Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Vettel wins pole for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix

McNISH, ROCKENFELLER SURVIVE MASSIVE ACCIDENTS AT 24 HOURS OF LE MANS

Sebastian Vettel has won the pole for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Canada, his sixth pole in seven races so far this Formula One season, and he broke the track record in the process.

The German driver put his Red Bull Racing-Renault on the inside of the front row this afternoon with a lap around the 4.361-kilometre Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal of one minute, 13.014 seconds. 

The defending world champion just pipped two-time world champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, who turned a lap of 1:13:199.

Alonso’s teammate, Felipe Massa, was third in 1:13:217.

The rest of the top ten: Mark Webber (Red Bull), Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes), Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), Jenson Button (McLaren), Michael Schumacher (Mercedes), Nick Heidfeld (Renault) and Vitaly Petrov (Renault).

The qualifying session was conducted under cloudy skies. The forecast for Sunday’s Grand Prix is for rain.

When informed that he had won yet another pole, Vettel said: "Yes! Yes! Thank you! Thank you! I stuffed it in the wall."

English is not Vettel’s first language. European reporters suggested he meant to say that he’d "stuck it on the pole," although he did crash into the wall during first practice on Friday.

There were other reports that quoted him as saying, "thanks for fixing the car on Friday after I stuffed it into the wall," but people who heard the radio transmission doubted he'd had time to say all that.

Vettel's time beat the official track record of 1:13.622 set in 2004 by Rubens Barrichello, then with Ferrari.

The qualifying session was strangely lacking in drama. Often, qualifying is the highlight of a Grand Prix weekend, with the race itself – usually – a bit of an anti-climax with the top three or four cars starting and finishing the same way.

Vettel’s domination of all things F1 this season – all except one pole and all except one race – meant spectators were left to either appreciate the brilliant talent of the young man (he’s only 23) or else hope for a mistake that might let another driver through.

The man who many thought would be his chief rival in Montreal, McLaren's Hamilton, who won the Canadian GP in 2007 and again last year, was a surprising fifth.

His teammate, Button, had his poorest qualifying session of the year – seventh.

Observers suggested that McLaren gambled by sending Hamilton and Button out to qualify on a wet setup, as forecasts suggest rain for the race tomorrow.

But anybody in Canada who believes a weather forecast a day in advance is playing with fire because it could just as easily turn out to be beautiful.

Said Christian Horder, Red Bull's team principal: ""We've gone for a set-up which covers both eventualities (rain or shine). We didn't expect to get pole here, so it's a surprise to get it at one of our weakest circuits. A fantastic performance from Seb."

One of the drivers who surprised today was Scotland’s Paul Di Resta, who just missed making the top ten.

In Q2, Di Resta ripped off his fastest lap of the weekend but fell short of the top ten by three tenths of a second.

Marussia Virgin Racing's Jerome D'Ambrosio is in danger of missing the race because his time was short of the 107 per cent (of the pole time) racing rule. If the stewards - who are allowed to make exceptions - decide not to let him race, it would be the first time this year both Virgin cars didn't start a Grand Prix.

It would also mean a 23-car grid.

Huge accidents at Le Mans

Moments after Scotland’s Allan McNish was featured today in a video demonstration on Speed Channel showing what driving a high-speed racing car can do to the human body, he was involved in one of the most spectacular accidents in recent memory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

McNish wasn’t hurt, beyond a severe shaking up, and nobody else was reported injured after his Audi clipped a slower Ferrari about an hour into the iconic event and very nearly went into the crowd.

The car flew threw a gravel trap (intended to slow down any out-of-control car) and slammed sideways into a guardrail, just missing going over and flying into a spectator area.

As it was, pieces of the race car and tires went flying and bouncing all directions. It’s a miracle that marshals and photographers who were standing right behind the guardrail, weren’t hit by anything.

The worst accident in motor racing history took place at Le Mans in 1955 when a car, or pieces of the car, went into the crowd and killed 84 people and injured 120.

VIDEO: WATCH THE ACCIDENT

It's clear that the accident was McNish's fault. Anthony Beltoise, the driver of the GT class Ferrari that McNish hit while attempting the pass, said that he had looked into his mirrors before concentrating on steering his own car around the right-hand corner and had not seen either Audi.

He suggested that there is a closing speed of between 40 and 50 km/h between the prototypes and the GT cars and that likely contributed to the accident.

Several hours later, a second massive accident saw another Audi driver, Mike Rockenfeller, also survive.

"Rocky" was passing a GT car at high speed on the Mulsanne Straight when the GT car inexplicably moved over and clipped the passing Audi, turning it sharp left and head-on into a guardrail.

Rockenfeller reportedly managed to get out of his wrecked car by himself and was taken to hospital.

VIDEO: ROCKENFELLER CRASH

Another pole for Tagliani

Late-night update: Dario Franchitti wns first race; Will Power wins second

Alex Tagliani of Montreal won his second straight pole in the IZOD IndyCar Series – the first being for last month’s Indianapolis 500 – for tonight’s double-header races at Texas.

