Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Why can’t newspeople get drivers’ names right?

I’ve done a little radio work in my time – not much, but enough to know what's going on.

Once upon a time, when you read the news, the wire service would follow the spelling of a troublesome name or town with the pronunciation. Example: "The Ontario Power Generating Station at Des Joachims. (DE-SWISH-A) Ontario has been shut down for repairs."

So I’m wondering why the news providers have stopped doing this because I heard all sorts of people totally mangle the names of any number of Indy 500 drivers in the past week.

Last Thursday, Ann Rohmer (ROME-ER) of CP24 read the text that accompanied tape of a turtle race at the Indianapolis Zoo. She said the race was flagged off by Tony . . . (her hesitation, not mine) . . . Cannon.

Now, Tony Kanaan’s name is pronounced KA-NON but you’d have never known it was him the way she pronounced it.

(I want everybody to know that I’m a big fan of Ann Rohmer’s and am very sorry that she will soon be ending her full-time gig at CP24. I’m just using her as an example of how the news providers are falling down on the job of providing proper pronunciation.)

At least Ann Rohmer was close. I went to an Indianapolis TV station website last Friday to check on the weekend weather and the anchor guy at WISH TV 8, who announced the same turtle race, called Kanaan, "Kay-nen."

I couldn’t believe it. Tony Kanaan is an Indianapolis 500 driver – and has been for years – and the anchor on an Indy TV station doesn’t even know how to pronounce his name . . . ?

It gets worse (or better, depending).

I happened to turn on MSNBC when I woke up Monday to catch the final few minutes of the Morning Joe program (I’ve been on vacation; that’s why I’ve been able to sleep in and then listen to all this stuff on TV).

Joe and his sidekicks went off the air and the woman reading the 9 a.m. newscast said the Indy 500 had been won by Dario (so far, so good) Fran-shetty.

His name, of course, is FRAN-KEETY and he’s married to Ashley Judd and how can ANYBODY be in the news business and NOT KNOW THAT!!!!

Once I was driving south on U.S. 81 to go racing at Oswego, N.Y., and just outside Watertown the guy doing the sportscast announced that the Spanish Grand Prix had been won by "Nee-gell Man-sell."

Who’d have known that one of the greatest English Grand Prix drivers of all time was really Spanish?

Three great races, all on the same day

Headlines:

1. Kurt Busch wins Coke 600; Ganassi nearly wins both big races

2. Dario Franchitti wins Indy 500 – if you could see past the commercials

3. Lewis Hamilton leads McLaren one-two after Vettel screws up

NASCAR COCA-COLA 600

A couple of weeks ago, Charlotte Motor Speedway owner Bruton Smith made headlines by suggesting a $20-million bonus be paid to any driver who could win the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day.

Well, a driver didn’t do it yesterday but a team owner sure came close.

Chip Ganassi’s Indy car pilot, Dario Franchitti, dominated the Indianapolis 500. Later in the day, Ganassi’s NASCAR Sprint Cup chauffeur, Jamie McMurray, finished second to Kurt Busch in the Coke 600 at Charlotte after coming oh-so-close to pulling off the double. See NASCAR story and results link here.

It’s quite possible that McMurray would have won the NASCAR race if it hadn’t been for a single-car crash late in the race. With 24 laps to go and McMurray sailing along in front of the pack, Marcos Ambrose lost control and hit the wall to bring out a caution.

In the ensuing pit stop, Busch’s pit crew – employed by Roger Penske – got him out in front of McMurray and, when racing resumed, Busch got enough of a jump that McMurray couldn’t catch him.

There was no $20-million bonus on the line but if McMurray had been able to follow Franchitti to Victory Lane, it would have marked the first time a team owner had won both big U.S. Memorial Day holiday races.

As it was, Ganassi became the first owner to win U.S. auto racing’s two biggest prizes – the NASCAR Daytona 500 (McMurray did it for him last February) and the iconic Indy 500.

Ganassi might not be finished. His Daytona Prototype entry in the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series, with Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas driving, will be in action at Lime Rock, Conn., this afternoon and it stands a very good chance of winning.

Meantime, the three big-league auto races held yesterday – the Formula One Grand Prix of Turkey (Lewis Hamilton, winner), the 500 (Franchitti) and the 600 (Kurt Busch) – were all thrillers in their own way and I’ve written separate reports on each.

(Which means, if you’re not a NASCAR fan and prefer to read about F1, just scroll down.)

NASCAR Notebook Jottings:

– Kyle Busch, who finished a fine third in the 600 after his brother Kurt and McMurray, was on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing from Jeff Burton. It seems that Burton felt Busch the younger ran into him and caused a flat tire.

I don’t have a lot of use for Kyle Busch because he usually acts like a spoiled brat and his petulance can be totally annoying. But the incident in question happened on a restart when everybody was jockeying for position and I don’t think he was at fault – that time.

But he had more than one run-in with other drivers in the pits – Brad Keselowski, in particular – and so he probably deserved a dressing-down from somebody, just maybe not Burton.

After Kyle Busch came Mark Martin in fourth place and David Reutimann in fifth.

– It was a bad weekend for racing sponsor Geico Insurance. Paul Tracy didn’t qualify their car for the Indy 500 and Max Papis couldn’t get their car into the 600. A lot was spent for not very much return.

– They put ads everywhere in NASCAR. There was one camera angle that showed cars heading right toward the SAFER barrier in turn one and pasted on the inside of the fence were ads for, among other things, the Bank of America.

– For the fourth time this season, perennial Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson failed to finish a race. It seems to be just "one of those seasons" for Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus, who was shown with his head in his hands at one point.

– Kurt Busch, who won the All-Star Race at Charlotte last weekend, became the seventh driver to win both that race and the 600.

– Ganassi celebrated for awhile at Indianapolis before flying to Charlotte to take in the last half of the 600. Penske stayed in Indianapolis and had to watch his car and driver win on television.

IZOD INDYCAR SERIES INDIANAPOLIS 500

I watched about 400 commercials yesterday afternoon, interrupted by snippets of the Indianapolis 500.

If TV ratings for the 500 are down, you can put the blame squarely on what seemed to be an abnormal number of commercial interruptions that, frankly, just about ruined the four-hour race.

Every time the race settled into a rhythm, announcer Marty Reid would say those magic words, "we’re going side-by-side," which meant the race coverage was squeezed down to the size of a postage stamp and commercial after commercial would air.

Hard-core fans usually put up with this nonsense. Casual people – the folks who watch a car race once a year – undoubtedly switched off the race at about the 45-minute mark when they were subjected to the third or fourth set of five-minute-long TV ads.

