Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Auto racing: Vettel in F1, Sato in Indy, Kenseth in NASCAR

Takuma Sato won the first IndyCar race of his career Sunday in Long Beach as James Hinchcliffe's early season struggles continued. For the second race in a row, the Oakville native didn't finish - this time as the result of a crash.

Meanwhile, Matt Kenseth won the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway. He held off a fast-charging Kasey Kahne to win by 0.151 seconds. Jimmie Johnson was third, Martin Truex Jr. finished fourth and Clint Bowyer was fifth.

It was a typical NASCAR race, with spins and crashes and all sorts of high-speed excitement. One interesting note: the pole winner won the race for the third straight time. The last time this happened was in 1985. For full story and  results, click here.

Sebastien Vettel easily won the Grand Prix of Bahrain over Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. It was an all-Renault powered podium. Lots of good racing back in the pack. For my take, please click here.

AT LONG BEACH

Sato's victory (see picture) was the first for the Japanese racer, who had a crack at Formula One, since the Macau Grand Prix in 2001. For his team, A.J. Foyt Racing, it was the first win since 2002 (Airton Dare at Kansas Speedway) and the first road course triumph since Silverstone in 1978 when God's own A.J. himself was driving.

(An aside: There are those who believe that if Eddie Cheever, who was driving for Foyt in 1995, had won that year's CART race at Nazareth, there never would have been an Indy Racing League. The reason? Foyt was a serious influence on the thinking of Tony George. Foyt had raced in CART going back to 1979 and couldn't win, so pushed George to form the breakway series. But, the thinking goes, if his team actually won a CART race, he'd have been more inclined to hang in. As luck would have it, Cheever ran out of fuel a lap short at Nazareth and the IRL started racing the next January.)

Sato had no trouble holding off second-place Graham Rahal, with Justin Wilson third and pole-sitter Dario Franchitti fourth. JR Hildebrand was promoted to fifth after Oriol Servia, who finished there, was assessed a penalty that moved him back a spot. For full story and results, click here.

Sato was delighted to win, and as Canada's Hinchcliffe had done at St. Pete with the Maple Leaf flag, the Japanese driver unfolded a Japanese flag and waved it in celebration. By winning, he became the first Japanese driver to record a victory in Indy cars.

Like Toronto, Long Beach is really too tight for the high speed Indy cars and many of the drivers were forced into the pits to have nose cones replaced on their cars after they broke them running into other cars.

And Servia wasn't the only driver penalized. Rookie Tristan Vautier was penalized twice, once for running into the back of Scott Dixon and again after he hit Will Power's car.

NOTEBOOK JOTTINGS

- You could look at the accident that eliminated Hinchcliffe three ways.

1. It was his fault for not slowing down and letting everybody else go through Turn One before him on a restart on Lap 36.

2. It was Tony Kanaan's fault for cutting down to the corner from the outside lane and chopping across the front of Hinchcliffe's car, making a collision unavoidable for the Oakville driver.

3. It was IndyCar's fault for giving the restart a green flag. Kanaan clearly was passing cars before the green was waved and the yellow should have been shown. As it was, Kanaan had a full head of steam that took him up into the lead pack and to make the corner he had to turn in sharply and that resulted in E.J. Viso and Hinchcliffe crashing, with Hinch getting the worst of it.

You know, everybody talks about how wonderful the officiating has been in that series ever since Brian Barnhart was relieved of his duties.

Oh?

You want me to start?

How about the penalty on Scott Dixon last year after which it was discovered the officials were watching the wrong video replay?

I could go on, starting with the green-that-should-have-been-a-yellow yesterday and one other glaring example of incompetence in the same race.

The Indy cars - never mind the sanctioning body. be it CART, IRL or Champ Car - haven't had a decent starter/flagger since Nick Fornoro retired. Nick was a midget racer who could feel the rhythm of a race and flag it accordingly. With an ace flagger like Roger Slack available (okay, his day job is running Eldora Speedway but somebody should ask if he's interested),  I can't understand why the top open-wheel racing series on the continent continues to employ officials whose qualifications are questionable. 

And then there was, as I called it two paragraphs back, that other glaring example of incompetence Sunday. With two laps remaining, Tony Kanaan misses his braking point and crashes into the tires at Turn One (the end of Shoreline Dr.). The decision is made that the race will continue and there will only be a local yellow waved.

So the leader of the race, Sato, who's starting the last lap, has to pick his way through there, as does the second place car, Rahal, and Wilson, and the rest.  The race continues at speed and then, when Sato has two corners to go before the checkers - two  corners - they decide to make it a full-course caution.

Huh? They decide on a full-course caution after the entire field drives through the crash scene and the race is two corners from beiing over? Is that a joke, or what?

Bring back Brian Barhart.

- Okay, how come the Grand Prix of Long Beach, which started in 1975 as a Formula 5000 race, became a Formula One race seven or eight years and has featured Indy cars ever since, continues to draw an enormous crowd (there wasn't a seat empty in any of the many grandstands) and yet the Indy car race in Toronto, which started in 1986, officially draws flies now in comparison.

Does it have something to do with the title sponsor? The Toyota dealers of southern Californa have been behind this event forever and continue to promote the living daylights out of it.

Just wondering. 

- The TV coverage of the race was abysmal.

First, I do not need some person getting a ride in the two seater and screaming over the air that the experience is just like getting a rocket ride to the moon. I could care less.

Next, like a great flagger (see above), a TV director has to feel the rhythm of a race and to be aware of what's happening. Sato peels out of the formation of front-runners, which starts a charge of cars toward the pits, and TV doesn't realize it's happening till he's stopped. Then they show Ryan Hunter-Reay's car being serviced, clearly unaware that Hinchcliffe, who pitted moments later than RHR, has beaten him out.

The kicker is when the camera is on Alex Tagliani and Charlie Kimball, side-by-side and rubbing tires and clearly heading for trouble, and suddenly the camera is switched to a stationary Franchitti getting fuel. Whoopie! Then we are returned to Alex and Charlie, who by this time have crashed, which we missed seeing because the guy/girl making decisions on what we see doesn't know what he/she is doing. 

I hate yelling at my television.

- Remeber Kimi Raikkonen crashing at Monaco a few years back and being so angry that he refused to take his helmet off as he walked all the way back to his yacht in the harbour?

That was Hinchcliffe yesterday. The Oakville driver was so pissed off that he walked back to the pits and got on his motor scooter and blasted off toward his motorhome and his helmet remained on his head and he even, like Kimi, kept the visor closed.

Usually a happy guy and ready to be everybody's friend, Hinch was obviously in no mood for company.

The next race is in Brazil in two weeks. Let's hope he has better luck there.