Tagliani had a two-lap average speed of 215.186 mph on the 1.5-mile, high-banked track, to take pole for the Firestone Twin 275s.

It was a sweet run for the Canadian driver after his Sam Schmidt Motorsports engineer, Allen McDonald, quit earlier this week to go work for Michael Andretti’s team. The best an Andretti car could do was Danica Patrick’s run for tenth place.

Tag is being engineered for this race by Canadian Todd Malloy, who engineered Dan Wheldon’s win at Indianapolis.

Ganassi Racing star Dario Franchitti will start beside Tagliani on the front row, followed by Penske driver Will Power alongside KV Racing’s Takuma Sato.

James Hinchcliffe of Oakville will start his Newman-Haas team car in 15^th place, one spot behind teammate Oriol Servia. Paul Tracy of Scarborough will go off in 21^st place in the 30-car field.

The surprise star in qualifying was Wade Cunningham, who will start eighth. Cunningham is a multi-time winner in Indy Lights and a former series champion who – for one reason or another – has never been given a shot in the big time.

This is the first of three races Cunningham will drive for Sam Schmidt and was the first time the New Zealander was in an Indy car. To finish eighth in qualifying after only one hour of practice is almost overwhelming.

And Davey Hamilton, who nearly lost both feet in a grinding crash at Texas 10 years ago, will be making his first start at the track since the accident.

Hamilton, a short-track supermodified star who only runs ovals in the big leagues, qualified 18^th. He admitted before the weekend that he had some apprehension about going back to Texas but figured to be right back into at after a few laps at speed.

Arpin shows good form in Texas

Fort Frances, Ont., speedster Steve Arpin, driving his first Camping World Truck Series race with support from Vancouver’s Mike’s Hard Lemonade, finished 23^rd at Texas Motor Speedway Friday night after starting the race fourth.

That he qualified as well as he did shows the Canadian has got the Right Stuff for big-time NASCAR competition.

Arpin ran in the top ten for most of the race but a spin on the high-speed Texas track saw him slide down into the infield grass and his progress was hampered from then on. That he fought back to finish only a lap down from the leaders is commendable.

Ron Hornaday won the race after Johnny Sauter, who took the lead on a late-race restart by moving down a lane instead of holding position, was black-flagged.

Alonso shows who's F1 boss at Montreal

ARE EMPTY SEATS BECAUSE OF OUTRAGEOUS HOTEL ROOM PRICES?

Under beautiful sunny skies, and with just about every seat occupied (more about that in a moment), Fernando Alonso of Ferrari threw down the gauntlet at the Grand Prix of Canada today by setting the fastest time in the second practice session at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

Qualifying will be held tomorrow at 1 p.m. (TSN) with the race going Sunday – same time, same station.

Alonso’s lap time of 1:15.107 was slightly better than the 1:15:591 set by Nico Rosberg of Mercedes in the first session this morning. While Alonso, who was second behind Rosberg on the time sheets earlier, improved on his time, Rosberg went right down the toilet in the second session, finishing 19th of the 24 cars that took time.

His teammate, Michael Schumacher, who was third this morning, slipped to 19th this afternoon.

World Champion Sebastien Vettel, who crashed during the morning session at the infamous Wall of Champions after he drove his Red Bull-Renault over a curb, rebounded this afternoon and was second on the charts.

He was followed by Felipe Massa (Ferrari), Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, both in McLaren-Mercedes cars, Paul Di Restra in a Force India, Mark Webber in the second Red Bull, Vitaly Petrov in the Renault, Nick Heidfeld in the second Renault and Rubens Barrichello in a Williams-Cosworth.

Two big surprises: Di Resta is a rookie and although the Force India car shows flashes of fastness on high-speed circuits, it usually doesn’t do as well on twisty, stop-and-go tracks like Montreal. And Vettel’s partner, Webber, was expected to do much better than seventh and 12th in the afternoon and morning sessions, respectively.

You wondered if some of these guys had ever been to the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve before, as besides Vettel, Kamui Kobayashi, Adrian Sutil and Jerome D’Ambrosio crashed. (Okay, we’ll forgive D’Ambrosio, who’s in an F1 car for the first time in Montreal. But the others . . .)

Also, since I’m on about crashing here, where are the FIA safety people? How can they continue to give the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve a pass when there are exposed cement walls all over the place?

Olivier Panis was lucky to escape with his life in 1997 when his Prost went into an exposed wall and yet those walls are still as naked today as they were then. Kobayashi today went head-on into an unprotected wall.

Have they not heard of SAFER barriers? Tire walls?

They only put tires up against the wall down near the hairpin after Robert Kubica’s crash in 2008. Must they wait until somebody else gets hurt, or almost killed, before fixing that place up?

Okay, it was a gorgeous day but why were there empty seats at the circuit today? Montreal is sold out of reserved seats, so how come some people didn’t show up today? Canada is a hotbed for F1 and one of the things about Montreal is that from first practice on, the place is always packed. Or has been in previous years.

Just wondering.