No other big-league sport in the world is treated this way by television. Not one. And yet whether it’s TSN pulling the plug the second they can to get away from Formula One (in order to treat us to 10 minutes of a documentary about fencing in economically challenged areas of New York, as was the case yesterday morning) or NBC or CBS or ABC interrupting a race either for commercials or station identification, it seems to be okay because - after all - it’s only auto racing.

When it comes to Indy, they know there are going to be a dozen yellow-flag periods that are going to last four or five laps at a minimum. Those yellows can last anywhere from five to eight minutes in length. So I don't know why they don't pack all of the commercials into those yellow-flag periods (as TV does between innings in baseball) and leave the actual car race alone.

In the end, it was a typical Indy 500. There was a crash when the race started (Davey Hamilton on the second turn of the first lap) and a crash when the race ended (Mike Conway going up and over Ryan Hunter-Reay in the third turn on the second-last lap).

That last pileup spoiled what could have been a nail-biter of a finish. Eventual winner Franchitti - who scored his second Indy 500 victory (see story and full results here) - was rapidly running out of fuel and was slowing down lap after lap. Second-place finisher Dan Wheldon had plenty of fuel, apparently, and had the hammer down heading for the checkers. There was a good chance he would have caught Franchitti right at the line but the yellow came out for the Conway-Hunter-Reay accident and that’s the way the race ended.

There's no green-white-checkered finish in Indy car racing - yet.

Marco Andretti finished third, Alex Lloyd was fourth and Scott Dixon was fifth. Danica Patrick was the top woman, finishing sixth.

Notebook Jottings:

– Actor Mark Wahlberg went for a ride in the IZOD IndyCar Series’ two-seater car (Michael Andretti driving) and was right behind the field (albeit scooting into the pit road) when the green came out.

This promotion was so successful that IndyCar will now hold a contest at all the races on the schedule (including the Honda Indy Toronto, July 16-18) and some lucky fan will get to take the ride, but with Michael's father, Mario Andretti, doing the driving.

I imagine that in the not-too-distant future, that ride will go to someone in exchange for a hefty donation to some charity or other.

– The "Voice of God" was heard once again at Indianapolis. Tom Carnegie, who was lead announcer for years at the Speedway ("it's a new-w-w-w-w, tra-a-a-ack record," or, "Mario Andretti is slowing down . . ."), came out of retirement to introduce Mari Hulman George, who gave the "Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines" command.

Jim Nabors was in great voice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sign "Back Home In Indiana" any better.

– Four paragraphs ago, I gave a plug to the Honda Indy Toronto. Now, I might have missed it, but I didn’t see (or hear) any mention of the Toronto race during the telecast yesterday. But when pit reporter Vince Welch did a report from Alex Tagliani’s pit just as the race was about to start, Tag’s sponsors were front and centre on his refuelling rig – Bowers and Wilkinson and the Honda Indy Edmonton.

Tagliani started strongly but faded and eventually finished tenth. His team’s sister car, driven by Bruno Junqueira, crashed out.

– The Speedway looked pretty full at the start but emptied out significantly as the afternoon progressed. This is understandable: it was between 95 and 100 Fahrenheit in the stands and 130F at track level. No wonder people either stood underneath the stands in the shade or went home.

I wasn't assigned to cover the race in 1976 so I bought a ticket and sat in the fourth turn. On the day of the race, it was so hot, I got sick. Just after 200 miles, I threw in the towel. I left the track, hailed a cab and was downtown in my air-conditioned hotel when a huge thunderstorm hit and caused the race to end under a red flag.

I love car racing but that was nuts and I can understand why so many people got up and out of the sun yesterday.

– I fully expected Roger Penske to start laughing about his team having "one of those days" yesterday. Just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

Will Power pulled away from his pit with the fuel hose still attached, Ryan Briscoe didn’t have the patience to wait for his tires to heat up after a pit stop and hit the wall, and Helio Castroneves – who was trying to be a four-time winner of the famous race – had to duck into the pits in the waning laps for a splash of fuel or he would have run out before the finish. Power and Castroneves finished in the top ten, but the Captain likes to win so that wouldn't have been good enough.

– People were passing in the grass, or trying to, because of all the blocking going on. John Andretti, Graham Rahal and Townsend Bell, three guys you’d have thought would know better, were all given drive-through penalties for blocking. The penalty ruined Bell’s race. He’d been running in the top ten until that happened.

-- Conway was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis with leg injuries. The accident, in which his car climbed over the back of Ryan Hunter-Reay's and tumbled through the air, hitting a debris fence that kept it from perhaps going into a grandstand, was a strange one. Why was Conway going so much faster than Hunter-Reay as they arrived at the third turn? Did Hunter-Reay bog down? Did Conway try an impossible move? Whatever, it was frightening.

-- When the final results were posted, Marco Andretti was listed in sixth place. But he successfully appealed his finish and was moved up to third. What happened, apparently, is that when Conway and Hunter-Reay crashed and the yellow lights flashed, he backed off and was passed by Lloyd, Dixon and Patrick.

– Although Franchitti led 155 of the 200 laps, all was not perfect with Team Target Chip Ganassi yesterday. They released Scott Dixon from a pit stop, only to watch as the left front wheel came off his car. (This happened seconds after Raphael Matos left his pit and one of his rear wheels came off.)

At the end of the day, it didn’t matter because Dixon came back to finish fifth behind the winner.

– Of the other women, Simona De Silvestro finished 13^th and was the top-placed rookie. Ana Beatriz was 21^st and Sarah Fisher was 26^th. Milka Duno didn’t qualify to start the big race but will return to action at Texas in two weeks when the Indy cars race there.

– In addition to Duno, we’ll see Paul Tracy at Toronto and Edmonton (maybe Watkins Glen) and Davey Hamilton at Texas. But here is a list of drivers who all put on a pretty good show at Indy that we likely won’t see again this season:

Graham Rahal, Ed Carpenter, the forementioned Townsend Bell (who really is a talent), Tomas Scheckter (ditto), Ana Beatriz (double ditto), Bertrand Baguette (he actually led a lap of the 500), Bruno Junqueira, John Andretti and Sebastien Saavedra (okay, maybe not him).

FORMULA ONE GRAND PRIX OF TURKEY

Perhaps it’s part of a racing driver’s DNA that prevents them from ever admitting they’re wrong.

Ryan Briscoe left his pit box at Indianapolis in 2008 and drove right into the side of Danica Patrick’s car. His fault, right?

Nope.

"She was to blame," he said with a straight face.

Kyle Busch has been the aggressor in as many NASCAR accidents as he’s been the victim. But you’d never know it. He even went so far as to threaten to kill another driver last week at the conclusion of an on-track incident that was at least half his responsiblity.

Which brings us to the Grand Prix of Turkey yesterday, in which Sebastien Vettel tried to pass his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber and crashed into him instead.

