Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Merry Christmas to all race fans

To the people who read this blog, I wish you all - critics and friends alike - a very Merry Christmas and a great 2013.

With luck, we can look forward to great races and racing in Formula One, NASCAR, IndyCar and sports cars (not to forget the dragsters and the short tracks), as was the case in 2012.

Talking about sports cars, the announcement everybody has been waiting for following the sale of the ALMS to the NASCAR-owned Grand-Am Series will come on Jan. 4 in Daytona Beach when the class structure will be unveiled and explained.

Fingers crossed on that one.

In a day or two (it is the holidays, after all) I'll post a roundup, with comments, of all the important racing news that's relatively recent.

I'll also discuss the difficulty of coming up with a definitive Top Ten Stories of the Year list.

Meantime, enjoy the day. Joy to the World.

Oh, before I go, in case any of you missed my annual Christmas story that was published last weekend in Toronto Star Wheels, entitled When Murphy met Baby (it's about a taxi driver who hooks up with a hoodlum for a drive to Rochester), here's the link.

I think you'll like it. 

- Norris McDonald

Top Ten motorsports stories of 2012

There were many more than 10 "Top Ten" motorsports stories in 2012 but somebody had to bite the bullet and make the calls, so I nominated myself.

I’ll tell you about four right off the top that didn’t make it – but boy, were they close.

1: Dodge winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup and then withdrawing from the series. You guys never heard of "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday?"

2: Juan Pablo Montoya escaping death in the Daytona 500 when his car hit a jet dryer that exploded (left). It was the second time in three Daytona 500s that the race was delayed because of something that had little to do with racing. In 2010, there were two long delays because of potholes.

3: Brad Keselowski attracting hundreds of thousands more fans to his Twitter account by tweeting during the lengthy red flag that followed Montoya’s accident – and NASCAR then forbidding him from doing it later in the season. Earth to NASCAR: Sprint sponsors the Sprint Cup and WANTS people to tweet.

4: Sebastien Loeb winning his ninth straight World Rally Championship title. I mean, what more is there to say?

So here are the Top Ten.

No. 1

Car owner Roger Penske and driver Brad Keselowski winning their first NASCAR Sprint Cup championships.

Penske, who’s dominated North American Indy car and sports car racing for decades, finally made it to the top step of the NASCAR podium after years of trying.

Keselowski comes from a racing family and won his first title on the basis of talent, moxy, drive and determination. Like champions in other leagues before him, he influenced Penske to build a team around him (he brought in his own crew chief, for starters). This title will likely be the first of many.

No. 2

Sebastian Vettel winning his third consecutive Formula One world championship, with Red Bull Racing (Christian Hornder, team principal; Adrien Newey, chief designer) scoring its third straight constructors championship.

After a slow start (he didn’t win his first race of 2012 until the fourth of the season, in Bahrain, and then he didn’t win again until the 14^th of the year, in Singapore), Vettel finally got the bit between his teeth late in the season and ran off a string of victories that put him in front to stay.

Fernando Alonso had a brilliant season for Ferrari (Joann Villeneuve, widow of Gilles, told me that Alonso made a slow car fast this year) and finished second, only three points behind the champion. If Alonso doesn’t get taken out of two races, in which he scored zero points, he might be champion today.

And Kimi Raikkonen finished an astonishing third in points after being out of F1 for the previous two seasons, preferring to drive WRC cars and NASCAR trucks. He was consistent all year and won a race, at Abu Dhabi, near the end of the season. The Iceman is back and will be one to watch in 2013.

No. 3

Canada losing two major international races was a real kick in the teeth for motorsport in this country.

Gone from the IZOD IndyCar Series calendar in 2013 will be the Edmonton Grand Prix and the NASCAR Nationwide Series will not return to Montreal for the annual NAPA Auto Parts 200 either.

Both were crowd-pleasers and both were broadcast live over international television.

Both were promoted by Octane Management, Inc., owned by Francois Dumontier of Montreal, whose other company, Octane Racing Group, promotes the F1 Grand Prix du Canada. Dumontier said he was losing millions on both races and unable to continue. Critics suggested there were other reasons.

The Grand Prix is not affected.

As well as taking two important races off the national calendar, Dumontier’s decisions put the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series in a bind. The stock cars were on the undercard in both Edmonton and Montreal and, when combined with losing a contract to race as part of the Honda Indy Toronto following the 2011 event, it meant the country’s only national racing series lost three major dates in 14 months.

No. 4

The branding of Mosport as Canadian Tire Motorsport Park knocked long-time Canadian racing fans for a loop.

Although selling the "naming rights" to North American sports arenas is a well-established practice (two exceptions, both in New York: Madison Square Garden and Yankee Stadium – some things are not for sale), the commercial branding of road racing circuits has never been popular. It has happened, though.

But Mazda incorporated the historic name of the circuit when it took over Laguna Seca race track in California and renamed it Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Infineon Raceway, named arfter the technologies group, was previously Sears Point but Sears Point started life many years ago as Golden Gate Raceway so name-changes at the San Francisco-area circuit are not uncommon.

But Watkins Glen, Road America, Road Atlanta, Daytona, Indianapolis, Mid-Ohio, Le Circuit-Mont Tremblant and on and on are storied names that live on.

Now, with the branding of Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, the internationally known, loved and respected "Mosport" is no more.

Would they change the name of Silverstone? Brands Hatch? Monza?

Would it have been hard to incorporate "Mosport’ into the new name?

Of course not, which is a shame and shortsighted because, as will inevitably happen, at some point somebody in control of Canadian Tire is going to decide not to continue the arrangement, and what then?

On the bright side, the announcement of a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race there on Labour Day weekend in 2013 is a wonderful, positive step as new owners Carlo Fidani and Ron Fellows strive to update the aging facility to 2013 standards.

No. 5

D.J. Kennington’s winning of the 2012 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series championship was one of the most dominant displays of race-driving ever seen in all of Canadian motorsport.

En route to winning his second national title in three years, Kennington won seven of the 12 races , a series record; five in a row for another record; and six of the seven oval-track races, also a record. He also scored the most top five finishes in a single season.

His performance during the last race of year, at Kawartha Speeedway near Peterborough, was inspiring. Having to finish 21^st or better to clinch the title, he left no doubt about his intentions: he flat went out and won it.

In short, it was a banner year.

Which is a good thing, because there are – as they say – signs.

Signs of what, I don’t know. But they are there.

For the first time in his life, D.J. has a job outside of racing. He’s working for the county where he lives, which means (gulp) that he’s making pension contributions.

And he became the father of a son, Chase, just a few weeks ago.

You may now speculate about what all this means.

No. 6

Two women professional drag racers winning championships on the same day served to illustrate how women have shattered motorsport’s glass ceiling.

From Janet Guthrie at Indianapolis to Shirley Muldowney in Top Fuel dragsters to Danica Patrick about to become the first woman to compete full time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup, women racers have come a long way, baby.

On Aug. 5, at the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Northwest Nationals near Seattle, rookie Funny Car driver Courtney Force (right, in photo)finished first in her class for the first time and Erica Enders (left in photo) won her second Pro Stock championship.

Auto racing is perhaps the only sport in the world where women can compete equally with men and more are not only getting involved but are becoming successful.

As 15-times NHRA Funny Car champion John Force (and father of Courtney) said: "It’s always been a man’s sport – but the rules are changing."

No. 7

CEO Randy Bernard’s firing by the IZOD IndyCar Series, although – according to some – justified, is yet another negative that Indy car racing is going to have to overcome.

Although the racing was great in 2012 and Oakville native James Hinchcliffe succeeding Danica Patrick in the Go Daddy car and Ryan Hunter-Reay’s winning his first championship were good stories, the off-track soap opera continued apace and garnered most of the headlines.

