Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Weekend rdp: F1, Kyle Busch and Bob McCown

For those of you who emailed wondering where I was, my real newspaper job sometimes gets in the way of my fun newspaper job and the fun newspaper job (this) has to take a back seat.

So, after a week’s absence, here are some random thoughts about the state of the sport following a weekend of ho-hum racing (at least the offerings on television).

1. The people who run Formula One have outsmarted themselves once again. To make the sport more exciting – they didn’t really have to do this; it was exciting enough – they ordered the one tire supplier, Pirelli, to build degradation into the product so the drivers would have to make more pit stops.

Now, everybody is either up in arms (if you’re a fan) or "concerned" (if you’re one of the people in F1 who thought this stuff up) because the tires are coming apart faster than anybody expected.

Most teams had to make four (count ‘em, four) pit stops during Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix (click here for story and results) and critics (including 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve) were making fun of the spectacle rather than marvelling at the skill of the pit crews in getting the tires changed so quickly.

Said Villeneuve: "At this rate, F1 is going to become a pit-stop contest with a few race laps thrown in."

Every time anybody in any sport starts monkeying around with the thing to make it more "appealing" or more "exciting," they are just inviting trouble. Has baseball gone to four strikes to enable more hitters to reach base? Or moved the mound back a foot? Has hockey gone to four quarters instead of three periods? Of course not.

But F1 now has tires that disintegrate and drag reduction systems and kinetic energy recovery systems and, as a result, except for the opening laps there is very little racing going on any more.

Memo to F1: Stop this.

2. See second last paragraph above. The first lap of Sunday’s Spanish GP was edge-of-your-seat stuff with everybody reacting so quickly to lights out that analyst David Coulthard suggested at least one driver had jumped the start.

And although Mercedes pole-sitter Nico Rosberg held the lead to the conclusion of that first lap, everybody else was either charging to the front or sliding back.

Eventual race winner Fernando Alonso went from fifth to third in his Ferrari and passed two cars on the outside of one corner. Lewis Hamilton, who started second for Mercedes, dropped to fourth. Kimi Raikkonen, who went off third for Lotus-Renault, dropped to fifth. Three-time world champion Sebastian Vettel moved from third to second in his Red Bull-Renault and Felipe Massa went from ninth to sixth in his Ferrari. But the best of all was Adrien Sutil rocketing from 13^th place to eighth in his Force India-Ferrari and that, ladies and gentlemen, was an incredible example of car control and balls.

Oh, before I forget, Mark Webber had his usual crappy start and dropped out of the top ten from his seventh starting position and – I ask you – why should we be surprised? I suggest they put Webber in the simulator for a week and not let him out until he can make flying starts in his sleep.

3. In winning the Grand Prix, Alonso joined Vettel as two-time winners this season. Raikkonen is the only other winner, scoring his victory at Australia. Rosberg has now won two poles on the year but both times, in Bahrain and again at Spain, he faded out of the top five. He finished fifth in Spain and ninth at Bahrain.

And Esteban Gutierrez was the best of this year’s rookie crop, finishing in 11^th position for Sauber-Ferrari and beating his more experienced teammate, Nico Hulkenburg, who was 15^th. More impressive was the fact that Gutierrez qualified 16^th but was penalized three places for blocking Raikkonen during qualifying. Racing from 19^th starting position to 11^th earns him the McDonald "Hard Charger Award."

Elsewhere this weekend, Carlos Muniz – an Indy Lights driver – was fastest of the IZOD IndyCar Series drivers who went out to practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the track opened for practice and qualifying leading up to the 97^th Indy 500 in two weeks.

Muniz recorded a speed of 223.023 miles an hour Sunday (it took him 40.3545 seconds to drive a lap of the 2.5-mile speedway; click here for details). James Hinchcliffe of Oakville was sixth fastest of the 23 drivers who turned time, recording a lap of 220.907 mph. Qualifying and bumping (if any) is scheduled for next weekend.

Speaking of Hinchcliffe, I was pleasantly surprised last Monday afternoon when, while driving home, I heard everybody’s favourite afternoon drive sports talk radio show host Bob McCown wax eloquently about James’ victory the previous afternoon in Brazil (which he won on the last corner of the last lap).

I haven’t heard McCown talk about car racing before, although I’m sure he has at one time or another. He simply said he’d tuned in the race to check it out with 15 or so laps to go and Hinchcliffe was running fifth and that he "had a feeling" and stayed till the end.

He went so far as to call the finish one of the most exciting moments in recent live sports television history (or words to that effect).

He brought it up with a couple of his guests – neither had been watching, by the way – and opined that he would be keeping an eye on young Mr. Hinchcliffe, whom he later interviewed (although I didn’t hear that).

Now, I realize that Bob McCown works for Sportsnet, and that Sportsnet is televising this year’s IZOD IndyCar Series races as well as the Indianapolis 500 and some "cross-promotion" is to be expected.

But I honestly think McCown was impressed with the finish (who wouldn’t have been!) and saw the potential that Indy car racing and Hinchcliffe both have. Good stuff.

One last thing: he said he didn’t like cars racing on ovals because ovals are for horses. Then he hesitated, and mused: "I wonder how horses would do on a road course?"

Okay, moving right along, I have two things to say about the NASCAR Southern 500 at Darlington Saturday night (for story and results, click here)

1. That Matt Kenseth won was the perfect revenge for Joe Gibbs Racing, which had been put through the wringer in recent weeks by NASCAR over nothing. I hope Kenseth wins every race between now and the end of the year and that Joe Gibbs rubs NASCAR’s nose in it when he stands up to accept accolades at the season-ending banquet.

Joe Gibbs is a religious, God-fearing man. NASCAR, which cast the first stone, should brace itself for what’s coming.

2. NASCAR loves to go around penalizing and fining drivers and teams enormous amounts of money in order to show them who’s boss. I think it’s time Kyle Busch was fined something like – oh, off the top, I‘d say – $200,000 for having a snit yet again because he didn’t win a race.

All the others losers of the Southern 500 – all 41 others – made themselves available to TV and other reporters after the race because that’s what they’re supposed to do as representatives of the sport of stock car automobile racing.

They are on the top of the mountain and they owe it to their fans and sponsors to address the media after the races, win or lose. Kenseth won the race but Jimmie Johnson went on TV, as did Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick and a couple of the others.

But not Kyle, because he was off somewhere having a hissy fit. He was only too happy to talk on Friday night, after he won the Nationwide Series race, but not Saturday because he lost.

