Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Racing Update: Carpenter at Indy, Fitzpatrick at Mosport

So you leave Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, and you go out for dinner and then you stop off with the Designated Driver and have a little party with friends and you arrive home to find out that there is a surprise driver on pole at Indianapolis and half of the race fans in Toronto are browned off at Sportsnet.

Let's begin with Indy qualifying.

Ed Carpenter, stepson of Indy Racing League founder Tony George and a racer who came up the old-fashioned way through midgets, sprint cars and the Silver Crown dirt champ cars, won the pole Saturday for next weekend's 97th Indianapolis 500.

Will Power and Ryan Hunter-Reay, who had pretty much set the pace leading up to today's Fast Nine final qualifying sprint, wound up sixth and seventh, respectively.

Canadians James Hinchcliffe of Oakville and Alex Tagliani of Montreal qualified ninth and 11th.

Rookie Carlos Munoz, an Indy Lights racer who brought the money for a crack at Indianapolis, will start second while his teammate, Marco Andretti will go off third. E.J. Viso is fourth (Munoz, Andretti, Viso, Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe all race for Andretti Motorsport, meaning all of the team's cars made it into final qualifying) and A.J. Allmendinger was fifth and fastest of the Team Penske cars.

Twenty-four cars qualified. Ten drivers will try Sunday for the remaining nine places.

By the way, the first 10 cars were powered by Chevrolet. Tagliani was the fastest Honda car in 11th.

As mentioned, Sportsnet - apparently - dropped the ball big-time. It took over televising the IZOD IndyCar Series this season from TSN. Although I missed the frustration, I heard from a bunch of my readers who were not happy that there was no coverage of the run for the pole late in the day.

Wrote one:  "I have no idea if the final shootout for pole was even televised. And if so, why Sportsnet failed to show it, as promised. I channel surfed all the Rogers channels between 6 and 7 p.m.  In fact they didn’t say anything at all, and not a peep on any of their ‘tickers.’ Not that it was further postponed due to rain, or who actually won. Nothing."

Wrote another: "Early coverage was on The Score. But nothing in the late afternoon or early evening. NBC also broke away for Preakness coverage and only showed final few of top 9. IndyCar switched to live streaming on top 9 but couldn't get their act together to in time to show Hinch. There is no excuse for no Canadian coverage. Twitter is lit up with angry viewers on both sides of the border about what happened today."

I, personally, have never been in favour of protectionism of any kind. Keeping ESPN and the NBC Sports Network and other U.S. all-sports channels out of Canada in order to protect TSN and Sportsnet results in nonsense like this.

I've said it time and again, they wouldn't dare do this to baseball fans, or hockey fans, or any kind of fans other than race fans.

Race fans battled back, of course, in the good old days of grey market satellite television where a post office box address in Niagara Falls, N.Y., got you direct access to complete coverage of things like Indy 500 time trials on American stations.

I'm afraid as long as racing sells itself to TV networks, we'll just have to continue putting up with the insults. But if they live-stream all of Indy - practice and qualifying from the first moment each day to the last, even for a fee - I, for one, would say sayonara to television.

EARLIER

J.R. Fitzpatrick today stormed to pole position for Sunday's NASCAR Canadian Tire Series' Pinty's presents the Vortex Brake Pads 200, the opening race of the 2013 season and the feature event of the annual Victoria Day Weekend Speedfest.

And with a time of one minute, 23.286 seconds, the Cambridge speedster set a new track record for stock cars at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, formerly Mosport, north of Bowmanville.

Louis-Phillippe Dumoulin of Trois-Rivieres, Que., will start second on Sunday and Scott Steckly of Milverton, a former series champion, will start third.

Nearly 30 cars from across the country will take the green flag in the race scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Sunday. The race will be telecast by CTV.

In other racing, Guy Leclerc won the opening race of the Supercar season, Scott Nicol was first in the opening race of the Canadian Touring Car Series season and Spencer Pigot won the first race of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada series.

In SCCA Pro Racing Trans-Am, Simon Gregg won the pole and set a new track record with a time of 1:15.614.  Defending Series champion Tony Ave was second.

EARLIER

Pole day qualifying is now under way at Indianapolis with Will Power of Team Penske in first place at the moment. His lap of 228.844 miles an hour just nipped defending series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay's 228.282 mph.

Others quick out of the box today - qualifying was held up by rain - were Indy Lights driver Carlos Munoz (third) and oval specialist Ed Carpenter (fifth). Canadians James Hinchcliffe of Oakville and Alex Tagliani of Montreal were both in the top ten.

Once upon a time, the fastest driver on the first day of time trials won the pole with the field filled up and bumping taking place on other qualifying days. Nowadays, there are eliminations and fasts nines and fast sixes and it's all very confusing. Sometime around 7 o'clock tonight, the pole winner will be decided and the world will know - unless the world will have moved on, it being 7 o'clock on Saturday night and all.

Two observations. The Indy 500 might continue to be the Greatest Spectacle in Racing but no longer can they say the 33 best racing drivers in the world are in the race. Why?

The fact that Munoz is third fastest means that just about anybody can drive these cars. Maybe not race them, but certainly drive them. That he is doing this as a rookie, in his first IZOD IndyCar Series race that also happens to be the Indy 500, the world's most famous race, is close to being ridiculous. Mario Andretti, or A.J. Foyt, or Ayrton Senna, this kid is not.

And Katherine Legge has now purchased herself a seat in another one of the cars entered by Sam Schmidt (those cars all go to the highest bidder).  I have said all I will ever say about Katherine Legge, so let's leave it at this: I'm less than impressed.

EARLIER

Pole day qualifying at Indianapolis is on hold as there is rain in the area.

And the track at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park is quiet because everybody is eating lunch.

Except some of us.

When something happens somewhere, you'll read about it here.

Meantime, Donnie Schatz passed Greg Hodnett on the last lap at Pennsylvania's Williams Grove Speedway Friday night to win the World of Outlaws sprint car feature. The Outlaws, of course, will make a Canadian swing in July and race at Ohsweken Speedway near Brantford and Cornwall Speedway as well as at tracks in Quebec and Alberta. . . .Dale Darland won the USAC Sprint Car Series' Larry Rice Classic at Bloomington Speedway Friday night. Many of the USAC stars will be in action at O'Reilly Raceway Park outside Indianapolis tonight (Saturday) for a Champ Car Silver Crown event, weather permitting. It's also USAC Hall of Fame weekend and a bunch of oldies but goodies guys like Bobby Unser and Jack Hewitt will be enshrined. For those who's forgotten, or are too young to remember, the U.S. Auto Club used to be the big dog of sanctioning bodies and ran racing, including the Indy 500, with an iron fist. . . . At Brands Hatch in England, where the German Touring Car Series (DTM) is running this weekend, Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto qualified 14th for Sunday's feature event. Defending champion Bruno Spengler of Quebec will go off fifth. . . . At Old Mosport, the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series cars are on track. Lunch is over. Time to go.

EARLIER

It’s Pole Day at Indianapolis, and the Victoria Day Weekend Speedfest is in full swing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (hey – 28 entries in the Trans-Am! Big Iron is back!).

So let’s get caught up before all hell breaks loose on Saturday.

– Talking about hell breaking loose, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series owner/driver Jennifer Joe Cobb (pictured) has accused her former Nationwide Series team manager Mike Harmon of stealing her nearly $300,000 transporter. Cobb is also involved in litigation with her former business partner, David Novak, over who really owns most of the equipment Cobb uses to race.

It is a tangled web.

– Meantime, Kyle Busch started the NASCAR All-Star Weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway off with a bang Friday night by winning the Camping World Truck Series’ North Carolina Education Lottery 200 (talk about a mouthful!).

Brendan Gaughan finished second and Max Gresham was third.

Three of the Camping World series regulars who visited CTMP recently for a one-truck test conducted by driver Nelson Piquet Jr. were in that race Friday night. Defending champion James Beushcher was sixth, Miguel Paludo – who led for a good stretch – finished seventh and Jeb Burton was 13th.

Burton, incidentally, is the son of retired NASCAR Cup star, and Daytona 500 winner, Ward Burton. Jeb started from pole Friday night – his third in five starts this season – but didn’t have the horses to stay there.

The Camping Wordl Truck series will be featured at Old Mosport on Labour Day weekend, with the Chevrolet Silverado 250 scheduled for Sun., Sept. 1.

– Carl Edwards won the pole at Charlotte for Saturday night’s All-Star Race. NASCAR relaxed all the rules for this session and qualifying consisted of three flying laps and a no-speed-limit-on-pit-lane stop for four tires. Total times for the laps and pit stop were added up to set the field.

Not wanting to appear terribly negative about this (ED NOTE: Ho, ho ho), the reason there is a speed limit in pit lanes in every major form of motorsport in the world is because drivers can sometimes lose control of race cars at speed and unprotected people – i.e. pit crew members changing tires on cars – can be hit and be hurt, as a result.

