Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Paul Madder's fantastic racing photos

BUT DOES ANYONE KNOW AN ARTIST NAMED 'OAKLEY?'

I am fortunate to know many people in the world of auto racing and the motor sport generally. Inside the circle are some I consider to be real friends.

One of them is Paul Madder, a brilliant photographer who has an extensive catalogue, a few examples of which are published below.

In addition, he collects racing memorabilia: prints, in particular. Which is the real reason for this post today.

Among the photographs he’s taken himself is one that shows a young James Hunt in all his glory, surrounded by beautiful women.

Another shows two legends of the glory days of F1 in the 1960s and ‘70s – Ken Tyrrell and Colin Chapman – in conversation at a Grand Prix in Europe.

Three others are connected to that awful day in 1976 at the Nurburgring in Germany when Niki Lauda was nearly burned to death. One shows a grim Brett Lunger, who was one of four drivers to pull Lauda out of his car, riding on the back of a wrecker that’s returning his damaged car to the garage area (Lauda and Lunger had collided, starting the accident). Another is a portrait of little Arturo Merzario who, along with Lunger, Harald Ertl and Guy Edwards, saved Lauda’s life that day. The last one is a photo Madder took of Lauda before the race that nearly killed him.

The real reason I’m posting this photographic blog today, however, is to publish four racing and rally prints from the 1960s. Two of them are signed by an artist named 'OAKLEY.'

Paul is keen to find out about Oakley. Who he (or she) is? Where he lives and so-on. It's a long time ago, but the prints might trigger a memory.

If anyone knows, or has suspicions, I would ask them to email me at nmcdonald@thestar.ca and I will pass on the correspondence to Paul. And if 'Oakley' is identified, I will report back on that.

Meantime, I have been working on a book about Canadian motorsport for the past six years, which I will finish one of these days, and Paul has kindly given me some of his best photos to use as illustrations.

I’d better get cracking and finish that book. If these photos serve to whet your appetite - well, as they say – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

WILL THE NEW MOVIE 'RUSH,' ABOUT THE HUNT-LAUDA RIVALRY IN '76, INCLUDE A SCENE LIKE THIS? (PHOTO, COPYRIGHT PAUL MADDER)

TWO OF THE GIANTS OF FORMULA ONE RACING IN THE 1960S AND '70S, TEAM OWNERS KEN TYRRELL (LEFT) AND COLIN CHAPMAN. (PHOTO, COPYRIGHT PAUL MADDER)

 

NIKI LAUDA IS SEEN ON AUG. 1, 1976, BEFORE THE START OF THE GERMAN GRAND PRIX IN WHICH HE WAS CRITICALLY INJURED. (PHOTO, COPYRIGHT PAUL MADDER)

"LITTLE" ARTURO MERZARIO, RIGHT (REAL NAME ARTURIO MERZARIO), STOPPED TO HELP PULL NIKI LAUDA FROM HIS BURNING CAR AT THE GERMAN GRAND PRIX IN 1976. OTHER DRIVERS TO HELP WERE BRETT LUNGER, HARALD ERTL AND GUY EDWARDS. (PHOTO, COPYRIGHT PAUL MADDER)

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

 

 

 

AMERICAN F1 DRIVER BRETT LUNGER RETURNS TO THE PITS WITH HIS DAMAGED RACE CAR AFTER THE NIKI LAUDA ACCIDENT. (PHOTO, COPYRIGHT PAUL MADDER)

 
THIS MINI WOULD HAVE BEEN COMPETING IN THE CANADIAN WINTER RALLY. IS THAT JOHN BIRD DRIVING? DID 'OAKLEY' PAINT THIS?

THIS RED VOLO WOULD HAVE BEEN COMPETING IN THE RALLY PERCE NEIGE IN QUEBEC

PAUL MADDER IS NOT SURE WHERE THE NO. 96 McLAREN IS RACING (OR WHO IS DRIVING) BUT THE PAINTING WAS DONE BY 'OAKLEY'

THESE TOURING CARS HAVE JUST TAKEN THE GREEN FLAG TO START A RACE AT THE AIR STRIP IN GIMLI, MAN.

