of this race just because of how long it is.

MODERATOR: The last Canadian to win the Indianapolis 500, the only one actually, was Jacques Villeneuve who ironically drove the No. 27 car to the win. What would it mean for you to bring home a win in Indianapolis?

HINCHCLIFFE: I mean, it's beyond words. That's a tough thing to describe. But obviously this is the biggest race of our calendar. This is the one that everybody wants to win.

MODERATOR: Let's open it up for questions for James Hinchcliffe.

Q. It strikes me that Chevy seems to have a fuel mileage advantage. This is obviously a fuel mileage race. Talk a little bit about that. Is that going to play into your favor? Does that affect the way the strategy is going to work on Sunday?

HINCHCLIFFE: It's tough to say because we haven't really seen what people's fuel mileage is yet at this track. Certainly there was proof that we had the upper hand in that area over the first few races on road and street courses. The way the engines operate, the power level we're at, there's a lot of different elements involved here at Indianapolis.

That's not going to be something we can really assess until the race starts.

 I think that goes into what I said early about having to be flexible. We're going to be learning a lot about what each car and each team has in their back pocket as the race unfolds.

Q. When you're sitting in the middle of the front row looking down that straightaway, do you have any idea what is going to be going through your mind or do you have time to think?

 HINCHCLIFFE: I'm going to be looking left and thinking, 'Damn, I wish I was there (on the pole).'

Q. You're on the front row of the grid for the biggest race of the season. From a mindset standpoint, do you feel any more pressure here or are you able to handle it as you would any other race on the calendar?

HINCHCLIFFE: I think honestly that's one of the big tricks of Indianapolis, is you really have to try to treat it like any other race. Because at the end of the day, this is not only the biggest race on our schedule, it's the biggest race in the world. As soon as you start thinking about that and appreciating that fact before you get in the race car, I think it really puts your head in a different place. That's not necessarily the place you want to be.

It's not the way I want to approach my race on Sunday. I want to get on with the job we've been doing as a team and try to continue that momentum.

A big element of it, yeah, is to try to push that as far out of your mind as possible.

Q. James, the qualifying procedure. Under the old method in the month of May, you would be sitting on pole today. Do you think there needs to be any tweaks to the qualifying procedure?

HINCHCLIFFE: Racing drivers love thinking that we go racing for us. We don't. I think the format we have now is incredibly exciting. If it had been the old format, pole would have been set at 2 in the afternoon and everybody would have sat around and nobody would have been able to challenge.

 As it was, we had a thrilling duel for the pole that came down to the closest margin in history. It would have been tragic to rob fans of that show. I come out on the lesser end of that, which is still second place.

 I quite like the shootout format, the fact we have multiple runs at it. I think it adds a new element of excitement to it. At the end of the day we're here to put on a show.

 Q. You, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti seem to follow in a team of drivers that have great chemistry together. What do you think is the key to y'all having the unity you have?

 HINCHCLIFFE: Well, honestly the first conversation I ever had with Michael and everybody at Andretti Autosport, their whole key to building a good race team is starting with good drivers that have good chemistry. It's something they've achieved in the past and something that they feel was maybe missing a little bit the last few seasons.

When they first called me, they really wanted to get to know me a little bit better and see if I would fit in well. You could have the best driving credentials in the world or you could be backed by the biggest sponsor on the planet. If you're not going to be able to work well with the people on the team, it really is all for nothing.

I've always said racing is not about engines, tires, race cars, it's about people, and the right group of people will be successful, period.

I think in Marco, Ryan and myself, you have three drivers who are young, hungry, very motivated to put in the effort, to work as hard as possible to get this team back up to championship contenders.

The personalities are close enough off track. We're all good friends. I think that allows us to work so much better together as a group. We push each other so hard. When you're in a situation like that, it's hard to not see success because all the right elements are there for it to happen.

I don't think there's one specific thing that you can point out that leads to that chemistry working the way it does. It really is the combination of all the people on the team, all the drivers working together, and like I said, all of us pushing together to improve week in and week out.

Q. I was wondering how you feel with regards to your car package this year compared to last year and how much more you feel there is to come from both yourself as a driver and also in terms of the car during the rest of the season.

 HINCHCLIFFE: Well, certainly, I mean, it's a strong package. The car, when we first got it, it actually didn't really suit me. It wasn't my favorite thing to drive. Between the work that Dallara has done, obviously a lot of work from the team, a tremendous amount of work from Chevrolet, as well, now I and everybody at Andretti Autosports has a competitive package. The car is much more suited me than it was when we first got out there.

Again, it's a huge testament to all the hard work of everybody back at the shop.

