Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

No more team orders at Red Bull? Really?

Helmut Marko is making headlines for himself again, this time telling everybody who will listen that, a) there will be no more team orders at Red Bull-Renault Racing after the “misunderstanding” at Malaysia and, b) he really didn’t mean what he said in Red Bull’s own publication about Mark Webber.

Marko does an awful lot of talking for somebody who doesn’t have all that much power at Red Bull. Yes, he is the director of driver development (his official title is motorsport director), but - translated - that means he’s in charge of the minor leagues.

It's true that he can make or break the career of a young driver – as was the case with Canadian Robert Wickens, who got on well with Marko but was fired after his season in Formula 2 when he didn’t win the championship. (Jean-Eric Vergne, on the other hand, lost to Wickens in the Formula 3.5 championship but got to keep his Red Bull sponsorship and is now in F1 with Scuderia Toro Rosso, apprenticing for a chance to drive for the big team and how did that happen?)

But it's also true that Marko is not in charge of the Red Bull Formula One drivers. That is part of the job description of the team principal, Christian Horner, who decides who will drive for the team in consultation with the owner, energy drinks multimillionaire Dietrich Mateschitz.

When it comes to the team's drivers, Horner, for the most part, keeps his own counsel, as does Mateschitz. Which leaves Marko to pick up the phone and talk to the media about no more team orders and who may or may not drive for the team (Kimi Raikkonen’s name keeps popping up) and that gives everybody the impression he's an influential somebody at Red Bull when, in fact, he's not.

If Marko had the power he pretends to have, Webber would have been gone at least a year ago. But Mateschitz likes the Australian star, as does Horner, so he’s in the team and Marko’s favourites are not and that should tell everybody something.

How do I know this? I have friends in Formula One and I talk to them, or email, frequently.

And no more team orders? There will be team orders if the need arises. Trust me. Regardless of what Marko says.

Whether Vettel will obey them or not was answered Thursday in China when the three-time world champion said, in so many ways: in your dreams.

I won't repeat what he said (here's a link to the autosport.com account of the media conference) but Vettel said he'd do what he did in Malaysia again.

And to suggestions that he should have been disciplined for disobeying the order to hold station, the young German said this to the reporters:

"Maybe it is a little bit of a dreamland that you all live in, but what do you expect to happen? Make a suggestion!"

Meantime, Marko told the Red Bull corporate publication called (natch) Red Bull Magazine, that Webber couldn’t handle the pressure of a full F1 season and that’s why he’s never won the world championship. Asked about this in recent days, he told a Spanish newspaper that it was all exaggerated.

No it isn’t. I have the magazine. He said what he said.

So why’s he backtracking? Maybe somebody is mad at him.

Like the boss, Mateschitz, perhaps?

Meantime, Jean Todt says there’s too many pay drivers in F1.

No kidding.

It's amazing how so many people can go through life, allegedly paying attention, and then one day they open their eyes and say: Holy cow! How'd this happen?

Welcome to the real world, Jean.

The Chinese GP will be on in the middle of the night this weekend (check George’s TV Listings for Race Fans for times) but there are plenty of encore presentations  of practice, qualifying and the race itself on TSN and TSN2 that should deter your need to set your recorder.

Related articles

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Shanghai Surprise: What will we see from the 'Battling Bulls'?

Vettel and Webber wounds have never healed

Red Bull rift intensifies ahead of Chinese GP

Webber says his Red Bull future uncertain

Webber says his Red Bull future uncertain

Here's a sneak preview of racing movie Rush

Trailers for the auto racing movie Rush, about the 1976 battle for the world driving championship between James Hunt (left) and Niki Lauda (far left), are starting to pop up in theatres and online and you see them and you hope, really hope, that the film does proper justice to the sport we all adore.

(When I say we "all" adore, I mean that in the context of, if you’re reading this column, you presumably have an interest in, or a soft spot in your heart for, auto racing primarily, and motorsport in general. Otherwise, welcome – and I hope you stick around.)

Rush is produced and directed by Ron Howard and he has a great track record of being associated with quality motion pictures - A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, Apollo 13 and The Paper, among them. So fingers are crossed that Rush is a winner.

I mean, ever since Grand Prix and Winning in the 1960s, we have been stuck with nothing but turkeys when it comes to auto racing movies. Many people point to Days of Thunder as being cinematic art when, in fact, it stunk. Any time the producers feel the need to speed up what is already a high speed sport, you know they’re trying too hard for a reason.

Stroker Ace (a wonderful, wonderful book that was ruined by Burt Reynolds and Jim Nabors), Bobby Deerfield (I mean, really) and the corker of them all, Driven, starring Sylvester Stallone, are some of the stiffs we've had to endure. It was bad enough when, in one scene in Driven, they needed a starter to get an Indy car going (which, in fact, is correct) and then in another scene two guys just jumped into two of them and went roaring off through the streets of Chicago. (Huh?) But when a car turned around and drove backwards on the circuit during a race, I felt like crawling under my seat I was so mortified.

The story of Lauda’s remarkable comeback from that horrible, fiery crash at the Nurburgring in mid-season '76 is inspiring and you hope Howard has been able to tell it properly. And Hunt was the classic F1 driver, a guy who lived fast, loved hard (and very, very often) and died kinda young. Yeah, and he did leave a beautiful memory, too, didn't he.

Here are two video links, thanks to my friend John. One is a theatre preview and the other is a partial interview with Howard. I present them here to whet your appetite because Rush won’t be in theatres until September.

Click here for the preview

Click here for the interview

Okay, moving right along:

- David Deacon has been named Grand Marshal of the 2013 Canadian Historic Grand Prix, which will be held on Father’s Day weekend in June at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Deacon, of course, was the creator of the wonderful Rothman’s Porsche Challenge and Turbo Cup Series and the VARAC-organized weekend (that stands for Vintage Automobile Racing Association of Canada, by the way) will pay tribute to the Porsche 944 and the series that featured so many great Canadian drivers including co-Grand Marshall Ludwig Heimrath.

In a release, Deacon said: "You could say, with me at six-foot-six and Ludwig at whatever he is on his tip toes, as co-grand marshals, you have the long and the short of it for a lot of Canadian Porsche racing in the Seventies and Eighties. I used to joke that in my height category, I was the fastest in the world for about a decade. Unfortunately, they didn’t have height categories and I had to race against little guys like Ludwig. Can’t wait for him to read this . . . the guy rises to all bait! That’s what made him such a competitive driver."

Hmm, I guess we'll see whether Ludwig has, in fact, mellowed in his older age, won't we?

– I didn’t get everything that I wanted into my Monday Morning Racing Roundup yesterday. Left out was the fine result recorded by AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Ferrari drivers Max Papis and Jeff Segal at Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama on Saturday. Papis and Segal were fourth in the GT Class of the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series event, with the second AIM car raced by Emil Assentato and Anthony Lazzaro finishing ninth in class.

