Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Power in IndyCar, Newman in NASCAR no April Fools

HINCHCLIFFE SIXTH IN ALABAMA INDY CAR RACE

There were a couple of good April Fool jokes around Sunday.

For instance, Google, which has been testing a self-driving car in California for several years now, announced that its Google Racing team would enter a self-driving race car in NASCAR races by the middle of next season.

In a wonderful video, Jeff Gordon welcomes the experiment. “I’ve been out here for 20 years,” he said  with a straight face, “and I need a vacation. . . . Thank God for technology.”

You can watch the video here

The Weather Network had a good one on Canada geese kidnapping a student at the University of Waterloo but the one I liked best concerned the proposed Canadian Motor Speedway in Fort Erie.

This email landed in my in-box at mid-morning Sunday:

FORT ERIE SPEEDWAY GETS GREEN FLAG

Fort Erie Economic Development and officials from Canadian MotorSpeedway International announced today that the planned speedway development in Fort Erie will commence construction immediately at the site of the current Fort Erie horse racing track.

Following the news that the Fort Erie race track will lose its slots from the OLG and face the loss of hundreds of jobs, the town and CMSI representatives are wasting no time with re-construction and paving over of the horse track already beginning late Saturday night.

MORE

Well, I thought it was funny. . .

Not so funny is the situation four IZOD IndyCar Series teams are facing. They are the teams that  signed up to run Lotus racing engines and they are hanging on by a thread.

Sebastien Bourdais, who finished ninth in Sunday’s second race of the season at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, which was won by Will Power with Scott Dixon second and Helio Castroneves third (full results here), has a Lotus engine in his car, but no spare.

Ditto Katherine Legge, Oriol Servia, Simona de Silvestro and Canadian Alex Tagliani (who didn’t complete even one lap of Sunday’s race before his engine expired).

As a result, none of those drivers or their teams will be able to attend the test session at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this week that was arranged especially to test new engines and the new Dallara chassis at the site of the most important race on the IndyCar calendar, the Indianapolis 500, that will take place at the end of May.

What is particularly worrying is that never mind the teams that already have Lotus engines and no spares because they will probably be able to muddle through. But what will Indy-only teams do for power plants?  Where will the six or seven cars needed to fill out the traditional 33-car field get engines?

Roger Penske mused a couple of weeks ago that the cars currently using Lotus engines will have to switch to Honda or Chevy engines if they simply want to make it through to the end of the season.

Lotus immediately pooh-poohed that, but the fact of the matter is that Roger Penske is rarely wrong and if I had to make a choice between what an engine manufacturer on very shaky ground says and what Roger Penske says, guess who I’m going with?

And if Penske’s correct (and I think he is), Honda and Chevy will be busy making enough engines to pacify teams already in the series, never mind the one-race-a-year-crowd.

So there’s a distinct possibility there could be fewer than 33 cars in the 2012 Indy 500, which would not be the end of the world but, on the other hand, would not look good and would send out a message the series wouldn’t want.

I was talking the other day to a man whose son is employed by a team in IndyCar and Dad was saying his kid is not impressed with the series’ leadership.

I look at the engine situation and I have to agree with him. How could this have happened?

What makes it worse is that CEO Randy Bernard was quoted on the IndyCar website Sunday as saying he expects 34 car-and-driver combinations to enter the “500,” including ex-F1 driver Jean Alesi.

But only hours before, HVM Racing principal Keith Wiggins told the Indianapolis Star that the deal with Alesi was off because there wasn’t enough money to make it work.

Huh?
 
Meantime, Oakville’s James Hinchcliffe qualified well and finished well – although his finish wasn’t as good as his qualifying.

The Sunoco Rookie-of-the-Year in 2011 turned the second-fastest time Saturday to sit beside pole-winner Castroneves. It was his first front-row start in the big leagues.

He ran most of the race in fourth place – where he finished the season-opener last weekend at St. Petersburg – but on the last restart, he was shuffled from fourth back to sixth, where he stayed until the checkers.

Give him some time, though. He’s going to win one of these races.

The other Canadian, Tagliani, was very disappointed to suffer engine trouble – again.

“We took the green flag, went into turn one and the engine just died,” he said. “It seems to be a pretty heavy mechanical failure what what I understand. . . I think our car was decent, but we’re having a lot of problems right now with the engine.”

His boss, Bryan Herta, was equally unhappy: “Everyone is working very hard to earn results and we are unhappy that we suffered another engine issue two weekends running.”

Hmmm.

Two other observations before we move on:

– Scott Dixon is racing wonderfully for Chip Ganassi (he might have won that Alabama round if he hadn’t suffered a slight misfortune on his final pit stop) while teammate Dario Franchitti is struggling. I wonder why?

– In Winner’s Circle, Will Power leaped frontwards high off the side of his race car to land somewhat unsteadily. NASCAR’s Carl Edwards does a backflip off his car when he wins and is pretty much solid as a rock when he hits the ground (considering he's coming in backwards). Maybe Power should just step out of his car and forget the gymnastics because, compared to Edwards – well, there’s no comparison.

Over in NASCARland, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon were running one-two in the final laps of the Sprint Cup race at Martinsville when David Reutimann suffered mechanical failure and had to stop on the speedway, bringing out a yellow.

NASCAR actually hauled Reutimann and car owner Tommy Baldwin into “the trailer” afterwards to make sure there hadn’t been any hanky panky (there wasn’t) but just about everybody except the two front-runners made a pit stop for fresh rubber before what was supposed to be the final restart.

So they waved the green flag and Clint Bowyer dive-bombed (there’s no other word for it) down the inside of Gordon going into Turn One and, before you could blink, Gordon was sideways and that turned Johnson around and they both crashed, allowing Ryan Newman to sneak past, as did A.J. Allmendinger, to win the race with Allmendinger second and Dale Earnhardt Jr. third (full results here).

It was a typical, tight, short-track stock car race with lots of bumping and tradin’ paint and crashing (just the sort of thing they want more of at Bristol, where they’ve decided to make some changes to that speedway to improve the racing - translation: generate more crashing).

Reutimann was beside himself with embarrassment, because he was getting it in the ear from the other drivers. Baldwin was calmer, suggesting the Florida driver tried to stay out on the speedway as long as he could to gain enough points so that his car, No. 10, could stay inside the top 35 in owner points and be locked into upcoming races.

It seems that the No. 10 is the car Danica Patrick drives when she makes her occasional appearances in Sprint Cup races and they’re now worried she won’t be able to make it into the races without that crutch – which I think is silly: Danica can go fast in a race car and will be able to qualify on her own.

In fact, I think it will be better for her to show she's got the Right Stuff rather than having to rely on a free pass.

There’s no NASCAR racing next weekend, as it’s Easter, and the IndyCars don’t race until two weeks from now at Long Beach and F1 is quiet as well.

What ever will we all do?

