Honda Indy: no Target, no more TSN and Hunter-Reay's mom

Sunday's Honda Indy was one of the best races in years. Good weather, good crowd and good competition.

Winner Ryan Hunter-Reay surprised everyone by mentioning that his late mother, Lydia, was from Hamilton. This is almost becoming a ritual. Two years ago, Will Power revealed that one of his grandmothers came from Edmonton.

There were many stories out of the weekend. Here is a brief glimpse at some of them, particularly the confirmation from IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard that he's negotiating with Rogers Sportsnet on a TV contract for 2013.

Hunter=Reay, who became emotional when he left the podium Sunday after winning the Honda Indy, calls himself half-Canadian.

Although born in Dallas, Tex., his mother, Lydia, came from Hamilton, Ont. She died of cancer in 2009 and the thought of winning, and of being so close to her hometown, was overwhelming for him.

Hunter-Reay honours her by driving car No. 28, which stands for the 28 million people currently fighting various forms of cancer.

The Andretti Autosport driver, who has now won three races in a row in the highly competitive IZOD IndyCar Series, beat Charlie Kimball, a Type 1 diabetic, and Mike Conway to the top step of the podium.

It was Kimball's best finish in IndyCar competition; Conway, who battled back from serious injuries suffered in the 2010 Indianapolis 500, drives for A.J. Foyt and third place was their best finish in the last three years.

Tony Kanaan finished fourth, Oriol Servia was fifth, Helio Castroneves finished sixth, J.R. Hildebrand was seventh, James Jakes was eighth, Takuma Sato finished ninth and Alex Tagliani, one of two Canadian drivers in the classic, was tenth.

The other Canadian, Oakville's James Hinchcliffe, had a horrible weekend that ended early when his second Chevrolet engine went kaput. He finished 22nd, officially.

He missed the entire second practice on Friday after the first engine failed. That earned him a 10 grid-position penalty to be assessed after qualifying, in which he was ninth fastest, sending him off in Toronto from 19th position. He was on the charge, and well up in the top ten, when the second engine blew up.

This means that at the next race in Edmonton, he will be assessed a further 10 grid-position penalty after qualifying, which hardly seems fair but rules are rules.

Tagliani was also the victim of a 10 grid-position penalty and started the race 16th. He had an up and down day, charging to the front but then falling back. His tenth-place finish was excellent, all things considered.

 

IndyCar President and CEO Randy Bernard confirmed that the series is negotiating with Rogers Sportsnet to take over the televising of Indy car racing from 2013 on. TSN, which broadcast the race in Canada Sunday (ABC carried the event in the U.S.), has televised Indy car racing for years, as well as NASCAR and F1 races.

Bernard says the time is ripe for IndyCar to make a Great Leap Forward in Canada because of the popularity of Oakville's James Hinchcliffe.

"When a guy who's running 22nd or 23rd comes to me and says 'I'm not getting enough exposure,' my answer to him is 'win.' When you have someone like James who is right up there kicking butt, this is the type of guy - he's got a great personality, he's got a great sponsor - this is the type of guy you want to take that momentum and build and that's why the time is ripe for us to build in Canada.

Bernard wouldn't be specific and, in fact, ducked the direct question but did confirm that IndyCar is looking to grow the series in Canada.

He wouldn't bite when asked about the possibility of a third race north of the Canada-U.S. border, as has been rumoured. IndyCar has two races in Canada, here in Toronto and in Edmonton, but CART and Champ Car previously raced in Vancouver, Montreal and at Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant in Quebec.

Quebec City has been rumoured but IndyCar would love to somehow get back to Vancouver.

Bernard, who wouldn't say if he was negotiating, or with whom, did say he would be open to any race that didn't negatively impact the current races in Edmonton and Toronto.

 

Michael Andretti owns Ryan Hunter-Reay's car. Andretti won the Toronto Indy seven times but this is his first victory as a car owner. With this victory - his third straight - Hunter-Reay now leads the IZOD IndyCar Series points standings.

Andretti said it was unfortunate that the Honda Indy had to end under yellow that that a green-white-checkers finish would not be a good thing for Indy car racing. 

"You can't do that (have a green-white-checkers)," he said. "Some guys were just running on fumes and wouldn't be able to compete."

He said NASCAR, where he's rumoured to be entering a team in 2013, is different.

"Their races are a lot different than ours. For them, it works. They just shut their cars off on the backstretch and park 'em and we can't do that so all we'd do is hold the show up and maybe make the fans mad so we shouldn't do it."

 

Where was Target?

A year ago, after it was announced that the U.S. department store would be coming to Canada in late 2012 and 2013, they used the Honda Indy to market their company and their involvement in racing.

They threw a wonderful reception on Sunday morning in advance of the race, brought in their American executive team and introduced their Canadian executives. Target drivers Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon entertained the assembled media and even Chip Ganassi showed up.

Out on the grounds, there were signs with the Target logo everywhere and young men and women were dressed in Target-branded clothing and were handing out flyers and small merchandise.

