Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Bernie Ecclestone's daughter borrows $82 million - from her mom

Born into abject poverty and a household devoid of affection, F1 czar Bernie Ecclestone has spent his life making money and crushing anyone who’s gotten in his way.

Because he remains emotionally immature, he can’t understand the concept of hurting people. And he's hurt plenty.

With one exception: his wife Slavika - and, by extension, their two daughters (he turned his back on his first daughter at Slavika’s insistence.)

The puzzle, of course, is that Slavika seemed to hate him. Really hate him. An Amazon to his gnome, she would ridicule him in public; who knows what went on in their house?

But he loved her, apparently, and in the mid-1990s, when he had a serious health scare, he set about to ensure that she and the girls would be taken care of in the event of his death.

Various financial advisers and tax experts recommended that he divest his ownership of Formula One to offshore trusts so his family could avoid paying British taxes if he died. So ownership of FOCA Administration Ltd., and Formula One Administration (FOA) was transferred to Petara Ltd., a company owned by Slavika. That happened in 1996.

Now, as we all know, Slavika flew the coop a few years ago and is, presumably, living happily ever after somewhere. And she’s in the money. Boy, is she in the money.

As the Mail online reported recently, daughter Petra Ecclestone borrowed something in the vicinity of $82 million (that's 82 million dollars)  to buy a house in Los Angeles. And she borrowed the sum from her Mom, not her Dad. (I wonder if Slavika made her sign a note . . .?)

Mind you, Petra is being married next month and Bernie has shelled out a million British pounds for the Black Eyed Peas to entertain at the wedding. So there's no tag days planned in his future, either.

But look, why don't you read all about it yourself? Click here for the details and photographs - of Petra, her husband-to-be and Bernie and Slavika, in happier times.

Mosport RaceFest to take over Yonge-Dundas Square

The summer’s biggest sports car race, the Mobil 1 Presents the Grand Prix of Mosport featuring the cars and stars of the American Le Mans Series, will take to the storied circuit north of Mosport this coming weekend but downtown Toronto will get a preview tomorrow at Yonge-Dundas Square.

Between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Wednesday, drivers Klaus Graf of Germany (he won the ALMS Mosport race a year ago in a Porsche RS Spyder with co-driver Romain Dumas of France) and Canadian stars Tony Burgess of Toronto (he was on the podium last year as well), Kyle Marcelli of Barrie, Ken Wilden of Oakville, Remy Audette of St-Anne des Lacs, Que., and Marco Cerone of Toronto will be talking with fans and signing autographs.

New Mosport co-owner and Canadian road racing veteran Ron Fellows (Corvette Racing, NASCAR Nationwide and Sprint Cup driver) will also be on hand to talk about the weekend’s card that also includes races in the Formula Ford 2000 Series, IMSA GT3 Cup, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada, Cooper Tires Lites, Star Mazda Series and the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship.

The weekend will get under way at Mosport on Thursday with a full day of testing except for the ALMS cars, which won’t hit the track till Friday. Qualifying and races in all classes will be held Saturday with Sunday devoted totally to racing.

The Grand Prix of Mosport will get the green flag shortly after 3 p.m. Sunday and run for two hours and 45 minutes.

The preview at Yonge-Dundas Square, dubbed Mosport RaceFest 2011, will also include pit-stop demonstrations featuring the Corvette and Muscle Milk Aston Martin racing teams.

For further information, go to the Mosport web site.

Motorsport: Crash video and F1 intrigue

Since NASCAR was the only major world series in action this weekend, and since the Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire was somewhat boring (not totally; just somewhat), this week’s Monday Morning Roundup will be more of a general notebook column.

But first, before we get to car racing, I have to take a moment to tee off on the Lucas Oil AMA Motocross officials for not insisting that leading rider Chad Reed go for a checkup before allowing him to rejoin Sunday’s race following a huge crash at the Spring Creek MX Park in Minnesota.

Reed was involved in one of the most incredible motorcycle crashes you will ever see. He came off his bike about 30 feet in the air, landed on the side of a hill, whacked his head something awful, and then got up, started his motorcycle and rejoined the race.

Watch the video below:

He was dead last when he got going again (I don’t like using that term in this context, but . . . ), passed more than 20 other racers and eventually finished 14^th.

Reed is a nice guy. I’ve interviewed him twice in recent years and it’s been a pleasure talking to him. I’m appalled that he was allowed to get up and to keep going after that crash.

Remember Natasha Richardson? She was the actor who banged her head while skiing on a beginner’s hill in the Laurentians several years ago. She refused medical treatment, went back to her room and lapsed into a coma several hours later, eventually dying.

That’s what can happen when you whack your head. Reed should have been black-flagged and made to submit to an examination. Just because he’s apparently fine is no excuse.

Okay, let’s get down to business with . . . Formula One.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. has been taking a hammering the last couple of weeks over the yellow journalism practiced by some of its publications.

You will recall that News Corp. (Rupert Murdoch, Prop.) has been jockying, with partners (the Exor Fund) to purchase Formula One group (which owns the commercial rights to the FIA F1 World Championship) from current majority owner CVC Capital Partners.

Some analysts have suggested that the difficulties News Corp. has been facing (the shutting down of the News of the World newspaper and the withdrawal of a bid to purchase BskyB, Britain’s biggest pay-TV broadcaster) will strangle its efforts to purchase F1.