So although some marketing genius thought it would be a scream to put away the radar guns and let the boys "have at it" along pit road at 155 mph, it is just as easy to have a bad accident at an exhbition race like the All-Star as it is at a "regular" race and it is sincerely hoped that they don’t do anything stupid like this again because Edwards called his run "petrifying."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was second-fastest but the tire stop was botched and he was penalized five seconds, dropping him to 15^th. Kurt Busch, who qualified third, will go off second, as a result.

– Mensa membership candidate Kimi Raikkonen says the key to winning the Grand Prix of Monaco is to qualify well.

– Scott Dixon is scheduled to be the first driver to take time when qualifying for the 97^th Indianapolis 500 gets under way on Saturday.

Actually, car No. 40 is supposed to go out first, but since no driver is currently in the car it’s expected that Dixon will be the first to take a crack at the pole.

Like many things in 2013, qualifying at Indianapolis is terribly complicated and gimmicky and I’m not going to waste my time trying to explain it. I much preferred the old way of doing it, which was the driver with the fastest time on the first day of qualifying won the pole. Straight up, simple and to the point and I’m like that about everything in life.

James Hinchcliffe of Oakville is scheduled to go off 14^th Saturday and Alex Tagliani of Montreal, the other Canadian who’s a previous pole winner at Indy, is down in 37^th position.

Hinchcliffe was fastest of 32 drivers who went out to practice on Tuesday and his teammates, E.J. Viso and Marco Andretti, were first and second fastest on what’s commonly called "Fast Friday."

Said Hinchcliffe: "I think the weird thing about Indy is we have 10 times more practice time than anywhere else, yet you always wish you had a little bit more to make it that little bit better.

"I think it's just a function of a bunch of drivers and a bunch of engineers who are perfectionists and are always striving to make it a little better. But I think we can be pretty pleased with how things have gone.

"Obviously, having team cars up there all but one day bodes well. Qualifying is definitely going to be tough. There's a lot of quick cars. Finding that right level of downforce that takes enough drag off but doesn't leave you sliding all over the place and scrubbing speed is going to be key, and it would have been nice to have a run or two more to really nail that down.

"As a team, I think we're confident and it's going be tough because, like I said, there's a lot of fast cars that are going to be going for that Fast Nine. Hopefully we can get there and get the GoDaddy car in a good position for the start of the race."

(About the importance of starting position versus the quality of the race car):

"It's Sunday that everybody cares about. Dario (Franchitti) proved last year that qualifying is not the be-and all-end – he qualified 17^th (and won). He even got hit in pit lane and fell right to the back, but he had a good race car and got his way back up to the front. So it's definitely important to focus on the race car.

"What's so tricky about (IMS) is it's so sensitive to different weather conditions. So if you're working on your race car throughout the entire week and you actually see a variety of different conditions, that's good. Whatever comes around on Race Day, you'll at least have a little bit of an understanding of what the car and track might do."

– At Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, practice and qualifying will take place Saturday for the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, the Trans Am, Formula 1600, the Porsche GT3 Challenge Cup Canada and the Canadian Touring Car Championship, as well as the Supercars.

There will be a few races but the headline events are scheduled for Sunday.

If you haven’t been out to the new and improved Old Mosport in awhile, why not drop by? You won’t believe the improvements that have been made.

1961 it ain't.

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Honda, McLaren to race in F1 together again

So much racing news, so little time . . .

- Everything old is new again. Honda, which powered McLaren to 44 Grand Prix victories and several world championships between 1988 and 1992, announced today it would partner again with the legendary British marque, starting in 2015.

Of course, the previous run of success was due, in large part, to the driver lineup McLaren boasted in the late 1980s: Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. In fact, in 1988, those two between them won 15 of the 16 GP races that year. Whether Jenson Button (who called the team's performance so far in 2013 "embarrassing," just the other day) and Sergio Perez can ever deliver the same results is debatable and you have to wonder whether a pilot shakeup might be in the cards as well.

Honda has been in and out of the sport over the years, leaving the last time after the 2008 season. For automakers, racing has always been about ROI (return on investment) and whether or not participation makes economic sense, even at the best of times.  Five years ago there was an economic meltdown and Honda, as well as Toyota, decided to fold cards and wait for a  better day.

In a release issued today, Honda said that beginning next year, "new F1 regulations require the introduction of a 1.6 litre direct injection turbocharged V6 engine with energy recovery systems. The opportunity to further develop these powertrain technologies through the challenge of racing is central to Honda’s decision to participate in F1.

"Throughout its history, Honda has passionately pursued improvements in the efficiency of the internal combustion engine and in more recent years, the development of pioneering energy management technologies such as hybrid systems. Participation in Formula 1 under these new regulations will encourage even further technological progress in both these areas."

The announcement means there will be no renewal of the contract McLaren has had with engine supplier Mercedes that goes back to 1995. It has not exactly been a fruitful partnership, with only one constructor's championship to the team's credit (and there are certainly no driver's or constructor's titles looming on the horizon this year).

Said McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, at a media conference in Tokyo: "Honda has an unrivalled pedigree as a manufacturer of turbocharged engines, making it the perfect engine partner for McLaren as we strive to deliver future success in F1."

As mentioned, Honda has participated in F1 several times over the years, starting in 1964 when it designed and developed both the race car and the engine. That experiment ended in 1968.  Starting in 1983, it supplied engines to Lotus, Williams and Tyrrell before settling in at McLaren in 1988, dropping out of the sport again after 1991.

Jacques Villeneuve's manager Craig Pollock talked Honda into returning to F1 in 2000 to supply engines to BAR and Jordan and then in 2004 the Japanese manufacturer bought the team. From then until 2008, it ran the team, as it had in the beginning back in the 1960s, as an "all Honda" operation.

- Twenty-nine drivers flashed around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway Wednesday in a time somewhere between 40 and 41 seconds. That’s how close the competition is this year.

Dario Franchitti was fastest at 40:1363 seconds while 29th-fastest was Pippa Mann at 40:9476.  Franchitti’s speed, incidentally, translates into 224.236 miles an hour while Mann went 219.793 mph.

Other notables: Townsend Bell, an Indy-only racer, was second fastest at 40:2295 seconds. Helio Castroneves was third quickest at 40:2327. Alex Tagliani of Montreal was fastest Canadian and eighth on the totem pole with a lap of 40:4768. The other Canuck, James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, who was fastest Tuesday, slipped to 13^th at 40:6009. Simona de Silvestro was fastest woman at 40:9353, just pipping Pippa’s 9476.

Michel Jourdain Jr. was the slowest of the 32 who practiced, turning a lap of 41:2774 (218:037 mph).

- Speaking of the Indy 500, check George’s TV Listings for Race Fans at wheels.ca for times of the Sportsnet coverage of time trials this Saturday and Sunday as well as for the race itself a week Sunday. And if you can’t get to a TV, and have satellite radio, Sirius XM (Channel 211) will be carrying most of the action as well, starting at 11 a.m. Saturday.

- The Grand Prix of Canada is fast approaching. As anybody who goes knows, there is more to watch on track at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve than the F1 cars. This week, organizers announced that the Ferrari Challenge, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada, the Canadian Touring Car Championship and the Formula Tour 1600 will each run two races on Friday and Saturday, June 7 and 8. The Grand Prix itself, of course, goes to the post on Sunday, June 9.

- Speaking of the Porsche GT3 Cup, the Canadian Touring Cars and Formula 1600, they all will be in action this coming weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park as the annual Victoria Day Weekend Speedfest takes to the track north of Bowmanville.

The headline event will be the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series stockers and D.J. Kennington, J.R. Fitzpatrick, Scott Steckly and the rest of the trans-Canada chargers — oops, better not forget Andrew Ranger — will be out to start their national series season off with a bang.

Touring car drivers looking to get rolling early include Benjamin Distaulo, Bob Attrell, Remy Audette, Nick Wittmer, Roger Ledoux, Damon Sharpe, Frank Blanchet and Michel Sallenbach.

Also on the card at Old Mosport will be the Trans-Am big iron thunder cars and the new Canadian Supercar Series.

- Speaking of touring cars (not really, but I’m looking for a segway), the German Touring Car Series (DTM) will be at Brands Hatch in England this weekend and Canadian Robert Wickens is hoping for a better result than two weeks ago at the opener in Germany when a mechanical problem forced him out after he qualified better than he has in his DTM career — fourth on the grid.

Said Wickens, in a release: “After not finishing at the start of the season, I'm itching to get back in my STIHL Mercedes AMG C-Coupé at Brands Hatch (Norris note: I bet he said that . . .) to prove that a top-notch result would have been possible in Hockenheim. With P4 on the grid, I've shown the kind of speed I can produce. The adrenaline rush of being in the shoot-out for pole position in Q4 for the first time was enormous - I could easily get used to that in the future. While a sketch map of Brands Hatch may look quite simple, it's a real driver's circuit that demands the utmost concentration over 98 laps. One single error and the race is as good as lost."