Instead of a one-two finish for Red Bull with Lewis Hamilton third in a McLaren, the resulting accident gave the victory to Hamilton, with Jensen Button second and Webber third. For race story and full results, click here.

I like Vettel, so I don’t think I’m biased against him, but there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind that he caused that crash.

Except his.

"Hey, you dingbat; what’r ya doin’?" his upraised right hand seemed to be saying to Webber as both Red Bulls went off the circuit.

Then he made that mocking schoolyard gesture that we’ve all seen or been exposed to at one time or another – a finger held to the temple and going in circles that, translated, means crazy, looney, insane.

"If you look at the pictures, it was clear I had the inside," he told reporters. "I was ahead, and just going to focus on the braking point and, honestly, you can see we touched and he touched my right rear wheel and I went off."

Memo to Vettel: If you look at the pictures, it shows you turning right into the side of Webber in much the same way as Michael Schumacher turned right into the side of Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez in 1997.

Even BBC commentator Eddie Jordan, in defending the young German for having a go (Martin Brundle and David Coulthard were adamant in their condemnation), eventually had to acknowledge it was his mistake.

The incident certainly brightened up the show, though.

The two Red Bulls and the two McLarens were in a class of their own in this Grand Prix and, although they were running very close together at the front, appeared en route to a routine finish in that order.

But then, on Lap 40 of the 58-lap race, the drama kicked in and it was edge-of-your-seat stuff for most of the rest of the way. 

Notebook Jottings:

– There is not doubt that the drivers, the teams and the people in charge of the spectacle known as Formula One will be looking forward to coming to Canada in two weeks because I’m sure all of them are sick and tired of going to races where the place is half empty.

Never mind the many empty seats along the main straight at the Istanbul circuit. There were entire grandstands that were either completely or nearly empty.

One thing about Montreal: the place will be packed.

– Was I imagining things or did I sense that just about everybody was subdued after that GP yesterday? Nobody was jumping up and down; nobody appeared particularly excited at all.

Here’s my theory as to why:

At the conclusion of the marvelous Blake Edwards comedy "The Great Race," Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) challenges The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) to another race because, "I didn’t win, he let me win."

Most highly competitive athletes want to win on their own terms. Remember when Canadian sprinter Donovan Bailey defeated American sprinter Michael Johnson at the Skydome in 1997? Johnson pulled up, apparently injured, and the first thing Bailey yelled after he won the race was that Johnson chickened out and faked that he was hurt when he realized that he was being beaten.

So that’s what I think was up in Turkey yesterday. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finished first and second, instead of third and fourth, not because they were better racers on this day but because of what happened between the Red Bull drivers.

That’s why they weren’t particularly excited. They lucked into it.

(Or else there's something going on at McLaren that we don't know about - yet.)

– Hey, wasn’t that fantastic racing between Button and Hamilton – until the team told them to lay off? Button caught Hamilton at just about the same place Vettel pulled even with Webber. Button passed Hamilton going into the corner and then Hamilton retook the lead several corners later. Great stuff!

(Theory No. 2 about the subduedness . . . perhaps Button and Hamilton wanted to keep racing each other until McLaren told them to stop. . . )

– The top four were eight seconds ahead of everybody else after 10 laps. Watching top-of-the-mountain racing drivers is like watching the top pro golfers: they do it (drive the car, hit the ball) again and again exactly the same way – which is why the rest of us aren’t in F1 or on the PGA Tour.

– Michael Schumacher finished fourth but was never really a candidate for the podium. But he’s getting there.

– When Vettel made his way back to the pits and then emerged from the Red Bull compound to meet the media, he was surrounded by dozens of reporters, photographers and camerapeople, all crammed in like bees in a hive.

The leaders of the G20 meeting in Toronto in a few weeks should be as lucky. . .

– Pussycat Doll Nicole Sherzinger won TV’s "Dancing With The Stars" on Tuesday night and was very evident in the McLaren garage, cheering on boyfriend L. Hamilton, who also came out a winner this week, which is a good thing.

Better to have two winners in an ego-filled household than a winner and a loser, I say.

– Finally, Fernando Who?

(P.S. Just to wrap up the weekend, Donnie Shatz held of Joey Saldana to win the World of Outlaws feature Saturday night at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And Daniel Morad of Markham scored his second fifth-place finish in the GP3 Series support race at the Turkish GP. Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto had another miserable day, finishing well back in the pack.)

Here's who won the other races on Indy 500 weekend

A tradition when you go to Indianapolis for the 500 is to attend all the other races that are held around it.

For instance, on the Friday night of Indy 500 weekend, the U.S. Auto Club sanctions races on the mile dirt track at the Indiana State Fairgrounds up on 38^th Street. Years ago, the sprint cars ruled. Now, the cars and stars of the USAC Silver Crown Division (dirt champ cars) race there.

Once, back in the 1970s, I was late to meet friends at the Fairgrounds. Racing had started and there wasn’t a place to park for miles. Right beside the main ticket booth was an empty spot. But there was a sign:  "Reserved for Governor," it said.

"Hell," I said to myself, "if he’s not here by now, he’s not coming," so I pulled in.

I was barely out of the car before a State Trooper drove up. "You can’t park there," he said.

"He’s not coming – the governor’s not coming," I said.

"You still can’t park there," he said.

Another time, I’d been sitting in the stands and one driver in particular caught my eye during warmups. Larry "Boom-Boom" Cannon of Danville, Ill., had a particular way of sliding his sprint car between turns three and four, so I decided to walk down there for a closer look.

Of course, there was police tape strung from the fence marking off a no-man’s land, which is exactly where I wanted to stand and watch. So I just stepped over it and walked right on up to the fence and waited for Boom-Boom Cannon to come flying by.

"Hey, you!" said a voice.

I looked over and saw this cop, who was standing there with the biggest police dog you ever saw.

"Get outta there," he said.

Okay, I said.

Once, I was standing underneath the grandstands, waiting out a rain delay, and there was this kid standing there with his parents. He had this canvas bag slung around his neck and he kept looking down into it.

I edged a little closer to see what was in the bag and realized that it was a small TV set.

I pointed this out to a friend of mine, Al Listiak, and he couldn’t believe it either. Why in the world would someone bring a TV set to a car race? How nuts is that?

That was in the 1970s and the kid was just ahead of his time. Now you go to a car race and half the people in the grandstand are looking at their BlackBerries and Ipods.

Anyway, enough of this. Ex-NASCAR driver Shane Hmiel of Mooresville, N.C., won the Hoosier Hundred, which the dirt champ car race on the Friday before the 500 is called, with Bud Kaeding of Campbell, Calif., second and Jerry Coons Jr.of Tucson, Ariz., third.