Other weekend racing:

Richard Westbrook and Antonio Garcia, driving a Corvette Daytona Prototype, won the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Barber Motorsports Park on Saturday.

Sylvain Tremblay (who's originally from Montreal) and Jonathan Bomarito won the GT class in a Mazda RX-8, edging out the No. 69  AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Ferrari 458 Italia driven by Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal, which finished 10th overall.

“Barber is always a difficult track to get a good setup and on Friday we found a combination that really worked well,” said AIM team principal and race engineer Ian Willis. “Emil and Jeff both drove to the limit to achieve this tremendous result.”

The AIM Ferrari will be racing again in the Grand Prix of Miami April 27-29.

Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto co-drove to a 13th-place finish overall and fifth in the GT class.

In the Continental Tire race at Barber, Canadians who finished included:

Scott Maxwell of Toronto co-drove a Multimatic Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage to a second-place finish overall in the GS class. David Empringham of Toronto was fifth in GS. Ashley McCalmont of Ancaster was tenth in GS. Michael Valiante of Vancouver was 37th overall and 23rd in the ST class. Dalla Lana was classified 55th overall and 20th in GS. The top finishing Compass360 Racing Team of Toronto car was 21st overall and seventh in the ST class.

Finally, Ryan Villopoto of Minneola, Fla., who won the AMA Supercross event at Rogers Centre in Toronto last weekend, wrapped up the 2012 Supercross Championship this weekend by winning the event in Houston, Tex.

It’s the earliest that a rider has ever wrapped up a Supercross title. Villopoto said that's fine with him because now he can start preparing earlier for the outdoor motocross season.

Roundup: Button, Keselowski, Audi, Piquet Jr. all win

WEEKEND HEADLINES:

1. Button wins F1 but Hamilton's sulking is getting tiresome

2. Keselowski wins NASCAR but what's with the drivers holding babies?

3. Audi 1-2 at 60th 12 Hours of Sebring; hybrid race cars coming!

4. Piquet Jr. wins in NASCAR; Toronto Supercross event might not have any stars

1. HAMILTON HAS TO SUCK IT UP AND TAKE FIGHT TO BUTTON

We all know that most world-class athletes are uber-competitive. We understand that they want to win and will do just about anything to come out on top.

But, in the end, when the game finishes or the event is over, most of them will shake hands or exchange a hug, put on a smile and rejoice in the success they’ve achieved, whether it’s in an Olympic relay race or the Super Bowl

You do your best and you move on.

Which means Lewis Hamilton’s post-Grand Prix funk at Melbourne Sunday, where he finished third to McLaren teammate and race winner Jenson Button and second-place driver Sebastian Vettel, struck me as a little over the top.

Yes, he was disappointed. Yes, the season hadn’t started on the high note he’d expected after winning pole position on Saturday. But it wasn’t the end of the world, although one look at his face suggested he was thinking exactly that.

In the initial post-race interview and in the scrums that followed, he offered congratulations to Button, said it was a swell way for McLaren to start the season, said he’d try for consistency from now on, and not much else.

During one interview, he even suggested the car he’d been given to drive on Sunday wasn’t as good as the car he’d had on Saturday – "it was not as spectacular," was the way he put it (and I interpreted that to mean he was perhaps blaming the team for his misfortune rather than accepting his defeat for what it was).

Now, Hamilton has been known to sulk previously. He gets that "poor me" look on his face and you think, ‘You’re 26, Lewis: grow up." Because all the while he’s wallowing in his self-pity and allowing his sense of entitlement to dominate his persona, his teammate, Button, is sitting beside him looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.

If there was a cartoon bubble above Button's head, it would say: "I’ve got him right where I want him – feeling sorry for himself."

The race next Sunday at Malaysia is terribly important – which is surprising, considering it’s so early in the season. But Hamilton has got to show immedately that he’s made of stronger stuff or Button will walk all over him the rest of the season.

And Red Bull – their cars could only qualify fifth and sixth in Australia; Vettel was very fortunate to finish second, and knew it – will have to take the fight right to McLaren if it hopes to get back in the hunt to win a third world driver's and manufacturers championship.

Notebook Jottings:

– Button has won three of the last four Aussie GPs; the victory was the 13^th of his career and it was decisive. (Full story, results here.) He was in charge from the moment the lights went out and didn’t put a wheel wrong. He’s looking like world championship material (although, before the weekend, I argued otherwise – video link here).

– Albert Park in Melbourne is very reminiscent of Canada’s Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on Ilse Notre-Dame in that it is a relatively flat community recreation area in the middle of a metropolis and the circuit is made up, in part, by service roads. The grandstands are temporary. One difference: while the Villeneuve circuit in Montreal is surrounded by water, the Melbourne track surrounds water.

– Former world champion Kimi Raikkonen – one of six world champions on the grid – won the Hard Charger award (if they had one) for improving his position the most. He started 18^th in his Lotus-Renault and finished seventh, an improvement of 11 places. Sergio Perez in a Sauber-Ferrari was right behind with an improvement of nine places: he started 17^th and finished eighth. Fernando Alonso did pretty well for Ferrari. He started 12^th and finished fifth, an improvement of seven positions.

– Australian Daniel Ricciardo won the battle of the newbies at Scuderia Toro Rosso. Jean-Eric Vergne of France was ahead and in tenth place going into the last lap but a last-second scramble saw Ricciardo not only pass his teammate but make it up to ninth and score points in his F1 debut at his home Grand Prix. Vergne wound up eleventh.

– Michael Schumacher made short work of Lotus-Renault second-chance driver Romain Grosjean at the start (as did three or four others) but then either suffered a mechanical problem (his explanation) or he screwed up and created a mechanical problem when he went off the racing surface (as is maybe suspected by some) and was forced out of the Grand Prix.

But he looked good for awhile when he was out there, holding down a solid third place and keeping Vettel behind him.

Others who looked like they also had fire in their bellies: Raikkonen, Alonso, Vettel.

KESELOWSKI WINS BRISTOL SPRINT CUP RACE

Penske Racing driver Brad Keselowski got the jump on second-place finisher Matt Kenseth on the last restart at Bristol Motor Speedway Sunday to pull away and easily win the Food City 500 at the Tennessee track (details, results here).

A trio of Michael Waltrip Racing entries led by Martin Truex Jr. finished third through fifth, with Clint Bowyer fourth and Brian Vickers fifth.

Vickers missed most of the 2010 season with blood clots and then was left driveless after the 2011 season when his Red Bull Racing Sprint Cup employers went out of business.

Elliott Sadler was originally signed by Watrip to drive the Toyota Cup car when Mark Martin isn’t available but Sadler drives full-time for Richard Childress in the Nationwide Series and Childress was not amused that his Chevrolet driver would be behind the wheel of a Toyota and gave Salder the choice: full-time with me or part-time with them, take your pick.

Sadler wisely chose full-time employment, so that’s how Waltrip came to sign Vickers.