Good luck, Robert.

- Everybody seems to be excited that Derrick Walker has been signed by IndyCar to be president, operations and competition.

So?

The competition is already pretty good.  So what is this going to do so far as bums in the seats and eyeballs on race telecasts are concerned, which to my mind are IndyCar’s two biggest challenges.

Once again, we have a top dog at that organization listening to two or three Indy car journalists who think moves like this are swell.

Marketing is where this organization needs help. And in public relations.

Not media relations, public relations.

- Finally, the Brantford-area Ohsweken Speedway's 18th annual Opening Night will take the green flag on Friday at 7:30pm, and large fields are expected in all of the regular Friday night divisions.

The opening event of Ohsweken's season will include the Corr/Pak Merchandising Sprint Cars, Affordable Towing & Recovery Thunder Stocks, HRW Automotive Mini Stocks, and Gale’s Auto Aftermarket Bombers, with extra-distance features on tap for each.

- NORRIS McDONALD

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Hinchcliffe fastest driver at Indianapolis

It might not mean a whole lot at this stage of the game, but the fact that Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe set the fastest time during practice Tuesday for next weekend’s Indianapolis 500 time trials means Indy car racing’s hottest driver is settling nicely into a groove for a run at pole position.

Hinchcliffe, the 26-year-old super nova who’s won two of the four IZOD IndyCar Series races to date, put the hammer down at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and turned a speed of 224.210 miles an hour (40:1410 seconds around the 2.5-mile oval race track), albeit while driving teammate Marco Andretti’s car to exchange notes.

Andretti, meantime, drove Hinchcliffe’s GoDaddy-sponsored Green Machine to the third-fastest time of the day, going 223.570 mph. The Andretti Autosport teammates were split by second-fastest driver J.R. Hildebrand, who went 223.652 mph.

In all, 34 driver-car combinations turned time while preparing for Saturday’s time trials that will determine who will start first and so on back to 33 and last when the 97^th 500-mile race goes to the post on Sunday, May 26^th.

Said Hinchcliffe: "Marco (Andretti) is pretty angry with me now. Not only did I rock a big tow, which he is famous for, but I did it in his car, so "Marco Tow-dretti" is pretty upset with me now.

"It's good to be up there, but at the end of the day, those numbers don't mean a lot right now. It's about the work you do on the race car and making sure the No. 27 GoDaddy car is going to be good not only on one lap, but over 200 (laps)."

Asked why he’d traded cars with Andretti and if he learned anything, Hinchcliffe added: "I get to see how good I look in red and blue (the colours of Marco’s car). There are some things we wanted to see and suss out, and that's the way to do it.

"It's (trading cars) not uncommon. Guys have done it in the past – especially this team. I think TK (Tony Kanaan) drove every single car on the team at some point during the month (when he was an Andretti driver). It's standard procedure to feel a couple of things out."

Practice will continue through Friday and then qualifying time trials will be held Saturday, with bump day (in which faster cars "bump" slower cars out of the field) scheduled for Sunday.

I said in the beginning that fast times don’t mean a lot and that’s because both engine suppliers, Chevrolet and Honda, will be fitting qualifying motors into all (or most) cars toward the end of the week and a horsepower boost will be allowed for time trials.

Horsepower will be dialed back, however, for the race itself.

Social note: Dario Franchitti, who’s won the Indy 500 three times and is the defending champion, will turn 40 on Sunday.

- NORRIS McDONALD

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Me, Millard Air and the Indianapolis 500

When I heard of the arrest that was made in the mysterious disappearance of Tim Bosma – the Ancaster fellow who advertised his truck on Kijiji and went off for a test drive with two men last Monday night and then disappeared, apparently, from the face of the Earth – I thought of the six degrees of separation.

That’s the theory in which every body and every thing in the world can be connected one way or another in six steps or less.

The fellow under arrest is Dellen Millard, grandson of the founder of the Millard Air company, Carl Millard, and the son of the pilot Wayne Millard, who flew me to Indianapolis in 1969 so I could cover my first Indianapolis 500.

Maybe not six degrees, but a couple for sure.

Here’s the story.

I was at home on the afternoon of May 29^th, a Thursday, which was the day before the 53^rd annual 500-Mile International Sweepstakes, which was the official name for the race that was always held on May 30 in those days.

On my own time, I’d been at Indy two weeks previously for the first weekend of time trials – which had been rained out. There were no plans in place for me to return to cover the race for the Globe and Mail, where I was employed at the time.

Just before 3 p.m., the phone rang and it was the late Jim Vipond, the legendary sports editor of the Globe. "How would you like to go to Indianapolis tomorrow?" he asked.

I could barely contain myself.

Was he kidding? Of course I’d like to go to Indianapolis. I’d been listening to Sid Collins announce the race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network since I was a kid. I’d seen my first 500 on closed-circuit TV at the Glendale Theatre on Avenue Rd., just north of Lawrence, in 1965. I’d gone to Indy for the first time in 1967 and sat in the grandstands just before Turn Two and loved – loved – every second. Was he crazy? Wild horses couldn't keep me away.

"Sure," I replied, somewhat nonchalantly. "You’ll want me to file, right?"

"Yes, take your typewriter," he said. "Write your story and phone it in. I’ll need it no later than an hour after the race finishes. We have an early deadline Friday because the Saturday paper is a giant."

My heart was beating so quickly I was in danger of hyperventilating, but I had to ask.

"So," I said again, somewhat casually, "do you want me drive down, or what?"

"No," he said. "By 7 tomorrow morning, be at the Millard Air hangar at Malton (now Pearson International Airport). Ask for Wayne Millard. He’s going to fly you down."

Wow, I thought. This is incredible. Not only am I going to cover the Indianapolis 500 for the Globe and Mail but they’re flying me to the race!

Now, I could write another couple of thousand words about the flight to Indy, and how Frank Orr of the Toronto Star was on the same plane, and how, except for the two of us and another couple of people, there was nobody else aboard the Millard Air DC-3 and how we flew right over downtown Indianapolis on our way to land at what was then Weir Cook Municipal Airport and how the taxi we were taking to the track was pulled over for speeding before we got off the airport property and . . . but I won’t.

What I will tell you, though, is that Mario Andretti won his one and only Indy 500 that day, which made for a great story, particularly when his car owner, Andy Granatelli, got so excited that he kissed him on the cheek in Victory Lane.

Now, I was feeling top of the world, Ma, at this point. It had been a great day, a great race, the driving had been spectacular, the drivers had all been the Gods I expected them to be, I had written and phoned in my story on time, I had a girl in Montreal I was going to see the next day and – well – everything was as perfect as perfect could be. 

So I went back to Weir Cook Airport, only to discover that a whole bunch of people I didn’t know, or recognize, all of whom had a couple of tons of luggage, were waiting to get onto my plane.

It turned out that those folks, most of whom were friends of Toronto department store heir George Eaton, who was also a racing driver, had been in Indianapolis all month and had chartered the plane to take them home.

Wayne Millard knew Vipond and, in conversation, mentioned he was going to Indy to pick up this mob and that he had a couple of seats open and that’s how Frank Orr and I got a free ride to cover the world’s most famous car race.

Now, the flight to Indy had been terrific. Four or five passengers, max., on a plane that could carry up to 30. Lots of space to stretch out your arms and legs. The return flight, though, was an entirely different matter.

We were packed in like sardines. Those folks had 30 days’ worth of luggage with them, some of which wouldn't fit in the hold and was sitting in the aisle (no overhead bins on DC3s). I did a quick calculation and reckoned we were probably pretty close to the limit as far as weight was concerned and I got this really strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Maybe I should take a bus back to Toronto, I thought. Or a train. Are there trains between Indianapolis and T.O.? And then I thought of that sweetheart in Montreal and realized that if I was going to keep our date the next day, Saturday, I was going to have to suck it up and stay on that plane.

So Frank Orr and I are sitting beside each other and I have the window. I’m telling him I’m not so sure the old crate is going to make it off the ground. Frank, who’s wonderful company, starts telling jokes to take my mind – and his – off the fact that the plane might crash and we might die.

So we taxi out and, after what seems like an eternity, we start lumbering along the runway and I’m looking out the window and we don’t seem to be going very fast and there is this line of trees way off in the distance and they’re coming closer, and closer, and closer, and we’re still on the ground and we’re still not going very fast and then, ever so slowly, this bucket of bolts starts to bounce off the ground and those trees are getting really close by now and this plane is kinda shuddering but I still have my eyes open and, at what seemed to be the very last second, damned if we didn’t clear the tops of those trees by that much or else I wouldn’t be here today telling you all this.

But it was close. Too close for comfort, in fact.

I turned my head to smile at my friend, the Toronto Star’s auto racing writer and my very best friend in the world at that moment, to acknowledge that we indeed were still alive and well and everything was turning out to be all right, and it was then that I realized that Frank Orr and I were holding hands.

