Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Stamp to honour Miss Supertest, Bob Hayward

Great news today.

The Stamp Selection Committee of Canada Post has seen fit to honour this country's most famous racing powerboat, Miss Supertest, with a commemorative stamp that will be issued in September, 2011.

According to a release, the 20 stamp issues and two commemorative envelopes approved by the committee for 2011 feature a wide variety of topics and people. In addition to Miss Supertest, baseball Hall of Fame member Ferguson Jenkins of Chatham and the Quebec folksingers, Kate and Anna McCarrigle, are also being honoured.

The selection of Miss Supertest is due almost entirely to the efforts of John Lyons of Picton. John went to every newspaper, radio and television station he could to make the case that Supertest and her driver, the late Bob Hayward, were worthy of such a stamp.

And the timing was critical because 2011 would mark the 50^th anniversary of Supertest and Hayward's  third and final glorious triumph - beating the Americans for the Harmsworth Trophy.

We sat down for a chat in January and I wrote about him and the campaign in a Toronto Star Wheels column in February. Said John when we were having coffee:

"The Stamp Selection Committee of Canada Post and its chairperson, Robert Waite, must know that Canadians are supportive of such a stamp. They get about 600 applications a year and fewer than two dozen are approved. So it's really important for people to get behind this."

I was amazed at the response to that column. Many of the people who wrote or emailed Mr. Waite copied me and I received dozens of pledges of support.

I can just imagine the avalanche that descended on Ottawa because John convinced yacht clubs, members of Parliament and even Mayor David Miller of Toronto to climb aboard and send letters of support.

Jim Phillips, Director of Stamp Services for Canada Post, made the formal announcement this week and said that “Miss Supertest marks the glory of the Canadian hydroplane racer, three-time winner of the Harmsworth Cup.”

For those of you who aren't familiar with Miss Supertest, the boat, the man and the story make up a wonderful slice of Canadiana.

First, a little background. In 1902, the fellow who owned Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, Alfred Harmsworth, dedicated a trophy to encourage development of the motorboat industry. Starting in 1920 and continuing through to 1958, the United States held the trophy.

Jim Thompson of London, Ont., president of the all-Canadian Supertest Petroleum Co., became interested in powerboat racing and purchased an unlimited hydroplane (the most powerful racing boats in the world) in the early 1950s, renaming it Miss Supertest. When Thompson didn't win in that boat, he had Miss Supertest II built in 1954 and subsequently enjoyed some success.

In 1959, Miss Supertest III was constructed and this boat was a winner right out of the box. In August of that year, Supertest III, with Hayward driving (Thompson did virtually all of the testing and development work on the third boat but left the actual race-driving to Hayward) went up against the American champion Maverick, which was defending the Harmsworth Trophy on the Detroit River, and beat him.

The victory caught Canadians by surprise but very quickly there was joy in the land. They might be our friends, but there's nothing Canadians like to do better - be it in hockey or the War of 1812 - than beating the Americans.

As dictated by Alfred Harmsworth back in 1902, any challenge for the trophy had to take place in the country of the Harmsworth holder and so, in August of 1960, the Americans brought three boats - the maximum number of challengers under the rules - to Lake Ontario at Picton to try to win it back.

By now, Miss Supertest was a Canadian icon: a household name from one end of the country to the other. The excitement over the showdown was unimaginable.

Prime minister John Diefenbaker, Ontario premier Leslie Frost and Toronto mayor Nathan Phillips went to Picton for the races. Thousands of spectators from both sides of the border turned out to watch Hayward turn back the American challengers.

The boat and the man were national heroes and were given a ticker-tape parade up Bay St. in Toronto.

Miss Supertest III and Hayward successfully defended the title again in 1961 but several months later, disaster struck. On Sunday, Sept. 10, 1961, while competing for the U.S. Silver Cup on the Detroit River, Miss Supertest II flipped over and Hayward was killed.

Thompson would only allow Miss Supertest III to compete in the Harmsworth Trophy races; Hayward raced Supertest II at other times and he was in that boat when he died. No matter. Thompson retired from the sport on the spot and Miss Supertest III was never again sent into battle.

Miss Supertest III and Bob Hayward are members of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame; they, and Thompson, are inductees of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame.

And the piece of Lake Ontario at Picton that was the scene of Miss Supertest’s greatest glory was later renamed Hayward Long Reach in honour of her driver.

Congratulations to John Lyons and to the Stamp Selection Committee of Canada Post for this wonderful day in the history of Canadian motorsport.

Buy Honda Indy tickets today or pay more tomorrow

You know, if Mike Harris had pulled this stunt there would have been rioting in the streets.

The newspapers would have been outraged and organized labour would be planning marches.

Talk radio hosts would have been be inundated with rants by consumers understandably outraged.

But everybody’s so mad at Stephen Harper over the gripping issue of Taliban torture (apparently) that the highway robbery happening in this province tomorrow has escaped their attention.