I can remember several years ago everybody making great fun of Danica Patrick stamping her feet in anger after being edged out of a win in the Indy car series. But after she did what competitive people do - which is to work out their frustrations and then take a deep breath and calm down - she went to the post-race press conference and answered questions like a true professional.

But not Kyle and I think it’s time NASCAR brought him to heel. Every professional sport demands its performers be accountable to the media. Win or lose, the hockey players and coaches have to talk to reporters. Baseball managers and players are contractually obligated, and so on.

The next time Kyle Busch doesn’t win and then pulls one of his disappearing acts, he should be hit in the pocketbook.

And told to grow up.

Other racing: Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf won the American Le Mans Series race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on Saturday. Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia were first in GT, with Marino Franchitti and Scott Tucker first in P2. Mike Guasch and Luis Diaz won the Prototype Challenge race while Nick Tandy and Henrique Cisneros were first in GT Challenge.

Ryan Briscoe finished fourth overall and second in P2 before heading off the Indianapolis where he is among the favourites to win this year’s Indy 500. Townsend Bell also raced in ALMS before flying to Indy.

Kyle Marcelli of Barrie was eighth overall and fourth in PC. Kuno Wittmer of Montreal didn’t do all that well this weekend and was well back.

Okay, I have to say it: sometimes sports car racing doesn’t make any sense. We all know that all the classes – five of them this season – all go out and race together. And that the first three finishers in every class make it onto the podium, which means 15 or more drivers can sometimes be on the podium in a sports car race.

Saturday evening, I got an email that trumpeted "Delta Wing car on podium in ALMS race in California." Hey, I thought. That’s damn fine. And Katherine Legge, who’s been run out of Indy car, must be feeling pretty good about making it onto the podium in her first ALMS race.

Then I looked at the results. There were 36 cars in total in that race Saturday and the Delta Wing finished 32^nd. I don't care about rules or tradition. That is not a podium.

The Southern Ontario Sprints will start their 18^th season next Saturday night at Brighton Speedway. Lee Ladouceur of Alexandria will try for his third consecutive championship this season. Other top runners expected to be on hand include Glenn Styers, Keith Dempster, Chris Jones, Adam West and Warren Mahoney. I betcha Warren's Dad, Dick Mahoney, will be out there too.

Indy car driver and partner in the Schmidt-Petersen Indy car team, Davey Hamilton, won the supermodified feature at Oswego Speedway on Saturday night. At Merrittville Speedway outside Thorold, Erick Rudolph and Kevin Knapp scored their first 2013 wins in the Bobcat of Hamilton 358 Modified and Hoosier Stock Divisions respectively. In Lucas Oil Weekly Racing Series action, Kyle Pelrine, Josh Sliter and Brad Rouse won in the Turn 4 Collision 4 Cylinder, J&S Heating and Air Conditioning Modified Lites and the Rick’s Delivery Sportsman Features.

Most southern Ontario oval facilities will be in action next weekend and the Victoria Day Speedfest is on tap at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park but that’s not all. Attention all you drag racing fans out there. Toronto Motorsports Park near Cayuga has got a monster lineup scheduled with 300 mph jet dragsters, the Pro Modified Racing Association, the Quick 32 top dragsters and sportsman plus pro bikes and sleds. They get going out there on Friday night and plan to blast all the way through till Sunday. Go to torontomotorsportpark.com for more info.

Speaking of "most southern Ontario oval facilities," if you head on out to Peterborough Speedway, it won’t cost you anything to sit in the grandstand. Country 105 radio station is picking up the tab for the season-opener. For info, go to peterboroughspeedway.com.

Related articles

Hinchcliffe's profile raised by hot IndyCar start

Hinchcliffe wins on last corner of last lap in Brazil

Racing rdp: More on Esaw, Johnson and RHR win

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NASCAR

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

By the end, we were singing along:

Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey

I love you . . .

And our favourite line was:

Joey, pick me up

In your dad’s big truck. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See AP Photo Gallery from Martinsville by clicking here.

INDYCAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three more things before I take my leave.

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

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

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

Yes, I really heard that.

- NORRIS MCDONALD

nmcdonald@thestar.ca

Related articles

On the NASCAR feud, TV numbers and Sportsnet

Johnny Esaw, 87: Canadian broadcasting legend

Is Denny Hamlin for real? Tags 2nd, Hinch 15th in Indy practice

Logano says eyes on Martinsville, not Stewart

Stewart-Logano feud moves to Martinsville

Hamlin-Logano exchange 'unproductive' text

On Danica, Honda and the Jays, and Alan Kulwicki

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

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

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

But she’s tiny. How tiny?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monday was the 20th anniversary of the tragedy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We will never see another like him.

SPEED fading; Subway driver wins Subway race

The weekend’s racing was kind of so-so, with the possible exception of the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series event at the Circuit of the Americas on Saturday (won by Jon Fogerty and Alex Gurney, incidentally), but there were a couple of off-track stories that merit attention, with one in particular being of utmost importance because it affects us all.

That one in particular is that the Speed Channel will soon be gone, replaced by yet another general sports network.

The rebranding of SPEED by the parent Fox Sports will likely happen this summer, Charlotte Observer radio and TV columnist Mark Washburn reported at the weekend. The relaunched channel will be called Fox Sports 1 and will probably feature baseball, football, soccer and amateur sport in addition to some auto racing and other motor sports.

Gone will be such Emmy Award-winning programs as Pinks, Pinks All Out, Pass Time, Are You Faster Than a Redneck and Truck U. (Isn’t the name of that last show just hilarious? Just the sort of thing to attract sophisticated viewers and avertisers. . . .)

I say good riddance to them all. And although I’m not happy to be losing an all-motorsport station to yet another general sports channel (of which we have more than enough already, thank you), I’m not sad to see most of the SPEED lineup consigned to the waste basket.

I consider SPEED a lost opportunity. What could have been a great channel – like the Golf Channel is great, and the NFL Channel is great – was always pretty mediocre at best.

They did some things really well. Adam Alexander’s Speed Center newscast on Sunday night at 7 p.m. is must-viewing. And Dave Despain’s Wind Tunnel, also on Sunday night, is another "must-view" show. And where else will you get live coverage of sports-car racing and (most of the time) of 24-hour races like Daytona and Le Mans? And yes, even NASCAR Today with Kyle Petty and Kenny Wallace could be entertaining on a Sunday morning.

But the rest of it? See ya.

Where were all the old USAC sprint car films? Don’t tell me they couldn’t make a deal with Dick Wallen? And films of the old Indianapolis 500s and the Indy cars at Milwaukee and Riverside and Trenton? And the USAC dirt cars at Springfield and Du Quoin? And sports car racing from Daytona and Sebring back in the day? There must be a vault of motorcycle racing videos somewhere that would have made for great viewing.