Of course, one of the reasons could be that they are from out-of-town and purchased tickets but took a pass on attending Friday because of the outrageous hotel room prices in downtown Montreal.

You want gouging? I’ll give you gouging. Try to find a decent hotel room for less than $500 a night. I love the Queen Elizabeth, and always stay there when I’m in Montreal, but not at Grand Prix time. Try $600 a night. Appalling.

NASCAR CANADA WINNER CAUGHT CHEATING

I’m sure that NASCAR, NASCAR Canada and the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series are very embarrassed about the developments that took place at Circuit ICAR last weekend.

We know that Andrew Ranger wrecked Indy 500 pole-winner Alex Tagliani in the closing stages of the race, thus taking over the lead. When Ranger was assessed a drive-through penalty for his actions (he might have gotten away with it but as he’d driven into defending champion D.J. Kennington earlier, NASCAR had their eyes on him), he refused to acknowledge the black flag and they finally had to disqualify him.

That gave the victory to Robin Buck but it turned out this week that Buck and his team had been cheating.

As is the tradition with NASCAR, Buck keeps the victory but was finerd 100 driver points, the car owner was fined 100 owner points and the chief mechanic was fined $5,000 and will not be allowed to compete in the Canadian Tire series until the fine is paid.

All this because an illegal carburetor was found in the post-race tech inspection.

Here is the NASCAR press release on the matter:

NASCAR announced today (Thursday, June 9) that the No. 66 team that competes in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series has been penalized as a result of rules violations committed Sunday, June 5, at Circuit ICAR in Mirabel, Quebec.

The team was found to be in violation of Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-I (car, car parts, components and/or equipment used do not conform to NASCAR rules); and 20E-5.10.1A (Carburetor Eligibility: The carburetor must remain as supplied by the NASCAR-approved supplier – Unapproved carburetor modification to the venturi location and carburetor boosters.) of the 2011 NASCAR rule book. The violations were discovered during post-race inspection on June 5.

Robin Buck, driver of car No. 66, has been penalized with the loss of 100 championship driver points.

Randy Gray, crew chief of the No. 66 car, has been fined $5,000. Suspended from NASCAR until fine is paid. Placed on NASCAR probation for the next two (2) NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Events. Placed on NASCAR probation until June 29, 2011.

Car owner Sandra D’Angelo, car owner of car No. 66, has been penalized with the loss of 100 championship owner points.

IndyCar reject DeltaWing to run at Le Mans in 2012

Huge news on the motorsport front today – news that could have implications for several of the world's top motor racing series.

While news about Formula One focuses on just about everything but the sport (the Grand Prix of Canada will be run in Montreal this weekend but the focus of most of the reporting is whether or not the series should race in Bahrain this year) and the IndyCar Series prepares to race in Texas using cars that are 10 years old after rejecting a radical new design called the DeltaWing for use post-2012, it was announced today that the DeltaWing will go racing after all – in the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans.

All of a sudden, one of the world’s most famous races that had lost a lot of its luster and excitement – not to mention importance – in recent years is very suddenly back in the headlines.

And a team thought to be gearing up for an entry in the IndyCar series, two-time American Le Mans Series champions Highcroft Racing, is going sports car racing.

Here is a partial text of the Highcroft Racing announcement this morning, issued two days in advance of this year's Le Mans 24:

“Some of the biggest names in American motorsport have joined forces for the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans to showcase a unique concept demonstrating extreme performance with half the weight and horsepower of a traditional racing car.

“The Project 56 group brings together the design talents of DeltaWing Racing Cars LLC; the manufacturing capabilities of All American Racers — the company owned by 1967 Le Mans winner and American racing legend Dan Gurney — and back-to-back American Le Mans Series championship winning racing team, Highcroft Racing.

“American Le Mans Series founder Dr. Don Panoz — who sold Mosport International Raceway to Canadian racing champion Ron Fellows and two partners last week — has also joined the project as a key advisor.

“The group has received an invitation from Le Mans 24 Hour race organizers, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, to contest the 2012 race as an additional 56th entry.

“The 56th place on the grid is reserved for a technologically innovative car to participate “outside the classifications” – a vehicle showcasing new applications and unique technologies previously unseen in the world’s greatest endurance race. . .

“The Project 56 Group is in discussion with engine partners to provide a 1.6-liter turbocharged power plant for the project – producing approximately 300 horsepower.

“The car will be unlike any previously seen at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (Ed. note: Or anywhere else, for that matter). The car features a slender nose with extremely narrow front track – minimizing the horsepower required to push the car to speeds of 200 miles an hour around the 8.5 mile circuit.

“Eliminating the use of traditional wings, downforce for the DeltaWing is generated solely beneath the car by the contoured underbody.

“The DeltaWing selection was revealed today at the ACO’s annual press conference coinciding with this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans event.

“Construction of the new machine will begin next month at Gurney’s California facility.  The Highcroft Racing team will begin track testing of the new car later this year.”

I suggest the DeltaWing will come back to haunt IndyCar, which rejected the concept in favour of a bit of same-old, same-old from Dallara. IndyCar had the chance to turn the racing world on its ear and blew the opportunity.