The 13 per cent Harmonized Sales Tax (the provincial sales tax plus the federal GST)  being imposed on everything you buy in this province – that’s everything, not just some things – is supposed to start on July 1. (I want to emphasize the “everything” bit. If you pay $15 for a haircut today at one of Toronto’s old-time barbershops, you will have to pay nearly 10 per cent more as of July 1 - almost $1.50. If you pay $50 for a tank of gasoline today, you will have to pay nearly $55 as of July 1.)

Anyway, here’s the reason I’m writing this today: they (“they” being the McGuinty Liberals of Ontario) are jumping the gun and imposing the HST tax as of tomorrow (which is May 1, not July 1) on anything you buy that you won’t use or pick up till after July 1. Like airline tickets, theatre tickets, Blue Jays tickets and tickets to the Honda Indy, which will happen at the CNE July 16-18.

So, if you purchase your three-day Indy gold tickets today, they will be a cheaper than if you buy them tomorrow or any time after that.

So go to the Honda Indy website and buy those tickets today.

That also goes for the Parts Canada Superbike Doubleheader (July 9-11), the NASCAR Canadian Tire Dickies 200 (Aug. 21) and the Mobil 1 Presents the Grand Prix of Mosport American Le Mans Series weekend (Aug. 26-29) at Mosport International Raceway.

So buy those racing tickets and then head out after work tonight and get your Christmas shopping done, too.

Manitoba students win F1 in Schools competition

Four students from Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School in Brandon, Man., have won the 2010 F1 in Schools national championship and will represent Canada at the world finals in Abu Dhabi in September, 2011.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the F1 in Schools program, but are curious, here’s a link to Nika Rolczewski’s excellent story in last Saturday’s Toronto Star Wheels section. In a nutshell, though, it’s a world-wide program funded by the existing Grand Prix teams in which students between the ages of 11 and 18 research, design, build and race F1 model cars in order to raise the profile of automotive engineering.

The top international team wins the Bernie Ecclestone Trophy and he always shows up to present it. Last September in London, where the 2009 worlds were held, he took Lewis Hamilton along with him, which was a big thrill for the kids.

Members of the winning team – nicknamed the Golden Geckos – are Dustin Sparrow and Bret Coey (they are co-design engineers), Tyler Enns (resource manager and manufacturing engineer) and Ashley Scott (team manager and graphics designer). They beat out five other finalists in the national competition held Wednesday at the Ontario Science Centre.

Second place was won by students from Dr. Norman Bethune C.I. in Scarborough (Crystal Gao, Joanna Ni, Meagan Lin, Kellen Qi, David Zhang and Lily Tran) while third-place honours went to Woburn C.I., also in Scarborough (Geethanjali Selvam, Sushani Singh, Antonia Szeto, Zarana Bavashi, Devanshi Shah and Mazlina Khan).

Other awards went to students from West Hill Secondary School in Owen Sound, Sir Robert Borden High School from Ottawa and the Scarborough Academy of Technological, Environmental and Computer Education (which is part of W.A. Porter Collegiate).

The Manitoba students were the big winners, however, collecting citations for best-engineered car, best team marketing and the judges’ choice award in addition to finishing first overall.

Now, because this is an auto racing blog, the question is: who built the fastest car? It’s all very well to be good at design and marketing and so-on but the true test comes on the race track.

The winners there? The Woburn C.I. team, whose racer rocketed (these creations are propelled by CO2 cartridges) from starting line to the finish line 20 metres away in 1.079 seconds – which would have put them third fastest at last September’s worlds.

Lewis Hamilton would have been impressed.

IndyCar ad shown on NASCAR TV show

I was delighted last night to see an IZOD IndyCar Series advertisement smack-dab in the middle of the program "NASCAR Race Hub" on the Speed Channel.

Talk about walking right into the Lion’s Den.

The NASCAR folks were talking about all the wrecks that took place when the Cup drivers were trying for a green-white-checkered finish at Talladega last Sunday when they paused for a commercial.

Suddenly, there on the screen, was Indy car driver Ryan Hunter-Reay water-skiing, surrounded by beautiful women and looking like a million bucks.

Great stuff.

The thrust of the commercial was for viewers to go to a particular website where they can order sports clothing and maybe win an all-expenses-paid trip for four to this year’s Indy 500.

I’d heard that IZOD, which is IndyCar’s title sponsor, is spending big bucks on promotion and PR but this was the first time I’d been exposed to any of it.

Now, I don’t know if they paid extra for placement during the NASCAR show or whether they just purchased commercial time and it was luck-of-the-draw that it popped up when it did.

But it truly was a great moment in sports.

Years ago, when I agreed to take the Rogers sports pack (or whatever they call it), Leafs TV was part of the deal.

