Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

No Canadian Tire stock cars at next Honda Indy Toronto

The rumours have turned out to be true – that Canadian Tire planned to take a pass on participating at the 2012 Honda Indy Toronto.

For now, at least.

NASCAR issued the 2012 Canadian Tire Series schedule this afternoon and there are 12 races on it but the July 6-8 Honda Indy isn’t one of them.

Although there is an asterisk at the bottom that says “tentative, subject to change,” the fact that the sanctioning body chose to issue it without the Toronto race on it is telling.

The Canadian stock car series will race on the same program as the IZOD IndyCar Series in Canada next year but it will be in Edmonton in late July, rather than through the streets of the CNE two weeks earlier.

What once was known as CASCAR was long a partner of the Molson Indy Toronto but that arrangement came to an end early in the millenium when the price to participate got too high (yes, the racers in most support series, or their sponsors, pay to race at big events).

After the series changed hands, NASCAR Canada and its partner, TSN, negotiated the Canadian Tire series back onto the Honda Indy weekend schedule and the series headlined the Saturday program the last two years.

TSN broadcast the race live last July.

But that arrangement has come to an end, apparently.

There are still seven months to go before the Toronto race, so here’s hoping there’s a change of heart on the part of one of the parties. The stock cars always put on a good show.

Meantime, here is the text of the release from NASCAR and the calendar:

NASCAR announced today the 2012 schedule for the sixth season of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, which includes many of the top racing facilities throughout Canada.

Next season’s schedule features 12 dates at 12 different tracks across six provinces. The slate includes tracks and events familiar to the series, with Edmonton returning to the schedule after a one-year hiatus.

The 2012 schedule has a great mix of tracks that will deliver the exciting racing that our Canadian fans have become accustomed,” said George Silbermann, NASCAR vice president, regional and touring series. “Each year with the help from our friends at Canadian Tire, this series continues to grow and evolve. This upcoming season should be the best yet.”

“For the first time in series history, on May 20, the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series opens its season at the 2.459-mile Mosport International Raceway road course near Bowmanville, Ont. 

For the sixth consecutive year, the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series will share Montreal’s legendary Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on IÎe Notre Dame with the NASCAR Nationwide Series on Saturday, Aug. 18.

Additionally, in a pairing with the IZOD IndyCar Series, the series returns to Edmonton on the new 2.256-mile Edmonton (Alberta) City Centre Airport course that debuted last year.

Joining the Edmonton event, the annual swing through Western Canada includes two other stops: At Motoplex Speedway in Vernon, B.C., and Auto Clearing Motor Speedway in Saskatoon, Sask.

In what has become a tradition, the season will close with a new champion crowned at Kawartha Speedway, the .375-mile oval near Peterborough, Ont., on Saturday, Sept. 22.

“Canadian Tire has been a proud sponsor of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series since 2006,” said Allan MacDonald, Senior Vice-President of Automotive for Canadian Tire. “It’s thrilling to see how the sport of racing has continued to grow over the years alongside the enthusiasm of Canadian racing fans. We’re looking forward to yet another exciting season on the track in 2012.”

Other 2012 highlights include:

•         The 2012 schedule includes races on seven ovals: Auto Clearing, Barrie Speedway, Delaware Speedway, Kawartha, Mosport Speedway, Motoplex and Riverside International Speedway; and five road courses: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Circuit ICAR, Circuit de Trois-Rivieres, Edmonton, and Mosport.

•         On June 2-3, the series returns to Circuit ICAR in Mirabel, Que., for the second straight season.

•         June 16 will be the series’ sixth consecutive year of competing at Mosport Speedway.

•         June 23 will mark the fourth consecutive visit to Delaware (Ont.) Speedway.

•         The wildly popular Grand Prix de Trois-Rivieres in Quebec is on tap for Aug. 4-5.

•         The Barrie Speedway date is set for Saturday, Sept. 8. Each of the past five trips to Barrie on this weekend has resulted in overflow crowds.