Penske wanted 5-year deal; Dodge said no

Although 2011 Sprint Cup Champion Tony Stewart won Sunday’s NASCAR race in Las Vegas (full race report and results here), the unveiling of the 2013 Dodge Charger race car and the real reason Penske Racing decided to leave Dodge in favour of Ford dominated the weekend’s auto racing news.

You'll recall that out of the blue, on March 2, Roger Penske announced that in 2013 his NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series teams would race Fords and this was reportedly as big a surprise to Dodge as it was to everybody else.

Penske Racing was Dodge’s only multi-car team in NASCAR and was the brand’s champion. So the question had to be: why?

There’s been all sorts of conjecture, and a lot of the analysts have been close, but the real reason was that Penske wanted a five-year commitment from Dodge and couldn’t get it. So he picked up the phone and called Ford and the rest is history.

The news came out during an interview last night on the Speed Channel program Wind Tunnel in which host Dave Depain interviewed Ralph Gilles, president and CEO of Dodge. They were discussing the unveiling at Las Vegas of the 2013 NASCAR Charger (which I think is one swell-looking race car) when Despain asked about Penske.

"Penske wanted a five-year deal but we weren’t ready to go there," Gilles said.

Now, Despain is a good interviewer but he was running out of time in the segment and wanted some answers to other questions and didn’t ask the obvious follow-up, which was, "Why weren’t you ready to go there?"

It was a glaring admission by Gilles, because if Dodge wasn’t prepared to sign on for five years with Penske, what other heavyweight team will be willing to do business if the best that Dodge is able to offer turns out to be short-term?

Dodge is part of Chrysler, which is owned by Fiat. Peter M. De Lorenzo, writing on the website autoextremist.com, said this in an article posted March 7:

"The Fiat-Chrysler executive team is led by the ubiquitous Sergio Marchionne, (Norris note: a Canadian, by the way) who is . . . a ruthless cost-cutter . . . This is just another import-owned car company trying to squeeze out as much market share and profits as they can possibly muster. . . And, they couldn't care less about NASCAR to boot.

"It wasn't hard for Roger Penske to figure that out. Not only was his Dodge-branded Sprint Cup racing program not on Marchionne and company's radar, all signs were apparent that the likelihood of any of this changing was slim and none."

Marchionne served notice at the Detroit auto show in January that, when negotations start with the Canadian Auto Workers next fall, they had better be prepared to bend over. It follows that if everything else is being cut, auto racing programs would not - and could not - be spared.

Gilles put on a brave faced in the Despain interview but in order to stay in the game, Dodge is going to have to spend a fortune. He admitted as much when he said the biggest problem is the engine program:

"It's quite a hill to climb," he said. "We have a lot of know-how; we know how to build an engine. Facilities is the problem."

You bet it's a problem and with a guy like Marchionne controlling the purse-strings, it's pretty much guaranteed it will remain a problem.

So this weekend in Las Vegas, Dodge unveiled a really good-looking racing car but you have to wonder why they bothered.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the Nationwide Series race at the weekend, with Mark Martin second and Elliott Sadler third (full results here). Danica Patrick was 12^th and on the lead lap, a much better result than last week’s laps-down performance in Phoenix.

FIA race director Charlie Whiting spoke to F1 reporter Adam Cooper at the weekend about rules changes taking place in 2012 (link here). Two are of particular interest:

1. That a Grand Prix will no longer go more than four hours. The Canadian GP last June went four hours and four minutes (because of a two-hour rain delay). Now, if a race reaches the four hour mark, racers will be told they have one more lap until the checkers.

This is interesting, because if the rule had been in force last June, Jenson Button wouldn’t have won. F1 cars do a circuit of Circuit-Gilles Villenvue in about 1:15:00. Button forced Sebastien Vettel into a mistake on the last lap and took the lead and the win in a race that went 4 hours, four minutes and 39 seconds. If the four-hour rule had been in effect, the race would have been over at 4:01:15 (or thereabouts) and Button wouldn’t have had his chance.