Waltrip – and the smartest thing Michael W. has ever done in his career is to utilize his vast promotional and public-relations talents and leave race-driving to people who know how to do it – said afterward that Vickers might be making a few more appearances in addition to the half-dozen he’s contracted for.

There were a couple of kaboomers but nobody was hurt. Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon and Carl Edwards were notable victims.

Notebook Jottings:

– The final appeal of that $100,000 fine and six-race suspension levied against Chad Knaus and Hendrick Motorsport will be held Tuesday and suggestions are that it will stand and Jimmie Johnson will be without his team manager/crew chief for more than a month, starting next weekend in California.

As written previously in this blog, NASCAR is sending a strong message here and if anybody is missing the symbolism of what’s happening, they’re blind. The sanctioning body is saying to Hendrick and, particularly, Knaus that one more false move and somebody’s going to take a very serious fall.

– Okay, I have to say it. How come all the NASCAR drivers stand at attention for the U.S. National Anthem before the races and hold their children in their arms?

I don’t take my kids to work with me. Do you? Do hockey players stand there on the bench with infants in their arms before the ref drops the puck? Baseball players? Politicians? Does Lil Wayne, before he starts singing (or whatever you call it that Lil Wayne does)?

I know that NASCAR is a family sport. I get it. But the babes-in-arms bit is phony.

– There were empty seats in Bristol but NASCAR’s TV numbers are holding up and it’s still winter, even in Tennessee. I don't know about you but I’m not partial to watching cars race while I’m wearing a parka.

AUDI FINISHES 1-2 AT THE 12 HOURS OF SEBRING

Audi, with Tom Kristensen, Dindo Capello and Allan McNish taking turns driving, won the 60^th anniversary 12 Hours of Sebring on Saturday (details, results here).

It was the third time the three drivers have won as a team and it was Audi’s tenth victory in the race. Individually, Kristensen has won it six times, Capello five and McNish four.

Another Audi R18, with Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Loic Duval finished second while third place overall went to an LMP2 Honda team made up of Ryan Dalziel, Stephane Sarrazin and Vicente Potolicchio.

Joey Hand won a nail-biting battle with Olivier Beretta (Ferrari) to win the GT Class for Bobby Rahal’s BMW team. Second place went to Jan Magnussen’s Corvette after Beretta lost the lead and the race because of a puncture.

The top three Audi drivers will now spend much of the next week at Sebring testing a new Audi hybrid (the R18 e-tron quattro) for future Le Mans Series races in Europe, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans where it’s expected its chief competition will come from a brand new LMP1 hybrid being prepared by Toyota.

Notebook Jottings:

- TV star Patrick Dempsey announced at Sebring that he will be entering a Mazda in the LMP2 division of the American Le Mans Series this year with a partial schedule planned. Co-driver will be Joe Foster (a frequent partner of Toronto's Scott Maxwell in Grand Am Series competition). Dempsey said the team will run a full schedule in future ALMS seasons and definitely wants to be at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2013. No word on whether the 2012 "partial schedule" will include the ALMS stop at Mosport (oops! Canadian Tire Motorsport Park!) in July.

- The ALMS is doing great harm to itself by not having a television package (and no, two hours on ABC the day after a race is not good enough, regardless of what some of the tall foreheads think). From what I'm told, the ESPN3 feed (an online service in the States) is terrible; the ALMS site international feed is not much better, I'm told.

Now, to be fair, I didn't have any trouble. But I heard from lots of people who gave up in disgust while trying to find a link.

Meantime, I wish the ALMS people would stop making reference to Rogers Sportsnet as being one of their television partners. It is not.

OTHER RACING

Nelson Piquet Jr. won his first NASCAR race at the weekend, a late model deal at Bristol. The disgraced F1 driver (he was involved in the fixed race at Singapore a few years ago, remember?) has gone about rehabilitating himself the right way, I think, by taking it very slow and very easy in stock cars and trucks. His father could have paid to put him into the Sprint Cup right off the bat but it would have been a foolish move. This way, he’ll earn his stripes the right way. . . . Joey Pescarella, only 19, won the Daytona 500 of motorcycle races, the Daytona 200 on Saturday. He won by 0.048 seconds over Jason DiSalvo in a photo finish. . . . Ryan Villopoto won the AMA Monster Energy Supercross at Indianapolis at the weekend. What’s worrying for the 50,000 or so Supercross fans expected to flock to Toronto’s Rogers Centre next Saturday night is that two of the sport’s biggest stars, Ryan Dungey and James (Bubba) Stewart are question marks. Dungey broke his collarbone several weeks ago and it hasn’t healed enough after surgery to risk further injury. Steward was injured on Saturday night in a crash at Indy’s Lucas Oil Stadium and is pretty banged up. He passed a post-event concussion test, but barely. He’ll have to take another one before being allowed to race in Toronto.

Wheels.ca launches George's TV listings for race fans

As part of Toronto Star Wheels and wheels.ca’s commitment to providing the finest coverage of all things automotive, including competition, it is my pleasure today to announce the addition to our lineup of "George’s TV listings for race fans." Link here

Updated weekly, George’s TV listings will provide one-stop shopping for Canadian race fans looking to find television coverage of their favourite sport, from pre-race programming to race coverage itself.

As a bonus, in the case of NASCAR programming in particular, the listings will not only include the time the race program will come on but also the time the race will actually start (which is great for people setting recorders for viewing at a later time).

The TV list is a labour of love for retired Oakville high school chemistry teacher George Webster, who took it up as a hobby after he stopped going to, and writing about, races.

Webster has been a fan of motorsport since the mid-1950s and started writing about sports car racing, the Can-Am, Formula Atlantic and Formula One in 1976 for Pete Chapman’s Wheelspin News.

He travelled to Europe for F1 races and wrote about the Canadian and U.S. Grands Prix up until 1982 when he shifted his attention to NASCAR while writing for Motoring News.

"I hated oval racing," Webster was saying the other day, "but I went to Michigan and Darlington in 1982 and came to appreciate NASCAR for the strategy - or lack of strategy, to be more exact.

"That might sound strange, but it’s not. In F1, everybody knows everybody else’s race strategy right from the start; in NASCAR, the only strategy they have is not to crash on the first lap. After that, they react to circumstance and make it up on the fly as a result of what happens during the race. Watching, it can be fascinating."

He joined PRN magazine in 1988 and wrote about NASCAR until he saw an ad in National Speed Sport News in 1997 seeking someone to cover CART. He applied and got the job.

In 1999, he stopped covering the Indy cars and rejoined PRN to write about NASCAR on an occasional basis. He also wrote for goracing.com in the early days of the Internet.

In 2000, borrowing an idea from the U.S. provider Compuserve, Webster started RaceFanTV, a racing listings service for U.S. as well as Canadian viewers, and worked on it year-‘round until a few years ago when another listings service took it over.

