Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

J.R. Fitzpatrick lands Nationwide ride with Earnhardts

This has been a crazy week for Canadian auto racers.

Paul Tracy drops 35 pounds in preparation for the Indy 500 (see blogs and photo below).

Markham's Daniel Morad lands a ride in the F1 support series GP3 with Status Grand Prix of Ireland (see blogs below).

Guelph and Toronto's Robert Wickens, who finished second in the new FIA Formula 2 Series last season, is also signed to race for Status GP and it was announced today that the famous Irish whiskey Mickey Finn would be sponsoring his car in GP3 this season (see blogs below).

If that wasn't enough, late this morning it was announced that J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge has been signed by Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s JR Motorsports team to drive the team's famous No. 7 car in three NASCAR Nationwide Series road-course races this year, including the Montreal round at the end of August.

Said the Fitzpatrick press release:

JR Motorsports co-owner and general manager Kelley Earnhardt announced today that Fitzpatrick's three rides in the No. 7 (at Road America on June 19^th, Watkins Glen International on Aug. 7^th and Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Aug. 29^th) will be sponsored by Schick Canada.

   

“J.R. is a talented young driver, and we look forward to giving him the chance to drive some upcoming races for JR Motorsports,” Kelley Earnhardt said. “With Schick Canada sponsoring his three races, this gives J.R. the chance to showcase his abilities. We are committed to giving young drivers the chance to prove themselves in this No. 7 Chevrolet, and work with a proven crew chief in Tony Eury Jr. J.R. Fitzpatrick is someone we’ve had our eye on, and the timing is right to give him a shot.”

 

Fitzpatrick started racing in the CASCAR Super Series (before it became the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series) in 2004 when he was 16. He won his first race when he was 17 and won the championship when he was 18. He has run strongly in the NASCAR Canadian series and has had several successful outings in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. 

 

Fitzpatrick is the fifth driver to pilot the No. 7 Chevrolet this season. He joins Danica Patrick, Steve Arpin of Fort Frances, Ont., Landon Cassill and Scott Wimmer. Patrick will return for 10 more races beginning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway later this year.

 

Irish whiskey to sponsor Canadian racer Wickens

Great news for Canadian GP3 driver Robert Wickens.

The company that manufactures the Irish whiskey, Mickey Finn, announced today that it will sponsor Wickens in this year’s GP3 Series, starting with this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix support race.

Wickens’ GP3 car, run by Ireland’s premier race team, Status Grand Prix, will feature the logo of Mickey Finn at all eight Formula One Grand Prix events across Europe where the GP3 Series will race.

The press release said the 21-year-old’s Canadian nationality is an added attraction for him to be an ambassador to the brand.

Mickey Finn parent company Babco CEO Mark Wilson said: “Mickey Finn, Robert and the Status GP team are a perfect blend – and give each other considerable synergy. Never mind the fact that one of my personal passions is F1 racing, Babco is doubly delighted that our GP3 Series sponsorship gives us the opportunity to further the needed message of responsible drinking."

Wickens from Guelph and Toronto, is widely recognised in Canada as being one of the country’s racers with F1 potential and is entering his third full season of racing in Europe, having been runner-up in the FIA Formula 2 Championship last year.

He has targeted winning the GP3 Series as his springboard to F1.

In practice today, Wickens was fourth fastest and is optimistic about qualifying well tomorrow. Marham's Daniel Morad, who also drives for Status, was 15th fastest.

Paul Tracy Q & A

Sports columnist Dave Feschuk's column on Paul Tracy today you can read it here reminded me that I had, in my possession, a partial transcript of the media conference during which Dave got some of his material.

So, here it is:

IZOD IndyCar Series Q &A - Paul Tracy, Barry Green, Jimmy Vasser:

Paul Tracy is a 41-year-old native of Scarborough, Ont., competing in his fourth season in the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2010. . .  Will drive the No. 15 GEICO-KV Racing Technology car for KV Racing Technology at the Indianapolis 500. Has two top-five finishes and five top-10 finishes in eight  IZOD IndyCar Series starts.

Q. First for Paul, talk about yesterday's announcement that you would be working with Barry Green in the 2010 Indy 500. Was it as simple as making a call and saying, "Let's get this band back together?"

PAUL TRACY: Well, it really kind of was. Obviously, Jimmy and I have been discussing what our plans have been, are going to be, since the last 500 last year. Obviously, Jimmy and I talk daily, multiple times a day, living in the same town (Las Vegas). 