Bobby East, of Brownsburg, Ind., who has been tutoring Mississauga’s Alison MacLeod on the finer points of Ford Focus midget speedway racing, flipped out of the race, but wasn’t injured.

Saturday evening in the Indianapolis area is awash in racing. Both the "Little 500" sprint car race at Anderson Speedway in Anderson, Ind. (about a half-hour north of Indy on Interstate 69) and the "Night Before the 500" USAC midget race at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Claremont, Ind. (about 15 minutes southwest of the city) are worth attending.

Tanner Swanson of Kingsburg, Calif., won the 50-lap midget show at ORP – and then promptly spun out. Whether he did it on purpose is the question.

The USAC show was augmented this year by two formula car races – the U.S. Formula 2000 Series and the Star Mazda Series, both of which are part of the IRL "Road to Indy" program. Both races could be seen via streaming video on the IZOD IndyCar Series web site.

The F2000 race was won by Irish driver Patrick McKenna, with Toronto’s Mikhail Goikhberg third. Conor Daly, son of F1 and Indy car star Derek Daly and also a resident of Brownsburg, ran away with the Star Mazda race, grabbing the lead right off the green from pole sitter Mikael Grenier of Quebec City, who eventually finished second. David Ostella of Maple, driving for AIM Autosport of Woodbridge, finished off the podium.

The IRL (not to mention the announcers on the live streaming presentation) have been making a big deal of the "Road to Indy" Program. This "road" is supposed to start at the F2000 level and then go to Star Mazda, Indy Lights and then the IndyCar Series.

What nobody likes to talk about is that few drivers get to go beyond Indy Lights. The most recent case in point is Wade Cunningham of New Zealand, who on Friday won the Indy Lights Freedom 100 race for the - get this - third time and yet has never been able to land a ride in the Indy car series.

Until the primary drivers in the Lights series make the big move up to the Indy car ranks, there will never be a true "road" to Indy.

In the Freedom 100, by the way, James Hinchcliffe of Oakville finished third and Philip Major of Ottawa was sixth.

In other weekend racing news to date:

– Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Nationwide Series race on Saturday afternoon (he was happy to talk to everybody about how wonderful the whole thing was, thank you) with Brad Keselowski second and Joey Logano third. Steve Arpin, of Fort Frances, Ont., qualified Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 7 car seventh but spun up into the fence on the second lap and wound up 34^th.

– Daniel Morad of Markham finished fifth in the GP3 Series feature race at the Grand Prix of Turkey on Saturday afternoon. Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto, who was leading the series going into the weekend, had an engine misfire and finished 11^th. He’ll have a fresh motor for Sunday’s second race, so is optimistic about doing better.

To come: "Little 500" results and the rained-out World of Outlaws feature from Charlotte.

On a dark note, USAC sprint car racer Jesse Hockett, 26, has died as the result of an electrical accident in his shop in Warsaw, Mo. It happened on Wednesday night.

He was a charger.

Indy 500, NASCAR 600, F1 all on TV Sunday

Every year at the Indianapolis Zoo, just before the Indy 500, they line up a bunch of turtles for the "Zoo-opolis 500."

Eight turtles named after drivers in the real race battle it out for a bowl of fruit.

This year’s winner? A turtle named Alex – for Alex Tagliani, the only Canadian in this year’s classic.

Is this an omen of an Indy 500 victory to come for "Tags?"

We’ll find out on Sunday.

You can watch this year’s 500, by the way, on TSN. Coverage starts at noon Sunday with the pre-race show, which includes all the hooplah. (I always tear up when Jim Nabors sings "Back Home In Indiana"). The green flag to officially start the 94^th running of the "Greatest Spectacle In Racing" will fly at 1 p.m., or shortly thereafter.

Indy isn’t the only racing TSN has on tap this weekend because Formula One and NASCAR are also in action.

Qualifying for the F1 Grand Prix of Turkey can be seen Saturday morning on TSN at 6:55 a.m. The race itself, also on TSN, goes Sunday morning at 7:55 a.m. (Don’t forget to check out my podcast preview of this weekend's race with Canadian F1 expert Gerald Donaldson. It will be posted to wheels.ca no later than noon on Friday.)

The first NASCAR race of the weekend is the Nationwide Series Carquest Auto Parts 300, which will go to the post Saturday afternoon at 2 on TSN. Canadian Steve Arpin, of Fort Frances, Ont., is getting another crack at stardom driving Dale Earnhardt Jr’s No. 7 GoDaddy.com car. Qualifying for this race, incidentally, can be seen at 9:30 Saturday morning on TSN2.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 will be run later in the day on Sunday and be seen in its entirety on TSN2 starting with the pre-race show at 5 p.m. (with the green flag expected at or about 6 p.m.).

Oh, and the World of Outlaws sprint cars will be running at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway Friday night at 8 p.m. on the Speed channel.

TSN has more than 20 hours of racing action scheduled this weekend. Add the Outlaws Friday night and NASCAR Sprint Cup practice on Saturday, both on Speed, as well as Speed’s coverage of the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race from Lime Rock at 2 p.m. Monday, and you’re looking at more than a complete day of motor sport on TV.

Get the hot dogs, popcorn, soft drinks and cold beer ready. And cross your fingers that it doesn’t rain.

My friend should have gone with Tracy to get a passport

I had to cancel a trip to Indianapolis for the 500 and so today I called a couple of my friends in an effort to unload my prepaid downtown Indy hotel room.

One guy – I’ll call him Sid – said he’d like to go but didn’t relish a 10-hour car ride by himself. So he called another of our friends – I’ll call him Ralph – to see if he wanted to go.

Sid called me back. "Ralph would love to go but he can’t. He doesn’t have a passport."

So I said: "He should have gone to the passport office today with Paul Tracy, who managed to get his passport renewed in four hours."

Which is what happened to the "Thrill from West Hill," who found himself marooned in T.O. last night after he discovered he couldn’t get back into the United States.

"I can’t leave Canada, my passport is expired," he "tweeted" last night. "I need to go to the passport office in the morn(ing)."

Early today, he "tweeted" this: "Just got down at the passport office. They said maybe by the afternoon I could pick up the passport."

Then, later in the morning, he transmitted this: "Good news. I can pick up my passport at 12. Going back to Indy."

My passport expired earlier this year and it took me two weeks to get it renewed.  Paul Tracy managed to get his renewed between 8 a.m. and noon.

So I figured if Ralph had gone down to the passport office with Paul, and with Paul’s pull, Ralph could have had a passport by tomorrow at the latest and been able to go to Indy with Sid and stay in my room.

But now he can’t.

Passport expires, Paul Tracy's stuck in Toronto

Several hours after Toronto’s Paul Tracy attended a press conference yesterday to announce details of his ride in this year’s Honda Indy Toronto (he’ll be sponsored by Honda Canada and the Toronto Blue Jays and will race in support of the Make-A-Wish Canada children’s charity), he discovered he couldn’t get out of Dodge.

