Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

On Michael Schumacher and NASCAR Canada fisticuffs

Yesterday, I suggested it was time that Michael Schumacher retire for good from Formula One racing because I don’t think his mental ability to process information quickly and to react physically is as razor sharp as it once was.

In other words, like the aging heavyweight who’s been on the receiving end of a left hook or right cross from a much-younger opponent and unable to do anything about it, it’s time for Schumacher to call it a day – I think.

Seems I’m not alone.

The picture above was posted on a Facebook page yesterday populated by fans of world championship leader Fernando Alonso. Click here for a link to that site.

Now, just because I think Schumacher should call it a day in F1 doesn’t mean he can’t keep racing and winning, although I would hope he doesn’t follow the lead of Rubens Barrichello and take a crack at Indy cars because that series is not the walk in the park a lot of people think it is.

But Le Mans and other European-style sports car races would be right up  Schumacher’s alley.

Meantime, last Saturday night at Kawartha Speedway, NASCAR’s "have at it, boys" dictum was taken literally by some of the Canadian Tire Series combatants.

In short, there was a fight at the finish of the last race of the season.

What got some folks riled up were the shenanigans during the green-white-checkers finish.

At the green, eventual winner (and 2012 Canadian Tire champeen) D.J. Kennington (about to win his seventh of 12 races) led Scott Steckly, Andrew Ranger, Pete Shepherd III and J. R. Fitzpatrick across the line. At some point in the next two laps – and cars were sometimes three wide at this point – Fitzpatrick got under Steckly and pushed him out of the groove and up into the marbles.

By the time Steckly regained control, most of the the front-runners had passed him by.

At the checkers, the order was Kennington, Ranger, Fitzpatrick, Shepherd, Rookie-of-the-Year Martin Roy and then Steckly, who - as you can imagine - was steaming.

On the cooldown lap, Steckly – a two-time Canadian Tire champion – and Fitzpatrick - who finished second to Kennington in points this season - played bumper cars on the backstretch.

At that point, NASCAR Canada announcer Adam Ross stopped talking about the wonderful performance of D.J. Kennington and drew everybody’s attention to the developing feud.

"J.R. Fitzpatrick has stopped his car at Scott Steckly’s pit," yelled Ross, approximately, over the track's PA system.

"He’s exchanging words with some of Steckly’s crew," he continued (these quotes are paraphrased, by the way).

"J.R. Fitzpatrick is getting out of his car and it looks like a brouhaha is developing. He’s taking quite a chance. His pit crew is all the way down at the first turn. They’re starting to run to his assistance but in the meantime J.R. Fitzpatrick is surrounded by Scott Steckly’s crew. NASCAR officials are getting involved over there. J.R. Fitzpatrick’s crew, the cavalry, are starting to arrive but they’re all out of breath . . ."

And then it was over and the Victory Lane celebrations to crown Kennington King of NASCAR Canada were held.

I had watched the race from the "press box" in the Kawartha clubhouse, so I went to the infield to track down the 24-year-old Fitzpatrick to find out what had transpired.

I found him over at the post-race tech inspection area, laughing it up and thoroughly enjoying himself.

One thing: he hook hands with his left hand and kept his right hand stuffed deep down in the pocket of his jacket. It seems it was just a tad tender.

NM: What happened, J.R.?

JRF: "Well, I got my car started (after the contact with Steckly’s) and I drove around and Scott’s crew was leaning over the wall all yellin’ at me so I stopped to have a discussion.

"One guy was gettin' really lippy so I took off my helmet and got out of the car and went over and I said, ‘Who wants to go?’ And this guy says, ‘Me,’ so I grabbed him and I got two really good shots in, wham! wham! – and that’s how I hurt my hand – and then by that time they were all over me and they got some good ones in on me too and then the officials arrived and broke it up."

NM: So you got hit?

JRF: "Yeah, I got hit on the side of the head and I got one on my ear but I don’t think anybody hit me as hard as I hit that first guy."

NM: So do you think they’re going to fine you, or anything? I mean, you have a habit of getting into scraps at this track (several years ago, he was involved in a ‘brouhaha’ with Kerry Micks and his crew)."

JRF: "Listen, I’m the only driver who brings any excitement to this series. Without me, it would be boring. Without me, all you’d have is D.J. Kennington winning seven races - and how exciting is that?"

And the whole time, he had the biggest grin on his face you’ve ever seen.

Roundup: Schumacher should leave F1, Hamlin wins NASCAR

Although Lewis Hamilton suffered terrible luck in Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix and Sebastien Vettel went on to win, the question many people are asking in the aftermath is:

Should seven-time world champion and Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher, 43 years old, retire for good after rear-ending another car during the race?