There are all sorts of Formula One films around. Why weren’t they shown on SPEED? If you’re going to be a Speed Channel, isn’t that the sort of stuff you want to have on the air all the time? If I can watch historic Daytona 500s and CART races from the 1990s on ESPN Classic Canada, why couldn’t I see them on the Speed Channel?

As I said, a wasted opportunity.

I just hope the Fox people see the value in Speed Center and Wind Tunnel and some of the other above-average programs like live race coverage and make them a large part of Fox Sports 1.

But I can get along quite nicely without Truck U and anything with the name Pinks in it.

The second off-track story of the weekend dealt with a leaked report concerning the future of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar series. It is a complex subject and requires a full blog, so I will post my thoughts on it – and the reaction to it – Monday night.

Before moving on, however, I must ask out loud: what is going on with Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain? Usually an hour of interviews and call-ins, Wind Tunnel is back on the air after its usual winter hiatus but is now only 30 minutes long and that’s not nearly enough time.

Let’s hope once everything gets going – the American Le Mans Series season and Formula One will start in two weeks and IndyCar will follow a week later – that Wind Tunnel will revert to its usual hour.

If not, I fear for the future of that popular program.

Despain will be in Daytona for Bike Week next Sunday and will be represented on the show by Oakville's James Hinchcliffe and Robin Miller. It will be Hinchcliffe’s first gig since he signed a deal to contribute to both Wind Tunnel and Speed Center, which was announced this past week.

Okay, so Carl Edwards won the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix Sunday, with Jimmie Johnson second and Denny Hamlin third. Click here for full race story.

But I’m confused.

There is a yellow line around the bottom of Phoenix International Raceway. NASCAR says you can’t go below the yellow line and improve your position. But Denny Hamlin dropped below the yellow line and took a short cut up the backstretch on the last lap to improve his position by shooting all the way up to second place. Johnson fought him off but he very nearly stole second in the race.

Now, the line on the track in Phoenix is a single line, rather than a double line of the kind you find at places like – say – Daytona. So maybe – maybe – NASCAR thinks it’s okay to go below the line.

But if that’s the case, why have a line there at all? If it serves no purpose, what is it doing there?

At one track it’s against the rules to pass below the yellow line and at another it’s okay?

As I said, I’m confused.

Now, I am not a conspiracy theorist (ED NOTE: ho, ho, ho), but Carl Edwards, who has not won a race in 70 tries, finally wins one on Sunday. It is the Subway Fresh Fit 500. Carl Edwards is sponsored by Subway. I guess it’s just a coincidence.

Here’s another coincidence. Two of the three Stewart-Haas Racing team cars went out after crashing because their right front tires blew out. Ryan Newman was the first to hit the wall in turn four and Danica Patrick followed a few laps later. Newman was credited with 40th place; Patrick started 40th but was running 26th when she crashed and officially finished 39th.

It was a typical NASCAR Sprint Cup race: nothing to get excited about until the end and then the green-white-checkers finish was interesting. But Edwards had the field covered and was pulling away at the checkers.

Kyle Busch, who has not had a good start to his Sprint Cup season, won the Nationwide Series race Saturday at Phoenix, followed home by Brad Keselowski and Justin Allgaier.

Later Saturday, the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West series took to the big mile speedway and Greg Pursley won. I wouldn’t normally report the results of this particular series but the second-place finisher, who happens to be Pursley’s teammate, was Cameron Hayley, 16, of Calgary. That kid's got a future, I'd say.

The NASCAR Mexican stock car series also raced as part of the Phoenix weekend. It likely gave that series a much-needed publicity boost at home as well as in the United States.

Dean McNulty, who writes for another Toronto paper, is reporting that NASCAR will give the Canadian Tire stock car series similar exposure by including it on the program at Watkins Glen in August when the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series stock cars travel there for the traditional mid-summer race weekend.

As mentioned earlier, Fogarty and Gurney won the Grand Am Rolex race at the Circuit of the Americas outside Austin, Tex., with Ryan Dalziel and Alex Popow second and Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas third. All were racing in Daytona Prototypes.

In the GT class, Toronto’s Paul Dalla Lana and American Bill Auberlen, driving a BMW M3, fought back from two laps down (Dalla Lana spun on the opening lap) to win. Dalla Lana and Auberlen earlier won the Continental Tire support race.

They are the only team to ever win both the Continental and Rolex races on the same weekend and it was the second time they’d done it, the first time coming at Homestead-Miami in 2011.

Auberlen actually drove the team car across the finish line in second place but the first-place-finishing car was penalized a lap plus 90 seconds for avoidable contact.

The "contact" was one of a number of instances in this race in which the sports-car drivers raced more like NASCAR drivers, with lots of rubbin’ and bangin’ going on out there.

Other Canadians – Rolex: Sylvain Tremblay of Montreal, second in the GX class. AIM Autosport of Woodbridge (Emil Assentato and Anthony Lozzaro aboard) was fifth in the GT class and a sister car, R. Ferri/AIM Autosport Racing With Ferrari, finished tenth in GT with Max Papis and Jeff Segal driving. Kyle Marcelli of Barrie finished ninth in GT.

In the Continental Tire race: Ken Wilden of Oakville was seventh overall in GS. Fraser Wellon of Mississauga was 12^th in GS. Ashley McCalmont of Ancaster was 15^th in GS. Scott Maxwell of Toronto, driving for Multimatic Motorsports of Markham, finished 18^th in GS. Another Multimatic driver, David Empringham of Toronto, was 42^nd overall but 22^nd in class. Taylor Hacguard of Vancouver was 29^th overall but 9^th in ST. The Toronto-based Compass360 Racing team had four cars in the ST class and they finished sixth, 19^th, 20^th and 26^th in class.

Lewis Hamilton was fastest for Mercedes as F1 testing continued in Barcelona. Felipe Massa was second in a Ferrari, although about a half-second behind Hamilton. Although some suspect sandbagging, I suggest the real reason the pre-season doesn’t mean much in F1 is because they are actually testing things and not racing. The season opens in Australia in two weeks and then we’ll see who’s got their act together. . . .

Ryan Villopoto won the Monster Energy Supercross in St. Louis at the weekend. James Stewart was second and Chad Reed third. Those guys will be at the Rogers Centre in Toronto in three weeks. Sat., March 23, to be exact.

Hinch on SPEED, women on wall at Daytona

The first debris caution on Lap 28 of last Sunday’s Daytona 500 was called because two women had crawled underneath the fence separating the motorhome park from the speedway between turns three and four and were sitting on top of the wall behind the SAFER barrier.

