Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Kyle’s announcement overshadowed by Danica, Milka

Well, Kyle Busch’s non-announcement Friday that he was starting his own truck team in the NASCAR Camping World Series was overshadowed anyway by the announcement that Milka Duno will try to steal Danica Patrick’s thunder when the ARCA stock cars hold a test session at Daytona next week.

Busch, you will recall, booked a press conference to make what was touted to be a pretty momentous announcement about his involvement in the sport from 2010 forward and with advance billing like that you kind of expected a little more than – well – a truck team.

A Cup team maybe? Or at least a Nationwide. Face it, the truck series these days is just about an anybody-can-drive deal so what’s the big deal there?

I’d really hoped Busch was going to give another form of racing (F1, maybe?) a shot. He’s absolutely the best young American racing talent around and he’s at a time in his life when he could accept a challenge like F1. The longer he waits, though, the tougher it will be.

In any event, Danica’s announcement earlier in the week that she would drive a limited number of Nationwide Series races with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team and warm up in the ARCA stock cars was trumped Friday when Milka Duno – who has marginal talent but gobs of Venezuelan oil money – announced that she, too, will take part in the ARCA test at Daytona Dec. 18-20 and then drive in the first ARCA race of the 2010 season at Daytona in February, which was to have been Danica’s big coming-out party.

This is actually turning out to be pretty good. Danica’s semi-move to NASCAR, in which the fans are expected to either love her or hate her with a passion (thus generating great publicity for NASCAR, which needs all the help it can get these days, trust me), has now turned into a WWE-type grudge match.

I betcha that Milka, who should really be the villain, turns out to be the fan favourite in this little set-to.

One other thing about it, too. Baseball has traditionally been the only major-league sport in which the media are on the job 365 days a year. Watch any sportscast, or pick up any newspaper, and there is always a baseball story, even in the dead of winter.

Not football. Once the Grey Cup or Super Bowl are over, that’s it till next season. Same with the NHL and NBA. But baseball has had it down to a science.

Now auto racing is like baseball. It’s a 12-month-a-year industry, with stories every day.

So next week, look forward to:

– Will Milka get in Danica’s way at the Daytona test and throw a towel in her face when she goes to complain? (It's happened before, remember?)

– Will Michael Schumacher officially sign his contract at Mercedes GP? (The suspense is killing us!)

– Will Formula Atlantic star Simona de Silvestro sign a contract to run Indy cars with HVM Racing, making her potentially the fourth woman in that league (with Danica, Milka and Sarah Fisher)?

Stay tuned.

What will Kyle Busch announce on Friday?

Kyle Busch has called a news conference for Friday afternoon at 2 o’clock in Charlotte, N.C., and the Speed Channel notification that it would break into regularly scheduled programming to televise it live included this curious wording:

"Busch, who raced in 86 races across NASCAR’s three national series in 2009, winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series title, is expected to announce a major initiative in the sport for 2010 and beyond."

A major initiative . . . for 2010 and beyond.

I wonder what that might be?

Is he planning to start his own team (a la Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and others)?

Is he planning to start promoting races? The “Rowdy Racing Series?”

Is he going to build a speedway (how about getting involved at Fort Erie . . .)?

Is he planning to go Formula One racing with the new USF1 team?

Word might leak out beforehand. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait for Friday at 2.

BTW, I hope it’s F1.

He could do it.

Danica signs to race for Dale Jr.'s NASCAR team

Danica Patrick and GoDaddy.com made if official today in Phoenix. The Indy car star who recently signed a two-year contract extension with Michael Andretti in the IRL will run a partial NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule in 2010 and at least one ARCA race.

Patrick will drive the No. 7 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet through 2011 for the JR Motorsports (JRM) team owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Rick Hendrick, Kelley Earnhardt and Tony Eury  Jr.

It was one of auto racing’s worst-kept secrets. Both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick had talked in recent weeks about the possibility of the first woman to lead laps at the Indianapolis 500 and the first woman to win an Indy car race starting her stock car career with their team.

"It’s been a long time coming, but the stars finally aligned for me with Go Daddy and JRM," she said today just before the official announcement was made outside Chase Field in downtown Phoenix.

“I have always said I love to drive and if I could make it work to race in both IndyCar and NASCAR . . . then I’d love to drive in NASCAR."

Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons said, "We’re thrilled to expand our long-standing relationship with Danica into NASCAR.” The Internet domain registrar and web hosting company also sponsors Patrick in Indy racing and plans to continue its relationship with Earnhardt Jr.