It is not the first time this season that this has happened – a sign, perhaps, that the aging veteran is losing his touch.

But first, the race.

Hamilton looked set to win his second consecutive race and his fourth of the season after starting from pole. He was in total control of the Grand Prix when, on Lap 22, disaster struck and he was forced out.

What turned out to be a gearbox problem for Hamilton was a gift for defending world champion Sebastien Vettel, who cruised to victory for Red Bull-Renault over Hamilton’s McLaren-Mercedes teammate Jenson Button and world championship leader Fernando Alonso in his Ferrari.

Vettel, who was pushed by Button throughout the race but always seemed to be in control, became the first driver to win consecutive Singapore night races.

Paul di Resta drove a storming race to finish fourth for Force India-Mercedes, while Nico Rosberg was fifth for Mercedes. Lotus-Renault teammates Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean were sixth and seventh, followed by Felipe Massa (a marvelous comeback after having to pit in his Ferrari at the end of the first lap because of a puncture), Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso-Ferrari) and Mark Webber (Red Bull) rounded out the top ten.

Timo Glock finished 12^th for Marussia-Cosworth, which is one of the best-ever finishes recorded by a tail-ender team.

The start was particularly frantic (most are, but this one was spectacular), with Alonso slow to get off the mark and Bruno Senna (who’d qualified 22^nd) passing cars as if they were standing still.

Several cars then had to cut the corner at the first chicane and, ever mindful that one can’t improve one’s position by taking the short way around, just about everybody backed off and fell into line pretty much where they’d started the race.

A big exception was Pastor Maldonado, who’d qualified second and was beside pole-sitter Hamilton when the lights went out. But while Hamilton took off like a rocket, the Williams driver was letting discretion be the better part of valour and was subsequently passed by Vettel and Button in about the time it took to read this sentence. Maldonado eventually suffered hydraulics failure and dropped out on Lap 36.

It was Alonso’s eighth podium finish of 2012 and he now has a 29-point lead over Vettel for the championship, with Hamilton dropping to fourth in the standings.

The question of whether Schumacher will continue in F1 in 2013 might have been answered in this race.

For the second time this season, an incident in which there was a crash suggests that Schumacher’s once razor-sharp mental and physical reaction time is no longer good enough for Formula One. Earlier in the season, he ploughed into the back of Bruno Senna and in this race the victim was Toro Rosso’s Jean Eric Vergne.

Schumacher told this to London’s Telegraph: "First of all, I broke a little earlier than normal but the car wouldn't decelerate. I went straight on the brakes then hard and locked up everything. The accident at that moment was not avoidable. I feel sorry for Jean Eric and for the team but we need to find out what happened."

What happened was not the fault of the car.

Even the best have to realize at a certain point in time that they can’t do it any more. Hockey stars can’t score like they once could, home run hitters don’t hit. Prize fighters get knocked out.

For Michael Schumacher, it’s time.

Notebook Jottings

- Schumacher is in the third year of a three-year contract with Mercedes following his first retirement. Mercedes racing boss Norbert Haug suggested to Canadian reporters at the Canadian Grand Prix in June that he wasn't fussy about Schumacher continuing.

- The stewards penalized him 10 grid positions at the next race in Japan in two weeks. After he rear-ended Senna, he got five grid places at the next race at Monaco as a penalty. Then he went out and won the pole at Monte Carlo. Will history repeat itself in Japan?

- Incidentally, Schumacher was involved in a similar accident at Singapore a year ago.

- Instead of his usual yellow, Lewis Hamilton wore a different coloured helmet at Singapore because of sponsorship considerations. As TV commentator David Coulthard suggested, betcha he wears yellow from now on.

- Although it was after dark, air temperature it was still around 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the race, Singapore being close to the equator.

- Felipe Massa's performance might suggest to Ferrari that he still very much has "it." As mentioned, he recovered from a first-lap puncture to finish in the top ten but his amazing car-control ability, as exemplified by his saving of the race car after being squeezed almost into the wall by Bruno Senna late in the race, was wondrous to behold.

NASCAR

You have to admit it: Denny Hamlin has guts.

He said, going into the second race of the Chase Sunday at Loudon, N.H., that he "guaranteed a win."

Then he qualified 32nd and still said "no problem."

So what does he go and do but win that NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, with Jimmie Johnson second and Jeff Gordon third.

Clint Bowyer arrived home fourth, Kasey Kahne was fifth, Brad Keselowski, who won the first Chase race last week, was sixth, Tony Stewart was seventh, Joey Logano was eighth, Brian Vickers ninth and Ryan Newman was tenth.