Let's hope they're a little flexible with that one. If it's a lap or two from the conclusion, as was the case in 2011, they should let it go.

2. The other interestingg change is that they have written down, once and for all, the rule that a driver is allowed one defensive move and one only. After a driver blocks – oops, defends his position – once, he now can’t move back toward the racing line without leaving a lane clear. Some people are already referring to this as the "Michael Schumacher Rule."

In the next few days in this blog, and in next Saturday’s Toronto Star Wheels section, my annual interview with Canadian Formula One expert Gerald Donaldson on what to expect in F1 this year will be published.

I will also record a Wheels Smackdown video segment with former Wheels editor Adam Gutteridge on the question: "Will Jenson Button win the World Championship of Drivers in 2012?" Guess which side I’ll be taking?

Finally, Stewart Friesen of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., won the Coffee Cup Classic 40-lap TQ midget feature Saturday night at Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, R.I. He was back in Victory Lane Sunday afternoon for a clean sweep.

Friesen is usually a kick-ass dirt modified racer who is particularly proficient on the big mile tracks. But I wonder: does this suggest Friesen might be considering a crack at next January's Chili Bowl midget race indoors in Tulsa?  

If so, I might have to go cover it.

Marcelli to lead Canadian charge at 12 Hours of Sebring

The 60^th annual 12 Hours of Sebring, among the world’s most famous sports car endurance races, will be held in Florida next Saturday and will officially kick off two world series – the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship and the 2012 American Le Mans Series season.

The entry list is a Who’s Who of international sports car racing led by Audi Sport Team Joest running the Audi R18s with Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello driving one, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and a third driver to be announced aboard a second and Andrew Lottere, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassier in the third.

There will be Lolas and Pescarolos and Ferraris and Corvettes and many other famous drivers like David Brabham, Emmanuel Collard, Giancarlo Fisichella and Oliver Gavin.

Canadian content will be supplied by four drivers, in particular. Kyle Marcelli of Barrie returns to the Le Mans Series Prototype Challenge class driving for Merchant Services Racing while Chris Cumming and Michael Valiante of Vancouver and LP Dumoulin of Trois-Rivieres will be driving Porsche 911 GT3s in the GT Challenge division.

Marcelli, one of Canada’s finest young racing drivers, is no stranger to American le Mans Series competition and is looking forward to the 2012 season.

Said Marcelli, in a note to fans sent just before he left for Florida Thursday:

"The 12 Hours of Sebring will surely be the toughest race on the 2012 calendar. Not only is it the longest race of the year for the American Le Mans Series but will also be the busiest as the track will be filled with over 60 of the worlds most exotic sports cars and prototypes. It will be a race of attrition for sure. It will be important we drive fast, keep our noses clean and work well as a team."

The race can be seen on ABC from noon till 2 p.m. next Sunday (yes, that’s an edited, delayed telecast) and live on your computer on Saturday at ALMS.com.

See George’s TV listings on the wheels.ca home page for details and start times for Sebring, NASCAR (below) and the start of the Formula One season next weekend in Australia.

Kasey Kahne, who replaced Mark Martin at Hendrick Motorsports this season, won the pole Friday for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas. Kyle Busch will start outside on the front row. Qualifying results here.

Sprint Cup drivers Paul Menard and Regan Smith and Smith’s wife were in an auto accident earlier this week but weren’t injured. Smith lost control of his truck on ice and crashed into trees near his home in Evergreen, Colo.

Danica Patrick says it was a poor choice of words to suggest she would run for the Nationwide Series championship in her first season. Full story here.

Although many people are suggesting her 21^st-place finish at Phoenix last weekend was a poor result, I’m not so sure. I think she wanted to finish a race - something she hadn’t done in three starts in her full-time NASCAR career. She crashed in the Daytona 500 qualifyer, the 500 itself and the Nationwide race at Daytona. For sure, she wanted to bring the car home in one piece at Phoenix.