Other weekend races of note:

- The new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Tex., played host Sunday to an early season Moto GP motorcycle race and a 20-year-old Spaniard, Marc Marquez, became the youngest winner in Moto GP history. Dani Pedrosa finished second with Jorge Lorenzo third. The motorycle circus will be back in North America in August for races at Laguna Seca in California and at Indianapolis. Next year, I suggest Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will also be on the Moto GP schedule, either following Indianapolis or replacing it on the calendar.

- Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr won the American Le Mans Series race at Long Beach. Jonathan Bennett and Colin Braun won in Prototype Challenge, Scott Sharp and Guy Cosmos were first in the P2 class, Bill Auberlen and Maxime Martin won the GT class and Henrique Cisneros and Sean Edwards were tops in GT Challenge.

Canadians: Kuno Wittmer of Hudson, Que., was 15th overall and eighth in GT and Kyle Marcelli of Barrie was 25th and sixth in Prototype Challenge.

Speaking of P2, and Canadians, Wheels special correspondent Sylvia Proudfoot reports that Leigh Pettipas of Halifax was the engineer for the winning car of Sharp and Cosmo. Pettipas also engineered the Extreme Speed Motorsports Ferrari F458 Italia that won the GT class at the 2012 Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta..

For race details and complete results, click here.

- At Road Atlanta, Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas won their one-millionth (I'm kidding!) Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series race, driving a BMW-Riley Daytona Prototype. John Edwards and Robin Lidell won the GT class in a Chevrolet Camaro. Joe Miller and Andrew Carbonell were first in the new GX class, driving a Mazda 6 Skyactiv Diesel. For details, click here.

Canadians in the Rolex race: Michael Valiante of Vancouver was seventh overall and seventh in a Ford-Riley DP; AIM Autosport of Woodbridge with assistance from Remo Ferri and Brian Wingett finished 17th overall and sixth in class with Max Papis and Jeff Segal aboard; the AIM Autosport Team FXDD with Ferrari car was 19th and eighth, Emil Assentato and Anthony Lazzaro driving. 

Canadians in the Supporting Continental Tire race: Scott Maxwell of Toronto, driving and Aston Martin Vantage for Markham's Multimatic Motorsports, finished fourth overall and fourth in class in  Grand Sport; Multimatic's sister Aston Martin racers were fifth (and fifth) with Tonis Kasemets and Michael Marsal driving and 11th and 11th with David Empringham and JohnFarano, both of Toronto, behind the wheel; Kenny Wilden of Oakville was ninth overall and ninth in the GS class; Ashley McCalmont of Ancaster finished 14th and 14th in GS; Taylor Hacquard of Vancouver was 30th overall and 14th in the Street Tuner class; Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto was 52nd overall and 22nd in GS.

- Canadians in the Indy Lights race at Long Beach: Matthew Di Leo of Innisfil was fifth. Quebe driver Mikael Grenier crashed.

- NORRIS McDONALD

Related articles

Bravo Hinchcliffe! And why IndyCar is better than F1 (they race!)

IndyCar - Takuma Sato Writes History

Sato 1st Japanese driver to win an IndyCar race

Motorcycle racer, 12, is dead. Why?

Another child racer has been killed, this time a 12-year-old boy who died as the result of a crash while racing a 500cc motorcycle at a racetrack in California. (For details, click here)

The accident happened March 3 at Buttonwillow Raceway Park and he'd been in a coma ever since at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.

He was at Children’s Hospital, of course, because he was a child, He was taken off life support there on Monday.

I have to report these stories from time to time and I hate doing it because any racing death is awful but those involving children are, to me, incomprehensible.

(I also have difficulty because my position on children racing is the opposite of many of my friends and some of them have their own kids involved.)

I am the father of three children and it never once crossed my mind to deliberately expose any of them to a game or activity in which they could be badly hurt, or worse. I believe the role of a parent is to protect children from danger until they reach an age when they can fully realize and appreciate the consequences and can make up their own minds whether or not to participate.

I don’t believe a 12-year-old – any 12-year-old – is mature enough to understand the meaning of death, which is something that can happen in a motor sport.

I don’t understand how a parent can sign a waiver that then allows a minor child to participate in something that could kill him. A parent can’t sign something that says it’s okay for their child to drink (which they can’t do, in licensed premises in most of Canada, until they are 19 and in the U.S. until they are 21). A parent can’t send a note over to the convenience store saying it’s okay for their kid to buy cigarettes. A child in Ontario has to stay in school until they turn 18, whether they want to or not, and a parent can’t sign something changing that. So how come it’s okay for a parent to put a 6-, 7- or 12-year-old on a motorcycle in competition and potentially sign that child’s life away?

I know the arguments. Motor sport teaches a child self-discipline, respect and manners. Physical fitness, mechanical skills and mental focus are other positives.

And I know all about "racing families," where generations have been involved and, in some cases, the family business is in the sport and it’s natural for the children to want to follow the parents.

But although in some of those cases it’s understandable, it still doesn’t make it right. There are too many children at motor races who don’t want to be there but force themselves to fire up the kart or the bike and drive off to race so as not to disappoint their father - or to avoid catching hell later.

On their Facebook page, the family of the boy, Kenny Anderson, wrote that he "died doing what he loved." Well, loving is learned behaviour and somebody taught him.

In the end, what matters is that a 12-year-old boy is dead before he really started to live. And that's tragic.  As the late sports columnist Dick Beddoes once wrote, and which I’ve repeated several times since and do so again today: 

Now he knows all about death - before he knew very much about life.

IndyCar team manager Phil LePan of Toronto dies

Sad news today.

Philip Buchan LePan of Toronto, better known to his many friends and admirers in the world of motorsport as Phil LePan, has died. A memorial service and interment is planned for Sat., Feb. 16 at 2 p.m., at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery Visitation Centre.

Racer Scott Maxwell emailed me the news earlier this week and said that “before moving on to bigger and better things, Phil was my team manager in Formula 2000 way back in 1989-90. Not only was he a great crew chief but he was one of the kindest and classiest people in motorsports.”

In a tribute published on the Speed Channel’s website, writer Marshall Pruett said Phil had worked for several Indy car teams after starting his big-league career with Team Lotus in Formula One.

He was team manager for Player’s/Forsythe Racing in 2003 when Paul Tracy won his championship and also was team leader with Kraco Racing, Team Green in 1995 when Jacques Villeneuve won the Indianapolis 500 and the CART championship and this past season with Dale Coyne Racing (Justin Wilson up).

Pruett quoted Tracy thusly:

“His whole life was about racing. That’s what he lived for. As a team manager and a guy I worked with for seven years . . . he wasn’t a guy who pushed himself out to the spotlight as the star team manager or crew chief. Some people try to become a bit of a personality with a position like that . . . but he wasn’t that guy. If you wanted to find Phil, he was in the garage with the mechanics and I liked that about him.”