Patrick’s NASCAR races will take place before and after her Indy car races. Said Andretti: "Danica and I are both working hard for a win at the Indianapolis 500. Keeping the race schedules separate will help keep her focused."

Patrick’s first stock-car start will be the ARCA stock car race at Daytona on Sat., Feb. 6.

Fort Erie speedway proposal approved

Fort Erie Town Council voted early today to approve the Canadian Motor Speedway development.

A lengthy and sometimes rowdy meeting of council, which heard from more than 50 delegations supporting or opposing the motion, came to an end shortly after 12:30 a.m. when council voted unanimously in favour of the speedway.

The approvals process now goes to Niagara Regional Council, which will vote on the matter Wednesday afternoon.

Hundreds of people attended the Monday night regular meeting of council, which was moved from the Town Hall to the Leisureplex Banquet Hall because of the expected large turnout.

The speedway, if construction goes ahead, will be built on more than 800 acres of land west of the Queen Elizabeth Way on the outskirts of Fort Erie, just across the Peace Bridge from Buffalo, N.Y. and less than 20 miles away from Niagara Falls, Ont.

NASCAR and Indy Racing League races are possibilities for the site.

The proposal includes grandstand seating for more than 65,000 people, a one-mile oval track designed with input from NASCAR star Jeff Gordon, a 2.5-mile road course and a research and development centre involving McMaster University of Hamilton.

The speedway originally had a budget of $200 million but is expected to cost twice that. Organizers maintain that there could be racing of some sort on the property by 2011.

Racing roundup: Critical Fort Erie speedway vote tonight

Tonight – Monday night – in Fort Erie is going to be a pivotal moment in the fight to gain approval to build a multi-million dollar oval speedway/road-course complex beside the Queen Elizabeth Way on the outskirts of the border city.

The Town Council will hold a special meeting at the Leisureplex Banquet Hall, on Municipal Centre Dr., where it will decide whether to support the Canadian Motor Speedway project.

If council votes yes, then the matter will go to the area’s regional government that will then vote yes or no on Wednesday.

The Leisureplex location was chosen because a large number of opponents of the project are expected to turn out. Led by the usual NIMBY crowd, which seems to exist in just about every municipality everywhere, these people automatically shout "no!" to anything that might see change take place, even if it’s positive change – which I happen to think is the case here.

To counter this opposition, supporters of the speedway are planning a pep rally and barbecue at the Quarter Mile Restaurant and Sports Bar on nearby Garrison Rd., starting at 3 p.m. From there, they plan to march to the banquet hall to show councillors that "there may be hundreds of opponents" to the speedway project, "but there are thousands of supporters."

Good luck to them and I hope it’s approved. Whether the speedway ever actually gets built is another matter, but the approvals process comes first and there’s no way this project should be rejected.

Remember the hue and cry raised back in the 1960s by members of the Parkdale Ratepayers Association when the idea of an Indy car race through the streets of the Canadian National Exhibition was first floated? They raised enough of a fuss that it never happened.

We found out years later that the then-owners of Mosport Park Ltd. were in large part responsible for the outright lies and half-truths that contributed to the rejection of that initial proposal.

To illustrate how wrong the opposition to that race turned out be, the annual Molson Indy (now Honda Indy) that finally got the green light in 1986, has been nothing but positive for the city of Toronto ever since. Vancouver, Montreal and Edmonton have also reaped the benefits of car racing in their cities as inns, motels and hotels, restaurants and bars have all thrived. (Maybe not the taxpaying citizens of Edmonton because of the outrageous cost-overruns there associated with a street race, which the Fort Erie proposal is not, but the city's hospitality industry certainly benefited).

In any event, you have to wonder where the opposition to the Fort Erie proposal is coming from? I mean, it’s not as if there’s a lot in Fort Erie to attract tourists – other than the horse-racing track. And, as mentioned, there are always the NIMBY types, but they’re a minority.

So what's the problem? Why is there even opposition to this proposal? Who’s behind it? Where is it coming from? Is there something a little deja-vu-ish going on here?

Let’s hope that the members of Fort Erie Town Council ask some tough questions tonight of the people opposing this speedway because it will be tragic to find out after the fact that the opposition was engineered and not real.

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Quote of the weekend (if not the year):

Juan Pablo Montoya congratulating Jimmie Johnson on his fourth consecutive Sprint Cup championship at the NASCAR Awards Gala in Las Vegas at the weekend:

"Jimmie, you keep kicking our butts every week," said the ex-F1 pilot who finished eighth in NASCAR points this season. "It’s great to see you here – but it really sucks, to be honest."