I suggest nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, now that it’s got some extra billions to invest elsewhere, F1 could wind up as the prime target.

Now, some people associated with F1 – including the disgraced Max Mosley (see following item about his role in this saga) – vow that the sport will never have anything to do with Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.

But I am currently read a fascinating book called No Angel – The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone by investigative reporter Tom Bower, who has written unauthorized biographies of a number of successful, wealthy people including Richard Branson and Conrad Black, and if I’ve learned one thing from this book, it’s that Formula One people are fascinated by money. And the more of it, the better.

I’m not going to review the book here (that’s something for another time), but Ecclestone took a bunch of 1960s amateur enthusiasts who didn’t have a pot to urinate in – Ron Dennis, Frank Williams and Ken Tyrrell (Eddie Jordan came along later) – and made them rich beyond their wildest dreams.

In fact, except for Tyrrell, who died, they are all so wealthy and enjoy so much celebrity these days that it's all gone to their heads and they think that they are really smart. But at end of day, they’re still just a bunch of uneducated, unsophisticated garage mechanics and if you walked in front of them waving a fistful of $100 bills, they’d follow you just about anywhere.

So do not be surprised if News Corp, and partner Exor Fund (owned by the Agnelli family, which controls Fiat, which owns Ferrari ) make an offer to CVC that will be just too good to refuse. As well as cash that will eventually go to the teams, it might even include equity.

Of course, it’s all about pay TV now (or soon) and digital delivery of F1 races going forward and that, in the long run, means even more money. Partnering with a content delivery service is a no-brainer for F1.

Instead of being out of the F1 game because of the scandal, I suggest News Corp. is now even more into it.

– Okay, here’s an interesting tidbit about Max Mosley. You will recall that it was the News of the World that wrote the story (and put the video on its website) of Mosley cavorting with prostitutes. Mosley sued, claiming invasion of privacy, and although he won and was awarded damages, he was not satisfied.

Now, although the News of the World is dead and buried, it settled prior to its demise with several telephone hacking victims (I hope you’ve been following the story, because I don’t have time to explain it all here).

It turns out that Mosley, seeking even more revenge, has been underwriting legal costs and paying some court fees for some of the people who went after the newspaper. You can sum Mosley’s actions up in five words: "Don’t get mad, get even."

– Speaking of hacking, columnist Keith Waltz, writing in the late, lamented National Speed Sport News on Aug. 18, 2010, wondered: "If a driver is fined for something he posts on Twitter, is he or she then known as a nit-twit?"

I was reminded of that because of the continuing saga of Paul Tracy and the phantom Tweet on his Twitter account that accused IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard of bullying race officials at the Honda Indy Toronto into not giving Dario Franchitti a penalty for running into Will Power.

Tracy denies sending the Tweet and said his account was hacked. IndyCar is investigating and Tracy is reportedly cooperating.

– Okay, Ryan Newman won the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Sunday. His boss, Stewart-Haas team owner Tony Stewart was second and Denny Hamlin was third. Jimmie Johnson spun and was still able to come back and finish in the top five.

It was not exactly thrilling. Everybody just about ran out of gas in the closing laps, as usual, and that seems to be the excitement trigger in NASCAR these days. Wow.

Newman and Stewart started one-two and finished that way. Wow.

Newman won the NASCAR Whelan Modified race on Saturday and the car was impounded afterward. It was sent to the NASCAR R & D centre in Charlotte for a once-over.

Newman had his usual Coca-Cola with him for his TV interview except it was a can this time instead of the usual bottle. He had the "Coca-Cola" label pointed directly at the camera, of course and as usual. Every time I see that, I run out and buy a Pepsi.

– Fox Sports was reporting that our own Jacques Villeneuve was at New Hampshire to shop around for a race ride or a race team. Said the 1997 World Champion: "There's two things: if I can get a good ride, I probably would not be looking at (buying a team) but the way the budgets are right now you might as well bring it yourself."

The Red Bull team is For Sale and if JV is going to get completely involved in Cup racing, that would be a good investment. And he’s got the money, so why not go for it?

Of course, not everybody would be happy to see him out there. After the Nationwide race at Road America a few weeks ago, when Villeneuve got a little crossed up and piled into a bunch of people, Kevin Harvick Tweeted:

"No respect here in NASCAR for @27villeneuve same reason they kicked his dumbass out of f1"

I don’t know if Jacques responded, but if he did ,it could have been something along the lines of:

"maybe if @kevinharvick ever won a big championship we could talk about the meaning of respect."

– Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que, who won the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race last weekend at the Honda Indy Toronto, didn’t have such a good result this weekend.

In the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race at New Hampshire Friday, Ranger qualified a poor (for him) 25^th in a field of 36 and then crashed out on Lap 55, officially finishing 33^rd.

In the Nationwide Race Saturday – in which Kyle Busch won his 100^th NASCAR career victory – Ranger (driving for the new GO Canada team in place of J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge) qualified 21^st (out of 42) and was classified 28^th after colliding with Mike Wallace late in the running.

– Steve Arpin of Fort Frances, Ont., started 13^th in the NASCAR Camping World Series truck race at Iowa Speedway Saturday night and finished 13^th. He’s being sponsored by Mike’s Hard Lemonade of Vancouver for five truck races.