Hamlin was so sure of himself that when he got out of the car, he pretended to point to the centre field wall and hit an imaginary home run, a la Babe Ruth's "called" home run.

Will he win the Chase? We'll see.

It was an okay race; rather routine, in fact - other than Hamlin's performance, of course.

'Doctor to the drivers,' Prof. Sid Watkins dies

When Prof. Sid Watkins, who died Tuesday in London, wrote the dedication to his book Life At The Limit , Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One in 1996, he included – along with Jackie Stewart and Louis Stanley – the name Hugh Scully.

At the time, Scully was chief of staff and deputy surgeon-in-chief at Toronto General Hospital, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, president of the Ontario Medical Association and founder of the Ontario Race Physicians Association.

Scully and Watkins – who served 26 years as the FIA Formula One Safety and Medical Delegate, head of the Formula One on-track medical team and first responder in case of a crash – were best friends and pals with a passion for motorsport.

Scully got involved in trying to make racing safer after a personal friend, Austrian F1 driver Helmut Koinigg, was killed at Watkins Glen in 1973 shortly after spending a week as a houseguest of Scully’s in Toronto. Watkins, a London neurosurgeon, was approached in 1978 by Bernie Ecclestone to help improve medical facilities at Grand Prix circuits.

Watkins and Scully worked side-by-side for years, along with American motorsport doctors Steve Olvey and Terry Trammell, on the International Council of Motorsport Science to improve safety in racing car design, restraint systems, helmets and protective clothing.

Those men are generally credited — particularly Watkins — with the huge improvements in safety over the last half-century in which world-class motor racing went from a highly dangerous pursuit to one that, today, is relatively safe.

Scully is now president of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame and, in 2011, was instrumental in the decision to induct Prof. Watkins in the International category.

Watkins was unable to attend the ceremony because he was starting to suffer ill health. In recent weeks, his condition deteriorated and he was admitted to hospital in England.

On Sunday night, Scully flew to London to be with his friend. He was just in time.

Watkins was revered by the drivers and the F1 establishment because of his dedication and commitment to their health and safety. His most famous friendship was with the late Ayrton Senna, and the first chapter of his book deals with that awful weekend at Imola in 1994 when Rubens Barrichello crashed violently and both Roland Ratzenberger and Senna lost their lives.

In the book, Watkins writes (after telling Senna that Ratzenburger was dead):

"Ayrton was beside himself; he had not been close to death at a circuit before. . . . He broke down and cried on my shoulder. After all, why shouldn’t he? We had been close friends for many years, we’d fished together, we’d stayed with each other’s families– he was a part of my family – we had talked and worried together over many things common to us both in racing and in life.

"Now his head was on my shoulder and my arm was around him. I felt that I had to tell him what I thought. ‘Ayrton, why don’t you withdraw from racing tomorrow ? I don’t think you should do it. In fact, why don’t you give it up altogether? What else do you need to do? You have been World Champion three times, you are obviously the quickest driver. Give it up and let’s go fishing.’ He was silent. I went on. ‘I don’t think the risk is worth continuing – pack it in.’ He gave me a very steady look and, now calm, he said, ‘Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on.’ Those were the last words he said to me."

As the news of Watkins’s death spread, drivers and others in F1 paid tribute, including Barrichello, Martin Donnelly, Mika Hakkinen, Gerhard Berger and team founder Frank Williams who all credited Watkins with saving their lives after they suffered serious accidents.

McLaren chairman Ron Dennis said Watkins was one of Formula One’s "true greats."

"No, he wasn’t a driver," said Dennis. "No, he wasn’t an engineer. No, he wasn’t a designer. He was a doctor and it’s probably fair to say that he did more than anyone, over the years, to make Formula One as safe as it is today."

I count myself most fortunate to have interviewed Prof. Watkins before he was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame. In an overseas telephone chat that was kind of all over the map, we talked about subjects as varied as safety in F1 and whether Sebastien Vettel is as good as everybody thinks he is.

We were talking about Vettel when he suddenly said: "Wait. Let me tell you about Nelson Piquet. Now, there was a naughty boy."

The context was this: Who, in Grand Prix racing today, is a really good bloke? Who’s got the best sense of humour? Who’s a cut-up?

And Watkins had replied, after thinking for a moment: "Barrichello, I suppose, is the most fun. He’s the one who’s usually up to the most mischief these days. But none of them holds a candle to Piquet."

Nelson Piquet won three world championships but is remembered almost as much for being a practical joker. Watkins remembered two incidents as if they happened yesterday, instead of in the 1980s.

"One time, the FIA president, Jean-Marie Balestre, was making an important speech on safety," Watkins said. "As he was talking, Piquet was standing beside him, emptying a litre of carbonated water into the pocket of his suit jacket.