His passport had expired and anybody who tries to travel to the United States knows that you need one to be admitted to that country, particularly if you travel by air.

Said Tracy in a "tweet" to his fans: "I can’t leave Canada, my passport is expired. I need to go to the passport office in the morn(ing). Maybe I was not meant to be in Indy this year."

That last sentence was a reference, of course, to his failure to qualify for Sunday’s race. And, yeah, perhaps it was meant to be that way.

Sometimes there are signs . . .

Tracy announced his passport problems to a hard core group of fans who follow him on Twitter. Many people read his stuff, including newspaper reporters (this one included). A number of stories and columns have been written based on Tracy’s "tweets," which he sends out primarily (and usually) from the couch in his Las Vegas living room.

Just before the press conference yesterday, in conversation with several people – including one motor racing heavyweight – Tracy was urged to do two things: find a way to do some colour commentating on TV coverage of Sunday’s 500 and start paying attention to people other than those who read his Twitter entries.

As I overheard this conversation – it was something not necessarily meant to be off the record but not earmarked for general public consumption either – I won’t identify the people involved other than Tracy. But because he’s a public figure – one of Canada’s greatest racing heroes – who’s trying to keep his career going, the advice offered is of interest.

I actually started the conversation by asking if he was flying back to Vegas and Tracy answered in the affirmative.

VOICE: Why don’t you stay in Indy and do some colour on the (500) telecast?

TRACY: That’s for when you’re retired.

SECOND VOICE: No, you’ve got it wrong. You’ve got to keep your face out there. If I was you, I’d go on television with my shoulders square to the world and my head held high. I’d tell the world I was Paul Tracy and this (failure to qualify) was just a temporary setback..

TRACY: I talk to people.

SECOND VOICE: Paul, the people you tweet to are not the people who write the cheques.

With that, the press conference started. But I can tell you, from the look on Tracy’s face and his body language, that the fellow doing the talking had struck a nerve.

Tracy’s correct about "retired drivers" doing colour commentary on TV. Most of the analysts and colour people – like Toronto’s Scott Goodyear, who will appear on ABC’s Indy telecast on Sunday – are out of the cockpit.

But not always.

In 1966, the great Johnny Rutherford went flying out of Eldora Speedway in Ohio in one of the worst sprint car accidents you’ll ever see and managed to escape with his life. Among his many injuries were two broken arms.

Obviously, he couldn’t race. But he appeared as a commentator on the closed-circuit presentation of that year’s Indy 500. I saw it at Maple Leafs Gardens and there was Rutherford, casts from his wrists to above both elbows, telling the world that once he healed up, he’d be back in a race car.

That’s what Tracy’s friend was suggesting he do.

Lewis Hamilton was at the Dancing With the Stars show on Monday night to support his sweetie, Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, who was in the dancing contest's finals. He wasn’t there last night (Tuesday), when she found out whether or not she’d won. Why? The F1 circus is in Turkey next weekend and Lewis obviously didn’t want to make the same mistake he made earlier this season, when he tried to fly from Los Angeles to Australia at the last minute and wound up paying for it.

The last time they held a Grand Prix in Texas was in Dallas in 1984. The race was held in blistering heat (above 100 degrees Fahrenheit) and the track was a mess because it kept breaking up. Nigel Mansell collapsed while trying to push his fuel-starved Lotus across the finish line.

It was, in short, a disaster.

So while yesterday’s announcement of a multi-year deal to hold the American Grand Prix in Austin, Tex., is good news on the surface, a quick look at the dreaded average temperature chart raises immediate concerns.

The average temperature in Austin, Tex., in March is 73F. In April it goes up to 79F and in May it’s 85F. June, July and August are 91F, 95F and 96F, respectively. September is still warm – 90F – but October sees a cooling trend: 81F. November is balmy, with an average of 70F.

If the revived U.S. GP, starting in 2012, is held in any month other than March or November, F1 could have Dallas all over again.

I’m all for publicity stunts to either sell tickets or raise interest. But the Indy 500 has come up with an absolutely hairbrained idea and if anything – anything – goes wrong, it’s going to be a huge black eye.

They are going to add a car to the traditional 33-car Indianapolis 500 starting field. They are going to have the IndyCar Series two-seater, driven by Michael Andretti, carry actor and producer Mark Wahlberg right into the middle of the race.

That’s correct: A passenger is going to be along for the ride at the start of the Indianapolis 500.

Here is the text of yesterday's announcement:

"Andretti and Wahlberg will follow four parade cars and (then) lead the official pace car and the 33-car field of IZOD IndyCars on three parade laps.

"Once the parade cars exit the circuit, the two-seat race car will round the track at nearly 200 mph to catch the field from behind as the field takes the green flag for the most famous race in the world.

"This historic moment, which marks the first time in modern history that a driver and passenger will join the field of the Indy 500, will be captured live on ABC."

So, what happens if there is a God-almighty pileup on the main straight, as there was at the start of the 500 in 1966?

Are we about to have the first passenger injured in the Indy 500?

Has anybody thought of that?

For instance, in October 2000, Canadian racing driver Andrew Bordin, who was in Formula Atlantic at the time, took Yoshimichi Inada, senior managing director of Pioneer Electrics, out for a guest ride in an Acura NSX just prior to the Marlboro 500 at California Speedway.

Bordin lost control of the car and he and Inada were both injured in the ensuing crash.

It seemed like a good idea at the time – as does this Indy 500 idea.

But somebody should throw the red flag over that deal before history repeats itself.

　

Tracy in T.O. today; more weekend racing action

Well, you have to hand it to Paul Tracy. Two days after missing out on qualifying for next Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, the "Thrill from West Hill" is in Toronto today for what’s being billed as a major announcement.

The announcement, of course, will be that Honda Canada – probably the dealers, actually – will be sponsoring him in this year’s Honda Indy Toronto (July 16-18 through the streets of the CNE) and the Honda Indy Edmonton a week later.

Good for him. He could have gone home and sulked. Perhaps sent out a few more "tweets" on his Twitter account. But onwards and upwards with head held high, I say.

As he said, he's not alone. There have been other great drivers who have missed out on qualifying for the 500. Al Unser Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi , who were both driving for Team Penske at the time, immediately come to mind.

Qualifying at Indy is a crap shoot, anyway, and Tracy and his team rolled snake eyes. It didn’t help that someone on that team made the decision to withdraw his car from the starting lineup in hopes of turning a faster speed but hindsight is 20-20 and I bet that won’t happen again.

Paul Tracy can start writing the next chapter of his life story in Toronto come July. Like, by winning the Honda Indy Toronto.