While most of the drivers made their first pit stops, speedway security went over and told them to get down and not to do that again.

Although some people questioned their sanity, I gave them some slack. In 1975, on the Friday night of the Indy 500 weekend, I walked right up to the fence between turns three and four of the mile-long dirt track at the Indiana State Fairgrounds and was enthralled as the USAC Champ Cars turned hot laps.

Those pilots would start to broadslide going into turn three (Larry ‘Boom Boom’ Cannon was the most spectacular) and the mud was just flying right at me. Those guys knew what they were doing and I was not the least bit nervous standing there as they slid straight toward me before nailing the throttle and hurtling themselves into turn four and out onto the main straight.

I was buzzed and was ready to stand there forever.

Except a state trooper saw me and told me to beat it or he’d arrest me. So I moved on, just as I’m sure those girls did last Sunday. But for a short time, they sure had the best seats in the house. I know; I was there – kinda – 38 years ago in Indianapolis.

From the moment James Hinchcliffe of Oakville started his long climb up motor racing’s ladder, from karts to Formula Atlantic to the A1 GP and Indy Lights and finally the IZOD IndyCar Series, he has been a marvelous self-promoter.

He has a wonderful sense of humour (mostly self-deprecating) and a sparkling personality and he knew right from the start that if he was going to make it to the top, he would have to be more than a good racing driver; he would have to exploit his own strengths.

So every opportunity he got, he made himself available to the media. Want a photo of a driver clowning around? I’m your boy, he’d say. Need a driver to comment on camera about how wonderful Cleveland/Edmonton/Milwaukee/Toronto is? I’m here, he’d say.

When he was driving in Champ Car Atlantics, he provided colour commentary on international broadcasts of the Champ Car World Series races. He became an expert at utilizing social media and created a web site around the mythical community of Hinchtown, appointing himself mayor.

When Danica Patrick wound down her IndyCar career and left for NASCAR, and sponsor GoDaddy went looking for a replacement, it didn’t take them long at all to zero in on Hinchcliffe. He’s about to start his second season in the IndyCar series, driving the GoDaddy car for Andretti Autosport.

Now comes news, which was officially announced Thursday, that James has been hired by the FOX Sports Media Group to appear on SPEED Channel’s Sunday night racing newscast Speed Center and on Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain that comes on later in the evening.

He’ll join Speed Center host Adam Alexander and NASCAR driver Sam Hornish in reporting and analyzing the weekend’s racing during the newscast and will also be available for comment during the Wind Tunnel program.

This is great for SPEED, great for IndyCar and great for James.

It's also a lesson for every other ambitious young race-car driver out there: you have to do more than drive the car.

Lots more

Two weeks from now, on the eve of the iconic 12 Hours of Sebring sports car classic, the American Le Mans Series and the Grand Am Rolex road racing club will hold a press conference to announce the name, branding and logo for the unified sports car series that will start in 2014.

I don’t know whether to get excited, or not. I know the merger (the sale, actually) is going to happen, because they told me so last Sept. 5. But I’m not sure it’s wise to be beating the drums for 2014 before the 2013 ALMS season has even started. (The Grand Am season will be two races old by the time of the announcement.)

They will have plenty of time to do all this name-changing and branding and logo-ing in the fall. Then they'll have the winter to really go to town to publicize it all.

It’s almost as if they’re devaluing this season’s racing on purpose in order to get people excited about next year.

I don’t get it.

The World of Outlaws sprint car series is out in Arizona these days and a release they sent out on Thursday caught my eye.

Next Saturday, March 9, at Tucson International Raceway, the special Grand Marshal for a meet there will be one of my all-time favourite race track announcers, William "Windy" McDonald.

Windy announced forever at the now-lost Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix and I can still hear his distinctive, high-pitched, emotion-filled voice when he would say, after the sprint car warmups:

"Ladies and gentlemen, it’s SHOWTIME!"

Manzanita, or ‘Manzy’ as it was called, was located in a section of southwestern Phoenix that was, to be polite, rough. The sprint cars didn’t have to run mufflers, it was said, because the sound of the engines covered up the gunfire. (THAT’S A JOKE!)

Whenever CART, and later the IRL, raced at Phoenix International, my pals and I would always fly out. We did this for three reasons: Indy cars, Mexican food and the sprint cars at Manzanita – and not necessarily in that order.

I couldn’t believe it four years ago when they said Manzanita had been sold and would be turned into an equipment depot for a crane company. The almost-sacred place where guys like Billy Boat, Ronnie Shuman, Tracy Hines and J.J. Yeley had gone wheel to wheel would be no more and never again would I be able to hear Windy McDonald say, as the field for the evening’s feature came through four and onto the front straight, all lined up and ready to go:

"AND HERE THEY ARE – THE SPRINT CARS, ON PARADE!"

Maybe I’ll fly down to Tucson next weekend and take in that Outlaws show. And maybe have a word with Windy McDonald.

Maybe.

Fresh from his IndyCar test with Penske Racing, A.J. Allmendinger will climb into a Sprint Cup stock car for the NASCAR race this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.

The deal, while rumoured for months, just came together Tuesday.

Allmendinger will replace Regan Smith in the Phoenix Racing car. Smith finished seventh in last Sunday’s Daytona 500.

Okay, so that’s the news. Here’s my question:

Why is this race team replacing a driver who finished seventh in the Daytona 500 with a guy who lost his full-time ride last year because of his conduct and has only been in a stock car once since?

I have nothing against Allmendinger. He did his time. But while he’s a dynamite open-wheel race driver, he’s not that good in stock cars. And from what I know about Phoenix Racing, which could best be described as a low-buck team, it really doesn’t have the luxury of being Mr. Nice Guy when it comes to the rehabilitation of racing drivers. We’re not talking here about a team with the resources of, say, a Hendrick Motorsports.

In short, I don’t get it.

NASCAR and the sponsor Sprint announced this week that the Sprint All-Star exhibition race on the U.S. Memorial Day weekend would be more complicated than ever.

They didn’t phrase it that way, of course. They said changes they had planned would make the race more challenging for the drivers and entertaining for the fans.

Ho, ho, ho.

I say the words "total confusion" would be more like it.

This paragraph is is right out of the press release and, after reading it, I want anybody who understands what it all means to put their hand up so they can explain it to the rest of us. Here goes:

"The running order at the completion of the fourth segment (lap 80) will be repositioned based on the average finish for the first four segments directly behind the caution car prior to the opening of pit road for the mandatory four-tire pit stop. The order of the cars returning to the track will determine the starting order of the fifth segment."

