Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Michael Schumacher’s not alone in Vegas

Remember that little blog item I had a week or so ago about Michael Schumacher going to Las Vegas to race in this weekend’s Superkarts! USA Supernationals?

Well, he’s not alone. There’s a real gathering of the F1 clan in Vegas to either race themselves or cheer Michael (or their friends) on.

Nelson Piquet Jr. is there. (Oops, I guess I should say "former F1 driver," or "ex-F1 driver," or "disgraced F1 driver. . . ) Anyway, Sebastien Buemi is there. Sebastien Vettel has been spotted in the paddock (or so my spies tell me) and Felipe Massa is expected to arrive shortly. Indy car star Raphael Matos is also on hand.

Rob Howden of Kitchener is doing the announcing. If you want to follow the action all weekend, you can keep up at www.ekartingnews.com/live, which will be carrying live audio broadcasting all weekend.

Schumacher arrived in Vegas this morning and is scheduled to go out for his first practice session later today.

 

Danica won’t say anything about 2010 because she can’t

Just about everywhere you look on the World Wide Web sports sites these days, there’s a story about Danica Patrick.

A month or so ago, the news was that she’d re-upped with Michael Andretti’s Indy car team for the next three years and there was a rider in her new contract that would allow her to run some NASCAR races.

Although there was no official announcement, it was pretty much accepted as gospel that this was true. The guys who reported it initially know their stuff. The information might have come from "sources," but often the "sources" are the people involved.

In any event, there soon followed a flurry of stories that, as a result of her new Indy car deal, she’d reached agreement with NASCAR’s Rick Hendrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to drive some Nationwide Series races for Earnhardt’s team. In fact, Hendrick said as much on several occasions.

But then, over the weekend when the Cup series was in Phoenix, both Earnhardt and Hendrick went to great lengths to throw cold water on the story. No deal, they both said. Probably not going to be a deal either, they added.

Now, the one person who hasn't been doing any talking about any of this is Danica Patrick herself. Which has got some people perplexed. Newspaper columnists and bloggers have all wondered: What’s with Danica? Why won’t she say something? Why won’t she say anything?

The reason is simple: she can’t. To understand why, let me tell you a little story about Paul Tracy.

In 2002, while under contract to Barry Green and partners in Team Green (also known as Team KOOL Green), Tracy reached agreement with Imperial Tobacco to continue in the CART Series and to drive for Forsythe Racing in 2003.

At the time, Michael Andretti and Barry Green’s partners were in the process of purchasing Team Green from Barry Green and they planned to move it to the Indy Racing League. They thought Tracy would make the move with them and were unhappy (to put it mildly) to learn he was going elsewhere.

As a result, he was ordered to keep his mouth shut about any plans he might have for 2003. It’s my understanding he was told that he was under contract until the end of the year and if he said one word about not driving for what would be called Andretti-Green Racing in the IRL in 2003 that the resulting lawsuit would break him financially.

So Paul Tracy kept quiet. Very quiet.

Something similar is happening with Danica, you can bet.

She’s under contract to Andretti-Green Racing until at least the end of the year. But that team is breaking up, in that Michael Andretti is reportedly in the process of becoming sole owner of the Indy racing team and his partners are reportedly in the process of becoming sole owners of the Andretti-Green promotions business (the races in Toronto and St. Petersburg).

The people who are knee-deep in these complicated transactions are not keen to have racing drivers in their employ shooting off their mouths about this and that and this and that. So Danica Patrick has undoubtedly been told (just like Paul Tracy before her) to button up.

So until everything is signed, sealed and delivered, or her current contract runs out, whichever comes first, you can bet you won’t hear one peep from Danica Patrick.

(By the way, she lives in Phoenix and you’d have expected that she’d have shown up at that NASCAR race on Sunday, wouldn’t you? But no, she wasn’t anywhere around, which was the smart thing.)

And those NASCAR guys? Saying one thing one week and another thing the next? Ah, they’re just havin’ fun,  stirring the pot and driving certain people crazy. They know what the deal is. They’re just sticking in the needle.

　

Canadian rally championship up for grabs at Tall Pines

With the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship still undecided, and with almost-daily announcements coming from Formula One (the latest being Mercedes-Benz purchasing the Brawn F1 team), the attention of most motorsport observers has continued to be fixed on auto racing.