These included stories suggesting that Tony George was trying to buy back the series, Bernard himself tweeting that some of the team owners were plotting to get rid of him, driver Scott Dixon being penalized for something he didn’t do because race officials were watching THE WRONG REPLAY (I’m not making that up; can you see that happening in the NFL? ) and an absurd rule that penalized drivers for teams having to change leased engines before their time, which saw 11 drivers at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach – nearly half the field – assessed 10-grid-position penalties. (A guy who qualified 20^th was made to go back to the last race. Okay, I made that up but it shows how absurd the whole thing was.)

Now there’s a new fellow in charge. His name’s Mark Miles. He kinda sounds a lot like Bernard when he came in – someone who made another sport a raging success, in his case tennis rather than Bernard’s bull-riding, and somebody else thinking he’d be perfect for IndyCar.

And he’s starting out pretty much the same way, too: slowly, learning names, learning who’s who, learning the sport.

How many more times Indy car racing will be able to get away with this is anyone’s guess. But while some people are suggesting there will be about the same number of cars on the grid in 2013 as there were in 2012 – 25 or 26 – I say car count will be a concern as sponsorship (and interest generally) dwindles because of all the nonsense.

No. 8

A.J. Allmendinger’s failed drug test and then his relatively quick return to Sprint Cup competition toward the end of the season.

People shook their heads when Allmendinger, a former Champ Car driver who made the switch to NASCAR and was given the ride of a lifetime by Roger Penske, failed a random drug test early in the summer. Penske fired him, as a result.

Although the story of the circumstances changed several times – his management team would say one thing and the Dinger would say another – Allmendinger eventually ‘fessed up to the fact that a friend had offered him what he thought was an energy pill (it was Adderall, an amphetamine) and he "foolishly" took it (you betcha).

But he proceeded to do something that none of the other NASCAR stars who’d flunked drug tests (Jeremy Mayfield, Aaron Fyke, come on down) had done previously: he immediately entered and completed NASCAR’s drug treatment program (called the Road to Recovery).

And then the stars aligned and he was in the right place at the right time in October (Kurt Busch went to Furniture Row Racing early and Phoenix Racing needed a driver) and he finished the year back in Cup.

Whether his rehabilitation will continue in 2013 is unknown at this point. He’s looking for a ride in any series but hasn’t received a firm offer.

No. 9

The signing of McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton by Mercedes to replace the second-time-retiring Michael Schumacher had (and continues to have) Formula One watchers scratching their heads.

With McLaren, Hamilton – who won one world championship with the marque – could expect continuing to win races. In 2012, McLaren won seven times and Lewis was the driver for four of them. Nico Rosberg won but one race for Mercedes.

There are suggestions that it all has to do with money and the exploitation of Hamilton’s brand. At McLaren, he was contractually hamstrung when it came to personal sponsorship but there apparently are no such restrictions at Mercedes and so long as he fulfills the testing, racing and PR obligations of his contract, he’s pretty much free to do what he wants on his own time.

But I have a friend who sees something more sinister. He suggests Bernie Ecclestone, McLaren and Mercedes cooked this "trade" up for two reasons: that the Mercedes board was lukewarm, at best, about continuing in F1 but now, with the addition of one of the top three stars in F1, they are firmly behind continuing; and/or McLaren wanted to find a way to continue with Mercedes engines in their cars going forward and Lewis’ driving for Mercedes is simply the price they had to pay for doin’ business.

We’ll find out in 2013 how things work out, won’t we?

No. 10

Roger Penske using the end-of-season NASCAR awards banquet to both plug the Indianapolis 500 and to try to get the open-wheel-drivers-to-NASCAR scenario reversed.

Penske, who received the Sprint Cup along with his driver Brad Keselowski, used his acceptance speech to suggest to multi-time NASCAR champion and former IRL star Tony Stewart that if Tony wanted to do "the double" in 2013, Penske would have a car and crew ready for him.

Within a day, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway let it be known it would move back the time of the Indianapolis 500 so that Stewart – and any other NASCAR stars who wanted to take a shot (Danica Patrick, for instance) – would have more time to finish that race and get to Charlotte in time for the start of the same-day Coca-Cola 600.

Several days later, Stewart met with Penske and said he’d like to try but that he wouldn’t do it. He said IndyCar is too competitive for a driver to just "show up" and expect to win and that he was too involved with his NASCAR operation to even begin to think about it.

Now, ever since Jeff Gordon called every team owner in CART in 1990 and asked for a ride, only to be rebuffed again and again, thus sending him south to race in NASCAR, supermodified, midget and sprint car drivers don’t consider for a second a career in Indy cars.

Since Gordon went to stock cars, so have Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne, Stewart, Patrick and any number of others.

If Stewart and Patrick did "the double," you can bet pressure would be on some of the others to give it a shot, too. NASCAR is a Goliath but the Indianapolis 500 is still the biggest and most prestigious race in the world and most racing drivers would like to have it on their CVs.

The feeling is that a good performance in the Indy 500 might whet the appetite of some of the other NASCAR drivers to give the whole circuit a try. After all, Cale Yarborough drove at Indy in the late 1960s and liked it so much that he left stock cars for the Indy-car circuit in 1970 (he wasn't very good in an open-cockpit car, so went back to the taxis where he excelled).

In any event, Roger Penske is always thinking, always plotting, always looking for an angle, an edge. He fights fair but he fights really hard, too.

He knew exactly what he was doing when he stood up at that NASCAR function and started kidding around about Tony Stewart driving for him at Indianapolis.

Exactly what he was doing.

- Norris McDonald

Roundup: NASCAR stock cars to join trucks at Old Mosport

Canadian Tire Motorsport Park has announced its major event schedule for 2013 and the really good news is that two of Canada’s finest racing series will be on the program next Labour Day weekend with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

The NASCAR Canadian Tire stock cars and the Canadian Touring Car Series sedans will be sharing the legendary road circuit north of Bowmanville, formerly known as Mosport, with the Camping World trucks, which make up one-third of NASCAR’s top travelling series, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide stock cars being the other two.

The NASCAR Canada stock cars will actually be racing at Old Mosport three times next year. The Canadian Tire Series will headline the annual, traditional, Victoria Day SpeedFest on the road course that will also feature the Trans-Am Series, the Canadian Touring Cars and the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada.

And in addition to Victoria Day in May and Labour Day in September, the stock cars will also race at the Old Mosport oval on June 22.

Other big events at Canadian Tire Mosport Park (heh, heh) next summer will be the American le Mans Series on July 18-21, making its last stop before unification with the Grand-American Road Racing Series the following year; the Canadian Historic Grand Prix on June 14-16 and the Canadian Superbike Doubleheader Weekend in August.

More information and tickets can be found at: www.canadiantiremotorsportpark.com.

Meantime, the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada has announced a special ticket package for next June that will allow a person to purchase a reserved seat in a different grandstand for each day of the three-day event.

Quantities are limited, so if you want in you’d better get cracking. Ticket combinations come in three packages - gold, silver and bronze and are on sale for $485, $449 and $267.50, respectively. More information at 514 350-0000 or 1-855-790-1245. Or go to www.circuitgillesvilleneuve.ca.

And tickets for the 2013 Honda Indy Toronto will go on sale next Monday, Dec. 10. And remember, the event will now feature two official, fully-sanctioned IZOD IndyCar Series races, one with a standing start on Saturday and a second with a rolling start on Sunday. Each event will be full length, with full points and full prize money.

The promoters are making changes to some of the grandstands. They plan to build three new “super-structure” grandstands – one at Turn 10 (consolidating three grandstands), a taller structure at Turn 11, and a Turn 3 Grandstand that will see the addition of 15 rows.

According to a release, the switch to larger grandstands will result in an important additional benefit: greater track-side access for General Admission ticketholders and fans who might wander around looking for multiple viewpoints. Tickets start at $35 for General Admission. For more information, go to www.hondaindy.com.