That makes about as much sense as "Drivers and Danica, start your engines" did last Sunday.

I still can’t figure that one out either.

#################

Photo of Larry Cannon, courtesy the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Photo of Windy McDonald, courtesy of the Arizona Republic

Photo of James Hinchcliffe and his lady, courtesy www.thebiglead.com

'Daytona' replaces 'Indy' on public's radar

In a column in the Toronto Star last Saturday, in which she made fun of the Oscars and the Hollywood movie stars up for the awards, Heather Mallick wrote this sentence:

"What you are watching is the Daytona 500 of status anxiety."

I work in the same office, so asked her why she had selected "Daytona 500" over, say, the "Indianapolis 500."

Was it because Daytona was on the same day this year as the Academy Awards?

No.

And her explanation shocked me.

"I was searching for imagery and ‘Daytona 500' was the first thing that popped into my head," she said. "Nothing more."

I told her that most people who are not fans of auto racing would have been prone to say "Indianapolis 500," or "Indy 500."

Prepare to be shocked even more.

"I never would have thought of Indianapolis," she said. "I only thought of the Daytona 500."

So, there you have it.

The Daytona 500 is now ingrained in the public consciousness much like the Indy 500 used to be.

When the Heather Mallicks of the world think of "Daytona" before "Indianapolis," the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and its marquee event are in more trouble than anybody ever realized.

I interpret this as yet another nail in the coffin of a once-iconic car race and a once-iconic form of racing.

Most of the drivers in IndyCar, or many of them anyway, were so jealous of Danica Patrick’s popularity and the fact that she was constantly being promoted that they bitched and complained about it behind her back. As a result, IndyCar went to great lengths to keep the boys happy by de-emphasizing her celebrity.

NASCAR drivers had no such qualms. They welcomed her with open arms. Millionaires already, they saw her as a way for all of them to become billionaires.

"Her presence will help our sport grow," said Jimmie Johnson, even before he won last Sunday’s Daytona 500.

And how right he was.

FOX television released the ratings story Tuesday of Sunday’s classic and it was all anybody'd hoped for: the rating was up 24 per cent over 2012 and the number of viewers increased 22 per cent. Overall, it was the biggest audience since 2008. An estimated 31 million watched at least some of the race and it was the best-ever year-to-year rise.

Guess who’s responsible?

When Dale Earnhardt was killed at Daytona in 2001, there were three reactions.

First, everybody was very shocked and very sad. Second, it did wonders for NASCAR because TV ratings and attendance at races had both been declining and they bounced right back up as the result of his death. (So, in that way, it was good for business.) Third, NASCAR heard loud and clear from sponsors that they didn’t want to be part of a sport in which people were killed and to do something about it. (So, in that way, it was bad for business.)

As a result of (3), NASCAR very quietly started to design a "safe" racing stock car and five years later, in 2006, the Car of Tomorrow was introduced to the media.

I suggest today that NASCAR, perhaps even in company with the IndyCar Series, is very quietly starting the research and development of something to replace the catch fencing that currently keeps out-of-control racing cars from flying into grandstands and killing substantial numbers of people.

NASCAR, and all of auto racing, dodged a huge bullet last Saturday at Daytona when 28 spectators were injured, two critically, when pieces of a car and at least one wheel went through the fence.

That nobody was killed is a miracle.

Although everybody – NASCAR people, Daytona Speedway people – have kept a stiff upper lip about the whole business in public, you can bet that behind the scenes they've been sweating bullets.

President Mike Helton appeared on television about a half-hour after the crash and he was a very shaken-up senior executive of NASCAR.

I suggest within three years that a fail-safe barrier will be developed and available for installation at speedways. Whether the tracks will want to spend the money to put it up will be another question, but it will be ready.

Meantime, everybody had better keep their fingers crossed that nothing calamitous happens before that barrier is patented.

Sportsnet announced yesterday that it would televise the IZOD IndyCar Series races this year, would start the season at St. Petersburg on March 24, that Rob Faulds would anchor the broadcasts with Todd Lewis in the pits and Bill Adam and Paul Tracy doing colour for pre-race, in-race and post-race coverage of the Indy 500 and the Honda Indy Toronto and . . .

But we knew all that, didn’t we . . . ?

A grandma tunes in to watch 'that girl' at Daytona

My friend, the late Art Wright – Arthur L. Wright to his friends – had a favourite expression.

When commenting on something that didn’t particularly excite him, be it a house party he’d attended or a month in his life, he would describe it as being "largely uneventful."

I think if Art was still around – he died in 1979 – he would use those words to describe Sunday’s Daytona 500, much of which was made up of racing cars following each other around and around in one great, long, line.

Even the crashes – there were only two – were largely uneventful, as compared to some of the ka-boomers we’ve come to expect from NASCAR over the years.

In the end – and yes, the last lap was very exciting and even my pal Art would have been on his feet cheering – Jimmie (Five-Time) Johnson managed to hold on to the lead and score his second Daytona 500 victory, with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. second and Mark (the Ageless Wonder) Martin in third.

Defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski was fourth, Ryan Newman fifth, Greg Biffle sixth, Regan Smith seventh, Danica Patrick eighth, Michael McDowell ninth and J.J. Yeley tenth.

Drivers thought to have had a chance of winning the classic – Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards – were eliminated from contention either by crashes or mechanical gremlins.

For a detailed race story, with full results, click here.

That Johnson won is no surprise. He has won the Sprint Cup championship five times – in a row, actually – and although his record in this particular race has been abysmal the last six years, he won it for the first time in 2006 so has been to Victory Lane in Daytona before.

The big surprise – for many people – was the performance of Danica Patrick, who started from pole but was widely expected to fall back and maybe, maybe, finish, now that she is finally racing full-time in the Big League.

But Patrick held her own the whole race and only inexperience and the selection of the wrong partner going down to the checkers kept her from scoring a podium finish.

The Sprint Cup competitors now move on to Phoenix and the contrast will be telling. Daytona is a big, wide, high-banked, 2-1/2 mile restrictor-plate speedway while Phoenix is a mile-long oval that’s narrower and fairly flat – just the sort of place to separate the men from the boys, and maybe the girl.

NOTEBOOK JOTTINGS

– Although there were 28 lead changes recorded at the start/finish line, a bunch of them took place during a succession of green-flag pit stops that you don’t often see in Sprint Cup racing.

So there might have been lead changes but they weren’t noticeable.

For instance, Patrick and Jeff Gordon led the field down for the start. Gordon managed to get up in front of Patrick and Kyle Busch fell in behind her and they went round and round like that for 28 laps before NASCAR threw a caution because of debris on the track.

