Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Saldana wins race but Schatz reels in his fourth WoO championship

So Joey Saldana won his 20^th World of Outlaws sprint car championship last night, thus becoming only the fifth driver in series history to win 20 or more races in a season and he still could only finish third in the championship.

(I remain convinced that there’s something wrong with a scoring system in which a guy wins eight more races than anybody else, and more than a quarter of all the races run, and doesn’t win the championship – see blog item below.)

Donny Schatz of Fargo, N.D., won his fourth consecutive Outlaws title by cruising to a sixth-place finish in the season-ending WoO World Finals on the Dirt Track at Charlotte (I called it by its old name – the Dirt Track @ Lowes – in my blog entry yesterday but the naming rights apparently ended as of the last Sprint Cup race there a few weeks ago).

Jason Meyers of Clovis, Calif., the only driver who really had a chance of catching Schatz, was third in the feature but couldn’t improve on his second-place finish in the standings.

Saldana, of Brownsburg, Ind., joins some pretty select company in winning 20 or more in a season. King Steve Kinser has done it, of course, as has Sammy Swindell, Mark Kinser and the Wolf, Doug Wolfgang.

Here are three quick observations from a pretty good show on the Speed Channel (which was in free preview mode so hopefully lots more people were able to tune in):

– Sprint cars at Charlotte turn a lap in about 15 seconds or less, which means they can cover four laps in a minute. Just as the 11^th lap (of 30) was completed last night, Speed went to a commercial (shades of Formula One on TSN)!

"Oh-oh," I said to myself as about four commercials came on. "By the time they get back to the race, it’s going to be over . . ."

But when the race did, in fact, return, they were only on the 12^th lap so when Speed went to commercial they had the video machine rolling so nothing was missed.

Great stuff, I say. And good for them.

– The on-board camera shots taken from Schatz’ car were terrific. I wish we’d been able to "ride along" a little more.

– Syracuse-area driver Jessica Zemken made it into the show by finishing fourth in the Last Chance race and then improved to 20^th in the feature from her 24^th starting position. She’s going to receive some sponsorship help next season, apparently, from Tony Stewart.

The reason I say "apparently" is because over the last year Zemken has been linked to Stewart both professionally and personally . . .

I was at Ohsweken Speedway (on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford) in July, where she caught everybody’s attention by finishing seventh in the Outlaws feature on the first of two nights of racing. I was told "off the record" that she was taking Stewart home to meet her parents the very next weekend.

Then, in August, she stood beside him during the buildup to the Cup race at the Glen and that really set tongues to wagging.

She’s a very talented 23-year-old racing driver who’s had success in small- and big-block dirt modifieds as well as 360 and 410 sprints. Knowing Stewart, that’s what probably caught his attention.

That she also happens to be a sweetheart – well, knowing Stewart, that’s probably what's kept it.

Outlaws title showdown tonight - and it's live on Speed

Formula One finished up last weekend, IndyCar’s been over for awhile and – well – the sun if going down on the 2009 racing season.

There are only three-to-go for NASCAR – tomorrow at Texas, next Sunday at Phoenix and then the grand finale at Homestead-Miami. (And face it, friends, it’s over already: unless there’s divine intervention, Jimmie Johnson will win his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup championship.)

Meantime, the World of Outlaws sprint cars will wind things up in Charlotte, N.C. tonight at the Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway (which isn’t going to be called that anymore now that the home improvement company has cancelled its naming rights contract. Ah, the joys of the recession).

The neat thing about the Outlaws showdown is that the championship can be won by any of three drivers tonight – Donnie Shatz of Fargo, N.D., who’s going for his fourth consecutive championship; Jason Meyers of Clovis, Calif., who’s trailing Schatz by just 25 points; and Joey Saldana of Brownsburg, Ind., who’s 57 back – and you can watch it live at 8 p.m. on the Speed Channel (that is, if you can tear yourself away from watching the Maple Leafs, who are officially on a tear after winning a game last night . . . ).