•         Riverside International Speedway, in Antigonish, hosts the series on Sept. 15. Riverside, with its high-banked turns, is a .333-mile scale version of the legendary Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

2012 NASCAR CANADIAN TIRE SERIES SCHEDULE

 Date   Track (Length)      Location

May 20        Mosport Int'l Raceway (2.459-Mile road course)     Bowmanville, Ont.

June 3          Circuit ICAR (2.113-Mile road course)         Mirabel, Que.

June 16        Mosport Speedway (.5-Mile)     Bowmanville, Ont.

June 23        Delaware Speedway (.5-Mile)    Delaware, Ont.

July 14         Motoplex Speedway (.5-Mile)   Vernon, B. C.

July 22         Edmonton City Centre Airport (2.256-Mile road course)   Edmonton, Alberta

July 25         Auto Clearing Motor Speedway (.333-Mile)  Saskatoon, Sask.

Aug. 5         Circuit de Trois-Rivieres (1.53-Mile road course)    Trois-Rivieres, Que.

Aug. 18       Circuit Gilles Villeneuve (2.71-Mile road course)     Montreal, Que.

Sept. 8         Barrie Speedway (.333-Mile)     Barrie, Ont.

Sept. 15       Riverside Int’l Speedway (.333-Mile)   Antigonish, N. S.

Sept. 22       Kawartha Speedway (.375-Mile)          Fraserville, Ont.

Tentative - Subject to Change

If Wickens wants F1 ride, he should try IndyCar

For much of the last five years, Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto has been Canada’s next best Formula One hope. He’s turned heads every time he’s been in a car and on a track.

This year, he won the European-based World Series by Renault after finishing second the two previous seasons in GP3 and Formula 2. At Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, he drove a Marussia-Virgin F1 car in first practice on the Friday of the Grand Prix meeting, becoming the first Canadian to participate at that level since Jacques Villeneuve.

There then followed several days of Young Driver testing, in which he was very competitive when at the wheel of a quality car (third fastest on the first day when driving a Renault, for instance) but well down the pecking order (second last, in fact) when saddled with the Marussia.

Wickens is 22, lightning fast, good-looking and media-trained to a fault — everything you would want in a young tiger of a driver.

But he’s not on the F1 radar in Europe. He was mentioned almost in passing in dispatches from the Abu Dhabi test. The guy he beat for the Renault championship, Jean-Eric Vergne of France, got most of the ink and is currently the media favourite for an F1 seat in 2012 at Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Yes, Wickens could drive for Marussia-Virgin in F1 in 2012, but only if he’s able to bring between 3.5 and 5 million Euros to the table and, although there are people beating the bushes in Canada on his behalf, it doesn’t look likely.

And any hopes he might have harboured for a seat with one of the more competitive Grand Prix teams pretty much went out the window on Wednesday this week when Robert Kubica announced that he won’t drive for Renault in 2012 and all the stories then mentioned three or four drivers in line for his seat and not one of them was Robert Wickens (who’d done a pretty good job in that car at the Abu Dhabi test, remember).

Now, Vancouver businessman Teddy Yip Jr. has been a big backer of Wickens' for a number of years, so the driver could take whatever support he has and do yet another season in yet another F1 feeder series  (he hasn’t raced in GP2 as yet) but what would that prove? If finishing first once and second twice in three major European series to date isn’t good enough, one more isn’t going to do much for him.

And, yes, there is the slight possibility that he could drive for Marussia-Virgin next season without having to bring money but, again, what would that prove? Trundling around at the back of the pack, seven or eight seconds off the pace, could do more harm to his reputation than good, I would suggest.

So, if you’re Robert Wickens and your dream is a competitive ride in Formula One, what do you do?

I say he puts whatever financial support he has today in a briefcase, and he gets on a plane and flies to the United States of America, and he knocks on the door of one Michael Andretti, who happens to have a pretty good seat available in his pretty good IZOD IndyCar Series racing team. 

He hands the team owner the briefcase and he flashes that million-dollar smile of his and he says: “Hi, Mr. Andretti. I’m your new GoDaddy boy.”

And if Michael Andrett is smart – and I think he is – he hires the young Canadian on the spot because he's the complete package: he's got talent, good looks, some money and he's media savvy.