– I love dropping into Peterborough Speedway in the summertime for some great Saturday night racing. I usually catch a Can-Am Midget event and I can tell you that the regular late-model racers usually on the same program put on an excellent show. The Speedway announced in recent days that Attersley Tire of Peterborough had signed on to sponsor the Sat., Aug. 10, meet for the Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup. It’s great to see local businesses support area speedways.

– Meantime, the Ontario-based National Drag Racing Association, which features Alcohol Funny Cars and Pro Doorslammer racing, has announced that Xylotek Solutions Inc. of Cambridge have signed on as a corporate sponsor. Xylotek is a full-service IT consulting firm and is one of Canada’s fastest growing companies with revenues of more than $5 million.

– And NASCAR Canadian Tire Series racer David Thorndyke has announced that LubeSource, which distributes Shell lubricants in Ontario, will be his primary sponsor for the 2013 racing season. Thorndyke, who plans to run a limited schedule this year, will race in the season-opener at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on Victoria Day weekend, May 19^th.

- NORRIS McDONALD

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Racing rdp: More on Esaw, Johnson and RHR win

Weekend Motorsports Roundup: April 6-7, 2013

Racing rdp: More on Esaw, Johnson and RHR win

This entry might not be as comprehensive as usual for a Monday Morning Racing Roundup but I spent much of Sunday researching and writing the entry directly below, which is about the death at 87 of Canadian broadcasting pioneer Johnny Esaw, and so I didn’t get to watch a lot of racing.

However, I’m not sure I missed all that much. The NASCAR and IndyCar Series races were both won from the pole – Jimmy Johnson in Sprint Cup and Ryan Hunter-Reay in open wheel. Yes, I’m sure there was a lot of action between the start and the finish of both those races but the fact that the two guys in front at the beginning were still there at the end indicates, to me, anyway, that there was really never any doubt about who was going to win.

And the fact that Canada’s great new hope in IndyCar, James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, spent the entire race strapped in his car while marooned on the far side of the Barber Motorsports Park circuit also meant I wasn’t all that disappointed to have to miss most of the race.

I’ll return to the racing in a moment. First, though, I have to say some more about Esaw.

Although he was primarily involved, and interested, in the traditional stick and ball sports, Esaw was a great friend of racing generally, and Canadian racing in particular.

What’s intriguing is that he wasn’t all that interested in the sport. But, as he told me when I interviewed him at length just about a year ago now for a feature in Toronto Star Wheels, he recognized that there was an audience for motor racing and that he and his station and network would benefit if he treated it with the respect it deserved.

It’s a pity that more of Canada’s broadcasters and newspaper editors haven’t felt the same way.

As I reported in the story below, Esaw and CFTO/CTV produced the first racing broadcast from what was Mosport International Raceway (or Mosport Park, if you want) in the early 1960s, shortly after the station and network went on the air.

For years, Esaw made the Canadian Formula Atlantic championship a part of CTV’s Wide World of Sports program on Saturdays. Much of the program came from ABC’s Wide World of Sports but Esaw had the races inserted into the lineup, with the late Craig Hill as host and analyst.

And, of course, as is also detailed below, starting in 1977 he had the Indianapolis 500 live on CTV for nine years before the ABC coverage went live in the United States. It was a broadcasting coupe.

Esaw told me he didn’t know much about racing but that he had to bone up in a hurry in order to negotiate deals for races. He said Tony Hulman, the late owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was one of the nicest people he’d ever met and that Bernie Ecclestone was the toughest negotiator he’d encountered in any sport. He also said Stirling Moss was absolutely fascinating.

With his passing, another of the giants is gone. There really aren’t many, if any, left.

NASCAR

The highlight of the weekend, for me and my wife, was Megan McCormick’s song about Joey Logano that she performed with Kyle Petty on NASCAR Raceday Sunday morning on the Speed Channel (click here).

By the end, we were singing along:

Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey

I love you . . .

And our favourite line was:

Joey, pick me up

In your dad’s big truck. . .

The song was part of the all-week, never-ending, WWE-type buildup to Sunday’s race in Martsinville in which the villainous Joey Logano was, apparently, going to "get his" for deliberately wrecking, and hurting, Denny Hamlin in the race two weeks ago in California.

All we heard for most of the two weeks in between races was how there would be "payback."

Well, Logano was involved in a wreck at Martinsville, but so were a whole bunch of other drivers, which is what NASCAR is pretty much all about these days, but it wasn’t deliberate and so I guess we’ll have to wait another day for "payback" to happen, if it ever does.

Hamlin, of course, wasn’t racing Sunday – he’s too badly hurt to get into a car, although he was at the speedway Sunday – so any "payback" by him will have to wait but the word was out that one of his allies, or Tony Stewart, would do the deed and so that’s what all the pre-race excitement was about.

Mark Martin did a great job filling in for Hamlin and drove the FedEx No. 11 to a tenth place finish. (Click here for race report and full results.)

Johnson dominated, of course. He led most of the race and was never lower than fourth. Clint Bowyer finished second and Jeff Gordon was third (the last big "payback" story involved those two – remember the brawl after the race in Phoenix last fall? – but they were both on their best behaviour Sunday). Kasey Kahne was fourth, with Kyle Busch fifth – a heartbeat ahead of Brad Keselowski. Jamie McMurray was seventh, Marcos Ambrose was eighth and Greg Biffle ninth.

Driver of the race was Danica Patrick, who qualified 32^nd but lost an engine and had to start 43^rd. She was 11^th until the final corner when she was bunted aside by Brian Vickers, who also moved Kevin Harvick out of the way.

She wound up 12^th but that was a huge achievement, considering she has been struggling since her pole and eighth-place finish at Daytona and because Martinsville is not a place for the faint at heart. It is a physical wringing-out to go 500 laps on the half-mile short track and it’s a tradin’ paint place to boot. She more than held her own and even passed her boss, Tony Stewart, en route to the checkers.

Cool move of the race came when Kurt Busch crashed in Corner One and every liquid under the hood caught fire. Busch had the presence of mind to pull the on-board fire extinguisher to put out the flames before bailing out.

See AP Photo Gallery from Martinsville by clicking here.

INDYCAR

No songs to quote from to start this report but I’m sure James Hinchcliffe, with all his talent and imagination, could write one.

The winner of the first race of the season at St. Petersburg two weeks ago was hit from behind on the opening lap of the race by Oriol Servia, who – in turn – had been hit by Graham Rahal and required a tow back to the pits.

But a wheel came off his car and the IndyCar safety team had to park him in an access road, where he sat for all but the last 18 laps of the 90-lap event.

The team had told him to wait for a yellow and they would get him back to the pits – but there were no further yellows. So "the Mayor (of Hinchtown)" sat there in his car and did what all of us in our living rooms did: watch the race.

Hunter-Reay went pole to checkers. He was chased for the last 20 laps by Scott Dixon, who finished second at Barber for the fourth consecutive year. Helio Castroneves was third with Charlie Kimball fourth and Will Power fifth. Click here for full story and results.

Andretti Autosport, Hinchcliffe’s employer, told him to stay belted in his car for two reasons. First, points are awarded for every position from first to 26^th (and last), so even if he was laps down before they could get him back in the race, he could benefit from points earned. Second, with no testing allowed, the team could benefit from having the car run laps in competition in anticipation of the next race, at Long Beach, in two weeks.