I worked nights in the newspaper business back then and wasn’t able to watch a lot of the Leafs games live so I loved going home after midnight and watching an almost-instant-replay,"Game in an Hour," in which they edited out all the line-changes and pushing-and-shoving and intermissions and just showed non-stop hockey.

I didn’t – and don’t – watch Leafs TV much but really liked (and like) the Game in an Hour.

I don’t know if Leafs TV pioneered the concept, but I’m not aware of anybody else doing it so I’m giving them the credit because others have taken notice.

Last night on the Speed Channel (after "NASCAR Race Hub" and the IZOD IndyCar commercial), they introduced a new program, "Race in :60," in which they showed last Sunday’s Talladega Sprint Cup race edited down into an hour.

Leafs TV should take a bow.

I’ve got my fingers crossed (and I’m sure every other Indy 500 fan has theirs crossed, too) that TSN finds a way to televise the final hours of this year’s Pole Day time trials at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Big changes have come to Indy this year and the run for the pole promises to be really exciting.

Forever and ever previously, the run up to the Indy 500 started on or about May 1. Teams practiced for two weeks and then they held the first weekend of time trials. Then they practiced for another week and held more time trials. Then, on the last Sunday in May, they actually held the race.

This year, it’s all being squeezed into two weeks. The drivers will practice for a week and then time trials will be held to set the 33-car field, followed by the big race a week after that.

Here’s the plan for Pole Day, which will go this year on Sat., May 22.

Every car entered will be allowed to set a time. Then, with 90 minutes remaining in the session, the fastest nine drivers will participate in a "shootout" for the pole, which will be worth $175,000.

There will be no limit on the number of runs each of those nine drivers can make until qualifying ends at 6 o’clock. There will be drama, for sure.

Pray that it doesn’t rain. And that there isn’t a ball game scheduled on TSN

NASCAR: McMurray proves that nice guys finish second

In this era of "have at it, boys" in NASCAR, nice-guy Jamie McMurray is somehow going to have to develop a nasty streak.

If he wasn’t such a fair fellow, McMurray wouldn’t have let Kevin Harvick play him for a patsy yesterday and steal the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway right from under his nose.

But Harvick, you can bet, knew that McMurray has always raced clean and that he’d dutifully leave a lane open for him to slip past unmolested and win the ninth race of the 36-race NASCAR Sprint Cup season by a bumper – or by, officially, .011 of a second, the second-closest finish in Talladega history and the eighth closest since NASCAR adopted electronic scoring.

After McMurray, who officially finished second, came Juan Pablo Montoya in third, Denny Hamlin fourth and Mark Martin fifth. Jimmie Johnson, who crashed out, is still the series leader, with Harvick second and Greg Biffle third.

NASCAR made several changes – philosophical and otherwise – over the winter in an effort to make the on-track product more exciting. Besides the famous "have at it, boys" instruction, technical changes included smaller restrictor plates for superspeedways (which means drivers have more power at places like Talladega) and the use of a rear spoiler instead of a wing. Oh, and bump-drafting on superspeedways was A-OK.

They hit the jackpot on all counts yesterday at Talladega, where there were a record-setting 88 lead changes and 29 different leaders. Oh, and there were plenty of pileups, too, with several happening during three – count ‘em, three – attempts at a green-white-checkered finish.

It was on the final attempt that Harvick set up McMurray for what would essentially be victory by robbery.

When the green flew, Harvick settled in nicely behind McMurray for a two-lap run to the finish. You knew that, at the last second, Harvick would slip out from behind McMurray and try to slingshot past him on the run to the line.

Which he proceeded to do, except that he destabilized McMurray’s car in the process, enough so that McMurray had to fight to maintain control.

Now, if it had been a simple slingshot, c’est la vie. That’s life; that’s racing. But when McMurray started to bobble, it meant that Harvick did something to impede his progress. It meant that the move was much more than a simple slingshot and Jamie McMurray should have started, at that instant, plotting his revenge to either ensure he won or Harvick lost.

Instead, Mr. Nice Guy – who’s so nice he’s been in the Cup series for eight years and has only won four races – stayed in his lane and allowed Harvick to draw alongside and that’s what lost him the race.

Regan Smith wouldn’t have allowed that to happen. Remember him – at this very same race track two years ago in the fall? When Tony Stewart forced him below the yellow line when Smith went to pass him for the win at the finish? He passed Stewart – below the yellow – and NASCAR said that was illegal and gave Tony Smoke the race.

So I’ll guarantee you that if Regan Smith had been in Jamie McMurray’s shoes yesterday, he would have forced Harvick below the yellow line so that any pass wouldn’t have counted. Or else wrecked him to prevent him from finishing first.

Which is what McMurray is going to have to learn to do or they’ll continue to eat him alive, just like Kevin Harvick did yesterday.