Said another Canadian, Alex Tagliani, also to Pruett: “Phil was always one speed, and that was very good for us. He was someone that always was composed and kept things in perspective.”

Phil LePan leaves his wife and two sons.

Auto show season is upon us and Toronto Star Wheels and wheels.ca are gearing up to bring you complete coverage of all of them.

The biggie, right off the button, is the North American International Auto Show at Detroit, which opens to the public next weekend but has media preview days scheduled for this Monday and Tuesday.

We will be there, in force, to keep you fully informed about everything happening at that show.

Starting Sunday evening, wheels.ca’s home page will be humming with live blog files from writers Jim Kenzie and Jil McIntosh on the unveiling by General Motors of the 2014 C7 Corvette. Former Wheels editor Mark Richardson will report on what’s up with Nissan and Peter Gorrie will be dining with Toyota Canada executives and reporting on what they have to say.

I’ll be in Detroit with photographer Steve Russell and writer Brian Early to cover the world premiere of the all-new CLA-Class Mercedes-Benz at a special reception .

Early will blog and I will kick off two days of video reporting, with the help of Russell.

Monday, we’ll be back on the air early in the day with the 7:15 a.m. announcement of the North American Car and Truck of the Year. For the rest of Monday and on Tuesday till early afternoon, writers Kathy Renwald, Tim Miller, Steve Bond, Anne-Marie Marais, Gary Grant and Lesley Wimbush will cover all of the manufacturers’ unveilings on Twitter and Facebook as well as on our rolling blog at wheels.ca.

Yes, we’re promising blanket coverage but for an auto show as important as Detroit, we think our readers deserve nothing less.

And of course, we’ll wrap up the whole show — news, information, photographs and analysis — in next weekend’s issue of Wheels.

I started this piece by using the words “auto show season,” and that’s because the Montreal auto show is opening next week and correspondent Costa Mouzouris will be there to report. The Chicago show opens Feb. 9 and Richardson will be there and, of course, the Canadian International AutoShow here in Toronto will kick off on Feb. 15 and if you think our Detroit coverage is thorough, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Please join us at wheels.ca and Wheels for the Detroit auto show and stay with us through the Toronto show for the most comprehensive coverage you’ll find anywhere.

The Pro Mazda Series (nee Star Mazda) will run six of its 16 scheduled races this season in Canada. 

The first two will be held at the Honda Indy Toronto July 13 and 14 and then there will be two run the very next weekend as part of the American Le Mans Series weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (nee Mosport).  

The final two will be part of the traditional Trois-Rivieres race weekend Aug. 10 and 11.

The season will open at the Circuit of the Americas in March as part of the Grand Am Rolex weekend there and wind up in Houston as part of the IndyCar meeting in October.

Finally, the Mopar Canadian Superbike Championship will kick off June 7-9 at Shannonville Motorsport Park near Belleville. July 5-7 will see the riders doing battle at Autodrome St-Eustache in Quebec and then they'll tow to Atlantic Motorsport Park near Shubenacadie in Nova Scotia July 26-28.

Two races will be held at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Aug. 9 to 11 and the season will wrap up Aug. 23-25 at Le Circuit-Mont Tremblant in the Quebec Laurentians.

Danica Patrick has to start fighting back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I guarantee you that would be a disaster for NASCAR.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here for full story and results.

Other weekend racing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Schumi to Ferrari? Allmendinger rumours

Friday morning musings:

1. Ferrari has let the option to pick up Felipe Massa’s contract for 2013 lapse, which means he will not be in the team next year.

By interviewing Mark Webber for the job, Ferrari tipped that it’s looking for a solid second banana rather than a young speedster who would make Fernando Alonso uncomfortable.

There’s another veteran in F1 who doesn’t have a contract for next year. He’s fast — but not fast enough to really challenge Alonso — and he has strong ties to Ferrari.

I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Michael Schumacher could sign on for 2013 and then ride off into the sunset for the last time wearing Ferrari red.

2. A.J. Allmendinger has still not said anything about what made him flunk the NASCAR drug test. There are suggestions it had to do with emphetamines and his business people are pushing the “accidental” angle — that somehow, something he ingested legally put him over the line and it was all an accident. I’m hearing it was something else entirely. And that’s the problem: when there is no clear explanation forthcoming, the rumours start. Speak up, A.J., before it’s too late.

3. Danica Patrick told the media at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Thursday that she wants to do the “double” next U.S. Memorial Day weekend — the Indianapolis 500 as well as the Coca-Cola 600 — if the logistics can be worked out and she can get a good ride at Indy. She’ll be driving in the Sprint Cup series for Tony Stewart next year and he’s done it previously, so if she wants to try I can’t see him standing in her way. Who knows? Perhaps he’ll start laying the groundwork for the eventual establishment of an Indy car team to compliment his NASCAR team after he retires from driving. If Roger, Chip and maybe Michael can do it, why not him?

4. JR Motorsports has launched a contest around everybody’s favourite all-‘round Canadian driver, Ron Fellows, who will be competing for them at Watkins Glen and at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in the Nationwide Series in August. Go to www.JRMracing.com or www.Fellows5.com for contest details and questions. The Grand Prize is a three-day driving experience package at Ron Fellows Performance Driving School at Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club outside Las Vegas.

5. While a lot of attention will be on Paul Tracy in the Daytona Prototype class this afternoon in the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, let’s not lose track of the fact that the AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Ferrari driven by Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato is very likely going to win the GT class in that race. Segal will start the race with the best race-win record in the series as well as the GT class championship points lead. Segal and the first-year AIM Autosport Team FXDD Ferrari program also have a series-best six GT podium finishes in the season’s first eight races, with only one result out of the top four all year.

6. I’ve been in the newspaper (and radio and TV) biz for longer than I can even remember. One of the things I was taught by my very first city editor, Jim Pauk, was to use language that people can understand. Ergo (that’s a fancy word for “therefore”), I can’t figure out why modern communication specialists (they used to be called “reporters”) have to copy down, or repeat, everything the way it’s written or spoken. This is particularly true when it comes to medical explanations. These days, you would think we are all doctors, the way things come out in the paper and on the web. Example. Charlie Kimball apparently crashed during an IndyCar test at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.  All the stories are reporting that he suffered a fracture of the fifth metacarpal of his right hand. Okay, I’m not stupid. I suspect he has a broken hand. But why not just say it? What the heck if a metacarpal? Same thing with broken legs. Why not say, “broken leg?” Why say, “fracture of the femur?”

7. Chevrolet announced Thursday that its NASCAR Nationwide Series car for 2013 will be the Camaro. The Camaro, as we all know, is built in Oshawa. Wouldn’t it be neat if the Nationwide Series and the Grand Am Rolex Series raced a double-header at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park next summer? Maybe everybody employed at GM Oshawa would get a free ticket so they could cheer on “Canada’s car!”