– The World of Outlaws sprint cars will be at Ohsweken Speedway a week from Wednesday (the 27^th) but the bad news today is that Joey Saldana likely won’t be in the saddle for that race. Saldana suffered a shattered right arm and broken ribs in an accident at Eldora Speedway in Ohio at the weekend and will likely be out for some time.

– Antoine L’Estage of St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., and Nathalie Richard of Halifax won the New England Forest Rally in a Mitsubishi at the weekend but still finished second in the Rally America standings.

- And the American Le Mans Series will be at Mosport next weekend. More about that on this blog all week, starting Tuesday.

 

PHOTOS: Hinchcliffe's 'planking' disaster

You all know what “planking" is, don’t you?

No?

That’s when you lie down, face down, on the ground or floor, legs and feet stretched out behind you and your arms held stiff against your sides.

You try to do this for a minute, or five minutes.

It’s kind of like standing at attention while lying face-down for a period of time.

Okay. You get the drift.

Really creative planking is when you “plank,” as it’s called, in strange places like up in trees or between two desks at work, or wherever.

Now, I’m telling you all this so you will understand the photo below.

When I went to Indianapolis to interview Oakville driver James Hinchcliffe before this year’s Indy 500, he had a scab on the bridge of his nose.

I asked him what happened but he wouldn’t say.

Now I know why he wouldn’t tell me.

He was “planking” between two walls at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and he'd screwed up.

Ace photographer Steve Swope, who’s been a friend of mine for years, snapped the picture just as the “plank” started to come apart. As you can see, his feet are slipping off one wall, the arms are starting to flail about and young Mr. Hinchcliffe is about to suffer a scraped nose as his face is about to slide off the other wall.

Ouch!

Thanks, Steve!

Condolences, Hinch.

Now, Morry Barmak is the owner of the Collector Studio on Yorkville Ave., just east of Avenue Rd.

There are all sorts of wonderful motorsport artifacts in his shop – helmets and uniforms once worn by Formula One racers, paintings, trophies and so-on — and after the Honda Indy Toronto last Sunday, who should show up but race winner Dario Franchitti (shown below with Barmak).

Reports Morry: Dario made some purchases. He is a Jim Clark and Ferrari/Porsche fan.

That's Morry on the left . . .

Every little bit of sponsorship helps when you’re trying to pay the bills to compete in big-league car racing.

Eric Jensen of Toronto, owner of Jensen Motorsports (his dad, Bruce Jensen, was a prominent Canadian racer back in the Sixties and Seventies), was fortunate to attract support during the Honda Indy Toronto weekend from Pusateri’s Fine Foods.

Not only was there financial support but Pusateri’s supplied meals for Jensen and his guests during the three-day weekend.

In the picture below, owner Frank Pusateri, a certain auto racing writer known to everybody who reads this blog, Sam Pusateri and Eric Jensen line up behind the Jensen Motorsports Firestone Indy Lights race car.

Confession: I had a sandwich.

Paul Tracy threatened with fine for Tweet

There were eight caution flags in last Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto and six of them involved cars running into each other. Only one penalty was assessed — to Mike Conway for allowing his car to hit Ryan Briscoe's.

There was no investigation of Takuma Sato for rear-ending Danica Patrick or Helio Castroneves for hitting Alex Tagliani, both of which resulted in full-course cautions.

How come?

How can Castroneves get into Tagliani and spin him around and there not be an investigation? If you are going to investigate Ryan Briscoe for running into Tony Kanaan, how can you not investigate Castroneves?

Ditto for Takuma Sato.

This is the sort of thing that has many people angry about the inconsistency of officiating in the IZOD IndyCar Series. Verdict: the officiating is about as bad as it is in the NHL, and that's saying something.

Then there was the penalty/no penalty levied/not levied against eventual race winner Dario Franchitti, who collided with Will Power and spun him around.

Shortly after they crashed together, TV play-by-play announcer Bob Jenkins announced that Franchitti had been handed a drive-through penalty. Jenkins mentioned this several times and went so far as to pontificate that Franchitti would be better to take the penalty sooner rather than later because to procrastinate might end up costing him down the road.

A few minutes later, he announced that IndyCar had decided not to penalize Franchitti.

After the race, IndyCar officials said they had never called a penalty against Franchitti. In fact, Al Unser Jr., one of the officials, went on live TV to say that a penalty had not even been considered.

So what’s going on? Did Bob Jenkins dream all that stuff up, or what?

The victim of Franchitti’s aggression was Will Power. Power suggested, on live TV, that race officials had been pressured into not penalizing Franchitti.

Said Power: “IndyCar won’t penalize him because Chip Ganassi goes up there and gives it to ‘em and it’s just wrong.”

Translation: IndyCar officials are afraid of the wrath of Ganassi and don't dare penalize his drivers.

Now, somebody wrote the same thing, or words to the same effect, on Paul Tracy’s Twitter account. The name Chip Ganassi was apparently replaced by the name of Randy Bernard, the IndyCar CEO. But the message was the same: race officials were bullied into not penalizing Franchitti.

Now, Tracy denies writing that and says it was the work of a hacker. But that’s immaterial. What’s interesting is that Tracy has reportedly been threatened with a hefty fine for allegedly Tweeting the same thing that Power said on live television.

How come?

If you’re going to threaten Paul Tracy with a fine (this was reported in the Indianapolis Star, by the way), shouldn’t Will Power also be fined for saying it first on television?