Looking at the statistics has me once again wondering about the fairness of points systems that reward finishing second and third and fourth more than they reward winning. For instance:

– Shatz is leading going into tonight’s 72^nd race and has 12 wins, 39 top fives and 52 top 10s. Pretty good, I say.

– Meyers (who won one of the two races held this summer at Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford) has nine winds, 33 top fives and 53 top 10s. Ditto

But, get this:

– Saldana has won 19 (slightly more than a quarter of all races run), has 35 top fives and 46 top 10s. And he's behind the other.

Now, it’s the old argument that consistency is key. Both Meyers and Shatz have more top fives and 10s than Saldana – but not many. Joey was pretty consistent, too.

But they probably finished more races, so picked up points further down in the field. Joey, trying for wins, probably didn’t finish as many as the other two because of crashes or what-not.

But there still seems to be something unfair about a system in which a guy who’s won seven more races than anybody else (and the Outlaws schedule is a grind unlike any other) isn’t at the top, or closer to it.

P.S. I’m cheering for Meyers to win tonight. He drives for a small, independent, low-buck team while Schatz drives for Tony Stewart Racing and Saldana’s mount is owned and campaigned by Kasey Kahn Racing with Mike Curb.

You’ve heard of those guys.

Indy car racing's future looks good with Izod as title sponsor

You may want to know that I have set aside my cynicism that bubbled its way to the surface in yesterday’s entry and I am now officially excited about Izod taking over as title sponsor of the Indy Racing League, which will now be known as the IZOD IndyCar Series.

And rather than letting it creep back into anything I might write today about the announcement, here is the entire press release as was emailed out from Indianapolis yesterday afternoon.

Although I still think the series has problems so far as its 2010 car count is concerned, there is no doubt that Izod is committed totally to marketing the series the way it ought to be. It will give Indy Car the stability and direction it needs.

Ergo, I wish everybody the best of luck and I now look forward with enthusiasm and optimism to seeing (and writing about) the 2010 Honda Indy Toronto through the streets of the CNE next July.

Here, then, is that press release:

IZOD NAMED TITLE SPONSOR OF INDYCAR SERIES

IZOD Brings IndyCar Series a Strong Brand, Bright Future, And Vision For Growth

INDIANAPIOLIS (Nov. 5, 2009) – Phillips-Van Heusen Corp. (NYSE: PVH) announced today a multi-year agreement in principle with the Indy Racing League (IRL), the sanctioning body for the IndyCar Series, for its IZOD brand to become the title sponsor of the newly renamed IZOD IndyCar Series.

The IZOD IndyCar Series, which will mark the League’s first title sponsorship since 2001, introduced its new logo and key partnership details today, with additional activation, promotional plans and marketing initiatives to be revealed in the coming months, prior to the start of the 2010 season.

Under the new arrangement, IZOD will also retain its designation as the official apparel partner of the Indy Racing League, which began in 2008. Key elements of the agreement are expected to include:

– Multi-year, multi-million dollar activation plans and brand-building efforts around the IZOD IndyCar Series intended to broaden the promotion of the sport both off the track and beyond its traditional audience. These include:

– Inreased and enhanced national media initiatives with IRL’s two television partners – ESPN on ABC and VERSUS;

 – Access to drivers and 100 years’ worth of motorsports assets and graphics from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, including current and vintage cars, for both on- and off-track events, both in and out of race markets;

– Multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment to participate in the IZOD IndyCar Series Team Enhancement/Allocation Matrix (TEAM) fund. Introduced in 2008, TEAM provides a guaranteed financial foundation for all teams committed to running the entire IZOD IndyCar Series schedule;

– Shared Web initiatives and online promotions;

– Rights to use one of the most dynamic marketing events in all of sports – two parade laps in the IZOD IndyCar Series two-seater at the start of the Indianapolis 500 and other selected races – providing a one-of-a-kind experience to an IZOD-selected VIP or fan sweepstakes winner

“The combination of young, dynamic drivers representing over 14 countries, events in key domestic and global markets and its strong American racing heritage make the IndyCar Series a perfect fit for the sport-spirited IZOD brand lifestyle,” said Allen Sirkin, President and Chief Operating Officer of Phillips-Van Heusen.