8. Okay – so this is my scenario for 2013: Continuing student unrest in Montreal forces F1 to review the Canadian Grand Prix. Its future there could be in jeopardy. So Montreal needs a new headline event for Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. How about a NASCAR Sprint Cup race? This means the Nationwide Series event would be free to move to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. The Grand Am Rolex could support both. The NASCAR trucks could double-head with the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series at CTMP. Add the American Le Mans Series and the Canadian motorcycle championship and Summer 2013 at the facility north of Bowmanville could be non-stop action. I’m dreaming – but it’s a nice dream. (Oh, I have a sollution to the F1 problem. Coming Monday.)

Top Ten motor sport stories of 2011

Here are my choices for the Top Ten motor sport stories of 2011.

1. The on-track deaths in October of two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Dan Wheldon and up-and-coming Moto GP rider Marco Simoncelli

Wheldon, a nice guy and a family man, died in the final IZOD IndyCar Series race of the season at Las Vegas while trying to win a special $5 million price from his scratch starting spot.

The "pack racing" promoted by the IndyCar series since it started business in the mid-1990s proved to be every bit as dangerous as feared. A slight collision between two cars near the front of the field became an unholy pileup involving 15 of the 34 cars on track.

Wheldon’s car was launched into catch fencing, where his head hit a pole. He was 33.

Simoncelli, a promising motorcycle racer who was in his second season in Moto GP after winning championships in lesser categories, was killed at the Malaysian Grand Prix after losing control and going down.

Although he was hit by motorcycles ridden by two others racers as he slid along the track, he died because his helmet came off and his unprotected head hit the pavement.

Simoncelli was famous for his "big hair" and was wearing a helmet a size too large. He was 24.

2. The dominance of Sebastien Vettel and Dario Franchitti in F1 and IndyCar

In winning his second consecutive World Championship, in only his third full season, Vettel made just about all the other drivers in Formula One this year look like pretenders.

In 19 races, he was on the podium for 17 of them and he won eleven. He also captured 15 poles, breaking Nigel Mansell’s record of 14 for a season. He seems well on his way to becoming the greatest of all time.

Franchitti won four races and had two poles in 17 races to win his third straight IndyCar title. In fact, he's won the championship every year’s he’s contested it in the last five but he took a year off to try NASCAR after winning his first one.

When that didn’t work out, he returned to IndyCar and hasn’t been beaten since.

3. The success enjoyed by three young Canadian racers – Robert Wickens, Kyle Marcelli and James Hinchcliffe

As the sun sets on the racing careers of Canadian household names Paul Tracy, Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier, Alex Tagliani and Ron Fellows, these three young men are stepping up to take their places.

Wickens, in his third year of competing in European feeder series leading to Formula One, finally made it to the top step of the podium in Formula Renault 3.5 after finishing second the two previous years in GP3 and Formula 2.

In winning what’s called the World Series by Renault, Wickens laid a beating on French driver Jean-Erik Vergne, but Vergne was rewarded with a Scuderia Toro Rosso seat because his family or his sponsors could write the big cheque while Wickens, who does not have money, is unfortunately currently unemployed for 2012.

Marcelli’s career got a huge boost this week when speedtv.com’s John Dagys put the Barrie native at No. 2 on his Top Ten American Le Mans Series drivers list behind the team of Joey Hand and Dirk Muller and ahead of the team of Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf.

That is pretty smart company, indeed.

In nine starts in the Prototype Challenge class, Marcelli had six podiums, two class victories and two poles. He made one start in Europe, in the international Le Mans Series at Imola in Italy, and he won his class in that race too.

Dagys calls him one of the sport’s rising stars, but we already knew that. He’s expected to announce his 2012 program in the coming weeks.

Hinchcliffe paid his dues in the lesser categories (Formula Atlantic, A1-GP, Indy Lights) and finally made it to the big leagues with the legendary Newman-Haas team in IndyCar, missing the first race of the season but storming back to win the Sunoco Rookie-of-the-Year title.

Although he didn’t win any races or poles, he did finish in the Top Ten seven times and in the Top Five three times. He led the race at Mid-Ohio for 26 laps.

Although known primarily as a road racer, he adaped well to the ovals and qualified third at Kentucky and finished fourth at Kentucky and New Hampshire.

His future is up in the air at the moment because Newman-Haas announced it would not participate in the IndyCar Series next year and although several knowledgable observers have suggested he will be employed in 2012, there has yet to be an announcement.

4. The firing of Kurt Busch

For the first time in just about any sport, an elite athlete was given his walking papers for being a jerk.

For years, Kurt Busch (his brother, Kyle, is no better) has been the epitome of everything that’s wrong with big league sport when a participant lets success go to his head.

Instead of being thankful, or grateful, for everything that’s come his way because of his wonderful, God-given ability to drive a racing car, Busch has consistently let his sense of entitlement balloon way out of all proportion.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came at the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway when Busch lost his cool while waiting to be interviewed on TV and insulted the interviewer and his camerman.

Although the official announcement said that he and Penske Racing had come to a mutual parting of the ways, the truth is that Busch was more of a liability than an assett and team owner Roger Penske decided he wouldn't put up with any more nonsense. 

While he has signed a contract to drive for Phoenix Racing in the 2012 Sprint Cup, his future is uncertain as that team has rarely been able to afford to run a full season.

5. The sale of Mosport International Raceway

When race fans journey out to the legendary racing circuit north of Bowmanville for the start of the 2012 season in May, they are in for a big surprise.

The place that opened for business in 1961 and has looked pretty much the same ever since has undergone a face lift since it was purchased last June by racing driver Ron Fellows, businessman Alan Boughton and real-estate developer Carlo Fidani.

Brush has been cleared away from spectator fences, hills levelled to improve spectator sightlines and a huge, double tunnel to allow race transporters (and spectators) to access the infield during competition are just some of the improvements.

The long-range plan – yet unannounced – is to attract a NASCAR Nationwide Series race as well as other, major series to race not only on the road circuit but also on a renovated and enlarged oval speedway that’s also on the property.

6. Tony Stewart wins 5 Chase races, Sprint Cup

Tony Stewart qualified in ninth place for this year’s NASCAR Chase for the Championship.

The only race he'd won all year to that point was the World of Outlaws sprint car race at Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford in July. His Sprint Cup season had been very so-so and he was even quoted as saying he didn’t think his Stewart-Haas Racing team deserved to be in the stock car playoffs.

But then he went on a tear to end all tears. He won five of the ten Chase races, including the last one at Homestead-Miami Speedway. When the checkers flew, he was in first place and Carl Edwards was second and they were tied in points but Stewart was champion on the basis of more wins.

