Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Weekend racing: All the results, all the news

As was the case with the U.S. Open golf tournament Sunday (Justin Rose, Survivor), it was survival of the fittest at Michigan International Speedway  when just about the last driver standing won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race there.

Greg Biffle won the Father’s Day contest, with Kevin Harvick second and Martin Truex Jr. third.

But Buffle was hardly the class of the field on this day.

First, Kurt Busch was in charge but brushed the wall with his Furniture Row car early in the race and there was sufficient damage to ruin his day.

Then, Kasey Kahne was running away with the race – literally leading the pack with ease – when his right front tire blew out and that send him careening hard into the first turn wall.

Kahne wasn’t injured but had to stick his head back into the cockpit after exiting the wreck to push the fire-extinguisher button because the car was in the process of burning down.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. then took over the lead and he was on his way to Victory Lane when, all of a sudden, his engine dropped a cylinder and before you knew it he was out of the race.

Carl Edwards inherited the lead but then he also started to fade and Biffle got past him.

Jimmie Johnson was closing the gap from second place as the race wound down but then he also had a tire go flat on him and he hit the wall as well.

Biffle’s victory was the 1,000^th for the Ford Motor Co. in Cup,  Busch/Nationwide and Craftsman/Camping World trucks racing.

Kyle Busch finished fourth and Tony Stewart was fifth.

Danica Patrick matched her best finish of the season (Martinsville) by arriving home 13^th.

The IZOD IndyCar Series race report from Milwaukee is down further in this post, having been held Saturday, as are reports on other major league racing events held Saturday.

Here are, briefly, the rest of the Sunday racing reports:

– In Jerez, Spain, Nelson Mason of Niagara Falls won the European F3 Open (Spanish Formula 3) race after capturing the pole in qualifying.

– In Germany, Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto finished fourth for Mercedes in the DTM race at Lausitzring. Mercedes driver Gary Paffett was the winner. The other Canadian in the race, Quebec driver Bruno Spengler, was seventh for BMW but is tied for the points lead with Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller. Wickens is in seventh place in the standings.

Said the young Ontario racer after the event:

"That was quite a difficult race for me today. I was forced to push very hard on the option tires, which meant that they degraded faster than we had expected. I didn't have a spare set of new tires available for the final stint, so consequently Christian (fellow Mercedes driver Christian Vietoris) was able to get past me.

"That's regrettable, but the main thing is that we scored some vital championship points today. As far as I am concerned, I'll keep giving it all I've got in every race. If I manage to win, that's great. But if I finish in second or fourth place, that's also okay. I'll just keep pushing."

- In Spain, Jorge Lorenzo won the Moto GP race at Catalunya over Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez. It was Lorenzo's third win in four years.

- For the first time in 32 meets, John Force gave himself a Father's Day present Sunday by winning the NHRA Funny Car drag race championship at Bristol, Tenn. Steve Torrence won in Top Fuel amd Rodger Brogdon was first in Pro Stock. Force had to beat his daughter Courtney in his march to the title, eventually knocking off Cruz Pedregon in the final.

– And with the World of Outlaws making its annual stop at the Brantford-area Ohsweken Speedway in about six weeks, Donny Schatz won back-to-back races in the series in Iowa over the weekend – Friday night at Jackson Speedway and Saturday night at the iconic Knoxville Raceway.

– Finally, Oakville driver James Hinchcliffe co-hosted the Speed Center racing news program Sunday night in place of Sam Hornish Jr. and did a fine job. The kid’s got a future in television if that Indy car racing gig he’s got doesn’t pan out. . .

EARLIER

Ryan Hunter Reay won the IZOD IndyCar Series race at Milwaukee Saturday, with Helio Castroneves second and Will Power third.

E.J. Viso and James Hinchcliffe of Oakville finished fourth and fifth.

It was defending IZOD series champion Hunter-Reay's second straight Milwaukee victory and his third at the famed Milwaukee Mile.

The result was Hinchcliffe's fourth top ten finish this season, including his two victories. He sits ninth in the points standings.

Said Hinchcliffe after the race: "Any time you get a top five in a series so competitive, it's a good day. I'm just a little upset we weren't a tiny bit better in traffic today.

"This track is the ultimate test of patience. It's so easy to overdo it and get in the marbles and end up in the wall and I had a couple of close calls for sure. It was a lot of fun out there either way."

The second Canadian in the race, Alex Tagliani of Montreal, finished 23rd. After starting 16th, Tag moved ahead quickly at the start but ducked into the pits when there was an early yellow.

What looked to be smart pit strategy backfired when Tagliani spun on cold tires on the restart. The team never recovered and an overheated gearbox forced them out of the contest on Lap 146 of 250.

Pete Shepherd III of Brampton won the EMCO 200 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at Delaware Speedway outside London, Ont., Saturday night. J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge arrived home second and Steve Matthews of New Liskeard was third.

Defending national champion D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas was fourth and Martin Roy of Napierville, Que., finished fifth.

L.P. Dumoulin of Trois-Rivieres, Que., who won the first race of the season at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on the Victoria Day weekend, was 19th of the 22 cars that started the race.

Kennington leads the standings with 81 points, followed by Jeff Lapcevich of Grimsby with 75 points (he finished 12th Saturday night) and Jason Hathaway of Dutton, Ont, who has 74 points after ending up 11th at Delaware.

There were seven lead changes among six drivers. Shepherd beat Fitzpatrick by .680 seconds.

The win was Shepherd’s fourth in the series and he seems to win at least once a year going back to 2010 despite only making 17 starts in total.

Meantime, in NASCAR Nationwide Series action at Michigan International Speedway, Regan Smith, who started 20th, won the Alliance Truck Parts 250, with Kyle Larson second after starting 11th. The margin of victory was 0.330 seconds.

Paul Menard, Kyle Busch and Trevor Bayne were third through fifth.

In Germany, meantime, qualifying for this weekend's German Touring Car Series race (DTM) saw Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto finish fourth. He will start the race at the the Lauzitsring Sunday on the outside of Row Two.

Said Wickens afterward: "Qualifying turned out very promising for our team. As for me, I pushed a little too hard on my lap and ran wide in the second sector. In the DTM, you just cannot make a mistake and then expect to still be out in front.

"Anyways, I'm fourth on the grid and the podium is not all that far away. Some points in the race should be possible."

Wickens was in Montreal with his Mercedes employers for last weekend's Grand Prix of Canada and said that although he still habours ambitions to continue up the single-seater ladder, he is happy and satisfied to be racing in the DTM.

Finally, at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Joao Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi won the Diamond Cellar Classic Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race driving a Corvette Daytona Protype.

Michael Valiante of Vancouver, the defending race winner, came second in another Corvette DP he co-drove with Anzo Potolicchio.

"I think second right now is like winning for this team," said Valiante later, "because we have been pushing so hard to get on the podium."

Ryan Dalziel and Alex Powpow finished third in a Ford-Riley DP.

In the GT class, Paul Dala Lana of Toronto and Bill Auberlen were first in a BMW M3. (Those two finished second in the Continental Tire race on the same card.)

Emil Assentato and Anthony Lazzaro, co-driving the Ferrari 458 entered by AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Team FXDD with Ferrari, finished third in class.

Max Papis and Jeff Segal finished eighth in class in the sister Ferrari 458 entered by AIM Autosport with Remo Ferri.

EARLIER

James Hinchcliffe was hotter than a pistol early in the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series season but then appeared to falter.

After winning two of the first four races of the season at St. Petersburg, Fla., and Sao Paulo, Brazil, Hinchcliffe started ninth in the Indianapolis 500 but couldn’t finish the world’s most famous race any better than 21st.