Said Hinchcliffe later: "From what I have been told, we all piled into Turn 8; I was behind Tony [Kanaan], [Graham] Rahal hit [Oriol] Servia who got in the back of me. I got in the back of Tony a little bit, but it was pretty square, and it didn’t do any damage to the front. I knew I had gotten hit, but everything was fine at first, but I guess, under caution, things started to work itself loose. As I started to warm the tires up, the wheel actually broke, that was what it was."

A.J. Allmendinger was doing really well in his return to open wheel racing but he stalled during a pit stop and eventually wound up 19^th. Penske Racing will still run him at Long Beach in order to give him more seat time before Indianapolis.

Dario Franchitti’s miserable season continued. A broken header led to more serious problems and the four-time champion wound up 25^th, one place ahead of Hinchcliffe.

Alex Tagliani of Montreal started 15th and finished 11th. He also was hit from behind and suffered structural damage but soldiered on for a good finish.

Three more things before I take my leave.

1. The last time an Indy car driver won a race and finished last in the next was in 1956 and the unlucky guy was hard-luck racer Lloyd Ruby. Hinch is in good company as Ruby was a helluva shoe.

2. Ryan Briscoe, dropped by Team Penske this year in as strange a move as its embracing of Allmendinger is, will race for Target Chip Ganassi Racing in the Indianapolis 500.

3. I just about fell off my chair when I heard one of the announcers say that a driver – I think it was Justin Wilson – had been seen before the race giving instructions to a volunteer pit-crew member on how to change a tire.

Yes, I really heard that.

- NORRIS MCDONALD

nmcdonald@thestar.ca

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Johnny Esaw, 87: Canadian broadcasting legend

By NORRIS McDONALD/Wheels Editor

Canadian broadcasting legend Johnny Esaw has died. He was 87.

Other than CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, Esaw pioneered live sports broadcasting in Canada, concentrating on CFL football, figure skating, golf, tennis, horse show-jumping, auto racing and international hockey on the CTV network.

It was Esaw who conducted the famous interview with Team Canada captain Phil Esposito after the 1972 Summit Series loss to the Soviets in Vancouver that many believe united the country behind the team.

He was born in North Battleford, Sask., in 1925 and after trying to become a professional hockey player started a broadcasting career that took him to Winnipeg and then Toronto in 1960 where he was sports director of CFTO and launched sports broadcasting on the then-new CTV network.

Esaw was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2004. He is in Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame, the CAB Broadcast Hall of Fame, the Canadian Figure Skating Hall of Fame and the Canadian Football Reporters Hall of Fame.

He was known internationally as the TV executive who broadcast the Indianapolis 500 live in Canada before it happened in the United States. He also produced the first live auto race broadcast from Mosport International Raceway (now Canadian Tire Motorsport Park) in the 1960s.

He was best known, though, for being the voice of the CFL on CTV, and announcing Grey Cup Games. He announced from 1962 till 1973 and was host of CFL broadcasts from 1974 till 1986.

Much of his success resulted from a close friendship he had with the late ABC executive Roone Arledge, who was president of ABC News and Sports. In an interview I did with him last year, Esaw reminisced about those days.

“I’d been hired to be sports director of CFTO, which was just going on the air (in 1960),” said Esaw. 

“Roone was just starting his career at ABC. He wanted to televise the World Figure Skating Championships from Vancouver and wasn’t getting anywhere with the organizers. He asked if I’d help out.”

Esaw, who was well known in western Canada for being the “voice” of both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders and who’d been lead announcer on several Grey Cup broadcasts by that time, managed to buy the figure skating North American rights for CFTO and the ABC network.

“Roone was very appreciative,” said Esaw. “So appreciative, in fact, that we kept in close touch and when we launched the CTV network (in October, 1961) I was able to get Wide World of Sports weekly, three major golf tournaments a year, heavyweight championship fights and just about anything else I wanted from ABC and it didn’t cost CFTO or CTV anything.”

A coup at the time, Esaw convinced Arledge to let him broadcast the Indy 500 live for CTV for the first time in 1977, nearly 10 years before it went live in America.

While ABC host Jim McKay and colour commentator Jackie Stewart were taping the spectacle for broadcast in the United States that evening, Esaw and Fort Wayne, Ind., radio personality Hilliard Gates were in a booth right beside them, broadcasting the race as it happened across Canada and into northern U.S. cities where aerials could pick up the CTV signals.

Gates, who died in 1996, was the best-known sports announcer in Indiana, a man whose voice was so distinctive he appeared as the announcer in the 1986 high school basketball movie Hoosiers. He was a legend in his own time and when Esaw went looking for a sidekick to do colour on that first Indy 500 broadcast, the selection of Gates (left, with Esaw) was a no-brainer.

“I made the deal with ABC to go live with our coverage,” he told me in that interview. “I didn’t see any reason to hold back. ABC was taping it. They would show it that night at 8 o’clock. They agreed to let me do it live. It was on our border stations across Canada, so some Americans were actually seeing it — but the vast majority had to wait till later.

“The guy who owned the speedway was Tony Hulman, who was one of the nicest men I ever met in sport. He treated us so well that first year. It was a great experience; there was 400,000 people there. Jim Nabors was singing, I never realized how good a singer he was, the marching bands would come along, and the Purdue University girls in their gold outfits . . .

“They played the U.S. national anthem and the cars would start up. My heart is pumping! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! The balloons would go off into the sky and the race would start. All those things were foreign to me, but I got so pumped up. . .”

In addition to Gates, Esaw also got to work with the late Chris Economaki, the editor/publisher of the weekly National Speed Sport News newspaper, who Arledge hired to work on race broadcasts.

“He was the first colour commentator on ABC,” Esaw said, “and I knew him very well. He was a writer and then a commentator. Unlike a lot of today’s sports announcers and commentators, he knew how to ask questions. He and I were very alike in that way. Anybody who worked for me did it my way and my way was to ask pointed questions.”

Esaw, Gates and CTV did the Indy 500 live until 1986 when ABC decided to go live itself. It wasn’t part of any long-range plan, though. In fact, the network was forced into it when a sports break announcer in 1985 inadvertently announced the winner of the race in the middle of the tape-delay telecast and there was a national outrage.

“So when ABC decided to broadcast it live in the afternoon, there was no reason for me to continue doing it,” Esaw said. “I got the feed as part of the original Wide World of Sports deal, so I was happy.”

Johnny Esaw retired from broadcasting and other media duties in 1996, when he was 71. Since then, he has lived quietly with his wife in midtown Toronto, spending the winters in Florida.

Here is a link to my complete story of how Johnny Esaw came to televise the Indy 500 before it happened in America. Click here.

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Hinch 20th in IndyCar; Is Denny Hamlin for real?

UPDATED SATURDAY AFTERNOON:

Ryan Hunter-Reay won the pole Saturday for Sunday's Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama IndyCar series race with a blistering lap of 1 minute and 07:0871 seconds around the Barber Motorsports Park road course just outside Birmingham, Alabama.