The proof will be in the pudding this weekend. She finished fourth at Las Vegas last year. If she’s in the mix today, she’ll be okay. Otherwise, it’ll be a long haul for her.

Hinchcliffe's IndyCar ride safe, Andretti says

Earlier today, as the result of a conversation I had with somebody allegedly in the know, I posted a blog speculating that Ana Beatriz's one-off test with Andretti Autosport this week at Sebring might have been a precursor to something more sinister.

I headlined the piece, "Is James Hinchcliffe's IndyCar ride in danger?"

I have since been contacted by Andretti Autosport (as well as by several other people close to the IndyCar scene) who have suggested my concerns are groundless.

Said the Andretti spokesman: "I can assure you with 100 per cent certainty that James Hinchcliffe is not going anywhere except behind the wheel of the No. 27 Andretti Autosport GoDaddy.com Chevrolet. We're thrilled to have him on our team and to be representing Go Daddy."

To which I say, great.

In the original blog, I wondered what Beatriz was doing in Hinchcliffe's car instead of one of the other Andretti Autosport cars and, as my contact suggested, put forth the opinion that this would not have happened with drivers at, say, Penske Racing or Chip Ganassi Racing.

I then wrote: "And this could very well be much ado about nothing."

And as it's turned out, it was.

Bernie Ecclestone: Are his enemies closing in?

The headline on the Daily Mail website was intriguing:

“ ‘I’m not paying £4,000 a bottle for the wine. I only drank beer’ Bernie Ecclestone’s shock at the extravagance of daughter Petra’s £12m wedding.”

Hmmm, I though. That sounds juicy!

Well, in some ways it is. But for a different reason.

It is an in-depth examination of Ecclestone’s control of Formula One, where it’s been and where it’s headed and his relationship with Gerhard Gribkowsky, a German banker who’s on trial for having accepted a huge sum of money from Ecclestone that the German authorities say is a bribe and Bernie has described previously as a commission and, at trial recently, hush money.

It’s a fascinating read.

Here’s the link

Auto racing capital football team treats Peyton Manning terribly

I have three homes: Toronto (Mississauga, actually), Oswego, N.Y., and Indianapolis, Ind.

I enjoy reality in the one where I live. The other two are my spiritual homes because I feel a cosmic connection with the motor racing speedways in each of them.

I debate with myself periodically whether, in the unlikely event of my passing, I would want my ashes scattered over Oswego or Indy.

Ergo, because I am protective of both cities, I feel fully qualified to comment today on the scandalous manner in which Peyton Manning has been treated by the Indianapolis Colts.

Colts owner Jim Irsay should have given him that $28 million bonus and kept him around to either continue playing football or just go around smiling and shaking hands because everything that has happened to his football team and that city in the last 10 years is because of one guy and one guy only: Peyton Manning.

Without Manning, Indianapolis would not have become such a Colts crazy town (to the detriment of auto racing and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, by the way).

Without Manning, there would not have been a Super Bowl victory for the Indianapolis Colts.

Without Manning, the citizens of Indianapolis wouldn’t have given the almost-instant go-ahead they did for the funding and construction of the Lucas Oil Stadium.

Without Manning, there would not have been a Super Bowl game in Indianapolis.

And without Manning, Jim Irsay would not be the successful sports businessman that he is today.

Peyton Manning did not get hurt while fooling around at home with his kids. He got hurt playing football for Jim Irsay.

Everybody else who gets hurt on the job expects to be taken care of and Peyton Manning should not have been treated any differently.

A proud and loyal warrior like Peyton Manning should have been allowed to make any graceful exit he wanted.

That he was denied this - and given the boot, actually - is unbelievable.

In fact, it’s inexcusable.

For shame, Jim Irsay. For shame.

(Now that I've gotten that of my chest, we will return to our regularly scheduled motor racing rants/discussions/insights tomorrow.) 