NASCAR Notebook jottings

– Harvick hadn’t won a Sprint Cup race since the Daytona 500 in 2007. His employer, Richard Childress Racing, hadn’t won in Cup competition since 2008.

Harvick’s sponsor, Shell-Pennzoil, announced this past week that it was leaving Childress for Roger Penske’s operation, where it will be primary sponsor of Kurt Busch’s car. And Harvick has been rumoured to be leaving Childress to form his own Cup team.

But most observers figured Harvick’s proposed team would have Shell sponsorship, but that’s out the window. So if they’re winning, perhaps Harvick will now stay with Childress.

– Ryan Newman had this observation after yesterday’s Talladega slugfest: "Let us come here and entertain the fans but don’t award any points because this isn’t racing. It’s just not racing. These shouldn’t be points races. If we want to have races for the fans, let’s come here and do that but don’t let it affect the championship."

Newman doesn’t enjoy racing at Talladega. You’ll recall that last autumn, he got upside down in a late-race wreck and rescuers had to use the jaws of life to get him out of the car.

– Last week, Jeff Gordon was angry because he and teammate Jimmie Johnston had a coming-together during the race at Texas. (I blogged that since Gordon owns half the car that Johnson drives, perhaps the inevitable discussion would be more employer-employee than one between equals.)

Well, they had a more serious disagreement at Talladega yesterday and Gordon is reportedly furious about it. I still think it will blow over eventually but it could very well be approaching the serious stage. As Gordon said: "He’s been testing my patience and it’s reaching the boiling point."

– In the Nationwide Series race that was rained out Saturday and held immediately following the Cup race at ‘Dega yesterday, Steve Arpin, the Fort Frances, Ont., stock car super nova, finished a disappointing 26th after qualifying a very promising fourth.

After dropping well back shortly after the start, Arpin fought his way up into the top five but was caught up in a late-race wreck that also involved Kyle Busch, Morgan Shepherd, Colin Braun and Parker Kligerman.

Arpin will get another chance to show his stuff next week at Richmond. Meantime, he’s been getting the star  treatment on nascar.com and here is one of several stories about him this weekend.

Meantime, Brad Keselowski won that Nationwide race, with Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick second and third. It was eerily similar to the Cup race, with a number of late-race pileups.

Dennis Setzer emerged unscathed but his car nearly went out of the arena and then caught fire in one of those wrecks.

Incidentally, nearly a dozen Cup drivers raced in the Nationwide race, meaning they drove more than 800 miles in anger yesterday.

Keselowski nearly missed it. His carbon monoxide readings were so high following the Cup race that they forced him to take oxygen. Sam Hornish Jr. was on standby to take his place if he was unable to race. But he recovered - and how.

Other News ‘n Notes:

– Forty entries (nearly 80 cars) have been filed for this year’s Indianapolis 500. Paul Tracy and Alex Tagliani will represent Canada. Four women – Danica Patrick, Sarah Fisher, Simona De Silvestro and Milka Duno – are entered and a fifth, Ana Beatriz, is possible.

– Scott Pruett won this weekend’s Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race with Mark Wilkins of Toronto and his American partner, Burt Frisselle, second. (see post below). In the Continental Tire Challenge race, also at Virginia International Raceway and won by Joey Hand and Michael Marsal in a BMW M3 Coupe, Scott Maxwell of Toronto and Joe Foster were seventh in a Multimatic Mustang Boss 302, Kenny Wilden of Oakville and Ryan Winchester were 18^th in a Mustang GT whle the ST class was won by Karl Thomson’s Compass360 Racing team from Toronto with Ryan Eversley and Zach Lutz aboard.

– Both Formula One and the IZOD IndyCar Series were quiet this weekend. F1 won’t go again till Spain in two weeks while IndyCar will be in Kansas next weekend.

The most delicious F1 news was that desposed Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IRL president and CEO Tony George took in the Chinese Grand Prix and spent time with Bernie Ecclestone. This has led to all sorts of rumours about George bringing F1 back to the United States but to a location other than Indianapolis.

I would suggest that this will never happen. Not that F1 won't return to the U.S. someday. I just don't see T. George playing a role .

Arpin debut delayed; AIM car second in Grand Am

While Northern Ontario stock car racer Steve Arpin – who qualified fourth for today’s scheduled NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama – had to cool his jets because of seriously bad weather there, Toronto sports car star Mark Wilkins and his American partner Burt Frisselle finished second in the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Race up in Virginia.

With a little luck, Wilkins and Frisselle – who recorded a podium finish in their AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Pacific Mobile No. 61 Ford-Riley Daytona Prototype for the first time this season – might have won the race at Virginia International Raceway, which went to Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas in a BMW-Riley DP instead.

Wayne Taylor and Max Angelelli were third in a DP Ford-Dallara. Andy Lally and Ted Ballou were first in the GT class in a Porsche GT3.