Now that I’m getting over the shock of his missing the 500, I will try to catch up on the rest of the weekend’s racing news.

A guy who got short shrift in my Toronto Star article about Mosport’s Victoria Day SpeedFest was Ken Wilden of Oakville, who dominated the SCCA Pro Racing Trans-Am Series race. In a one-off, he won the pole and then led the whole race except for a few laps in the early going.

Wilden, the defending Grand Am Continental Tire Series champion, last raced in Trans-Am nearly a decade ago – and he won that race also.

"I’m thrilled," Wilden said in Victory Circle after climbing out of his Derhaag Racing Corvette. "This is my home track and I’m so happy to have won this race. I had a great car."

It must have been great. Wilden not only set a Trans-Am Mosport pole speed record but a race lap record, too.

Wilden started on pole but relinquished the lead to Tony Ave of Maiden, N.C., at Corner 5 on the first lap when the cockpit of his car filled up with smoke.

"I was worried that it might be the engine and then I thought it might be low tire pressure," Wilden said. "I guess that was it (the tires), because it cleared up pretty quickly and I could go racing."

Six laps later he retook the lead and was never headed thereafter.

"I was right in the zone today," Wilden said later. "It was pretty slippery out there, though, so I had to work to find grip. But it worked out in the end."

Wilden, who doesn’t have a steady ride this season although he seems to either win or challenge for the win just about every time he’s in a car, hopes this victory will lead to more Trans-Am opportunities.

"All I can do is hope for more," he said.

R.J. Lopez of the Dominican Republic finished second and an absolutely thrilled Blaise Csida of Stouffville was third. As was the case with Wilden, they also drove Corvettes.

The Trans-Am Series will be on the undercard for the Honda Indy Toronto, as will the SCCA Pro Racing World Challenge, the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Series and the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

Let's cross our fingers that Wilden is back in the Derhaag machine for Toronto.

In California on Saturday, Canadian drivers did remarkably well in the American Le Mans Series six-hour endurance race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca that was won by Simon Pagenaud of France, David Brabham of Australia and Marino Franchitti of Scotland.

Mark Wilkins of Toronto, Christophe Bouchut of France and Scott Tucker of Leawood, Kansas, finished third overall and first in the Le Mans Challenge Prototype class while Kyle Marcelli of Barrie, also driving in the Prototype Challenge class, finished fourth overall and second in class with teammates Tom Sutherland of Los Gatos, Calif., and Tom Weikhardt of Whitefish Bay, Wisc.

"We had to really push hard to keep up front," Wilkins said. "Christophe drove a great stint, so did Scott to keep the car up there. Level 5 (the team) gave us a great car at Sebring (where these three also won their class) and they did here as well. We knew if we could run to the end we’d be right there.

"This has been an amazing experience with two wins in two starts and I really have to thank everyone at Level 5 not only for the opportunity but for giving us a car that is able to run at the front"

Wilkins will now return to the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series in the AIM Autosport of  Woodbridge Daytona Prototype for a race at Lime Rock, Conn., next Monday. He’s coming off a second-place finish in the last Rolex race.

Also at Laguna Seca, Mikhail Goikhberg of Toronto won one U.S. F2000 race and finished second in the other.

Now, for some reason, the USF2000 people keep referring to him as "Russian-born," or a "native of St. Petersburg, Russia," and don’t mention his Canadian connection.

Well, he lives in Toronto, graduated from the University of Waterloo, and learned to race in the Ontario Formula Ford Challenge Series. On his team’s website, it lists his residence as Toronto.

Kinda makes him from Toronto, doesn’t it?

Meantime, Keith Dempster of Alton, Ont., won his 15^th career Southern Ontario Sprints feature as the touring group opened its 15^th season at Brighton Speedway on Saturday night. Tyler Rand of Consecon was second (Dempster beat him by two feet – maybe) while Adam West of Ridgetown finished third.

And at Toronto Motorsports Park, Eric Latino of Port Perry won the opening round of the 2010 Pro Modified Racing Association season with a 6.47-second, 206 mph pass over Derek Hawker of Corbyville.

The victory was the first for Latino and his ‘38 Chevy Coupe in PMRA competition. It was Hawker’s first race, period, in PMRA competition in his Atchison-powered ‘63 Corvette.

And Paolo Giust of Osgoode, Ont., driving his Top Dragster car, won the Quick 32 Sportsman Series final round over the Top Sportsman car of Steve Corriveau of Smithville, with a run of 7.019 seconds at 184.75 mph.

The opening event of the 2010 season saw a record number of entries in both the Top Dragster and Top Sportsman divisions, with 18 Top Dragsters and 19 Top Sportsman cars on hand.

Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks -- I think.

Oh, Canada! at Mosport; Indy a disaster for Tracy

It was a great day for Canada at Mosport on Sunday and a disastrous day for Canada at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

At Mosport, there were three feature races Sunday afternoon and Canadians - Ron Fellows of Mississauga, Kenny Wilden of Oakville and Marc-Antoine Camirand of St-Leonard d'Aston, Que. - won all of them. For details, see story here

At Indy, one of the dumbest decisions in recent auto racing memory left one of the great auto racers of our time – Canada’s Paul Tracy – sitting on the outside looking in.

In short, Paul Tracy failed to qualify for the Indy 500 because of a bad, bad decision made by somebody on his team. Paul Tracy joins Milka Duno, Jacques Lazier and Jay Howard in missing the big race (yes, you’re permitted to chorus WHO! when you come to those last three names. I don’t know who they are either . . .).

It gets worse. Paul Tracy is on the outside looking in while auto racing newbies named Sebastien Saavedra, Mario Romancini, Bertrand Baguette and Ana Beatriz are in.

I might be being harsh, but those four (and any number of others in the field) have absolutely zero chance of winning the Indy 500 next Sunday but Paul Tracy, if he’d qualified, could have.

Here is what happened.

Tracy was sitting safely in the Indy 500 field Sunday afternoon. He was "on the bubble," as they say of the car/driver combination sitting in the 33^rd and last qualifying spot, but he was in. The only way Tracy could fail to make the 500 would be for another driver to go out, literally at the last minute, and beat his qualifying speed of 223.892 miles an hour.

All Tracy – and his KV Racing Technology team (Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser) – had to do was sit there. If somebody did bump him out, then that bridge would have to be crossed. But, meantime, to repeat, he was in.

For some inexplicable reason, the team withdrew Tracy’s car and sent him out in hopes of him turning a faster speed, which would improve his starting position and remove any possibility of him being bumped.

But try as he might, he couldn’t get his car going fast enough to even match his previous speed. When qualifying ended at 6 p.m., Tracy was out.