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Several weeks ago, I wrote a blog item about a young racing driver from northwestern Ontario who made a great impresson on, first, Carl Edwards and, second, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and who's now working with Earnhardt’s commercial team on a sponsorship package that could see him racing for Dale Jr.’s team in the 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series.

(If you missed seeing the item on Steve Arpin of Fort Frances, Ont., then click here.)

The good news today is that the other night in Covington, Ky., at the annual ARCA RE/MAX Series Championship Awards Banquet, Arpin was honoured for not only his seventh-place finish in 2009 points but also for his popularity. He received the National Speed Sport News ARCA Nation Most Popular Driver Award.

This can only help Steve in his quest for financial backing to continue his quest to land a ride in the Sprint Cup Series, which is his ultimate goal. Dale Jr., of course, is no stranger to "most popular" awards, so Arpin’s honour will undoubtedly go down well with The Boss.

Bigger, better 2010 season awaits touring car racers

Three years ago now, a new road racing series was started in Ontario and Quebec. The brainchild of John Bondar, a fellow who’d been part of the motor sport scene for 25 years both as a driver and an organizer (he was once president of the CASC-Ontario Region, so he’s been at the top), the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Series attracted serious amateurs as well as professional racers.

It was an instant success in 2007 and rolled right along in '08 and '09.

In recent days, Bondar announced the 2010 schedule for the series that he says is attracting new teams as well as more sponsors, which is pretty good considering it was already pretty healthy in both.

As well as two-race weekends in May and August at Mosport and at the Circuit ICAR at Mirabel airport north of Montreal in July and September, the Touring Cars series will be featured at the Honda Indy Toronto in July and at the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres in August.

The Honda Indy and Trois-Rivieres shows are top-of-the-mountain stuff in Canada and it's a feather in the cap for Bondar that his series is being included.

There’s a race weekend scheduled in June but no location is listed, as yet. Since there isn’t an event scheduled at either Shannonville Motorports Park or Calabogie M.P., which were both scenes of races in 2009, it’s a good bet the June sprints will be held at one of those circuits.

Said Bondar in a release: "The championship experienced unprecedented growth in 2009 with new teams coming on board and a large contingent of rookie drivers joining, which meant fields averaged over 36 race cars. We increased the humber of sponsor partners and more are coming in 2010. We have also been approached by numerous new teams that want to join in the action for 2010, so things are looking good for the future."

The series is composed of two classes – Touring Class is for entry level race cars with engines up to 2 litres and some modifications allowed while Super Touring Class is for high-performance engines and almost-unlimited modifications. Incidentally, Nick Wittmer of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., was the Super Touring champion in ‘09 while Alain Lauziere, also of Vaudreuil-Dorion, won in Touring Class. Lauziere also won the TC in 2007.

When Bondar launched the series, he stressed that the "showroom" cars on the track would be the same ones that fans drove to the circuits, so fields are populated by marques like Honda, Toyota, Acura, Lexus and BMW.

The future looks good for the series that’s also presented by Toyo Tires. Bondar is a very capable guy who’s also a visionary. I’ve been after him for several years to consider trying to do for Ontario and Quebec open wheel racers what he’s done for the closed-wheel crowd.

I remain optimistic that he’ll give it a shot.

Stolen race car trailer has parts worth thousands

David Didero of Ancaster, whose son Brennan won the Ontario Lucas Oil Sportsman Series rookie-of-the-year award in ‘08 and finished third in this year’s championship, has had a trailer full of race-car parts stolen from his Mid America Motorsports Inc. shop and is devastated because the theft could put them out of racing.

The robbery took place some time overnight on Monday. Thieves broke right through the front gates of the shop property in the Hamilton-area municipality, hooked up the trailer that was packed with the parts for a trip south, and took off.

"I suspect they might have just been after the trailer," said Didero – who took a shot at Indy a few years ago with his cousin, Doug Didero, driving. "I’m not sure they would have been aware of what was inside. They might have opened the trailer later and realized there was a gold mine in there."

The trailer in question is a 2008 Excursion enclosed race trailer, white in colour. It has aluminim wheels and a spare tire on the nose with a black tire cover. The Ontario licence plate number is F5400K. It’s got lettering that says Mid America Motor Sports, Grisdale Racing Products, #24 Brennan Didero, Texon Tool Supply, Lucas Oil and Benson Auto Parts.

The parts are worth thousands of dollars, Didero said.

"I was going to take the parts to Florida, where the weather’s a little better in the winter, and build two new late-model race cars," he said. "We were hoping to run some NASCAR Canadian Tire Series races next year but this has really put us behind the 8-ball."