 “Our involvement with the IRL began shortly after the unification of U.S. open-wheel racing and, despite the recession, we have seen growth and sense the potential for even greater opportunity as the sport is re-energized on the American sports landscape, as well as abroad.

“We’re excited at the opportunity to become the title sponsor of the IZOD IndyCar Series and look forward to taking our partnership with the fastest form of motorsport in the world, along with its ‘cars and stars,’ to a new level of marketing and activation both on and off the track.”

“Our relationship with the IZOD brand has been on the fast track since the day we began our partnership in 2008, and we are thrilled they have taken a bigger and more vital role in our sport,” said Terry Angstadt, president of the Commercial Division of the Indy Racing League.

“Their strong marketing skills, national retail partnerships and ability to bring fresh eyes to the sport have already proven powerful in our short time together. We’re confident that we have found a partner with a strong brand, a bright future and a vision for growing the IZOD IndyCar Series that will benefit fans, drivers, teams, owners and tracks.”

The move by Phillips-Van Heusen follows a series of recent similar decisions to shift IZOD’s marketing mix towards sports and sponsorship activation.

In 2008, IZOD was awarded the naming rights for what was then Continental Airlines Arena at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, home of the New Jersey Nets, renaming it the IZOD Center. Phillips-Van Heusen’s efforts helped lift the IZOD Center to become the fourth-ranked venue of its kind in North America. Phillips-Van Heusen also recently announced its VAN HEUSEN brand’s sponsorship of the Pro Football Hall Of Fame fan vote, a first of its kind for any professional sport.

The 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series, the premier open-wheel racing series in the U.S., showcases some of motorsport’s leading personalities, including Danica Patrick, Helio Castroneves, Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe and Tony Kanaan, as well as Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti and Tomas Scheckter, heirs to some of auto racing’s greatest legends.

The 2010 season is scheduled to feature 17 races in the United States, Canada, Japan and Brazil, with the first green flag dropping March 14 in Brazil. The races will be broadcast in high-definition on ABC and VERSUS.

(McDonald note: And, hopefully, TSN.)

Will the Indy 500 soon be called the 'Izod Indianapolis 500?'

The Indy Racing League is holding a press conference today in Indianapolis to announce that the premium clothing company Izod (a subsidiary of the Phillips-Van Heusen Corp.) has signed a five-year deal worth $50 million to be title sponsor of the championship that from now on will be called the Izod IndyCar Series.

So does this mean that the Indianapolis 500 is going to be called the Izod Indianapolis 500?

Because, for the life of me, I can’t get it through my head how Izod or anybody else can figure the Indy Car series by itself to be worth that kind of money.

Of course, we all know that the only reason anybody sponsors anything in the IRL is because of the “500,” which remains (except perhaps for the Grand Prix of Monaco) the world’s most famous race. They still pack close to 300,000 people into the old Brickyard each year on the last Sunday in May and millions of people who could care less about car racing still tune in to watch it on TV.

So there’s a return on investment by being involved in that race.

But other than Indy, the ROI in Indy Car is about zilch. There might be a decent crowd at a couple of races – Long Beach comes to mind – but if you ever want to go to a car race and have your pick of just about any seat in the house then the IRL is just the ticket.

And except for three or four races on ABC, nobody watches that series on TV in the U.S., either, because the IRL has a contract with a little-known, all-sports network called Versus and it has been shown time and again that more people watch reruns of poker games at 2 in the morning than tune in to watch live-and-in-colour Indy Car racing in the afternoon on Versus.

So there’s got to be more to the Izod deal than immediately meets the eye.