Saavedra is an incredible story. The Indy Lights driver (that’s correct; he plays in the minors and was taking a one-off shot at the big leagues) was in the hospital after crashing earlier in the day. His team owner called him there and told him he's going to race in the Indy 500.

And why was that? Because his team – Brian Herta Motorsport – left his car in the field and waited for him to be bumped out.

It didn’t happen. So Sebastien Saavedra is in the Indy 500 with an average qualifying speed of 223.634 mph while Paul Tracy is out with a qualifying speed of 223.892.

Nuts.

As a friend of mine said, "you should never take points off the board."

In this case, you should never take a qualified car out of the Indy 500.

But KV Racing Technologies did and Paul Tracy and Canadian auto racing fans are the poorer for it.

There will still be a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday, when Honda Canada will announce that it will sponsor Tracy in this year’s Honda Indy Toronto and Honda Indy Edmonton.

But Tracy’s chances in future of attracting serious sponsorship money (Geico Insurance, in this instance) for big races like the Indy 500 and/or a full season on the Indy car circuit have been seriously hurt by this disaster.

It’s really too bad. It's not the way for a great champion to go out.

Here is the transcript of the press conference he attended shortly after qualifying ended:

THE MODERATOR: Can you tell us how you feel?

PAUL TRACY: Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm a little bit numb right now, disappointed. We were on track, and we were trying to do it. And it's harder to walk away, you know? The team did everything they could. I drove the wheels off it. And I don't know what to say.

THE MODERATOR: We saw you drive the wheels off of it. The effort was there. Open it up to questions.

Q. Paul, when the decision is made to pull out a qualified car, you're in the car, do you have any idea what's going on, or do you know you just gotta go?

PAUL TRACY: It's time to go. It's time to go. And the frustrating part for us is that the speed was in the car, at various times of the day. It was all week the car was 225s, 226. Two days ago we were second quickest on the track.

You know, we ran a 225 this morning. And when the temperature came up, we lost the handle on the car and couldn't get it back. And it wasn't for lack of trying. We changed a lot of things on the car. We changed springs. We changed dampers. We changed roll centres. We changed aero. It wasn't like we were sitting on our hands waiting to go.

But we felt at the time there we were pretty safe where we were. Turns out we would still have been in. But it's a team decision. And we worked as a team all week, and we made decisions as a team.

And you win and lose as a team. So I've had a lot of wins in my career where we've made calls that were the right calls. We've made calls that are the bad calls.

And I just feel really frustrated for all the sponsors that got on board, GEICO. And this is not a cheap endeavor. And put a lot of work into this and we came up short as a team. So it's frustrating.

Q. Paul, looked like you came pretty close to the wall there a couple of times (trying to get up to speed). Did you actually touch it? We couldn't see from TV if you touched it or not.

PAUL TRACY: No, I didn't touch. I just about touched on every lap. And it was sliding, and, I mean, you guys could see it on TV. I was on the verge of crashing every corner. So I was able to keep it off the wall and not destroy the car.

We've had a tough week, KV. The cars have like I said, in certain conditions it had become very difficult to drive. We had three cars hard into the wall. So I was happy that we didn't end up going on the trailer in a box with a bunch of pieces.

It's how Indianapolis is, you know? Some of the greatest drivers have not made it.

THE MODERATOR: Paul, I applaud you for coming in. It means a lot to us.

PAUL TRACY: Thank you, guys.

Kyle Busch needs trip to woodshed; Tracy not in 500 field

Just a few quick observations following a marathon day on Saturday of auto racing qualifying and exhibition racing.

– NASCAR owner Joe Gibbs used to send Tony Stewart to anger management class when Tony would get bent out of shape about something. He should start doing that with Kyle Busch, who continually embarrasses his team and his sponsor when he doesn’t win, primarily because of his own mistakes.

The latest outburst saw him scramble out of his car on Saturday night, swing his arms around in anger and stalk into teammate Denny Hamlin’s trailer during the Sprint All-Star Race in which Busch hit the wall after coming up behind Hamlin and failing to check up.

Yes, Hamlin was trying to block him but that's what stock car racing is all about. Busch saw him drifting up the track and didn't back off in time. 

"Somebody better keep me away from Denny Hamlin tonight," he’d said to his crew over the radio in a transmission broadcast by the Speed Channel, which was covering the race.

"I swear to God I’m going to (kill) him."

And while his brother, Kurt Busch, was celebrating his $1-million victory by driving backwards around the mile-and-half-half Charlotte Motor Speedway, Kyle was sitting inside Hamlin’s trailer, waiting for him and fuming.

I still think Kyle Busch is a marvelous talent. But his snotty behaviour and outlandish sense of entitlement ("we had that race won till he got in my way!") is wearing thin. He’s always happy to talk when he’s on top but nobody better go near him when he loses – or else.

Yes, he's a fierce competitor. And NASCAR probably thinks it's wonderful, considering its new "have-at-it,-boys" advertising campaign.

But most serious athletes have learned to control their tempers by the time they make it to the big leagues and Kyle Busch is still behaving as if he's 10, which means it's officially tiresome.

So call up Tony’s old professor, Joe, and tell him or her that you’re sending Kyle over.

It’s time he grew up.

By the way, Martin Truex Jr., who had to win the "showdown" (or last chance race) to make it into the All-Star joust, finished second and Joey Logano was third. Hamlin finished fourth and Stewart was fifth.

Kurt Busch also hit the wall twice but controlled both his emotions and his car to win the race. He did a great job.

It was a good day for Roger Penske. His car and driver, Kurt Busch, won the All-Star race and the million bucks ($1 million plus 78 thousand and change, to be precise). His Indy car driver, Helio Castroneves, won the pole at Indianapolis on Saturday – plus the $100,000 that went with it.

– Speaking of Indianapolis, Castroneves just edged his Penske teammate, Will Power, for the Indy 500 pole (an average speed of 227.970 miles an hour compared to 227.578 mph – which isn’t even a heartbeat) while Dario Franchitti was third fastest.

Canadian Alex Tagliani, who was fast all week going into qualifying, was fifth fastest and will start the 500 in fifth place, which is the middle of the second row.

Canada’s other great hope, Paul Tracy, did not qualify in the top 24 (which would have locked him into the May 30 race) and will have to get the job done Sunday when the field will be filled and bumping will take place.

About a dozen drivers – and maybe a few more as some always seem to come out of the wordwork at Indy at the last moment – will be trying for the final nine spots. Tracy will undoubtedly make it but this whole business is a lot closer than he would like.

If he somehow misses the big show, it will put a huge damper on his announcement planned for next Tuesday in Toronto concerning his entries in the Honda Indy Toronto and Honda Indy Edmonton.

As he told people on his Twitter feed late Saturday, he was feeling a bit down about the whole business.