Scott Dixon threw down the gauntler early in qualifying by smashing the track record by more than three seconds. But by the time the dust had settled, Dixon was fourth fastest behind RHR, Will Power and rookie Tristan Vautier.

It wasn't the best of days for the two Canadians racing in the series. Alex Tagliani of Montreal will go off 15th on Sunday afternoon and St. Petersburg race winner James Hinchcliffe of Oakville will start 20th.

Hinchcliffe was slowest of the four Andretti Autsport drivers, with Hunter-Reay on pole, Marco Andretti seventh and pay driver E.J. Viso 16th.

Said Hinchcliffe later: "We've been struggling a little bit this weekend compared to the test (before the season started when he set second fastest time). We didn't have the quickest car, but had enough for Q2 . . .  got held up by another car and ended up getting knocked out.

"It's frustrating, but we've got an extra set of reds (Firestone red alternate tires) than those guys now in the race and maybe degradation will come into it tomorrow. We'll keep fighting and hopefully get the Go Daddy car up in a good position by the end of the day."

The competition in the IndyCar series is ferocious this season. Defending champion Hunter Reay's 1:07:0871 (that's an average of 123:422 miles an hour, by the way) was only a smidgen of a second faster than the 26th - and last - qualifyer, Ed Carpenter, who went around in 1:08:6362.

Other notables: A.J. Allmendinger qualified 10th in his return to IndyCar. Translation: bloody good. Simona de Silvestro, who was fastest in the last practice session before qualifying - one commentator suggested everybody drop the "Swiss Miss" monicker and make it "Swiss Missile" - dropped to 14th when the chips were down. Dario Franchitti continued turning in a less-than-stellar performance this year by qualifying 17th.  And five-time Champ Car titleist Sebastien Bourdais will go off 23rd out of 26.

Finally, a bunch of people email me today to say they can't find where the race is on TV Sunday. Wheels has a service especially for folks like these and it's called Wheels Presents George's TV Listings for Race Fans and you can find it by clicking here.

Bookmark it, and you will never have to email me again.

Earlier,

I can’t figure out whether Denny Hamlin is still mad at Joey Logano or just mouthing off in hopes of stimulating interest in Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Martinsville, Va.

Or if he even listens to what’s coming out of his own mouth.

Speed Channel sent out the text of a question-and-answer session it conducted with Hamlin the other day and I read it and I ended up very confused.

For instance:

“I ultimately spun him out at Bristol. I did not intend to spin him out.  It was a mistake. I said it was mistake.  Said I was sorry on the radio when it happened.  That was in retaliation to being chopped off twice and it frustrated me and I intended on bumping him, and then I did and it spun him out.”

See what I mean? He says he didn’t intend to spin Logan out, that it was mistake, he said he was sorry. So far, so good. Then he said it was retaliation. Excuse me? It’s either on purpose or not on purpose and Denny just managed to put both into the same sentence.

I’m sorry Denny Hamilin got hurt when he and Logano collided at Auto Club Speedway in California two weeks ago and they both crashed.

But it wasn’t Logano’s fault that Hamlin was injured; it was the Auto Club Speedway’s fault for not having either a SAFER barrier or foam blocks in place at the spot where Hamlin ran square into a cement wall.

That crash was no different than crashes that happen all the time in NASCAR. If there’d been foam or a SAFER barrier where Hamlin hit, chances are he walks away.

By continuing to talk about it in a way that suggests none of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for Logano, Hamlin is setting up the young Penske driver for payback. More than one driver in the last week has talked about Martinsville as being a great place to “get back” at people because the track is small and the speeds aren’t that great.

Which says to me that these guys (and the one woman) have all been lulled into a false sense of security that is going to end in tears one of these days.

Small track, big track – it doesn’t matter. If you’re going more than 100 miles an hour, as they do at Martinsville, you can be killed in a crash. There could be an equipment failure, or the angle of the collision with the wall could be just so, or (as I saw happen once, back in the 1980s) a car going quickly could hammer a stationary car unexpectedly and kill the person in it.

Yes, NASCAR Sprint Cup cars are just like bumper cars, most of the time. That’s why the drivers feel safe in them and talk in a cavalier manner about payback.

Sooner or later, the odds are going to catch up and somebody who starts a race isn’t going to be alive when it ends.

It’s bad enough when it happens to somebody like Dan Wheldon, or Dale Earnhardt – when it’s just “one of them racin’ deals.”

But when people talk in a manner that could be interpreted, by some, as a threat, and there’s a fatality, does NASCAR want to even think about going there?

This is not the WWE, where everything is staged. This is real life and real racing and NASCAR would be wise to step in and shut all this down before things really get out of hand.

In qualifying at Martinsville, Jimmy Johnson will start on the pole for Sunday's race, turning a lap in 19.244 seconds for an average speed of 98.400 miles an hour. All of the 43 drivers who attempted to qualify (Joe Nemechek was last) were less than a second behind the pole sitter. Wow. Marcos Ambrose, Brian Vickers, Joe Logano and Kasy Kahne were the others in the top five. . .

At Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, Helio Castroneves was fastest in IndyCar practice for Sunday's race, with Canadian Alex Tagliani second and Tristan Vautier third. James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, who won the season opener in St. Petersburg, Fla., two weeks ago, was 15th fastest. A.J. Allmendinger, returning to the open cockpit wars after spending time in NASCAR - he's driving for Roger Penske this weekend - was eighth fastest. All 26 cars were within three seconds of each other. . . .

It's a Grand Am sports car weekend at Barber too. The two AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Ferrari entries will go off seventh and eighth in the GT class in the Saturday race. Jon Fogerty won the pole in a Daytona Prototype Corvette.

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On Conor Daly and USAC legend Jack Hewitt

Conor Daly, a young America hot shoe who had to come to Canada to find out how a racing car really works, has been signed by A.J. Foyt Racing to contest the Indianapolis 500 in May.

The son of ex-Indy car star and F1 racer Derek Daly will join Takuma Sato in the team.

As is the case with most successful racing drivers these days, Daly, of Noblesville, Ind., just outside Indianapolis, started out in karts as a child and progressed to driving in occasional formula-car races in 2007, the year he turned 16.

In 2008, his first full season of car racing, he drove in the Skip Barber National Championship Series as well as the Ontario Formula Ford Challenge series.

And why come to Canada to race? His father had a ready answer when I talked to him about it once at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. He credited the Ontario FF series for much of his son’s development as a racing driver.

"We made the decision to come to Canada to run with Brian Graham Racing so that Conor could better understand the engineering of a racing car, something he couldn’t get in the United States at that time.

"He was running the Skip Barber (national) Series in the U.S. at the same time (as his time in Ontario) but he wasn’t allowed to change the car (to suit his style). His season up here gave him a much better understanding of the way a racing car works and how to change or adjust it to his advantage and he won races and was successful."

He’s been pretty successful since, too. He won the Star Mazda Championship in 2010 and has won races since in Indy Lights and the European GP3 Series. He’s raced twice this season in GP2 and tested for Foyt at Sebring earlier this year.