This year, nothing.

Yes, the Chip Ganassi team is still Target Chip Ganassi but there were no signs around the site nor were there any representatives of the store wandering around publicizing it.

It was a complete withdrawal and it seemed strange

ASN Canada FIA supervised kart races that were held in the infield of the Honda Indy Toronto circuit during the weekend.

Nearly a half-million dollars were raised for women's programs at Sunnybrooke Hospital from the kart races that started Thursday with a Bay St. celebrity event and continued Saturday and Sunday.

 

Gustavo Yacaman, the Colombian racer who won Saturday's Indy Lights race, said Sunday morning that he hopes to be in the IndyCar Series next season.

"That's the plan," he said, adding that he expects the necessary sponsorship to be in place before the 2013 season starts.

Yacaman, echoing Roger Penske, also said it was disappointing to hear about NASCAR star A.J. Allmendinger's failed drug test that saw Sam Hornish Jr, replace him for the Coke 400 at Daytona Saturday night.

"It's disappointing when you see a driver get an opportunity like he did with Penske Racing and then do something that could destroy his career. We have to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it's disappointing to see."'

Allmendinger, who was mentored by Paul Tracy, raced in the Champ Car World Series before going to NASCAR. He is married to a girl from Toronto.

 

Other racing news: Mark Webber passed Fernando Alonso with two laps to go to win the British Grand Prix Sunday. Sebastien Vettel was third. . . . Tony Stewart won the Firecracker 400 at Daytona Saturday night (now called the Coke Zero 400). A.J. Allmendinger failed a drug test and has been suspended temporarily. It could be indefinite, depending. Dinger previously pleaded guilty to DUI. . . . Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr came back from being four laps down to win the American Le Mans Series race at Lime Rock, Conn. The ALMS will be at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (Mosport) in two weeks.

 

Mayor Rob Ford came to the Honda Indy Sunday morning talked about the $50 million economic impact the race has on Toronto and expressed hope that the event would continue for years.

He noted that there are more construction cranes in the air in Toronto at the moment than there are in any other major North American city.

The mayor said he couldn't pick a winner because he wished the best of luck to all the drivers.

 

Meantime, back at the Honda Indy, the two front row starters, pole sitter Dario Franchitti and outside front row starter Will Power, have had better days.

Franchitti took the lead at the start, only to be passed by Power. When Franchitti, who's won this race three times, including last year, made his first stop for fuel and tires, he stopped too far out from the pit wall for the fuel hose to attach to the car. By the time his crew were able to move the car in enough to fuel it, his race was essentially over.

It ended shortly before the finish when he collided with Ryan Briscoe and both cars were too damaged to continue.

Power, meantime, had a slight coming-together with another car and the front wing on his car came apart, damaging a tire. He made two stops, one for fresh rubber and fuel and another for a new nose and that was pretty much all she wrote. 

Power officially finished 15th and Franchitti was 17th.

It was a fast race and, until the last laps, remarkably clean. There were only two caution periods before the schmozzles at the end and, according to the official score card, only eight laps in total were run under yellow all race.

It only took a little over 90 minutes to run the Honda Indy and the average speed for the 85 laps was 95.787 miles an hour. There were five lead changes between Franchitti, Power, Pagenaud (who ran near the front all day but was assessed a 30-second penalty after the checkers for blocking, dropping him to 12th place), J.R. Hildebrand and Hunter-Reay.

Sebastien Bourdais was heading for a top five finish when he crashed to bring out the second caution flag (Graham Rahal's crash brought out the first) and was extremely angry at Kimball, suggesting he didn't deserve a podium. (Kimball was on the inside and Bourdais  was outside going into Turn One and often in siutations like that, two into one won't go and Bourdais wound up in the wall.)

Kimball was asked about this afterward and was very calm, sugggesting any anger should be directed at officials in Race Control who didn't see fit to send out a sweeper to get rid of the marbles that were everywhere on the course once a car got off the racing line.

The inference was that Bourdais was the architect of his own demise by getting off the race line and into the marbles.

Comments

[Adam]

The economic footprint of the Toronto Indy today is about a quarter of what used to be in the heady Molson years. $50 million is simply not a believable figure. I do not understand why the politicians refer and go by that figure every year and believe in it any more.
The only serious sponsorship I saw was from Dr. Pepper and Honda. Everybody else left.
Corner 8 displayed Mid-Ohio event banners: simply self promoting happening on the series own expense. Not healthy.
The cars need at least 200 more HP to become respectably serious to call them the top class of professional racing. Look too funny, kind of smallish, like a Hot Wheels toy car. If they tell me this chassis costs 600,000 dollars, I say: "Get outta here"!

[Paul]

Another race in Canada and the desire for more ovals ... does anyone know what shape Sanair Super Speedway is in these days?

[john]

Sanair is junk.

Put them on Delaware Speedway, or Mosport's oval, given the choice.

Or have them run at Mosport itself, that'd be a blast.

[David White]

More top Canadian drivers AND Mosport would help.