– Danica Patrick was booed by the crowd at Indianapolis – fairly sizeable as compared to recent years, although nowhere near what it used to be before NASCAR took over as the No. 1 motor sport in the U.S.

She made the error – and she should have known better – of publicly blaming her team for her poor, 23^rd starting position.

Two things: 1, she’s in the top 24 and locked into the race and I betcha Paul Tracy would trade his situation for hers in a second; 2, you might be ready to behead everybody on your team but a race driver can never, never, never say out loud that – whatever, a poor qualifying effort or a poor race finish – was anybody else’s fault but his or hers.

Three of the five women attempting to race in the 500 are in – Ana Beatriz, Simona De Silvestro and Patrick (all in a row, incidentally, and in that order). Team owner Sarah Fisher for some inexplicable reason didn’t make a qualifying attempt and Milka Duno was bumped out.

Indy 500 qualifying, NASCAR all-star race on TV today

Although it’s the three-day Victoria Day weekend in Canada, when people look forward to doing things outside, the weather forecast for Southern Ontario on Saturday (it’s where this blog is written) is not the greatest, which means if you’re forced to stay indoors, the good news is that there is going to be lots and lots of auto racing to enjoy on television.

TSN2 will pick up the feed from U.S. cable channel Versus and carry the entire first day of qualifying from Indianapolis, which will feature a new "run for the pole" procedure (explanation follows). Coverage is scheduled to start at 11 a.m. EDT and go till 6:30 p.m.

Then, if you haven’t had enough, the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race will start on Speed TV at 7 p.m. (which means you only have 30 minutes to run to the bathroom, open another beer, kiss your wife and kids, etc.).

Now, the All-Star race is always a giggle because it’s an exhibition and doesn’t count in the standings. The payoff is spectacular – a cool one million smackeroos, winner-take all – and NASCAR’s new "have-at-it,-boys" philosophy should make for a race to remember.

If you like demolition derbies, that is, which this race could very well become . . .

Indy, on the other hand, has the potential to be equally exciting without the carnage.

For years and years, the rule at Indianapolis was that every car entered got one shot to win the pole for the 500. Then they changed that to, the fastest car on the first day of qualifying won the pole. That was when practice and qualifying at the Speedway lasted just about the entire month of May.

This year, the month of May has been condensed into two weeks. The drivers practiced all this week and will be going for the gold this weekend -- qualifying for spots one through 24 Saturday and then filling out the positions 25-33 Sunday, complete with bumping. The big race is a week from Sunday, May 30.

To better help everybody understand how the new qualifying system will work, and to answer some questions, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway public-relations department emailed out all the rules, regulations, procedures and possibilities on Friday.

Rather than me interpreting them, and maybe messing something up, here it is.

Enjoy.

2010 INDIANAPOLIS 500 QUALIFYING PROCEDURE
POLE DAY, Saturday, May 22
Positions available: 1-24
Format:

– 11 a.m.-4 p.m.: The top 24 spots in the 33-car field will be available through traditional four-lap attempts. Each car will have up to three attempts during this time. The times of the top nine drivers from this first segment of qualifying will be erased at 4 p.m., with all of those competitors guaranteed to start no worse than ninth in the Indianapolis 500.
– 4:30-6 p.m.: "The Fast Nine" then will be required to make at least one four-lap qualifying attempt, with optional attempts if time permits. Each driver’s best run during the 90-minute session will set their position within the top nine spots on the starting grid. If inclement weather prevents the 90-minute shootout for the "Fast Nine," their times from the opening session will determine starting positions.

BUMP DAY, Sunday, May 23
Positions available: 25-33
Format:

– The final nine spots in the field will be earned through traditional four-lap qualifying from noon-6 p.m. Bumping will begin once 33 cars have qualified.

QUALIFYING PROCEDURE Q&A
Q: What happens if weather washes out the Fast Nine shootout before every driver gets a chance to make at least one attempt?
A: The position in the top nine starting spots for those nine drivers will be determined by their fastest runs during the 11 a.m.-4 p.m. segment.
Q: Can any drivers other than the Fast Nine make qualifying runs from 4:30-6 p.m. on Pole Day?
A: No.
Q: Must a driver in the Fast Nine withdraw their time from the mandatory attempt during the final segment if he or she chooses to make a second qualification attempt during that segment?
A: No.
Q: How will the qualifying draw for the Fast Nine segment be determined?
A: The driver with the fastest run during the 11 a.m.-4 p.m. segment will choose their position in the qualifying line at 4:10 p.m., followed by the second-fastest and so. The ninth-fastest driver will receive the final remaining slot in the line.
Q: Where does one of the Fast Nine drivers start if he or she can’t complete a run in the completed shootout due to a crash or a mechanical problem?
A: All nine drivers who qualify for the Fast Nine shootout based on their best runs from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. are guaranteed a starting spot in the top nine. The shootout from 4:30-6 p.m. determines their position in the top nine. If they don’t complete an attempt in the shootout, they will start ninth. If two drivers don’t complete an attempt in the shootout due to a crash or mechanical, then they will start eighth and ninth, respectively, based on their best run from 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Q: What happens if a driver crashes in the Fast Nine, and that car is destroyed? If that driver is forced to a backup car for the rest of the event, will he or she start ninth or 33rd?
A: All drivers who qualify are guaranteed a starting spot in the top nine on Race Day, even if they must change cars.
Q: What happens if Pole Day is rained out?
A: One day of qualifying would take place from noon-6 p.m. Sunday, May 23, with all 33 positions up for grabs. Each car would get the traditional three attempts that day. The pole shootout for the Fast Nine would not take place.
Q: What happens if Bump Day is rained out?
A: Qualifying would resume on the next available day for positions 25-33. There would be one attempt per car, which has been the procedure for a Bump Day rainout.

–

Okay, I want you to know that it sure can rain in Indianapolis in the spring as well as the summertime. I went to qualifying for the first time in 1969 and both days were rained out.

So, it happens.

By the way, the Honda Indy Edmonton has entered into promotional relationships with Alex Tagliani and FAZZT Race Team and with Paul Tracy and KV Racing Technology to form "Team Oh Canada" for the Indianapolis 500.

The promotion includes prominent Honda Indy Edmonton logo placement on both cars for the 500 Mile Race. Tagliani's No. 77 FAZZT Race Team car also will display the logo for the IZOD IndyCar Series races in Texas, Watkins Glen, Toronto and Edmonton.

KEN KNOWLES (President, Northlands, promoter of Honda Indy Edmonton):

"Northlands and the Honda Indy Edmonton are absolutely delighted to partner with Canada's two best IZOD IndyCar Series drivers. Our promotional support for Alex and Paul provides us with an incredible opportunity to place our event, and the city of Edmonton, in the international spotlight while reaching a huge international audience."