Although I used the term "with a little luck," to describe Wilkins’ and Frisselle’s near-win, I could also have written that they might have finished first, "if the race officials hadn’t dithered."

With about 20 minutes left in the race (as is the case in the American Le Mans Series, Grand Am races are timed events), Pruett’s car suffered some rear-spoiler damage when he pulled in too quickly after passing a slower car and clipped the front of it.

This knocked the spoiler loose; although it didn’t fall off, it was hitting the ground and bouncing about and generally flailing around at the back end of the racer.

The question being asked almost immediately by the Speed TV commentators was whether the officials would black-flag Pruett, who was leading the race with Frisselle hot on his heels, and force him into the pits to have the broken piece removed.

In fact, a TV reporter had time to dash over, with camerman in tow, to seek comment from Pruett’s crew chief, Tim Keene, who admitted he was more worried about that happening than whether the piece might fall off and damage one of the following cars.

While – presumably – the officials were discussing this question (which would have given Frisselle and Wilkins the lead if Pruett had been ordered to pit), the piece of spoiler did, indeed, fall off and this necessitated a full-course caution to retrieve it.

Then, when the cars lined up to go racing again, the starter was extremely slow in throwing the green flag – thus stacking up the field behind leader Pruett – and several cars ran into each other in the commotion, bringing out another full-course caution.

By the time the race was restarted for good, there were only about five minutes remaining and Pruett was able to hold off both Frisselle and Taylor for the win.

Now, in the post-race interviews and commentary, nobody talked about the role of the officials. Pruett laughed that he had been holding onto the car "by a thread" and Frisselle said Pruett had done "a phenomenal job driving that (wounded) car."

In fact, Frisselle said it was a "happy day, a great day" for himself, Wilkins and the AIM Autosport car.

And I supposed it’s the sort of thing one says, and feels, after finishing second and recording the best finish for the team in a long time.

But it could have been so much better. The AIM team could have won the race and there wouldn’t have been the mess the race became when the starter fell asleep on the job if the officials had done what they were supposed to do in the first place: order Pruett to the pits to have a damaged piece of a car removed that could have inflicted serious damage and/or harm to other cars and competitors if and when it fell off.

Meantime, in Alabama, weather interfered with NASCAR’s schedule for the second consecutive week. Rain, hail and tornadoes that did serious damage to communities in Mississippi swept into the Talladega area this afternoon and everything at the track was put on hold.

Sprint Cup qualifying was rained out and the Nationwide race was postponed until tomorrow afternoon and will now be flagged off after the Cup race.

Arpin, from Fort Frances in northwestern Ontario, set the NASCAR world on its ear in the past week or two by winning two ARCA races in a row and then being offered a chance by Dale Earnhardt Jr. to show his stuff in the Nationwide Series by driving the JR Motorsports car No. 7 that was wheeled at Daytona by Danica Patrick.

He answered the first part of the challenge by qualifying fourth for his first race. How he completes the assignment won’t now be known until late tomorrow.

Because of the lousy weather in Texas, which wiped out the whole weekend, they ran the Nationwide race after the Cup race last Monday but there are lights at Texas Motor Speedway and that is not the case at Talladega. So, could the Nationwide race tomorrow be called because of darkness? It’s possible.

One good piece of news came out of Talladega today. It was announced that Daytona International Speedway will be repaved in time for next February’s Daytona 500.

They apparently don’t want to take a chance of any more potholes opening up during the "Great American Race."

Ontario's Arpin qualifies fourth at Talladega

Steve Arpin, the stock car racer from the northern Ontario town of Fort Frances (that's black-fly country, folks), has started his rocketship ride to the top of NASCAR.

Arpin, you'll recall, won his first major-league stock car race a few weeks ago when he flew past the checkers first in an ARCA feature at Salem Speedway in Indiana. Then he shocked the racing world by winning the ARCA preliminary to the NASCAR weekend at Texas Motor Speedway last Friday night.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who'd previously fired Kelly Biers, reacted by announcing that Arpin would take over the JR Motorsports Nationwide ride this weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, which - if you must know - is a bit of a trial by fire. He'll get a second chance to prove how good he is in the same car next Friday night at Richmond, Va.

At Talladega - the race can be seen on TSN2 tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 - Arpin qualified fourth today. He was 19th fastest (out of 48 cars out there) in the first practice session Friday morning and then improved to 17th in second practice. He outqualified such Sprint Cup veterans as Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano. Jamie McMurray in the sister JR Motorsports car (No. 88) could only qualify 26th.

Kevin Harvick (pole), Carl Edwards and Ricky Stenhouse are the only drivers who will start in front of Arpin.

Meantime, he's the subject of a highly complimentary article on the nascar.com website today. Edwards, among others, positively gushes about Arpin's potential. You can read it here.

Talking about something else to link to (we weren't, but I couldn't think of another way to change the subject), a friend sent me this ad for a new book called "Formula One for Dummies."