- NORRRIS McDONALD

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'Numbers' tell the IndyCar season story

Following Ryan Hunter-Reay’s IZOD IndyCar Series championship victory at the weekend, reporters covering the series were inundated with "numbers."

Andretti Autosport, Hunter-Reay’s employer, issued 30 "numbers of interest" and the IndyCar PR people sent out 26.

Both organizations were stretching things, so I’m not going to publish all 56.

But here are the Top Ten that I find most interesting.

1 – There is only one driver who has won races in IndyCar, CART/Champ Car, the American Le Mans Series and the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series. That driver is Ryan Hunter-Reay.

3 – Final points separating champion Ryan Hunter-Reay and second-place Will Power. It was the closest margin since 2006 when Sam Hornish Jr. beat Dan Wheldon on a tiebreaker. Only IndyCar 1996 (a tie between Scott Sharp and Buzz Calkins), CART 1999 (Juan Pablo Montoya won a tiebreaker over Dario Franchitti) and CART 1985 (Al Unser Sr. beat Al Unser Jr. by 1 point) were closer. It also tied the 1989 CART championship when Emerson Fittipaldi beat Rick Mears by 3 points.

8 – The points finish for Oakville racer James Hinchcliffe in his second IndyCar season, an improvement on his first year. "Hinch" also led 8 races, fourth best among all drivers in 2012.

8 (again) - There were eight different winners in the 15 races in 2012 as well as eight different pole-position winners.

18 - Positions gained by Ryan Hunter-Reay en route to his championship-clinching fourth-place finish at California Speedway, most of any driver in the field (which showed that even with Power out of the race, he really had to work for his title). In short-track racing, he'd be given the Hard Charger Award.

28 - Hunter-Reay's car number represents the 28 million people around the world who are suffering from cancer. He lost his mother, Lydia, to the disease in 2009. He let it be known at the Honda Indy Toronto that she was originally from Hamilton. Her death inspired him to help launch the Racing for Cancer Foundation. He is also one of 13 worldwide envoys for Lance Armstrong's Livestrong organization. 

88 – Podium finishes for Dario Franchitti (who finished second on the weekend) in his Indy car career, tying Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal for fifth on the all-time list.

196 - Consecutive Indy car starts for Tony Kanaan going back to the 2001 CART race in Portland. Kanaan is second to Jimmy Vasser's 211 straight starts.

1,968 - Total race laps in 2012. Helio Castroneves completed almost all of them: 1,965, most of any driver.

$1,000,000 - Prize money for winning the 2012 Izod IndyCar Series title.

Norris blogs on Monaco, Indy and the Coke 600

Just a quick thought to start off:

Everybody in IndyCar talked about the need to get away from "pack racing" after the accident last October at Las Vegas that killed Dan Wheldon. As a result, the series has refused to return to Vegas and, with the exception of Texas Motor Speedway, won't race on 1.5-mile tracks or tracks that are highly banked for that reason.

Indianapolis is the first oval the series has run on since that accident and there are new cars. Don't be surprised to see pack racing on Sunday. I don't think you can get away from it, regardless of where you go or what you do.

Meantime, Joey Saldana won the first race of the weekend Friday night at the Dirt Track at Charlotte, the World of Outlaws Showdown.  He started fourth in the 30-lap sprint car feature and was pretty much in control once he got the lead.

Sprint Cup drivers Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne started the feature and, although both showed flashes of brilliance, weren't really factors. 

Sammy Swindell and Steve (King) Kinser made things interesting for awhile but suspension problems killed Swindell's race and a flat tire did in Kinser.

Saldana, a second-generation sprint car star (his dad, "Little Joe" Saldana, was a USAC sprint car racer in the Seventies who also drove in the Indy 500), won his third Outlaws feature of the season.

The Outlaws tour includes a stop at the Brantford-area Ohsweken Speedway at the end of July. Tony Stewart will be back to defend his race win of a year ago.

Meantime, across the street at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Aric Almirola won the pole for the Coca-Cola 600 that will be held Sunday evening. Marcos Ambrose will start beside him on the front row. Danica Patrick will start her third Sprint Cup race of the season from the 40th position.

It was blistering hot in Charlotte Friday and forecasts in central Indiana are calling for an extremely hot day Sunday for the Indianapolis 500.

Speedway officials are telling the expected 200,000-plus spectators to wear hats, drink lots of fluids and use a lot of sunscreen. I predict if it's that hot that many (if not most) of them will go home.

There have been Indy 500s held previously when the temperature was in the 90s (Fahrenheit, of course)  but that was years and years ago.  Entertainment options weren't as many or as varied as now, so people toughed it out. They'd paid their money and they wanted the show and if it was hot, so what?

Nowadays, creature comforts are paramount, so people won't hang around if it's stifling.

I feel sorry for the drivers; they can't go anywhere. They're strapped in their rockets from start to finish and they'll be wearing three-layer firesuits and underwear, gloves and balaclavas and I guarantee you it will be hot, hot, hot for them.

Let's hope the teams keep a close eye and pull their driver, or drivers, out of the race if anything seems amiss. In 1953, driver Carl Scarborough died after being overcome by the heat. 

The only Canadian to win the Indianapolis 500 - officially - was Jacques Villeneuve in 1995. I say "officially," because many people think Paul Tracy won in 2002 but the Indy Racing League ruled the yellow light had come on for a crash before Tracy completed passing Helio Castroneves.

James Hinchcliffe could win on Sunday. He's been fast all month, he qualified second (missing the pole by a blink) and he's got a good team behind him.

"Hinch" talked to the media earlier this week. Here is a partial transcript of that conversation:

MODERATOR: Talk about this Sunday's race. It's been a rain-free month of May. You've had plenty of opportunity to be on the course in the IZOD IndyCar Series car. What kind of race do you expect on Sunday?

HINCHCLIFFE: It's a race of unknowns. This is the first time anybody will run this car for a full race distance on an oval. With the heat we're expecting on Sunday, that throws a question mark into the mix. We just don't know how this car is going to race.

As much as we try to run around in packs in practice, when you have all 33 cars on track running flat out and racing properly, it's a very different game than what you see during practice. 

You're going to have to be flexible on your strategy, you're going to have to adjust the car at pit stops and inside the cockpit, stay ahead of the changing conditions. That's sort of the nature of this race just because of how long it is.

MODERATOR: The last Canadian to win the Indianapolis 500, the only one actually, was Jacques Villeneuve who ironically drove the No. 27 car to the win. What would it mean for you to bring home a win in Indianapolis?

HINCHCLIFFE: I mean, it's beyond words. That's a tough thing to describe. But obviously this is the biggest race of our calendar. This is the one that everybody wants to win.

MODERATOR: Let's open it up for questions for James Hinchcliffe.

Q. It strikes me that Chevy seems to have a fuel mileage advantage. This is obviously a fuel mileage race. Talk a little bit about that. Is that going to play into your favor? Does that affect the way the strategy is going to work on Sunday?

HINCHCLIFFE: It's tough to say because we haven't really seen what people's fuel mileage is yet at this track. Certainly there was proof that we had the upper hand in that area over the first few races on road and street courses. The way the engines operate, the power level we're at, there's a lot of different elements involved here at Indianapolis.

That's not going to be something we can really assess until the race starts.

 I think that goes into what I said early about having to be flexible. We're going to be learning a lot about what each car and each team has in their back pocket as the race unfolds.

Q. When you're sitting in the middle of the front row looking down that straightaway, do you have any idea what is going to be going through your mind or do you have time to think?

 HINCHCLIFFE: I'm going to be looking left and thinking, 'Damn, I wish I was there (on the pole).'

Q. You're on the front row of the grid for the biggest race of the season. From a mindset standpoint, do you feel any more pressure here or are you able to handle it as you would any other race on the calendar?

HINCHCLIFFE: I think honestly that's one of the big tricks of Indianapolis, is you really have to try to treat it like any other race. Because at the end of the day, this is not only the biggest race on our schedule, it's the biggest race in the world. As soon as you start thinking about that and appreciating that fact before you get in the race car, I think it really puts your head in a different place. That's not necessarily the place you want to be.

It's not the way I want to approach my race on Sunday. I want to get on with the job we've been doing as a team and try to continue that momentum.

A big element of it, yeah, is to try to push that as far out of your mind as possible.

Q. James, the qualifying procedure. Under the old method in the month of May, you would be sitting on pole today. Do you think there needs to be any tweaks to the qualifying procedure?

HINCHCLIFFE: Racing drivers love thinking that we go racing for us. We don't. I think the format we have now is incredibly exciting. If it had been the old format, pole would have been set at 2 in the afternoon and everybody would have sat around and nobody would have been able to challenge.

 As it was, we had a thrilling duel for the pole that came down to the closest margin in history. It would have been tragic to rob fans of that show. I come out on the lesser end of that, which is still second place.

 I quite like the shootout format, the fact we have multiple runs at it. I think it adds a new element of excitement to it. At the end of the day we're here to put on a show.