And things didn’t get any better at the double-header races in Detroit immediately following Indy (20/15, 10/19) and at Texas Motor Speedway  last weekend (12/9).

The season looked very much like last year’s, in which "Hinch" started fast and finished not exactly slow, but slower.

But Friday, in qualifying for today’s (Saturday’s) IZOD race at the iconic Milwaukee Mile, Hinchcliffe shook out the cobwebs and laid down a two-lap qualifying time of 42.8829 seconds (170.418 mph) and will start second to Andretti Autosport teammate Marco Andretti, whose pole time and speed of 42.8584/170.515 mph was just a smidgen faster.

"Don't tell Marco, but the outside is way better on the start," Hinchcliffe joked afterward. "That's what I was going for."

Will Power will started third for Team Penske (42.9347/170.212) with Andretti driver Ryan Hunter-Reay fourth (42.9629/170.100) and the fourth Andretti driver E.J. Viso fifth (42.0317/169.828).

That makes four Andretti drivers in the top five in qualifying for the race that the team also promotes and all were powered by Chevy engines. The top Honda driver, Josef Newgarden, was eighth.

Alex Tagliani of Montreal, the second Canadian in the race, will go off 16th (you can watch the race on Sportsnet 1 starting at 4 p.m.). Other notables: Indy 500 winner Tony Kanaan qualified seventh; Sebastien Bourdais, 14^th; Dario Franchitti, 17^th and Helio Castroneves, 18^th. Top woman qualifyer was part-time ride-buyer Ana Beatriz, who will go off 20^th, ahead of series regulars Ed Carpenter, Charlie Kimball, Graham Rahal and Simona De Silvestro.

Jason Leffler, the NASCAR and Indy car driver who was killed in a sprint car race in New Jersey earlier this week, was wearing a Simpson hybrid head and neck restraint system when the crash happened but still died of blunt force trauma to his neck, an autopsy has shown.

Now, I don’t know what it is about some NASCAR drivers and a whole lot of short-track open-wheel racers but for some stupid reason (and there’s no other word for it) they refuse to wear the HANS device that has saved the lives of countless Indy car, Formula One (and other formulas) and, yes, NASCAR stars since it was invented.

I think, because it came from Formula One (the late Prof. Sid Watkins, Toronto surgeon Dr. Hugh Scully and U.S. doctors Terry Trammel and Steve Olvey propelled the research that led to the HANS) that the stock car types didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

So the Hutchens device was invented to pacify those guys and I still shudder when I think of supermodified drivers like Mike Ordway climbing into one of those ground-shaking rockets and hooking up the straps of a gizmo that was eventually banned by NASCAR because – when tested – it failed to do the job.

One time on national television, there was a discussion of safety and Michael Waltrip flat out said it: there may be other devices and systems on the market, and even approved for use by NASCAR, but "the HANS device is the best." Those last six words are a direct quote. No paraphrasing.

Why? Because in a crash, it keeps the head and neck from moving. It anchors your head to your shoulders.

I’m not saying that Leffler could have survived his crash. What I am saying is that the HANS device is the best defence a driver can have in an accident like that one and I think it’s a shame he wasn’t wearing the HANS.

My friend, the race driver Gary Morton, once said to me that the HANS is expensive. So I asked him how much his life is worth.

It’s a question that every race racer should ask himself or herself.

Carl Edwards won the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway. Kurt Busch will start second, with Kasey Kahne third. Qualifying for Saturday’s Nationwide Race (all the NASCAR races, by the way, can be seen on TSN or TSN2) will be held Saturday morning. Austin Dillon was the fastest of the Nationwide drivers during practice Friday. . . . Brennan Poole won the ARCA race at Michigan Friday after Ryan Blaney, son of NASCAR regular Dave Blaney, won the pole. George Webster, who produces George’s TV Listings for Race Fans for wheels.ca, sent along the following information about ARCA and Blaney: "Recently Blaney has tested at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah and at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in preparation for upcoming ARCA races at the Road America and New Jersey road courses. But this is really part of a bigger plan. ARCA officials recognize that their series has become an important development series and that the road courses have been built into their schedule to help drivers get road course experience they can use in other series. Blaney’s immediate goal is to be ready for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park this coming Labour Day weekend." Thanks, George. . . .Jordan Taylor, driving a Corvette-powered Daytona Prototype for his father Wayne’s race team, won the pole for the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. His brother Ricky, also in a Wayne Taylor Corvette DP, will start beside him on the front row for Saturday’s race, which is live on Speed Channel. In GT qualifying, John Edwards won the pole in a Camaro while Boris Said was second in a Corvette. Emil Assentato, driving the No. 69 AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Team FXDD Ferrari 458 with Anthony Lazzaro co-driving, will start third while a second Ferrari entered by AIM with Remo Ferri and driven by Jeff Segal and Max Papis will go off fourth. In the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, also taking place Saturday but earlier in the day, Jade Buford, co-driving with Toronto ace Scott Maxwell in the No. 55 Multimatic Motorsport of Markham’s Aston Martin Vantage, won the pole.

I must plead "brain fade" when I wrote a few columns back that, in my experience, Jean Chretien had been the only prime minister to attend a Canadian Grand Prix. As has been pointed out in the comments, Pierre Trudeau attended at Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant in 1968 (I even wrote one time about how thrilling it was to see him arrive by Canadian Forces helicopter that landed right on the circuit near the tower) and, of course, he was there at what is now Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in 1978 when Villeneuve won his first F1 race at home. Even more appalling is that besides neglecting to mention his presence, I also forgot that he presented the trophy to Gilles as well as a big bottle of beer instead of the traditional champagne. As I said, brain fade. I'll really try not to let it happen again.

- NORRIS McDONALD

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Jason Leffler, 37: A racer's racer

Jason Leffler’s sprint car did what sprint cars everywhere do hundreds of times a season: it clipped a retaining wall at Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey Wednesday night and started flipping. When it stopped, everybody expected what usually happens to happen: Leffler to get out of the car and walk away.

He didn’t.

Rescue workers removed him from the car and he was airlifted to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was 37 years old and leaves his 5-year-old son, Charlie (the photo of the two of them published with this post is from the driver’s personal website, jasonleffler.com).

And so ended the life of one of the most versatile and successful race drivers in the sport. And it’s also, once again, a sad reminder that  automobile racing - unlike baseball, hockey, football and so-on - is very much a deadly game.

As mentioned, we watch the sprint cars and the midgets flip, and the big NASCAR stock cars ram into each other in what everybody calls “the Big One,” and just about 100 per cent of the time the drivers climb out and wave to the crowd and walk back to the pits and it’s just a part of doin’ business.

And then there are the times like this one that make you stop and think.

Leffler started racing, as just about all the good ones do, as a child. From the age of 12 until Wednesday night, he won four USAC open-wheel championships before trying NASCAR, where he won two races in the Nationwide Series (294 starts; 107 top tens) and one in the Craftsman/Camping World Truck Series (56 starts, 35 top tens).

He made 73 Sprint Cup Series starts, including last weekend’s race at Pocono. It was a start-and-park deal and he finished 43rd.  He had one top ten finish but never won in the big league.

No matter. Over the years, his talent was appreciated and he was hired to drive for, among others, Joe Gibbs Racing, Chip Ganassi Racing and Kyle Busch Motorsports.

He was a veteran of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He raced in the Indianapolis 500 in 2000 and ran the Brickyard 400 five times. Statements mourning his passing were issued by the Speedway, IZOD IndyCar Series, World of Outlaws and NASCAR.

Of particular note was one issued by Panther Racing Indy car team owner John Barnes, who said:

"Jason . . . was one of the most versatile drivers I have ever met. He reminded me so much of Parnelli Jones. We will miss his fierce spirit and his devilish attitude. He constitutes the old saying, 'It isn't the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.' Jason was a small man with a huge right foot."