Jimmy's concerns coming into this year's race with three young drivers is that he wanted to keep a more watchful eye on those three guys and felt that if there was anybody out there that could help us with our program, that we should explore that. Obviously, I reached out to Barry and proposed that question to him. 

At first I think he was caught a bit off guard. I think he may have been laying out on his boat suntanning. I think I caught him off guard. He called me back the next day and said, "I'm in, so let's go."

Q. Paul, how difficult is it for you to not race this year to get in a car and drive it and be ready to go? 

PAUL TRACY: Well, I feel this year I'm more prepared than I was last year. Obviously, you know, last year the deal to run Indy kind of happened kind of last minute, about a month before. At this point right now versus where I was last year, I'm about 35 pounds lighter than I was last year. (Norris Note: See photo of slim and trim Tracy three blog entries below). I've been training. I've had this whole winter to get ready for it. Really that's all I can do other than driving the car. I feel I'm ready to go. Obviously I'll have to use my experience and knowledge of being in the car, being on the tracks to my advantage. That's all I can really do. 

Q. What are you doing training‑wise? 35 pounds is a noticeable difference. What have you been doing in the off season? 

PAUL TRACY: Well, I really started, to be honest, about eight weeks ago. I've been pretty busy in the off‑season. I've been filming a TV show for SPEED Channel. It's a car driving show, a high‑end kind of super car show. That's kind of been keeping me busy. 

They had sent me some raw footage to watch from one of the first episodes we filmed. I saw myself on TV and I said, 'I got to lose some weight.' You know, I just started riding my bike, going to the gym. I hooked up with the trainer that I had in 2003 when I won the championship. 

Really just been putting in about two, two and a half hours on the bike in the morning, training with a trainer in the afternoon for an hour and a half. Really just watching what I eat. 

Q. That's 35 pounds in eight weeks or is that from last season? 

PAUL TRACY: Eight weeks. 

***

Q.  Barry, you do have quite a successful résumé at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the 1995 win with Jacques Villeneuve. Came back in 2002 with Paul and Team Green. Then in 2006 you came back with Michael Andretti and nearly won the race. What is it about Indy that keeps bringing you back? 

BARRY GREEN: It's just the Indy 500. It's such a challenge, such a great challenge. To be honest, I missed IndyCar racing dearly. I'm not very involved at the moment. 

Paul called me. When we first chatted about it, I first had a bit of a conflict. But once Paul laid out what Jimmy had lined up team‑wise, I really thought these guys are really serious, and it would be a great opportunity for me to come back and hopefully enjoy myself and work for Paul again. 

I've never worked with Jimmy Vasser himself. I've raced against him on many occasions. We've been great friends. But if you look at the team he's put together, the engineering staff, his team manager, these guys are very, very serious. 

I think if you look back at last year's 500, they had a really good run. Paul might have finished even further up towards the front last year had he not had a bit of an incident with the car. 

You know, everything seemed to line up. It sounded exciting. So I'm in. 

Q. Barry, I know in the last couple years you came back and did one‑offs when it was still AGR. The car has been the same since '03 with the exception of a few little tweaks here and there. How much has that helped you get your own thought process back up to speed in calling race strategy at the speedway? 

BARRY GREEN: No big difference helps a little bit. But I'm just sort of the team leader in the group, you know. It's the engineers that have to keep up with all that. I certainly don't get involved in the nuts and bolts. I listen to everything being discussed between the engineers. I'm in every meeting between the engineers and Paul and the team meetings. I might pick up on something that might help, a suggestion one way or the other. But the engineers are the guys that make the decisions, put the tweaks on, figure out how they can make him more comfortable. 

I think probably more importantly is Paul, Paul and Barry Green's relationship. We've had some great times together, great laughs. We've been through some tough times together which made us better friends and stronger friends. To me that's the easy part. I think that would be difficult going back and jumping in with a driver that I did not know. 

I know John Dick very well. He worked for me. Terrific guy. Terrific friend. Jimmy, I've raced against. I think my comfort is with the people and I feel very comfortable about that. 

Q. I know the first time you came back there after '02 you said there's times people have a tendency to put too much emphasis on it. You'd like to remember '95 when you helped Jacques Villeneuve come back and win the race. 

BARRY GREEN: That was a great race, a great one to remember for me. I have to go back to that was a team effort. The amount of talk that went amongst the group in the pits to come up with a plan and to keep Jacques focused. That's my specialty, are the people. 

I think the engineering side we'll leave up to the engineers, and Paul and I will try to mold together and work with the group and see what we can come up with. 