Here’s a change of pace: The Canadian Motortsport Hall of Fame has launched a new, redesigned, website — www.cmhf.ca

This easy-to-navigate website details the history of motorsport in Canada and features biographies, including photos, of more than 150 inductees.

Said general manager Sid Priddle: “Thanks to the development efforts of highly respected freelance journalist (and Wheels Insider) Gary Grant, CMHF is able to bring you this new look. Gary is also responsible for the creation of our Facebook page.”

As is the case with any new project, the website is a work in progress. However, the hall hopes to keep the site informative and current.

And the CMHF is looking forward to your feedback. Just click on “contact” and submit any comments or questions.

Meantime, Andretti Autosport introduced its drivers lineup for 2013 on Wednesday and it’s the same as 2012 with two minor twists. Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay will carry the No. 1 on his car instead of his familiar 28 (although “28” is included in the livery) and Marco Andretti will drive car No. 25, instead of 26. They have their reasons. James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, meantime, will continue aboard the No. 27 Go Daddy car.

Conor Daly, the son of ex-F1 and Indy car star Derek Daly who cut many of his racing teeth on the Ontario Formula Ford circuit driving for Brian Graham, will test for A.J. Foyt's IndyCar team at Sebring soon. Daly had designs on a career in Formula One but the IndyCar test would indicate he’s going to Plan B. He’s smart. You have to be the absolute best and have all the connections and the money needed to get into F1. That’s a triple whammy and very few young athletes have all three. It’s why I really hoped Guelph’s Robert Wickens would have taken a crack at IndyCar a year ago when his path to F1 was blocked. Believe it or not, it might be too late now.

Here’s not very good news. The Star Mazda Series is for sale and whether a buyer can be found in time for the 2013 season is questionable. In a letter to drivers and sponsors, Star Mazda owner Gary Rodrigues said the series would fold if it can’t be sold.

It seems that it doesn’t only cost a fortune to go racing these days, it costs as much or more to build a platform for racing.

Here are the nominees for the Mario Andretti Trophy as the SPEED performer of the year:

2010 SPEED Performer of the Year Sebastian Vettel (F1), Fernando Alonso (F1), Brad Keselowski (NASCAR), Jorge Lorenzo (MotoGP), Casey Stoner (MotoGP), Ryan Hunter-Reay (IndyCar), Antron Brown (NHRA), Kyle Larson (USAC), Sammy Swindell (WoO), Sebastien Loeb (World Rally), Andre Lotterer (WEC), Max Biaggi (World Superbike), Scott Pruett (Grand-Am), Donny Schatz (WoO), Josh Hayes (AMA Pro Superbike) and Ryan Villopoto (Supercross).

Andretti will present the trophy, a 100-pound sculpture created by bronze artist Elie Hazak, as part of a SPEED Center special on Jan. 27.

Any guesses who'll win?

U.S. lawsuit aimed at Ecclestone is serious

I don’t know what’s most important of the three big racing stories that broke yesterday and last night:

– Bernie Ecclestone is facing a serious U.S. lawsuit,

– IndyCar has a new boss, or

– Danica Patrick is dumping her husband.

Let’s go with the first one, because it has the most serious implications.

In a nutshell, a U.S. financial services company has filed suit accusing Ecclestone, his German buddy Gerhard Gribkowski and the company that owns Formula One, CVC Capital Holdings, of highway robbery.

It says in its suit filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York that CVC supplied money to Ecclestone to bribe Gribkowski to manipulate the 2005 sale of F1 so that the highest bidder, New York-based Bluewater Communications Holdings, would come up short.

It accuses Ecclestone and CVC of using money that Bluewater had invested in F1 to ensure that CVC had the highest bid.

German prosecutors have suspected for years that Ecclestone paid more than US$40 million to Bribkowski to get him to influence the sale of the world’s top auto racing series. While Bribkowski is currently serving eight years in prison for confessing to accepting the bribe, Germany has yet to charge Ecclestone for paying it because he insists he was being blackmailed.

According to a report by journalist Adam Cooper on the autosport.com website, the summary of the lawsuit concludes:

"Each of CVC, Alpha Prema, Alpha Topco, and Delta Topco (those last three companies belong to Ecclestone) extracted billions of dollars from Formula One that do not rightfully belong to them. CVC, Alpha Prema, Alpha Topco, and Delta Topco have profited enormously from CVC’s wrongful acquisition of Formula One, which is currently valued at $10 billion. Plaintiff has been damaged in an amount exceeding $650 million."

The German prosecution would appear to be small potatoes compared to this one, which bears watching.

Okay, over at Indianapolis, the people who owns the Indianapolis Speedway and the IndyCar Series have – yet again – named a new chairman and CEO who will calm the waters and "grow" the series.

I give him between two and three years, just about the same amount of time just about every CEO of Indy car racing going back to the formation of CART in 1979 has had.

Mark Miles, who turned professional tennis into a multi-billion-dollar business, is the new Top Gun at Hulman & Co., which owns IndyCar among other things. Randy Benard used to run IndyCar and he got that job because he turned professional rodeo into a multi-billion-dollar business.

See a pattern there?

The problem, of course, is that neither one of them knew, or knows, anything (or not much) about car racing. And this happens again and again and again.

When CART broke away from USAC originally, it hired a succession of lawyers and promoters to run things, guys like John Frasco, John Caponigro, William Stokkan (they hired him away from Playboy) and Andrew Craig. The one guy they could have hired who would have known how to handle the paddock was Cary Agajanian – and they didn’t want anything to do with him, probably for that reason.

A top-of-the-line auto racer told me last week that the reason Bernard was fired was because he browned off the car owners – and one in particular.

"He didn’t know how to handle them," this driver said. "He had no background in racing."

History is about to repeat itself, yet again.

Finally, it’s too bad but Danica Patrick and her hubby, Paul Hospenthal, are Splitsville.

These things happen.

What everybody wants to know is this:

Who broke them up?

Related articles

Tony George reportedly seeking to take over IndyCar

Toronto to get two Indy car races in 2013

NASCAR will use sports cars to fight IndyCar, F1

Formula One Valued at $10 Billion in Ecclestone Suit - Bloomberg

Celebrity Drive: Danica Patrick, NASCAR and IndyCar Driver

Danica Patrick Divorcing Husband

On NASCAR, pit crews and the Petit Le Mans

The Delta Wing finished sixth at Road Atlanta

News and musings following a big weekend of auto racing:

Bruno Spengler, a French-born Canadian citizen from Saint-Hippolyte, Que., won the German Touring Car (DTM) Championship Sunday for BMW.

He won the title in grand style by racing to victory in the last DTM race of the season at the Hockenheimring.

It was Spengler’s first championship. He was the good soldier for Mercedes for years and years but was never able to close the deal. He moved to BMW this season when the marque returned to the DTM after a 20-year absence and stepped right up.

The other Canadian in the field, Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto, retired after 20 laps. His rookie reason in touring cars was not the success that he, and his fans, had hoped for.

For complete details, click here

NASCAR Canada held a reception on Saturday at the Hyatt-Regency Hotel on King St. W. to honour the 2012 Canadian Tire Series champion, D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas, the other drivers in the series, and the many officials and sponsors that make the National Championship the success that it is.

Dana Gladstone of major sponsor Canadian Tire said a few words, as did series director Brad Moran. The drinks were free and the hors d’ouvres were hot. It was very nice.

However (there’s always one or two of those, aren’t there?), when NASCAR purchased CASCAR from founder Tony Navotny in 2006, it was a big deal. Following the 2007 season, its first under the NASCAR banner, the Canadian Tire Series participants were treated to a lovely banquet at an east Toronto hotel. TSN’s Vic Rauter was the MC and all the drivers, wives, crew members and sponsors turned out for what was a really swell time.

Since then, everybody’s had to make do with an annual two-hour reception and, frankly, it’s not enough for a National Championship.

This should be a Big Deal – and it’s not.