It was Stewart’s third title, the first two earned when he was employed by Joe Gibbs Racing. He became the second team owner-driver after Alan Kulwicki to win NASCAR’s biggest prize.

7. Canadian comes this close to winning British Formula Ford Fesival

For the first time in years, a young, talented and fast Canadian Formula Ford driver had his way paid to Britain in October to compete in the annual Formula Ford Festival that attracts upwards of 200 entries  and is held each year at the famous Brands Hatch circuit.

A project initiated by Brian Graham Racing Sports and Entertainment, in partnership with Grote Industries (manufacturers of vehicle lighting and safety systems), the aim was to give a Canadian racer a chance to compete against the best Formula Ford drivers in the world, just as such racing luminaries as Dan Wheldon, Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Danica Patrick had in the past.

After a selection process, Xavier Coupal, 21, of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., was chosen (Graham said he was absolutely the fastest driver out of the box of the ones who were eligible).

Coupal went out and finished second in his first race and then sat on the pole for the final. He was leading the race seven laps in when he was punted off track. So near and yet so far.

At the end of the day, though, he still set fastest lap in the final race and became the first Canadian to start from pole – an incredible accomplishment that deserves to be in this Top Ten.

8. The best Grand Prix of Canada – Ever

I’m sure I’ll get mail on this one, particularly from people who will point to Gilles Villeneuve’s first F1 victory in the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix as being the best home race ever, but I really don’t know how you could beat the one held on Ilse Notre-Dame in June, which had everything.

Jenson Button was the surprise winner in Montreal when race favourite Sebastien Vettel, feeling the pressure from Button, ran wide on the last lap and let Button through. Vettel finished second and his Red Bull-Renault teammate, Australian Mark Webber, was third.

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher of Germany, showing everyone that he's still "got it," drove to a storming fourth-place finish in his Mercedes, just missing the podium.

The race started in rainy conditions and a downpour eventually caused a two-hour rain delay. The race, which started behind the safety car at 1 p.m., finally finished just after 5 p.m.

Button came from the back of the pack on several occasions and visited the pits six times for tire changes, to have his car checked following a collision with teammate Lewis Hamilton, and for a drive-through penalty.

Button said it was probably his greatest Formula One drive. "It was a fanastic race and I enjoyed it immensely. When I look back, yeah, I'd have to say it was one of my best, if not my best."

How can you beat that?

9. Miss Supertest Gets Her Stamp

On Oct. 8 in Picton, Ont., the long-awaited celebration of one of Canada’s most magnificent sporting achievements took place when Canada Post officially unveiled a commemorative stamp in memory of the unlimited hydroplane racing boat Miss Supertest III and her driver, the late Bob Hayward.

The stamp honours the fastest racing boat in Canadian history, her driver Hayward and her owner, Jim Thompson, who designed and built her.

The ceremony marked the 50^th anniversary of Miss Supertest’s final defence of the Harmsworth Trophy, holding off the American challengers for the third consecutive year.

Several months later, on Sept. 10, 1961, while competing for the U.S. Silver Cup on the Detroit River in the sister boat Miss Supertest II, Hayward was killed. Thompson retired from the sport then and there and Miss Supertest III was never sent out to race again. The stamp is a fitting tribute to a boat and the two men who put Canada on top of the hydroplane racing world.

10. A tie, between . . .

– Danica Patrick leaves IndyCar for NASCAR. Yes, we knew it was coming but it was still a bit of a shock just the same.

She has her detractors, that’s for sure, but Patrick’s presence guaranteed coverage of IndyCar and now that she’s gone, that can’t be taken for granted.

And if there's anybody out there who doesn’t think she’s going to be a star in NASCAR, I will remind them of the reaction at Daytona last July when she took the lead late in the Nationwide Series race. The roar of the crowd as it rose to its feet could be heard – and felt – over the voices of the announcers and the roar of the engines.

NASCAR’s gain is very much IndyCar’s loss.

– Trevor Bayne, a 20-year-old driver with one Sprint Cup race under his belt, wins the Daytona 500 for the underfunded Wood Brothers team.

A devout Christian, Bayne credited his faith for helping him handle the pressures that followed his victory at Daytona and for helping him to beat off a serious illness that saw him admitted to hospital after being bitten by an insect.

- I love "comeback stories." A great comeback in 2011 was by sprint car driver Joey Saldana.

A front-running sprint car star with the World of Outlaws (they took a swing through Canada earlier this year, touching down at Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve as well as at race tracks in eastern Ontario and Quebec), Saldana has been knocking on the door of the series championship for several years now.

He was running particularly well this year before disaster struck when he flipped during the Kings Royal race at Eldora Speedway in Ohio and broke his right arm and some ribs. He also suffered a punctured lung.

Out of action for several months, Saldana returned to action in September at Hartford Motor Speedway in Michigan to go up against all the regular Outlaw runners— the Kinsers, the Dolanskys, the Schatzes and the rest of those guys — and promptly won his first race back.

- Jimmie Johnson is not NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. After five years of holding the title, it's news that Johnson isn't No. 1 any more. He was still pretty much in it until the last two or three Chase races, but it was just one of those years for Johnson when he didn't get the breaks he got previously.

There were suggestions that his partnership with long-time crew chief Chad Knaus might come to an end but that hasn't happened and I think it unlikely. They will regroup over the winter and go at it again in 2012 and don't be surprised if Johnson-Knaus aren't champions again before very long.

- Antoine L'Estage and Nathalie Richard won their 150th Canadian Rally Championship presented by Subaru. It's not really their 150th but nobody else ever wins, so it just seems like it. They are in a class of their own, so have to be considered.

So, there you go. Five possibilities for story No. 10 in my personal Top Ten. I can’t pick one over the others – or I would have!

Now, I’ll close with a personal anecdote. The rest of the Wheels section on Saturday will be made up of Bests and Worsts of 2011 – best car, best experience, etc.

So here are my personal Best and Worst experiences of the past year.

Best.

I was at Toronto Motorsports Park in July to take in a special match race between the NHRA brother act of Tony and Cruz Pedregon. They were in their Nitro Funny Cars – 8,000 horsepower each.

I was standing about 20 yards behind them (fingers tight in my ears, by the way) when they popped their clutches and unleashed all that power as they started their 1,000-foot run and I can still feel the earth move.

I’m not talking about that. What I’m saying is that my legs and knees went all-rubbery and my feet felt as if they were sliding in oil. 

It was scary.

Worst.

Dan Wheldon.

Will resignation impact TV coverage of F1?

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after Mark Webber won the Brazilian GP and Britain’s Sky TV announced plans for an HD channel dedicated solely to Formula One starting in 2012, I contacted TSN about their plans for next year.