Antoine L’Estage of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., the five-time North American Rally Champion and five-time Canadian Rally Champion with co-driver Nathalie Richard of Halifax, N.S., will be at the wheel of a World Rally Championship Mitsubishi Lancer for the remaining events of the Rally America series, starting the first weekend in May at the Oregon Trail Rally.

"This is big news!" L’Estage said in a release this week. "To take part in rallies at the wheel of a car that has been in the World Rally Championship is fantastic and I’m really looking forward to more great battles with (opponents) Ken Block and David Higgins," he said.

"Our hard work has come to fruition in the form of an agreement with MML Sports of the U.K., with whom we already tested the car last November in the Czech Republic. All of our sponsors play a big role in this as well and we are thrilled to have our partners on board."

L'Estage is unbeatable on this side of the Atlantic. Is the WRC team bringing that car over here to test the Canadian ace's ability for a possible ride in future? Stay tuned.

The U.S. Auto Club announced this week that eight "greats" would be inducted into the racing organization’s Hall of Fame: Earl Baltes (former owner and developer of the famed, Tony Stewart-owned, Eldora Speedway in Ohio), Henry Banks (midget racer-Indy 500 veteran-USAC competition director), legendary drivers Duane (Pancho) Carter Jr., Al Unser and Bobby Unser, car builder and chief mechanic A.J. Watson, USAC stock-car ace Don White, Indy car team owner and USAC supporter Bob Wilke, and drivers Tony Bettenhausen, Tom Bigelow, Jack Hewitt and Johnny Rutherford.

I have no personal knowledge of Baltes, other than what I’ve read, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have watched, met, interviewed and, in some cases, hung around with all of the others.

For instance, I spent an afternoon with Banks at Indy in 1969. The USAC competition director and his pal, chief steward Harlan Fengler, were giants at Indianapolis back then, when the "500" attracted the best from all the many and varied disciplines of racing – sprints, midgets, stock cars, sports cars, formula cars. They were glory days.

Banks scared me when he talked about his midget-racing days. Never mind roll cages; they didn’t even have roll bars when he raced and, as he put it, fatalties were common. He said it was a happy day when he left the cockpit to concentrate on race administration.

I loved watching Pancho Carter race sprint cars and dirt champ cars. One time at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, 22 champ cars took the green and all went into Turn One sideways, throwing huge rooster tails of dirt over the outside wall. There were plumes of dust and dirt everywhere and as they powered out of Two, one car straightened out before all the others and just shot itself down the backstretch, heading for Three. I can still hear my pal Al Listiak leaping to his feet and yelling at the top of his lungs: PANCHO!!!!

And that’s who it was, all right.

I had a long chat with him at the 1990 Molson Indy Toronto. He was driving for the Wilke family’s Leader Card Racing team and it had poured during the race. Because of his talent controlling race cars on dirt, he was passing cars left and right in the rain and I was going nuts thinking he was going to win. Dan Proudfoot of the Toronto Sun was standing beside me and was likewise impressed and excited. But water got into the electrics and the car stalled out and that was that but he told me afterward that if the car "had behaved," he was going to win.

I knew about Watson because of my fascination with the Indy cars of the 1950s (many of which were transformed into my beloved supermodifieds of the late 1960s and early '70s). At one time, most of the cars in the "500" came out of his California shop. His hair went white prematurely and you can still spot his flat-top brushcut a mile away.

The first Vancouver Molson Indy was in 1990 and I was driving along Robson St. one afternoon and I looked over at some people standing at a bus stop and there was A.J. Watson. So I offered him a lift and asked him what he was doing.

It turned out he’d started walking away from the B.C. Place stadium area (where the temporary race circuit had been built) to take a look at downtown Vancouver and he’d just kept walking and walking. By the time he figured it was time to go back, he was too tired to walk the return trip so he decided to hop on a bus.

I bumped into Abe Vigoda ("Fish" on Barney Miller) later that day, but that wasn’t nearly as exciting as being able to offer a ride to A.J. Watson.

In the summer of 1966, the USAC stock cars raced at Mosport and Canada’s own Billy Foster brought his Indy car for a demonstration run between the stock car heats. (Contrary to what you might have been told, Foster did not drive the track backwards. But I digress.)

Foster and Don White, a champion, put on an incredible show that afternoon, with White leading one time around and Foster the next. Foster eventually suffered a mechanical malfunction and dropped out; White finished but was beaten to the checkers by the little-known Sal Tovela (making for a wonderful bit of racing trivia).

Another bit of racing trivia that day was the professional debut of Tony Bettenhausen Jr., who went from the stock-car circuit to drive Indy cars and to own a team in the CART series.

I could go on about the Unsers, and Tom Bigelow (what a welcoming guy he was in 1977 at the Molson Diamond Indy at Mosport, once he found out that the reporter who barged into his garage after the race wanted to talk sprint cars instead of the Indy cars – he still has the most wins in USAC sprint car history) but I’ll close off this entry with a few paragraphs about the greatest character of them all, Jack Hewitt of Troy, Ohio.

Hewitt won 34 dirt champ car races in his career, seven midget wins and 46 in the sprint cars. He made it to Indy in 1998, where he finished 12^th, and told me once in an interview that it was the greatest day of his life.

"I was gonna go race that night up in Ohio in the sprints," he said, "but you know, I was at Indy and I just didn’t want to leave. It got dark and they put the lights on and I just stayed and stayed and it was just the greatest feeling. They finally had to tell me to go home, they were gonna close up."

In 1998 at Eldora Speedway, he swept the USAC 4-Crown Nationals, an accomplishment I think should have been on front pages all over the continent. He won four races in one day, driving for four different teams in midgets, sprints, dirt champ cars and modifieds. Absolutely incredible.

Now, Jack has been known to get lippy, and if you want to see him in full meltdown mode, click here.

But what I value, more than anything else, is his sense of humour.

One night at the old Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix, Jack was being interviewed by track announcer Windy McDonald (no relation, although you sometimes wonder . . .) and they were talking about the Indy 500 Jack had been in.

"Jack," said McDonald, "what was really memorable about that race?"

And Jack said, "Well, with me in it, Lynn St. James wasn’t the only driver with a moustache."

People heard that, and their mouths dropped open in surprise and astonishment, and then they started to giggle and before long the entire grandstand was full of folks  just killing themselves laughing.

Nobody else could say that and get away with it.

Just Jack.

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On Danica, Honda and the Jays, and Alan Kulwicki

Everything you read and hear about Danica Patrick says she’s five feet tall and weighs 100 pounds.

I don’t believe it. I’ve interviewed her – been in the same room, standing and sitting right beside her – and I don’t think she’s quite that tall and I suggest she weighs 90 lbs., not 100.

She’s remarkably fit-looking and obviously very healthy.

But she’s tiny. How tiny?

I came across this photograph the other day – it’s a year old, at least – of her dropping the puck at a St. Louis Blues-Chicago Blackhawks game. Her hair weighs more than she does. Beside those two huge hockey players, she’s a wisp.