One other thing. If I went to Florida as a representative of the media of Canada and mispronounced the names of – say – some of NASCAR’s favourite sons ("I’d like to say thanks to Bill FRANK and the FRANK family . . .") I think I’d be run out of town on a rail.

This is the fourth or fifth year that I’ve had to listen to some NASCAR executive fly up to Toronto and mangle the name of the patron saint of Canadian motorsport, Gilles Villeneuve, while mispronouncing the name of the race track in Montreal that’s named after him.

Memo to NASCAR: It’s Sir-quee Jeel Veel-noov, NOT sir-cut gil vilnuff.

You would think someone would have had the good manners to ask how to say it corrrectly by now, wouldn’t you?

Okay, enough of that.

Jim and Joel Robinson, who produce the Canadian Tire racing TV programs for TSN, were singled out for praise and they do a great job. Here’s a link to a video that’s representative of their work.

Now, the reception was rife with rumour that NASCAR is on the verge of making an announcement about either a truck series race or a Nationwide Series race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park next season.

One fellow "in the know" said it was a lock that the Camping World Series trucks would be the headliner at the track next May 24 long weekend.

But with the Nationwide cars out of Montreal for 2013, I still say the possibility of that race being moved to Old Mosport is very real. And the fact that a Nationwide car was practising out there in the last two weeks just adds to the intrigue.

We should know in the next week or two at the most whether one or more of NASCAR’s touring series will be at CTMP next year. Cross fingers.

Just before I wrap up the "Canadiana" portion of this column, I must say that poor James Hinchcliffe must rue the day he agreed to travel to Australia to participate in a V8 Supercar race on the Gold Coast Down Under.

They ran two races at the weekend and he didn’t finish either one of them.

Click here for a link to a video showing how his first race went. And the second one wasn't much better.

Okay, moving right along, the Daytona Beach city council has approved an application filed by International Speedway Corp. to develop some land it owns adjacent to the storied speedway as well as an application from the Daytona Speedway itself for redevelopment.

Want to take a guess what that all means?

Hint: look all around downtown Toronto and what do you see?

Condominiums.

Actually, I’m surprised they’ve waited this long. And I’m puzzled why they haven’t started down that road at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, too.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship ran its sixth Chase for the Championship race at Kansas Speedway Sunday and it was won by Matt Kenseth. For complete details, click here.

Question: Kenseth has won two of the six races in the Chase to date. Why is he in NINTH place in the standings.

Why don’t the drivers who make it into the Chase start off even, as is the case in most other sports when the playoffs start?

Why aren’t the Chase drivers scored differently in the playoffs, with winning being the only thing?

It is wrong that Brad Keselowski and Kenseth have each won two races in the six that have been run since the Chase started (Clint Bowyer and Denny Hamlin won the others) and yet Keselowski is in first place in the standings and Kenseth is in ninth.

Nuts.

The North American sports car season is finito. Saturday at Road Atlanta, the American Le Mans Series ran its Petit Le Mans 10-hour race and the winners were (this can get complicated):

- Neel Jani, Nicolas Prost and Andrea Belicchi finished first overall and first in Prototype 1 driving a Lola-Toyota.

- Scott Tucker, Christophe Bouchut and Luis Diaz were second overall and first in P2 in an HPD ARX-Honda.

- Alex Popow, Ryan Dalziel and Toronto’s Mark Wilkins won the Prototyep Challenge class in an Oreca-Chevrolet. They were seventh overall.

-Scott Sharp, Toni Vilander and Johannes van Overbeek were first in GT in a Ferrari Italia.

- Henrique Cisneros, Mario Farnbacher and Jakub Giermaziak won the GT Challenge class in a Porsche 911 GT3.

Muscle Milk Picket Racing won the team and drivers’ championship in the glamour-puss P1 class. Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf fought back from early-race adversity to wrap up both titles.

Now, an incident at Kansas Speedway and another at Road Atlanta illustrated perfectly this weekend why auto racing is the most complex and exciting team sport there is.

At Kansas, Jimmy Johnson’s pit crew kept him on the lead lap while doing repairs to his car after he backed it into the outside wall early in the race. He recovered to finish ninth and to score enough points to stay just seven behind Chase leader Keselowski, who finished eighth.

It took the Muscle Milk crew a little longer – an hour, actually – to repair the damage after Luhr tangled with a GT Challenge car early in the Petit Le Mans. But their expertise and effort was unparalleled on this day and they got the car back on track for the drivers to score sufficient points to wrap up the championship.

Great stuff !

And one last thing: Don Panoz’s pet, the Delta Wing project powered by Nissan, finished sixth overall in the Petit Le Mans, driven by Gunnar Jeannette and Lucas Ordonez.

You will recall that Jeanette was knocked for a loop late in the week during practice and the race car emerged a mess. Once again, it was the crew that saved the day.

They repaired and reworked the car in time for Saturday’s race – an amazing achievement.

Panoz, in an interview, said he still thinks there is an open-wheel future for the car. 

Take it to Indy next May, I say. If Andy Granatelli could get his turbine to work there in 1967, Dr. Don should be able to find a way to get the DW into the 2013 classic's qualifying line, don’tcha think?

NASCAR will use sports cars to fight IndyCar, F1

If you are in the ketchup business, you are in it to dominate the market. If need be, you will do just about anything and everything to put your competition out of business.

Same with beer, soft drinks or politics: if you’re a winner, your attitude is that this town ain’t big enough for the two (or more) of us.

Like it or not, this is also the way it is in big-league auto racing.

I’m not talking about the drivers, who obviously are out there to beat each other.

I’m talking about sanctioning bodies and I think this is the thinking behind NASCAR’s purchase recently of the American Le Mans Series.

There’s more to this than a simple buyout. Much more.

The competition for auto racing sponsorship mega-dollars, primarily, and bums-in-the-seats is heating up in the United States.

For years, NASCAR has had the No. 1 position all to itself but the ground is shifting.

Formula One is returning to the U.S., with a vengeance. After a promising start, F1 racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway stumbled badly: people really didn’t take to race cars going the wrong way at the fabled facility and the tire fiasco in 2005, when only six cars “raced,” and Michael Schumacher’s dumb attempt to “tie” with teammate Rubens Barrichello in 2002 turned the event into a joke.

After the 2007 race, F1 left the U.S. again — this time with its tail between its legs.

Next month, F1 returns to the States for a race at a purpose-built circuit outside Austin, Tex., and you can almost feel the excitement in the air all the way up here. There are only a few tickets left for the inaugural event. It is going to look fabulous on television. The Circuit of the Americas will rank right up there with Abu Dhabi and some of the other, newer, GP venues in the world.

And in about seven months, a second U.S. Grand Prix will be held, this one through the streets of several picturesque towns in New Jersey with the New York City skyline in the background.

This will be a powerful one-two punch.

Talking about television — there was a reference several paragraphs ago — Formula One has just signed a new deal with NBC to take race, qualifying and practice coverage away from the Fox-owned Speed Channel, starting in 2013. Bernie Ecclestone is delighted, and said he expects NBC to “promote Formula One to a level not seen before in the United States” across three platforms: over-the-air, cable and digital.

Although it has had its ups and downs, NBC is the most powerful and influential television network in the U.S., followed by its two old-time rivals ABC and CBS. Fox and its subsidiaries are way off in the distance.

Meantime, after years of struggle because of a civil war and coupled with bad management, the IZOD IndyCar Series has regained its sea legs and is embarking on an expansion program in 2013 that will see double-header races promoted in three of North America’s largest markets: Detroit, Toronto and Houston. Led by CEO Randy Bernard, IndyCar is making serious waves again.

The return of Formula One with not one but two races in a little more than half a year and a rejuvenated IndyCar series spells bad news for NASCAR.

It’s not that it won’t hold its traditional audience but the potential for NASCAR to grow is substantially limited in the face of increased competition, particularly in the boardrooms of Madison Avenue.