 Q. You, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti seem to follow in a team of drivers that have great chemistry together. What do you think is the key to y'all having the unity you have?

 HINCHCLIFFE: Well, honestly the first conversation I ever had with Michael and everybody at Andretti Autosport, their whole key to building a good race team is starting with good drivers that have good chemistry. It's something they've achieved in the past and something that they feel was maybe missing a little bit the last few seasons.

When they first called me, they really wanted to get to know me a little bit better and see if I would fit in well. You could have the best driving credentials in the world or you could be backed by the biggest sponsor on the planet. If you're not going to be able to work well with the people on the team, it really is all for nothing.

I've always said racing is not about engines, tires, race cars, it's about people, and the right group of people will be successful, period.

I think in Marco, Ryan and myself, you have three drivers who are young, hungry, very motivated to put in the effort, to work as hard as possible to get this team back up to championship contenders.

The personalities are close enough off track. We're all good friends. I think that allows us to work so much better together as a group. We push each other so hard. When you're in a situation like that, it's hard to not see success because all the right elements are there for it to happen.

I don't think there's one specific thing that you can point out that leads to that chemistry working the way it does. It really is the combination of all the people on the team, all the drivers working together, and like I said, all of us pushing together to improve week in and week out.

Q. I was wondering how you feel with regards to your car package this year compared to last year and how much more you feel there is to come from both yourself as a driver and also in terms of the car during the rest of the season.

 HINCHCLIFFE: Well, certainly, I mean, it's a strong package. The car, when we first got it, it actually didn't really suit me. It wasn't my favorite thing to drive. Between the work that Dallara has done, obviously a lot of work from the team, a tremendous amount of work from Chevrolet, as well, now I and everybody at Andretti Autosports has a competitive package. The car is much more suited me than it was when we first got out there.

Again, it's a huge testament to all the hard work of everybody back at the shop.

 We'll have to see sort of how this race unfolds. I mean, I didn't have a ton of experience in the old car. But certainly the situation that I'm in in general, just with the car and the team and everybody, is a big step forward from last year.

The experience plays into a part of that. Again, just the infrastructure at Andretti Autosport, the resources they have, it's a tremendous position to be in. I think there's definitely more confidence in the experience and the atmosphere that we've got. Hopefully this just translates to get results for the rest of the year.

Q. James, it seems almost the highlight of your year is the red gloves (that were worn by the late Canadian driver, Greg Moore). Can you talk about that a little bit. We know how it happened. Yourself personally, how do you feel about that, being able to do that? Any plans for them to be in your car for the race?

HINCHCLIFFE: It was a very emotional thing for me, because Greg's my hero. More than anything, to have been approached by somebody who knew him very well and was very good friends with him and his family to do that, it was beyond an honor. To have even been considered worthy of being able to take his gloves around for a couple laps at the Speedway was a very, very touching thing. I'm incredibly grateful I got to do that.

Yeah, it's just one of the coolest things I've had the chance to do. That will be a hard thing to top. It's certainly something I'll remember for a long time.

In terms of where the gloves go for now, I think they did their job in qualifying. He helped me get a good run and a starting spot. We'll leave it at that. We'll leave the record intact. He's had his qualifying runs now. He's in the race as far as I'm concerned. I think that's a good place to leave it.

Q. You mentioned this is your second time around at Indy, how you've learned from last year what to expect, how things work. What is race morning for you like at Indy and how do you go about preparing for a race like that? Do you ever get a moment to kind of stop and appreciate what it is you're doing?

HINCHCLIFFE: Well, you know, in terms of preparation on race morning, the team's very good that we have no commitments that aren't racing related on Sunday. There's no quick sponsor appearances, no meet-and-greets, things like that. They let you get to business.

 As I said before, it's a function of trying to treat it like any other race weekend. You go, you'll talk to the engineers, your teammates. Me being me, I try and keep it as light as possible. Still tell jokes, hang out with the family a little bit before the start of the race like I would anywhere else.

 Yeah, it's very easy to get lost in the moment. And I think one of the few moments that we get to sort of appreciate where we are and what we're doing is driver introductions when you walk up over the wall and see the stands completely full for the first time all month.

You're here all month, and you see them, and there's some people in them some days, Pole Day there's some people, but there's nothing like race day. Almost to the same extent, once we get strapped in the cars, do the warmup laps, three by three, which you don't do anywhere else, you really appreciate you're at Indy.

 You go on the whole track and you see these formerly gray, barren grandstands seething with life, color and movement. It's a very surreal experience. It gives this track a feeling that it's alive and you're right in the heart of it.

 You're by yourself at that point. All the press is done. There's nothing else you can do but get on and drive. You just take that moment and enjoy it.

On the F1 fire, Indy racing in Toronto and NASCAR fights

WEEKEND HEADLINES

1. More than 30 injured after fire breaks out in F1 garage

2. Why has Honda Indy called a press conference? Indy 500 practice

3. Who was that little guy out on the NASCAR track?

1. Maldonado rescues cousin from fire after winning Grand Prix

About 90 minutes after Pastor Maldonado won the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday
– an hour and a half after the winner and his podium sidekicks Ferando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen exchanged champagne squirts and he’d talked on international television about winning his first F1 race – the Venezuelan driver carried his injured cousin on his back out of the inferno that moments before had been the Williams garage.

We won’t know for sure what caused the huge fire that resulted in at last 30 people being injured – at least one is reportedly in critical condition – until the investigation is complete but the suspicion is that it had something to do with the electronics on Bruno Senna’s car that had been returned to the garage following a mid-race collision with the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher.

Sir Frank Williams, confined to a wheelchair since being injured in a road accident in the 1980s, was hustled away from the fire and wasn’t among those hurt.

Williams GP personnel as well as some members of the Force India, Red Bull and Caterham teams were treated for burns and smoke inhalation.

Details, more photographs, here

More photographs II

My F1 race report is directly below this, or you can click here but my first Notebook Jottings item concerns the huge Spanish financial institution Banco Santander.

When international banking giant ING wised up a couple of years ago and bailed out of F1, it was replaced by Santander. As was the case for a few years with ING, all you see in F1 these days, pretty much, are Santander signs.

The people running those big international banks like the F1 lifestyle. And they get to live it until the people who have their money on deposit in savings accounts start to put 2 and 2 together.

Then they start saying things like this:

"How come you are flying to Monte Carlo on a private jet and eating shrimp scampi and lobster in the Grand Prix Paddock Club and all you’re willing to pay me in interest is a lousy 1.2 per cent. I think I will go down the street to a bank whose managers don’t have such expensive tastes."

Because of the European debt crisis, Santander’s net profit dropped a whopping 24 per cent in the first quarter of 2012. Which means it won’t be just the little people asking questions about the bank’s F1 involvement and you can start with the board of directors.

I betcha, like ING, Santander won’t be around all that long.

More Jottings:

– Michael Schumacher was penalized five grid positions at Monaco for running into the back of Bruno Senna and ending both their races.

As is the case on the street, the onus is on the driver following to avoid a collision. Schumacher did not do that and deserves the penalty – probably.

But Schumacher said Senna changed his line twice – and he did. Watch the replay again, if you can, and I think you would agree that Senna broke the rules. I know, the stewards ruled otherwise, but they are not always right (as we all know).

But here’s what I think really happened: Schumacher got confused. I don’t think that accident would have happened five years ago. I know it wouldn’t have happened when Schumacher was 25.

Why? Because his eyesight would have been better then and his brain would have reacted faster and his reflexes would have been just that much quicker.

Yes, he still has the desire and he’s still fast when he’s out there all by himself. But that world, the world of million-miles-an-hour F1 racing, is going way too fast for a guy his age and it’s time to call it a day.

– What is it with the left rear tire changer on the McLaren team? On Sunday, Lewis Hamilton went to leave his pit after a stop and ran over a wheel that had been put down too close to the left rear corner of his car.

You will recall that twice previously this season, Jenson Button’s race chances were stymied by the left rear tire changer.

– Pastor Maldonado, starting from pole, looked like the Schumacher of old at the start, the way he took dead aim at Alonso and moved across as if to run him off the circuit.

But, as the rules state, he left him a lane and Alonso kept his foot in it. (I mean, who thinks he can intimidate Alonso . . . ) And the two-time world champion, who was not going to be denied at his home race, was in the lead after that first corner.

– I want to go back to the fire at the F1 race in Spain for a moment.

I watch the Speed News on Sunday night. I like the show. I like host Adam Alexander and I think his sidekick this season, Sam Hornish Jr., is doing a good job.

I wonder about the lineup editor, though. They reported the race results and so on and then, almost as an afterthought, they reported on the fire. Kind of a, "Oh, by the way, there was this near-disaster after the F1 race in Spain."

It reminded me of Denis Jenkinson’s report on the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans race that was published in Britain’s Motor Sport magazine. He wrote 250 paragraphs (or thereabouts) before reporting that 80 people had been killed when a car went into the crowd. . .