All anybody wants out of IndyCar is consistency. It ain’t gettin' that anywhere.

Here’s how many people watched the Honda Indy Toronto

I was halfway through an interview about this year’s Honda Indy Toronto with Jim Ralph and Bill Watters on AM 640 when the inevitable question was asked: how was the race day attendance?

And I answered as honestly as I could – since the event has chosen once again to not release a figure.

I said on the radio that I thought it was about the size of a "BMO Field" crowd – 20,000 to 25,000, maybe a tad more. I based this on a seat and head count.

I went to the Honda Indy website in the days leading up to the race and I clicked on "tickets." That eventually took me to the seating pattern for the grandstands. For instance, Section A in one grandstand had 18 seats across and was 20 rows high; I clicked on all the sections of all the grandstands and did the math. I tabulated the totals and got a figure of just under 16,000 seats – most of which were filled on race day.

Then I added an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 suite seats, 1,000 general admission seats along Lake Shore Blvd., 1,000 or so drivers, team members, volunteers, paid workers, security, etc., and then a whole bunch of people just wandering around and came up with the 20,000-to-25,000 figure.

Now, that was not for the weekend – Free Friday attracted a ton of people and since there was no admission and nothing was reserved, there was no way to estimate a total. And Saturday and Sunday had lots of people on and about the grounds and inside the Direct Energy Centre. So maybe my estimate was low – although not by much. I mean, I’ve been around.

But in the end, so what?

Right now, today, the Toronto Blue Jays are attracting an average crowd of just over 21,000 fans per game. Mostly, they get between 11,000 and 16,000 a game and the average gets bumped up by things like opening day, Roy Halladay, the Yankees and the Red Sox. The rest of the time, you can shoot a cannon through the place and not hit anybody.

But does anybody in the media go on about attendance at Blue Jays games?

Nope.

I’ve cited this stupidity before and I’ll do it again. The Toronto media routinely report that a million people show up for the Gay Pride parade every year. It is mathematically impossible for this to happen but it gets reported anyway. In fact, CFTO, on Gay Pride parade night, bumped that figure up to an attendance of "1.5 to 2 million (which would have meant just about every man, woman, child and infant in the entire city showed up)."

Total nonsense, but reported anyway.

Same with the Scotiabank Caribbean Festival (nee Caribana), the Taste of the Danforth and so-on. They all allegedly attract a million people.

If the promoters of the Honda Indy made an initial mistake, it’s this: they should have announced that a million people attended the first race in 2009. That way, the race attendance would have fit in nicely with all the other exaggerated attendance figures around here and, as is the case with the other events, nobody would have questioned it.

In the end, however, does it really matter how many people were actually there?

The TV figures were over the top. TSN announced that an average audience of 559,000 watched the race and that, overall, more than 1.2 million tuned in. The peak came as Dario Franchitti held off Scott Dixon to win; at 4:46 p.m., 735,000 were watching.

TSN said it was the best-watched Indy car race on the network since 1997, when CART was the sanctioning body and the race was known as the Molson Indy (and yes, those days are gone, never to return, just like the every-day sellout that was the norm at SkyDome before the baseball players' strike in 1994).

In the U.S., the little-known cable network Versus drew a .41 rating, which translates into a shade more than 400,000. So between one million and 1.6 million in North America watched the race, or some of it. (It would have been more if the race had been on a major U.S. network, which is something that IndyCar simply cannot ignore much longer.)

Corporate support for the event, meantime, is solid. The U.S. retailer Target, which sponsors Chip Ganassi’s racing team with Franchitti and Dixon driving, flew in all its top U.S. executives and introduced its Canadian management team to the media before the race on Sunday and emphasized its commitment to the IZOD IndyCar Series and the Toronto Indy.

They had "Target ambassadors" handing out free stuff on the grounds and they’re not even opening for business in Canada till 2013!

And several hundred media members – newspaper, magazine and website reporters and photographers from all over North America and several from Europe and Asia – sent stories and pictures about the race back to their publications and Internet sites.

So when you look at the big picture, you have solid TV numbers (which is what advertisers are really looking for), solid media interest and serious corporate support and commitment. What more can an event like this ask for?

Toronto, and the Indy car race through its streets last Sunday, looked pretty darn good in the eyes of the world.

Which is cause for celebration, not criticism.

Prince Harry’s dating Jenson Button’s ex

The Star and other Canadian media may be enamoured with Prince William and the former Kate Middleton but when you get right down to it, it's Prince Harry who's my kind of guy.

William might have been playing polo in Los Angeles (what’s with polo when the Royals go to L.A., by the way? Charles played polo, now William’s playing polo. Can’t they throw out the first pitch at a Dodger game, or something?) but Harry was doing something over the weekend that most of us can identify with, which is not playing polo.

Harry was in the McLaren-Mercedes garage at the British Grand Prix, looking over the racing cars and yucking it up with drivers Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

He reportedly got on pretty well with Button, and that’s understandable because, apparently, they share the same taste in women.

You see, according to the article I’m going to link you to, Harry has been dating Button’s ex-girlfriend and, according to dispatches, they’ve been getting along very well, thank you.

The following report has photos, also, so click here to read all about Jenson Button, Prince Harry, and the prince’s new squeeze.