Over the years, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has let commerce get in the way of tradition. The infield pagoda was the first thing to be sold off when Bombardier bought naming rights to it. And Allstate Insurance has been part of the title name of the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race in recent years.

There were suggestions that Bombardier, Allstate and others had tried to purchase naming rights to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing but chairman of the board Mari Hulman George (daughter of the Speedway’s saviour, Tony Hulman) would simply not hear of it.

 But with the economy in the dumpster and the ongoing Hulman-George family feud threatening the stability of that institution (Mari’s son Tony George was forced to step down as president of the IRL and the Speedway in recent months because of the enormous amounts of money spent in recent years to prop up the racing league and to fight the war with the Champ Car World Series), it’s possible that all bets are now off the table.

The Izod Indianapolis 500 – or a variation, such as the Indianapolis 500 presented by Izod – is a distinct possibility. Don’t  be surprised if it happens. 

It looks like Red Bull is dropping Robert Wickens

I’m hearing some rumblings from Europe that are a little unsettling.

In my Monday blog this week, I suggested that Canadian Robert Wickens, of Guelph and Toronto, who’s been a Red Bull development driver for three years as the result of winning the 2006 Formula BMW-USA championship, might be in line for a Formula One ride since only eight drivers are currently confirmed for the 2010 season.

In my dreams, it turns out.

Not only is Wickens unlikely to be offered anything in F1, but Red Bull has either terminated his services or put him on notice that his contract will not be renewed as of the end of the year.

This after the Canadian won the pole for the last two Formula 2 races of the year last weekend in Barcelona, finished on the podium in one (his car conked out in the other; a problem he had to put up with all season), and ended the year in second place in the standings, losing out only to Spanish driver Andy Soucek.

My sources overseas tell me that the problem Wickens encountered as he climbed the Red Bull development ladder is that although he was pretty successful in just about everything he did (Formula Atlantic in North America where his finished third in the standings and was rookie-of-the-year), runner-up in F2 this year with various stops in other series along the way, he didn’t win consistently.

He was close a lot, but no cigar.

When you get to that level, it’s dog-eat-dog and you either produce, or else.

It’s a cruel world, motor racing, and only the very best get to continue proving themselves without making it to the top step of the podium.

It wasn’t Wickens’s fault. When he had the horse under him, nobody could catch him. But this year the horse kept breaking down and instead of shooting it, Red Bull got rid of the jockey.

But who said life’s fair? Hopefully, other teams will have taken notice of Wickens’s talent and will give him a shot.

Meantime, to be honest, I never liked Red Bull anyway.

Naomi Campbell was in Ferrari garage, cheering for Hamilton . . .

In my auto racing blog Monday, I wondered what supermodel Naomi Campbell was doing in the Ferrari garage during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Now I know, I think.

According to the "Celebs" section of the Internet site Mirror.co.UK, she was treating her boyfriend, Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin, to a taste of the good life.

According to the report, Campbell chartered a private jet to fly them to Morocco to surprise the Russian real estate entrepreneur on his birthday. She apparently designed a life-size sports-themed cake complete with boxing ring, race cars and tennis racquets on it.

After partying the night away in Morocco, the happy couple got aboard the jet for the flight to Abu Dhabi.

Campbell was quoted as saying she was so excited that Lewis Hamilton had won the pole for the Grand Prix and would be cheering for him to win.

Which explains perfectly why she was yucking it up in the Ferrari garage . . .

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Will a Canadian be in F1 next year?

As the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the last of 2009 (it was won by Sebastien Vettel, followed by Mark Webber and World Champion Jenson Button), I made copious notes. From top to bottom, here they are.

– BBC announcer Jonathan Legard noted that only six drivers are confirmed for 2010. With that many seats open, does it mean that Canada’s Robert Wickens will get a look?

Wickens wrapped up second-place in the FIA’s Formula 2 series this weekend by winning pole for both races at Barcelona and finishing third in the second. The dreadful mechanical luck that has plagued him all season continued this weekend when he was forced out of Saturday’s race.