TSN has been showing F1 races and qualifying rounds for years, most recently by picking up the feed from the BBC. But the Beeb will only televise 10 of next year’s 20 scheduled races live while Sky will have them all (plus all practice sessions, etc.) and, in fact, has hired Martin Brundle to head up its broadcasting crew.

Now, I haven’t heard back from TSN. I suspect there are any number of reasons for this, all of them legitimate. When they have something to say, I’m sure they’ll call. The season doesn’t start till mid-March, so there’s plenty of time.

But I was discussing the situation with a friend of mine yesterday afternoon and, at the end of the chat, he said this: "Maybe TSN won’t have any F1 next year. Maybe we’ll get to watch it on Speed TV."

I agreed with him (although I stressed that I thought it highly unlikely). But then I got an email later in the day that contained some unsettling news.

Hunter Nickell, president of Speed since 2005, has resigned and will leave at the end of the year.

Now, I don’t know Hunter Nickell from Adam, but I do know that in recent years the Speed weekend racing coverage during the season has gone from a one-hour Sunday night wrapup program to pretty much wall-to-wall coverage of the sport during the weekend, starting Friday.

Host Adam Alexander would pop up before the first race of the weekend, usually the Friday night NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, with an update on that weekend’s racing calendar (sports cars, motocross, Moto GP, Formula One and IndyCar races, as well as NASCAR) and then would update with other pre-race reports and results through Saturday and on into Sunday evening.

Kind of a mini-CNN on wheels.

As well as his work strengthening motorsport news coverage in general, Nickell also beefed up coverage of, and solidified relationships with, F1, Supercross and Grand Am in particular.

Now, on the surface, his resignation might not seem like that big a deal. But every time there’s a change at the top of just about anything, the new guy (or woman) moves to put his or her stamp on things.

For instance (and I bet you didn’t know this), the minute the president of a major film studio is replaced, every movie in production at that time goes straight to digital. They are not released in theatres. Why? Because the new head honcho doesn’t want to have to take the blame for any turkeys in the bunch and he/she sure doesn’t want to have to pass on any praise to the guy who was fired.

It’s the same with TV.

It’s highly unlikely that the new president of Speed is going to leave everything as it is. Maybe he/she won’t be that big a racing fan. So maybe the weekend racing coverage, or some of it, gets whacked.

Maybe the new person loves NASCAR and isn’t much of an F1 fan. Uh-oh, I can hear you say. But it’s possible this change could have an effect on Speed's F1 coverage.

Or maybe not. (It really doesn’t matter to us in Canada now, because Speed’s F1 race coverage has been blacked out in recent years. But if TSN or Sportsnet passes on F1 in 2012, and Speed’s coverage is altered, we could be in a fix . . .)

What I am saying is that Speed TV under the leadership of Hunter Nickell has been a good friend of all motorsports and fingers should be crossed that this across-the-board approach continues.

Now, speaking of Formula One, it’s really interesting to watch how Lotus-Renault CEO Dany Bahar is now speaking out of both sides of his mouth so far as the return of driver Kimi Raikkonen is concerned.

Bahar had some of the world’s motoring press over for lunch in London on Monday and said that he fully expects Raikkonen to have some difficulty adjusting to F1 after being away from the sport for two years (ya think?) but that the team is quite prepared to give him all the time he needs.

Said M. Bahar: "You cannot expect from a driver that was absent for two years to come back and adapt to the new tyres and new regulations from day one, so he needs his time. But whether this time is three days, six races or 20 races, we will see. What is important is to see how his tendency goes towards the performance. If it is always improving, then of course we will give him the time."

All very well and good. But then, he said this:

"He knows he has to deliver. . . He is not the same kid as he was at Sauber and at McLaren. These are different times, he has to deliver and he realises that."

Well, which is it? Is it, "We will give him the time?" or is it, "He knows he has to deliver?"

This guy Bahar won’t last long if Raikkonen doesn’t live up to what’s expected of him. And on top of that, he’s about to record an even bigger loss in the arena of public opinion.

The contract Renault has with Robert Kubica, the popular Polish driver who was nearly killed in a rally accident at the beginning of the year and was unable to return to F1 racing as hoped, is about to expire and Bahar seems content to let him go.

As a good friend of mine noted a few weeks ago, when that happens, Kubica will become a test driver with Ferrari and if he can recapture his old speed, will be a very good bet to replace Felipe Massa in 2013.

And if that happens, Dany Bahar’s career in F1 could come to screeching halt.

Busch unlikely to face more discipline

MONDAY NIGHT UPDATE: NASCAR fined Kyle Busch $50,000 and put him on probation until Dec. 31 for actions detrimental to stock car racing as a result of the incident with Ron Hornaday at Texas Motor Speedway last Friday night.

Earlier . . .

You have to wonder which of his sponsors refused permission for Joe Gibbs to fire Kyle Busch, because at least one of them did or else Busch wouldn’t have been allowed to watch Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race from the comfort of the team’s pit box at Texas Motor Speedway.

What made it worse is that Busch was allowed to sit down to watch the race; owner Gibbs had to stand behind him the whole time.

(Or else Busch hopped up there first and sat down and put on the headphones, just like anyone who feels entitled would do. And Gibbs, ever the gentleman he is, didn’t want to create a scene by tapping him on the shoulder and saying something like, "Hey, Junior – you’re in my seat.")

Seeing Busch sitting there – calm, cool and seemingly unware that he escaped being on Death Row for doing something Friday night that very well could have resulted in the death of another racing driver – was disappointing, to say the least.

The question all weekend – at least ever since Busch lined up a Camping World Series truck being driven by Ron Hornaday on Friday night and deliberately sent it slamming into the outside wall at that same Texas Speedway – had been whether Gibbs would fire Busch.

As NASCAR had earlier handed down the stiffest penalty it had ever levied against a driver, and said so when it suspended Busch from competition for the rest of the weekend’s Nationwide and Sprint Cup races, it’s unlikely there will be anything further – although it remains an option.

But when Gibbs said after the suspension was announced that he would be "talking to sponsors," you got the feeling he was asking permission to set Busch down, either for the rest of the season or even longer.

The former coach of the Washington Redskins, Gibbs is a person who has the patience of Job. He previously put up with Tony Stewart’s temper tantrums when "Smoke" drove for him (he made him take anger management counselling) but all Tony ever really did was be rude to reporters.

Kyle Busch, however, has always been a handful. He once threatened to kill Denny Hamlin on national television (it was a radio transmission but there was no doubting his fury), he refused to speak to the media (there was one famous race a year ago when he ran away from reporters by ducking in and out of transporters in the paddock and then made his final escape by running across the track and out a gate) and generally made a royal pain of himself.