***

Q And, Jimmy, you went from one to three cars for the start of the 2010 season. Does adding that fourth car put any strain on the KV Racing Technology? 

JIMMY VASSER: We ran three cars at Indianapolis last year. Things went pretty smoothly. I have all the confidence in the world of Mark Johnson and Dave Brzozowski over there. They tell me what's possible and what's not. They said, "Hey, we can do this, we can do it well."

Especially with it being P.T., he brings a wealth of experience to the table. We have some young guys, a rookie. Mario (Moraes) did a fantastic job last year. I think with EJ (Viso), everybody working together, the group of engineers that we have, I think it only strengthens our possibility to have one of those cars win the race. 

Roundup: Markham's Daniel Morad gets GP3 ride

Here are some quick hits to bring you up to date on what’s happening in the world of motorsport:

– Daniel Morad of Markham will drive the full season in GP3, the new championship supporting Formula One races, with U.K.-based Status Grand Prix.

Morad, 20, will race the GP3-spec Dallara-Renault at eight F1 Grands Prix this season, starting this weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix.

He’s the second Canadian to land a GP3 ride. Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto is also contesting the championship this season.

Both Morad and Wickens won Formula BMW-Americas championships on their climb up the motor racing ladder.

– Graham Rahal will team up with his father, 1986 Molson Indy Toronto and Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal, for this year’s Indianapolis 500.

The younger Rahal, 21, will attempt to make his third career Indianapolis 500 start.

“I am extremely excited to be racing with my father and with this team,” Graham said. “I have known a lot of the guys on this team since I was very young, and to go after the dream of winning Indianapolis with them means a lot to me and my family. I know we can put together a quality effort, and we expect to be competitive.”

Graham Rahal drove for Newman/Haas Racing at Indy in 2008 and 2009, with a best start of fourth last year. He's the youngest driver to win an IZOD IndyCar Series race, in 2008 at St. Petersburg, Fla., when he was only 19.

Rahal’s father finished in the top 10 seven times in 13 career starts at Indy including his 1986 victory.

– Toronto-area teams Compass360 Racing and Durabond Racing have announced a combined effort that will field three Honda Civic Si's in the 2010 Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship season starting at Mosport on the May 24th weekend.

"I've wanted to come back and have a program in CCTCC for a while now," explained Compass360's Karl Thomson, who was rookie of the year in the series' inaugural 2003 season.

"We've been really successful since moving into Grand-Am's Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge six years ago, winning championships for Honda in 2007 and 2009. I'm really looking forward to getting back to our roots and enjoying some of the close racing the Canadian series offers."

The team has done its best to sign what is arguably the strongest driver lineup in Touring class. Durabond Racing's Anthony Rapone will return in the #72 Honda after losing an extremely close battle for the 2009 championship.

Andrew Danyliw, who raced successfully in regional sprints before moving to the Continental Challenge, comes off a strong second-place finish at Barber Motorsports Park a few weeks ago, and will pilot the #73, while Thomson, who has won five Continental Tire races and was runner-up in the 2007 Grand-Am Championship, will take the helm of the #71 Civic Si.

– Ryley Seibert, who looks to be a chip off the old block (he’s Trevor Seibert’s kid)  earned a pair of top 10 finishes at B.C.’s Motoplex Speedway last Saturday night to open his 2010 season. The speedway near Vernon, B.C., hosted street stock racing and the ARCA West series and young Seibert competed in both events.

The young standout’s seventh place finish in the ARCA West series and fifth place result in the street stock was an impressive way to start the year.

“Overall I’m really pleased with our result tonight,” said Seibert. “I passed a lot of cars on the track, and considering the obstacles we faced I’m excited about the rest of the season.”

According to NASCAR Canadian Tire Series announcer Adam Ross, the Williams Lake, B.C., youngster is one to watch.

Barry Green to help Tracy win second Indy 500

Paul Tracy’s Indy team, KV Racing Technology, announced today that former Indianapolis 500-winning car owner Barry Green has signed on to help Tracy win his second Indy 500.

I say that with tongue-in-cheek, because that first win by Tracy is not on the record books. It was in 2002, of course, when Tracy – who was driving for Green’s Team Kool Green – passed Helio Castroneves going into Turn 3 on the second last lap just as there was a crash in Turn 2 and the yellow caution lights came on.

Anybody who was watching that day knows Tracy made the pass fair and square before anything that followed happened. However, I figured the rules of oval-track racing would kick in, in which scoring reverts to the previous lap whenever there’s a yellow. But for some inexplicable reason, that wasn't the ruling handed down and what followed involved all sorts of accusations and general unpleasantness.