Roundup: Franchitti wins Honda Indy; Alonso in F1

Dario Franchitti won his fourth race of the season, and his third Toronto Indy car race, when he won the silver anniversary Honda Indy Toronto at the CNE Sunday afternoon.

It was a wild and wooly 25th anniversary race with numerous caution flags following many rear-enders and fender-benders (although Indy cars don`t have fenders, but you get the drift).

There was so much damage to some cars that teams had  to improvise. Danica Patrick for instance, finished the race with her green GoDaddy No. 7 car "wearing" the spare Dr. Pepper brown nosecone normally on teammate Marco Andretti`s car.

Patrick had a bad day. She finished in the top ten the last two times she raced in Toronto.

Scott Dixon finished second, with Ryan Hunter-Reay third, Marco Andretti fourth and Vitor Meira fifth.

James Hinchcliffe was top Canadian in 14th place. Paul Tracy was 16th and Alex Tagliani was 23rd.

Top woman was Simona De Silvestro in 10th place, followed by Ana Beatriz in 11th. Patrick finished 19th, two laps down.

There were a lot of bad feelings after the race, with most drivers insulting other drivers, if given the opportunity. Graham Rahal, for instance, made a reference to drivers strapping on their helmets and losing their brains.

Will Power, who was eliminated after colliding with Franchitti, called him a dirty driver. Franchitti said later that if he`d been in Power`s shoes, he`d have been angry too.

But he said he was not a dirty driver and said other people in the paddock would back him up on that. He said he was willing to take 50 per cent of the blame for the incident, but not much more.

Franchitti first won this IndyCar race two years ago but also won the Toronto Molson Indy in 1999 when he was driving for Team KOOL Green in CART. He first raced in Toronto in 1997 and won the pole that year.

Franchitti, one of the most talented drivers in the world, has won the IndyCar championship the last two years. The year before, he went to NASCAR (he broke his foot in a wreck and the team lost its sponsors, making the experience less than stellar) and the year prior to that - 2007 - he won the IndyCar title.

Which means, in short, he`s won the championship every time he`s contested it in the last four years.

It's obvious that the cars are too powerful for the tight confines of the CNE/Lake Shore Blvd. track. Rarely did the field get through turn 3 - at the end of Lake Shore - without incident, which interrupted the rhythm of the race time and again.

The organizers would do well to pay for the city to widen the road into the Ex grounds, at that juncture.

Dan Aykroyd, who was the grand marshal, said he was stopped for speeding as he came off the Don Valley Parkway at Richmond St. After explaining where he was going, he said the officer let him off with a warning.

This is reminiscent of a similar incident that happened after the first Molson Indy back in 1986. Emerson Fittipaldi was flying up Highway 427 en route to Pearson to catch a plane. The cop pulled him over and, after approaching, said: "Who do you think you are, Emerson Fittipaldi?" And Fittipaldi answwered: "As a matter of fact, I am."

He got a warning too.

Earlier, Stefan Wilson, younger brother of IZOD IndyCar Series star Justin Wilson, won the Firestone Indy Lights race in a car owned by Michael Andretti, who won seven Molson Indy races over the years.

It was a “first time” for both Andretti and Wilson – Andretti, of Nazareth, Pa., as a Lights car owner in Toronto and Wilson, of Sheffield, England, as a driver in the series.

Peter Dempsey of Ashbourne, Ireland, finished second and Gustvao Yakaman, of Santiago de Cali, Colombia, was third.

Esteban Guerrieri of Buenos Aires, the series leader, was enjoying a comfortable lead when he spun and stalled. By the time he got the car running again, he was last but managed to gather himself and his car together and fought back to finish fourth.

David Ostella of Maple, the only Canadian in the race (his car owner, Eric Jensen of Toronto, toyed with driving a second Jensen Motorsport entry in the race but decided he wasn’t in shape for the 50-lap grind), started last in the 13-car field and was trying a pass for eighth place when he lost control and hit the tire wall at turn eight.

“I’m really disappointed,” Ostella said at his pit moments later. “The car was awesome this weekend, I have to thank the crew for that, and I was picking off cars, heading for the front.”

So what happened?

“I went to make the pass, and I went down the inside, over the bumps there, and I shifted down to second. But as I hit the bumps, the gear slipped into neutral and I lost the front end and couldn’t turn. I went straight into the tires.”

Ostella said the car wasn’t damaged – the front nose was quickly replaced – but since he’d have to start from the back again the team felt it would be better to load up the car and head for the next race in Edmonton in two weeks.

“And then we have the race at Trois-Rivieres in August,” he said. “It’s better to save the car for those other Canadian  races rather than go back out and maybe damage it more in Toronto.”

How you can be wrong, dept. I watched a few moments of the British Grand Prix before heading downtown to the Honda Indy. When I got there, I went to a hospitality area for breakfast and asked about the Grand Prix.

"Oh, (a famous U.S. reporter) said it was over in the first 300 yards."

Now, I know Sebastien Vettel had rocketed out of his No. 2 starting spot and taken the lead from pole-sitter Mark Webber (both in Red Bull-Renaults) with Fernando Alonso slotting into third. I also knew that Lewis Hamilton was making quite a charge in his McLaren-Mercedes in the early going.

However, after I heard (a famous U.S. reporter) had said the race was over, etc., I forgot about it till later.

Imagine my surprise when I found out Fernando Alonso had won the British GP, his first of the season for himself and Ferrari. Fortunately, I recorded the race and was able to watch it when I got home.