"Another time, Balestre was standing near the front row of the grid. Piquet was standing behind him. Suddenly, a hand came up between his legs and grabbed him by the presidential balls!

"But Balestre wasn’t angry; he thoroughly enjoyed Piquet because he made people laugh."

I put it to the professor: what is the big difference between racing in the 1950s and ’60s, when many drivers were killed, and today? Is it the HANS device? Circuit design? What?

"There are two factors that you can’t separate," he’d said. "First are the improvements made in the construction of the car. The actual technique and materials used to construct the monocoque — carbon fibre, for instance — have saved many lives.

"The other is the control of fire. When I started in the 1960s, fire was a constant danger. In the Seventies, there was a fire at the Peterson accident (when Ronnie Peterson died at Monza), and Niki Lauda was badly burned (at the Nurburgring).

"There was a fire at the Paletti accident in 1982 (at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal, in which Riccardo Paletti was killed) and then there was a fire at Imola with Gerhard Berger in 1989.

"But since then, we haven’t had a problem with fuel fires and that’s been an enormous step forward."

Watkins made mention of "starting in the 1960s," when he was a surgeon at University Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y.

"I used to go to the Can-Am races at Watkins Glen, the SCCA races there and, of course, the Grand Prix," he said. "The facilities were pretty primitive.

"For the Grand Prix, I used to take a team, just in case we had any bad trouble. I used to take an orthopedic surgeon, a chest guy, a plastic surgeon and an anesthetist. We used to take our own kit, just in case, because there was virtually no equipment in the medical centre at Watkins Glen. You brought your own stuff and you took it away.

"We were put to the test on more than one occasion. It was a good thing we were there."

It was during that period when he would travel to Mosport and Le Circuit-St. Jovite to enjoy the races — "I went as a spectator" — that he met "my great friend," Dr. Scully.

I asked Watkins if it was harder to drive a racing car in the "old days" as compared to today.

"I think it’s different," he said. "In the old days, they had physical demands. There was a general lack of security . . . it was a different level of driving. Nowadays, they’re extremely well protected; there’s so much automatic function on the cars . . . they’re really projectiles.

"In Clark’s and Stewart’s time, the mortality rate was pretty high. You had to have enormous courage to go racing every other weekend, knowing that you might not come back. Since 1994, we’ve been extremely fortunate (there hasn’t been a fatal accident in F1 since Senna died) and I don’t think the drivers even think about that anymore. It’s out of mind."

Watkins laughed when I asked whether Sebastien Vettel is the "real deal," as good as Jim Clark was in his era and Michael Schumacher has been in recent years.

"He’s obviously a wonderful driver, but (the professor’s voice rose here) "he’s also got a wonderful car. If you want to talk about drivers in poor cars, think of Stirling Moss, who drove all sorts of vehicles and drove them extraordinarily well, particularly when they weren’t the fastest.

"It’s a different dimension, really. People like Senna could make a bad car go quick. And so could Jimmy.

"Recently, we’ve seen Michael struggling. If you put Michael in the Red Bull, he’d be away like a shot! So we don’t know about Vettel because we haven’t seen him in a bad car yet."

Prof. Sid Watkins, doctor to the drivers and a friend to many, was 84 years old when he passed. He leaves his wife, four sons and two daughters.

The photo in the article is of Prof. Sid Watkins and Jackie Stewart in 1992 when presented the Labatt's Safety Award.

Big Brother and the Targa Newfoundland

A hundred years ago, when I was in high school, I read George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. In 1949, when it was published, it was satire. Today, it’s reality.

That Big Brother is everywhere already, let there be no doubt. Take your own money out of your own bank account via a bank machine transaction and your picture is taken as you do it. Walk through your workplace at any hour of the day or night and somebody is likely watching you. Stroll across Nathan Phillips Square to the front door of Toronto City Hall or sit down to eat in the Food Court at the Square One shopping centre in Mississauga and you are being videotaped doing it.

I shudder to think about it.

But here’s something that’s worse.

As anybody who’s read the book knows, Winston Smith, the central character of Nineteen Eight-Four, worked in the Ministry of Truth. His job was to rewrite history. People and events that existed previously didn’t, after he got finished with them. Situations, circumstances, happenings – they all disappeared or were changed substantially when Winston Smith "revised" the public record.

That was the part that bothered me more than anything else.

The news today is that this revisionism is going on right under our noses. The government of this country is intent on rewriting history.

(I hasten to say that this has nothing to do with political parties. It doesn’t matter if the federal government is Liberal, Conservative or NDP because it is government itself that is guilty of this crime.)