Which is too bad, because on Friday and Saturday in Bancroft, the annual Rally of the Tall Pines is scheduled and the winner of the 2009 Canadian Rally Championship will be determined.

Last year’s national champions, Pat Richard of Squamish, B.C., and co-driver Alan Ockwell of Toronto, must win the Tall Pines in order to hold onto their title. Meantime, Antoine L’Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard of Ste-Jean-sur-Richeleu, Que., can win the crown by either winning or finishing second in Bancroft.

Although out of the running for the Canadian championship, Andrew Comrie-Picard of Toronto and Jeremy Wimpey of State College, Pa., hope to put a lock on the North American Rally Cup with a good finish in the Tall Pines.

According to organizers, more than 50 teams have entered, including 10 teams from the U.S. Other Canadians hoping to do well include brothers Frank and Dan Sprongl of Georgetown, Zbigniew Szewczyk and Tomasz Karzynski of Calgary and Martin Walter of North Gower and Ferdinand Trauttmansdorff of Ottawa.

For the uninitiated, rallying is not like it was years ago when navigators tried to figure out how to go from checkpoint to checkpoint, and at what speed, and so-on. Modern-day rallying, in which competitors bomb around in cars like Subarus, Mitsubishis and Nissans, is really rally racing with speed (and staying on the road) the deciding factors.

The Canadian Rally Championship is made up of six events starting in Quebec in February. Competitors then head west for events in the Rockies and along the Pacific coast before returning east to Ontario where the series will wrap up this weekend.

Although November has been somewhat mild in the Bancroft area, temperatures are dropping below freezing after dark so it’s possible – possible – that one of the Tall Pines’s major attractions, roads covered in snow and ice, will be a reality by the weekend.

Rally cars slide around anyway but the introduction of ice or snow might add a little slippin’ to the mix, which will just spice things up.

For more information – schedules, accommodation and so-on – please see www.tallpinesrally.com

Johnson’s won the Sprint Cup, but then again he hasn’t - yet

The Chase for the Sprint Cup is a little like a water torture: you know what the end result is going to be but it’s not over yet so you have to keep putting up with it.

Which means Jimmie Johnson, who has a 108-point lead over second-place Mark Martin, will not lose the Sprint Cup this season – unless something completely calamitous happens at the final race of the year at Florida's Homestead-Miami Speedway next Sunday.

Like his car won’t start, or something. And nothing – nothing – his crew does can get it going. He finishes 43^rd and last and then maybe – maybe – depending on where Martin finishes, he might lose it.

But don’t count on it. In fact, chances are he’ll win the race – and the championship – going away.

Johnson is in a class by himself. He had a terrible, terrible time in Texas last weekend when he was caught up in an early-race wreck and although his guys got him back on track after an hour or so in the garage he was right out of it.

Which brought the Sprint Cup tour to Phoenix International Raceway yesterday and Johnson not only won the race (his fourth of the last five held out there) but he scored maximum points (for winning and leading the most laps – 238 of 312).

That's the fourth time in nine Chase races that Johnson has done that. None of the other Chase contenders – Martin, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, et al – have been able to win more than one playoff race. So Johnson has dominated just about completely.

So it’s a lock. Unless, as I said, complete and total disaster strikes.

Click here to read a story about the race but, in a nutshell, it was all Johnson plus two or three obligatory NASCAR Sprint Cup crashes. Same old, same old.

Here’s some other NASCAR News, some with a Canadian angle:

– Ron Hornaday won his fourth Camping World Truck Series championship as a result of finishing fourth in the truck race Friday. Of course, Johnny Benson wasn’t around to challenge him.

– Carl Edwards won the Nationwide Series race on Saturday, thus delaying Kyle Busch from claiming that championship. Busch has to start the race at Homestead-Miami next Sunday in order to win the title.

The third member of the Boys clan from Calgary, Wheeler Boys, made his big-league NASCAR debut in that Saturday race and finished 26^th. His father Trevor Boys and grandfather Buddy Boys preceeded him.

Alex Tagliani, with sponsorship from the Quebec Dodge Dealers Association, crashed his Randy MacDonald Motorsports car during qualifying for the Nationwide race and had to start in the team’s backup, which wasn’t set up for a short track like Phoenix.

Tags finished 38^th after starting and then parking after 14 laps.