Leffler – like Tony Stewart, the late Rich Vogler, Kenny Schrader and Busch – was a racer’s racer. He wasn’t satisfied to just go out once a week in a truck or stock car or Indy car and glad-hand with the folks taking time out from the corporate boardrooms; he had to be out on a speedway someplace, pedal to the metal.

That’s why, for instance, in 2002 he was racing in the truck series, Nationwide and Cup and won the Night Before the 500 midget race at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

This season, as he announced on his website, he’d returned to his roots and was out racing two and three or even more times a week in sprint cars on dirt tracks in Pennsylvania and surrounding states.

It was during one of those races that he met his end. He was running second in a heat race and it all went wrong. He was one of the really good guys and will be missed.

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Here's how IndyCar can improve its PR

COMPETITION IS FINE; MARKETING AND PR NEED ATTENTION NOW

IndyCar sent out a release Monday that led off with the amazing news that the Sunday race of the two-race Dual at Detroit had attracted a whopping television rating of 0.8.

A ratings point of 1, according to Sports Media Watch – a U.S. Internet site that keeps track of these things – means 1,147,000 households, or 1 per cent of all U.S. homes with television sets, are tuned in to whatever, be it the Evening News or The Voice.

According to the release, this rating of less than 1 for the IndyCar race Sunday was an improvement over last year.

I’m glad IndyCar is feeling optimistic about this. From my perspective, less than 1 per cent of all homes with TVs watching my race is not something to get excited about, particularly when you compare it with other Sunday ratings:

PGA golf, 2.2; NHL hockey, 2.5; Major League Baseball, 2.5.

And finally the NASCAR race at Dover, Del., 3.5 (ouch!).

This year’s Indianapolis 500 was a great race and yet the ratings were the lowest since the spectacle went live on TV back in the 1980s.

In short, not a lot of people appear to care about Indy car racing anymore.

So, how to turn things around? How to attract attention and make people aware of this terrific sport and the people participating in it. I mean, I wrote Monday (Sunday night, really) about the wonderful story of Sam Schmidt and Davey Hamilton and how can you beat a yarn like that?

I’ll tell you: you can’t.

But if that had been a NASCAR story, instead of IndyCar, everybody would know about it and be talking about it. Baseball or football or hockey would milk a story like that dry. 

But other than a small circle, which is pretty much what the IndyCar community is, not many people will be aware of the pain and suffering and courage and optimism that brought those two men, together, to the top step of the podium at Belle Isle on Sunday.

Here is a suggestion, which I will frame in the form of another story.

In 1985, David Billes, of the Canadian Tire Billeses, took a team to Indianapolis. His driver was Jacques Villeneuve, brother of Gilles Villeneuve and uncle of JV, the F1 world champion.

Uncle Jacques was a good racing driver but Indianapolis can be a nasty place and Villeneuve lost control during practice and hit the wall hard enough to give himself a concussion. He would not be able to get medical clearance to race.

Billes was not one to give up easily. He hired Johnny Parsons Jr., a journeyman American driver, to get his car into the race, which Parsons did, qualifying 26^th.

The race, held on Sun., May 26th, was won by Danny Sullivan. Parsons finished fifth. It was not a spectacular performance – he didn’t win, after all – but a fifth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500 is worthy of mention, particularly in Canadian newspapers and on radio and TV.

And, of course, the next day – Monday – there was none. Not one single word. All the Canadian papers used American wire-service dispatches from Reuters, Associated Press and United Press International and there was lots about Sullivan and the second-place finisher Mario Andretti and so-on and so-forth but there was no mention of Johnny Parsons driving the Canadian Tire-sponsored  car to a fifth place finish.

So on Tuesday, Canadian Tire purchased large advertisements in the sports pages of all the Toronto newspapers and other large Canadian papaers from coast-to-coast to trumpet the news that a Canadian Tire-sponsored car had finished fifth in the Indianapolis 500.

In short: rather than waiting for the media to do the job, which likely would never have happened, Canadian Tire purchased space in the papers to tell its own story.

What I am saying here is that if IndyCar is waiting for the mainstream media – particularly television – to start delivering the level of coverage it thinks it deserves, it is going to have a long wait.

What it should do - must do, in fact – is to go to ESPN and television stations in New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas and however many markets it wants publicity in and do what Canadian Tire did in 1985: buy the TV time - two minutes either right before or right after the sportscasts - and generate publicity with its own words and pictures.

Stop waiting for someone else to do it because if they were going to they would have done it already.

Yes, there have to be more engine suppliers involved in IndyCar and the cars can’t all look the same going forward (the aero-kit announcement in recent days is a step in the right direction), but in the end the league has to get the message out that the racing is better than any you’ll find anywhere else and the storylines are more compelling.

But rather than hoping someone will listen and write about it or talk about it, IndyCar has to act now. It can't leave anything to chance any longer. If it has to buy itself publicity, so be it.

- NORRIS McDONALD

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Somebody should have kicked Tony Kanaan in the butt

Here are some leftover thoughts from last weekend’s Indianapolis 500:

I nearly fell over in a dead faint when the TV ratings came out and they revealed that the Indianapolis 500 had the fewest people watching it since it started being broadcast live in the U.S. in 1986. (Thanks to the late Johnny Esaw of CTV,  Canadians and some people in the U.S. along the Canada-U.S. border got to watch the 500 live for 10 years before the rest of America got it.)

But a 3.7 is shocking. Absolutely shocking. What is going on? It’s the Indy 500, for God's sake. The 3.7 is down from 4.1 in 2012 and 4.3 in 2011. According to sportsmediawatch.com, 2013 marked the fifth year in a row that the 500 has been below 4.5.

So listen to what Speedway spokesman Doug Boles said:

“We’ll continue to get the message out that races at the Speedway here over the last three years have gotten more and more exciting.”

Oh?

I’d suggest that kind of “messaging” ain’t workin'.

If I was the Speedway, I’d be thinking of a change in its approach, wouldn’t you?

Where these guys are missing the boat is that they think exciting racing is going to attract viewers. If that was so, don’t you think more people would have tuned in last Sunday to a race that was simply terrific, which followed an equally great race in 2012 and 2011, as Mr. Boles said?

But they didn't.  So something's missing.

What IndyCar and the Indianapolis Speedway need is conflict, drama, gossip and intrigue - or a combination of all of the above. NASCAR has tradin’ paint and drivers throwing helmets; the F1 race in Monaco wasn’t over more than about a minute last Sunday before winning team Mercedes and tire supplier Pirelli were being accused of cheating.

At Indy, everybody was talking about what a really great guy Tony Kanaan is and how happy they were for him.

Gag me.

The drivers in IndyCar these days are all clean-behind-the-ears, corporate goody-two-shoes.

They are BORING.

They had four women in the race. Quick: name them.

Couldn't do it, could you?

But you know who Danica Patrick is, don’t you? Why? No, not because she’s a good race driver but because she took her clothes off for the camera. Never nude, she was in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Edition and sprawled across the hood of a car in Maxim and everybody knew it.

People looked at her and saw a bikini. And the girl can drive, too.

When Tony Kanaan got down on his hands and knees last Sunday to kiss the yard of bricks after his big win, some other driver should have gone up behind him and kicked him in the butt and accused him of dirty driving. He should have pointed his finger at Kanaan and told him, live on ABC television, that if he ever did that again he’d clock him in that big nose of his.

So instead of headlines on Monday morning saying, “Harvick sorry he's switching teams," or “Kyle Busch stomps off in a huff again," you’d have seen, “Indy 500 winner threatened with bodily harm.”