Now, every F1 fan I know already thinks they know everything about the sport but I'll wager there's something in this book that will be new.

The people who publish the "for Dummies" books are not dummies themselves, so there must be a market.

It's fun to read the pitch, if nothing else.

Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire announce sponsorships

There have been a couple of sponsorship announcements of note in recent days.

First, Tim Hortons announced that Jeff Lapcevich of Grimsby will once again represent the company in Canada’s only national auto racing championship, the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

“Our relationship with Tim Hortons is something we’re quite proud of,” Lapcevich said in a release. “This year marks more than 20 years with them, and that’s quite an accomplishment.”

Tim Hortons first sponsored Lapcevich’s family-owned Fastline Motorsports in 1990 when it competed in the popular Players-GM Series for production cars.

Lapcevich’s season will start on June 5 when the series visits Delaware Speedway near London. The team will then race nine more times, including the Honda Indy Toronto in July and Montreal’s NASCAR event in August.

“The road courses will give us a place to showcase our talent," Lapcevich said. "I believe we’ll have a competitive package for Toronto and Montreal.”

Meantime, Canadian Tire announced it would again sponsor Milverton’s Scott Steckly for 2010 and that it had signed driver Mark Dilley of Barrie to race on behalf of PartSource.

“We are thrilled to field such an outstanding racing team for the 2010 season,” said Allan MacDonald, senior vice-president of automotive for Canadian Tire, in a release.

 “Scott and Mark are passionate racers and excellent ambassadors for our automotive business, and fans can look forward to meeting them at local store and track events throughout the summer.”

'Do that again, Johnson, and you're fired . . .'

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have their little tête-à-tête about running into each other during Monday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.

The two were fighting for second place mid-way through the race when Gordon “took the air off” Johnson’s car between turns three and four, causing him to wiggle. As J.J. fought to maintain control, Gordon slipped past on the inside but Johnson retaliated by whacking his right rear with his left front.

Gordon went on to lead the race but was eliminated 17 laps from the checkers when he was caught up in one of those patented, late-race, NASCAR multi-car ka-boomers.

Johnson eventually finished second behind winner Denny Hamlin.

After his retirement from the race, Gordon told reporter Diego Mejia that he was disappointed with Johnson's aggressiveness.

"He ran into the back of me for no reason," said Gordon. "I am disappointed, but  I'll get over it and so will he. We'll talk about it.”

Said Johnson: “It's going to happen in racing. . . I guess he got out and said he was disappointed. So since I have my chance, I can equally say I was pretty disappointed with him today. We'll sit down and get it talked out."

Now, here’s why I’d like to be a fly on the wall.

Jeff Gordon is more than Jimmie Johnson’s teammate – he’s his boss. Gordon is half-owner of Johnson’s car. So when they have their chat, will it be as teammates – or as employer-employee?

Nothing will come of it, of course, but it’s still fun to think about.

 

 

Racing Roundup: Hamilton's getting away with murder

Lewis Hamilton showed at Sundays’ Chinese Grand Prix, which was won by his McLaren teammate Jenson Button with him second and Nico Rosberg third in a Mercedes (full results here), that he is a superlative racer who has the aggressiveness and desire to win many more world championships.

But he’s also getting away with murder.

Two weeks ago at Malaysia, he only got a warning from the stewards after weaving back and forth to prevent Renault driver Vitaly Petrov from passing him. Some observers (including me) suggested he was blocking; others (BBC commentator Martin Brundle in particular) suggested he was just trying to "break the tow."

The other drivers ganged up on him in a pre-Chinese GP meeting and told him that blocking is blocking and it was revealed later that any similar "breaking the tow" manoeuvres by anybody, not just him, will henceforth result in a penalty.

Sunday, in China, he not only broke one more rule of racing but two. He was warned about the first one (as was Sebastien Vettel) but I’m astounded there was not a mention of the second and I predict another driver’s meeting will be held over it.

The first rule he broke was driving side-by-side with Vettel through pit lane. There is only room for one car in an F1 pit lane but in China on Sunday we saw two.

The pit lane in China is marked with inside and outside white lines and there is a shaded area between the pit lane and the actual working pits. I have no idea what that shaded area is for, but I can guarantee you it is not where a race car is supposed to stay for long.

In any event, the situation evolved thusly. Vettel and Hamilton went into the pits together (more about that in a moment). Vettel was serviced first by Red Bull personnel and sent out into the pit lane to exit. In the rush to get Hamilton out ahead of him,. McLaren signalled Hamilton to go, even though Vettel was already driving past. The two drivers then travelled side-by-side and inches apart the entire length of pit lane to pit exit, where Hamilton dropped back to allow Vettel to go out first.

There will be those who will argue that the team should have been reprimanded for sending Hamilton out when it did. But as soon as Hamilton pulled away and found he couldn’t get into the pit lane because Vettel was already there, he should have dropped back and fallen in behind him rather than driving parallel through the pits where one false move on the part of either driver could have resulted in a serious accident.