If Wickens then goes out and wins the the IndyCar championship, I guarantee that the top teams in Formula One would take notice. Even if he doesn't win the title, but he's winning races and/or fighting for wins, his name will be in headlines.

Robert Wickens will get more attention, and find it more satisfying being a celebrity front-line Indy car racer in North America, than he ever will being a "maybe" or a "might-have-been" overseas.

Don't believe me? Two words:

Dario Franchitti.

Lewis Hamilton gives Nicole Scherzinger the cold shoulder

Lewis Hamilton and Nicole Scherzinger seen during happier times. (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

F1 driver Lewis Hamilton has been photographed with his celebrity ex-girlfriend, Nicole Scherzinger, in a Los Angeles parking lot where they apparently bumped into each other.

Apparently . . .

There has been no explanation about just how they came to meet up, or who tipped off the photographer who just happened to be there to record the reunion.

Nicole is shown giving Lewis a big hug while he appears to be quite stand-offish.

Judge for yourself.

According to the Daily Mail website, the reason he kept his hand in his pocket while she embraced him is because he’s been hurt by their breakup and doesn’t want to get close to her again.

Of course, there could be another reason: his embarrassment over her undraped appearance in the coffee-table book Culo that is being released in the U.S. today (Wednesday) and which features a whole bunch of bare derrieres, Nicole’s included (along with Lady Gaga, Stacy Keibler, Paris Hilton and the rest of the usual suspects when it comes to celebrity women taking off their clothes for the camera).

Hamilton was in L.A. for an appearance on behalf of Rebok, one of his many sponsors. He will drive in the season-ending Grand Prix of Brazil at Sao Paulo on Sunday.

Oh, and why are social notes such as these included in an auto racing blog?

Because Lewis Hamilton is a former world driving champion whose life and career have become, shall we say, erratic in the last couple of years. There has to be a reason for this change in him and it appears that she is a big part of it.

Okay, moving right along to other motorsport topics:

– It seems that Kyle Busch isn’t the only member of that family who has little or no control over his emotions. Older brother Kurt Busch dropped out of Sunday’s final NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Homestead-Miami with transmission trouble and, according to USA Today, had a meltdown while waiting to be interviewed by ESPN announcer Jerry Punch.

Angry that ESPN didn’t cut into the race action immediately so he could be interviewed, Busch let the good doctor have it with both barrels – a "profanity-laced tirade," was the way the newspaper described it. Finally, Punch said to forget it and walked off.

As always happens in these cases, Penske Racing, which employs Kurt Busch, apologized first and then Kurt - just like his little brother had to do a week ago - pitched in with an apology of his own.

Don’t those two guys know that saying sorry isn’t good enough any more?

Maybe it was the first time it happened, but the world is now officially tired of those two. Their five minutes are up. Penske should fire Kurt Busch and if Kyle steps one inch out of line between now and the end of his career, Joe Gibbs should fire him too.

Then I have a great idea: let them go Cup racing on their own dime. They can afford it.

– Meantime, the development of exciting and talented young Canadian racing drivers continues apace. Two-time Canadian Karting League (CKL) Junior Champion Matt Garwood has been selected to compete in a fully sponsored entry for Vallis Motor Sport in the Canadian F1200 Championship in 2012.

Garwood, of Elmvale, Ont., was one of 11 Canadian Karting League drivers who competed in an evaluation day at Mosport a few weeks ago. He learned of his selection to drive when the car - to be sponsored by Chris Bye's Franczak Enterprises Ltd. - was unveiled at the recent Canadian Karting League banquet and his name was on it.

"Being selected by Chris Bye from 10 other finalists . . . is a tremendous honour and definitely an exciting opportunity for me," Garwood said. "Chris is a true racer and Bill Vallis is legend in Formula Vee competition. I think working with Chris and Bill will be a recipe for winning on and off the track. I'm already looking forward to going racing next season."

- While Honda Indy Toronto tickets go on sale today for the 2012 race next July, the Honda Indy Edmonton had an announcement of its own.

The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series will once again be part of the show later next July at the City Centre Airport circuit, Francois Dumontier, president and CEO of Octane Motorsports Events, has announced.