And why do I sound so alarmist? Allow me to explain.

Once upon a time in this world, tobacco companies could advertise. They can’t do that any more – at least in Canada.  Although I find this abhorrent (if governments had any guts, which they don’t, they’d declare tobacco illegal and be done with it), it is the law.

The Targa Newfoundland is a car rally held every September. This year’s event starts Sept. 8 and goes until the 15^th. The people who enter are in it for the glory; there’s no prize money. Just medallions and trophies – and bragging rights. Our own Jim Kenzie, who was one of the Targa's founders, will be in it. There is little advertising on the cars and certainly no tobacco sponsorships, which are, after all, illegal. It’s essentially a bunch of people getting together for the enjoyment of motor sport.

Last year, you will recall, there was a mishap. Driver Zahir Rana lost control of his Ferrari and it went into the ocean. He got out but – oh, the horror! – he was photographed looking at his million-dollar car in the water and he was wearing a red Ferrari driving suit that had the word MARLBORO on it. (Watch the video here.)

(You already know where this is going, don’t you?)

Now, Rana was not sponsored by Marlboro. He said later that he had purchased the suit at a charity auction and it had been worn by Rubens Barrichello when he drove for Ferrari.

When Barrichello drove for the Scuderia, it was sponsored by Philip Morris and it was legal to advertise cigarettes. Rana bought himself a souvenir of that time in racing history. Nothing more.

Somewhere along the line, somebody in Health Canada’s Tobacco Enforcement Office saw the photograph and the video of Zahir Rana wearing that uniform.

Oh-oh. You think we have a problem with guns in this country? That, apparently, pales in significance when compared to the crime committed by Zahir Rana last year when he drove his Ferrari into the Atlantic while wearing a souvenir racing uniform from a bygone era.

In recent weeks, Targa president Bob Giannou has received telephone calls and a letter from a Health Canada official to inform him "of currrent prohibitions regarding the promotion of tobacco products."

The letter goes on to say that you can’t promote tobacco products, which is something Mr. Giannou already knows.

But what that letter really said is this: Any reference to tobacco products whatsoever, even if the reference is historical, is not allowed.

Which means that, over time, threats like this from your government will ensure that any and all references to tobacco, by word or by photograph, will vanish from recorded Canadian history.

Winston Smith is alive and well and working in Ottawa for Health Canada.

Welcome to Nineteen Eight-Four — and you thought it was 2012.

Danica Patrick has to start fighting back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I guarantee you that would be a disaster for NASCAR.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here for full story and results.

Other weekend racing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inactivity is making F1 people crazy

You can tell that even the people in Formula One are going a little crazy, what with the series taking the entire month of August off.

For instance, the teams usually send out their pre-race briefings three days in advance on the Tuesday prior to a Grand Prix weekend. They started arriving this week on Monday, 11 days out from first practice in Belgium.

Oh, and the beat writers are making stuff up in order to fill space, which is also a sure-fire way of telling that nothing is going on.

For instance, a spokesman this week for Volkswagen Group had to deny, yet again, that a Formula One program was imminent.

You always know it’s August when VW announces it’s not planning to enter F1.

Roll on September. Please.

NASCAR is back at Bristol this weekend to take a shot at racing on the high-banked track that’s had some work done on it since the spring race, which was bo-RING.

The jury is out on how much grinding the top lane will have on the quality of competition, which in NASCAR means bumpin’ ‘n bashin’ ‘n tradin’ paint.

Timothy Peters won the Craftsman Series truck race on Wednesday by going almost wire-to-wire. He took the lead on the second lap and was never headed. Two hundred laps without a lead change does not make for riveting oval-track racing.

Please check George’s TV Listings for Race Fans on wheels.ca for channels and start times for all of this weekend’s major races.

The focus in Bristol, as usual, will be on Danica Patrick, who will race in the Nationwide Series Friday night and in the Sprint Cup on Saturday night.

All of the big racing web sites and the newspapers published stories Thursday and today about how hard a time she’s having making the switch from open-wheel Indy car racing to stock cars.

I think she’s done just fine. She qualified fourth for the Nationwide race at Montreal and was leading when mechanical problems forced her out. Time and again she’s been right in there and something has happened to eliminate her.

Anyway, I’m tired of the whole business and the reason I’m tired is because the people writing this baloney about "making the switch" don’t know what they’re talking about.

I’ll give you a test. Here is a paragraph that was published in USA Today. Read it and tell me what is wrong with it:

"Many open-wheel stars have tried to make the transition, including four-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti’s failed 10-race foray in 2008. Three-time IndyCar champ Sam Hornish Jr. has only recently found solid footing in NASCAR in his fifth season. Only Juan Pablo Montoya has made it stick at NASCAR’s top level."