Although still contributing articles on historic racing to PRN, Webster admitted to having time on his hands - we occasionally meet for breakfast - and so when I suggested to him several months ago that he consider a Canadian listings service for wheels.ca readers, he agreed.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect as NASCAR’s season has started, Formula One will be back in action a week from this coming weekend in Australia, the 12 Hours of Sebring is scheduled for March 17 and the IZOD IndyCar Series will kick off its 2012 schedule at the end of the month.

With so much going on, a listings service is required and George's on wheels.ca would seem to fit the bill. 

So bookmark the link. And tell all your friends.

NASCAR driver Allmendinger wins Rolex 24

TRACY SAYS HE'S CLOSE TO INDYCAR DEAL - BUT IS HE?

NASCAR driver A.J. Allmendinger hadn’t won a race in either the Sprint Cup stock car series or the old Champ Car Indy car series in five years but that drought came to an end Sunday afternoon at Daytona International Speedway when he drove the Michael Shank Racing Ford-Riley Daytona Prototype sports car past the checkers to win the 50^th anniversary Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.

Allmendinger, who shared his drive with IndyCar and ex-F1 racer Justin Wilson and two "gentlemen drivers," John Pew and Oswaldi Negri, defeated second-place finishers Ryan Dalziel (who started the marathon from pole), Allan McNish, Lucas Luhr, Alex Popow and Enzo Potolicchio by 5.198 seconds, which was pretty close after a complete day of racing that started at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

The second-place car was also a Ford-Riley, as was the third-place finisher – also entered by Michael Shank Racing – that was driven by Felipe Nasr, Mike McDowell, Jorge Goncalvez and Gustavo Yacaman.

Allmendinger led the first-place finishing car in the Grand Touring class – a Porsche GT3 driven by Andy Lally, John Potter, Rene Rast and Richard Lietz – by 9.412 seconds at the checkers in a race that saw an average speed of 126.300 miles an hour for the prototypes and 118.031 for the GTs. There were 13 caution periods for a total of 64 laps.

Here is a link to the complete story but I have these observations:

– I know it’s an iconic race and that they said there was a record crowd in the infield (75,000, they say . . . ) but there’s something the matter when a speedway has seating for 165,000 people and the winning driver gets out of the car and waves to the crowd and there is absolutely nobody there.

Yes, in the middle of the night at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, nobody is watching that race either. They are too busy partying. But when the race starts and when the race ends, there are thousands of people in the grandstands on both sides of the track, waving and cheering.

Not in Daytona, boy. I felt sorry for Allmendinger. He even had an American flag to wave and the only people standing in front of him in Victory Circle as he jumped out and let go with a winning war whoop were about 50 photographers.

It felt like a club race.

There were NASCAR drivers, IndyCar drivers, ex-F1 drivers and legendary sports car drivers in that field and yet it is obvious that there is next to no interest in that race so far as it being a spectator sport is concerned.

Which is really too bad. It was a good race and an exciting one. I mean, after 24 hours of racing there was five seconds between the winner and the second-place car and it can’t get much better than that.

– I love the holier-than-thou attitude experessed by many top racing drivers. Nothing is ever their fault or of their own doing. They are perfect.

Although I tried, I couldn’t watch the whole 24 hours of that race. I was dragged away, kicking and screaming, to go out for breakfast Sunday morning with my sweetheart and our youngest son. I got back just in time to see an interview with Allan McNish in which he shook his head and said (in so many words) what a numbskull Allemdinger was for running into him at 180 miles an hour.

A replay of the incident appeared to show Allmendinger moving up the track and clipping McNish, who was running beside him on the high side. "I don’t know what he was thinking," said the totally innocent-looking McNish.

So I thought to myself: "Maybe the Dinger should have been a bit more careful."

But lo and behold, 20 minutes later, Speed TV (which did its usual excellent job of televising the race) showed a replay of something that happened an hour or so earlier when Allmendinger pulled alongside McNish in the infield and made a move to pass, only to be pushed off the road by McNish.

"Aha," I said to myself. "So that’s it. McNish, the Innocent, started the fight. Allmendinger is a NASCAR driver now and that business on the high banks was just a little payback. And Mr. McNish is lucky the Dinger didn’t just ding him right up into the wall. What's that they say about, 'people who live in glass houses . . . ?' "

– Every time I hear Ryan Dalziel’s name (it’s pronounced Dee-all), I think of that town north of Pembroke on the Ottawa River called Des-Joachims. It’s pronounced "De Swisha."

– Although the Rolex 24 is a very important motor race, they mix and match drivers right up until the last minute. Although Mark Wilkins of Toronto was on the official entry list, his name was missing from the results. And Marco Andretti seemed to be added to the driver lineup of one car after the race was started.

What was scary is that Marco had never raced at Daytona before, had never sat in the car he was going to race, and wouldn’t arrive till 8 p.m. after testing an Indy car at Sebring earlier in the day. I know Marco is a good race driver, but doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous?

– It will be interesting to see if the cable commercials that played non-stop on the Speed Channel throughout the Rolex 24 ever make it onto network TV – the ones dealing with prostate problems and low male testosterone.

(By the way, every time I see Joe Theismann – he did the prostate pitch – I think of his rookie year with the Toronto Argonauts in 1971 when he was just 22. He came into the Globe and Mail, where I worked at the time, for an interview with the late sports editor, Jim Vipond. He looked like a million bucks, unlike most of the young athletes who play for the Leafs these days. He was in a three-piece grey suit and carried a briefcase. All the 30-something secretaries, who’d known for a few days that he was coming in, were all dolled up. He was greeted by a woman named Nancy, who was Vipond’s assistant. She took him into an office and when she came out, she looked somewhat cross. "What’s the matter?" I asked. "Aw, he’s just a kid," she snapped, as she stomped past.)

– Okay, here is the news of the day.

Paul Tracy was interviewed by the racing press corps and announced that he is "close" to signing a one-year deal with Michael Shank Racing for a full-time ride in the IZOD IndyCar Series that will, in fact, be a farewell tour.

However, Tracy also revealed that they are still working on a sponsorship deal and an engine deal for the season, which will start in less than two months.

Most IndyCar teams will be testing at Sebring this week, which means that even if things come together as hoped, this particular rookie team will be way behind everybody else.

Now, the significance of the timing of Tracy’s announcement is twofold:

First, he identified Michael Shank Racing as the team he would like to drive for if things can be worked out. That eliminates rumours about a return to Dale Coyne Racing, where he started his Indy car career at Long Beach in 1991.

Second, he essentially said that if he can’t run Indy cars, he would move immediately into sports cars and Michael Shank’s Grand Am team needs a driver of Tracy’s calibre, seeing as the two guys who won the Rolex 24 for Shank this weekend, Wilson and Allmendinger, won’t be available.