In the end, a committee (including IRL founder Tony George – Tracy and Green were in the CART camp at the time – and league racing director Brian Barnhardt) disallowed Green’s appeal on the grounds that the ruling made at the time was unappealable.

Later that year, Green sold the Team Kool Green operation to Michael Andretti, Kevin Savoree and his younger brother, Kim Green, and Andretti Green Racing was formed to compete in the 2003 IndyCar Series.  Tracy stayed in CART and won the 2003 championship driving for Imperial Tobacco’s Player’s team (see photo of Tracy in blog entry below).

In any event, Green – whose team won the 1995 Indy 500 with our own Jacques Villeneuve driving (see also news abolut JV in the blog below) – is returning to the Brickyard to work with Tracy as the race strategist for the GEICO – KVRT operation.

 “I’m very excited to return to the Indianapolis 500 and work with Paul again,” said Green, one of open-wheel racing most respected executives.  “Paul and I both feel we have some unfinished business at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”

 Tracy, a six-time Indianapolis 500 starter whose official 2002 second-place finish was his best result, said he is delighted to have Green back calling his race this year.

 “With my tenure at Team Kool Green, Barry called every one of my races and called all of my race wins including winning the 2002 Indianapolis 500,” said Tracy. 

 “When Jimmy (Vasser) and I sat down at Long Beach to discuss our Indy 500 plans, Jimmy told me he couldn’t be as hands-on with my car as he was last year.  He asked me to explore the right person to help me at Indy.  It didn’t take long to think of Barry.  He has the same desire and commitment to winning as I do.  Obviously, he was my choice to work with me this year. I know we have some unfinished business at the Speedway.”

 Tracy and Green got on wonderfully together during their Team Kool Green years but also had their differences. Once, during a street race in Houston, Tracy took out his then-teammate, Dario Franchitti, who was leading at the time. Tracy and Green very nearly came to blows in the pits afterward.

Green was also a calming influence. Once, at Nazareth, during final practice, Tracy was agitated because he was still sitting in the pits while most of the other drivers were out on the speedway, dialing in their cars. I was listening in to the radio communication and heard this little nugget of an exchange:

“*&^%$#*&^%,” said Tracy. “If I don’t get out the &^%*$# out there *&%^$# soon, we’ll be halfway down the *&*&^%$%^&* grid.”

Responded Green, a native of Australia: “Pie-shunse, Paul; pie-shunse.”

 

Photo shows slim, trim Paul Tracy

 
But first . . .

With the announcement that 1997 World Driving Champion Jacques Villeneuve is being enshrined in the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame, he joins his father Gilles of F1 Ferrari fame as the only father-son in the hall and the only Canadian auto racing members.

Robert (Bob) Hayward and Miss Supertest III were inducted in their glory year of 1960, so motorsport figures haven’t been ignored entirely, but an argument could be made that more are worthy.

Internationally famous Canadian racers like Paul Tracy, Scott Goodyear and Ron Fellows all come to mind – particularly when you consider that just about anybody who ever played hockey is in there (Don Awrey? Vic Hadfield?).

But congratulations to Jacques, who also won the Indianapolis 500 and the 1995 CART championship. He will be enshrined – along with speed skater Clara Hughes, paralympic star Chantal Petitclerc, gymnast Kyle Shewfelt, goalie Patrick Roy and moguls athlete Jean-Luc Brassard plus builders Roger Jackson and Bob Ackles – at a gala ceremony in Calgary next November.

JV, as he’s known, was also honoured earlier this year when he was asked to help carry the Olympic flag during the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Villeneuve continues to refer to himself as a “race car driver.” At 39, he has not officially retired and is still pursuing opportunities in both Formula One and NASCAR. To keep his reflexes sharp, JV’s currently racing in a sedan series in Argentina.

Meantime, another driver who’s still very much in the game is Tracy. He’s been working out in earnest for the upcoming Indianapolis 500 and told followers of his Twitter account in recent days that he’s so slim and trim he can get into his 2003 driving uniform again.

He even posted a picture:

Racing Rdp: Will Ferrari have to change its colours?

As it was a bit of a strange auto racing weekend – the two big races (NASCAR Cup and IndyCar) took place on Saturday – I thought this weekend I would just go through the notebook of all things motorsport that I’ve been keeping since Friday night, when NASCAR’s Nationwide race was held.