Ever since he won the Formula BMW-USA title three years ago, it has been onward and upward for the young man from Guelph and Toronto who is sponsored by Red Bull. I would not be surprised to see Wickens in Grand Prix racing next year.

– What was Naomi Campbell doing in the Ferrari garage? Wasn’t she Flavio Briatore’s main squeeze at one time? Before he dumped her for Heidi Klume and eventually Elisabetta Gregoraci? Since he’s persona non grata at F1 events these days (it must have just about killed him not to have been at Abu Dhabi), so how come she’s still hanging around?

She must have been with somebody – but who?

(So endeth the social notes.)

– All the McLaren heavyweights were in evidence this weekend – Ron Dennis (his arch enemy, Max Mosley, has been replaced as FIA president by Jean Todt so Ron evidently feels sufficiently comfortable to be back in pit lane) and Daimler AG board chairman Dietre Zetsche, in particular – and so it makes you wonder what’s going on so far as that second McLaren seat is concerned.

Kimi Raikkonen keeps saying he’s either in it or he’s out of F1. But there are suspicions that the powers-that-be would rather see Jenson Button partner Lewis Hamilton next year and so they’re putting the pressure on the Kimster to go to Brawn GP instead.

We should know in a week or so but I still suspect Hamilton would prefer Raikkonen over Button and you can bet that Lewis will definitely have a say in the matter.

– You sometimes have to wonder about the inane chatter heard on occasion between pit and driver, in this case Red Bull and Mark Webber. The BBC tapped into the Red Bull communications link to bring us the following:

"Mark . . . Jenson’s behind you and is lighter on fuel so will likely be trying to pass."

Will likely be trying to pass?

No kidding. I thought this was a car race but after hearing stuff like that I’m not so sure. . .

– There are undoubtedly all sorts of reason why they don’t do it – tradition, rules, what-have-you – but I sometimes wish that F1 (and Indy cars, for that matter) would borrow a page from NASCAR and let a driver eliminated by mechanical failure – or suspected mechanical failure – return to the race after the problem has been fixed.

I adore Grand Prix racing and really enjoy watching the really good guys go at it. It’s not as if they show up at a local track every few weeks, either. You only get to see Sebastien Vettel or Nico Rosberg or Lewis Hamilton once a year, at most, if your country is lucky enough to have a Grand Prix so why not try to have those guys in front of the paying public as long as possible?

Hamilton was called into his garage yesterday on lap 19 of the 55-lap contest because sensors had detected a problem with one of the rear brakes and the team – correctly – didn’t want to see him go into a wall at 200 miles an hour because his brakes failed.

But why not fix the brakes and send him out again? I think he’d be smart enough not to interfere with the leaders and I’m sure the fans on hand would love to see him out there again, at speed, driving like the 2008 world champion he is for a few more laps than the 18 or 19 they got.

Just a thought.

– Okay, I tried – I really tried – to have a totally open mind when it came to Jenson Button and his performance in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, now that he is officially world champion (as Legard and Martin Brundle reminded me just about the whole race).

But give me a break.

Kamui Kobayashi, driving in only his second Formual One race, made Button look like an amateur fairly early on when he forced the champion into making, essentially, a rookie mistake and then, with six laps to go and while driving an obviously (to my eye, anyway) superior car to Mark Webber, he flat out couldn’t get past him.

It was almost classic to hear Brundle prepare everybody for the inevitable pass when Button caught Webber. "Jenson is right on his tail now, he’s in his tow, he’ll get him at the end of the long straight . . . etc.).

When it became obvious with three laps to go that Button wasn’t going to get the job done, the excuses started. "Jenson’s struggling with the turbulence . . .," and so-on.

Jenson Button is a good race car driver. He’s just not great, as some would have us believe.