That, of course, was the old Kyle Busch. The new Kyle Busch arrived on the scene at the beginning of this year and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He was kind, friendly, funny, cooperative and just about completely opposite from the jerk we used to know.

I put it down to his marriage; others said he’d obviously spent time with the Gibbs-contracted anger counsellors. Whichever, he was a different guy. Even when Richard Childress put him in a headlock and punched him, Busch kept his cool (and that must have been a true test).

Everything was wonderful until Friday night, early in the truck race, when Busch and Hornaday were running side-by-side and came across a slower truck. Hornaday had to move up the track to avoid a collison and sideswiped Busch in the process.

It was the sort of thing you see dozens of times over the course of a season in any kind of racing. It was no big deal.

But if you ever want to see road rage in action, take a look at the video and see what happened next.

Now, trying to explain intent is a very difficult thing to do because nobody really knows what’s in another person’s mind.

Did Busch simply try to send a message to Hornaday, along the lines of "don’t do that again?" Or did he try to do something more sinister?

I don’t know.

Did Todd Bertuzzi mean to break Steve Moore’s neck when he sucker-punched him in that hockey game? Did that guy who ran the yellow light in Mississauga the other day mean to kill two people? Did the guy who got into a bar fight in Toldedo mean to kill that other guy?

I don’t know.

But it doesn’t matter. When something bad happens, there have to be consequences – even when somebody "didn’t mean to do it (as Busch seems to imply in his letter of apology to the world)."

Kyle Busch got off easy because Ron Hornaday walked away from that accident. But what if he hadn’t?

NASCAR sent its message and it’s highly unlikely it will do anything further. Joe Gibbs might have sent a message but the sight of Kyle Busch sitting in that pit box Sunday, with his boss standing behind him, was symbolic in more ways than one.

It was, to be blunt, an opportunity missed.

WEEKEND RACING:

– Tony Stewart won his second Cup race in a row at Texas (and fourth in eight Chase races) when he held off Carl Edwards and Kasey Kahne to win the Sprint Cup race there Sunday. Edwards now leads the points race by three over Stewart. Although many of the other drivers are still mathematically in the Chase, the championship is now down to those two. Only two races remain – Phoenix next Sunday and then Homestead-Miami. It will go right down to the wire. Full story here.

– Trevor Bayne won the Nationwide Series race on Saturday and became the fourth Nationwide driver to win a race in the series, the 29 other victories all going to Sprint Cup regulars who dropped down. Denny Hamlin (driving Kyle Busch’s car) finished second and Carl Edwards was third. Danica Patrick qualified 11^th and finished 11^th. Full story here

– Donny Schatz won the final race of the World of Outlaws sprint car season on the Dirt Track at Charlotte. Steve Kinser finished second and Craig Dollansky was third. Schatz won the A-Main on Friday night, too. And Tim McReadie of Watertown, N.Y. (yeah, he’s Barefoot Bob’s kid) won both Super DIRT Series races at Charlotte on the weekend.

– Luca di Montezemolo unleashed a barrage at the FIA over the weekend, saying in effect that if Formula One wanted Ferrari to continue in the category, it had better ease off on testing rules and third cars, in general, and technical regulations in particular. "We are here as constructors, not sponsors," he told media covering Ferrari’s World Finals event at Mugello, suggesting that F1 had to be cutting edge again while still keeping an eye on costs. He suggested F1 is the only sport in the world that doesn’t allow practicing, which is wrong, and said fans would rather see three competitive cars from one marque in a race rather than some underfunded, uncompetitive entry from another that’s being passed every three or four laps.

– In other F1 news, the FIA has officially confirmed that Virgin, Renault and Team Lotus will all have new names for 2012. Renault becomes Lotus. Lotus becomes Caterham. And Virgin becomes Marussia. Clear as mud, right? Who wants to bet that at least two of those teams have new names again within the next two years?

– Casey Stoner beat Ben Spies by 0.015 seconds in the MotoGP event at Valencia in Spain. Full story here.

BACK TO KYLE BUSCH:

Here's an interesting take on the weekend's going-on in NASCAR. The author, Carol Einarsson, dumps all over Michael Waltrip for firing David Reutimann and suggests that if Joe Gibbs wants to get rid of a problem, there's a driver available . . . the good read is here.

Ron Hornaday (and you can't blame him) had some interesting things to say about Kyle Busch and Friday night's little incident:

"If NASCAR doesn't (park Busch), I'm hanging around, and I'm going to buy Tommy Baldwin's ride and that guy will never finish another race. . . We'll see what NASCAR does. If they don't handle it right, I'll be over at his house Monday morning.''

Do you now cancel a race when someone's killed?

The question must be asked:

Would the Moto GP Grand Prix of Malaysia motorcycle race have been stopped and subsequently cancelled Sunday, after Italian star Marco Simoncelli was killed early in the race, if the IZOD IndyCar Series hadn’t stopped the race at Las Vegas a week ago in which Dan Wheldon died?

In a decision that continues to attract comments from both the pro and con sides, the IndyCar organization opted not to restart the Las Vegas race after Wheldon was killed in a 15-car pileup, which was arguably the worst crash in the history of Indy car racing.

It was also the first time a major league auto race was cancelled following a fatal accident.

At the Sepang course in Malaysia Sunday, Simoncelli – who, at 24, was seen as a future world champion but had a huge reputation for recklessness – collided with two other motorcycles and died in the ensuing crash (link here).

The decision by race officials not to restart the race was a first for top-flight motorcycle racing. As was the case with the IndyCar decision, it had never happened before.

At the 2010 Moto GP meeting at the San Marino course in Italy, 19-year-old Japanese rider Shoya Tomizawa was killed in a Moto2 race but that didn't stop anything. At Suzuka, in 2003, during the Japanese Grand Prix, another Japanese rider, Daijiro Kato, was killed and yet the racing continued. At the Ilse of Man Tourist Trophy Races, three riders were killed in August and - well, you know the rest.

There is no doubt that IndyCar’s actions have set a precedent. Before Wheldon, the show always went on. From now on, though, maybe not.

Tony Stewart has finally commented on the Wheldon accident:

Although several stock car and formula car drivers commented on the Dan Wheldon accident at Las Vegas, others remained silent. One in particular, Tony Stewart, is an open wheel racing veteran who was an IRL champion in the 1990s before going to NASCAR. He broke his silence at the weekend, when reporters asked him about it:

"It's part of racing, it's part of what can happen.

"Everybody is a back chair quarterback going, ‘No, we should do this or we shouldn't do that.’ It's racing; I mean it's always been racing. Auto racing as a whole is safer than it's ever been.

"It still boils down to the people that are steering the cars around. It's not that the cars are unsafe, there's still people that tell the cars where to go so we've got to take responsibility. There is no reason for anybody to point fault anywhere. There's no fault in it. It's racing.