The Canadian Tire race was a fixture at the Edmonton Champ Car/IndyCar weekend from 2007 until 2010. Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., earned pole position on three occasions and won the 2009 race, while J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge was the winner in 2007 and 2010, when he also won the pole.

Alex Tagliani of Montreal won the 2008 event - a performance that might well have saved his big-league racing career.

The 2011 IndyCar stop in Edmonton nearly didn’t happen and by the time the race was saved, it was too late to make a deal for the NASCAR race to be included.

– The 2012 Porsche GT3 Challenge Cup series is stepping up. From six races at three tracks in 2011, the series will go to nine races at five circuits next year.

New on the calendar are the Victoria Day Sprints at Mosport, the Canadian Grand Prix weekend in Montreal in June and a mid-summer meet at Le Circuit-Mont Tremblant.

The season will actually kick off in February with a winter test scheduled at Sebring in Florida.

– BMW is returning to the German Touring Car Championship in a big way. In addition to luring perennial contender Bruno Spengler away from Mercedes (the Canadian finished third in the series again in 2011), the Munich manufacturer has also signed multi-time champion Andy Priaulx, Augusto Farfus and then, just the other day, current DTM champion Martin Tomczyk, who quit Audi to make the move.

A powerhouse lineup, for sure.

Edwards on NASCAR pole; Video - NASCAR Canada

SATURDAY EVENING UPDATE: Brad Keselowski won the final NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway Saturday while Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who finished second, won the series championship. Carl Edwards, in the hunt for the Sprint Cup title, finished third in the race.

Earlier, Edwards won the pole for the Sprint Cup showdown Sunday afternoon, with Martin Truex Jr. second and Kasey Kahne third. Tony Stewart, the only driver other than Edwards in contention to win the Chase for the NASCAR Championship, will go off 15th.

Earlier . . .

The best kept secret in Canadian sports is the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this video,  which gives you an idea of what this series is all about.

When you finish watching the video, make plans to watch the Year in Review TV program that is scheduled to be shown Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. on TSN2.

(It will be shown again on TSN2 Monday at 8:30 p.m., Tuesday at 3 p.m. and again next Saturday at 11 p.m. Don’t get TSN2? It will be on the main channel, TSN, on Wednesday at midnight and next Friday at 4 p.m.)

 

Speaking of NASCAR, the big showdown for the Sprint Cup Chase for the Championship will take place Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida. The pre-race show will be on TSN2 at 2 p.m. and the green flag will fly at 3 p.m.

The only two drivers who can win the title are two-time champion Tony Stewart, who has won four of the Chase races to date, and Carl Edwards, who has won none.

However, Edwards leads by three points (Stewart won the race last weekend at Phoenix and still couldn’t overcome the three-point lead Edwards had going in: NORRIS NOTE - I apologize for the severe brain fade here - Kasey Kahne won the Phoenix race) and has won two races at Homestead-Miami to Stewart’s none, so  they’re really pretty even.

Of course, the trash-talking dominated the last media conference of the week and what would you expect?

Best line was Stewart’s: “I’d wreck my mom to win a championship.”

Of course you would, Smoke, and so would Edwards.

Incidentally, TSN2 will carry the NASCAR Nationwide race Saturday at 4 p.m. And the last truck race of the Camping World Series can be seen tonight on Speed TV at 8 p.m.

Incidentally, NASCAR has still not issued a truck series schedule for 2012. Speculation continues to swirl about a potential Mosport date for that series . . .

Here’s some hard news: Suzuki Motor Corp. has pulled out of motorcycle racing at the Moto GP level but says it will be back on track for the 2014 season.

In a student, Suzuki said: "Suzuki Motor Corp. has decided to suspend temporarily its participation in FIM Road Racing Grand Prix MotoGP from 2012.

"This suspension is to cope with tough circumstances mainly caused by the prolonged recession in developed countries, a historical appreciation of Japanese yen and repeated natural disasters.

"Having an eye to returning to MotoGP in 2014, Suzuki will now focus on developing a competitive new racing machine for that class.