Wheels.ca launches George's TV listings for race fans

As part of Toronto Star Wheels and wheels.ca’s commitment to providing the finest coverage of all things automotive, including competition, it is my pleasure today to announce the addition to our lineup of "George’s TV listings for race fans." Link here

Updated weekly, George’s TV listings will provide one-stop shopping for Canadian race fans looking to find television coverage of their favourite sport, from pre-race programming to race coverage itself.

As a bonus, in the case of NASCAR programming in particular, the listings will not only include the time the race program will come on but also the time the race will actually start (which is great for people setting recorders for viewing at a later time).

The TV list is a labour of love for retired Oakville high school chemistry teacher George Webster, who took it up as a hobby after he stopped going to, and writing about, races.

Webster has been a fan of motorsport since the mid-1950s and started writing about sports car racing, the Can-Am, Formula Atlantic and Formula One in 1976 for Pete Chapman’s Wheelspin News.

He travelled to Europe for F1 races and wrote about the Canadian and U.S. Grands Prix up until 1982 when he shifted his attention to NASCAR while writing for Motoring News.

"I hated oval racing," Webster was saying the other day, "but I went to Michigan and Darlington in 1982 and came to appreciate NASCAR for the strategy - or lack of strategy, to be more exact.

"That might sound strange, but it’s not. In F1, everybody knows everybody else’s race strategy right from the start; in NASCAR, the only strategy they have is not to crash on the first lap. After that, they react to circumstance and make it up on the fly as a result of what happens during the race. Watching, it can be fascinating."

He joined PRN magazine in 1988 and wrote about NASCAR until he saw an ad in National Speed Sport News in 1997 seeking someone to cover CART. He applied and got the job.

In 1999, he stopped covering the Indy cars and rejoined PRN to write about NASCAR on an occasional basis. He also wrote for goracing.com in the early days of the Internet.

In 2000, borrowing an idea from the U.S. provider Compuserve, Webster started RaceFanTV, a racing listings service for U.S. as well as Canadian viewers, and worked on it year-‘round until a few years ago when another listings service took it over.

Although still contributing articles on historic racing to PRN, Webster admitted to having time on his hands - we occasionally meet for breakfast - and so when I suggested to him several months ago that he consider a Canadian listings service for wheels.ca readers, he agreed.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect as NASCAR’s season has started, Formula One will be back in action a week from this coming weekend in Australia, the 12 Hours of Sebring is scheduled for March 17 and the IZOD IndyCar Series will kick off its 2012 schedule at the end of the month.

With so much going on, a listings service is required and George's on wheels.ca would seem to fit the bill. 

So bookmark the link. And tell all your friends.

Danica's gone, so now it will all be Rubens, Rubens, Rubens

Those poor guys (and other gals) in the IndyCar series. They just don’t get no respect.

There they were all those years, the real stars of the IndyCar series – Dario, Scott, Tony, Simona, Marco, Graham, E.J., Takuma – and all the damn media ever wrote or talked about was that damn Danica.

All anybody ever heard was Danica, Danica, Danica.

It was enough to make ya spittin' mad.

But now she’s gone to NASCAR. Hallelujah!! Now Dario and Scott and Tony and Simona are going to get the attention they properly deserve – and that they deserved all along - if it hadn’t been for that, that, that bikini-wearing, no talent, spotlight-hoggin' hussy.

Michael Andretti set the record straight the other day. Now that that woman's gone, he says it’s going to help the series because the media can pay attention to all the real racers in that series, particularly his son Marco and the other two drivers on his team, Ryan and James. (He didn't say that last bit about Marco and Ryan and James; I just made that up.)

But here is a direct quote from Michael:

"It became all about her," he said. "Even our racing was secondary. I mean, to talk about her finishing 12th in the field, it was taking away from our real stars that we have that really were not getting the billing they should get."

And then there was this zinger.

"We've got major-league talent that has been sort of in the shadow. Now they're going to be back out again."

Earth to Michael. Earth to Michael.

No they’re not. They're not going to be out of the shadow. Not by a long shot. You know why? Because Danica’s replacement as the only star in IndyCar is already in the series and his name is Rubens Barrichello.