Paul Tracy is my favourite race driver and I want to see him wind up his career with dignity and class. But it’s very much a long shot because – if you read his quotes from the interviews he gave in Daytona at the weekend – he’s pretty much admitting he won’t be competitive.

"I still want to compete and drive," he said. "I still have the passion to drive. But at the level that it takes to run in IndyCar, at my age, 43, I think I could be more competitive and be able to compete and be in good equipment in sports cars."

If I was a sponsor being pitched to spend several millions of dollars to put him into an Indy car, my pen might run out of ink after reading that quote.

On the other hand, maybe he was pitching Shank to put him into the Daytona Prototype full-time . . .

Incidentally, Tracy finished ninth in the Rolex, driving - with others - a Doran Racing Dallara-Ford Daytona Prototype for 748 laps in 24 hours compared with the winning car’s 761 laps.

Here are where other Canadians finished:

– AIM Autosport of Woodbridge’s Ferrari 458, driven by full-season drivers Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal with the help of two others, finished eighth in the GT class (and 20^th overall) after starting second in class. It was the team’s first race in GT after a successful run in the prototypes. Look for them to do better as the Grand Am season progresses.

– IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe of Oakville finished sixth in GT and 18^th overall in a Mazda RX-8.

– Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto, who won the GT season championship last year, was 16^th in the GT class (29^th overall) in a BMW M3.

– Darryl O’Young and Brett Van Blankers of Vancouver finished 20^th in GT and 33^rd overall in a Porsche owned by Steve Paquette’s Bullet Racing out of Vancouver.

– Chris Cumming of Vancouver was 24^th in GT in a Porsche, good for 39^th overall.

– Taylor Hacquard of Vancouver was classified 37^th in GT and 52^nd overall in a Mazda RX.

Foyt to miss Rolex 24; great qualifying result for AIM team

There’s lots of news coming out of Daytona this weekend.

Qualifying for the 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 that goes to the post at Daytona International Speedway at 3:30 p.m. today (Saturday - Speed TV at 2:30 p.m. Eastern) resulted in an upset with Ryan Dalziel of Orlando capturing the pole in a Ford-Riley Daytona Prototype.

Rounding out the front row will be a Corvette DP with driver Max Angelelli at the wheel.

In the GT class, the No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche and driver Andrew Davis won pole over the Woodbridge-based No. 69 AIM Autosport Team FXDD with Ferrari and driver Jeff Segal.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a great result for a new team.

For me, however, the most important headline was that A.J. Foyt had to cancel acting as Grand Marshal for the 50^th anniversary of the iconic event.

God’s own A.J. Foyt is the last American hero. It is not Junior Johnson, who really didn’t do much. Foyt won Indy four times and he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona. He won the Daytona 500 stock car race and more midget and sprint car races than you can count.

In battle, he was braver’n Dick Tracy and you didn’t mess with him if you were smart.

But A.J. is 77 now and had a knee operation the other day and infection set in. He sent his regrets with the following words:

"I am really sorry that I can’t be there this weekend for the Rolex 24. I was really looking forward to it because I thought it was a great honour to be asked to be the Grand Marshal of the 50th Anniversary of that race and I considered it to be one of the great highlights of my career.

"I feel so bad that I let everyone down. I was also looking forward to seeing some of my old friends and the race cars that I drove in that race. It was going to be a really fun weekend for me but I guess I’ll be watching the race from my hospital room — yep, the doctors pulled rank on me. And I hate to admit, but I think they’re right — this time. I’d like to wish everyone a safe race and I’ll be with you in spirit."

A.J. Foyt is a giant among men and there are not many like him left in the world.

Meantime, Billy Johnson and Jack Roush Jr., in a Jack Roush Racing Ford Mustang Boss 302R, won the first official race of the 2012 season Friday by finishing first in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series BMW Performance 200.

Top Canadian in the field was 2011 Continental Tire GS champion Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto, driving a BMW M3 with American Billl Auberlen to a seventh place finish in a race that saw six caution flags. Twenty-five of the race’s 58 laps were run under caution. Nobody was injured, although several drivers were taken to hospital for checkups after crashing.

Other Canadians:

– David Empringham and John Farano, both of Toronto, were 12^th in a Porsche.

– Scott Maxwell of Toronto was 16^th in an Aston Martin Vantage.

– Jean-Francois Dumoulin of Trois-Rivieres was 25^th in a Porsche.

– Fraser Wellon of Mississauga and Frank Rossi of Kleinburg were 26^th in a Porsche.

– Taylor Hacquard of Vancouver was 31^st overall and fourth in ST class in a MazdaSpeed3.

– Michael Valiente of Vancouver finished 50^th (23^rd in ST) in a Honda Civic.

– Brad Wood of Brantford was classified 58^th (28^th in ST) in a Honda Civic.

– Ashley McCalmont of Ancaster was credited with a 73/36 result in a Camaro.

– Emanuel Anassis of Montreal was credited with a 77/37 result in a Mustang.

Barrichello IndyCar test will just be the first

Although Rubens Barrichello reportedly told his wife once that he would never race Indy cars — the memory of fellow Brazilian Nelson Piquet’s trip into the Indianapolis wall still vivid — the news that he will test a KV Racing Dallara-Chevrolet at Sebring next week should come as no surprise.

When Emmerson Fittipaldi’s F1 career ended, he went to CART.  So did Raul Boesel, Cristiano da Matta, Christian Fittipaldi, Mauricio Gugelmin, Roberto Morena and Alex Ribeiro.

Non-Brazilian F1 drivers who’ve switched to the Indy car ranks include Sebastien Bourdais (a back-and-forth, actually), Juan Pablo Montoya, Timo Glock, Alex Zanardi (ditto), Justin Wilson and, perhaps the most famous, Nigel Mansell in 1993, the year after he won the world championship.

Tony Kanaan drives for KV Racing, so there’s the link. As well as being fellow Brazilians, Kanaan and Barrichello are close friends and even switched helmet liveries once with Barrichello wearing Kanaan’s in the 2006 Grand Prix of Monaco and Kanaan wearing Rubens’ in that year’s Indy 500 (both races were on the same day).

And just the way Rubens has been talking indicates he is not yet ready to stop race-driving. “I have a lot of speed left in me yet,” he said as recently as last weekend after finding out that Bruno Senna would replace him at Williams.

If Barrichello makes the move, I suggest other F1 drivers without a ride in F1 this season will take a strong look at the IZOD IndyCar Series. Why? Because CART was once considered a viable alternative to F1 and today’s IndyCar series is looking very much like that again.

Although there is just once chassis, the Dallara, there are now three engine manufacturers in the primarily road-and-street circuit series and there are not really any weak teams. Yes, Penske, Ganassi and Andretti will be expected to lead the way but none of the teams expected to run the full series will really be also-rans so an unemployed F1 driver like Jaime Alguesuari, say, would not be out of line taking sponsorship money to Dale Coyne Racing, which announced this week it will run with Honda power and Justin Wilson aboard one of its two cars.