"Suzuki will continue motocross racing activity and support of road racing activities using mass-produced motorcycles, by obtaining FIM homologation and co-operation with the supplier of its development racing kit parts."

Ace Suzuki rider Alvaro Bautist has already left the team for Honda.

Finally, ekartingnews.com is live-streaming editor/publisher Rob Howden’s race call of the Superkarts! USA SuperNationals competition this weekend in Las Vegas. It started Friday morning and will go all weekend at link here.

Four IndyCar racers are entered:  Raphael Matos, EJ Viso, Jay Howard and Martin Plowman.

Rob reports that the team Dan Wheldon was supposed to run with has his prepped kart in Vegas and, as a tribute, his name will be kept on the entry list and in the results. Dan was well-loved in the paddock and his absence is much noted, Rob says.

Look what's going on out at Mosport

Here is a ton of auto racing news to chew on:

First, the subject that’s been on everybody’s mind going back to early in the summer. Exactly what do Mosport’s new owners plan to do with the facility?

There have been all sorts of rumours – that it would become a country club with multimillion-dollar houses owned by people who would drive their Ferraris around the place after work, and so-on – but, as new owner (one of three) Ron Fellows said: "Mosport is an auto racing facility and will always be an auto racing facility. It is in the big-event racing business and it is open for business.”

One of the problems Mosport has faced, however, is that the place is pretty much the same as it’s been since 1962 when the Control Tower was built. Yes, Andy Evans (who owned the place for a few years in the late-1990s) removed the “hump” at the end of the back straightaway that caused cars to “take off,” and Don Panoz, who most recently owned the park, widened the track itself, but other than that, Mosport has been the same place it’s been for years and years.

In order to attract the top series (NASCAR, anyone? IndyCar, perhaps?), improvements to bring the place up to top-professional series standards were sorely needed. So renovations have commenced:

Below are photos taken in recent days of the new tunnel under the track, between corners 9 and 10, that is replacing the single-lane tunnel that was put in when the place was built in 1960 (it opened for racing in 1961).

The new tunnel will allow transport-trailers to enter the infield and leave the infield while racing is taking place. Previously, competitors had to wait until end of day before leaving the facility by driving across the race track.

In addition to the two lanes reserved for modern-day race-car haulers, there will also be a pedestrian walkway. Until now, as everybody knows, people walking through that tunnel had to wait for a break in the traffic and then run through the tunnel for fear of being caught in there when a car or truck approached.

Here are three photos to illustrate what’s happening out there. I am told, by the way, that this will be the major change for the 2012 season. Additional improvements are planned (a new corporate centre, a new media centre, etc.) but those will happen in due course.

Okay, moving right along:

- A brand new Canadian Monster Truck will make its world-wide debut a week from Wednesday (Nov. 30) at 11 a.m. at the Rogers Centre. Details to follow. That’s what the press release says and who am I to argue?

-- Pirelli says that following an extensive investigation of the circumstances that led to Sebastian Vettel’s right-rear tire suddenly deflating on the opening lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last weekend, a structural failure of the tire has been ruled out as the cause. The tire company added that track debris or other outside circumstances cannot be excluded as a possible cause.

“Other outside circumstances?”

What’s that? Sabotage?

My guess: the tire was under-inflated to start with and the bead broke when Vettel turned left and the weight of the car shifted to the right rear.

- Keith Wiggins’ HVM Racing team (Simona de Silvestro, up) and Bryan Herta Autosport will be formally announced as Lotus engine runners in the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series during a press conference Thursday  at the Los Angeles auto show.

The two teams are the first official Lotus-powered participants. Chevrolet and Honda are the two other engine manufacturers involved in the series.

 “I know a lot of people are skeptical but I’ve spent a lot of time with those people and I’m very optimistic it will be the better engine,” said Wiggins, whose Indy-based operation will be renamed Lotus/HVM and get support from the livery made famous by the late Colin Chapman.

 “We were interested in being with Lotus from the beginning and we came to a partnership agreement two months ago,” Wiggins said.