– Just in case you were on Mars for the weekend and haven’t seen the official results, it was Vettel first, followed by Webber and Button. Then came Rubens Barrichello, Nick Heidfeld, Kobayashi, Jarno Trulli and Sebastien Buemi. Raikkonen finished 12^th; his replacement at Ferrari, Fernando Alonso, was 16th.

– I can hardly wait for 2010, when the fight for the championship between Vettel and Hamilton will have us biting our nails from the first race through to the last.

And we’re going to see a whole lot of new faces in F1 next year. Cross fingers that Robert Wickens is one of them.

Talladega: NASCAR escapes by the skin of its teeth again

Here are two really interesting reactions to yesterday’s Talladega 500, which was won by Jamie McMurray and pretty much guaranteed a fourth consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship for Jimmie Johnson.

This is reaction No. 1 – an email from a friend of mine who's one of the most knowledgeable fans I know, after the race finished:

"The only thing missing from the procession through the first 175 laps at ‘Dega today were the funeral flags on the hoods and the police escort."

This is reaction No. 2 – a remark from my 12-year-old son who’s not really a race fan but happened to look in when the 43 cars were running four-wide (yes, four wide):

"That’s a disaster waiting to happen."

Both observations were particularly astute. That race was about as exciting as a funeral procession – until all hell broke loose not once but twice with less than 10 laps to go.

I don’t find restrictor-plate racing (which pretty much guarantees everyone will run at the same speed) particularly exciting because it means one thing and one thing only: big wrecks. They had two dandies yesterday and we’ll address them both in a moment . . . but first.

NASCAR might find this surprising but I don’t think all that many people are really all that turned on by huge accidents because, a) they are terrifying to watch when they happen, and b) it takes a long time to clean up the mess afterward and crashes only make those already stupifyingly long races even longer.

But NASCAR thinks wreck-‘em races are wonderful. They must – or they wouldn’t continue to promote them. But just wait till Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart or Johnson gets killed (and each and every one of them, at one time or another, has complained about the insanity of restrictor-plate racing and how dangerous it is) and see what the reaction is then.

When Dale Earnhardt Sr. died at Daytona in 2001, it forced NASCAR into action. Mandatory use of the HANS device resulted and the much-safer Car of Tomorrow was a direct result of research into automobile safety in the event of violent collisions. The Tony George-University of Nebraska-developed SAFER barriers were also installed at most tracks where NASCAR runs.

In short, though, it took the death of the most popular driver in NASCAR at that time before the sanctioning body got serious.

Is it going to take another death of a Big Name before NASCAR scraps restrictor-plate racing?

Now, the first wreck at Talladega yesterday was eerily reminiscent of the crash that killed J.D. McDuffie at Watkins Glen, also in 1991. The car of Ryan Newman got upside down after colliding with cars driven by Marcos Ambrose and Kevin Harvick and came down hard and flat on its roof and stayed upside down.

In the case of McDuffie, he was killed on impact of the car’s landing. Newman, yesterday, had a really close escape because almost the same thing happened: the roll-cage was jammed down as far as his helmet. It took the speedway’s safety crew nearly 15 minutes to cut through the roll cage tubing and to get the sheet metal off in order to get Newman out.

Like others before him, Newman was very vocal afterward about NASCAR’s attitude toward its drivers.

And then, with just a green-white-checkers finish on tap, Brad Keselowski slipped up and before you could blink 13 cars crashed – including those driven by Mark Martin (who was also upside down although his hit wasn’t anywhere near as hard as Newman’s) and Jeff Gordon. Those two guys had either been at the front or near the front all afternoon and wound up 28^th and 20^th, respectively. It pretty much ruined their chances of catching Johnson in the Chase.

Johnson, meanwhile, had been hanging around the tail end of the field all day and somehow managed to avoid the carnage and came home sixth. He can clinch his fourth straight championship by averaging a tenth-place finish in each of the final three races.

Kasey Kahne was second yesterday and Joey Logano was third.

They’ll do it all over again next Sunday at Texas. Let’s hope the rabbit’s foot in NASCAR’s pocket holds.