He was pretty rough on himself afterward because the 81 car was in the top 35 in the Nationwide standings and was guaranteed a starting position, meaning he didn’t have to push that hard to qualify.

– Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., was honoured at a gala banquet in Charlotte, N.C., Saturday night for winning the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series championship.

Also on hand to receive awards were second-place Canadian Tire finisher D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas (who also received the Mopar Cup for being the top-finishing Mopar driver in the series) and third-place finisher Ron Beachamp.

The 2010 Canadian Tire Series schedule was released in Charlotte on Saturday afternoon and a major addition is a race through the streets of the CNE in July as part of the Honda Indy Toronto weekend.

For that story, click here.

- And before we go, it must be noted that Formula One racer Jarno Trulli will test for two days with Michael Waltrip Racing at the New Smyrna Speedway south of Daytona.

The New Smyrna Speedway? What is that all about?

Britnell, Stewart, Rashleighs honoured at CASC-OR gala

Jamie Britnell, Brian Stewart and the Rashleighs – father and son – were honoured Saturday night for their successes and contributions to Ontario motosport during the 45^th annual Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs-Ontario Region gala awards dinner at the Sheraton Parkway Toronto North Hotel.

Britnell, a Formula Ford competitor, was presented the Spirit of Gord Lowe Award by Lowe’s widow, Karen Brodie, for being the grassroots racer who best exemplified everything that her late husband stood for – dedication to the sport, fairness and – above all – a sense of fun.

Stewart, who started racing in Formula Vees and has since gone on to become one of Canada’s most successful professional team owners (Indy Lights) and mentors (Paul Tracy, Shane Jantzi), was presented the Wayne Kelly Memorial Trophy for bringing special recognition and prestige to Ontario motorsport.

Bryan Rashleigh was awarded the winner’s trophy for finishing first overall in the CASC-OR Mobil 1 RaceOntario Provincial Championship. He’d finished first in the GT6 class but was declared overall champion because he scored more points than any other competitor.

Rashleigh was one of approximately 110 racers to receive trophies in classes ranging from SoloSprint time trials to open-wheel vintage racing cars. Among them was Rashleigh’s son Jonathan, who was awarded the Wilson Trophy (first presented in 1959 by then-CASC President Harold A. Wilson) for being the most active competitor.

Jonathan Rashleigh competed the entire season in three ice-racing classes, ran several Touring Car races and finished second in his class (GT3) in the championship that his father won.

Other notable presentations:

The Jonathan DeHaas Trophy, which honours the RaceOntario open wheel champion, went to Robert Long, who was first in Formula Libre.

The Competitor of the Year Award went to Richard Foegele.

The Muriel Knapp Award, normally handed to a circuit racer, went this year to novice SoloSprint competitor Katie Ewald.

The President’s Cup, awarded to the Sportsperson of the Year, was handed to Paul Myers.

The Media Award went to Mosport announcer and Canadian Motorsports Expo promoter Glenn Butt and Formula Ford driver Stefan Rzadinski was named Novice of the Year.

Tracy to kick off Mosport celebrations at Canadian Motorsport Expo

One of my favourite songwriters said it best:

“My, oh my, how the time does fly,

“Makes you want to lay right down and cry. . .”

Which is how I feel today after receiving not one but three press releases this week reminding me (I try to forget this, really) that 2010 will be the 50th anniversary of the opening of Mosport International Raceway.

Fifty years.

I was there in 1961 when the late Francis Bradley drove his car through the banner that officially opened the place and I don’t think I’ve ever missed an important race there since, whether it was sports cars (Stirling Moss, Bruce McLaren), stock cars (Eddie Sachs, Sal Tovela, Billy Foster), Indy cars (A.J. Foyt, Bobby and Al Unser, Johnny Rutherford), Formula One cars (Clark, Stewart, Andretti and all the greats), American Le Mans Series cars (Ron Fellows, David Brabham) and on and on and on.

(Just so you don’t think I’m a road-racing snoot, I’d be at Mosport on Saturday for F1 practice/qualifying, then drive like hell to get to Flamboro Speedway near Hamilton for the supermodifieds that night and then head back to Mosport for the race Sunday. I didn’t hang around any place for long if there was castor oil in the air somewhere else. . .)