When was the last time you can remember a NASCAR Sprint Cup race going 28 laps without a lead change and the first three cars were in the same order the whole time?

– I made a notation in my book at this point: "Very conservative race." My pal Art would have said it was "largely uneventful."

– Brad Keselowski illustrated why he is the Sprint Cup champion. On Lap 137, in a crash that involved Trevor Bayne and Edwards, Bayne and Keselowski got together and Bayne spun, collecting other cars in the process. Keselowski looked to be on the verge of losing control but managed to straighten his car out and to keep going. A lesser-talented driver would have lost it and it would have been game over. But not Keselowski, who not only kept going but was in contention for the win right to the very end.

– I thought the TV show was okay. Dave Despain, on his Wind Tunnel program on SPEED Sunday night, said the technicians and the announcers had all done a wonderful job. (Of course, FOX was the presenting broadcaster and SPEED is owned by FOX so what would you expect?) But as I said, I thought it was okay.

But a friend of mine, who shall go nameless, did not. He was not impressed, at all. Far from it, in fact. Here is what he wrote to me after the telecast:

"After months of waiting, we saw the worst broadcast and almost as bad a race that has ever started the NASCAR season. Race? I use that term very loosely, since it was only a race from the last 15 laps to the finish and even then, many of the regular contenders had been eliminated.

"I am so totally outraged and appalled at the blatant favoritism towards Danica. I’m convinced it broke some broadcast standards, as low as they may be. As if that wasn’t enough, that low standard was only matched by the infuriating number and length of commercial interruptions, mostly without the ‘side-by-side’ image. Three laps of on-track was followed by five laps’ worth of interruption all day long. It must have set a new record. Even the broadcast image quality was crap."

I suggest this guy is not alone in his criticism.

Before we return to the "Danica 500," however, I have one other observation.

– I have always considered auto racing to be an individual sport. I know, I know: everybody calls it a team sport but, frankly, I have always considered the "team" aspect to be secondary to the individualism of the driver.

I have now officially changed my mind – at least so far as racing at Daytona and other restrictor-plate speedways is concerned because without a "drafting partner," be it a teammate or a buddy, you are unable to do anything. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

This was illustrated perfectly on Saturday near the end of the Nationwide Series race. Brad Keselowski was running near the front of the pack and his Penske teammate, Sam Hornish Jr., was way, way behind. He’d "lost the draft" and was helpless.

This is what Keselowski heard over his radio: "Feel like going back and rescuing a teammate?" Although he was given a choice of saying no, the team wanted him to give up his position and to drop back to where Hornish was and then between the two of them they would be able to catch him back up so he could go racing.

And that’s what happened. Keselowski waited for Hornish and then the two of them drafted their way back into contention. They did this so well, in fact, that Keselowski was going for the win when he was blocked by Regan Smith and that move triggered the pileup that saw Kyle Larson’s car come apart and injure all those spectators.

Hornish? He finished second in that race behind Tony Stewart. But without Keselowski and the draft, he’d have been nowhere.

– Okay, let’s get to Danica Patrick.

She won the pole, she was in the top ten all day Sunday and usually in the top five, she led five green flag laps (the fans in Daytona were all standing and cheering when she took the lead for the first time), making her the first woman to do that in Sprint Cup competition and her eighth-place finish was the best finish by a female.

Tommy Kendall said on Wind Tunnel that her performance didn’t surprise him, that he’d told Tiger Woods’s agent back in 2003 that she would change motor racing in North America and that her top ten finish would give "the haters" reason to reconsider their bias.

I wish he hadn’t used the word "haters." I happen to be a fan of Danica Patrick and I think she is going to go on to become a great NASCAR driver (I love how pissed off she was that she’d only finished eighth – as others have also pointed out) but I also have respect for people – and I have friends who feel this way – who don’t like the constant promotion and think she is doing more harm to the sport than good.

I don’t think the word "hate" or "hater" is appropriate. Maybe they dislike her, maybe they resent her, but I don’t think they "hate" her. At least, I hope not.

NASCAR, of course, knows a good thing when they see it. She is a star and when you have a star you exploit it. I suggest when the TV ratings come in for this Daytona 500 that they will be among the highest, if not the highest, every recorded.

And I’ll tell you why.

Sunday night about 6 p.m., my wife was talking to her mother, who is the grandmother of seven.

"So what did you do today, mom?" she asked.

"I watched the Daytona 500."

"What? You don't like racing. You’ve never done that before. Why?"

"I wanted to see how that girl would do."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, illustrates perfectly why the spotlight these days is always on "that girl."

I ask you: what are NASCAR and the TV announcers supposed to do?

Pretend she isn’t there?

Patrick plays it safe to hold onto Daytona pole, other news

We’ll see how long pole-sitter Danica Patrick can stay out front Sunday when the Daytona 500 gets the green flag.

In the first of two Daytona qualifyers Thursday, Patrick dropped back pretty quickly and trundled around at the back of the pack in order to stay out of trouble, eventually finishing 17^th in a field of 23 cars. Her car owner, Gene Haas, had suggested she start-and-park because she could lose the pole if she crashed during the qualifier, as has happened to other drivers in previous years. But she just took it easy and will go off No. 1 on Sunday.

Kevin Harvick won that first qualifier, holding off Greg Biffle just as he did last Saturday night to win the Sprint Unlimited. Kyle Busch won the second qualifier ahead of Kasey Kahne.

Only 45 cars were entered in the 500 this year, leaving the qualifyers to eliminate two cars and drivers. Brian Keselowski, brother of Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski, didn’t make it, nor did Mike Bliss.

The only real excitement in the two races came on the last lap of the first race when Denny Hamlin lost control and Carl Edwards crashed. Regan Smith and Trevor Bayne were also involved.

The Camping World Truck Series will kick off the 2013 NASCAR racing season Friday night under the lights. The Nationwide Series will race Saturday and, of course, the Cup cars go Sunday. I suggest the truck race will be of particular interest to fans in the GTA because the series and many of the drivers will race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park on Labour Day weekend.

Here is some other racing news to chew on:

- Fernando Alonso was fastest in his Ferrari on the third day of the second open F1 test. Does it mean anything? Nope.

- Cameron Hayley, a 16-year-old from Calgary, Alta., won the late-model portion of the UNOH Battle At The Beach at Daytona International Speedway earlier this week. The modified portion was won by former NASCAR Cup driver Steve Park.  

Racing was conducted on a .4-mile short track on Daytona's backstretch.