You must remember 1993, Michael. That was the year the world champion, Nigel Mansell, left Formula One to race in CART, where you were a driver. All the guys, including you, were P-O'd because all the media cared about that entire season was Nigel Mansell. If Nigel won, they wrote about him. If he lost, they wrote about him. Kinda like the way it's been with Danica, eh?

Remember at Indy, when Ross Bentley's car caught fire up in Turn Four, and they took him to the infield hospital and about 50 reporters were hanging around outside, awaiting news of poor Bentley's condition, and Eddie Cheever rode by on his bike and stopped to ask if Nigel was inside?

That's how bad it was then and that's how bad it's going to be now.

So, when the IndyCar Series goes to St. Petersburg in a few weeks, who do you think the media are going to write and talk about? Marco, Dario? Simona? Nope. It’ll be all Rubens, all the time.

When the IndyCar Series goes anywhere this year, particularly Indianapolis, who do you think the media are going to want to talk to? Ryan? Pippa? Tony? Sorry. It’ll be Rubens.

The non-stars who take up the vast majority of seats in IndyCar are going to be as browned off this year as they’ve been every year Danica’s been in the series because all it’s going to be in 2012 is Rubens, Rubens, Rubens.

I guarantee that by the time the season is half over, even Tony Kanaan is going to be furious about all the attention being paid to his teammate and not to him.

Actually, IndyCar is lucky that Rubens came along when he did because Danica left a huge, huge hole. She was the star because there were no other stars in that series.

Except maybe for James Hinchcliffe, who has the makings, and Rubens, there still aren’t.

IndyCar is nuts to think about racing at Phoenix

HAMLIN WINS PHOENIX NASCAR RACE; TROUBLE IN FERRARI-LAND

This popped into my email inbox the other day, courtesy of racing PR rep Mike Kitchel:

"The National Guard Panther Racing team completed its first day of oval testing with the IndyCar Series’ new chassis at Phoenix International Raceway . . . and came away with two resounding conclusions: The DW12 chassis development is improving significantly and IndyCar needs to return to Phoenix’s newly-resurfaced one-mile oval – soon."

I love enthusiasm, even if it’s misguided. I suffer from it myself. I’ve wanted to do all sorts of things in my life that were, in hindsight, really dumb ideas. Going back to race at Phoenix is just that, a really dumb idea.

Panther is not alone, by the way. The media cheerleaders who focus primarily on the IndyCar series have been beating this particular dead horse for years. I have no idea why.

The last thing the IndyCar series needs to do is to keep putting on races at facilities where there are no spectators. And ever since the mid-1990s, the Indy cars have drawn flies every time they have gone near the Phoenix International Raceway.

The last time the Indy Racing League was there, they said the attendance was 30,000. I was there. To get 30,000, they had to have counted all the arms and legs that were attached to every head. The true figure was maybe a little north of 10,000. For a facility that has room for more than 100,000, it was a disgraceful turnout.

Now, I love the Phoenix International Raceway. I love oval racing. I like oval racing more than I like road or street racing. I am an oval guy. I went to Phoenix back in the 1980s for the Copper Classic (a weekend of midgets, sprints and supermodifieds). I went there when CART raced (and when they used to have crowds). I went there for every one of the IRL races, so I I know of what I speak.

For whatever reason, open-wheel racing on ovals has lost its audience. Except for the Indianapolis 500, there is no interest – zero interest – among the general population in watching Indy cars go around in circles. Stock cars, yes; Indy cars, no.

I keep reading (and hearing) that all Indy car oval-track racing needs is a good promoter. Well, they had a good promoter at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last year and nobody showed up. Nobody attended when they went to Milwaukee last year. (Michael Andretti is taking a crack at it this year and good luck.) Eddie Gossage is the best speedway promoter in the world and even he has a hard time getting to the 50-per-cent-seats-sold mark at Texas Motor Speedway.

(Don’t write and point to Iowa Speedway because they only have 25,000 seats there and, if they can’t fill those, they might as well give up.)