– Felipe Massa and Sebastien Vettel both got drive-through penalties for not slowing down for yellow flags.

Huh?

They weren’t passing anybody, they didn’t nearly run somebody over, they didn’t do anything. So who makes the complaint and who makes a decision as the result of a complaint? If the situation is that drastic, send out the safety car.

– Speaking of Massa, while he was being lapped he was very quick to get out of the way of Maldonado and not so quick to get out of the way of Alonso. He’s finished at Ferrari and he knows it. If he can’t find a way to stay in F1, he’ll join Barrichello at IndyCar.

– And speaking of Vettel, analyst David Couthard was pointing out that "Vettel is making passes in places where there aren’t usually passes."

Which explains why he’s won the last two world championships.

2. Why is IndyCar boss coming to Toronto Monday?

The Honda Indy Toronto has called a media conference for Monday morning and IZOD IndyCar Series boss Randy Bernard plans to fly in from Indianapolis to attend.

No, they aren’t bringing in a driver to publicize the July race, which is just a little less than two months away. Just (so far as I know) race co-owner Kim Greene (I don’t see partner Kevin Savoree’s name on the invite) and Bernard.

The reason for the press conference? "Private and public partners renew commitment to professional auto racing in Toronto."

Now, what’s that about?

I shall report on this Monday afternoon in this spot. But I suggest there are things happening behind the scenes, to wit: maybe the welcome this race has enjoyed in this town since 1986 isn’t as enthusiastic as it once was.

That's all I'm going to say. You can read between the lines.

Meantime, they’re practicing at Indianapolis and the run for the pole will take place next Saturday and bumping will take place on Sunday – although there won’t be any bumping because they are going to be hard-pressed to come up with 33 cars.

Sebastien Saavedra, who doesn’t have a full-time ride in the IZOD IndyCar Series this year, was fastest on Sunday with Sarah Fisher-Hartman Racing’s Josef Newgarden and sprint car standout Brian Clauson (yea!) right on his heels. Scott Dixon and Justin Wilson rounded out the fast five.

Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe – who’s writing and recording an Indy 500 diary for Speed TV’s website – was ninth fastest. The other Canadian, Alex Tagliani of Montreal, who won the pole at Indy a year ago, turned a lap that was 20^th fastest.

Saavedra, driving for Andretti Autosport (he won a Honda Indy preliminary race here a couple of years ago), ran a best lap of a little more than 221 mph with Chevrolet power. Slowest was Lotus driver Simona de Silvestro at a little more than 202 mph. The second Lotus driver, Jean Alesi, was a tad quicker at 205 and change.

Is it any wonder Jay Penske has gone to court to try to get out of his contract with Lotus (as Bryan Herta and Dreyer & Reinbold did before him) in order to get Chevrolet motors for Sebastien Bourdais, who could win the race, and Katherine Legge?

Postscript: it pains me to watch the video of the opening laps at Indy at the weekend. The three Penske cars and drivers – Will Power, Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves - drove a lap in formation and it looked really neat. But there was, in the words of Mel Lastman, no-body there. I mean nobody. When I first went to Indy in the Sixties, when they used to literally race through the pits to be the first car on the track on the first day of practice, there would be 200,000 in the place. Now? Nobody.

3. Some in NASCAR have class and some have no class

After the Bojangles Southern 500 at Darlington Saturday night, won by Jimmie Johnson (it was Hendrick Motorsports' 200th team career win) with Denny Hamlin second and Tony Stewart third (story and results here), there was a kerfuffle on pit road. One of Ryan Newman’s crew members went after Kurt Busch for creating a situation late in the race that resulted in Newman crashing.

(Why does Greg Biffle not get into scrapes? Or Johnson? Or Earnhardt Jr.? Or Bowyer? Or just about everybody else except Kurt Busch and his little brother Kyle? I know the answer. Do you?)

In any event, I could really care less about the Busch brothers.

What I really want to know, however, is who was the little grey-haired guy wearing a blue jacket who was out on the track during the fight and then did the inexplicable: he went after a TV cameraman who was filming the struggle and tried to put his hand over the lens.

He was chased away by a Fox Network producer (I assume he was a producer; they usually travel almost hand-in-hand with camerapeople at sports events) but how dare he do what he tried to do?

NASCAR – in fact all sports – owes just about everything to TV. If not for TV, NASCAR is still a southern, regional, sport.

NASCAR is paid millions and millions of dollars by the NBC and Fox sports networks to televise the sport and anybody who tries to interfere with anything having to do with those races, including the fights, should be banned from NASCAR races for the rest of this season, if not forever.

I mean, how did he get out there? NASCAR apparently has a security problem, too.

One last thing about NASCAR. Danica Patrick is now up to tenth in the Nationwide standings. And she made it through the Southern 500 without crashing and driving steadily and solidly. She'll be okay.

There was all sorts of racing this weekend. We'll catch up with the rest of the results Monday night - at the end of the report on that Honda Indy press conference.

Tagliani to drive for Brian Herta in 2012

This email popped into my mailbox this morning. I'm printing it in its entirety:

Bryan Herta Autosport is proud to announce that Alex Tagliani will pilot the team’s entry in the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series.
 

Last year’s Indianapolis 500 winning team sought out the Canadian driver because of his experience, technical ability and overall proficiency in the racecar. In 2011, the veteran driver earned back-to-back pole positions, first during the 95^th running of the historic Indy 500 and then at Texas Motor Speedway, adding to the list of his many accomplishments as an open-wheel racer.

 

Just last week, the team announced a joint venture with Bowen & Bowers Motorsports. Paired with the team’s solid racing operations, Tagliani is the final piece to the puzzle enabling Bryan Herta Autosport to position itself as a top-tier program in 2012 and beyond.

 

BHA has previously been announced their status as a Factory Partner Team to Lotus, which will result in the car being run in the iconic black and Gold Lotus livery. An announcement is expected on Thursday to reveal the identity of the team’s primary sponsorship.  Veteran race engineer Todd Malloy has been re-signed to lead the team’s engineering efforts and focus on the car driven by Tagliani.

 

“We are very proud to have Alex Tagliani join our team for our first full season of Indycar competition. He brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the program, and is the perfect fit for us and our sponsor partners,” stated Herta. “Together with Todd Malloy and Brian Page in engineering, and the Don Lambert led crew, Alex has the full support of a very talented group of professionals behind him.”

 

Tagliani echoes Herta’s enthusiasm, saying, "I'm really happy to drive for BHA. Having known Bryan for a long time, I recognize that he's a nice guy with genuine integrity. I believe that he and Steve Newey deserve to own a great IndyCar team, and I'm honored to be part of the building of BHA's 2012 program.  It's also a great honor for me to represent the Lotus brand as a factory partner. Lotus has so much history in the world of motorsports. As a team, we have a lot of work in front of us and while challenging, it will be fun to be at the core of both engine and team development. BHA has a great group of people and I'm looking forward to working with them."

 

Tagliani’s first task will be to lend his experience to the Lotus engine testing program, followed by team testing scheduled to begin in early February.  The IZOD IndyCar Series kicks off the 2012 season March 25 on the streets of St. Petersburg, FL.

 

 

About Bryan Herta Autosport

Founded by veteran driver Bryan Herta and noted race engineer and team manager Steve Newey, Bryan Herta Autosport (BHA) has been a race-winning team in Firestone Indy Lights competition since 2009 and recently won the 2011 Indianapolis 500 with driver Dan Wheldon in only its second IZOD IndyCar Series start. The Indianapolis, Ind.-based squad made its IndyCar debut in 2010 contesting the Indianapolis 500. Herta, an accomplished racer, has won in every series he has contested including the IZOD IndyCar Series, American Le Mans Series and CART in addition to garnering Skip Barber Formula Ford, Barber Saab and Firestone Indy Lights championship titles. Amongst his career highlights are a third-place finish in the 2005 Indianapolis 500 and victory in the LMP2 class at the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 2007. Newey’s racing career spans over 20 years and includes design and race engineering positions in Formula One as well as team manager/technical director roles in IndyCar, American Le Mans and Grand-Am competition. Among his highlights are the 1992 Champ Car World Series title as the race engineer for Bobby Rahal, the 2006 Grand-Am Daytona Prototype Driver’s Championship with Krohn Racing’s Jorg Bergmeister and victory in the Twelve Hours of Sebring in 2007 as race engineer for Andretti Green Racing and drivers Bryan Herta, Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan. He was also instrumental in assembling the Patrick Racing Firestone test team and served as team manager for drivers Scott Pruett and Adrian Fernandez. For more information, visit www.bryanhertaautosport.com.

 

About Bowen and Bowers Motorsports, Inc.