And anybody who knows anything about business is aware that it’s not good enough to just make a profit any longer; it’s the rate of growth and ability to attract new business that counts.

Now, NASCAR has the oval track crowd in its pocket. But the road-racing audience — that’s another kettle of fish.

NASCAR created the Grand American Road Racing Series in 1999 and took the Rolex Sports Cars Series under its wing in 2000 when the U.S. Road Racing Championship went out of business. Much like it's handled its Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World truck series championships, NASCAR concentrated on cost-effective sports car racing rather than high-tech. The result was club racing. The people doing the racing had a fine time but the product was not particularly spectator-friendly. This year’s Daytona 24 was a fine example: a good race with zero people there to watch it.

The Grand Am has been in competition with the much more exotic and high-tech American Le Mans Series, which puts on good races in front of sizable crowds. But much like the Indy car war, sports car racing was stymied when it came to growth because of two series instead of just one. As IndyCar has benefitted from unification, so could sports car racing — if some one or some thing wanted to make it happen.

Don Panoz, who started the ALMS, told me once that he had talked to NASCAR about unification but had balked “because they wanted to run everything." NASCAR finally made Panoz an offer he couldn’t refuse and unification will happen in 2014 under the Grand Am banner.

Since the announcement, many people have speculated about the makeup and direction of the new series and there has been an underlying suggestion that NASCAR will “dumb it down” so it’s much like the present Grand Am Series.

I thought so initially too. I’ve since changed my mind — and here’s why.

NASCAR bought the ALMS in order to be in control of what will eventually be a very high-tech sports car racing series to compete directly against the IndyCar Series and to blunt any inroads Formula One might have designs on making into the boardrooms of corporate America.

To do otherwise would be folly. And NASCAR has already indicated it will be going in that direction by meeting in Paris with officials of the Le Mans-centric Automobile Club of the West, which organizes and makes the rules for the annual 24-hour race.

NASCAR can revert to being a growth-oriented corporation by being as upscale and as high tech as it can in sports car racing.

And by so doing, it can cut IndyCar and F1 off at the pass.

Grand Am buys ALMS, wins sports car war

The announcement today – Wednesday – of a new North American sports car racing series could either be good news for the sport or bad news and I’m betting it will be more the latter than the former.

The American Le Mans Series and the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series will officially become one when the announcement is made. Although initial reports talked about a merger, it has since been confirmed that what’s happening, in fact, is the sale of the ALMS to Grand Am.

A merger is one thing. A merger is when two parties come together to create something that includes the best of both. A sale is when one party purchases the other and gets to call all the shots.

Much has been written in recent days about what the idealists in the crowd would like to see happen with this new series. The idealists kinda like the way the ALMS has been working and would dearly love to see the GT Class, in particular, included in the new series.

But I have news. The new series will be the present Grand Am Series with maybe – maybe – more participants. The Grand Am organization, which is owned by the France family/NASCAR, is not going to throw any of its current competitors under the bus in order to make anybody on the "other side" feel better. It’ll be the Grand Am way, or the highway.

I did an interview a few years ago with the saviour of Mosport (now Canadian Tire Motorsport Park) and the founder of the American Le Mans Series, Don Panoz. The ALMS and the Grand Am were both formed in the late 1990s as a result of the mess made of North American sports car racing by a guy named Andy Evans, and have been seen as competitors in much the same way as the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series were during their "civil war."

During the interview, I asked Panoz if he’d ever tried to "make peace" with the Grand Am so that there could be one, great, sports car series on this continent and he replied that he had.

"We’ve talked from time to time," he said, and then asked to go off the record. "They want to run everything," he said. "They want to do it all their way and I won’t go for that."

Apparently, Don Panoz has now reached a point where he will go for that.

Which is understandable, considering the way the ALMS has evolved in recent years and which has, as a result, undoubtedly cost him a lot of money.

Sports car racing is made up of classes, with the unlimited prototype class – called Prototype 1, or P1 – at the top of the heap. The problem is that for several years now, there has not been any manufacturer factory teams in P1 and the class has been propped up by privateers.

While the ALMS has prospered in the Grand Touring class, with factory entries from Corvette, Ferrari, BMW and others producing tight, exciting races, the lack of glamour-puss entries in P1 from manufacturers like Audi has hurt the series.

Although some might disagree, the decision to brand the ALMS as a "green" racing series has had mixed results. Auto racing is loud and gritty (despite the best efforts of F1) and is most popular when presented that way. Many people were put off by the goody two-shoes promotion of the series as being "clean racing."

And then there was the disastrous decision two years ago to put all of the races on the Internet, rather than continue on live television. Suddenly, the ALMS became an invisible series to all but truly hard-core fans.

It didn’t help that the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series races were all broadcast live on Speed Channel.

Now, it’s always been apparent that the ALMS is a bigger draw than the Grand Am when it comes to people actually going to the races. Last January’s Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona Grand Am race at Daytona Speedway attracted exactly zero spectators. None. Two months later at the ALMS 12 Hours of Sebring, the crowd was so big that it was difficult to get inside the circuit.

So the Grand Am organization might be inclined to accept some ALMS help in the area of marketing and promotion of the new series, but that’s about all.

Sure, some of the ALMS tracks – Canadian Tire MP, Lime Rock, etc. – will be part of the new series, but other than that, the ALMS as we’ve know it will soon be nothing but a memory.

And although there might be some platitudes mouthed about continuing the great traditions of the ALMS and its connection to the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, there is no way NASCAR will be taking direction from anyone, much less some sports car club in France.

Grand Am/NASCAR is the big dog now and they’ll do things their way. They won the war, so we’d better get used to it.

All hail Otto Sitterly; TSN and roll cages for F1

Lots to catch up on after a mini vacation and lots of weekend racing, some of which I saw and some of which I didn’t.

– Many people are upset because TSN2 scheduled a recording of the Baltimore IndyCar race at 11 p.m. Sunday night and then didn’t show it. Me, I could care less because I don’t watch anything that’s recorded. I already know who won and the order of finish and I have better things to do with my time. For the record, report and results here

In answer to a query, TSN says the IndyCar race was indeed shown – after tennis, which ran three hours long.

So to all you people who emailed me about this, it’s your fault. Just because you got tired and couldn’t stay awake till 2 or 3 in the morning on Monday is of no consequence. The Indy car race was on TV in the middle of the night and you missed it.

There’s only one race left this season, on Sept. 15. The championship will be decided at California Speedway and although one or two other drivers are still in the mix, either Will Power or Ryan Hunter-Reay will likely be the winner.

But that's not the real question. The one on everybody's lips? Will TSN show it live on Saturday night or at 5 in the morning on Sunday?

Or the following Wednesday . . .

– David Ostella of Maple had his best finish on a street course in his Indy Lights career when he finished fourth at Baltimore.

– When IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon was killed at Las Vegas last October, there was a flurry of talk about better protection for drivers in open-cockpit cars. I suggested at the time that roll cages similar to those used for years on supermodified racing cars (see photo at left) would do the trick.

But then everybody calmed down and the usual excuses started to be heard: a canopy might be damaged in a crash and the driver wouldn’t be able to get out; a cage would interfere with a driver’s vision, etc.

Now, following the huge crash at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix in which Fernando Alonso came this close to having a car land on his head, the F1 people are suddenly talking about it. For the record, Belgian GP report and results here

Memo to IndyCar, F1, Formula Ford, Star Mazda, Indy Lights and all other open-cockpit sanctioning bodies: stop talking about it and just put them on.

It’s no big deal. Oval track racers – those who pilot supermodifieds, limited supers, sprint cars, midgets, dirt champ cars – have been crawling out of wrecked racers for decades and, to my knowledge, have never been hindered by the existence of a cage.

And those cages have saved countless lives.