Now, the car that could have revolutionized IndyCar racing will start to influence the future of sports car racing and the interest it elicits could have ramifications for F1 as well.

Once upon a time, world sports car racing was much bigger than formula car racing, only to lose momentum in the latter part of the 20^th Century.  This little piece of news today could start to close the gap.

Meantime, practice for the Canadian Grand Prix will start Friday at 10 a.m. and you can watch live streaming on www.speedtv.com. There will no commentary but you will hear the sounds of the cars. The third practice on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. will also be live-streamed.

There will be no TV available in Canada for the second practice session on Friday at 2 p.m. but you can watch qualifying Saturday on TSN at 1 p.m. and the race, of course, on Sunday on TSN at 12:55 p.m.

For a link to the live-streaming, click here.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans can be seen on SPEED channel, starting Saturday at 8:30 and going until 11:30 a. m., picking up again at 3:30 p.m. until 8 p.m. and then from 11 p.m. until the finish Sunday morning.

The IndyCar Series will be running twin 275-lap races at Texas Motor Speedway. They can be seen Saturday night on TSN beginning at 8 p.m.

By the way, the NASCAR Pocono 500 can be seen Sunday on TSN2, starting at noon.

One bit of IndyCar news of note:

Todd Malloy, son of Toronto Star Wheels contributor Gerry Malloy and the subject of my newspaper column last Saturday after he engineered Dan Wheldon’s car to Victory Lane in the Indianapolis 500,  will be the race engineer at Texas this weekend for the No. 77 Bowers & Wilkins car driven by Alex Tagliani for Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

He replaces Allen McDonald, who earlier this week returned to Andretti Autosport as director of engineering and race engineer for the No. 27 car driven by Mike Conway.

"We are very fortunate to have Todd with us this weekend," team manager Rob Edwards said. "Since he was part of the engineering group (Nos. 77, 98 and 99 teams) working together at Indy, it will help the transition.

“At the same time, Allen was part of the founding group of this team; so much of the continuity that has built up over the last 18 months will be lost. Instead of work happening intuitively, we will have to learn to work together as we go."

(Editor’s note: He sounds just a little annoyed, doesn’t he?)

McDonald was the chief race engineer for Tagliani, who won the pole for the Indy 500.

The connection between Kyle Busch and Stan Mikita

Just a final follow-up on the whole Richard Childress-Kyle Busch "fight" at Kansas last weekend.

I’ve been corresponding with several of the folks who keep in regular touch with me about this and one fellow in particular is not losing any sleep over the fact that 26-year-old Kyle got his butt kicked by a 66-year-old grandfather.

And I say two things in reply to that: 1, Childress is lucky that Busch didn’t fight back because he would have cleaned his clock, and 2, I think it’s admirable that Busch is obviously trying extremely hard this season to change his image from that of a snotty, haughty, arrogant little rich kid from Las Vegas to more of a regular guy that you might even like to go out for a beer with.

Now, the reason he didn’t haul off and slug Childress, who started the fight (or the assault, if this was a court of law), is because of two things – 1, he was already on probation because of an incident with Kevin Harvick a few weeks earlier and 2, he would have done some serious damage to Richard Childress and that would have been worse than anything.

I think he is seriously trying to change. Some say it’s because of his marriage. Others say Joe Gibbs’ sermons are finally getting through to him. Whatever, he’s certainly not the Bad Boy of NASCAR that he was a year ago.

But old reputations die hard. Here is a paraphrase of what one of my correspondents said about him in an email Tuesday:

"Despite him toning down his act, he is still regarded with some resentment and the reason is his aggressive driving style which puts others at more risk than necessary. Within the NASCAR fraternity I think the resentment comes from a lack of respect for the other drivers and their equipment, and because he’s successful."

Maybe I’m reading Kyle Busch wrong but his transformation reminds me of another guy who turned his career and reputation around many years ago and that was Stan Mikita of the Chicago Black Hawks.

When Mikita played junior with the St. Catharines Teepees, he was a holy terror and when he made the Black Hawks he played the same way. He was a dirty hockey player and he was despised by opposing players and fans alike. He spent a lot of time in the penalty box.

The story goes that Mikita returned home from a road trip once and his little daughter, who’d seen him on TV in the penalty box, asked him why spent so much time "sitting down." That, apparently, made such an impression on him that he stopped being dirty and became such a non-violent player that he went on to win the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship.

Nice story – but not true.

According to an old friend of mine, who was one of the best hockey writers to ever sit down at a typewriter, Mikita was sitting in a barber’s chair in Hawaii during a post-season vacation when the barber noted that all his fingernails were bitten down to the quick.

"Why are you such a nervous guy?" the barber asked him and Mikita knew the answer: he was afraid for his life. He knew that the word was out around the league that somebody was going to get him; the other players were no longer going to tolerate his nonsense.

Tough was okay in the NHL of the 1960s; out-and-out dirty was not.