Based in Toronto, Ontario, Bowen and Bowers Motorsports, Inc. is the coming together of leading sports and entertainment property development professionals, Chris Bowers and David Bowen, along with the financial management experience of Trapeze Asset Management Inc, with the mission of providing innovative commercial platforms and funding alternatives to developing sports and entertainment properties. David Bowen has more than 20 years experience in sports marketing, business development and client service. From his time at the CFL to his marketing management of Chevrolet’s factory supported efforts in LeMans and IndyCar, Bowen has set the standard for relationship management and creating innovative B2B, B2E and B2C platforms. Chris Bowers has more than 22 years experience in the sports and lifestyle marketing industry. During his career he has created, directed and or executed programs for some of the worlds leading companies and brands from Philip Morris to Coca-Cola. He has been credited with revitalizing Panther Racing and securing one of the largest sponsorship’s in IndyCar history. Bowen and Bowers Motorsports, Inc. is headquartered at 22 St. Clair Avenue East, 18^th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M4T 2S3, Canada. For more information call (416) 915-1367. 



Auto racing: 3 races, 3 lucky winners

Dan Wheldon, right, wins the Indy 500 after J. R. Hildebrand, left, crashed into the wall on the final lap of the race on Sunday, May 29, 2011. (REUTERS/Brent Smith)

WEEKEND HEADLINES:

1. Vettel lucks into Monaco F1 victory

2. Wheldon lucks into Indy 500 victory

3. Harvick lucks into Coca-Cola 600 victory

SYNOPSIS: It’s Memorial Day weekend in the United States and the U.S. National Guard sponsors cars in NASCAR and IndyCar. In both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600, those National Guard-sponsored cars were within a half mile of winning the iconic races until disaster struck. At Indy, J.R. Hildebrand crashed at the last turn and handed the victory to Dan Wheldon. In Charlotte, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car ran out of gas within sight of the checkers and a delighted Kevin Harvick crossed the finish line first. What rotten luck. And talking about luck, because his tires were on the verge of disintegrating, Sebastien Vettel was about ready to be eaten alive by both Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button at the Grand Prix of Monaco when a red flag stopped the race with just a few laps to go and everybody got to put on fresh rubber. Go figure. When the race restarted, Vettel had no trouble staying in front. Next race: Canada.

1. Red flag helps Vettel to another F1 victory.

Results: Vettel, Alonso, Button, Webber, Kobayashi, Hamilton, Sutil, Heidfeld, Barrichello, Buemi. Full report here.

So my question this morning is: since when, under a red flag, does everybody get to work on their race cars and – specifically – change tires and repair damage?

Silly me. I always thought a red flag meant a race had been stopped temporarily – suspended, if you will – to resume if and when whatever had caused the red flag was fixed, or removed.

It would continue, at that point, as if nothing had happened.

A red flag is not a checkered flag, or even a caution flag. Like a traffic light, it is meant to interrupt the flow but activity can continue once conditions improve and it is safe.

Or so I thought.

I was at a speedway in New York on Saturday night, in which there was a red flag. Permission was given for refuelling – but crews were reminded there was to be no work done on the cars.

Remember the 2000 Daytona 500,  when – during a red flag period late in the race – Stirling Marlin (who was leading!) scrambled out of his car and snuck around the front and tried to pull out a fender that was rubbing against a tire? That got him sent to the back of the pack and lost him the race.

Now, I know Oswego Speedway and even NASCAR aren't Formula One but when the red flag was displayed in Monaco, both the announcers, David Coulthard and Martin Brundle, were of the impression the race was over.

But, obviously, the crews didn’t think so because they were all running toward where the cars were stopped on the racing surface and they were pulling carts full of new tires and stuff along with them.

It turned out not to be a red flag in the classic sense but a giant pit stop instead.

Which was a godsend for Vettel, who had led the race from the start. But after making his one and only – during the actual race, that is – pit stop on Lap 16, he hadn’t been back in the pits. Alonso (Ferrari) had stopped twice and Button (McLaren-Mercedes) went in three times and both had been hounding him as the race wore on.

Both announcers were convinced that Vettel (Red Bull-Renault) was dead meat as the race drew to a close. The Pirelli tires have a built-in obsolescence that makes them useless after a certain period of time. That Vettel had managed to nurse his along was commendible but they were down to the canvas and couldn’t go on much longer.

But then came the accident, and the red flag (during which the McLaren crew even got to fix Lewis Hamilton’s wrecked rear wing), and the rest is history.

Notebook jottings:

– To make this blog report official: The red flag came out after three cars hit the wall near the Swimming Pool with only nine laps remaining. One of the drivers, Vitaly Petrov, had to be removed from the car, which meant rescue vehicles went onto the track; the safety car led the field around for a lap but it was too dangerous with people wandering about so the decision was made to red flag the race.

- Now, by the way, before people start filling my mailbox and calling me an imbecile, I'm sure the F1 rule book is completely different than any other racing series on the face of the Earth and everything that happened during that red flag period in Monaco on Sunday was completely legal.

Of course it was, or else it wouldn't have happened.

But that doesn't make it right. Alonso and Button took on new tires and Vettel gambled on not changing his, which is right and of itself. But he was about to lose his gamble and only the misfortune suffered by Petrov saved his bacon.

A red flag means stop. Period. It should not mean everybody gets a haircut, a shave and a tuneup.

– Sometimes you have to force the issue to make a point. Monaco is so narrow that it is difficult to make a pass so you just have to bull your way through. Hamilton tried that at the hairpin against Massa – he was up on the curb, in fact – and ran into the Ferrari. Massa crashed shortly after and Hamilton was hauled onto the carpet.

Gimme a break.

I thought it was just hard racing. Maybe the stewards in F1 should just look the other way, on occasion. Just like that hockey game the other night between Boston and Tampa Bay. No penalties. Of course there were penalties, but the refs chose not to call them. F1 stewards, take note.

– Hamilton said the stewards were picking on him because he’s black. Then he said it was a joke.
Perhaps the problem with Hamilton is that he won too soon. He still has a lot of growing-up to do.

2. High drama at the Indianapolis 500

Results: Wheldon, Hildebrand, Rahal, Kanaan, Dixon, Servia, Baguette, Scheckter, Marco Andretti, Patrick. Full report here.

There were so many storylines in this year’s 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500 that it was hard to pick one.

For instance, I was going to start this by saying: “The two fastest rookies in this year’s Indy 500 made the same rookie mistake – they got too high in a corner and they both crashed into the outside wall. You can bet that J.R. Hildebrand and Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe won’t be doing that again.”

This is another thought I had: “Rookie Indy 500 driver James Hinchcliffe of Oakville might be too nice to be a professional racing driver. He was preparing to let Bertrand Baguette pass him in Sunday’s Indy 500 when he got too high going into turn three and wound up hitting the wall.”

Or, how about this one: “An unemployed driver hired for a one-off by an owner who doesn’t have his own equipment and had to make a deal with another team for technical support and a crew wound up winning Sunday’s Indianapolis 500.”

Actually, any of those paragraphs could have been the lead of a story about the Centennial of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

In the first instance, poor Hildebrand (Hinch had made his mistake earlier and crashed out) was winning the 500 and all he had to do was pass Charlie Kimball in the fourth turn and sail home when he enexplicably went too high and slammed the wall.

Wheldon – in a move reminiscent of A.J. Foyt’s in 1967 when he had to pick his way through a four-car crash to make it to the finish – managed to tread carefully past the still-crashing Hildebrand, a slowing Kimball and a lapped car to cross the line of bricks in first place for his second Indy 500 victory.

Wheldon, who doesn’t have a regular ride in the IZOD IndyCar Series, drove the race for Brian Herta, a retired Indy car driver who has been running an Indy Lights team. Herta, with sponsorship from the William Rast high-end jeans company, had to make a deal with Sam Schmidt’s organization in order to run the 500.

So it really was a David vs. Goliath day in Indy as the big Indy teams of Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske were – with the exception of Scott Dixon – exactly nowhere in this race.

It was a great race, with lots of good dicing in the pack and drama. The pre-racing celebration of the 100 years of Indianapolis was an excellent piece of work.

Jim Nabors was great singing “Indiana,” (which is the official name of that song, by the way), and David Foster's playing, with Seal and Kelly Clarkson singing, the Star Spangled Banner was terrific. Florence Henderson massacred God Bless America – again – but she’s been doing that for years and nobody seems to mind.

Three  things:

– Brent Musburger was – again – a disaster. Although he finally learned how to pronounce Dario Franchitti’s name correctly, he pulled one of the great boners yet again.
As the camera panned across the face of arguably the greatest, all-‘round, racing driver the world has ever seen, Mario Andretti, ol’ Brent made mention of the living legend, but then called him “Marco Andretti.”

- Alex Tagliani of Montreal started from pole - the first Canadian to win the pole at Indy - but crashed out on Lap 147 and finished 28th. James Hinchcliffe of Oakville crashed out on Lap 99 and was officially classified 29th. Paul Tracy of Scarborough brushed the wall early in the race but returned to finish 25th, 25 laps behind the winner.

– There were rumblings in the last year to 18 months that the Speedway was for sale. In fact, one “reliable source” said the deal was done and it would become public after the 100th anniversary.
They say that everything has a price. I sure hope this one doesn’t.