- Meantime, Panther Racing has confirmed that it has exercised its two-year option on J.R. Hildebrand’s contract, ensuring that the 23-year-old Californian will pilot the team’s No. 4 U.S. National Guard entry for the 2012 and 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series seasons.

Hildebrand, the reining Indianapolis 500 runner-up and top race rookie, just completed his first full IndyCar Series season for Panther and led three races while collecting two top five and five top ten  finishes during the year.

Hildebrand finished second in the IndyCar series’ Rookie of the Year race to Canadian James Hinchcliffe, of Oakville.

- Note to IndyCar: Three offshore powerboat racers were killed in racing action this week at the Key West (Fla.) World Championships. The racing continued, despite the fatalities.

- Toronto-born Darren Law will race a new Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype in the 2012 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series, it was announced this week.

Law will return to Action Express Racing, driving the No. 5 Corvette DP. The Phoenix driver was in Daytona Beach for the introduction this week of the car, the first built to third-generation Daytona Prototype specifications.

Speaking of that car, if you look at it one way, it looks like a Corvette. If you look at it another way, it looks like a Daytona Prototype. I like the look of Corvettes; I don’t like the look of the DPs. So I’m conflicted.      

- Ace track PR man Tommy Goudge reports that the 2011 Ohsweken Speedway season was capped off in fine fashion last Saturday night with the annual awards banquet at the Marritt Hall in Ancaster. Jim Huppunen was honoured as the fourth champion of the Corr/Pak Merchandising Sprint Car division, while Mike Thorne was crowned Lighthouse Tattoos Thunder Stock champion. Karl Sault received HRW Automotive Mini Stock accolades while Rodney Rutherford was awarded his trophy as champion of the Pierced Parts Bomber division.

- Mike Vincec of Stouffville (below) is set to return to the 15th running of the SuperKarts! USA SuperNationals, which start Friday. Taking on the headline KZ2 class against some of the top shifter kart pilots from around the world, Vincec will look to cap off his 2011 season with a strong result at the Las Vegas event.

Good luck, Mike!

- And finally, rally ace Andrew Comrie-Picard of Toronto (known to his friends as "ACP") will host the pilot episode tonight of Battle Cross, a new action television show premiering on Speed TV at 10 p.m. Eastern. The high-energy, action-packed show will feature two pro drivers battling for best time and style on a stunt course laid out by ACP and tested in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X rallycross car.

I’ll be watching. Will you?

Canadian Wickens third fastest in F1 test

Canadian Robert Wickens set third fastest time in a test of young drivers in Grand Prix cars at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi today, serving notice that he is ready for prime time in Formula One.

Driving for Lotus-Renault, Wickens - of Guelph and Toronto - finished split seconds behind Jean-Eric Vergne, who he defeated this season in the World Series by Renault Formula 3.5 Series. Vergne was in a Red Bull-Renault.

Here are links to two stories I think you will find interesting:

Lotus-Renault impressed with Wickens

Vergne on top as Abu-Dhabi test kicks off

Remembering Len Coates

Every time I drive past Islington Ave. on Highway 401, I think of Len Coates.

 

Labatt used to have a brewery there on the north side, east of Islington, and it’s there that one of the photos attached to this story today was taken.

 

It’s the black-and-white picture, right below this paragraph. Len (he’s the good-looking guy in the middle) is seen with the late, great Mark Donohue, and they would likely have been at Labatt's to promote the 1971 Canadian Grand Prix (in which Donohue finished third).

PHOTO OF LEN COATES (MIDDLE) AND MARK DONOHUE, COURTESY OF BRUCE BONHAM

For many years after he graduated from Ryerson University, Len was an automotive reporter and writer, motor racing publicist and motorsport columnist for, among other publications, the Toronto Star. He was amazingly talented, incredibly knowledgeable, extremely well-connected and simply marvelous company.

He was also a tad irresponsible – but nobody cared because all the good things outweighed the little bit of bad.