Maybe Mikita thought of his little daughter in that context, but it was a direct result of the conversation with that barber that Stan Mikita decided he’d do his best to go straight. It took him three or four seasons, but he finally won the respect of the guys he played against, as well as the league and the fans. And he won not one Lady Byng, but two.

Whatever it was that’s made Kyle Busch see the light – marriage, Gibbs or (who knows?) a threat of some kind from within the fraternity – his turnaround is a mirror image of Stan Mikita’s.

It might take a season or two, or even three, for people to accept it, but Busch the younger has put away childish things and is behaving like an adult. Not fighting back the other afternoon in Kansas is one of the first signs.

No suspension, just a fine for Childress

Let me get this straight.

If you have an oversize engine in your car, NASCAR will fine you $200,000.

But if you are a car owner who attacks a driver from a rival team and punches him at least twice, that’s only worth $150,000?

Oh, I forgot. Plus probation.

In 2009, after the All Star Showdown at Charlotte Motor Speedway (through which drivers try to be added to the lineup for the All Star Race that follows), an engine was found to have cylinders larger than specified in NASCAR’s rulebook.

For this crime of murder, NASCAR docked driver Carl Long 200 driver points and suspended him for 12 races. Crew chief Charles Swing was fined $200,000 and was also suspended for a dozen starts. The car owner, Danielle Long, was docked 200 owner points and was similarly suspended for 12 races.

Three people were fined $200,000, docked 400 points and suspended for a total of 36 races because they had an engine in their race car that was too big.

I shudder to think what might have happened to those three folks if they'd done something really wrong.

Last weekend in Kansas, Richard Childress, who owns cars in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Camping World trucks and ARCA Series, got browned off at Kyle Busch and reportedly punched him at least twice in the head.

For this he gets fined $150,000 (announced Monday afternoon by NASCAR) but he doesn’t lose any points and he’s not suspended from participating in any races.

The message here is that NASCAR doesn’t view physical violence as being as bad as cheating under the hood, which - I suppose - fits right in with their "have at it, boys" mentality.

Every day, this sport of big-league stock car racing moves further and further away from Madison Avenue and back to its jalopy roots in Dogpatch, U.S.A., where L’il Abner and Daisy Mae just loved all that feudin’ n’ fightin’.

But by playing to the Wal-Mart crowd, NASCAR is forgetting something: Wal-Mart isn’t a sponsor of NASCAR racing.

The sponsors that NASCAR has, and presumably wants to keep, include the Bank of America, Camping World, Canadian Tire, Coca-Cola, DirecTV, Kraft, Sprint, Sunoco, UPS, McLaren and Nabisco, none of whom, I suspect, allows brawling in the lobbies of their headquarters.

I suspect that Big Bill and Bill France Jr., who worked so hard and so tirelessly all those years to give their sport respectability, would not be pleased at this turn of events.

At all.

RACING ROUNDUP: Childress an old bully

WEEKEND HEADLINES:

1. NASCAR likely to come down hard on Childress

2. Formula One making dreadful mistake on Bahrain

3. Robin Bucks avoids Ranger, wins Canadian Tire race

SYNOPSIS: Car owner Richard Childress assaulted rival driver Kyle Busch following Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Series truck race at Kansas Speedway. Childress is 66, 40 years older than Busch. The kid likely didn’t want to clobber an old man, so held off. NASCAR was not amused, clearing Busch of any responsiblity and sending a signal that it would penalize Childress. We will find out today how stiff that penalty will be. See NASCAR post below.

Meantime, the people who run Formula One have put Bahrain back on the 2011 schedule, dead demonstrators be damned, and all sorts of people, including a very prominent driver, are aghast. See FORMULA ONE post, second below.

Finally, Robin Buck won the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at Circuit ICAR in Quebec on Sunday but only after rival driver Andrew Ranger put Alex Tagliani into a tire wall and then refused to accept a drive-through penalty and was disqualified. Tag wasn’t the only driver Ranger punted out of the way. Plus all sorts of other weekend racing results, most involving Canadians. See OTHER RACING post, third below.

NASCAR: Childress decision today

Richard Childress makes me think of a father who goes over to the schoolyard to take a swing at a child who’s just sent his kid home crying.

Fathers who do that deserve the condemnation they receive because they should know better.

And Richard Childress should know better.

That’s why NASCAR is quite likely going to come down like a ton of bricks today on the retired race driver who's now the owner of cars in the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Camping World trucks and ARCA series.

Whether it’s a hefty fine – and I, for instance, do not think anything that ends in "thousand" should be enough – or a suspension (for starters, NASCAR wouldn’t let Childress near the pits for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway), or something else remains to be seen.

But when NASCAR said "have at it, boys," you can bet they meant the drivers and not the car owners.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard what happened following the Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas on Saturday afternoon (which was won by Clint Bowyer, by the way. Full story here).

Kyle Busch was passed for fifth place late in the race by Childress driver Joey Coulter and after the checkers he pulled up beside him and either gestured or shouted something (I didn’t see any contact between the two trucks, but there might have been a tap).

When Busch went to leave the garage area later, he apparently was confronted by Childress who attacked him. According to some reports, Childress – who’s 66 – put Busch – who’s 26 – in a headlock and punched him several times.