It was the pit stop that did it, of course. Vettel and Alonso went in together and Alonso beat him out.

It's interesting how people see things differently. I thought Webber was perfectly justified in taking a crack at passing Vettel on the last lap, despite being told to hold station. But my wife was aghast that Webber would be so foolish. "He could have taken them both out," she said.

And the "tradin' paint" on the last corner between Hamilton and Felipe Massa shows that Hamilton must have been paying attention when he went to Watkins Glen a few weeks ago and spent time with Tony Stewart, who's been known to move a rival or two out of the way on occasion . . .

In the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Series, Richard Boake in his Subaru STI won the Super Touring class for the second time on the weekend and he was followed across the line by Quebec driver Mathieu Audette in his Acura RSX and Alex Healy, also in an Acura RSX. In Touring Class, Tom Kwok drove his Honda Civic to victory over Quebec Mini drivers Alain Lauzière and Michel Sallenbach.  

Kyle Busch won the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at the new Kentucky Speedway. David Reutemann was second and Jimmie Johnson was third. The big story, however, was that they built this magnificent facility with one road in and one road out. People were lined up on the Interstate for miles and many didn't get into their seats until the race was nearly over.

Rogers Sportsnet will carry five of the remaining American Le Mans Series races this season, starting with the Grand Prix of Mosport in two weeks.  In addition, live broadcasts of the ALMS events at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Road America, the inaugural Baltimore Grand Prix and the race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca will be televised. 

ALMS races have not been available on TV in Canada this season.

Back at the Honda Indy, Team owner Chip Ganassi, a former Indy car driver who became a team owner more than 20 years ago, was asked if he ever misses driving in a race.

“Every second of every minute of every day,” he said, laughing. He added that although he still has the urge, he wouldn’t do it because he might look foolish (he's 52 now) and “I wouldn’t want to crash and wreck a car.”

Ganassi was attending a media conference and luncheon held by U.S. retailing giant Target, which has sponsored his teams in NASCAR and IndyCar for years and has plans to move into Canada in 2013.

Target Chip Ganassi drivers Franchitti and Dixon attended the luncheon and then went out and finished first and second in the Honda Indy.

Speaking of which, I live-blogged it. Here is how it played out Sunday, starting from the finish and going back to the beginning.

Checkered flag: Dario Franchitti wins the Honda Indy, with Scott Dixon second, Ryan Hunter-Reay third, Marco Andretti fourth and Vitor Meira fifth. It was Franchitti`s 30th career win, putting him ahead of Rick Mears and  leaving him one behind Paul Tracy.

Franchitti last won this race two years ago. He also won the race in 1999 when it was a CART race.

Race steward Al Unser Jr. said after the race that there was never a penalty issued against Franchitti.

Franchitti said it was a wild race. "It was absolutely crazy," he said. He said he understands if Power is "pissed off." He said he was sorry. He said he would take more than 50 per cent of the blame for the incident. "It`s not the way I want to race."

Lap 79: Green flag with Franchitti, in the lead. Rahal is spun around by Hunter-Reay after Dixon passed him. Dixon is on the hunt and will take it to Franchitti.

With only eight laps to go in the Honda Indy, a full-course caution is out with Franchitti leading, Rahal second and Dixon third. The track is blocked in the turn one area, so the field is following the safety car through the Princes`Gates and out onto Strachan Ave., rejoining the circuit on Lake Shore Blvd.

Lap 76: Restart and a turn one pileup involving Wilson, Servia, Hinchcliffe, Conway and Kimball.

During the caution, Power unloaded on Franchitti. "He`s a dirty driver," he said. "I always race him clean and he always races me dirty." He said Franchitti is frequently critical of other drivers but then misbehaves himself. Asked about Tagliani, he said the move the Canadian made on him was typical (hitting him from behind) and then added: "He`s always been a bit of a wanker."

Lap 71: Green flag - which lasted till turn 3 and Jakes spun after Patrick hit him. Danica pushed wide and Tagliani went up and over her wheel and into the wall, nearly going upside down. Another full-course caution.

Lap 67: The order - Rahal, Franchitti, Hunter-Reay, Dixon, Wilson. Power out of the car. Power was rear-ended by Tagliani. Hinchclifffe now top Canadian in eighth.

Lap 66: Power has crashed into a tire wall. Full course caution.

IndyCar officials have changed their mind and will not penalize Franchitti after all.

Lap 62: The race is under green again with Rahal still leading, Hunter-Reay second, Franchitti third, Dixon fourth and Wilson fifth. Franchitti has not served his penalty as his boss, Chip Ganassi, is arguing the penalty.

Dario Franchitti has been assessed a drive-through penalty for avoidable contact for hitting and spinning around Will Power. He will have to drive through the pits under green-flag conditions.

Lap 55: Mike Conway rear-ended Ryan Briscoe but the ensuing crash did not result in a full-course caution. Moments later, the full-course caution did come out when Dario Franchitti hit Will Power in - where else? - turn 3.

Lap 52: Restart. Order remains the same.

Lap 51: The order - Graham Rahal, E.J. Viso, Will Power, Simona De Silvestro, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Justin Wilson, Oriol Servia and Marco Andretti.