Vitaly Petrov is also without employment at the moment and is too young and too good to be content driving in one Friday practice session as a reserve.

It’s better to do what guys like Montoya, Zanardi and Bourdais did — stay active and dominate — than to hover around F1 in the background like an obedient puppy.

There are only a few seats left in IndyCar at the moment but if Barrichello is sniffing around, the chances are very good that there will be others.

The first race of the Rolex 24 at Daytona weekend will go to the post Friday. About a dozen Canadians are entered in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge BMW Performance 200 (whew — what a mouthful!).

They are:

Ashley McCalmont of Ancaster in a Camaro; Emmanuel Anassis of Montreal in a Mustang; Jean-Francois Dumoulin of Trois-Rivieres in a Porsche; Scott Maxwell of Toronto in an Aston Martin Vantage; David Empringham of Toronto teaming with John Farano, also of Toronto, in a Porsche; Frank Rossi of Kleinberg teaming with Fraser Wellon of Mississauga in a Porsche; Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto in a BMW; Brad Wood of Brantford in a Honda Civic; Taylor Hacquard of Vancouver in a MazdaSpeed3 and Michael Valiante of Vancouver in a Honda Civic.

Now, Multimatic Motorsports of Markham has cars entered, as does Karl Thomson’s Compass360 Racing team of Toronto. Speaking of Compass360, the following release arrived in my emailbox this week:

“Compass360 Racing is no stranger to winning on the high banks of Daytona International Speedway, having been on the Street Tuner podium four straight years from 2007 to 2010. To extend that impressive result the team has assembled a driver roster for this weekend's Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race that's arguably the strongest it's ever had, counting three former series champions and one runner-up in the squad.

“Grand-Am's 2007 ST Champion Adam Burrows will share the #74 Dr. Kimberly Henry / Speed Secrets / HPD Honda Civic Si with Andrew Novich, who impressed the team in his rookie year the previous season.

"I'm excited to be back with Compass360 Racing and all the guys, especially Andrew, who I think is going to impress a lot of people this year," noted Burrows. "Coming into a series this competitive as a rookie is a real challenge, and I know Andrew finished fourth here last year, so we're shooting for a podium finish in 2012."

“Burrows last ran with C360R in 2008, co-driving with 2007 ST Champion Trevor Hopwood, who will drive the #77 Joe Marina Honda / Luna-C / HPD car with Bo Roach.

"Like Adam, I'm thrilled to be back in a C360R Honda after a couple of years in other cars." remarked Hopwood. "These guys have always been at the front, and I have a really good feeling about this race."

The Daytona event is particularly meaningful as Roach, promoter of Midnight Drags at Tulsa Raceway Park, is returning to Grand-Am racing after a two-year absence. "Running this race, with support from Joe Marina Honda in Tulsa, on the 50th running of the Rolex is just so amazing," enthused Roach, who turns 50 this weekend. "It's a 50-50 race for me!"

David Thilenius, the third former champ in the line-up, won the Grand-Am Street Tuner in 2010 with Compass360 Racing. He's returning for his third straight season with the team, sharing the #76 Metropolitan Foods / HPD Honda with John Kuitwaard, who after a number of years doing select races has signed on for a full campaign.

"I'm looking forward to driving last year's car without the restrictor!" laughed Thilenius. "The Hondas have always been good cars at Daytona, and although we know the rest of the field is very strong I'm hoping to get a good points haul this weekend."

Last year's Street Tuner battle was a fight to the finish in the season finale, and if not for being spun out in the closing stages by a Mazda, Ryan Eversley might have won the title for C360R. As it was, he finished second, one better than in 2010.

This year he's aiming for the top spot, co-driving with veteran Grand-Am competitor Ray Mason in the #75 Columbus Truck / Children's Wish Foundation / HPD car.

"Ray (Lee) and the Compass boys have been working on this new 2012 Civic for the past six months and at the test a few weeks ago, I was really impressed," exclaimed Eversley. "For a new car, I think it's going to be ready to go right out of the box."

The Continental Tire Daytona race starts at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, and will air on the Speed TV channel  Feb. 4 at noon.

Fewer Canadians enter Rolex 24 at Daytona

The 50^th anniversary Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona sports car race will kick off the 2012 auto racing season this weekend and, as usual, Canada has supplied a number of competitors for the headline event at Daytona International Raceway.

Although there is an exciting new team in the mix, the AIM Autosport of Woodbridge partnership with Ferrari (and more about that later), there are not as many Canadian drivers entered this year as there were a year ago and you wonder why, considering that the Canadian economy is doing much better than that of the U.S.

In 2011, four Canadians (f you count Darren Law, who was born in Toronto) were entered in the Daytona Prototype class, compared with just one this year, and 10 Canucks did battle in the GT class compared with nine this year. In all, it’s a significant drop – from a total of 14 in 2011 to 10 in 2012.

(There are more Canadian drivers and teams entered in the supporting Continental Tire race that goes to the post on Friday, but we’re talking the main event here, the Rolex 24, a race in which Canadians have not only contested but won.)

There’s a suggestion that because it’s the 50^th anniversary event, organizers have worked to put former champions and well-known competitors in cars, thus cutting down on the number of seats available. On the other hand, maybe it’s just one of those things — but it’s worth noting.

The lone Canadian entered in the glamour-puss class, the Daytona Prototype division, is Paul Tracy of Scarborough, who’s still out there fighting to find a full-time ride in the IZOD IndyCar Series but also laying the groundwork for another of his ambitions, to close out his glorious career with some success in long-distance races like the Rolex, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Tracy has signed to drive Doran Racing's No. 77 Combos/Circle-K Ford-Dallara with brothers Brian and Burt Frisselle and Dr. Jim Lowe.

In a release, Tracy said he was exciting about the opportunity to take another crack at Daytona with a team he drove for in the race back in 2005.

"I'm very excited to make my return to Daytona for the 50th Anniversary of the Rolex 24, and especially with Doran Racing," Tracy said. "I drove my first Rolex 24 in a Doran JE4 design back in 2005 and it was a great experience. I'm grateful that (the team has) put his trust in me as a driver and paired me with the Frisselle brothers and Jim Lowe."

As well as the 2005 race, in which the team failed to finish, Tracy also raced at Daytona with Michael Shank Racing in 2006 and 2007. He’s no stranger to the Frisselle family, either.

"One of my first big race wins as a driver (at Mosport in 1986, in a car owned by Horst Kroll, when Tracy was only 17) came in a Frisbee Can-Am car that Brian and Burt’s father (Brad Frisselle) built, so I’m thrilled to now be able to race with the next generations of Frisselles," Tracy said.