– I saw one of the great race drivers in action over the weekend. Otto Sitterly (what a great name, eh?) won the 56^th Budweiser International Classic 200 for supermodifieds at Oswego Speedway Sunday and to say he did it in convincing style would be an understatement.

Sitterly, a dairy farmer from Canajoharie, N.Y., won the Classic for the second consecutive year and for the third time in the last four years. Several weeks earlier, he wrapped up his fifth Oswego Speedway supermodified track championship.

He defeated 11-time Indianapolis 500 driver Davey Hamilton, of Boise, Idaho, who finished second, and Dave Gruel, of Fulton, N.Y., who was third. Gary Morton of Stouffville was the top-finishing Canadian in ninth.

Sitterly was a champion modified racer at Utica-Rome Raceway in the 1990s and moved on to Oswego when the small-block supermodified division was created there. Following his progression to the big-block supers, he’s been a consistent winner in that class

His Classic-winning car is owned by John Nicotra of Oswego and Homestead, Fla., who also owns the car that Hamilton drove. It was the second straight year that Nicotra-owned cars finished one-two in the Classic; Sitterly passed Cambridge’s Mike Lichty on the last lap a year ago for the victory then.

As soon as I saw Hamilton after the race, I asked him whether he would consider taking Sitterly to Indy for a one-off in the 500 (Hamilton co-owns a team in the IZOD IndyCar Series with Sam Schmidt) ?

"Oh, the cars are so different it would be like throwing him to the wolves," said Hamilton. "But he is very, very good."

Naturally, I had to ask Sitterly whether he’d be interested in running Indy. "Sure," he said without hesitation. "But I don’t have the money."

I will have more to say about this later in the week.

The Classic was run on Sunday. Saturday night, I witnessed one of the great race-driving performances I’ve seen in my many years of race-watching and reporting.

Ryan Coniam of Denver, Colo., the son of two-time Oswego Classic winner Warren Coniam of Burlington, started on the pole for the 60-lap winged-supermodified ISMA Super Nationals. Veteran Mike Ordway of Pelham, N.H., was outside on the front row in a rocket designed by legendary car builder Clyde Booth of Charlotte, N.C.

At the green, both drivers went flying into Turn One at well over 100 miles an hour. Ordway went down on Coniam, looking to chop him and to take the lead. They touched wheels.

Instinct suggests that when something like this happens, a driver will lift his or her foot off the accelerator. Not Coniam; not Ordway.

Both kept the hammer down, and Coniam flew onto the backstretch with the lead, Ordway right on his tail.

They had a great race but, in the end, Timmy Jedrzejek of Independence, Ohio, was the winner, with Mike Lichty of Cambridge second and Johnny Benson Jr. (yes, that’s NASCAR’s Johnny Benson Jr.) of Cornelius, N.C., third. Coniam was fourth; Ordway, 18^th.

– On the way home from Oswego Sunday night, I listened to the NASCAR race on Sirius satellite radio and the announcing team did a great job. I didn’t feel as if I’d missed a thing by not seeing it on television. For the record, report and results here

The last race of the regular season will take place at Richmond next Saturday night. Only the top ten drivers in the standings, plus two "wild card" drivers, will make the playoffs, a.k.a. the Chase for the Championship.

Now, I know NASCAR tries to have a points system that makes sense. But I do not understand how a guy like Martin Truex Jr. can hold down fifth place in the standings and have no wins, six top-five finishes and 14 top-tens when the guy behind him in sixth place has three wins, 10 top-fives and the same number of top tens, 14.

That makes no sense to me.

In fact, it makes no sense to me how a guy who has won three races can be behind a guy who has no wins.

And to carry this to its extreme, I don’t understand how two guys – Truex and Kevin Harvick – who have no wins can make the playoffs and four guys who have actually won races – Jeff Gordon, Marcos Ambrose, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman – likely won’t.

If you win, you’re in – or you should be.

I know NASCAR changed the scoring system a few years ago to put a greater emphasis on winning but they’ll have to take another run at it. Even the drivers will tell you that nobody remembers who finished second, so how come those losers – and all the other losers from third on back – are awarded so many points?

– Christophe Bouchut and Scott Tucker, driving an LMP2 car, won the American le Mans Series race at Baltimore on Saturday. Another LMP2 car, with Luis Diaz and Ricardo Gonzalez aboard, finished second. The first LMP1 car was third, driven by Ryan Dalziel and Alex Papow

– The Canadian Touring Car Series championships were decided at the weekend. Following two races at Calabogie Motorsports Park, Sasha Anis (Hyundai Genesis Coupe) wrapped up the Super Touring class championship, with Benjamin Distaulo (Honda Civic Si) second and Johathan Rashleigh (Hyundai) third.

In Touring Class, Damon Sharpe (Honda Civic Si) is the champion, with Michel Sallenbach (MINI Cooper S JCW) second and Paul Gravel (MINI) third.

In B-Spec, Nick Wittmer (Honda Fit) is the champion, with Simon Dion-Viens (Honda) second and Karl Wittmer (Mazda2) third.

- Finally, big news. Jacques Villeneuve will return to sports car racing in the inaugural City Challenge race through the streets of Baku, Azerbaijan. Somebody tell all the other drivers that they'd better keep their heads up.

Danica Patrick has to start fighting back

If Danica Patrick wants to survive in NASCAR, she’s going to have to start fighting back.

She’s been wrecked, or nearly wrecked, in every Sprint Cup race she’s started this year.

Saturday night, it was obvious she was just getting too uppity – it was late in the race and she was on the lead lap and closing in on a strong top 20 finish (in the two Cup races she’d actually finished earlier this year, she was no threat to anybody) – so Regan Smith just went up the track and ran into her for no particular reason other than she was there and he felt like taking her out.

Now, NASCAR’s veterans think it’s hilarious to initiate rookies, particularly drivers who aren’t regulars.  But it’s time for her to show them that enough is enough.

My advice to her today is simple: the next Sprint Cup start she gets, dump somebody. Pick a target and put him into the wall. Just do it. Send a warning to every driver out there: mess with me and I’m coming right back at ya.

Her boss, Tony Stewart, would approve, I’m sure. He let Matt Kenseth know how he felt on Saturday night. Yes, it was a little over the top when he threw his helmet at Kenseth after the two of them got together and crashed, but you can bet that Kenseth will have second thoughts about getting too close to Tony Stewart again this season.

And yes, I know Matt Kenseth is a tough guy in his own right and Tony Stewart didn’t exactly throw the fear of God into him with his little hissy fit. However, don’t ever kid yourself that Matt Kenseth won’t be thinking from now on about the possibility of getting wrecked every time Stewart goes to pass him or he goes to pass Stewart. Intimidation is the name of the game in big-league stock car racing and everybody has to learn how to play and that includes Danica Patrick.

Of course, if she starts fighting back on the track, that could open up another can of worms in the pits.

NASCAR drivers have been known to get physical. Not often, but it happens. Would anybody be foolish enough to take a swing at Patrick? Would she be foolish enough to take a swing at another driver? It’s not likely to happen – but it could.

And here’s another thing that some of those drivers would be wise to internalize: do any of them really want to be the driver whose deliberate actions result in her suffering a serious injury? Or worse?

The only time NASCAR will ever be on the front page of the New York Times is if Danica Patrick wins a race or, God forbid, what happened to Dan Wheldon happens to her.

I guarantee you that would be a disaster for NASCAR.

It is 2012 and sponsors might want to be associated with car racing on one hand but, on the other, they sure don’t want to be associated with a sport in which people are killed. Ten years ago, or 20, it was okay. Not any more.

IZOD has disappeared completely from the IndyCar series and that came about precisely because of what happened to Wheldon. The only reason IZOD’s name is still associated with that series is because of the contract.

And the same thing could happen to NASCAR if anything happened to Patrick.

Racing is racing and she’s out there taking her chances with everybody else. And when you have cars travelling in a pack at 150 or 200 miles an hour, negative things can and do happen.