The season-ending race at Las Vegas was promoted all year long. Never mind the $5 million bonus promotion; the fact of the matter is that anybody who bought a ticket to any race in 2011 got a free ticket to the Vegas race. If you rented a hotel room from certain hotels during race weekend out there, they threw in a free ticket. On the weekend of the race, they closed down part of the Strip and the Indy cars went out and put on a demonstration and tens of thousands of people watched. Everybody said it was the most wonderful thing they’d ever seen. So what happened?

Although the death of Dan Wheldon overshadowed everything, the truth of the matter is that only a few more than 20,000 people bothered to show up for the race that was held in a facility that can hold nearly 140,000.

And now they want to go back to Phoenix?

Are they kidding?

Except for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the IZOD IndyCar Series would be wise to stop going to oval race tracks. Period. Frankly, it’s embarrassing to watch a race in front of thousands upon thousands of empty seats.

I mean, what message does that send to sponsors and, particularly, potential sponsors?

I know that IndyCar, like CART, markets itself as the only series in the world that features road courses, street circuits, short ovals and superspeedways. Which might very well be true – that it’s the only series that features all four disciplines.

But times change and tastes change and CART was then and IndyCar is now and people just don’t care about the short ovals anymore.

It’s not news but it is reality.

Instead of trying to reinvent the past, which is always a mug’s game anyway, IndyCar would do well to plot out a future that includes the oval at Indianapolis but no others.

One place I’d like to see an Indy car race held is the new and improved Mosport International Raceway, now officially named Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

I had a chat with race car driver and co-owner Ron Fellows at the weekend and he said he’d like to see an Indy car race there, too. After all, Mosport is where they held the first Indy car race in Canada way back in 1967.

"But we’re not in the business of going out and trying to take anything away from anyone," Canada’s most successful road racer stressed. "The Honda Indy is a downtown Toronto race and will remain a downtown Toronto race until such time as the people who control it decide they don’t want it any more. Then, we would be prepared to step in."

Fellows said that, with the exception of Formula One, there isn’t a race sanctioning organization in the world that Mosport – er, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – hasn’t talked to, and that includes every one of them, from NASCAR to the World Sportscar Championship.

He said he hoped that by next September there would be some exciting announcements made about racing at the track north of Bowmanville in 2013.

I can hardly wait.

Bad news for Ferrari fans. Technical chief Pat Fry says he doesn’t think the team is competitive enough to reach the podium at the Australian Grand Prix, which will kick off the 2012 Formula One season at the end of the month.

Anybody who pays attention to F1 knows that if a team starts the season behind everybody else, that’s where they usually are when the season ends. It’s almost impossible to catch up once racing starts because every team is evolving, not just the also-rans.

That doesn’t mean Ferrari isn’t going to be right up there. But to really take on McLaren and Red Bull for race wins and consistently high finishes, they have to go into the season opener even and that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Denny Hamlin won the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Phoenix at the weekend after second-place finisher Kevin Harvick lost fuel pressure and fell back near the finish. Greg Biffle finished third, with Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski fourth and fifth. Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin (he won the pole for the Subway Fresh Fit 400) and Joey Logano rounded out the top ten.

Juan Montoya was 11^th but will have to finish higher if he wants to hold onto his seat. There are indications – primarily fuelled by Ganassi Racing partner Felix Sabates – that there will be a change if results don’t improve dramatically. Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart finished 22^nd.

Full results here

Saturday, Elliott Sadler won the Nationwide Series race. Brad Keselowski was second and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. third. Danica Patrick was 20^th. Full results here.

Rubens who? And IndyCar races will be on TV

NASCAR SENDS JOHNSON, KNAUS A BIG MESSSAGE

Catching up on a week’s worth of motorsport news on a Friday night:

1. Why the fuss over Rubens Barrichello’s coming to North America to drive in IndyCar?

If it was Sebastien Vettel, I would say that is a shot in the arm. But Rubens Barrichello is a washed-up F1 guy (sorry, have to say it) and rather than “retiring” to sports cars or touring cars  he’s going to race Indy cars and I don’t see that as any great feather in IndyCar’s cap.