And instead of the usual TV shot seen on every channel of yet another “big one” in a NASCAR race, you’d have seen Kanaan trying to defend himself by swinging the Borg-Warner Trophy at somebody.

Now, that would get people talking.

And watching.

If the IndyCar Series is smart, they’ll hire me.

And if not me, Vince McMahon.

One more thing about TV ratings. TSN sent out the Canadian figures on Tuesday and it’s interesting that the race in the No. 1 spot was the Grand Prix of Monaco on TSN, with 252,000 viewers. The NASCAR Coke 600 on TSN was second with 210,000 and the Indy 500 on Sportsnet was third with 153,000.

Which seems about right – except that I know a lot of my friends who watched the 500 on ABC, which had side-by-side service during commercials while Sportsnet went to full-screen commercials. Maybe it didn't make a big difference, but it made a difference.

Everything – as usual – was perfect about the race. The pre-race went off without a hitch and I was particularly impressed with Jim (Gomer Pyle) Nabors, who’s been singing Back Home in Indiana since 1973. More than one person came up to me in the media centre and said they thought he’d died. They were wrong, or else the Speedway came up with a hell of a Jim Nabors impersonator.

And the race itself was thrilling, with the cars literally floating on the Speedway, they were going so fast.

But something wasn’t right about the start. Not once did they line up in the traditional 11 rows of three. They’re supposed to be in that formation by the time they get to Turn Three near the end of the second parade lap. They do this so they can parade down the front and back stretches in a salute to the fans during the pace lap. Also known as the “wave-off lap,” it’s when both audience and performers can acknowledge each other’s presence.

But they didn’t line up till the backstretch of the pace lap and were ragged and out of sinc going through Turn Four. By that time, though, they’d thrown the green and all bets were off as all 33 cars charged toward Turn One.

Maybe it’s not a big thing to some people but that’s the way it’s supposed to be and I’m a traditionalist.

Before I go, a quick change of pace. The people trying to build that speedway down in Fort Erie are running out of patience, the Fort Erie Times is reporting.

Calling the Ontario Municipal Board’s approvals process inefficient (you can say that again), the speedway’s executive director more or less said that if something positive doesn’t happen in the fairly immediate future, the project will be cancelled.

To read more, click this link to the story.

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A cable that operates a TV camera snapped apart early in Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600 and resulted in the third major motorsports event of the day being stopped while it was removed.

About a dozen fans were injured and race cars damaged.

The cars were able to be repaired; seven fans were treated and released at a Charlotte Motor Speedway medical centre while three others were taken to local hospitals for observation.

Fox Sports apologized for the problem and issued the following statement:

"The camera system consists of three ropes - a drive rope which moves the camera back and forth, and two guide ropes on either side. The drive rope failed near the Turn 1 connection and fell to the track. The camera itself did not come down because guide ropes acted as designed.  A full investigation is planned, and use of the camera is suspended indefinitely.

For details of the NASCAR race, which was being won by Kevin Harvick at 500 miles,  please click here.

Nico Rosberg led from start to finish to win the Grand Prix of Monaco (for details, click here). I am writing this in Indianapolis and didn't see much of the race because the Fox Sports Network channel in the Indianapolis area showed the pre-race program and then switched to a fishing show.

So I asked my wife at home if she'd seen it and she said she had and that it was boring. "It's time they went the other way around to make that race interesting again," she said.

Of course, there's controversy - and when isn't there in F1? Seems Mercedes maybe (maybe . . .) conducted a private tire test for Pirelli. So? How else are they going to fix the tire degredation problem. I'm sure we'll find out more about this in the days ahead - or not.

Next race: Canada in two weeks.

Oh, Romain Grosjean caused another crash, apparently. How long can that guy stick at Lotus?

Finally, what follows is my wrapup and then my live blog from Indianapolis Sunday.

Tony Kanaan finally got some luck - few people have had more bad luck than him at Indy - and won the 97th Indianapolis 500.

Oh, before we pick up what I wrote earlier Sunday, I have to say something. A number of people have written or left comments about how wrong I was suggesting in a column I wrote for Toronto Star Wheels Saturday that Carlos Munoz wasn't good enough to be in the 500.

I didn't say Munoz shouldn't be in the Indy 500. I didn't think Katherine Legge should have been in it (seven laps down at the checkers) or Pippa Mann (the less said about her the better) but what I did say was that it would have been a good idea if they'd asked him to drop back for the start because his inexperience could have created a problem.

I still feel that way. And it has nothing to do with Munoz. Any rookie who had never driven on an oval track until two weeks ago (as was the case with him) and was in the front row of the most important auto race in the world at one of the most demanding and dangerous tracks would also have been better off starting at the back.

Munoz pulled it off and good for him. But I won't change my mind when it comes to safety at race tracks.

Norris McDonald wraps up this year's Indy 500

In one of the most popular victories in years, Tony Kanaan won the 97th renewal of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing under yellow today after defending champion Dario Franchitti crashed when the race was restarted with just a few laps to go.

Rookie Carlos Munoz finished second, with Ryan Hunter-Reay third, Marco Andretti fourth and Justin Wilson a surprising fifth.

The remaining drivers in the top ten: Helio Castroneves, who was shooting for his fourth Indy 500, was sixth, A.J. Allmendinger was seventh, Simon Pagenaud was eighth, Charlie Kimball ninth and pole-sitter Ed Carpenter tenth.

The two Canadians in the 33-car field were far from successful.

Alex Tagliani of Montreal hung around the top ten all day but faded at the end to finish 24th after brushing the wall and damaging his right-rear wheel.

James Hinchcliffe of Oakville had a dreadful day. His car never handled and got worse every time he pitted and his team tried to correct the problem. There have been suggestions that a tire placed on the car during a late-race pit stop might have been losing air (translation: going flat).

He finished 21st.

The big loser was Hunter-Reay. He led many laps in the race - there were 13 different leaders and 68 change, both records - and was in the lead when the field got the green flag with only a few laps remaining.

But Kanaan, who had been second on the restart, went low on Hunter-Reay going into turn one and Munoz, in third place, followed him into second. And then, before anybody else could do anything, Dario Franchitti crashed and the yellow was out and that was all she wrote.

(There is not a green-white-checkers finish in Indy car racing, so the iconic race got the checkers with the pace car leading Kanaan across the finish line.)

Hinchclifffe had qualified ninth in the 33-car field but was visually unhappy after Carb Day Friday when he was only 14th fastest while running with a full fuel load and his race-day setup.

Right from the get-go today, Hinchcliffe was uncompetitive and his handling appeared to get worse as the race progresssed. When he got out of the car after the checkers, he was obviously angry and suggested there was more wrong with the car than a lousy setup.

Kanaan was a single fellow for years but married his long-time sweetheart, Lauren, over the winter. Observers suggested that married life suited Tony and that he could be challenging for the series championship going forward.

It was a hugely entertaining race. With that many leaders and lead changes, it couldn't help but be. And the huge crowd showed its appreciation with many of them staying in their seats and clapping and cheering the participants after the fact.

Of course, a huge crowd, an iconic race and an exciting finish featuring a very popular driver serves to show the challenges facing a series like IndyCar, which undoubtedly attracted a huge TV audience today but is largely invisible the rest of the year.

The only race that really matters, year in and year out, is the Indianapolis 500. It makes or breaks a season for a team. Yes, the overall championship can be important but if given a choice of one or the other, most drivers would say a win at Indy would be more important than any championship.

In fact, Canadian hero Jacques Villeneuve, who won the F1 world championship, recently told Britain's Autosport magazine that he considered his 1995 Indy 500 win more important than his world championship.

The 97th Indy 500 is now in the history books. The circus will now move on to Detroit next weekend for the first double-header weekend of the season. That's when they run a race on Saturday and then turn around and run another one on Sunday.