But the next time somebody like Regan Smith sees Patrick and figures she’s an easy target, she might be – but to then take advantage of the situation might wind up doing far more harm to the sport than anybody realizes.

Patrick can help herself, and the sport, by letting everybody know now that it's time to lay off.

Oh, yeah: Denny Hamlin survived Bristol to win the Cup race. Jimmie Johnson was second and Jeff Gordon was third. Click here for story and results. There are two races left until the Chase field is set. Time for some people to get serious.

Friday night, Joey Logano won the Nationwide Series race – his sixth in that series this season. Click here for story and results.

Next weekend’s TV schedule illustrates perfectly why Randy Bernard is so keen to get IZOD IndyCar Series races off of TSN and onto one of Rogers Sportsnet ‘s national channels next year.

The Baltimore Grand Prix goes to the post next Sunday at 2:30 p.m. TSN has CFL football on the main channel that afternoon and U.S. Open tennis on TSN2. So they’re full up, it appears.

Rogers has a national channel plus four regional channels and their purchase of The Score this weekend will soon give them a second national channel.

So I will be surprised if all of the Indy car races in 2013 aren’t available live and in colour on one of Sportsnet’s national channels and I trust Bernard won’t sign a contract until he has that guarantee.

Meantime, I will likely listen to the Baltimore race in my car on my XM Satellite radio. Mike King and Davey Hamilton do a good job announcing. I discovered this when I was driving home from the drag races at Toronto Motorsport Park on a Saturday night in June and tuned into the Indy car race from Iowa Speedway.

It was kinda nice that night, bombing along Highway 6 South with the cruise control and the radio both on. The drag races had been terrific, the moon was bright and although I’d hoped to be home in time to watch the race on TV, the King-Hamilton broadcast on XM meant I didn’t miss a thing.

Now, I don’t want to be too critical of TSN. They reacted really well last year when I complained that they had filler stuff on TSN2 the second day of Indianapolis 500 time trials. Low and behold, somebody was paying attention and they threw out all the recorded stuff and put the time trials on live.

And next Sunday, they are televising the F1 race from Belgium in the morning and the very important NASCAR race from Atlanta on Sunday night. So thank you for that.

But do we really need 11 hours of U.S. Open tennis? Starting at 11 a.m. and continuing to 11 p.m. except for an hour of SportsCentre at 6? And this isn’t even the finals. We’re talking the third round here.

Is there no way to sneak in two hours of car racing at 2:30 in the afternoon (we can skip all the pre-race stuff)? Except for the people watching the race, I betcha hardly anyone will notice. . .

Meantime, the race from Sonoma yesterday – which was shown live at 4 p.m. on TSN2 (hooraaayyy!!!) – featured some great driving (winner Ryan Briscoe was perfect from start to finish and his pit crew was even better, essentially winning him the race at the last pit stop), some really sloppy driving (Helio Castroneves clipping Scott Dixon, Alex Tagliani knocking Ryan Hunter-Reay out of contention) and one of the scariest crashes seen in recent years.

Will Power finished second and, with two races remaining in the 2011 season, seems to be heading toward his first national IndyCar championship. He currently holds a 36-point lead over second-place Hunter-Reay with Castroneves five points further back. Dario Franchitti was third and F1 refugee Rubens Barrichello recorded a career-high IndyCar race finish of fourth.

The crash featured veteran Sebastien Bourdais and rookie Josef Newgarden. Bourdais lost his steering and, unable to control his car, essentially pushed Newgarden off the track and into a retaining wall that was protected by several rows of tires.

As ex-racer, team owner and colour commentator Robbie Buhl noted, the combination of the tires and the HANS device likely saved Newgarden from serious harm.

He did suffer an injury to one of his fingers because he held onto the steering wheel instead of letting it go. Remember the ribbing Danica took when she crashed for the first time in NASCAR and an in-car camera showed her letting go? Now they all do, because there’s a reason for it and Josef Newgarden’s broken finger illustrates exactly why.

James Hinchcliffe of Oakville had a rotten weekend and dropped out with mechanical problems. He was credited with 26^th place in the 27-car race.

One last thing about the Indy car race. Hunter-Reay was the victim when Tagliani went up the inside during a late-race restart and couldn’t stop, hitting RHR, spinning him around and really hurting his chances for the championship. But moments later, RHR ran into E.J. Viso and spun him around.

After the race, Hunter-Reay went to see Tagliani to "discuss" the incident between them. I was kinda hoping Viso would show up to give hell to Hunter-Reay for running into him – but no such luck.

Oh, Chevrolet clinched the engine manufacturer's championship when Briscoe crossed the finish line and Simon Pagenaud won rookie of the year. However, Pagenaud is a former Champ Car World Series driver and a veteran of the American Le Mans Series so, in my books, he ain’t no rookie.

Click here for full story and results.

Other weekend racing:

– Uxbridge native Alex Welsh captured his first career Canadian Pro Superbike victory Sunday at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. It was one of the most exciting Superbike finishes in series history.

Jordan Szoke of Brantford, who won his record eighth national title on Saturday, finished second and Kevin Lacombe of St-Cesaire, Que., finished third.

The three riders went back-and-forth for all 20 laps before Welsh went low on the last turn to squeeze past and take the checkered flag.

Lacombe was later disqualified for a technical violation. Bodhi Edie of Warman, Sask., was elevated to a podium finish.

In Moto GP action at the circuit in Brno, Czech Republic, Dani Pedrosa beat Jorge Lorenzo to the line in another thriller.

By the way, the photo at the top of this report was taken by John Walker and shows Alex Welsh leading Jordan Szoke and the rest of the Canadian Pro Superbike field.

– Canada’s Robert Wickens played bumper cars on the first lap of the German Touring Car Series (DTM) race at Zandvoort, Holland, on Sunday and a 12^th-place qualifying effort for Mercedes went for naught.

As Autosport.com reported, Wickens and Miguel Molina collided twice on the run to the first corner; the Spaniard ending up beached in the gravel at the Tarzan turn, while the Canadian was spun by Christian Vietoris two turns later and collected within seconds by Rahel Frey. All three retired.

The race was won by Edoardo Mortara in an Audi. Canadian Bruno Spengler finished sixth for BMW to keep his championship hopes alive.

– Audi won the manufacturers championship in the first year of the new FIA World Endurance Championship when Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler drove their Audi e-tron quattro the 2012 Six Hours of Silverstone on Sunday.

– It’s hardly worth mentioning . . . but Sebastien Loeb won his seventh World Rally Championship event of the season, and his fifth straight, when he won the German Rally for the ninth time at the weekend. When I say it’s hardly worth mentioning, what I mean is: who else?

Racing roundup: On Danica, Jimmie Johnson and others

Musings, ramblings and confessions after a weekend of auto racing:

– You have to laugh about everything that’s happened to poor Danica Patrick this year, her first full-time season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. She’s done just fine qualifying and the speed is there but Murphy’s Law has never been more clearly defined than when applied to her when she's road-course racing.

Earlier this year, at Road America, she was less than a half-lap from a top five finish when Jacques Villeneuve forgot to brake and knocked her off the track.

Last week at Watkins Glen, she was on the inside going into Turn One when a car that went flying past her on the grass re-entered the track right in front of her and stopped. She had nowhere to go and hit it dead-on, knocking her out of the race.

Saturday at le Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, she qualified fourth and was leading the race - leading - when somebody threw a shoe on the track and she hit it. I mean, really. She had other mechanical problems but when she hit that shoe her race went south, so the timing couldn’t have been worse.

One of these days, she will win and that will get the monkey off her back. There’s no doubt the talent’s there; she’s just got to get it all together – speed, strategy, race craft and, most important for her, luck.