In her own way, of course, she’s as tough as they are. But size-wise? No contest.

I have an excuse to use that photo today, thanks to the PR people for her sponsor, GoDaddy. They sent a release saying Patrick had participated in the Easter Egg hunt at the White House in support of Michelle Obama’s fight against obesity in schoolchildren.

A picture of health, Danica Patrick is anything but obese and a wonderful role model for young children, particularly the girls.

The Toronto Blue Jays begin their march to the World Series tonight at the Rogers Centre and one lucky fan is going to go home with a brand new, 2013, CR-V EX-L compact SUV, courtesy of Opening Night sponsor, Honda Canada.

It gets better. The second-place winner will receive a Honda CBR500R motorcycle and a learn-to-ride training course. The third place winner will receive a complete Honda lawn package, which includes a lawn mower, a trimmer and a tiller all powered by Honda 4-stroke engines.

(That is the prize I would want to win, if I should be so lucky, considering the disaster that's in front of my Mississauga dwelling.)

The three fans will be chosen at random from among the 50,000-plus who are expected to jam themselves into the sold-out Rogers Centre Tuesday night.   

Jerry Bonkowski is a feature writer for the Bleacher Report (bleacherreport.com) and did a nice job this week on the late NASCAR champion Alan Kulwicki, who was killed in a plane crash months after winning the 1992 Winston Cup in a showdown against Bill Elliott in the season-ending race at Atlanta.  

Monday was the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.

Entitled, ”Remembering Alan Kulwicki, a NASCAR great who truly did things his way,” the column captures much of what Kulwicki was about: a university educated kid from northern Wisconsin who “went South” and beat the NASCAR good ol’ boys at their game.

I only saw Kulwicki up close once and that was at New York’s Oswego Speedway in the mid-1980s, when he was running with the ASA and honing his craft. Bob Senneker, Butch Miller, Mike Eddy, Mark Martin and all those guys were there. They were a pretty professional bunch.

But one guy, Kulwicki, stood out. No, he didn’t win that night – I’m not even sure he was really in the hunt – but what struck me about him was his fastidious way of doing things.

When he and the four guys with him unloaded earlier in the day, one of the crew swept the pit area clean before the car came out of the trailer. All of the tools were taken out of boxes and organized on a portable work bench they had with them. It was a very sharp-looking  operation.

About a half-hour before driver and team introductions, Kulwicki went into the hauler and emerged with crew shirts and pants in dry-cleaning bags. He took them out and hung them up in a row on a clotheseline that stretched out from the corner of the hauler. He kept going over to that row of clothes and moving a hanger a quarter of an inch one way or the other. You could have taken a photograph of that display of clothing and nothing would have been out of place, it was so picture-perfect.

Ten minutes before intros, they pushed the car out on the speedway and put it into line and then returned to their pit where each man took his outfit off the clothesline and went into the transporter to change, emerging with minutes to spare. They then went to the car and split up to form short rows on either side, with driver Kulwicki in front.

All the other cars and drivers looked good when introduced, the ASA being a first-class organization, but none were even close to Kulwicki’s gang when it came to spit ‘n polish.

I’ve often thought about that night. There were a lot of talented drivers in that field, but with the exception of Mark Martin, Kulwicki was the only one who made it to the big time, to “The Show,” and I’m sure one of the contributing factors to his success was that he paid attention to every last little detail.

Nothing was too small for his full attention and I’m convinced he became champion and the others didn't because of that high level of concentration and commitment.

He was one of a kind. Yes, there are drivers as good as he was, and crew chiefs as good as he was, and team managers as good as he was and team owners as good. But he was all of them, rolled into one.

We will never see another like him.

Vettel to Ferrari in '14? Hinch gets legislative approval

Racing’s taking a weekend off (for the most part: did you know you can buy lapping time at Toronto Motorsports Park this weekend? If you have an itch, here’s the link) so I’m joining in.

But before I put my feet up and watch some old racing movies (yeah, I know, I never really get far away from it, so some black-and-white clunkers like To Please A Lady, The Crowd Roars and The Big Wheel are on the menu), here are a few things to tide everybody over.

– James Hinchcliffe of Oakville is well on his way to becoming a household name in the country, up there with Paul Tracy and Jacques and Gilles Villeneuve. After he won the Honda Indy at St. Petersburg last Sunday, he was on all the Canadian radio and TV newscasts that night and the front pages of Canadian newspapers from coast-to-coast on Monday morning.

That’s not all. He was even honoured by the government of Ontario. Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn stood up in the legislature this week and read a note of congratulations into the public record that was well received by all members. Well done, James, and well done, Mr. Flynn.

Click here for the link to the YouTube video of Mr. Flynn honouring IndyCar’s new star.

– It’s official. Sebastian Vettel really is in the doghouse. The Formula One controversy that happened last Sunday has now been reported in the popular press by the AP (link here), so it must be important.

It continues to boggle my mind that people are surprised that Vettel did what he did. He’s the world champion. He won the last three titles. He is not going to lose the second race of the season. Maybe he'd be only too happy to lose the second last race of the season, after he’d clinched his fourth title, but not the second race starting out.

Other things boggle my mind. This outpouring of scorn on Twitter and Facebook and from high-profile people in the sport like Jackie Stewart (who should know better) tell me – what? – that people approve of team orders?

I thought auto racing was just that: racing. But apparently not. Sebastian Vettel is in the doghouse because he disobeyed an order not to race.

I give up.

A guy wrote me a note this week that said people would be outraged if the four Andretti Autosport drivers were running first, second, third and fourth with 10 laps to go in the Indianapolis 500 and Michael Andretti got on the radio and said: "Hold position."

Can you believe that James Hinchcliffe, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti and E.J. Viso would say, "Sure, boss. Whatever you say."

In somebody’s dreams.

And yet that’s what happened in that Grand Prix last weekend and people are outraged that one of the two guys involved didn’t snap to attention and salute.

I’ll tell you what’s going to happen as a result of Red Bull team principal Christian Horner being so stupid as to tell Sebastian Vettel to lose.

Sebastian Vettel will be driving for Ferrari next season. That’s what.

Yes, he’s apologized. Do you think he’s happy about that? Do you think for one second that he is going to kiss butt in the Red Bull garage for the rest of the year? I guarantee he will now be more determined than ever to win a fourth championship and then he will say sayonara.

Ferrari has two aging drivers. The best one, a two-time world champion, is (like the other) 31, which is not old for a racing driver but getting up there for a Formula One racing driver. If Ferrari play their cards right, they can get a three-time (maybe four-time) champion still very much in his prime at age 25 and bring up one of their many young development drivers to fill the No. 2 seat and be set for years.

I know, people will say this won’t happen because contracts are in place. But contracts in Formula One mean very little, if anything, and if Ferrari wants Sebastian Vettel, they’ll get him, particularly after what happened last weekend.

– James Hinchcliffe won that IndyCar race last Sunday. The next day, Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto, embarking on his second year with Mercedes in the DTM (German Touring Car Championship), set fastest time in pre-season testing. He slipped to fourth fastest the following day but there are suggestions that Hinch’s victory might have inspired him.