Lap 45: A four-car crash in turn five has brought out another caution. Tracy went to pass Vitor Mira and was blocked going into turn 3. The ensuing pileup collected Sebastien Bourdais and Charlie Kimball,

Lap 44: The halfway point of the race has been passed and there's been a bit of a shakeup at the front. Franchitti still leads with Wilson, Hunter-Reay, Servia and Marco Andretti following. Hinchcliffe is top Canadian in 13th

Lap 39: Another yellow, as James Jakes spun and stalled. On this lap, however, Tracy and Hinchcliffe, racing side-by-side, rubbed tires and both cars were damaged. Tracy went to the pits but rejoined after getting a new nose cone.

Lap 36: Green flag restart with Franchitti in front, Servia second, Justin Wilson third, Ryan Hunter-Reay fourth and Ryan Briscoe fifth. Tracy is top Canadian in eighth.

You either have rules or you don't. Notes from the IndyCar drivers' meeting distributed to the media said drivers could not even touch the white blend line coming out of the pits. Everybody leaving the pits was over that line.

And blocking is not allowed in IndyCar and yet Power clearly blocked Dixon going into turn 3 in clear violation of that rule and was not penalized. This series has got some problems in this area.

Lap 32: Helio Castroneves, who crashed Paul Tracy two years ago, did it again today when he ran into the side of Tagliani at the end of Lake Shore. Castroneves is not having a good year. Full course yellow.

Lap 25: No change in the top 5. Hinchcliffe is now top Canadian in seventh place as Tagliani pitted. Tracy was called the King of Sideways by Wheldon.

Lap 20: The race order remained the same except Servia pitted, moving Graham Rahal into fifth and Tagliani up to sixth. Hinchcliffe and Tracy, the other Canadians, are both within striking distance of the front.

Patrick gave the finger to Sato as she passed him leaving the pits. On the radio, she made mention to "I don't think he did a Tracy," which would be an oblique reference to Paul Tracy's reputation of using the "chrome horn" to get past people.

Lap 12: Power is the leader, with Dixon, Franchitti, Mike Conway and Oriol Servia following. Tagliani is in seventh.

Lap 7: Danica Patrick and Takuma Sato collided at the usual place, the end of Lake Shore. Sato's car suffered front-end damage; Patrick went to the pits. She will likely return but is now out of contention.

Lap 6: Green flag. Power still leads. Many cars, particularly those near the back of the pack, went to the pits for fuel. This strategy could pay off later.

A furious Kanaan made coo-coo signs at Briscoe as he drove past.

Lap 3: First full-course yellow. Ryan Briscoe and Tony Kanaan collided in turn 3 (the end of Lake Shore Blvd.) Kanaan went backwards into the retaining wall. No injuries.

The Start: The Honda Indy Toronto is under way and pole-sitter Will Power led the way through turn one. He jumped the start, in fact.

Dan Wheldon, Indy 500 winner, is working for the U.S. TV network Versus. He should be in a car, of course.

Comedian Dan Aykroyd, a Kingston resident who spoke warmly earlier about his late pal, Downtown Kingston fixture Wally High, gave the command to Start Engines.

Elvis Stojko, Canadian figure skating icon, was on the grid. Stojko made a point of wishing Paul Tracy good luck.

The drivers were making their usual last-minute bee-lines to the port-a-potties. Something about going 200 miles an hour seems to make racing drivers want to go, period.

Live blog: Honda Indy Toronto

The Honda Indy Toronto will start today in less than an hour. Meantime . . .

Stefan Wilson, younger brother of IZOD IndyCar Series star Justin Wilson, won the Firestone Indy Lights race Sunday at the Honda Indy Toronto in a car owned by Michael Andretti, who won seven Indy races over the years.

It was a “first time” for both Andretti and Wilson – Andretti, of Nazareth, Pa., as a Lights car owner in Toronto and Wilson, of Sheffield, Engl., as a driver in the series.

Peter Dempsey of Ashbourne, Ireland, finished second and Gustvao Yakaman, of Santiago de Cali, Col., was third.

Esteban Guerrieri of Buenos Aires, the series leader, was enjoying a comfortable lead when he spun and stalled. By the time he got the car running again, he was last but managed to gather himself and his car together and fought back to finish fourth.

David Ostella of Maple, the only Canadian in the race (his car owner, Eric Jensen of Toronto, toyed with driving a second Jensen Motorsport entry in the race but decided he wasn’t in shape for the 50-lap grind), started last in the 14-car field and was trying a pass for eighth place when he lost control and hit the tire wall at turn eight.

“I’m really disappointed,” Ostella said at his pit moments later. “The car was awesome this weekend, I have to thank the crew for that, and I was picking off cars, heading for the front.”

So what happened?

“I went to make the pass, and I went down the inside, over the bumps there, and I shifted down to second. But as I hit the bumps, the gear slipped into neutral and I lost the front end and couldn’t turn. I went straight into the tires.”

Ostella said the car wasn’t damaged – the front nose was quickly replaced – but since he’d have to start from the back again the team felt it would be better to load the car up and head for the next race in Edmonton in two weeks.

“And then we have the race at Trois-Rivieres in August,” he said. “It’s better to save the car for those other Canadian  races rather than go back out and maybe damage it more in Toronto.”

Australia's Power wins Honda Indy pole, Ranger wins NASCAR race

Will Power of Toowoomba, Australia, continued the blistering pace he first set in final practice Friday and won the pole this afternoon for Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto.