 We'll have to see sort of how this race unfolds. I mean, I didn't have a ton of experience in the old car. But certainly the situation that I'm in in general, just with the car and the team and everybody, is a big step forward from last year.

The experience plays into a part of that. Again, just the infrastructure at Andretti Autosport, the resources they have, it's a tremendous position to be in. I think there's definitely more confidence in the experience and the atmosphere that we've got. Hopefully this just translates to get results for the rest of the year.

Q. James, it seems almost the highlight of your year is the red gloves (that were worn by the late Canadian driver, Greg Moore). Can you talk about that a little bit. We know how it happened. Yourself personally, how do you feel about that, being able to do that? Any plans for them to be in your car for the race?

HINCHCLIFFE: It was a very emotional thing for me, because Greg's my hero. More than anything, to have been approached by somebody who knew him very well and was very good friends with him and his family to do that, it was beyond an honor. To have even been considered worthy of being able to take his gloves around for a couple laps at the Speedway was a very, very touching thing. I'm incredibly grateful I got to do that.

Yeah, it's just one of the coolest things I've had the chance to do. That will be a hard thing to top. It's certainly something I'll remember for a long time.

In terms of where the gloves go for now, I think they did their job in qualifying. He helped me get a good run and a starting spot. We'll leave it at that. We'll leave the record intact. He's had his qualifying runs now. He's in the race as far as I'm concerned. I think that's a good place to leave it.

Q. You mentioned this is your second time around at Indy, how you've learned from last year what to expect, how things work. What is race morning for you like at Indy and how do you go about preparing for a race like that? Do you ever get a moment to kind of stop and appreciate what it is you're doing?

HINCHCLIFFE: Well, you know, in terms of preparation on race morning, the team's very good that we have no commitments that aren't racing related on Sunday. There's no quick sponsor appearances, no meet-and-greets, things like that. They let you get to business.

 As I said before, it's a function of trying to treat it like any other race weekend. You go, you'll talk to the engineers, your teammates. Me being me, I try and keep it as light as possible. Still tell jokes, hang out with the family a little bit before the start of the race like I would anywhere else.

 Yeah, it's very easy to get lost in the moment. And I think one of the few moments that we get to sort of appreciate where we are and what we're doing is driver introductions when you walk up over the wall and see the stands completely full for the first time all month.

You're here all month, and you see them, and there's some people in them some days, Pole Day there's some people, but there's nothing like race day. Almost to the same extent, once we get strapped in the cars, do the warmup laps, three by three, which you don't do anywhere else, you really appreciate you're at Indy.

 You go on the whole track and you see these formerly gray, barren grandstands seething with life, color and movement. It's a very surreal experience. It gives this track a feeling that it's alive and you're right in the heart of it.

 You're by yourself at that point. All the press is done. There's nothing else you can do but get on and drive. You just take that moment and enjoy it.

Alex Tagliani and his oatmeal cookies

Any time I run into a race car driver – young, old, rookie, veteran, whatever – who complains to me about not being able to get sponsorship or to do something that will keep his or her name in front of the public, I feel like pulling my hair out.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, I always say.

And then I point to Alex Tagliani.

Tag is the greatest self-promoter in big-league racing today and everybody (including the veterans who are finding themselves on the outside looking in) should take a lesson from him.

You want an interview? He calls you back and when you start to talk with him he gives you the straight goods, no fooling around. Some of these other prima donas should stop wondering why he gets his name in the paper or on the air more than they do. It’s very simple: he always makes himself available.

When the Grand Prix is on in Montreal, he rents a storefront right downtown and stocks it with Alex Tagliani sunglasses, baseball caps and tee-shirts. He’s not a Grand Prix driver, but who cares? There are race fans in Montreal and the money they have in their pockets is burning a hole and he’s making his merchandise available.

I asked him once about this and this is what he said: "Norris, if I don’t do it myself, nobody is going to do it for me."

Why am I writing this today? Because when he flew into town last Monday with Jean Alesi and Simon Pagenaud to talk about this weekend’s Indianapolis 500, he handed me a package: two oatmeal cookies wrapped in celophane.

"You trying to make me fat?" I asked

"Look at the wrapper," he replied, which I did.

The label said: 'Tag on the GO oatmeal cookies, a source of iron, vitamin A and vitamin D.' There is a picture of him in his driving suit and of him in an Indy car.

"When do these go on sale?" I asked.

"Next Monday," he said.

Once we got talking racing, he was mightily impressed with the 30,000-plus turnout for the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last Sunday.

"How cool is that?" he exclaimed.