– Speaking of the DTM, several years ago, Norbert Haug, who used to be in charge of racing at Mercedes, told a group of Canadian reporters at the Canadian Grand Prix that it was not beyond the realm of possibility that his company and other German marques might somebody be racing in North America.

He said this in the context of a question about NASCAR but mused that participation in some type of road-racing series might happen.

So this week, the DTM and the new U.S. sports car series United SportsCar Racing signed a letter of agreement that may see the DTM sanctioning a racing series in North America by 2015 or ‘16.

It may or may not happen. We’ll have to wait and see.

However, when Haug was talking at that meeting a few years ago, I got it in my mind that he was talking about a DTM race or races in North America, not necessarily a series. I think it would be swell, for instance, to bring Wickens, Bruno Spengler, Gary Paffett and all those guys over for a race or two, perhaps on a card with F1 or a Moto GP race at Montreal, Austin and/or New Jersey.

I’m not sure about yet another domestic high-end sports car series in which the team owner is primarily a rich guy because, as a fellow I know said a day or two ago, there aren’t all that many more rich guys around who are not already into racing. We already have a Ferrari series, a Porsche series, a Lamborghini series. Who’s going to line up to buy into a BMW-Mercedes-Audi series?

– Mark Martin will sub for the injured Denny Hamlin in next week’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville, they say. Hamlin’s broken back will take awhile to heal.

Meantime, the Lynch Joey Logano movement (there sure is a lot of hate out there, isn’t there? The Hate Sebastian Vettel movement and the Hate Joey Logano movement are closing in on – and might even pass – the Hate Danica Patrick movement before long) is not losing any steam and not even Roger Penske and Joe Gibbs, who both said Logano never tried to hurt Hamlin, seem to be having any influence so far as calming things down are concerned.

Hamlin didn’t help matters by suggesting that a texting exchange he had with Logano "didn’t go very well."

Hamlin is the toughest NASCAR driver alive. I won’t be surprised if he shows up at Martinsville and says he wants to start the race for the points and then hand off to Martin. And then, when he takes the green, he won’t stop. He’s done that before.

But being tough means more than just being physically tough. Instead of fanning the flames and playing the poor me card, all Hamlin had to say about that texting exchange was that everybody had decided to move on.

The time for payback can come later.

On the NASCAR feud, TV numbers and Sportsnet

Two things are bothing me about the Denny Hamlin-Joey Logano controversy.

1. The Auto Club Speedway in California is getting off easy. If Hamlin isn't hurt when he crashes into an unprotected wall (as in, no SAFER barrier), then all that happens is two guys who don't like each other have a spat. This sort of thing happens all the time between drivers at every single NASCAR race.

But because Hamlin was injured, the ensuing uproar suggests that Logano should be charged with attempted murder.

If the SAFER barrier had been in place, Hamlin might have escaped injury. Danica Patrick did at Daytona a year ago when she went into the SAFER-protected backstretch wall head-on and at full-tilt.

She walked away. Hamlin didn't.

When is that place in California going to learn? Greg Moore died in 1999 because a temporary concrete barrier was left at a 45-degree angle to the racing surface exiting turn two. When Moore lost control of his CART Indy car and went into the infield, he crashed head-first into that wall.

Suggestion: any exposed concrete at any oval speedway on the NASCAR circuit should be covered by a SAFER barrier or, at the very least, foam blocks of the kind found at small speedways. Those things save a ton of limbs.

2. Okay, since when did Denny Hamlin become everybody's favourite driver? He's an okay guy, but he's sure not above creating controversy. In short, he's no angel. Even shorter, he's no Jamie McMurray who - if he played hockey in the NHL - would win the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy year in and year out.

Hamlin's had his share of scrapes over the years. He's crashed guys and been crashed. In fact, he started this latest business by spinning out Logano at Bristol two weeks ago. He did the deed and then had the snappy putdown for the television cameras after Logano confronted him:

"He says he's coming for me but he means he's coming after me because I just don't see that much of him."

Ha. Ha.

Ask Austin Dillon what he thinks of Hamlin as the result of a run-in they had last year at Texas Motor Speedway. Ask Clint Bowyer and/or Kevin Harvick (who actually came to blows with him). There's not a lot of love lost there.

And what was with Tony Stewart? He goes after Logano because he's angry about a block? Tony Stewart has never been blocked before? He, himself, has never blocked anybody else (see Talladega, 2012, for graphic illustration)? Never pulled off a slide job in a sprint car race?

Of course he has, and has, and has.

So what's going on with Tony Stewart? His reaction was way over the top, which means he's pissed about something else.

And what could that be?

One thing about NASCAR, though. People love it. TV ratings from the weekend illustrate once again who's - and what's - No. 1 when it comes to car racing.

NASCAR Sprint Cup: Auto Club 400 - 350,000 viewers (TSN Sunday)

NASCAR Nationwide: Royal Purpose 300 - 167 viewers (TSN Saturday)

F1 Grand Prix of Malaysia - 94,000 viewers (TSN Sunday)

IndyCar Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg - 90,000 viewers (Sportsnet Sunday)

F1 Grand Prix of Malaysia (replay) - 59,000 viewers (TSN2 Sunday)

You know, I never question figures like these. If someone puts them out, they must be true. This is a long way around to saying I am really, really impressed with the 94,000 viewers for the Malaysian Grand Prix, which was on television in the middle of the night everywhere in Canada: 5:30 a.m. in Newfoundland, 5 a.m. in Halifax, 4 a.m. in Montreal and Toronto, and so-on till you get to Vancouver where it was only 1 a.m.

To set the alarm to get out of bed to watch a car race shows real commitment, don't you think? Or do PVR recordings count?

Speaking of television, I did a mini review of the Sportsnet presentation in my previous column and I wrote that the IndyCar race panel of Rob Faulds, Paul Tracy and Bill Adam with Todd Lewis in the pits had done okay.

I even suggested that, going forward, instead of broadcasting the audio from the NBC Sports Network team that Sportsnet utilize the talents of our Canadian commentators, particularly Tracy.

Although I didn't say it at the time, I also want to applaud Sportsnet for making an effort. TSN used to, but gave up years ago and has been satisfied in recent years to simply re-route the feed from whichever host broadcaster it buys the programming from, be it Fox in the U.S. for NASCAR or the BBC for F1.

So although the statistics above show TSN on top with 350,000 viewers for the Sprint Cup brawl in California, it's really Fox that should get the credit.

Having said all that, I have a friend who disagrees with me on Sportsnet. Boy, does he disagree. His name is John Strothard, a.k.a. Johnny Lugnuts, and he is one of the few people who knows everything about all forms of motorsport. Get Johnny talking and he'll argue you into the ground on F1, Indy cars, NASCAR, sports cars, sprint cars on the high banks in the U.S. midwest - you name it and he knows it. A former TQ midget racer himself, he also takes wonderful photographs of racing cars in action.