His lap around the 1.755-mile circuit through the Canadian National Exhibition and along part of Lake Shore Blvd. West was below a minute – 59.5771 seconds for a speed of 106.047 miles an hour, shattering the pole time he set a year ago of one minute, 1.6026 seconds (105.397 mph).

Power will start from pole for the 25^th anniversary event, with Scott Dixon of Auckland, N.Z., beside him on the front row for the 80-lap, 140-mile race scheduled to start at 3 p.m. EDT (TSN). Dixon’s 59.6646 (105.892 mph) just edged his Scottish-born, Target Chip Ganassi teammate Dario Franchitti’s time of 59.9000 (105.476 mph).

Fastest woman was Simona De Silvestro, of Thun, Switzerland who will start 17^th as Danica Patrick, of Roscoe, Ill., slipped to 21st in the 26-car field.

Fastest Canadian was Alex Tagliani of Montreal, who will go off ninth. James Hinchcliffe of Oakville will start 13^th and Paul Tracy of Scarborough will start 24^th.  

Later, In a green-white-checkered finish, Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., won the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at the Honda Indy with Scott Steckly of Milverton, Ont., second and Robin Buck of Campbelleville, third.

Jason Bowles of Ontario, Calif., started from pole and led in the early going but dropped back with an engine spark plug problem, pretty much leaving Ranger – a former Champ Car World Series and Formula Atlantic driver – to walk away with the race.

Ranger was cruising when there was a late-race yellow and the field closed right up for the restart. But Ranger grabbed the lead at the green and held off Steckly for the final two laps.

Steckly was asked afterward why he hadn’t bumped Ranger out of the way and taken the lead, as Ranger has done to other drivers on any number of occasions previously.

“My goal is to win a championship for my team and for (sponsor) Canadian Tire,” said Steckly. “Andrew’s goal is to win races and it’s not that I don’t want to win races but you have to be smart.

“I could have gone to the outside of Andrew and maybe got him but more than likely the guy who was in third place might have taken me out.”

Ranger concurred, suggesting his "tradin' paint" style suits him because his goal is to win races, not championships.

It was two-time Canadian Tire Series champion Ranger's 10th career road-course win and a series-high 13th overall. The race was slowed due to caution three times for 13 laps and the lead changed hands just one time.

Steckly pushed his series points lead to 88 over defending champion D.J. Kennington (who was fifth Saturday) and 108 over J.R. Fitzpatrick, who suffered a flat tire late in the going.

Kerry Micks finished fourth behind Buck and then wrecked him on the slowown lap.

Mark Dilley, L.P. Dumoulin, Don Thomson Jr., Peter Klutt and Brad Graham rounded out the top 10.

Buck was a driver in the Player's-GM Challenge Series for Camaros and Firebirds and raced at the first Toronto Indy in 1986. He finished second in that race.

 

The IZOD IndyCar Series employs a “push-to-pass” button to help drivers overtake one another.  The “push-to-pass” provides a driver with an extra 200 RPMs (about 10 horsepower) to the Honda V-8 engines.

For the Honda Indy Toronto, drivers will get 15 “pushes” to use at their discretion throughout the 80-lap race. Each “push” can last for up to 16 seconds. It takes the system 10 seconds to recharge.

Although the intent is to help drivers pass, some of them have also been known to use the “push” to help defend their position.

Katherine Legge, who raced in Toronto with the Champ Car World Series before the Indy Racing League and Champ Car became IndyCar, has not raced in the series since unification.

But she’s in Toronto for the Honda Indy and there are suggestions she has some race rides lined up for later in the season.

But Alex Tagliani rejects suggestions that she will be taking over a seat at Sam Schmidt Motorsports, where he’s employed as a driver (and where she’s been visiting). “If she does anything with us, it will be in (the minor league) Indy Lights,” he said.

Joey McColm of Ajax, who was caught up in a wreck early in Saturday’s NASCAR Canadian Tire Race, eventually finishing 31^st, is an advocate of “green” racing and is affiliated with Earth Day. He’s using his race car to promote environmental responsibility and has been taking his message to industry and high schools in Durham Region.

“I’m trying to get funding for the program,” he said. “It’s called Eco-Driver and it’s going to new drivers in the high schools and telling them some things they could do differently like check their tire pressure frequently and maybe not take the car every time you have to go somewhere, combine your trips, that sort of thing.

“It’s a regional program now. I want to take it to the GTA and eventually across Ontario.”

So far as is known, Buck is the only driver to compete in the first Toronto Indy as well as the latest.

MGM Properties in Las Vegas announced a program this morning in which visitors to  Vegas for the final race of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar season on Oct. 16 will qualify for free tickets.  

Stay at any of the company’s hotels leading up to the race (rooms start at $89), and you’ll receive two tickets to the season finale  at the Las Vegas Speedway in which five non-IndyCar drivers will get to race  against the series regulars.

There are some people who do not think this is such a good idea but IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard said today that those selected will get lots of practice and will be tutored by defending series champion Dario Franchitti.

Bernard said he fully expects that within five years there will be an IndyCar street race built around the famous Las Vegas Strip and that his dream scenario would be to promote a double-header: a Friday night oval race at the Vegas Speedway and a Sunday afternoon street race at the Strip.

Mark Webber won the pole for tomorrow's British Grand Prix. Sebastien Vettel was second and Fernando Alonso was third.