He then went on to say how big a shot in the arm that would be for the national stock car racing series.

"They can say to potential sponsors that they get 30,000 at Mosport (sic) and 30,000 at Trois-Rivieres and 50,000 at Montreal. Those are big numbers. They make people take notice."

Tagliani used a start in the NASCAR Canada series at Edmonton a number of years ago to revive what was then a flagging career. In front of the Champ Car owners of the day, he went out and dominated the stock car race and people took notice. He was back in the big time shortly thereafter.

We talked about that last Monday, about how you must take advantage of the opportunities presented.  "It was a good platform for me to show people that I had a lot left in me," he said.

But when his Indy car career does come to an end, as it inevitably will, he’s already thinking of the future.

"Yes, I am very interested in the Canadian Tire series," he said. "I started a team once and I would be very interested in getting it going again, particularly now that they’re getting big crowds for the races."

First things first, however. There’s a race on Sunday called the Indianapolis 500 and he’s starting 11^th. As I said to him, last year when he had the pole, he was No. 1. This year, he’s 1-1.

"We can win it," he said. "No mistakes on the track, no mistakes in the pits. If we do that, we’ll win."

And wouldn’t it be something if he did – and pulled out a package of Tag on the GO oatmeal cookies to eat with that bottle of milk they'll hand him in Victory Lane?

I wouldn’t put it past him.

Speaking of Indy, 20-year-old David Ostella of Maple will be racing in the Indy Lights Freedom 100 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday afternoon. He qualified fifth for the race Thursday, his best starting position since he started racing in the series.

IndyCar has set a deadline of Friday for companies interested in developing a new aero package for the Dallara cars.

"We’ve had great interest from multiple companies," said IndyCar’s vice-president of technology, Will Phillips, in a story on the Autosport website.

People should be careful when they make statements like that. The phrase "multiple companies" means more than two and you can bet that if IndyCar only approves kits from Chevrolet and Honda, reporters are going to ask for the names of the firms that applied but weren’t invited to the party.

And there'd better be some, or yet another IndyCar executive's credibility will bite the dust.

On Jean Alesi, a fork, and rioting at the Canadian GP

The first time I got into a racing car to run a feature at "the home of the supermodifieds," Oswego Speedway in northern New York, they told me to take the green and to get off the track.

"You’re not fast enough yet," said pit stewart Jerry Rich back in 1982. "They’ll be up your ass in half-a-dozen laps. You’ll save everybody the trouble of black-flagging you if you just get out of the way early. So take the start and pit."

Which is what I hope IndyCar tells Jean Alesi before the start of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.

When Lotus driver Alesi came to Toronto on Monday, with Alex Tagliani and Simon Pagenaud, to beat the drum for the world’s most famous race (Sunday, TSN, 11 a.m.), he told me he had his fingers crossed that a request by his team for extra boost to help him stay competitive in the race against drivers being powered by either Chevrolet or Honda engines would be approved.

IndyCar announced Tuesday – a day later — that no, there would be no favours done for Lotus and all engines would run in the 500 with the same amount of turbocharged power.

The writing is on the wall for Alesi. Competition director Beaux Barfield said all entries would have to maintain a minimum speed once the first green flag is thrown and that the sanctioning body’s policy is that all cars must be running within 105 per cent of the leader’s speed.

Ryan Briscoe won the pole with a speed of 226.484 miles an hour; Alesi lumbered around at 210.094 mph.

To save the F1 legend – and 1995 Canadian Grand Prix winner – Alesi (and the other Lotus entrant, Simona de Silvestro, as well) the embarrassment of being black-flagged out of the Indianapolis 500, I hope Barfield borrows a page from Jerry Rich’s playbook and suggests an early and unobtrusive exit.

It’ll be better for everybody all ‘round.

Speaking of Alesi, I got a laugh out of him Monday by telling him the following story.

In 1997, the Globe and Mail sent me to Montreal to cover the Grand Prix and I was invited to have lunch with him in the Benetton hospitality area at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve

It was a highlight of my motorsport writing career. Over the years, I’ve been able to interview most of the top F1 drivers of the day but I’ve only been invited to share a meal with two – Alesi and Juan Pablo Montoya, when he drove for Williams.

In any event – and this is something quite out of character for me, but I did it anyway – as I got up to leave the Alesi lunch, I slipped the fork I’d used into my pocket and I brought it home with me to Toronto.

I have used that fork to eat every meal I’ve consumed in my house ever since. Every breakfast, every lunch and every dinner I have eaten at home since June, 1997, has been with that fork – and if you don’t believe me, you can ask my wife.