The Toronto Honda Indy will also feature a double-header. How the cars and stars of IndyCar handle Detroit will pretty much illustrate what to expect when IndyCar gets to Toronto in July.

Kanaan said afterward that he got a little bit lucky.

"It's (the victory) for the fans," he said. "It's for my dad who's not here. I'm looking at the stands and it was unbelievable.  I'm speechless. This is it, man, I made it. Finally, they're going to show my ugly face on this trophy."

EARLIER

Tony Kanaan won the Indy 500 today with rookie Carlos Munoz second and Ryan Hunter-Reay third. Marco Andretti finished fourth and Justin Wilson was fifth. James Hinchcliffe was running at the finish but was far out of contention.

The race finished under yellow - no green=white=checkers finishes in Indy car racing - after a restart led to yet another crash in the waning laps of the classic race.

EARLIER

Yellow with seven laps to go after Graham Rahal spins and hits thewall coming out of two. Hinch had just gone to the pits again.  Hunter-Reay, Kanaan and Munoz are one, two, three.

Can they clean up the mess to get a green flag finish? More than 200,000 are standing at Indy.

EARLIER:

Ten to go: Kanaan, Huner-Reay and Andretti. Close as paper on a wall.

Hinchcliffe leads laps as he was last to come into the pits for fuel, tires.

EARLIER

Sebastien Bourdais hits the wall while pitting. Final pit stops happening.

EARLIER

Tagliani brushes wall. He is done.

EARLIER

With 40 laps to go, Hunter-Reay is leading, Marco Andretti is second and Allmendinger is third. Munoz and Kanaan round out the top five.

Officially, 13 different leaders and 50 lead changes are new records with more to come.

EARLIER

Allmendinger has recovered his lap (all other drivers had to pit for fuel and tires, giving him a leg up) and he leads the Indy 500. Hunter-Reay is second, Viso is thid, Andretti is fourth and Kanaan is fifth.

Tagliani is 13th and Hinchcliffe is so far back they'll have to send out a search party. His car is undriveable. He came sooo close to hitting the wall between turns one and two that there must have been room for maybe an eyelash. He then nearly lost total control but held it together.

Allmendinger has pitted.

EARLIER

It is now official. Twelves racers, a record, have now completed 38 lead changes in this Indy 500, also a record. There is still a quarter of the race to go.

EARLIER

There have been 3 lead changes in the race to date. At least a dozen drivers have led the race but the Canadian drivers, Tagliani and Hinchcliffe, are not among them.

The 12 drivers to lead, incidentally, is a record for the Indy 500.

EARLIER

After 120 laps, there are still 23 cars on the lead lap. Hunter-Reay, Munoz and Viso are the top three. Hinchcliffe is having a miserable time and is back in 17th.

EARLIER

Graham Rahal and James Jakes have each been fined $10,000 for violating blend-line rules (not entering or exiting the pits properly). Jakes also got a drive-through penalty for a pit safety rule infraction.

Meantime, Allmendinger dropped out of the lead when he pitted for tires and fuel. While in the pits, his belts became undone and had to be refastened by a crew member. Hè's a lap down.

EARLIER

They are at the halfway mark of the 97th Indy 500. It is an official race, in case it rains (which it probably won't as the sky is pretty bright, although still overcast).

The order: Allmendinger, Kanaan, Hunter-Reay, Viso and Andretti. Tagliani is ninth and Hinch is 12th.

EARLIER

Indy is a strange place and race. As mentioned, most of the seats were filled when the race started. Now, nearly at the halfway mark, many of the seats are empty as people get up to walk around and party in the infield.

Pit stops starting. Green ones too.

Jamie Little, who usually does pit stops in NASCAR, just reported that someone had taken on a load of Sunoco fuel. Sorry, they burn ethanol in IndyCar.

EARLIER

Hinchcliffe`s handling is going away big time and he`s out of the top ten. Power is still in the lead, Kanaan is second with Hunter-Reay third, Allmendinger is up to fourth and Marco Andretti is fifth. Tagliani is ninth and Hinch is 14th.

EARLIER

Will Power, Helio Castroneves and A.J. Allmendinger - all Penske drivers - are turning heads running first, sixth and ninth. Hinch is out of the top ten, in 11th. Tagliani is tenth.

EARLIER

The low-buck effort of 1996 Indy 500 winner Buddy Lazier is over. His car has been pushed to the garage. Ed Carpenter, the hometown boy, still leads.

EARLIER

Carpenter is back in the lead. Hinchclifffe`s car is obviously working better and he is challenging for the top five. Having said that, Viso just passed him and he`s back in eighth place.

Lining up for the restart, Hinchcliffe got a great jump during the pit stop and is now running seventh. Hunter-Reay is now in the lead, with Andretti second and Carpenter third. Tagliani is running tenth.

EARLIER

Takuma Sato, a favourite to win, has just spun coming out of turn 2. Hinchcliffe is up into the top ten. Tagliani is ninth. The yellow is out and the leaders are in for pit stops.

EARLIER

The top dozen cars are still together on the restart. Andretti is in front, followed by Carpenter, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan. Tagliani is 10th and Hinch is 13th.

EARLIER

The yellow is out after Sebastien Saavedra spun and hit the wall in turn four. He told his crew someone should be penalized but it appeared that the Colombian driver tried to pass on the inside at a spot where cars drop down into the groove to go through a corner and he could have been the architect of his own misfortune.

Saavedra, of course, replaced Katherine Legge at Dragon Racing at the beginning of the season, leaving Legge without a drive. There was much bitterness. Legge felt aggrieved and sued. It was settled but details have never been made public.

Saavedra has crashed in previous races, putting smiles on the faces of Legge fans.

His crash, of course, means she`s still in the race and he`s not. More grist for the Twitter mill.

EARLIER

Pit stops are shuffling the order. Kanaan was fist in, then Andretti and the rest.

EARLIER

Kanaan and Andretti keep trading the lead. The top 20 cars are running literally nose to tail. It is a very competitive race so far.

The place is packed. There are some empty seats down near the track near the start/finish line but most other seats are full.

EARLIER

Tony Kanaan had the lead for a lap but Andretti passed him back at the beginning of Lap 15.

The order: Andretti, Kanaan, Carpenter, Viso, Munoz. Tagliani is eight; Hinchcliffe 12th.

EARLIER

Marco Andretti is now in the lead. Hinchcliffe nearly hit the wall coming out of turn four. Oh, so close.

EARLIER

Pole sitter Ed Carpenter led the field into the first turn. All through safely. Three laps later, J.R. Hildebrand lost control exiting turn two and hit the wall.

He and Hinchcliffe were running together when Hildebrand lost control. Hinch and J.R. were rookies the same year and Hinch beat Hildebrand for rookie of the year.

On the restart, Carpenter held the lead over Andretti and Viso. Alex Tagliani was running 8th and Hinchcliffe 11th.

EARLIER

Mari Hulman George just gave the command to start engines. The 97th Indy 500 is moments away.

EARLIER

Driver introductions are taking place. Hinchcliffe just got a great cheer. It`s too chilly for good racing, though. It will be tough to warm up the ties. The drivers will have to be very careful doing it.

EARLIER

Race Day at the Indy 500 is finally here and it`s overcast. Although there probably won`t be rain till late in the day, the dark clouds could have an effect on race strategy.

When the sun is shining back home in Indiana, most racers will settle in for the long haul, maintaining position and getting themselves ready for a late-race charge to the checkers. When it`s threatening like it is today, it will be a free-for-all, with the drivers forgetting about the marathon and trying to win the sprint to be in front at the 101st lap, which would make it an official race.