I'm telling you all this about Mr. Strothard because, although we disagree on this subject, he has the credentials to make an argument. He writes:

"Sorry, but the Indy broadcast on Sportsnet left me steaming! Are we stuck with this format and these three morons for the entire season? Say it ain't so!

"The Sportsnet pre-race show was a complete waste of time and offered . . . um . . . nothing. Perhaps the first time fan might've gotten something out of it (and don't get me wrong, we need those folks), but most people know all about Hinch and Tags. How about a quick preview of the season? How about an explanation of the red and black tires? The new push-to-pass rules? Should I go on?

"The constant updates following commercial breaks during the race were  annoying. Thanks to the CRTC, I get enough CanCon jammed down my throat on local radio, I don't need it here, too.

"Rob Faulds is no more than a talking head and Bill Adam provided nothing. At least PT had some mildly interesting insight. Todd Lewis gave the whole thing a decidedly minor league feel.

"I'd be willing to overlook all of the above, but the post-race interviews were the last straw. Thanks to Sportsnet, I got to listen to The Mayor deliver his victory speech twice, while they thought it appropriate to cut off Simona, and skip Helio and Marco. Oh, but I did get to hear from 10th place finisher Tags.

"Insulting and unprofessional. Just give us the NBC/ABC/ESPN/whatever feed with their pre- and post-race shows, please."

Thanks for weighing in, Johnny.

Other views are welcome.

All IndyCar races live on Sportsnet; you can look it up

There seems to be confusion and misinformation out there about Rogers Sportsnet's commitment to telecasting the entire IZOD IndyCar Series schedule in 2013.

I don't know why there would be, but there is.

IndyCar sought out a new Canadian partner because the previous broadcaster, TSN, would not commit to televising all the races live. Sportsnet and IndyCar signed a contract and one of the clauses contained therein was that the races would be live.

However, even before the season started, I was getting emails from people suggesting that everything was not as it seemed. And last week, a popular columnist for an Indianapolis newspaper reported that while four Sportsnet races would be live, the rest would be on tape delay.

So I am here to set the record straight, once and for all.

To wit, all remaining 18 races will air on Sportsnet channels live and in colour, as they happen — as was the case in St. Petersburg on Sunday when James Hinchcliffe of Oakville scored his first victory in the Big League. (Hey, what a race for Sportsnet to kick off its coverage, eh?)

The complete schedule can be found at the bottom of this column. You can print it out, clip it around the edges and attach it to the door of your refrigerator for quick, easy reference.

Several translations:

You will note that there are no specific Sportsnet channels listed for the two Detroit races on June 1 and 2. Those races won’t be on the sports channels but will be seen in the listed communities – Toronto among them – on CITY TV channels that Rogers owns.

And channels for the 17th and 18th races, a double-header in Houston in October, which are marked TBD, are just that: the races will be on — somewhere. Exactly which channel or channels will be decided at a later date.

So that’s the good news.

The not-so-good news is that to get all of the races, you will have to subscribe to a premium sports package. Nine races, for instance, starting with the next race at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama on April 7, will only be available on Sportsnet One, which is a premium channel. The rest should be pretty much available everywhere across the country.

So check out the schedule at the bottom of this column. And relax.

Now, on Sunday in St. Pete, Sportsnet launched its own pre-race, post-race and mid-race panel show starring sportscaster Rob Faulds, retired drivers Paul Tracy and Bill Adam, and Todd Lewis in the pits. Everybody did just fine. They weren’t on screen all the time (the U.S. feed, pictures and announcers, from NBC Sports Network covered the race). But when they were, they acquitted themselves well.

The focus of the show was pretty much all about Canadian drivers Hinchcliffe and Alex Tagliani and their support staffs (crew chiefs and the like), which was a good thing because the American producers and announcing team seemed – to me, anyway – to be more interested in how Simona de Silvestro was doing than anything the Canadians were up to, particularly Hinchcliffe while he was en route to scoring his first race win.

In fact, the young Canadian hot shoe was well into his last lap before the director tore himself away from Simona’s battle to hold onto third to show Hinchcliffe’s drive to the checkers.

I don’t know the particulars of the contract that Sportsnet has with NBC Sports Network, and maybe the U.S. announcing team of Leigh Diffey, Wally Dallenbach Jr., Townsend Bell and the rest has to be part of the package, but on those occasions when Faulds, Tracy, Adam and Lewis are on site (Indianapolis being the next stop for them), I can guarantee I would rather watch the action and have Faulds host, Adam do the play-by-play and Tracy do the colour than listen to the NBC folks I had to endure on Sunday.

Tracy, in particular, seemed to be on his best behaviour and that was a shame. He’s got all the stories and all the insight that he's stored up from nearly 20 years of driving Indy cars. He knows all the secrets and where the bodies are buried. I know: I’ve spent many enjoyable times listening to him rip this guy apart, or that guy.

Sportsnet owes it to everybody to turn him loose.

Remaining 2013 IZOD IndyCar Television Broadcast Schedule

Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama – Birmingham, Alabama

• Sunday, April 7, 1:30 p.m. ET/10:30 a.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)

Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach – Long Beach, California

• Sunday, April 21, 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT (Sportsnet East, Ontario, Pacific and ONE)

Sao Paulo Indy 300 – Sao Paulo, Brazil

• Sunday, May 5, 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)

Indianapolis 500 – Indianapolis, Indiana

• Sunday, May 26, 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT (Sportsnet East, Ontario, West and Pacific)

Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit – Race 1 – Detroit, Michigan

• Saturday, June 1, 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT (CITY stations in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver)

Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit – Race 2 – Detroit, Michigan

• Sunday, June 2, 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT (CITY stations in Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver)

Firestone 550 – Fort Worth, Texas

• Saturday, June 8, 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. PT (Sportsnet East, Ontario, West and Pacific)

Milwaukee IndyFest – West Allis, Wisconsin

• Saturday, June 15, 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)

Iowa Corn Indy 250 – Newton, Iowa

• Sunday, June 23, 2:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)

Pocono INDYCAR 400 – Long Pond, Pennsylvania

• Sunday, July 7, Noon p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)

Honda Indy Toronto – Race 1 – Toronto, Ontario

• Saturday, July 13, 3 p.m. ET/Noon PT (Sportsnet East, Ontario, West and Pacific)

Honda Indy Toronto – Race 2 – Toronto, Ontario

• Sunday, July 14, 3 p.m. ET/Noon PT (Sportsnet East, Ontario, West and Pacific)

Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio – Lexington, Ohio

• Sunday, Aug. 4, 3 p.m. ET/Noon PT (Sportsnet ONE)

GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma – Sonoma, California

• Sunday, Aug. 25, 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)

Grand Prix of Baltimore – Baltimore, Maryland

• Sunday, Sept. 1, 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)

Shell & Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston – Race 1 – Houston, Texas

• Saturday, Oct. 5, 3 p.m. ET/Noon PT (TBD)

Shell & Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston – Race 2 – Houston, Texas

• Sunday, Oct. 6, 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT (TBD)

MAVTV 500 – Fontana, California

• Saturday, Oct. 19, 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT (Sportsnet ONE)