What got me thinking about this momentous event are the releases that arrived in my email in-box from Mosport and from the Canadian Motorsports Expo (Jan. 22-24) announcing that Paul Tracy – who won his first car race at the legendary track north of Bowmanville – will be the special guest at the Expo in the International Centre on Sunday the 24th where he’ll sign autographs, chat with fans and participate in ceremonies celebrating the official kickoff of Mosport’s 50th Anniversary season.

I’ll write lots more about the Expo - and other car and industry shows as they approach - but for now, here is the lowdown, according to a release from the Expo itself:

The Canadian Motorsports Expo is a three-day celebration of Canadian racing that runs Jan. 22 to 24 at the International Centre (6900 Airport Rd. in Mississauga). The show is powered by Inside Track Motorsport News and supported by companies like Lucas Oil Canada, NASCAR Canada and Mosport International Raceway.

In addition to booths and racing vehicles representing the entire spectrum of Canadian motorsports, the show is loaded with seminars and forums to entertain and inform racers and fans alike.

For more information, visit www.canadianmotorsportsexpo.com, call Glenn Butt at (905) 721-1762 or email him at glenn@canadianmotorsportsexpo.com. You can reach co-promoters Inside Track at (416) 962-7223 or email expo@insidetracknews.com.

Edenvale, Canada’s first sports car race track, is back in business

When sports car racing in Ontario started in earnest after the Second World War, the first place meets were held was on the runways of a former British Commonwealth Air Training Plan Airport just outside the Barrie-area town of Stayner, called Edenvale.

In fact, Edenvale is the place where the British Empire Motor Club (Bem-See) organized what many say was the first sports car race ever to be held in Canada – the first annual Spring Trophy Race – on June 25, 1950.

The King of Edenvale in its early years was a Hamilton driver named Tommy Hoan, who had a lock on the annual Purilator Trophy race. He didn’t win it every year, of course, but it was his more often than not.

Others who turned out to race at Edenvale in the sport’s early days included Peter Templar, Peter Hayes, Charles Wheaton, Jim Fergusson, Fred Mallard and R.J. Hanna (yes, that Bob Hanna), all of Toronto, plus Max Goldman of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Gilbert von Roch of Germany, among many others.

The track was in operation until 1959 when the owner of the land decided he wanted to run some stock car races on the track. The "sporty car’ set objected to that and moved operations to Green Acres (another training airport near Goderich), St. Eugene (the Ontario home of the Montreal MG Car Club that was also known as "Connor" because a fellow named Connor owned the property) and the famous (but also long-gone) Harewood Acres circuit, near Jarvis.

Although racing at Harewood, St. Eugene and Green Acres continued into the 1960s, there was never another racing wheel turned at Edenvale post-1959.

Until now.

Earlier this year, Lee Abrahamson – a co-founder of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame who’s still in possession of a dozen or so "Champ Car Lights" open-wheel race cars that he’s had since that series failed to materialize years ago – was casting around for a location to run "corporate days," in which race fans pay to drive around in race cars all day.

He stumbled upon Edenvale and was encouraged by what he found. It’s still a working airport but after you got beyond the main runway there were other parts of the track just sitting there, waiting for somebody to do something with them.

So Abrahamson contacted my friend Brian Stewart (of Indy Lights racing fame) and Stewart went up to Edenvale a few months ago with a tractor fitted with a bush hog and chopped down the vegetation on both sides of the unused runways. Then he took a front end loader and ripped up all the weeds. A quick sweep and general cleanup and, voila, Edenvale (or parts thereof) was back in business.

Abrahamson and Stewart have since held five "corporate days" there.

Whether there will ever be real racing at Edenvale again is highly unlikely but the fact that Canada’s very first sports car track has sprung back to life 50 years after it was deserted is a real cause for celebration.

You can buy Michael Schumacher's '94 F1 car on eBay!

As this is Michael Schumacher week (it's not, really, but he certainly seems to be in the news a lot lately), here's a bit of a stunner.

 

A 1994 Mild Seven Benetton-Ford Formula One car that Schumacher drove during the 1994 season is for sale on eBay for a price that's north of 2 million Euros (US$3 million and counting . . .).

 

On eBay?

 

Maybe at the Barrett-Jackson Auctions. Or in the classifieds at the back of Motor Sport magazine. But on eBay?

 

In any event, Schumacher won the first of his seven world championships that year so this car has history.

 

It would make a swell Christmas present.