A.J. Allmendinger, a favourite in the old Champ Car Indy car series and a NASCAR driver of note (although when he flunked a drug test last summer there was concern for his future), is making his first Indy 500 start driving for Roger Penske. He is one of four rookies in the field but anybody who thinks he`s a rookie is nuts. The other three - Conor Daly (son of ex-F1 and CART star Derek Daly), Tristan Vautier and Carlos Munoz - have talent but lack experience.

Other `fours`at this year`s 500: four women are in the race - Pippa Mann, Catherine Legge, Ana Beatriz and Simona de Silvestro will be out to equal or beat the the third-place finish of Danica Patrick.

And Helio Castroneves and Dario Franchitti will be trying to win their fourth 500, tying Rick Mears, A.J. Foyt and Al Unser Sr.

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Some drivers shouldn’t be in the Indy 500

 Norris McDonald Wheels Editor

 

 When James Hinchcliffe and Alex Tagliani came to Toronto earlier this week to talk about Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 as well as July’s Honda Indy Toronto double-header, I asked them a very specific question:

How did they feel about several of the drivers in this year’s race — who really shouldn’t be out there? Specifically, regular Indy Lights driver Carlos Munoz, former Indy Lights driver Pippa Mann and last-place starter Katherine Legge.

As you would expect of the two Canadians (both of whom are bona-fide Indy car stars, by the way), they were most gracious with their non-answers because that’s the way it is in big-league auto racing in 2013, where seldom (if ever) is heard a discouraging word.

What I’d hoped they would say goes something like this:

“They should ask Munoz, who qualified second, to drop to the back of the field for the start. He doesn’t have enough experience at the Speedway to be in front of about 30 other veteran drivers who will all be charging to get into Turn One first.

“And let Mann and Legge run some laps and then find an excuse to black flag them  because they just aren't good enough to be out there. This is, after all, the Indianapolis 500, the fastest race in the world featuring the 33 best drivers in the world.

“Or it’s supposed to be.”

Fat chance of hearing that, of course. But once upon a time? You bet.

Do you think, for one second, that Jimmy Bryan, Don Branson, Bobby Unser, Johnny Rutherford or A.J. Foyt in his prime would have allowed people who couldn’t carry their lunch to actually go out and try to race against them?

In somebody’s dreams.

The great Eddie Sachs, a sprint car driver of note who was said to be braver than Dick Tracy, got into Gasoline Alley early in his career and went from garage to garage, trying to talk his way into a car. When the powers of the AAA heard about that (yes, the American Automobile Association ran racing in those days), they called security and had Sachs thrown out.

In the words of the wonderful American auto racing author John Sawyer, this is how great Eddie Sachs was (and yet, as illustrated, he got no respect because the AAA didn’t think he was good enough to even be inside the gates!):

“Swoosh!” wrote Sawyer about Sachs.

“There goes ‘Fast Eddie.’ Correction: there went ‘Fast Eddie.’ Past tense. He’s gone.

“You know what? That starboard hoof must have been nuclear-powered. Ultrabionic. Nitro injected. Laser laced. The heaviest of all feet, it kept pedal against metal until the steel screamed for mercy.”

You think anybody’s going to write words like that about Katherine Legge? Or Pippa Mann? Or Carlos Munoz?

I get emotional thinking about those days.

A Mississauga gentleman, Dan Doyle, sent me some clippings he’d saved since 1965, the year Billy Foster, a supermodified driver from Victoria, B.C., qualified for Big Indy.

There was a fuss made over Foster that year. Everybody, including all the wire services — AP, CP, UPI —  and even Canada’s Weekend Magazine, thought he was the first Canadian to qualify for the 500. (He wasn’t, as it turned out, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?)

Among the clippings is a beautiful colour picture of the B.C. racer being strapped into his Bryant Heating and Cooling Special by two crew members (in those days, all the cars at Indy were called “Specials” because they were usually built especially for the 500 and then taken to race elsewhere afterward).

The story that went with the photo was written by the late Don Hunt, and there’s a picture of him sitting with Foster, who’s smoking a cigarette, in the infield grandstand near the start/finish line.

That Foster — a 27-year-old who came from a racing family in Victoria — was cocksure, let there be no doubt. He qualified on the outside of the second row for that ‘65 race and he turned the fastest speed of all the cars running an Offenhauser engine. Interviewed on the PA system after his run, Billy said:

“I’m a slow qualifier. Just wait till race day!”

As it turned out, he was eliminated after 90 laps (of 200) with a broken water line.

His best friend, Mario Andretti, qualified two places to the left on the inside of the second row and went on to finish third in the race, which earned him rookie-of-the-year honours.

Among the clippings is a page from the long-gone, Toronto-area weekly Wheelspin News, advertising the “Toronto 500, 110 Offy Midget Auto Race” at the CNE Grandstand oval on Wed., June 9, 1965 – a little over a week after that Indy 500.

“Top Indianapolis Drivers,” the ad tumpeted.

“International Championship Race.”

Foster didn’t race midget cars, so didn’t come to Toronto. But Andretti did, only to suffer the indignity of not qualifying through the heats for the feature. As most of Little Italy had shown up to see this budding cultural icon in action, the promoters added him to the rear of the field — 19th and last — where he finished.

Clippings from the following year, 1966, show how quickly you can go — or could go, in those days —  from hero to zero. Foster was fingered for triggering a massive first-lap pileup that eliminated eleven of the 33 cars that started.

Although he was later exonerated, the damage was done and there are people to this day who will tell you that Foster (who was to die early in 1967 in a NASCAR qualifying crash at Riverside, Calif.) was the culprit.

Among the drivers whose race lasted about 100 yards that year — the only injury was suffered by Foyt, who gashed a finger while climbing over a fence on the main straight to get out of the way — were guys at the back of the pack but they were household-name stars of the times like perennial midget car champion Bobby Grim, sprint car star Larry Dickson (he was half, with fellow Indy car driver Gary Bettenhausen, of the “Larry and Gary Show” along the USAC sprint car championship trail) and Ronnie Duman, who’d survived the crash at Indy in 1964 that killed Dave MacDonald and — you knew his name would come up again — Eddie Sachs.

Duman — who, incidentally, won that 1965 midget race at the CNE that Andretti nearly didn’t get to start — must have wondered if someone was trying to send him a message. Of his eight cracks at the 500, he failed to qualify twice (it happened a lot in those days, because the competition was so fierce) and crashed three other times. In 1968, his last at Indy, he finished sixth and a week later was killed at Milwaukee.

The 500-Mile International Sweepstakes, held since 1911 at the place they call the Brickyard, once had big risks, hard luck, heartbreak and consequences.

Not like today, when a big cheque and less than 50 laps around the Speedway, as happened last Sunday, can get you into the Greatest Spectacle In Racing.