– Speaking of that Nationwide race, it looks like it’s back to the drawing board for Steve Arpin, the extremely talented 26-year-old driver from Fort Frances, Ont., who was given a two-race tryout by Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports team and, unfortunately, didn’t perform to expectations.

Auto racing is a cruel sport. It can take you to the highest of heights and then drop you like a hot potato so suddenly that it can make your head spin.

After Arpin won two ARCA stock car races in a row, Earnhardt put him in his team’s No. 7 Nationwide car (Danica Patrick’s ride, when she’s around) for races at Talladega a week ago and Richmond this weekend. Earnhardt was quoted as saying that if Arpin performed well, he could be the guy in line to take over the lead ride in the team’s No. 88 car.

After qualifying a wonderful fourth at Talladega, the best Arpin could do in the race was 26^th. This weekend at Richmond – where the NASCAR.com web site carried a story saying the onus was on him to pick up his socks – he qualified 37^th and finished 25^th.

Very disappointing.

What made it worse was that Kelly Bires, the driver Earnhardt fired to make way for Arpin (and other tryout drivers) finished 11^th at Richmond.

Sweet revenge for him; a bitter pill for Steve Arpin and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

That Richmond race Friday night was won by Brad Keselowski, with Greg Biffle second and Jamie McMurray third.

Cross fingers that Arpin gets another shot.

– Formula One kicks off the European season (which includes a side trip to Montreal for the Grand Prix of Canada June 13th) next Sunday with the Spanish Grand Prix and the two big stories going in appear to be whether Michael Schumacher’s new car will carry him to the front of the line once again and whether Ferrari will have to change its paint scheme because the anti-smoking zealots think the bar code on the sides of the car and the rear wing is secret symbolism for MARLBORO CIGARETTES.

Duh, ya think?

Here’s a hint: the official name of the team is Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.

Hmm. I wonder what the word "Marlboro" means?

The Duke of Marlboro? Marlboro, Vermont? The Toronto Marlboros?

I will have more to say about these people in a future blog but you would think they would have better things to do with their time than continue to point out the obvious.

And to try to take the fun out of just about everything.

Okay, when I heard Schumacher wanted the wheelbase of his Mercedes lengthened, I thought of my friend, Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Warren Coniam, who used to race supermodifieds.

In the early 1980s, Coniam drove for Clyde Booth and Phil Miller, a couple of geniuses from New England. He thought he could do better if they shortened the wheelbase of his super so he asked them to take six inches out of the car. They did and he went faster. Mission accomplished.

Whether the end result will be the same with Schumacher remains to be seen. But if he thinks extending the wheelbase will help, go for it.

– I actually thought there were more people in the stands at Kansas Speedway for the IZOD IndyCar Series race on Saturday than were there a year ago. In 2009, I stood in the infield at that speedway and tried to do a head count, there were so few spectators in attendance. In fact, I wondered out loud if it would save time to have the spectators introduced to the drivers instead of the other way around.

But there’s hand-wringing going on, apparently, about the sparse crowd (if 15,000 people is sparse) and there are even suggestions that the Indy cars won’t return to Kansas, or any other International Speedway Corp.-owned facility in future, if the events aren’t promoted better.

If true, here are two things to chew on:

1. The IRL will wind up running more events on road and street circuits because most of the good oval speedways in the United States are owned by ISC (which is code for NASCAR, by the way).

2. The IRL will have to spend its own money and assign its own people to promote future events at ISC tracks (if they continue to race on them) because NASCAR is not interested in helping anybody get bigger and better, particularly Indy car racing.

ISC tracks have played this game for years – and Phoenix is a good example. When the IRL used to race there in the spring, there was zero publicity and promotion. None. Nada. You could land at the airport and know there was baseball spring training in town, a PGA golf tournament, college basketball, the NBA, the NHL and that there was soon going to be a NASCAR race.

But you would never know there was an Indy car race happening.

And when nobody went, and the race highlights made it onto ESPN or whatever, the message was loud and clear: nobody cares about Indy car racing.

NASCAR is not where it is today, at the top of the heap, by being stupid.

– There was a slightly bigger crowd Sunday for the NASCAR truck race – until a huge hailstorm hit. When they got the race going again an hour later in glorious sunshine, most people had gone home. Johnny Sauter won.

Speed TV reporter Robin Miller made reference on Sunday night’s Speed News that with the IRL running on Saturday and the NASCAR trucks running Sunday the Indy cars were the under card.

Gee, I dunno about that.