Oh?

Give up?

Well, what about Tony Stewart? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe that Tony Stewart was a triple crown U.S. Auto Club champion (midgets, sprints and Silver Crown, all in the same year in the 1990s) before winning the Indy Racing League championship before going to NASCAR where, if I’m not mistaken, he has won three Sprint Cup titles.

I’d say open wheel drivers, as exemplified by Tony Stewart, can do just fine in stock cars if given the right opportunity.

The problem, in order to make a comparison, is that no stock car driver of this generation has tried to go the other way and race in Indy cars. It might be fun to put the shoe on the other foot, for a change, and see what happens.

Except for one-offs in the Indy 500 back in the 1960s (Cale Yarborough, Lee Roy Yarbrough and Donnie and Bobby Allison), the only stock car driver who ever left NASCAR to drive most of a season in Indy cars was in 1971 when Cale Yarborough had a go. 

Know what? He didn’t do all that well - but I don't recall any of the hand-wringing stories that we're subjected to just about every day whenever poor Danica or poor Sam strap themselves into a stock car.

Of course, reporters didn't have agendas then -- and making Danica look stupid is right at the top of the list for some of those alleged impartial observers who make their living writing about stock car racing.

Speaking of open wheel, the IZOD IndyCar Series returns to action on the road course at Sonoma, Calif., on Sunday and – mathematically – there are still 15 drivers in the hunt for the championship.

Realistically, there might be seven who could do it – Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Simon Pagenaud and Canada’s very own James Hinchcliffe of Oakville.

If you’re wagering, you can even trim that list down to the top four.

Dario Franchitti, who has won the title every year he’s been in it going back to 2007, looks like his reign is about to end.

Which would be only fair. It’s time somebody else won that championship.

Did Woodbridge seal AIM deal with Ferrari?

When I enjoyed my first conversation of the 2012 season with AIM Autosport of Woodbridge team principal Ian Willis, it was in February at the Canadian Motorsports Expo and he was telling me how thrilled he was to be running full-time in the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series with – wait for it – a Ferrari.

Willis and AIM are no strangers when it comes to big-league sports car racing, having campaigned a Daytona Prototype for years with drivers like Mark Wilkins, Bruno Junqueira and Burt and Brian Frisselle.

But the Ferrari deal came out of the blue when an old friend, Grand Am driver Nick Longhi, telephoned Willis to chat.

"I’ve known Nick since he was an instructor at the Bridgestone Racing School," Willis said. "He called to say that he and others were working on a deal to run a Ferrari in the GT class of the Rolex series.

"Nick operated the Ferrari driving experience up at Mont Tremblant and is very well connected within the Ferrari network. He thought of us because he knows we’re capable of winning in the Grand Am series (two Daytona Prototype victories in 2008, for example) and he figured we would be a great fit.

"He’s also worked with (AIM drivers) Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal and so everything just seemed to fall into place."

 

 

Willis said it wasn’t a slam-dunk, though; that other teams were in the mix. In the end, it was the municipality where their business is located that might very well have sealed the deal for them.

"Ferrari is Italy’s team, it’s Italy’s brand," he said. "Woodbridge, where we're based, is 50 per cent Italian-speaking and that really opened the door for us."

He said he and the drivers went to Italy to get the car and they did a shakedown test at Fiorano, the official Ferrari test track.

"It’s hallowed ground," Willis said. "Emil (Assentato) sent me a note afterward and said it was like a country priest visiting the Vatican. Me? I just kept pinching myself."

So that was in February. The next time I talked to Willis was a month or so ago on Bayview Ave. in midtown Toronto. He and his sweetheart were out for a stroll with their young pup dog in tow, or the dog had them in tow, I’m not sure which. In any event, we talked about the season to date.

"Our goal is to win the championship," he said at the time (as of today, with two races remaining, both in September, Segal and Assentato are in first place in the GT driver standings, AIM is in first place among teams and Ferrari leads all manufacturers ).

"We’re on a one-year contract and our long-range plan is to grow to two cars for 2013. We’re working toward a Canadian sister car for the one we have now, which has an all-American lineup (Assentato is from New York and Segal is from Miami and Philadelphia).

"The nice thing about being Canadian is there are a lot of good Canadian drivers to choose from. Daniel Morad drove for us. There’s also Robbie Wickens, James Hinchcliffe, Andrew Ranger, Jacques Villeneuve, Mark Wilkins. They’re all good drivers.

"But right now, that’s pretty far way. Our focus is to get a championship for this car and our drivers. That’s our priority. Hopefully, the rest will fall into place."