The stewards reviewed the incident and called both drivers in for a talking-to but that was the extent of the reprimand.

Now, I’ve been around racing for a long time. I’ve been watching racing forever. I have never seen what I saw in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix before. And that was when Hamilton passed Vettel going into the pits.

Every road course in the world has a pit-in road that leads to the pits. There is no speed limit until you enter the pits. But usually a driver will take his or her foot off the throttle and maybe even touch the brakes in order to enter the pit-in road. 

So Vettel left the racing surface on Sunday and entered the pit-in road. Instead of following him in, however, Hamilton stayed on the throttle and passed him. (Word travels really fast in F1, because Fernando Alonso did the same thing to his teammate, Felipe Massa, a little later in the race – which, officially, became the second time in my life I’ve ever seen anybody do that.)

Vettel appeared pissed (if I may use the word) when a TV reporter caught up to him later. He was smiling and his usual charming young self but you could tell he was browned off because Hamilton snookered him twice and got away with it.

Hamilton is a great racer but he’s letting the red mist get the best of him and he’s going to hurt somebody one of these days – maybe even himself – if someone doesn’t rein him him.

As was the case with the weaving, the other drivers might have to do it.

Chinese Grand Prix notebook jottings:

– When I left Saturday’s Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame Induction Gala at the Sheraton Centre just before midnight (I wrote about one inductee in particular in my Saturday Wheels column), several of the attendees were discussing how they were going to watch the China race.

As they were from California, and so would be flying home Sunday afternoon and unable to watch the replay on the Speed Channel, it came down to this: stay up and watch the race live at 3 a.m. on TSN and then sleep or catch a few winks and get up at 5 for the replay on TSN2 (under-18 hockey and tennis made it impossible for TSN to show the race any later on Sunday, apparently).

I don’t know what the California couple eventually did but I opted for the winks and an alarm at 4:55 a.m. and am I ever glad I did because weather played havoc with the Chinese race and it turned out to be a dandy.

Button, the rainmeister, made the call to stay out on slicks early in the race when it started to pour and just about everybody else opted to stop for intermediate rain tires.

Almost as quickly as it had started to rain, it cleared up and everybody who’d stopped mere laps before for the intermediates had to go back in for slicks. It was a crazy race as a result. While Button only went to the pits twice, Hamilton was in four times, Alonso stopped five times, and so-on.

Button’s superior gamble (it’s the second time his decision to stay on slicks while it’s been raining has proved correct) gave him the edge he needed from the get-go and even two safety car periods didn’t threaten his position.

– If Button continues his winning ways and repeats as world champion, I might have to eat my words. I have a bet with a co-worker that if Button wins the championship I will devour the column in which I suggested he would lose. I wonder how Toronto Star newsprint is going to taste, mixed in a plate of bangers and mash?

– Hamilton passed Adrien Suttil and Vettel at the same time in the same corner at one point in the race. Then, although it took him a few laps, he managed to get past Michael Schumacher after a great scrap. As it said, he’s a racer.

– Just so it doesn’t look like I’m changing my mind completely about Button, he did do something really reckless on the restart following the second safety-car period.

At the hairpin before the star/finish straight, when he was setting the pace for the restart, he virtually stopped. Other drivers had to stand on their brakes and Hamilton was forced to take to the grass to avoid rear-ending somebody.

It was dangerous and foolish of him to do that.

NASCAR rained out in Texas, to run two races today

It was a miserable weekend in the Fort Worth area – cold and wet – and the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series races were both rained out. They’ll try to run the two of them today.

(The TV commentators were going on and on about how drivers who compete in both series would have to race for 800 miles today and I'm like, 'Come On! They're Professional Race Car Drivers, For Crying Out Loud!' I'm supposed to feel sorry for them?)

Meantime, I caught something on the MRN radio broadcast that brought me up short. It was called Media Minute (or something) and reporters from newspapers and radio and TV were asked to name the top NASCAR story of the weekend and all of them – all of them – replied that it was "where would Kasey Kahne race in 2011?"

Wrong, I’m yelling at my car radio. That’s the PR story – the story that NASCAR wants the media to focus on. The real story is how the future of NASCAR racing is being threatened by the actions of the Big Four team owners.

NASCAR Sprint Cup racing is dominated by teams headed by four men – Rick Hendrick, Jack Roush, Richard Childress and Joe Gibbs. They have the best (and usually most popular) drivers under contract, the best crew chiefs/team managers and the sponsors with the deepest pockets.

Last week, it was announced that Hendrick had signed Kasey Kahne to a contract for 2012 – nearly two full seasons from now. Kahne is currently employed by the struggling Richard Petty Motorsport and is the one bright spot on that small team because he periodically wins races.