Unfortunately, this sort of theft is an all-too common occurrence. Google "stolen race car parts" and there’s more than 324,000 references to parts as well as complete racing cars being taken.

Having said that, if you see the trailer or have knowledge of the theft, call the police or David Didero at 905-741-9244 or email him at midamericamotorsports@hotmail.com

$9.2M loss for Edmonton Indy race is mind-boggling

Things are percolating on a number of fronts so chew on this:

A fine piece of reporting by Dan Barnes of the Edmonton Journal has revealed that the Rexall Edmonton Indy has cost the city of Edmonton nearly $10 million the last two years.

My God.

Wrote Barnes: “The open wheel auto race has been operated . . . on budgets of $15 million in 2008 and $12.1 million this year and has generated a combined loss of $9.2 million, a bill picked up by the City of Edmonton on behalf of its taxpayers.”

For the whole story, click here.

Okay, here’s what I want to know. It’s okay to say $9.2 million has been lost – but it didn’t disappear into thin air. If it went out of one pocket, it went into another.

So my question would be: who’s making the money?

Who’s ripping off whom?

Because, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what’s happening.

 

I would suggest that Kimi Raikkonen’s official move to the World Rally Championship will be followed soon by Michael Schumacher’s announcement that he will return to drive in Formula One next season.

Reuters news agency reported on Thursday that the Kimster was on the verge of signing a contract with Citroen to compete in the WRC in 2010. As Sebastien Loeb has won the last six world rally titles in that marque, it would appear to be a wise move by Raikkonen and he could perhaps become the first driver to win both the F1 and WRC titles.

The reason there’s been a delay in the Schumacher announcement is because Raikkonen’s managers have been talking to Mercedes. Now that he’s been thoroughly rebuffed (there was a chance for him at McLaren, too, once upon a time), Mercedes GP (formerly Brawn GP, formerly Honda, formerly BAR, formerly Tyrrell) can go ahead and do what it’s wanted to do all along: announce that the seven-time world champion will return to the cockpit in 2010 and be reunited with Ross Brawn – an unbeatable combination when the two were at Ferrari.

Schumacher has been dropping hints that he’s fit again and raring to go. When Felipe Massa was injured this year, it was expected that Schumacher – who remained on the Ferrari payroll until recently – would step in.

But he begged off, citing a neck injury suffered in a motorcycle accident that hadn’t fully healed. However, he’s been telling people at various karting events he’s contested recently that the neck is fine.

 

Speedway seat plans would have Harold Ballard turning in his grave

One afternoon back in 1973, I was working on the news desk of the Toronto Star and reading the 5-star sports pages. (The Star was an afternoon daily in those days, with four editions – the 5-star being the final.) A small advertisement caught my eye.

"A limited number of single seats are available on a subscriber basis."

The ad had been placed by Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. and there was a phone number, so I called.

The lady who answered was most gracious and what she said was revealing.

"Mr. Ballard is trying to get more seats into the Gardens (Mr. Ballard being the late Harold Ballard, proprietor of the hockey arena the late sports columnist Dick Beddoes dubbed the "Carlton Street Cashbox").

"He is having the larger seats removed and narrower ones installed. That way, he can get two and sometimes four more seats into a row. However, some of the rows in the ends have come up odd-numbered. It’s those single seats that are on sale for the season."

So that’s how I jumped the queue (the waiting list went on forever in those days) and came to own two season’s tickets at Maple Leaf Gardens. They were on the aisle (which was on an angle) in what were then the blues in the northwest corner; if I wanted to say something to my wife when there was a break in the action, all I had to do was lean forward and I had her ear.

I kept them for three seasons and then gave them up because, much like today, the Leafs stunk (most of the time; sometimes they got lucky like the current team did against Montreal Tuesday night) and I refused to pay good money to watch a bunch of bums going through the motions.

I am telling you this story because of an amazing tidbit of information I read in a recent issue of National Speed Sports News that was written by the paper’s legendary editor, Chris Economaki.

This is what he reported in his Nov. 25 Editor’s Notebook:

"Bigger butts? we ask on getting word that part of a coming $13 million improvement at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway is replacement of current seats with wider ones that will also have cupholders. Seat aisles will also be widened, reducing spectator capacity by some 13,500, bringing the track’s total seating down to 130,000.

"And out in Arizona, Phoenix International Raceway says it plans to extend its grandstand seat widths from 18 inches to 22 inches for the 2010 season."

If Harold Ballard were still alive, can you imagine his reaction to news like that?

"Don’t those people know how to make money?" Pal Hal would thunder. "No wonder everybody’s goin' broke!"