Busch did not retaliate and remained calm throughout. Unlike Childress, Busch talked to TV reporters on Sunday.

For all I know, Childress had an ulterior motive when he went after Busch. Busch is on probation for an incident with Kevin Harvick a few races ago (Harvick got out of his car and went to take a swipe at Busch, who drove off, pushing Harvick’s car out of the way in the process).

If Childress had suckered Busch into fighting back, that might have been enough for NASCAR to suspend him . As it stands, NASCAR has made it clear it does not hold Busch responsible for anything that happened and are focusing on Childress.

NASCAR is undoubtedly terribly embarrassed by this turn of events. For years, it did everything it could to get itself accepted into the boardrooms of America. While the drivers might get a little out of control on occasion, that’s allowed – within reason.

But when a car owner – an accepted member of the lodge – loses control, it sends exactly the wrong kind of message to corporate America and you can bet that NASCAR will do everything it can today to make sure that sort of nonsense doesn’t happen again.

And, in doing so, it will tell the CEOs of the world that it won't tolerate intemperate behaviour on the part of people that the sanctioning body has entrusted to represent those companies and corporations with dignity and sophistication.

You know, I was astounded to watch Darrell Waltrip and Jeff Hammond spouting off on the telecast about how this "bad blood" could spread – that even the crews might get into it before it all ends.

I like both those guys but this time they were way off the mark. They might have been trying to whip the proletariat into a frenzy but the proletariat doesn't write the cheques.

Once upon a time, tire irons at 20 paces were acceptable in NASCAR. But not any more, boy. Not any more. Where once a local sheriff might laugh off a scuffle in the pits, it’s 2011 and people can be charged for that sort of thing.

Richard Childress should be very happy that Kyle Busch wasn’t interested in calling the cops.

Fathers who go looking for their child’s tormenter in the schoolyard are not so lucky.

Notebook Jottings:

– What is with all the "fuel runs" in NASCAR races these days. The Sprint Cup "race" was a snorer because everybody was saving fuel. Brad Keselowski won, with Dale Earnhardt second and Denny Hamlin third (full story here) but Kurt Busch, who led the most laps – 152 – had to pit with 10 laps to go or else he would have run out.

Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway, Carl Edwards ran out of fuel on the last lap, letting Justin Allgaier through to win – and he ran out of fuel going down to the checkers (full story here).

A week ago, at Charlotte, Earnhardt was winning the Coca-Cola 600 and ran out on the last corner.

I really wish they would just give everybody all the fuel they would ever need and let them race. I could care less about fuel economy.

– Danica Patrick dropped back into the Nationwide Series for a race and finished tenth. She is proving that she is the real deal in stock car racing. She will return to Indy cars next week at Texas.

Another good-news story out of Chicago was the return to competition of Trevor Bayne, who finished third in the race. Bayne, the Daytona 500 winner, was out of action for weeks after he was bitten by an insect.

– Speaking of Texas, and the Camping World Truck Series, Fort Frances’ Steve Arpin will make his first start of the season for sponsor Mike’s Hard Lemonade next Friday night. The last time he raced at Texas with Mike’s on his car – in 2010 in an ARCA race – he wound up in Victory Lane.

Arpin, by the way, was at Chicagoland Saturday night, spotting for the race winner, Allgaier

FORMULA ONE: Bahrain decision nuts

Once upon a time, the people who ran international motorsport had strength of character and a sense of moral duty.

For instance, following the 1985 South African Grand Prix, then-FIA President Jean-Marie Balestre said that Formula One would not continue to race in that country because of the policy of apartheid.

Only after apartheid ended, in 1991, did F1 return.

Earlier this year, thousands of protesters followed the lead of revolutionaries in Tunisia and Egypt and tried to force change in Bahrain. At least five people were killed in the demonstrations.

The F1 race there, originally scheduled to start the season in mid-March, was postponed. Not cancelled, just postponed. This followed the declaration of a three-month state of emergency in the country.

That state of emergency has now been lifted but security is reportedly still very tight in the country. The FIA reacted to this wonderful bit of news by putting the Grand Prix back on the 2011 calendar in late October.

This is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Does anybody, in their right mind, not think the arrival of the F1 crowd will not result in more demonstrations?

Boy, if you want to attract the attention of the world, just bring F1 to town and then start the revolution!

It’s so many years ago that people forget but Castro and the boys kidnapped World Champion Juan Fangio back in 1958 on the eve of the Cuban Grand Prix. They didn’t hurt him, but their revolutionary rhetoric, which was not taken very seriously by anybody at that point, suddenly became front page news in South America and Europe.

Many within F1 are appalled by the Bahrain decision – privately and otherwise. Rubens Barrichello is asking for assurances that it will be safe for the drivers to go. Mark Webber wrote on his website that, "In my personal opinion, the sport should have taken a much firmer stance earlier this year . . . It would have sent a very clear message about F1’s position on something as fundamental as human rights and how it deals with moral issues. . . "

And former president Max Mosley, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said: "Surely the line has to be drawn when a sporting event is not mere entertainment in a less-than-perfect country, but is being used by an oppressive regime to camouflage its actions.