"Racing has always been dangerous. That's why people come to watch races because there is an element of danger involved. You're never going to get it all out but like we said it's safer than it's ever been. It's a freak thing that happened and it can happen every race.

"I think everybody has got to take a deep breath and let the emotions settle down. Everybody is obviously thinking about Dan and his family, his wife and two children. There's a lot of great charity stuff coming up to help them out which we are really proud to be a part of but I think everybody has to take a step back from it and realize this is auto racing.

"It's always been dangerous but everybody still does it. If it was so bad, none of us would want to do this but we still love doing this every week and it's just part of the sport unfortunately. It's never going to be 100 per cent safe."

Dan Wheldon knew the dangers. In 2003, he told a British interviewer this:

"Formula One drivers think their branch of motor racing is dangerous, but it's a lot safer than roaring round an oval. There are no gravel traps on this circuit. If you touch another car or make a mistake, there are two ways you can go - towards the relative safety of the infield or bang into concrete.

"But it’s the risk factor that makes it so appealing to me. You are driving on the limit, knowing if you go beyond it you could be history."

Here is something Sebastien Bourdais said, as reported in the Nov. 2011, edition of Racer magazine:

"... Contrary to rumors that Bourdais and his wife Claire had decided ovals were too dangerous, "Seabass" insists his Peugeot sports car commitments prevented him from doing a full campaign in 2011. It's something he wishes to remedy in 2012.

"Claire wouldn't be thrilled to see me do the 1.5 mile ovals" he shrugs, "but I'm pretty good at it. I won the Las Vegas Champ Car race twice. Sure, for me, banked ovals don't create good racing. It's dangerous and it doesn't allow good drivers to shine.

"All they show is that you're as stupid as anyone else. So, do I like them? No. Am I good at them? Sure – I'm as stupid as anybody else out there."

Wheldon's funeral was held in Florida Saturday and a public memorial service was held Sunday in Indianapolis (see post below). Today, CEO Randy Bernard has asked the drivers to attend a meeting at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It will be a "drivers-only" affair, but the drivers will undoubtedly talk afterward.

Okay, moving right along.

Marco Andretti is reportedly going to be a contestant this season on Celebrity Apprentice. The last time an IndyCar driver went on TV to do something other than race, Helio Castroneves won Dancing With the Stars. Can Marco do as well?

And here’s a "he-said-she-said" for you. Lewis Hamilton told the Daily Mail in England that he ended his relationship with ex-Pussycat Dolls singer and current talent show judge Nicole Scherzinger and she told the entertainment website TMZ that she ended her relationship with him. Regardless, they’ve broken up – again.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said this during the extremely boring NASCAR race from Talladega Sunday: "This isn’t my kind of racing." Mine neither. Another one like that and NASCAR is going to have to revisit restrictor plate racing at that speedway.

Clint Bowyer won, with Jeff Burton second and – what??? – Dave Blaney third. That had to have been Blaney’s best finish of his entire NASCAR Sprint Cup career. In fact, his best previous finish was – are you ready for this? – 19^th in a race back in 2002.

With four races to go, Carl Edwards still leads the Chase, with Matt Kenseth second and Brad Keselowski third. Tony Stewart is fourth and knockin’ at the door. Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson are really too far out of first place to be thinking of winning, ergo NASCAR will crown a new Sprint Cup champion this year.

Finally, drag racer Ike Maier of Vaughan will close out the 2011 NHRA Drag Racing Series season at Las Vegas next weekend at the 11^th annual Big O Tires NHRA Nationals.

He’ll be driving the all-Canadian Paton Racing Top Fuel Dragster with sponsorship from Tim Hortons. Maier says he’ll leave his ‘63 Corvette Pro Mod at home this time to concentrate on the Top Fuel car.

He says he’d like to go out with a qualifying run and a round or two.

Go get ‘em, Ike.

Make Isle of Man motorcycle racing safer, or else

I love – or at least appreciate – all forms of the motor sport. There are some I like more than others but, in the end, I admire the courage of everybody who gets into, or onto, a racing machine of any kind.

I must admit, however, to being apprehensive every time I watch motorcycle racing. It is so bloody dangerous.

And some of it is even more dangerous than others – so dangerous, in fact, that even I have to question whether it should be allowed to continue as is.

I talk today about the racing that goes on each year at the Ilse of Man in which an average – an average – of a little over two riders a year are killed in competition. (That’s just the organized racing toll; the number of motorcycle deaths recorded on public roads during the annual two-week festival of speed is frightening – 10 people died in 1993 alone, for instance.)

In 100-plus years of competition, starting in 1907 and including 2010, 233 competitors were killed during the island’s Manx Grand Prix and the Clubman Tourist Trophy races.

Just this week, two more were added to that list. Sidecar racer Bill Currie, 67, and his passenger, Kevin Morgan, 59, were killed. As is usual in these incidents, all the news stories included this paragraph:

"The coroner of inquests has been informed and an investigation into the circumstances of the accident is under way."

Which makes me wonder: in investigating 235 (and counting) fatal accidents over the years, has the coroner of inquests not come to some conclusions? That perhaps this particular racing course might be too dangerous?

Motor racing, by definition, is dangerous. Which is why great efforts have been made to make it safer. There hasn’t been a fatal accident in a Formula One race since 1994. NASCAR Sprint Cup races feature a "big one" every race now and everybody just ups and walks away. Ditto Indy car racing.

Why? Because of improvements to the cars, helmets, the HANS device and SAFER barriers. Motor sport should be about competition, not gore, and auto racing in particular has met the challenge.

And strides have been made in motorcycle racing to try to make it safer, also. The riders – if you strip away their leathers – look like mediaeval knights underneath.

So the problem at the Ilse of Man would seem to be more with the course than with the protective equipment worn by the riders.

The "track" at the Ilse of Man is not a racing circuit at all, but public roads. They are narrow, winding, undulating strips of pavement with stone walls on either side. Many – if not all – of the fatal accidents happen when a rider is going too fast and can’t make a turn and smashes into one of those walls.

So, my question today is, can the authorities not do something to try to cut down on the carnage at that place? Install SAFER barriers at particularly dangerous sections? Or – horrors – enforce a speed limit at places where riders are more likely to die than at others? Or something like those two suggestions?

The sollution - really - is fairly simple. It will just take some courage on the part of the organizers - the same kind of courage shown by the riders - to do it.

It's not rocket science. Just make the course safer. Or the government will step in one of these days and we all know what happens when government gets involved.

Better to act now, before it's too late.

Yes, I know. Those racers are there because they want to be there. But to a one, I guarantee you that – given a choice – they would like to "be there" again next year, and the year after that, rather than never "being there" again.