Hayley capitalized on a last-lap bump-and-run move involving two other drivers to win the 150-lap NASCAR K&N Pro Series event.

“I went to the outside, and (Gary Gaulding) kind of pushed me to the wall a little bit and I had to back out,” Hayley said of the green-white-checkered restart. “But I just kept on it hard, hard into (Turns 3 and 4), and we ended up with the win. It was pretty crazy.”

NASCAR Canadian Tire Series champion D.J. Kennington finished in the top ten.

Hayley will kick off his second full season in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West March 2 at Phoenix International Raceway.

- Speaking of rising stars, Canada’s Robert Wickens has made the cut for a second full season in the German Touring Car Championship. Wickens, of Guelph and Toronto, will drive again for Mercedes alongside 2005 champion Gary Paffett, ex-F1 star Ralf Schumacher and young guns Roberto Merhi, Christian Vietoris and Daniel Juncadella. They will be mentored by Mercedes F1 driver Nico Rosberg.

Said Wickens: “The DTM is one of the world's best and most popular racing series and I am very pleased that Mercedes-Benz has given me the chance again this year to see how I measure up against the best touring car drivers, competing at the highest level. I know that I have a lot to learn for 2013 but Mercedes has given me the opportunity to learn as fast as possible. I can't wait to progress to the next stage this year."

The championship was won in 2012 by Canadian Bruno Spengler, driving for BMW.

- Nelson Mason of Niagara Falls won the first race in the European F3 Open championship at Circuit Paul Ricard in France at the weekend. Mason is using the F3 series to promote maseRace developments and the City of Niagara Falls, Canada.

- Sick Bay: "Crazy" Leo Urlichich won't compete at this weekend's 100 Acre Wood Rally in Missouri. The Canadian driver will miss the Rally America event because of a concussion and broken bones in his chest and hands due to a skiing crash in Austria. And Jacques Villeneuve Sr. remains in hospital in Quebec in serious condition after being hurt in a snowmobile race.

- Iowa's Ryan Winchester has been signed by Karl Thompson’s Toronto-based Compass360 Racing team to partner Aaron Povoledo at the next Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge round at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Tex., next weekend. Winchester will stand in for regular team driver David Thilenius, who was injured in a crash at the Grand-Am season opener at Daytona International Speedway on Jan. 25. . . .

- The next Brian Graham-led Team Canada Canadian Driver to the Formula Ford Festival in England program will see two young Canadians go up against the world instead of one, as has been the case the last two years. Xavier Coupal nearly won the thing the first year, in 2011, and 2012 rep Garett Grist has since signed with Andretti Autosport to contend the U.S. Formula 2000 series in 2013.

"We are so pleased to expand our program and go to England with not one but two shots at glory," said Graham, a Team Canada Scholarship founder who has been supported by Grote Manufacturing and The Race Drivers Guild of Canada. “We will be announcing some new partners shortly and will be revamping the website (www.teamcanadaracing.org ) to give weekly updates and let people know about some events we will be holding during the year to raise funds as well as awareness of the Scholarship.”

- B.C.’s two main Sportsman Racing Series have merged and will run under the ASA OK Tire Sportsman Series presented by Advance Testing banner. The series will run the existing OK Tire Sportsman Series schedule throughout British Columbia on the Hoosier 970 tire run last season by the ASA Advance Testing tour. All other rules will remain unchanged.

- Jayski reported this the other day: “NASCAR will end its policy of providing estimated attendance figures in its race reports this season. Spokesman Kerry Tharp said tracks still will have the option of providing crowd estimates, but it will be their prerogative. ‘NASCAR's race reports generally becomes a box score for the media, and box scores from sporting events do not generally provide estimates,’ Tharp said. Of the 23 tracks that play host to races in NASCAR's premier series, 21 are owned by publicly traded companies such as International Speedway Corp. and Speedway Motorsports Inc. Officials with those tracks have said they don't provide attendance figures because they don't want to provide earnings guidance.”

Right. They don’t want to provide earnings guidance.

Sure.

In fact, they don’t want to say publicly that there were only 20,000 paid admissions in a 75,000-seat stadium - the same reason the Honda Indy Toronto won't release attendance figures.

Danica Patrick wins Daytona pole fair and square

The jokes, and the conspiracy theories, were in full flight Sunday even before Danica Patrick went out and won the pole for next weekend’s Daytona 500.

"Will Danica sit on the pole?" "Pole position for Danica?"

Ha, ha.

Maybe they're jealous that this woman racing driver makes history just about any time she accomplishes something. This time she became the first woman to win a pole in Sprint Cup competition, the highest class in NASCAR. She previously became the first woman to lead a lap in the Indy 500, became the first female Indy car winner when she finished first in an IRL race in Japan, recorded the highest finish for a woman in the Indy 500 when she finished third in 2009, and on and on.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that the NASCAR Sprint Cup rookie set the fastest lap for what’s being called the Great American Race.

I mean, she’s been there before.

If it hadn’t been for a mid-first-turn bobble on her first of four laps, she would have won the pole for the Indianapolis 500 the first year she tried, back in 2005. She went on to win three poles in total in Indy cars.

Last year, her first full-time season in a NASCAR class, she won the pole for the Nationwide Series race at Daytona.

This year, she was among the fastest in practice for the 500 and Sunday, when the chips were down, she set fast time and her two teammates, Ryan Newman and Stewart-Haas Racing co-owner Tony Stewart, were fourth and fifth fastest - all in cars prepared for the team by Hendrick Motorsports.

So what's there to be surprised about?

But she’d barely taken the checkered flag before the Twitterverse was crying fix.

Why? She’s got the credentials.

If there was anything funny going on, I guarantee the Busch brothers, and Jimmie Johnson, and Kevin Harvick, and every other Sprint Cup driver in Daytona would have been crying foul.

This is not just another NASCAR race. This is the Daytona 500, the biggest race in NASCAR, and there isn’t another one till next year and no professional race car driver worth his salt is going to allow something as important as the pole position or the race result to be manipulated.

If one of the tech inspectors suspected something was fishy, and tipped off a reporter with the credentials of, say, an Ed Hinton, who went out and did some digging and subsequently reported that Patrick’s pole was suspect, NASCAR’s reputation could be seriously jeopardized.

I know competitors in NASCAR have sometimes cheated, but I seriously doubt that NASCAR itself has ever been complicit.

I know, fans have talked for years about so-and-so getting "the call" from NASCAR but when you sit right down and think about it, how in the world would something like that work? You would need to have 42 other drivers in on the fix and that, ladies and gentlemen, would be impossible.

If NASCAR was ever found to be rigging results, it would be ruined. So, there’s no way.

