Where won't they let Castroneves go this weekend?

With F1 on vacation for the next three Sundays (Belgium is next on Aug. 29; mark it down), we’ll have to content ourselves watching IndyCar and/or NASCAR, which this weekend is not a bad deal because the Sprint Cup race is on the road course at Watkins Glen and that’s always great fun to watch.

The intrigue, however, will be at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course where Helio Castroneves will be making his first start after being robbed of victory at the Honda Indy Edmonton by driving on a part of the track where he wasn’t supposed to be. The IRL called it blocking but there wasn’t a block.

(Can you imagine anybody in NASCAR telling guys like Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick and Ryan Newman that they can’t drive on half the road while going into a turn at Watkins Glen? The gales of laughter would be heard all the way to . . . well, Mid-Ohio.)

In any event, the IndyCar people met with Castroneves earlier this week and fined him $60,000 and put him on probation for the rest of the season, primarily because of his post-race meltdown at Edmonton when he’d yelled and screamed and grabbed a couple of people by the lapels. (If this had happened to A.J. Foyt, he’d have slugged somebody but that was back at a time when drivers decided who won car races instead of officials, who apparently are more important these days than drivers, at least in the eyes of IndyCar.)

Castroneves shouldn’t have touched anybody, but his anger was understandable: He won the race.

 

Meantime, at Watkins Glen, the Nationwide race on Saturday will be of interest because Mississauga’s Ron Fellows and Cambridge’s J.R. Fitzpatrick will again be driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports. The last time these two drove for Junior, at Road America in June, Fellows was second to Carl Edwards and Fitzpatrick finished seventh.

The star of that show, though, was Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 world champion who seems intent on reviving his NASCAR career. He was second all the way at Road America but lost his alternator on the last lap and wound up 25^th or so. If not for that, two of the three places on the podium would have been occupied by Canadians.

 

Speaking of NASCAR, D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas won his third race of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series championship on Wednesday night at Auto Clearing Motor Speedway in Saskatoon.

Fitzpatrick, who’s locked in a back-and-forth battle for the championship with Kennington and held a six-point edge going into the event, charged from 14th on the grid to finish second. With the win, however, Kennington vaulted back past Fitzpatrick to take a 14-point lead in the standings.

 

Third place in the race went to Don Thomson Jr. of Ayr, Ont., with Scott Steckly of Milverton finishing fourth and John Gaunt of Barrie in fifth. Jason Hathaway of Appin, Ont., Kerry Micks of Mt. Albert, Mark Dilley of Barrie, Anthony Simone of Holland Landing and Nathan Weenk of Lethbridge, Alta., completed the top 10.

 

The NASCAR Canada series will now return to road-course action for the GP3R 100 in Trois-Rivieres, Que., on Sun., Aug. 15 as part of the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres.

 

Here’s a nice story. John Fletcher of Milton is returning to the cockpit in his No. 61 OSCAAR Outlaw late model racing car for Friday night’s 75-Lap Don Biederman Memorial at Kawartha Speedway, an event he’s won three times.

“ This race means a lot to me,” Fletcher said. “Don and I became good friends after his racing days and I have a lot of respect for him. But I really want to win this race to honour Bill Snowdon. We won a lot together with this car.”

Snowdon and Fletcher raced together from 1994 to 2007, when Snowdown died of ALS. Since then, the #61 car has sat idle. Fletcher and his team have rebuilt and rebodied the car for Kawartha. He’ll have his sights set on the checkers when they drop the green.

I wish I could be there. But I'm taking in a little supermodified action at Oswego Speedway Saturday night. If you have a hankering for the supers, however, the International Supermodified Association travelling supermodifieds will be at Delaware Speedway near London Friday and Saturday nights.

My pal Gary Morton will have his car there. If you make the trip, tell Gary that Norris sentcha.

Comments

[Leighton Irwin]

Uh, Norris you are getting ahead of yourself! Methinks you meant Aug. 29 not Oct.
Also on this weekend are club races at Mosport put on by BARC. Free tickets available from CASC website.
Best deal in town. Two days of racing for free and remember just how many Cdn. stars came out of Ont. Region racing.

[C2100]

Nothing like a little showmanship to keep the audiences watching. Canada's own Paul Tracy is right up there with our Brazilian and German performers.

Good comments Norris

http://www.flickr.com/photos/d70w7/4850977653/