One time, my sister came from Nova Scotia to visit for Christmas. When she left, she took food to eat on the train. She asked if she could take a fork. I said sure.

That night I was setting the table and I couldn’t find my fork. I was a wreck for a week until she FedExed it back to me.

So I told Alesi on Monday about my fork fetish and when he finished laughing he thought for a moment and then asked if I used it to cut my food too.

I told him no, but that he was going to have to invite me to lunch again sometime so that I could steal a knife.

CVC Capital Partners, which owns 40 per cent of Formula One (Bernie or one of his many trusts still owns much of the rest of the total, estimated to be about $9 billion) has sold a stake in the sport for a little more than $1 billion.

My friend Pete asked if, as a result, Bernie would cut and run.

I replied that he would die with his boots on.

I mean, there is only one way Bernie will ever leave F1 and that’s in a pine box.

Look at that item above again. Look at the figures: $1 billion, $9 billion.

The Grand Prix of Monaco is this weekend and the Grand Prix of Canada is two weeks after that and the marshals and corner workers and other support staff members who will ensure the success of those races, and without whom those races could not be held, will still pay their own way to get to Monte Carlo and/or Montreal, as well as the outrageous hotel room charges and so-on, and they will do all that for a free ham sandwich at lunch on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

If you ask me, there is something seriously wrong there.

Jacques Villeneuve will drive in two NASCAR races again this year for Team Penske - the Nationwide Series events at Road America in Wisconsin and at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal.

Talking about Montreal, I am now officially worried that the ongoing student demonstrations there will interfere with the Grand Prix.

Hmmmm. F1 was villified for racing in Bahrain in the face of civil unrest there. What will be the world reaction when F1 goes to Montreal and there are hundreds arrested and the plume of black smoke hangs just as heavily over that city?

Yes, the situation is different. . .

Or is it?

Tagliani on Lotus and winning the Indy 500

Ex-F1 star Jean Alesi is worried about being run over during next Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 and says his engine manufacturer, Lotus, has asked for extra power to help make him feel safer during the race.

Alesi, 47, was the slowest of the 33 drivers to qualify when he turned a four-lap average speed of 210:094 miles an hour Sunday — about 15 mph slower than the pole speed of 226.484 mph set earlier by Ryan Briscoe.

The F1 veteran, whose one Grand Prix victory came in the 1995 Canadian GP at Montreal, was in Toronto Monday with Canadian racer Alex Tagliani and another Indy car star, Simon Pagenaud. They flew in to promote the 500 as well as July’s Honda Indy Toronto.

The speed differential between the first-place car, powered by a Chevrolet engine, and the last-place Lotus has many concerned, particularly Alesi.

“We have engine development problems,” said the French driver, “so we have asked the (IndyCar) organization to maybe allow us a little more ‘boost’ to increase our speed because I don’t want to be in the middle (of the speedway) and either deter the leader or be hit by him. I feel unsafe, being so slow.”

Officials of the IZOD IndyCar Series said the request is being considered.

When IndyCar solicited engine competition for 2012 (Honda was the lone supplier for years), no one expected Lotus to be such a disaster. New manufacturer Chevrolet and Honda have been competitive but Lotus was well off the pace from the start. The manufacturer supplied engines to five teams when the season started in Florida in March; now it is down to two.

Tagliani, of Montreal, who qualified 11th for this year’s 500, drives for a team that started with Lotus but has since switched to Honda.

“I knew from the moment I first drove the car that there was a lot of horsepower missing,” he said. “I knew there were a lot of issues and that if we didn’t do something we would be in a lot of trouble. Fortunately, the league approved the change and Honda agreed to do business with us.”

“Tag” said he felt good once he got up to speed at Indianapolis and thinks he can win the world’s most famous race.

“My qualifying laps (219.281 mph average) felt like the laps I ran last year when I won the pole position,” said Tagliani, whose primary sponsor, Bowers & Wilkins, is based in Toronto.

“Our car is amazing in traffic; we’ve focused a lot on setting up the car for the race. I know the Chevy engines have a little on us but, with the cars in race trim, it evens out. In the end, the 500 is a race of survival and the goal is no mistakes on the track, no mistakes in the pits.”

Like most Canadians, Tagliani said he is tremendously proud of the other Canadian in the big race, Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe, who came within a sliver of winning the pole and will start second in Sunday’s spectacle.

“He’s with a very strong team (Andretti Autosport) and has a very strong car so he has a good chance,” he said.

“We (Canadians) have two chances out of 33 to win the Indy 500, right? But we both have the Canadian flag on our cars and we will do our very best to make everybody proud of us.”