"If a sport accepts this role, it becomes a tool of government. . ."

Of course the teams, and the drivers, are caught in a bind. The teams have contracts with F1 and now that the race is back on the caledar, they have to show up. And if the teams opt to go, the drivers have to go.

Gone are the days when a guy like Gilles Villeneuve could say, "I’m not going to do that," and half the grid would stand down with him.

It’s a changed world, and you can bet there will be no "Arab Spring" in Formula One.

Of course, saner heads could eventually prevail (has anybody noticed what's happening today in Yemen?). The people in charge – Jean Todt and Bernie Ecclestone – could still come to their senses (ha!) and call it off.

But don’t count on it.

Isn’t it a shame that our race, the Grand Prix of Canada, will take to Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal in four days, and yet the focus of the media in the days leading up to it will be on politics, rather than on the wonderful season that Sebastien Vettel is having?

OTHER RACING: Robin Buck wins NASCAR Canada race

Two-time NASCAR Canadian Tire Series champion Andrew Ranger seems to get very annoyed when he sees a car in front of him and, more often than not, rather than pass that car he just pushes it out of the way.

He firmly believes that stock car racing is a contact sport but, unfortunately, he’s never fully understood the nuances of that expression.

Stock car racing is a contact sport when two cars go into a corner side by side and each battles to hold his/her position. A little tradin’ paint is the result and is an accepted practice by the drivers as well as a fan favourite. When it’s done fair and square, it’s part of the spectacle.

Ranger, however, often doesn’t wait till he gets side-by-side to exchange sideswipes. He’ll just turn into a car when going into a corner so that the victim either gets spun around or is punted off course.

And it’s a shame. Ranger, of Roxton Pond. Que., has all the talent in the world – he raced Formula Atlantics and spent two years in the Champ Car World Series before turning to stock cars – and he doesn’t have to race that way.

Sunday at Circuit ICAR at Mirabelle Airport north of Montreal, Ranger took out Indy 500 pole-sitter Alex Tagliani of Montreal when they were fighting for the lead late in the Canadian Tire Series race there and got himself a big penalty.

When he refused to serve a drive-through, and stayed on track to cross the finish line first, he was disqualified.

The benefactor was Robin Buck, who won his first NASCAR Canada race but is well-known to Canadian road-racing fans because of his years spent racing Formula Fords (he was once a teammate of Scott Goodyear’s), Formula Atlantics and sedans in the Player’s-GM Challenge Series.

He also won the 2001 CASCAR race at the Molson Indy Toronto, so he knows his way around stock cars, too.

Tagliani and Ranger made contact while battling for the lead on Lap 28. The incident caused Tagliani to hit the guard rail to bring out the caution; NASCAR handed Ranger a pass-through penalty for aggressive driving.

Tagliani had led a race-high 24 laps after winning the Keystone Light Pole Award Saturday, while Ranger led four laps. Ranger had started at the back of the 27-car field after missing qualifying (his car had been qualified by owner Dave Jacombs) to run the ARCA race at Chicagoland Speedway Saturday night, where he finished fifth.

Anxious to make his way through the field, he rammed defending champion D.J. Kennington off course at one point.

"It was the #27 car (Ranger's) and we’ve had some moments before," said Kennington. "There was no reason for that and I’m really upset that there was no action taken."

That would come later.

Buck, of Campbelleville, was right with the race leaders from the outset after starting from the seventh spot. He was followed home by second-place finisher Scott Steckly, of Milverton – who won the opening race at Mosport Speedway last Saturday night – in the green-white-checkers finish.

Third place went to five-time CASCAR champion Don Thomson Jr., of Hamilton, while L.P. Dumoulon of Trois-Rivieres was fourth and Mark Dilley of Barrie was fifth.

Sixth through tenth were Jeff Lapcevich of Grimsby, J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge, Tagliani, John Farano of Toronto and Jason White of Sun Peaks, B.C.

The Canadian Tire Series will race at Delaware Speedway just outside London next Saturday night. The telecast of the Circuit ICAR race will air next Sunday morning on TSN at 11 o’clock Eastern.

I’ve interviewed Ranger a number of times and he’s a nice guy. He does a lot for charity; one of the last times I talked to him, he’d had his head shaved for some fund-raiser or another.

But he also races for a living and perhaps that makes him a little more desperate than the others – most of whom have other jobs or responsibilities. The higher up you finish, the more you’re going to get paid.

Be that as it may, perhaps one of the reasons his career is not advancing as rapidly as it should is because of this propensity to wreck people. He should think about that.

In the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship race Sunday at Circuit ICAR, Bob Attrell of Brampton finished first in Super Touring, with Nick Wittmer of Hudson, Que., second and another Quebec driver, Philip Fayer of Montreal, third.

In Touring Class, Michel Sallenbach of Roxton Pond, Que., was first, Alain Lauziere of Vaudreuil-Dorion, Que., was second and Tom Kwok of Markham was third.