The last race of the Rolex season is at Lime Rock, Conn., the weekend of Sept. 28-29. After that, Wilkins might know more about next year.

I’ll phone him up then and find out. And I’ll bring you up to date, too.

Racing roundup: On Danica, Jimmie Johnson and others

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Versatile Tagliani wins NASCAR pole in Montreal



You hear the question again and again: why can’t open wheel drivers make the transition to stock cars? Why can’t winners in Indy car racing, say, transition over to NASCAR and win?

The people who ask those question, of course, are primarily NASCAR reporters and fans who love sticking it to the Indy car drivers.

Although Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish Jr. haven’t exactly set the world on fire in NASCAR, and the jury is still out on Danica Patrick, they conveniently forget that Tony Stewart did it (from Indy car champion to NASCAR champion is pretty good) and they are currently overlooking another guy who’s pretty good at it too.

His name is Alex Tagliani, who’s a top-level Indy car star who’s driving in stock cars as well as sports cars this weekend in Montreal as the Nationwide Series makes its annual visit to le Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

In fact, in today’s Nationwide race, he’ll start on the pole. Horish will start beside him, with old friends Jacques Villeneuve and Danica Patrick beside him on the second row.

(An aside here: I earlier wrote that for the first time that I can remember, there is not one regular Sprint Cup driver in today’s race. At the last moment, Kyle Busch flew in from Michigan and planned to start at the back of the field.)

In any event, "Tag" is on pole and he seems to do really well every time he climbs into a stock car. In fact, years ago he saved his Indy car career when he won a NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race in Edmonton and demonstrated in front of the Champ Car World Series owners that he still very much "had it."

This is not the first time that a hometown hero has won the pole in Montreal. Carpentier did it in 2007 and Villeneuve sat on it last year, but that didn’t mean Tag wasn’t overjoyed.

"I want to dedicate this pole to the fans who come and make this event so special," said Tagliani, while pointing to the grandstands. "I feel that there was still a tenth or two left in the car. I wanted to do a third flying lap with the tire pressures and temperatures at their best but my crew chief, Trent Owens, wanted me to save fuel so we have one more lap to go in our first stint in the race."

After the Nationwide race, Tagliani will have to change driving styles because he'll be driving in tonight's Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race, also at Montreal.

All of these races - plus a tape of the Canadian Tire race which was held this morning (which was won by J.R. Fitzpatrick, after a thrilling duel with Andrew Ranger) - are on TV today. Please check George's TV listings For Race Fans  on this site for times and channels.

One last thing: unless she's winning the race, don't be surprised if Patrick delivers a little payback today to Villeneuve for the incident at Road America  several months ago where he got into the back of her car on the last lap and robbed her of a fifth-place finish.

These things happen in racing but it was his "not my fault, I don't care" response later that annoyed people, including his sponsor who went so far as to issue a statement critical of the one-time F1 world champion.

'Glen duel makes case for more NASCAR road races

On Saturday, Toronto Star Wheels published a cover story by freelance writer Sylvia Proudfoot about Toronto driver Paul Dalla Lana, an ultra-successful businessman, husband and father who discovered auto racing later in life than most. In case you missed it, here’s the link.

The news today is that Saturday evening, Dalla Lana and co-driver (and coach) Bill Auberlen finished first in the GT Class of the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Watkins Glen, N.Y. For Auberlen, it was his 85^th race win and his 180^th podium finish in the Grand Am series.

Dalla Lana and Auberlen have scored eight top-five GT finishes in the nine Rolex races they’ve driven together in 2012. They have two wins and four podium finishes in their No. 94 Turner Motorsport BMW M3.

They are now second in the GT championship standings, with three races remaining. The first of those three takes place at Montreal next weekend.

Now, there are exactly two road course races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and none in the Chase for the Championship and I really want to know how come?

With the the exception of Daytona, Talladega, Bristol, Richmond, Martinsville and one or two others, why aren’t all the other Sprint Cup races on road courses?

You want excitement? You want drama? I give you yesterday’s race at Watkins Glen as a prime example of what NASCAR racing could be - and mostly isn’t.

You want boring? You want predictable? I give you Las Vegas, California, Homestead, Loudon, Kansas, Indianapolis, Pocono – and I could go on and on.

Marcos Ambrose won that edge-of-your-seat nailbiter at the Glen yesterday, with Brad Keselowski, and Jimmie Johnson winding up second and third. Clint Bowyer was fourth and Sam Hornish Jr. (and ain’t that a kick in the pants!) finished fifth, ahead of Greg Biffle, Kyle Bush, Matt Kenseth, Regan Smith and Martin Truex Jr.