In addition to Tracy in Daytona Protytpe, other Canadians lined up for the Rolex 24 in the GT class include:

— Toronto drivers Scott Maxwell, driving a Mazda RX-8 for Dempsey Racing, Mark Wilkins aboard a Paul Miller Racing Porsche GT3 and Paul Dalla Lana driving for Turner Motorsports in a BMW M3;

— Oakville IndyCar star James Hinchcliffe racing a Speed Source Mazda RX-8;

— Vancouver drivers Chris Cumming (Porsche GT3), Darryl O’Young (Porsche GT3), Brett Van Blankers (Porsche GT3) and Taylor Hacquard (Mazda RX-8).

Meantime, AIM Autosport, which for years was an entrant in the Rolex Daytona Prototype division (a Riley-Ford, with primary driver Mark Wilkins of Toronto), has announced a full-year program in GT with 2010 GT champions Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal in a new, factory-built, Ferrari 458 Italia GT Grand Am and will kick off the program at the Rolex 24.

Assentato, of Locust Valley, N.Y. and Segal of Miami will co-drive the new Ferrari in their fifth full season as teammates. They will be joined at Daytona by Anthony Lazzaro of Canton, Ga., and Nick Longhi, of Nyack, N.Y.

Title sponsor is FXDD, an online currency trading service that is also a partner of the F1 Red Bull Racing team.

"FXDD is excited to announce our title sponsorship of AIM Autosport Team FXDD and our commitment to the Ferrari 458 Italia GT Grand Am racing program in the Rolex Sports Car Series," said John Corbett, FXDD director of marketing, when the new team was formed in late 2011. "We are very proud to partner with a team that exemplifies the precision and dedication we provide to our clients every day."

The AIM team began as a partnership between Andrew Bordin, Ian Willis and Keith Willis and made headlines in the 2008 Rolex season when drivers Brian Frisselle and Wilkins scored back-to-back Daytona Prototype race wins at Watkins Glen and Montreal. The Canadian victory remains the closest finish in Daytona Prototype history.

"I'm invigorated by this program," said Bordin, AIM Autosport Sporting Director and Team Principal. "I have been a Ferrari fan since I was little and it's tremendously exciting to now be involved with a Ferrari racing program."

Said AIM Autosport race engineer and Team Principal Ian Willis: "I have been involved in racing all my life and one name personifies racing cars like none other: Ferrari. As a boy growing up, I watched Ferrari Formula One, Can-Am and sports cars at Mosport, so to be campaigning a Ferrari in the 50th anniversary of the Rolex 24, and chasing the 2012 Rolex Series GT championship, is like a dream come true."

It is kind of exciting, isn’t it?

Kimi admits he'll need time to adjust to F1

DANICA OFFICIALLY OUT OF INDY 500

Kimi Raikkonen, who's well into Day 2 of his return to Formula One by driving a 2010-spec Renault around the Valencia circuit in Spain, said following Monday’s session that he expects he’ll need a little time to get readjusted.

Ya think?

The 2007 world champion, who spent two years competing in the World Rally Championship and took a detour to North America in 2011 for a couple of NASCAR races, is now back in F1 with Lotus (which used to be Renault, remember?) and said that while he didn’t have any real trouble driving the car Monday, he expects it will take some time to get used to the team and to the spec Pirelli tires.

Raikkonen said he’d enjoyed his short time in NASCAR, which convinced him he really wanted to go circuit racing again and "if you want to go racing, then you want to be in F1."

The second day of the test Tuesday was geared to getting him ready to step into the 2012 car at the first F1 pre-season test at the Jerez track, which starts on Feb. 7.

Good luck to him and it's good to have him back. But if Michael Schumacher had trouble adjusting to the new reality that’s F1 after his time away from the sport, it’s very likely that Raikkonen will find it a struggle too.

At least he has the courage to admit it.

By the way, it comes as absolutely no surprise that Danica Patrick has officially ruled out trying to drive in this year's Indianapolis 500.

She made it official Monday at Daytona International Speedway, where she's preparing to make her full-time stock car racing debut next month.

Instead of Indy, she'll drive in NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Both the 500 and the 600 are scheduled for May 27.

"I hope to do it (the Indy 500) in the future," she told reporters. "At this point, after a lot of conversations, it's just going to be the Coke 600. I think it's going to be a big challenge, but I'm looking forward to it."

Patrick left the IZOD IndyCar Series to drive in NASCAR this season. She'll run the entire Nationwide Series for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s JR Motorsports team and for Tony Sterwart's Stewart-Haas Racing team in 12 Sprint Cup races, starting with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 26.

She left the door open to returning to Indy, where she's raced the last seven Mays, at some time in the future - perhaps even trying "the double," in which a driver runs both Indy and the Coke 600.

Although some may disagree, her absence could affect Indy 500 attendance and TV ratings. Anybody who has spent any time in Indianapolis around 500 time knows that Danica Patrick is the star of that race, so far as everybody from local TV weathermen to morning disc jockeys on radio are concerned.

The purists might not like it, but it is fact.

I don't have any news to pass along about TSN's plans for Formula One coverage this year (rest assured, I have asked) but here’s some of what SpeedTV has lined up for auto racing generally in 2012.

Speed Center, the Sunday evening motorsport news program that covers NASCAR, IndyCar, F1 and the short tracks, will return on Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. to report on the 50^th anniversary running that weekend of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.

In addition, the presentation of the Mario Andretti Trophy to the 2011 Speed Performer of the year will be made on that edition of the show. (I suggest the winner will be Tony Stewart.)

It is sincerely hoped that Speed Center will continue on the schedule it carved out for itself last racing season when it would kick off racing weekends with a Friday night edition and insert updates throughout the weekend leading to the wrapup Sunday night program.

No definitive word on that, though.

In any event, at 8 p.m. that evening (Jan. 29), the 10^th season of Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain will go to air and everybody who’s watched that show in the past knows it is a must-see program.

Incidentally, Despain – who really should do more specials like the one he's done on Carroll Shelby; his profile of Chris Economaki a few years ago was a masterpiece and I wish Speed would make it available on DVD – says his easiest and most colourful interview has always been drag racer John Force, his best interview has always been Jeff Gordon and his most challenging interview has always been Tony Stewart – will anchor the 535^th episode of Wind Tunnel when the red light goes on that night.

Wow.

Oh, before I forget. SpeedTV and speedtv.com will cover the Daytona 24 live around the clock. Here’s how.

The pre-race program will go to air at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on Sat., Jan. 28, with the green flag expected an hour later, at 3:30 p.m. Full coverage of the race on Speed will continue until 11 p.m., at which time coverage will switch to speedtv.com and continue there overnight. Television coverage will resume at 9 a.m. on Sunday and continue through to the checkers and the post-race celebrations and interviews.

The Rolex show will be anchored by Bob Varsha and Leigh Diffey with help from colour commentators/analysts and pit/paddock reporters David Hobbs, Tommy Kendall, Dorsey Schroeder, Calvin Fish, Brian Till, Justin Bell and others.