Reply Reply to all Forward Close Help    From:   McDonald, Norris  Sent:   Wed 5/22/2013 8:27 PM  To:   McDonald, Norris  Cc:     Subject:   blog  Attachments:  View As Web Page

Some drivers shouldn’t be in the 500 Norris McDonald Wheels Editor When James Hinchcliffe and Alex Tagliani came to Toronto earlier this week to talk about Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 as well as July’s Honda Indy Toronto double-header, I asked them a very specific question: How did they feel about several of the drivers in this year’s race — who really shouldn’t be out there? Specifically, regular Indy Lights driver Carlos Munoz and last-place starter Katherine Legge. As you would expect of the two Canadians (both of whom are bona-fide Indy car stars, by the way), they were most gracious with their non-answers because that’s the way it is in big-league auto racing in 2013, where seldom (if ever) is heard a discouraging word. What I’d hoped they would say goes something like this: “They should ask Munoz, who qualified second, to drop to the back of the field for the start. He doesn’t have enough experience at the Speedway to be in front of about 30 other veteran drivers who will all be charging to get into Turn One first. “And let Legge run some laps and then find an excuse to black flag her because she just isn’t good enough to be out there. This is, after all, the Indianapolis 500, the fastest race in the world featuring the 33 best drivers in the world. “Or it’s supposed to be.” Fat chance of hearing that, of course. But once upon a time? You bet. Do you think, for one second, that Jimmy Bryan, Don Branson, Bobby Unser, Johnny Rutherford or A.J. Foyt in his prime would have allowed people who couldn’t carry their lunch to actually go out and try to race against them? In somebody’s dreams. The great Eddie Sachs, a sprint car driver of note who was said to be braver than Dick Tracy, got into Gasoline Alley early in his career and went from garage to garage, trying to talk his way into a car. When the powers of the AAA heard about that (yes, the American Automobile Association ran racing in those days), they called security and had Sachs thrown out. In the words of the wonderful American auto racing author John Sawyer, this is how great Eddie Sachs was (and yet, as illustrated, he got no respect because the AAA didn’t think he was good enough to even be inside the gates!): “Swoosh!” wrote Sawyer about Sachs. “There goes ‘Fast Eddie.’ Correction: there went ‘Fast Eddie.’ Past tense. He’s gone. “You know what? That starboard hoof must have been nuclear-powered. Ultrabionic. Nitro injected. Laser laced. The heaviest of all feet, it kept pedal against metal until the steel screamed for mercy.” You think anybody’s going to write words like that about Katherine Legge? Or Carlos Munoz? I get emotional thinking about those days. A Mississauga gentleman, Dan Doyle, sent me some clippings he’d saved since 1965, the year Billy Foster, a supermodified driver from Victoria, B.C., qualified for Big Indy. There was a fuss made over Foster that year. Everybody, including all the wire services — AP, CP, UPI —  and even Canada’s Weekend Magazine, thought he was the first Canadian to qualify for the 500. (He wasn’t, as it turned out, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story?) Among the clippings is a beautiful colour picture of the B.C. racer being strapped into his Bryant Heating and Cooling Special by two crew members (in those days, all the cars at Indy were called “Specials” because they were usually built especially for the 500 and then taken to race elsewhere afterward). The story that went with the photo was written by the late Don Hunt, and there’s a picture of him sitting with Foster, who’s smoking a cigarette, in the infield grandstand near the start/finish line. That Foster — a 27-year-old who came from a racing family in Victoria — was cocksure, let there be no doubt. He qualified on the outside of the second row for that ‘65 race and he turned the fastest speed of all the cars running an Offenhauser engine. Interviewed on the PA system after his run, Billy said: “I’m a slow qualifier. Just wait till race day!” As it turned out, he was eliminated after 90 laps (of 200) with a broken water line. His best friend, Mario Andretti, qualified two places to the left on the inside of the second row and went on to finish third in the race, which earned him rookie-of-the-year honours. Among the clippings is a page from the long-gone, Toronto-area weekly Wheelspin News, advertising the “Toronto 500, 110 Offy Midget Auto Race” at the CNE Grandstand oval on Wed., June 9, 1965 – a little over a week after that Indy 500. “Top Indianapolis Drivers,” the ad tumpeted. “International Championship Race.” Foster didn’t race midget cars, so didn’t come to Toronto. But Andretti did, only to suffer the indignity of not qualifying through the heats for the feature. As most of Little Italy had shown up to see this budding cultural icon in action, the promoters added him to the rear of the field — 19th and last — where he finished. Clippings from the following year, 1966, show how quickly you can go — or could go, in those days —  from hero to zero. Foster was fingered for triggering a massive first-lap pileup that eliminated eleven of the 33 cars that started. Although he was later exonerated, the damage was done and there are people to this day who will tell you that Foster (who was to die early in 1967 in a NASCAR qualifying crash at Riverside, Calif.) was the culprit. Among the drivers whose race lasted about 100 yards that year — the only injury was suffered by Foyt, who gashed a finger while climbing over a fence on the main straight to get out of the way — were guys at the back of the pack, household-name stars of the times like perennial midget car champion Bobby Grim, sprint car star Larry Dickson (he was half, with fellow Indy car driver Gary Bettenhausen, of the “Larry and Gary Show” along the USAC sprint car championship trail) and Ronnie Duman, who’d survived the crash at Indy in 1964 that killed Dave MacDonald and — you knew his name would come up again — Eddie Sachs. Duman — who, incidentally, won that 1965 midget race at the CNE that Andretti nearly didn’t get to start — must have wondered if someone was trying to send him a message. Of his eight cracks at the 500, he failed to qualify twice (it happened a lot in those days, because the competition was so fierce) and crashed three other times. In 1968, his last at Indy, he finished sixth and a week later was killed at Milwaukee. The 500-Mile International Sweepstakes, held since 1911 at the place they call the Brickyard, once had big risks, hard luck, heartbreak and consequences. Not like today, when a big cheque and less than 50 laps on the track, as happened last Sunday, can get you into the Greatest Spectacle In Racing.

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Indy car drivers James Hinchcliffe and Alex Tagliani flew into Toronto on Monday, a day after final qualifying at Indianapolis (James 9th; Tag 11th), to talk about next weekend’s Indy 500 and to beat the drums for the Honda Indy Toronto scheduled July 12-14 at Exhibition Place.

That they are both optimistic about doing well in the 97^th Greatest Spectacle In Racing, let there be no doubt. That they are both apprehensive about this year's Honda Indy, ditto.

The reason? This July’s Indy will be unlike any other in the 27-year-history of the event that started life in 1986 as the Molson Indy. There will not be one feature race through the streets of the CNE that weekend, but two complete rounds of the 19-race championship.

This has never been done before, despite what some of the IZOD IndyCar Series’ drum beaters would have you believe.

Yes, previously there were a few race weekends that featured "twin" events. That means, instead of one 250-lap race, they would throw the checkered flag after the first 125 laps and let everybody have a rest and maybe change the oil in the cars and then they’d roll them out again and have another 125-lap race.

But this is different. Totally different.

On Saturday of race weekend, the cars will line up in their qualifying order (time trials will be held on Fri., July 12, which will continue to be a no-admission Fan Day) and be flagged off for an 85-lap race around the 2.824-kilometre (1.755-mile) street circuit.

After the checkers, the winner will be interviewed on TV and the trophies presented to the first three finishers. Usually, at this point, the cars would be loaded onto transporters and driven off to the site of the next race.

But not this time.

The next day, Sun., July 14, they will do it all over again. A complete race program will be run off, with winners and losers and points awarded and the whole shebang.

Said Tagliani: "The two Toronto races are gonna be really, really hard. The crew guys, they work all weekend long, the car has to be repaired, be rebuilt, you have to look at the gearbox, the drive shaft. I mean that’s a lot of s--t to do.

"When you have, like 12 hours to do all that, that’s even worse. You don’t have a week to get it ready for the next race.

"It’s going to be very demanding for the drivers. James, he has blisters on his hands on Monday (after a ‘normal’ race). Now you wake up Sunday after a complete race Saturday, how you gonna feel about driving with blisters on Sunday?

"I’m preparing myself. I have a buddy that imports hyperbaric chambers and I’m going to get in for an hour every night and replenish my body with oxygen. I want to try everything I can so that when I wake up Sunday morning, I’m going to feel like it is Saturday morning."

Hinchcliffe was a little more philosophical about the whole business. After all, Toronto is the second "two-race" weekend, with Detroit being the first. And the first of those two races in the Motor City is only six days after the Indy 500.

"Whether you want it or not, it’s coming," said the winner of two of the four IndyCar races to date. "It’s the situation we’re in.