3. Earnhardt Jr. has victory in sight, runs out of gas

Results: Harvick, Ragan, Logano, Kurt Busch, Allmendinger, Ambrose, Earnhardt, Smith Reutimann, Hamlin. Full report here.

Going into last night’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, Dale Earnhardt Jr. hadn’t won a NASCAR Sprint Cup race in 104 tries going back to 2008. This morning, you can make that 105.

Little E. was three-quarters of the way through a green-white-checkers finish when his tank ran dry and as a 100,000-plus crowd collectivelly gasped, along with millions watching on the tube, Kevin Harvick seemed to come out of nowhere to win the second U.S. Memorial Weekend classic.

David Ragan followed suit and Joey Logano had his best finish in a long while when he arrived home third. Three more cars driven by Kurt Busch, A.J. Allmendinger and Marcos Ambrose got the checkers before Dale Jr. coasted across.

The last 40 laps of the race were pretty routine with Greg Biffle leading, Kasey Kahne second and Earnhardt third.

With five laps to go – and just about everybody running low on fuel – Jimmie Johnson’s engine let go (resulting in his crew chief, Chad Knaus, dropping the F-bomb on live TV, for which anchor announcer Mike Joy immediately apologized) and all bets were off.

Biffle had to give up the lead and pit for fuel. Ditto Kahne and others. Earnhardt stayed out, driving onto the apron and turning off his engine to conserve fuel. Harvick turned his off and was pushed for awhile during the yellow by his teammate, Paul Menard. Other drivers copied Menard and started pushing their teammates.

Finally, the green fell and Earnhardt took off – only to come up dry.

Like Hildebrand, Earnhardt’s car is sponsored by the National Guard and, like Hildebrand, he was sooooo close.

Notebook Jottings:

- Kevin Harvick has won a lot of races but never the Coke 600. He changed that Sunday night.

- Kyle Busch had a miserable night. He lost control twice, once spinning through the grass and once into  the wall, right-side. He wasn't hurt. He also wasn't happy.

- There were a record 14 cautions. The worst accident involved Mark Martin and David Gilliland and it was a ka-boomer that also collected Ryan Newman.

- Whether Danica Patrick stays in the IZOD IndyCar Series or moves to NASCAR full-time will likely be up to her sponsor. With the exception of the Indy 500, NASCAR enjoys better TV ratings than IndyCar and also has more exposure through more races, which would appear to be a major attractions.

While she's been driving for Dale Jr.'s Nationwide team (by the way, he looks much better without his beard, as does Jimmie Johnson), the chances are good that she will sign with Tony Stewart's team and race in the Sprint Cup series.

I hope she insists on a clause in her contract that will allow her to run the Indy 500, should she move to NASCAR.

Now . . . because I-Can’t-Be-Everywhere, or Watch Everything, this following report about the opening race of the 2011 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series national championship was sent to me by NASCAR Canada’s Shon Sbarra:

Scott Steckly rebounded from problems during a pit stop to win the Dickies 200 at Mosport Speedway on Saturday night, as the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series kicked off its 2011 season.

The 2008 series champion from Milverton, Ont., had dominated much of the 200-lap event on the half-mile banked oval and led a race-high 112 laps, but lost the lead during a pit stop when an air gun jammed as a crew member was changing the right rear tire on his No. 22 Canadian Tire Dodge.

Steckly's fast pace earlier in the race, which left only five cars on the lead lap by just past the midway point, served to minimize his setback.

He restarted fifth and quickly began his charge to the front. He caught Pete Shepherd III of Brampton by Lap 153 and moved by for the lead a few laps later. Steckly held on through two restarts in the last 10 laps to take the win, the ninth of his career.

Shepherd edged Don Thomson Jr. of Hamilton for second;with fourth going to Brad Graham of Glencoe, Ont.. Defending series champion DJ Kennington of St. Thomas was fifth. Jason Hathaway of Apin was sixth, J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge was seventh, Jeff Lapcevich if Grimsby was eighth, Ron Beauchamp Jr. of Windsor was ninth and series rookie Steven Mathews of New Liskeard was tenth.

Fitzpatrick had led the initial laps, after winning his seventh career series pole in qualifying. Mathews charged out front and set the pace but Kennington later slipped by as they battled through lapped traffic.

Steckly, who had started second on the grid, chased down Kennington and moved by for the lead on Lap 58. He maintained the lead until everyone made their pit stops during a caution on Lap 124. After the pit stop issue, he charged his way back to the front and retook the top spot on Lap 157.

A & W-sponsored driver Jason White of Sun Peaks, B.C. suffered a loose oil line fitting, which put him several laps behind but he rallied to finish 15th. Meantime, Isabelle Tremblay of St. Hippolyte, Que., suffered from handling problems and a flat tire but managed a 14th-place finish.

The Dickies 200 will be televised on TSN next Saturday at 1 p.m. EDT.

The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series will be back in action next weekend when the circuit makes its inaugural visit to Circuit ICAR at Mirabel Airport north of Montreal. Indianapolis 500 pole sitter Alex Tagliani is entered in the event.

NOTES: David Ostella of Maple finished eighth in Friday’s Freedom 100 Firestone Indy Lights race at the Indianapolis Speedway. The Jensen Motorsports driver is currently eighth in the series’ standings. Eighteen drivers started the race. Ostella was on the lead lap when the checkers fell. . . AIM Autosport of Woodbridge is pleased to announce that fuel and oil supplement manufacturer GAMMA88 will continue as primary sponsor of its BMW-Riley Daytona Prototype for three more races this season – Road America, Watkins Glen and Montreal. . . A new sprint car sanctioning organization, the Ontario Topless Sprints, is planning its first event at Humberstone Speedway in Port Colborne on Fri., Aug. 26th. Wingless sprinters from Ontario, Quebec and the U.S. border states are expected to run the inaugural show. . . Ohsweken Speedway’s 2011 opener was rained out yet again and they’ll try again next Friday night.  Meantime, the Pro Modified Racing Association, the Quick 32 Sportsman Series and the Pro Bike & Sled Series, which had their runs washed out at Toronto Motorsports Park on Victoria Day weekend, will try again June 10-12 during the Extreme Mayhem Nationals.  

Monaco, Indy, Coke 600: Racing's biggest weekend

It’s the biggest weekend of the year for big-league auto racing with Formula One, IndyCar and NASCAR all featuring iconic races.

Oh, and the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series is opening its season Saturday night at Mosport Speedway.

More about that in a minute.

At 7:55 a.m. Sunday on TSN, the most famous and romantic of all F1 races, the Grand Prix de Monaco, will go to the post in Monte Carlo. Sebastien Vettel is coming off yet another decisive win in Spain and the question is: can he keep up the pace?

I suggest he can, but Lewis Hamilton is looking pretty racy these days himself.

Qualifying will be Saturday morning at 7:55, also on TSN.

At 11 a.m. Sunday, also on TSN, the Indianapolis 500 pre-race show will start and will feature all the pomp and pageantry leading up to the 100^th anniversary of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

Hear the Purdue University Band play "On the Banks of the Wabash," and Florence Henderson sing "America, the Beautiful" and David Foster, with Seal and Kelly Clarkson singing, play the U.S. National Anthem and, finally, Jim Nabors sing "Back Home in Indiana."

Then (and I’m guessing here), Mari Hulman George will say something like "In company with the four women drivers who have qualified for this Centennial race . . ." and then there will be a recording of the late Tony Hulman crying out,. "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!" and there won’t be a dry eye in the 300,000-strong house,

 I guarantee it.

Our own Alex Tagliani is on pole, Oakville rookie James Hinchcliffe is inside Row 5 and Paul Tracy will start outside Row 7 (and pass five or six cars on the first lap).

A Hot Wheels stunt (cross fingers it all goes well) will also be worked in somehow and look for some Canadian content there, too.

My pick for the 500? Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe. And look for young Hinchcliffe to finish right up there.

At 5:30, again on TSN, the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 will be shown from Charlotte Motor Speedway and look for all the things that NASCAR is famous for – close racing, violent crashes and a tight, tight finish. My vote in this one is Kyle Busch.

Now, Kimi Raikkonen has left the truck series ("Been there, done that,") and will race in the Nationwide Series event at Charlotte on Saturday afternoon. Kyle Busch and Joe Nemechek have teamed up to get Kimi in the show.

Next up for the Kimster? The Sprint Cup Series. You’ll remember that Kimi went F1 racing directly from karts and he’s not wasting any time launching his NASCAR career either.

Now, at Mosport, D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas will be out to defend his championship against all his old foes – Kerry Micks, Scott Steckly, Don Thomson Jr., Mark Dilley, Jason Hathaway, Jeff Lapcevich, Jason White, Pierre Bourque and all those guys.

Practice will take place early Saturday afternoon with qualifying set for 5 p.m. and the green flag scheduled for 7 p.m.