The Indy cars were on the full ABC network Saturday; the trucks were on cable Sunday. And with the exception of Dover in mid-month, all of NASCAR’s races leading up to the Coca-Cola 600 on May 30 are on Saturday night. Why?

Because the networks are all showing NBA and NHL playoff games Sunday afternoons in May. It’s that time of year.

– Chris Economaki in National Speed Sport News reports that Sports Business Journal, in a graph depicting demographic trends of major sports fans, says "no major U.S. sports property has seen a bigger decline in its male 18-34 fan base in the past few years than NASCAR."

(What it didn't say was where they've gone, so I'll tell you: ultimate fighting. But I digress.)

You wouldn’t have known it by the size of the crowd at Richmond Saturday night for the Cup race, which was won by Kyle Busch, with Jeff Gordon second and Kevin Harvick third.

And yet, it was kind of a boring race for the 90,000-plus in attendance (okay, okay: there were the usual crunches and the last six laps were pretty good when Busch got the jump on Gordon and went on to win). What I mean is that Busch led 226 laps of the 400-lap race and Gordon led 144 and that left exactly 30 laps for the other 41 drivers to fight over.

(The Indy car race – see blog below – was no better, with winner Scott Dixon leading 165 of the 200-laps, including the final 149. Wow. Gripping, eh?)

The Cup race at Talladega last week had multiple leaders and multiple lead changes and that’s what fans have come to expect from NASCAR this season, so Richmond was a let-down.

SHORT TAKES:

– Andretti Autosport has signed some driver from Ireland (it doesn’t matter who he is; there’s a gazillion of them out there with bucketfuls of cash to buy rides) who will get to race after Indianapolis when either Ryan Hunter-Reay or Danica Patrick leaves.

– People are pressed for time these days. Perhaps one of the reasons car racing TV ratings are down is because of the insufferable hour-long shows a viewer has to sit through before they actually start the races.

I could care less what J.J. or Kyle or Danica or Tony think or say or do: I want to see them race.

Baseball has it right: the Blue Jays telecasts start at 7 p.m. and they throw the first pitch seven or eight minutes later. Car racing should take note.

(Yes, I like the F1 telecasts now that come on at five to the hour and the race starts almost immediately. Remember: to be right up to date on the latest F1 news and gossip when the race comes on, listen to my podcast with Canadian F1 expert Gerald Donaldson that’s posted to the wheels.ca website no later than noon on the Friday preceding any of this year’s Grands Prix. Our Spanish preview, for instance, will be on the site by noon this coming Friday).

– Maybe the Indy cars should adopt the double-file restarts after yellow flags that NASCAR has made so popular. With the leader setting the pace on a single-file restart, he’s long gone before whoever’s in second place can even gear up.

– Post-Indy car race, Dario Franchitti (who finished second in the race) complained about the "backmarkers racing side-by-side when the leaders come up to pass."

Dario: quit blubbering. It’s a race. It’s your job to get past them.

Ditto to Helio Castroneves. The onus is not on Danica Patrick to let you past. The onus is on you to get past her.

Since when did race drivers get this sense of entitlement?

Indy driver stalls car while talking on the ‘phone’

Something delicious happened during the IZOD IndyCar Series race at Kansas today (won in a walk by Scott Dixon of New Zealand) that I just have to tell you about.

It is the perfect example of why you should never talk on a cellphone (or some other communications device) while in a car.

The race cars had been fired up for the start of the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 and the drivers were waiting in pit lane for the signal to pull out.

ABC was televising the race and the colour analyst, our own Scott Goodyear, had put in a radio call to driver Dan Wheldon, whom he identified as the network’s "in-car reporter."

So Goodyear and Wheldon were chatting away when Wheldon suddenly stopped talking.

"He’s stalled the car," said Goodyear.

The field pulled out of the pits at this point and left poor Wheldon sitting there. It took between 30 seconds and a minute for Wheldon and the crew of the U.S. National Guard-sponsored car to fire it up and send poor Dan off to catch the rest of the 27-car starting lineup before the start.

We never did hear from Wheldon again during the telecast and I betcha his car owner will not allow his driver to take any more phone calls when he’s supposed to be getting ready to race.

Just another example of why, when you’re in a car, the job at hand requires your full and undivided attention.

Dario Franchitt of Scotland (and Nashville) finished second and Tony Kanaan of Brazil (and Miami) was third. Canadian Alex Tagliani of Montreal (and Las Vegas) finished eighth. Danica Patrick of Phoenix, who was the best of the four women in the race, finished 11^th.