"The first one (Detroit) comes right after the month of May, which is difficult because you can’t train correctly; you’re in the car every day (in Indianapolis in May).

"It’s going to be a huge, huge challenge but, ultimately, I’ll be totally okay with it if it’s a good show and the fans of Toronto enjoy it because that’s what we’re here for: the fans."

One individual pumped up about the two races is event president and general manager, Charlie Johnstone.

"We have practicing and qualifying on Friday; how dynamic is that?" he said. "And we have a full race on Saturday and a full race on Sunday. From an operations standpoint, it’s the same but now we have a bigger show.

"With the support races (Firestone Indy Lights, Star Mazda Series, etc.) and the Indy car races, the on-track action will be non-stop from 8 in the morning till 5:30 or 6 in the afternoon."

Johnstone said there will be a change in the approach to what previously was known as Free Friday.

"We still won’t be charging admission for Friday," he said, "but the aim of Free Friday was to raise money, as well as awareness, for the Children’s Wish Foundation. Previously, if you wanted to make a donation, it was voluntary; now, if you want to come in on Friday you will have to make a donation.

"There’s value in what we’re putting on the track, particularly now with  the qualifying on Friday. Honda and the Honda Dealers of Ontario are going to match dollar for dollar what’s raised at the gate so it’s good all the way around."

Johnstone said ticket prices have been lowered this year but real value will come from the purchase of a two-day weekend pass or seat.

"For Saturday and Sunday, a General Admission ticket of $50 gets you in both days. We’ve moved around some grandstands so we’ve opened up some new General Admission viewing areas.

"And there’s all sorts of stuff going on, There’s a craft beer festival and a food festival, there’s music and all sorts of interactive displays going on and there’s going to be some pretty incredible car racing going on out on the track, too."

I asked Johnston if he thought the general public knows there are two complete races this year and not just the usual one?

"No, not yet," he said. "But all of our marketing and communications is only set to start after the Indianapolis 500. The motorsport fans know, the motorsport community knows but we have to reach out to the general public."

With help from Hinchcliffe and Tagliani, that "reaching out" got a kick start on Monday.

- NORRIS McDONALD

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Sunday racing rdp: Dumoulin wins, Wickens close

In warm sunshine and in front of a monster crowd, Louise-Phillipe Dumoulin of Trois-Rivieres, Que., won the Vortex Brake Pads 200 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on Sunday.

Jeff Lapcevich of Grimsby was second and Jason Hathaway of Dutton, Ont., was third in the opening race of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series stock car racing season.

Defending champion D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas finished fourth and Robin Buck of Campbellville was fifth. The rest of the Top Ten: Kerry Micks of Mt. Albert, Ty Dillon of Charlotte, N.C. (a Camping World Truck Series regular doing reconnaisance for the truck race at CTMP on Labour Day weekend), Noel Dowler of Sherwood Park, Alta., Trevor Seibert of Williams Lake, B.C., and Brad Graham of Glencoe, Ont.

It was the first NASCAR Canada victory for Dumoulin, who also races sports cars (ALMS and Rolex Grand Am).

Two of the race favourites were eliminated early in the race. Pole-sitter J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge dropped out with a broken drive shaft and two-time Canadian Tire champion Scott Steckly of Milverton  crashed. He wasn't injured but his trip into the tire wall in Turn Three was spectacular.

Steckly said he might have hit some oil, he wasn't sure, but that "I lost the front" end and couldn't help hitting the tires.

"It's awful (the crash)," he said. "I feel badly for my crew, who worked so hard, and for all my sponsors, particularly Canadian Tire."

Dumoulin, a driving coach in his "off hours," said he was delighted to have won. He finished fifth a year ago in this race.

"The sponsors gave us a great program over the winter," he said, adding he likes racing at Old Mosport and has wonderful memories of competing at the Bowmanville-area circuit years ago when he raced in Formula 1600.

He said his plan was to save his car - prepared for him by Steckly, by the way - for the end of the race, to save his brakes and to keep calm.

Asked about the calibre of competition in the Canadian Tire series, Dumoulin said it was second to none, pointing out that "ex-F1 guys" (Max Papis) and "old IRL guys" (Alex Tagliani) have raced in the series and haven't dominated.

Lapcevich said he'd wanted to do well to honour the memory of his father, Joe Lapcevich, who died recently. "The support of family, friends and sponsors" was amazing, he said.

He said he'd tried to rattle Dumoulin in the last few laps but had wound up rattling himself instead. "I overshot Turn One," and by the time he regained controlf of his car, Dumoulin was too far in front to catch.

Hathaway, who has entered all 76 races since NASCAR purchased the old CASCAR series from founder Tony Novotny and rebranded it the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, scored his best career finish. He was eighth here a year ago.

Oh, by the way, just to get all of the proper sponsor plugs in: the name of the race, the series and the locale, officially, is:

The Pinty’s presents the Vortex Brake Pads 200; the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series presented by Mobil 1; Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

OTHER RACING

The Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin held its second race of the weekend.  David Ostella of Maple, who raced in Indy Lights in recent years, took the checkered flag in Platinum Cup over Saturday’s race winner Spencer Pigot.  For the second straight day, Tim Sanderson was the victor in Gold Cup.

Sunday's racing action also saw the Canadian Touring Car Championship complete their weekend doubleheader.  Scott Nichol took the win in Super Touring over Benjamin Distaulo.  Michel Sallenbach was first in the Touring Class and Karl Wittmer took the victory in B-Spec.

In Canadian Supercar, Frank Fusillo went to the top step of the podium in the S1 class over Guy Leclerc.  Simon Dion-Viens was first in S2.

The final race of the weekend saw Florida native Doug Peterson win the SCCCA Trans-Am Series race over defending Series champion Tony Ave. 

Jimmie Johnson won the NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway Saturday night, or Sunday morning - I'm not sure which. It was the witching hour, in any event. Johnson, who won the non-points, gimmicky event for the fourth time, took home a cheque totalling more than $1 million.

Meantime, at Brands Hatch in England, Canadian driver Robbie Wickens finished a career-best third in the German Touring Car Series (DTM) race there. Wickens joined another Canadian, Quebec driver Bruno Spengler, on the podium. Spengler finished second behind winner Mike Rockenfeller. Wickens was in a Mercedes, Spengler in a BMW and Rockenfeller in an Audi. Watch the video here.

Said Wickens: "This is my first podium in the DTM and, what's more, it comes after starting from 13th on the grid at Brands Hatch where overtaking is notoriously difficult. I certainly wasn't counting on that before the race. My target was just to finish in the points.

"To make that happen, I knew I would have to get off to a good start and overtake the drivers on the prime tires. This strategy worked well. I was pleasantly surprised by my race pace and I was even able to go past drivers on options when I was on primes. The middle stint went perfectly for me. I had two excellent pit stops and was able to control my part of the race right through to the end.

"Afterwards, I was in the middle of an interview when I was told to hurry along to the podium. So after a physically draining 98-lap race, I had to run the full length of the pit lane to the podium ceremony. But it was well worthwhile. It was a great feeling to taste champagne for the first time in my DTM career."

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Racing Update: Carpenter at Indy, Fitzpatrick at Mosport

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

Let's begin with Indy qualifying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EARLIER

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

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

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

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

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

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

EARLIER

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

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

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

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

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

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

EARLIER

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

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

Except some of us.

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

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

EARLIER

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

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

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

It is a tangled web.

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

Brendan Gaughan finished second and Max Gresham was third.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1961 it ain't.

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Honda, McLaren to race in F1 together again

So much racing news, so little time . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck, Robert.

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

So?

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

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

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

Not media relations, public relations.

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

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

- NORRIS McDONALD

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