Justin Allgaier won his first road-course race at Montreal and the third of his Nationwide career, with Sam Hornish Jr. second and Jacques Villeneuve third. Details here

Now, it has been suggested by some that NASCAR kept throwing yellows so that a "regular" could win the race instead of a ringer, particularly if said ringer happened to be the son of the guy the Montreal circuit’s named after.

If not for the phantom yellows that left him low on fuel, or so go the the theories, Jacques Villeneuve would have won the race.

Now, JV denied that he was running out of gas on the final lap (although he did run out on the cooldown lap) and lost the race because Allgaier ran into him. Maybe. But there’s no doubt he was worred he was going to stall out because he was running noticeably slower on the last lap than the eventual winner.

Having said that, Allgaier didn’t have any fuel problems, so if NASCAR was playing fast and loose with the yellows, it didn’t appear to hurt him.

And nobody was shedding any tears for Villeneuve anyway. The Danica punt in Wisconsin was still fresh in everybody’s mind and he turned Alex Tagliani around late in the Montreal race. The fact that he was angry after being hit by Allgaier was really very amusing. Did somebody say it was like the pot calling the kettle black?

Two other quick notes: For the last fillup, Allgaier pitted later than the others, which explains why he had more fuel when the race got down to the short strokes. And why did he do that? Because at Road America in 2011, he ran out of fuel on the last lap. He obviously learned a lesson.

Oh, and Ron Fellows, Mississauga’s most famous athlete, finished fifth a week ago at Watkins Glen and was fifth at Montreal on Saturday. He is an absolutely incredible race driver.

– NASCAR hasn’t got a clue about yellows on road courses, period, as we saw at Montreal, and they sometimes over-react on ovals, too. David Gilliland lost control early in the Michigan Sprint Cup race Sunday afternoon and went flying through the infield grass but then got straightened out and went back on the track, albeit half a lap behind.

But he didn’t hit the wall and there was no damage or debris anywhere. But as soon as he started sliding, the yellow was on and there was really no need for it.

It’s a good excuse to close up the pack, though. Isn’t it . . . ?

– In the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at Montreal, J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge won, with Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., second and Robin Buck of Campbellville third. Scott Steckly of Milverton was fourth, he’s the defending national champion, and the leader of this year’s championship chase, D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas, finished fifth. Next race is at Barrie Speedway Sept. 8.

- As NASCAR doesn’t have a clue about yellow flags on road courses, neither does it have a clue so far as passes for the lead on road courses are concerned. Their rule is that in the case of a yellow, the order of finish from the last completed lap will be the order for the restart. Fine on ovals, stinks on road courses.

Ranger had passed Fitzpatrick fair and square and was clear and away in front of him when somebody spun at the back of the pack and since they all hadn’t completed the lap, the order had to revert to the previous . . . yada, yada, yada – you know what I’m saying, eh? – and when they restarted the race J.R. was back in first and Ranger was second and that is not fair, not fair, not fair. (I sound like Jack Lemon as Prof. Fate in The Great Race. . .)

– Okay, moving right along, I apologize for making the same mistake over and over. Every time I write anything about Lewis Hamilton, I say he’s won two world championships. Of course, he’s only won one but that hasn’t seemed to penetrate my thick skull. The latest example was in a story I wrote on the weekend that appeared on wheels.ca and in Toronto Star Wheels. I could change it online but not in the paper. Sorry.

It’s like every time I go to write 1996. It always comes out 1969. Why?

– They say auto racing has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We saw both in the Sprint Cup race at Michigan Sunday.

With nine laps to go, Jimmie Johnson took the lead in the race and the TV cameras showed his crew chief, Chad Knaus, fist-pumping with delight. Three laps later, his engine let go and Greg Biffle went blowing by him.

Biffle went on to win the race and Johnson drove straight to the garage area. He passed a dejected Knaus, who was walking in the same direction. Details here

Remember that Grand Prix of Monaco a half-dozen years ago, in 2006, when Kimi Raikkonen dropped out while in second place and he got out of his car and was so angry that he kept his helmet on while he walked around the course to his yacht in the harbour, where he disappeared below decks?

Well, Johnson got out of his car yesterday and didn’t take off his helmet. He walked from his car, between several transport trucks and through the hospitality area on the way to his motorhome.

He was obviously so upset that one of his PR aides, a woman, started to follow him and then thought better of it, staying behind in the garage area.

It's not often that you see Jimmie Johnson so browned off.

– By the way, while the Nationwide stock cars were at Montreal, the Camping World Truck Series was the support race for the Sprint Cup cars in Michigan and that race Saturday was won by Nelson Piquet Jr.

Piquet, who was forced to leave Formula One after admitting to participation in the conspiracy to fix the Singapore GP in 2008, would appear to have completed his rehabilitation. Look for him to move up to Sprint Cup before long.

– Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas won the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Montreal on Saturday. Paul Tracy was third (with others). Alex Tagliani finished seventh. John Edwards and Robin Liddell won in GT. Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato driving the AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Ferrari were second in GT. Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto, who was featured in Wheels last weekend and who won the GT class at Watkins Glen a week ago, had a miserable race in Montreal and didn’t finish. There were only 21 cars in the Montreal race – and people can make as many excuses as they want but it’s the border. Americans competing in semi-professionals series like the Grand Am Rolex and the American Le Mans Series and who are field-fillers will run all the races in the U.S. and skip the ones up here. It’s a shame.

– At Road America, where 35 cars showed up for the American le Mans Series race (as compared to 26 that started the ALMS race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport in July, see?), the closest finish in the history of the series took place with the P1 Lola-Mazda entry of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith defeating Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr in their Muscle Milk HPD ARX-Honda by 0.083 seconds.

Tony Burgess of Toronto (and others) was third overall. Martin Plowman and David Heinemeier were first in P2, Tom Kimber-Smith, Jon Bennett and Alex Powpow were first in Prototype Challenge (Kyle Marcelli of Barrie, and others, who was on pole in PC, finished third in class and seventh overall), Bill Auberlen and Jorg Muller were winners in the GT class and Cooper MacNeil and Jeroen Bleekemolen were first in GT Challenge.

By the way, P2 driver Scott Tucker finished 11^th and 12^th overall in the race and third and fourth in the Prototype 2 class. How?

He teamed with Christophe Bouchut in one car – he did the first stint of driving – and with Luis Diaz in the second – he drove the final stint in the second car.

– In Canadian Touring Car Championship action at Montreal, Sasha Annis won the first race in Super Touring, with Jocelyn Hebert tops in Touring Class and Karl Wittmer in B-Spec. In the second race, Marc-Antoine Camirand was the winner in Super Touring, Damon Sharpe won Touring Class and Wittmer repeated in B-Spec.

The Touring Car championship will wrap its season over Labour Day weekend at Calabogie Motorports Park.

– Robbie Wickens of Guelph and Toronto had his best weekend in the German Touring Car Championship since he started his rookie season in the spring. He qualified ninth and finished seventh at the Nurburgring driving for Mercedes. Canadian driver Bruno Spengler won the race in a BMW.

– In World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series action, Sammy Swindell got over his disappointment at missing out on starting the Knoxville Nationals by winning the feature at Grand Forks, N.D., at the weekend.

In other sprint car news, Dustin Daggett of Grand Ledge, Mich., won the Northern Summer Nationals Championship by finishing first in the feature at Chatham-area South Buxton Speedway Saturday night.

- And two weeks out from the Budweiser Oswego Classic 200 for supermodifieds, Joe Gosek won his 42nd feature at the famous northern New York Oswego Speedway, which puts him fourth on the all-time win list behind Eddie Bellinger Jr., Bentley Warren and Jim Shampine.

And by finishing fifth in the super feature, Otto Sitterly of Canajoharie, N.Y., won his fifth Oswego Speedway track championship. I think Sitterly has one of the neatest names in all of auto racing, right up there with Parnelli Jones. I also think Otto has the talent to go to Indy. His sometimes-supermodified teammate, Davey Hamilton, could help pave the way.