On Saturday, Sasha Anis of Mississauga was the winner in Super Touring, with Attrell second and Arek Wojciechowski of Ottawa third. In Touring class, it was again Sallenbach, Lauziere and Kwok in that order.

The next CCTC races will be at Mosport the weekend of June 25-26, part of the Vortex Brake Pads-sponsored program featuring the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, the Ontario Formula Ford Championship and the Porsche 944 Cup.

Speaking of which – well, Porsches, anyway – Ottawa’s Perry Bortolotti won his third straight Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada race at Circuit ICAR. Martin Harvey and Shaun McKaigue were second and third. On Sunday, Harvey was first, with McKaigue second and Bruce Gregory third.

In the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series at Watkins Glen, Max Angelelli and Wayne Taylor won the Sahlen’s Six Hours at the Glen, defeating Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas for the second straight race. Alex Gurney and Jon Fogerty were third – all in Daytona Prototypes.

Andrew Davis and Leh Keen were first in the GT Class in a Porsche GT3. Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto, driving a BMW M3 with Bill Auberlen and Joey Hand, finished 11^th in GT and 18^th overall.

Also at the Glen, Joe Foster and Scott Maxwell (top Canadian, from Toronto), wheeling a Multimatic Motorsports Mustang Boss 302R, finished fourth in the Continental Tire 150 behind winners Billy Johnson and Jack Roush Jr.

In Europe, Canadian Bruno Spengler finished fourth in the German Touring Car Series race that was won by Martin Tomczyk of Germany. Spengler still leads the series championship by three points.

Wickens lands F1 role; huge Ostella crash

You know, you take a day off to go play golf and all hell breaks loose in the world of motor racing.

First, David Ostella of Maple is okay but his Jensen Motorsports-owned Indy Lights car is not after a huge crash Friday during testing at the Milwaukee Mile.

Take a look at the video here.

Second, it was finally – finally – confirmed Friday after several months of hints, rumours and speculation that Robert Wickens of Guelph has been officially named reserve driver for the Marussia Virgin Formula One racing team, which doesn’t mean a lot at the moment but could before the end of 2011.

A "reserve driver" is an F1 team’s designate should something happen to prevent one of the regular drivers from competing. Virgin’s drivers in 2011 are Germany’s Timo Glock and Jerome D’Ambrosio of Belgium, neither of whom has exactly set the world on fire.

Of course, the car is nothing to write home about either when compared to Red Bull-Reneault, Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes, Renault and so-on down the line.

In fact, Virgin and its two drivers have scored no points so far in 2011 and on Thursday the team fired technical director Nick Wirth following a review of the team’s progress by former Renault engineer Pat Symonds, who – you will recall – was banned from F1 by the FIA for his role in "Crashgate," in which Nelson Piquet Jr. deliberately drove into a wall at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

In any event, that the Russian car company, Marussia Motors, owns a significant stake in Virgin and has seen fit to engineer Wickens’s ascension just as the team is apparently being reorganized would seem to bode well for the 22-year-old Canadian’s chances.

While it’s unlikely that Wickens will get into the car at the Grand Prix of Canada in Montreal next weekend (reserve drivers sometimes get to go out in a car during first practice on Grand Prix weekends), it won’t surprise anybody if either Glock or D’Ambrosio is dropped before the end of the season and the Canadian promoted.

Why?

Because when Wickens has a fast car, and it holds together, he’s one of the world’s elite racing drivers. A graduate of the Sunoco-Ron Fellows Karting Championship, Wickens won the Formula BMW-Americas championship, finished third in his one year in North American Formula Atlantic and then was runner-up in both Formula 2 and Formula GT3 in Europe.

Currently, he’s in a familar place – second in the World Series by Renault Formula 3.5. Series, although he’s just a point out of first. He’s not a crasher (which means he’s easy on equipment) and he’s as smooth as silk out on the race track.

If Virgin has designs on moving from the bottom in F1 to at least the high middle-of-the-pack in 2012, it would be best to let Wickens get his feet wet in 2011 and be able to hit the ground running next year as a driver with at least some F1 experience.

Otherwise, he’ll be right out of the box and might not be able to deliver the results the Marussia team would be looking for.

Wickens will be conducting a press conference in Montreal next Tuesday and available to Canadian media then and for the rest of the week. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find out a lot more about how he’s feeling about all this and his expectations then.

Meantime, much is being made of the fact that he’s the first Canadian to go to Montreal as part of an F1 team since Jacques Villeneuve made his last F1 appearance there in 2006 while racing for BMW-Sauber.

Now, standing in a pit wearing a set of headphones is not the same as strapping into an F1 car and bombing around the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, so I will wait to make that link.

But when the day comes that he lines up on the grid and waits for the five red lights to go out, Robert Wickens will officially become the 13th Canadian ever to race in F1.

It will be a wonderful day, indeed – when it happens.

Last, the Grand Prix of Bahrain is officially back on the 2011 calendar and will be held Oct. 30. The last race of the season will now be held in India on Dec. 11.

Okay . . .