When the smoke had cleared (literally) Johnson is leading the points standings with Kenseth and Biffle right behind. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who’s been leading the standings of late, is now back in fourth after a 28th-place finish yesterday.

Now, essentially what happened on the last lap is that Keselowski, who was running second to Kyle Busch with Ambrose third, hit Busch and spun him around. This resulted in damage to the front of Keselowski’s car and, although he gave as good as he got for the rest of the lap, Ambrose had a better handling car and was able to get past him at the end.

The thing that impressed me the most is that both Ambrose and Keselowski gave each other room to race. Several times that last lap, they were both off the track and each time the one who got back on the tarmac first allowed the other driver to get back on too.

Yes, they were pushing and bumping and rubbing and all the other good things that NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers do but, in the end, they both fought fair.

Here, take a look yourself.

Ambrose has had more than 140 Sprint Cup starts and now has two wins – yesterday was his second and they both have come on the road course at the Glen. That ties him for wins (also on road courses) with Juan Pablo Montoya, but Montoya has had more than 200 starts.

Now, I know that NASCAR and the majority of its fans would not go for as many road course races as somebody like me would like. But surely, after watching yesterday’s slugfest at Watkins Glen, they would have to agree that several more could be inserted into the regular schedule and at least one into the Chase.

I mean, do they have to go to Loudon twice, to Phoenix twice, to Kansas twice? Of course they don’t - and right there you have room for three more road-course races.

Other weekend racing:

Keselowski also finished second in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Watkins Glen on the weekend. He couldn’t catch the winner, Carl Edwards, but held off Sam Hornish Jr., who was third (and what a weekend he had!). Danica Patrick recorded her worst finish in NASCAR racing: dead last – although it wasn’t her fault. She was just driving along, going into the first corner on the first lap and Ryan Truex went sliding by on the grass and slid back onto the track right in front of her and stopped. She had nowhere to go. Ron Fellows of Mississauga, incidentally, finished fifth. Fellows, Patrick as well as Jacques Villeneuve, Andrew Ranger, Alex Tagliani and Patrick Carpentier will all be in action next weekend at Circuit-Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. . . .

Jordan Szoke of Brantford won the Mopar Canadian Superbike Championship round at Le Circut-Mont Tremblant on Sunday and moved closer to clinching his astounding and unprecedented eighth (that’s 8^th) national motorycle championship. He took the lead on lap 4 of the 12-lap race aboard his Waznie Racing/Parts Canada/BMW Motorrad/Canada BMW S1000RR bike and was never headed. Matthew McBride of Mississauga finished second and Jodi Christie of Keene, Ont., who’s second in the standings, was third. The 2012 season will conclude in two weeks with a double-header at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, north of Bowmanville. . . .

Returning to Watkins Glen for a moment, Ryan Dalziel and Lucas Luhr won the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race Saturday, with Sebastien Bourdais and Alex Powpow second and Scott Pruett with Memo Rojas third – all wheeling Riley Daytona Prototype cars with the first two powered by Fords and the third-place car by a BMW motor. As reported above, Auberlen and Dalla Lana were the first GT car; they finished eighth overall. The AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Team Ferrari FXDD with drivers Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato still lead the GT standings but had a disastrous race with a first-lap crash leading to a lengthy pit stop and a seventh-place class finish. . . .

At the 52^nd Knoxville Nationals, which is the Indy 500 and Monaco Grand Prix of sprint car racing all rolled into one, Donny Schatz won his sixth A Main in the last seven years and his second straight but the big story of the night was that for the first time since the 1970s, the race rolled off without either Steve Kinser or Sammy Swindell in the 24-car field. Local racer and Knoxville track champion Brian Brown finished second, with Craig Dollansky third, Kraig Kinser fourth and Jason Meyers fifth. As well as Kinser, who hasn’t missed the feature since 1977, and Swindell, who’s been in every race in 1975, four-time Knoxville champion Danny Lasoski also failed to qualify. . . .

Sticking with sprint cars, Dain Naida of Tecumseh, Mich., won the Southern Ontario Sprints feature at Brighton Speedway Saturday. Chris Jones of Carrying Place and Jamie Collard of Burford, Ont., was third. . . .

At Calabogie Motorsports Park, Kyle Marcelli of Barrie drove his Pfaff Automotive entry to victory in both Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin series races but since he is a professional racing driver (the American Le Mans Series), he can’t collect points.

At the end of the weekend (and the season, it turns out), Jean-Frederick Laberge is the Platinum champion, Bruce Gregory won the Gold championship and Robert Seitz was tops in Silver. I understand new Porsches are already being ordered up for next season. . . .