 

Want to consider making a bid?

 

Here's the link.

 

And, by the way, if you scroll down one item in this blog, you can read about Schumacher's plans to race go-karts in Las Vegas next week.

 

A busy guy.

Michael Schumacher to race go-karts in Las Vegas!

We were all disappointed when seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher didn’t attempt a comeback in Formula One after Felipe Massa was injured and Ferrari needed a replacement driver.

But news received from Rob Howden, editor-in-chief and publisher of the Howden Media Group (eKartingNews.com, eKartingNews.ca, eFormulaCarNews.com and IndoorKartingNews.com) brightened me right up and I think you’ll get a kick out of it too.

Michael might not be doing any F1 but he is coming to North America to race in the 125cc SuperPro category of the Superkarts! USA Supernationals at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Howden, of Kitchener, will be announcing at the event Nov. 18-22. He’s drinking tea and honey and practicing his vowels, as we speak.

Here’s a link to the eKartingNews.com site that has all the details.

NASCAR memory of the weekend is of Johnson after the wreck

Although it was interesting watching Kyle Busch come within three laps last night of doing what no other upper-echelon driver has been able to do in the history of NASCAR – win every race in three major divisions on the same weekend – the thing that really caught my attention was Jimmie Johnson sitting in his race car for more than an hour while it was being repaired.

That spoke volumes about the team and the man.

Johnson went into the Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway yesterday with a 184-point lead in the race for the Sprint Cup over his nearest challenger, Mark Martin, and all he had to do was toodle around and finish in 10^th place or better to maintain the advantage with two races left to go – next week in Phoenix and then a week later in south Florida..

But on the third lap, Johnson got tangled up with Sam Hornish Jr. and emerged much the worse for wear. It wasn’t a matter of going to the pits for repairs, it meant going to the garage for almost a total rebuild.

ABC-TV did a great job showing us the reconstruction project as it progressed. Under the direction of crew chief Chad Knaus, the rear end and front suspension and all other bent or crooked or damaged parts were removed from the automobile and brand new ones installed.

It took an hour and 10 minutes to get that car ready to return to the speedway (where it and Johnson eventually finished, officially, in 38^th place, 129 laps behind the winner, Kurt Busch, with Denny Hamlin second and Matt Kenseth third) and during all that time, Jimmie Johnson sat in that wrecked car, safety harness done up and gloves and helmet on, staring straight ahead, waiting to go back to work.

He didn’t unstrap himself. get out of the car and watch the repairs being made; he didn’t just take off his helmet and ask for a magazine to read; he didn’t ask for a portable TV so he could watch the race, or a DVD player so he could watch a movie or something.

No, he sat there motionless, staring straight ahead, totally focused and prepared to go the second Knaus determined that the car was race-ready.

And that, ladies and gentleman, perhaps explains like nothing else can why Jimmie Johnson has been the NASCAR Sprint Cup champion the last three years and, despite yesterday’s setback, will likely be champion again for the fourth straight time.

Now, Kyle Busch has tried to complete the triple previously – winning the Friday Camping World Truck Series race, the Saturday Nationwide stock car race and the Sunday Sprint Cup race – but things always seemed to get gummed up.

This weekend, he won the truck race – his fifth straight in that series (he's won seven of the 13 he's entered in ‘09) – and the Nationwide (his eighth this season and the 29^th of his career). And he dominated the Sprint Cup race yesterday afternoon and evening before running out of fuel (he wasn’t the only one) with just under three laps to go.

What a disappointment – for him and for us.

Meantime, the Chase for the Sprint Cup points standings tightened up considerably as the result of Johnson’s misfortune. Martin finished fourth in the race and is now only 73 points behind.  Jeff Gordon, who was on a roll in this race but ran into misfortune of his own (his car escaped damage when he found himself in the middle of a four- or -five car dustup in which he spun and had to pit while the pits were closed, thus earning a penalty), eventually finished 13^th and is now only 112 points behind as compared to the minus 192 he carried going into the race.

Poor Juan Pablo Montoya had a bad race – his car was also damaged in a crash, but not as badly as Johnson's – and went from fourth place in the Chase standings all the way back to sixth. Race winner Kurt Busch jumped from sixth to fourth.

Instead of a cakewalk, it's going to be a nail-biter all the way to the final in Florida.

Which is exactly the way it should be.