I’m sure that Brian France, et al, are delighted that Danica Patrick did what they’d hoped she’d do because it is very good for business.

But other than crossing their fingers when she went out for her run, I don’t think they had any further involvement.

Danica Patrick’s lap of 45.817 seconds is the fastest pole time since Kenny Schraeder’s back in 1990. Jeff Gordon was closest to her, lapping with a time of 45.850 seconds, 0.033 seconds slower.

The next 38 cars to go out were within a second of her time. In total, 45 cars participated in time trials and Brian Keselowski, brother of defending Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski, was 45^th and last with a time of 48.946 seconds – 2.973 seconds behind Patrick.

As per the rules at Daytona, the pole winner and the second-fastest time trialer (Gordon) are now locked into the big race. Everybody else has to race in one of two qualifying sprints next Thursday afternoon and their finishing position will determine their starting position in the 500.

With only 45 cars in total vying for 43 starting positions, there will not be a lot of drama in either of those Budweiser Duels at Daytona. There is no danger of any of the Sprint Cup regulars missing the big race.

Once upon a time, of course, those qualifying races meant something because as many as 60 cars would try to make the field at Daytona, which meant that upwards of 30 cars – sometimes more – would take the green flag in each of those two races. The pressure would really be on all of the drivers to race their way into the feature.

Not any longer, it seems.

What was with that puny crowd for the Sprint Unlimited race at Daytona Saturday night. Were there 5,000 people in the stands? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smaller crowd for a NASCAR race starring most of the big names.

Best line of the weekend, courtesy of Jeff Gordon: "I was the fastest guy out there."

Jealous, or what? Kevin Harvick, after winning the Sprint Unlimited: "Maybe this will knock Ricky (Stenhouse, Jr.) and Danica off the front page."

I wouldn’t bet on it, Kevin.

Big F1 deal for BlackBerry; Villeneuve, Tracy at Mosport?

Iconic Canadian company BlackBerry, nee RIM, announced a big deal Monday with the Mercedes Formula One team that will see the BlackBerry name plastered prominently on the Silver Arrow race cars and on the uniforms of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg (pictured).

Details to follow. But first . . .

When Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, nee Mosport, announced last fall that it had landed a race in the NASCAR Camping World Series for this year’s Labour Day Weekend, I wrote that although I was pleased as punch that the event would happen, I was suspicious of the level of talent the circuit would be able to attract and promote.

Would Kyle Busch be there come September, I wondered? Joe Nemechek? Todd Bodine? James Buescher, who won the truck series championship in 2012?

Today, I still have no idea who’s coming to race and who’s not coming. But I do have a couple of names to drop.

A little bird told me yesterday that two of Canada’s biggest racing names are looking for sponsorship that could – repeat, could – see them in trucks at Mosport next Sept. 1, the Sunday of Labour Day weekend.

Name them, I said. And – as Popeye used to say – you could blow me down.

How about Jacques Villeneuve and Paul Tracy?

The little bird said, in addition to Villeneuve and Tracy, that Old Mosport co-owner Ron Fellows is hoping to be in a truck, as are two of the young chargers currently racing in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series for stock cars, J.R. Fitzpatrick and Andrew Ranger, both of whom have had success in the Camping World Series, particularly Fitzpatrick.

My Spidey Sense tells me Max Papis might also be hovering around in the background.

I’m not as suspicious about that entry list any longer. If JV, PT and RF are in trucks with their pedals to the metal, we won’t need those other guys.

How would you like to be Lewis Hamilton?

You cut the McLaren apron strings and embark on a marvelous new adventure with Mercedes F1 and all you hear from just about everybody is that this was the stupidest thing imaginable and what was he thinking and he’s traded class for cash and, etc. etc.

The latest salvo was fired at the weekend by British sports car champion Allan McNish.

Writing for the British Internet site Express.co.uk, journalist Nick Stamford quoted the 43-year-old McNish as saying this:

"I don’t see Lewis winning races in 2013 – and there has to be doubts that the car will be good enough in 2014. And it is easy for a lean couple of years to develop into something longer. Just look what happened to Jacques Villeneuve after he joined BAR, having won the title in 1997. He never won another race. Lewis has got a tough task ahead of him at Mercedes. It is a gamble."

For his part, Hamilton prattled on and on at Monday’s 2013 Mercedes launch about how happy he is and I swear his words reminded me of Ebenezer Scrooge’s on Christmas morning:

"I'm happier. Just happier, I can't really explain it. Happier that I've got a new challenge, happy that I've got a new start, happy that I've got a fresh chapter in my life, happy that I've got this massive challenge, happy that I've got this excitement because I don't know if the car will be good or bad. I'm excited because I know that I can contribute and with a lot of hard work and perseverance I think we can get there."

I’d say Lewis is happy and excited, wouldn’t you?

And then there was that news involving Mercedes and BlackBerry. In a release Monday, Mercedes said:

"As the new Silver Arrow, the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 W04, completes its first laps this morning at the Jerez circuit in Spain, the team is delighted to announce a significant new partnership agreement with BlackBerry (NASDAQ: RIMM, TSX: RIM).

"As the official mobile computing partner for the Mercedes Formula One Team, BlackBerry will collaborate with the team on technical and marketing opportunities.

"The new BlackBerry 10 platform will deliver tools and services for Mercedes,  and fan engagement will be improved through the joint development of apps. BlackBerry 10 smartphones will also be used by the team . . . throughout the Formula One season.

"The new partnership sees the iconic BlackBerry branding featured prominently on the chassis and headrest of the F1 W04 Silver Arrow, the race suits of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, and on the team's racewear kit."

In the same release, Blackberry’s marketing chief Frank Boulben said:

"Formula One is all about precision engineering, design and innovation – three values that mirror the approach that's gone into creating BlackBerry 10. It is a natural fit."

Good luck to Blackberry and good luck to Mercedes in this new partnership.

And, lastly, Bob Pockrass, writing in The Sporting News, reports that car owner Tony Stewart not only has faith and trust in Danica Patrick, who will drive with him in his Sprint Cup team this year that also includes Ryan Newman, but says people who criticize her really don’t know what they’re talking about.

Said Stewart, who knows how hard it is to go from IndyCar racing to NASCAR, having done it himself:

"Most of the people that do the picking and analyzing aren't people that actually understand how to analyze a whole race from start to finish and aren't qualified to make that judgment.

"But from our side as a team owner and teammate, I've seen great strides. She's made huge gains in a short amount of time and that shows talent."

There are seasoned observers out there who are suggesting that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Patrick could win a race, or races, this season.