Here’s something a little different. Jim Clarke, who handles PR for Kawartha Speedway, sent this out late last week:

"Sometimes things just happen. At Kawartha Speedway’s 2011 award’s banquet – Sat., Jan. 14^th – the rookie of the year honour in the Hasiuk Trailer and Container Rental Mini Stock division was presented to seventh place point finisher Alex Lees, who won three main events during the year. After checking statistics for the season, the track has announced that the award should have actually belonged to Ryan Oosterholt, who picked up only one feature race win but finished second in points. General Manager/Promoter Derek Lynch says the track regrets the error and will be sending a trophy to Oosterholt."

Hinchcliffe's actually going to be paid to race

How's this for a switch?

The really interesting thing about James Hinchcliffe’s signing to drive the Go Daddy-sponsored car for Michael Andretti in 2012 is that for the first time in his life, he’s going to be paid to drive a racing car.

Up till now, whether it was in karts or Star Mazda or Champ Car Atlantics or Indy Lights, Hinchcliffe either had to use family money to pay for his drive or arrange for the sponsorship in order to race.

There might have been some money coming back, but he had to go out and find it first.

Now, they’re going to pay him.

And by becoming a paid open wheel driver, he’s now a member of a very select group because in all of Formula One and its support series, and all of IndyCar and its Road to Indy ladder system, there are maybe – maybe – 30 drivers who don’t have to "bring money."

That is a real feather in his cap.

The No. 27 car has figured prominently in Canadian motorsport. Billy Foster, the first Canadian of the modern era to make the field at Indianapolis, drove car No. 27. And Gilles Villeneuve drove car No. 27 for Ferrari. Hinchcliffe's car at Andretti will be - you guessed it - No. 27.

The Super Bowl is coming up and Go Daddy is famous for its edgy commercials. Maybe "Go Daddy Guy" Hinchcliffe and "Go Daddy Girl" Danica Patrick will appear together in one of them this year.

It’s interesting how the story broke on Tuesday. There was no press conference or formal announcement; the news was leaked to a U.S. national newspaper. Did Go Daddy have an ulterior motive for doing it like that? And if so, what was it? And why?

James Hinchcliffe’s signing officially became a big sports story in Toronto on Wednesday when the story made it onto sports talk radio in T.O. Wednesday morning, he appeared on the Jeff Blair show on The Fan radio station. Blair seems to have an appreciation for auto racing, which is rare among Toronto-area radio and TV personalities (Vic Rauter being the other exception).

In a wheels.ca blog item from the Detroit auto show, I said it was a shame there weren’t more examples of the industry’s involvement in auto racing. I then listed a Red Bull F1 car, a Chip Ganassi Indy car and Patrick Dempsey’s Grand Am Mazda as the only examples on the showroom floor. Well, I missed Kyle Busch’s Sprint Cup car, which was part of the Toyota display. Sorry.

Is NASCAR going the way of F1?

HINCHCLIFFE MAY HAVE GODADDY SEAT BY FRIDAY

As the 2012 season approaches, are we witnessing the Formula One-ization of NASCAR?

Formula One is the top racing series in the world where – outside of the top half-dozen drivers – the ability to “bring money” counts for more than anything else. Yes, in the end, the drivers still have to be able to race but talent is not (unlike virtually ever other sport in the world) a prerequisite for employment.

In North America, the IZOD IndyCar Series is primarily a pay series. Ditto the American Le Mans Series and the Grand Am. The whole “road to Indy” single-seat ladder of  F2000 up to Indy Lights is a money deal. So – for the most part – are the NASCAR truck and secondary stock car divisions. And the “driver development” programs run by the big Sprint Cup teams – Joe Gibbs, Jack Roush, etc. – are geared toward the development of drivers who can pay for the privilege of being developed.

But the Sprint Cup was the last, great holdout. It was the place where everybody could point with pride and say that the 43-plus drivers were there because of their talent.

Not any more.

The first out-and-out ride buy of the year (2011, really) came when sponsor GoDaddy made the deal with JR Motorsports and Tony Stewart Racing to move Danica Patrick from the IndyCar series to NASCAR. Patrick is a talented race driver (I’m a big fan) but she wouldn’t be where she is today if it wasn’t for GoDaddy.

There are some very talented and very unemployed Sprint Cup racing drivers beating the bushes for just about anything these days, which means the signing this week of Aric Almirola by Richard Petty Motorsports to drive the No. 43 car is curious. – to say the least. Almost as curious was his out-of-the-blue signing to drive the 88 car full-time for JR Motorsports in 2011 after Kelly Earnhardt had said the team planned to try out a number of drivers and Almirola hadn’t even been in the car at that point.

I don’t happen to think that Almirola is anywhere near the :”marketing machine” that Patrick is, but it’s a safe bet that something other than his talent (or talent potential; he’s had a pretty mediocre racing career to this point, in that he hasn’t won anything) is in play here.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this, of course. Money is what makes the world go ‘round.

But it’s still a little sad to watch the end of the last bastion of motorsport idealism fall prey to the filthy lucre.

Moving right along, but staying with the “money talks and everyone else walks” topic, F1 driver Sebastien Buemi has been named as Red Bull Racing’s official reserve driver for 2012. Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were both dropped by Scuderia Toro Rosso a few weeks ago and have been looking for work ever since. In last year’s F1 championship, Alguersuari outpointed Buemi 26 to 15. Both drivers have the ability to write large cheques -- but guess which one writes bigger ones?

Still with F1, AT&T has ended its relationship with Williams, which means Sir Frank’s team has to find a new title sponsor before the season opens in March. Which also means that another driver like Pastor Maldonado who can write the big cheque will be in a Williams this year.

It looks like Andretti Autosport will finally announce the driver for the No. 7 GoDaddy car in Indianapolis on Friday and the betting is it will be James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, who found himself on the market after Newman-Haas Racing announced it wouldn't compete in IndyCar in 2012.

Toronto racing driver Scott Maxwell and his Multimatic Motorsports team will be at Daytona tomorrow and Saturday for the Roar Before the Rolex 24, a two-day practice/shakedown session in advance of the first 24-hour race of the season Jan. 26-29. Multimatic, a Markham-based racing organization that is better known internationally, it seems, that it is in its home country, is entering its twentieth year of competition, primarily with Ford, with four cars entered in two classes. A constant has been Maxwell, who’s been their primary pilot from the very start. Maxwell leads the driver line-up in the team’s #55 Aston Martin this year. Team Principal Larry Holt will continue to attend all of the races as he has for the past 20 years and Team Manager Sean Mason will again be coordinating the entire program.

IndyCar announced this week that Beaux Barfield will be the new Race Director for the IZOD IndyCar Series. He’s previously served as race director of the American Le Mans Series, was chief steward for Champ Car, Champ Car Atlantics and the Trans-Am Series and USF2000 series. He replaces Brian Barnhart.