Now, Kahne is a major talent and that is one reason Hendrick wanted to lock him up. The other reason, of course, is Kahne’s sponsor, Budweiser. Although there has been no official mention of where that sponsor will go, it’s a safe bet it will follow Kahne to Hendrick. Kahne's sprint car team (Joey Saldana driving) is sponsored by Budweiser; his periodic mid-week Kasey Kahne Promotions races (USAC champ cars, sprint cars) frequently have Bud backing.

So by tying up the most talented and popular drivers (and their sponsors), the big teams get bigger (and richer) and the small teams get left behind and NASCAR will suffer, as a result.

Major League Baseball has this problem. With no salary cap, the New York Yankees always win and always will win. The Boston Red Sox are close when it comes to buying wins and championships. That’s why nobody goes to the games anymore in Toronto, Baltimore and Kansas City. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

And that is what will happen to Sprint Cup racing, if NASCAR doesn’t do something other than limiting the number of cars in a team.

So instead of speculating on which team Hendrick will place Kahne in 2011, perhaps the people who cover NASCAR should be looking at the bigger picture.

Is it a good thing for the sponsor’s car to win the Indy car race?

Just asking, because I’m not sure I know.

Ryan Hunter-Reay won a surprisingly unexciting IZOD IndyCar Series race at Long Beach on Sunday, with Justin Wilson second and Will Power third but what has me interested today is the optics of that.

Hunter-Reay drives a car entered by Michael Andretti Autosport, which is sponsored by the IZOD clothing brand. IZOD came on board over the winter to sponsor the Indy car series. Going into the Long Beach GP (which is IndyCar’s Monaco, if you must know), IZOD threw parties and promoted street festivals and did just about everything it could do to make the brand prominent just about everywhere in Southern California all weekend.

And then its car goes out and wins the race.

Years ago, a guy named Andy Evans purchased the IMSA sports car organization and renamed it Professional Sports Car Racing. He also owned the Scandia World Sports Car team and liked to drive in races. Periodically, he would win.

He stopped racing one day when his main PR guy, who happens to be a friend of mine, went to him and suggested that it didn’t look good for the boss to be winning his own races.

I betcha my friend, if he was working for IndyCar, might tell that story to somebody at IZOD.

Long Beach GP notebook jottings:

– Danica Patrick won the battle of the women drivers, finishing 16^th to Simona de Silvestro’s 17^th and Milka Duno’s 25^th.

De Silvestro had the best of Patrick for most of the race – she outqualified her again, too, but we’re talking fractions of seconds – but Patrick somehow got the bit between her teeth six laps from the end and made a clean pass.

You wonder how long Duno is going to remain with Dale Coyne. It’s a money deal that has nothing to do with talent, of which Duno doesn’t have much when it comes to Indy cars, but it’s got to be embarrassing for that team.

In Friday practice, she was something like five seconds behind the next-slowest car, and on Saturday she didn’t even try to qualify. In Sunday’s race, she dropped out with handling problems 10 laps into the 85-lap event.

-- Alex Tagliani of Montreal qualified seventh for the Long Beach GP but had contact twice during the race (translation: his car and another collided) and his team had a fueling problem. Hard luck seems to be following him around.

– In the Sprint Cup winner’s circle, the phone company has a young lady who is always present and always smiling. She can usually be seen a few feet behind the winning driver and she wears a Sprint shirt and sometimes a Sprint cap. It seems like her main job is to just stand there and smile, smile, smile.

If you’ve ever watched a Sprint Cup race, you’ve seen that girl.

So the IZOD folks have taken a page out of Sprint’s book and now have an IZOD-sweatered young lady beside, or near, the driver in the winner’s circle of Indy car races.

But after smiling away for a minute or two, the IZOD girl stops smiling. I mean, standing there smiling non-stop has got to be hard work because she always stops. But then she starts smiling again, after somebody off-camera obviously prompts her. You can just see if happening.

I think IZOD should send their trophy girl to visit NASCAR’s for some lessons on how to paste a smile on her face and keep it there for as long as it takes.

People notice these things.

Canadians shine in support races

Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe led the Firestone Indy Lights preliminary in Long Beach from start to finish. He won the pole on Saturday and was never headed in Sunday’s 45-lap contest. It’s Hinch’s first Indy Lights victory.

Ottawa’s Philip Major finished seventh; 18 cars started the race.

On Saturday, Simon Pagenaud and David Brabham won the American Le Mans Series race. Kyle Marcelli of Barrie and his partner Gerardo Binillo of West Palm Beach finished 22^nd overall (out of 36) and second in the Le Mans Prototype Challenge class.

Kuno Wittmer of Montreal won the World Challenge race at Long Beach. Rookie Fred Roberts of Toronto was 16^th. Ron Fellows of Mississauga was classified 21^st but dropped out with mechanical problems. Nick Wittmer of Montreal was 27th.