The future of IndyCar is James Hinchcliffe and J.R. Hildebrand, not Rubens Barrichello.

2. Everybody out there has to learn to relax. TSN will carry all of the IndyCar Series races this year, either on TSN or TSN2. And all the F1 races, including the Canadian GP, will go to air too. They’re still working out the details of which races will come from Sky, and which from the BBC, but that’s immaterial to me. We’ll be able to watch them, and that’s all that counts.

3. The fantastic documentary on the life of Ayrton Senna that played at the Toronto Film Festival two years ago and was in North American theatres last year is now available on DVD.

Senna can be purchased at Scott Maxwell’s Mini Grid shop on Mount Pleasant as of its official release date, which will be Tuesday.

4. When NASCAR docked points from Jimmie Johnson and fined Chad Knaus $100,000 and suspended him for six races, this is what they were really saying:

One more false move and we will throw you out of this sport.

No, not Johnson. Knaus. And yes, it’s that serious.

It goes back to last season and the intercepted message at Talladega when Knaus told Johnson that if he won the race he would have to “crack” the back end of the car.

Now, maybe Knaus was just having fun; pulling NASCAR’s leg; whatever. But NASCAR took it seriously and, according to car owner Rick Hendrick, from then until the end of the season, the second that Johnson drove the car into the garage area at race’s end, or when it went off on the hook, NASCAR seized it and took it directly to the research and development centre in Charlotte where it was examined with a fine-tooth comb.

NASCAR never found anything but you can bet they did not appreciate being made to look stupid. So they were just waiting for an opportunity to send Knaus a message.

That opportunity came during pre-race tech inspection at Daytona. NASCAR officials determined that the C-posts, which come down from the roof to the quarter panel, gave Johnson's car an aerodynamic advantage and thus were illegal.

A friend said this a few days ago: “Were what they said were illegal really illegal?” And I said, “Probably not – but if NASCAR said they were, they were. NASCAR is the law.”

I suggest there will be no more fooling around on the part of Chad Knaus. No more creative interpreting of the rule book.

Because if something on that car is even so much as a hair off, I fear Knaus will be gone.

5. Speaking of Johnson, did you notice he let go of the steering wheel when he crashed at Daytona, just like Danica Patrick did when she went nearly head-on into the wall during one of the qualifying races?

You watch: the rest of the guys will do that, too. She’s having an effect on the Sprint Cup Series already. (And you thought she was just another pretty face . . .)

6. D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas will give the Nationwide Series some Canadian content in Phoenix this weekend. Kennington, who won the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series national championship in 2010, periodically drives in Nationwide races.

7. Speaking of NASCAR, the word is out that another manufacturer is trying to get into the Sprint Cup. I say it’s Honda and a friend of mine says Volkswagen or Hyundai. We’ll see who’s right.

8. Sticking with NASCAR, and speaking of my friend, he says Kurt Busch will replace Juan Pablo Montoya after three or four more races if Montoya doesn’t do something with the Target car. I think Montoya has to produce, that’s for sure, but I don’t think Kurt Busch is on anybody’s short list just yet.

(On the other hand, Jimmy Spencer has written a piece for SpeedTV in which he says Joey Logano is on the bubble and Kurt B. will replace him if he doesn't produce. I still don't see it. I mean, I can see Logano being let go but I can't see K.B. getting a big chance again any time soon. He's just too great a liability.)

9. Sir Frank Williams will step down from the board of directors of his Williams F1 team at the end of the month to begin the transfer of responsibility to - as he puts it - "the next generation." That will leave Bernie Ecclestone as the last remaining member of the 1970s "Piranha Club" that saw F1 go from a European club racing series to a multi-billion-dollar international jet-setting enterprise.

10. And, finally, the announcement by Mercedes that Canadian F1 hope Robert Wickens would drive for  them in the German Touring Car Championship (DTM) this season was supposed to have happened in the last two weeks. That it hasn’t is worrying.