I’m thinking of Len today, nearly six years after his death in February, 2006, because tonight at Ryerson, I will be one of the presenters of three Len Coates Memorial bursaries that have been awarded to journalism students there every year since 2007. The bursaries are funded by Rod and Sandy Campbell of Los Angeles (Rod’s in the second photo accompanying this story, down at the bottom; he’s the good-looking guy on the right, with Canadian ex-Formula One team owner Walter Wolf and his son Max at a Grand Prix in Europe a few years ago).

Len and Rod were great pals, going back to the 1960s when Rod hired Len to write for the Toronto-based Canada Track & Traffic magazine. Later, when Rod started Campbell & Co. in Detroit to handle motorsports PR for the Ford Motor Co., he hired both Len and his brother, Bert Coates.

They were so close that Rod was one of the first people Len called after finding out the cancer that would eventually kill him was terminal. The conversation went something like this:

COATES: I have good news and bad news.

CAMPBELL: Give me the bad news first.

COATES: I’m dying of cancer.

CAMPBELL: My God, if that’s the bad news, what’s the good news?

COATES: I won’t get Alzheimer’s.

That black humour, and a sometimes-off kilter way of looking at life, was what made Len loveable – to most people. Among his critics were the principal and other academics of Ryerson University. When he was editor of the Ryersonian newspaper, he drove those bureaucrats crazy with his editorials (and editorial cartoons) suggesting the university experience was all about the students and not about the staff. They didn't like that so much. 

Len started his newspaper career working for Conrad Black on the Sherbrooke Record before joining the old Toronto Telegram and, eventually, the Star. He is credited with inventing automotive journalism and, in fact, was the founding president of AJAC (the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada), which celebrated 30 years of existence yesterday and which awards a $2,000 scholarship in his name each year to a student at Carleton University's School of Journalism.

So tonight will be a happy time at Ryerson. Among the missing, however, will be Rod and Sandy Campbell (they’ll be represented by Rod's brother Ross, of Burlington; Brian Cantley will award the second of the three bursaries). Rod is serving on a jury in L.A. (a murder trial) and unable to get away.

Just as Len was a pioneer in automotive journalism, Rod Campbell was a pioneer in the promotion of motorsport activities in Canada and the United States as well as the managing of motorsport enterprises. The love of racing and the people involved is what attracted them to one another.

"I went to my first car race, at the Nurburgring, in 1958," he told me once. "Moss and Brooks were in the Vanwalls, Collins and Hawthorne were driving for Ferrari. I got a seat across from the pits and, in those days, they had minute boards they held up to count down to the start of the race. So those cars were revving up and the whole ground just shook. I'd never seen a race before and I was enthralled."

He got into radio in sales in London, Ont., and sold a package of spots to Ed Leavens, a car dealer who raced on the weekends. "So I'd go to the races and phone in reports, making sure to mention how Ed did. He was a great racer, so that wasn't hard. I'd make money for the station and money for myself and keep a key advertiser happy. It worked really well."

Rod once described himself to me as a "quintessential hustler."

"I was living and working in Montreal. I chartered a plane from Air Canada to go to the Indy 500. I'd fill that up, buy the tickets, fly everybody down, bus everybody to the race, watch the race, bus everybody back to the airport, get on the plane and go home. I'd make some money and everybody was happy.

"In 1964, Sachs and MacDonald were killed. Dick Irvine was just starting out on the air on the CTV channel in Montreal (CFCF) and he interviewed me about it when we got back. That went okay so he asked me if I wanted to do the sports on TV on the weekends. I said 'sure,' because I only had about three things going on . . . I was sales manager at CFOX (a Montreal radio station), we were trying to figure out how to get St. Jovite built (Le Circuit-Mont Tremblant) so why not do TV, too?"

Well, he was instrumental in getting Le Circuit built (with the help of many others, including Ross de St. Croix and John Ross), was the track announcer there (with Pierre Luc and Jacques Duval) and at Mosport for the first F1 Grand Prix of Canada (with Dave Cook), was the first PR guy hired to promote the original Can-Am Series and then went to work for Liggett and Myers Tobacco in 1970 to represent Jackie Stewart (a friendship that continues to this day).

When L&M pulled out of racing at the end of 1973, Campbell got a call from American millionaire Brett Lunger to manage his F1 career.

"We did a deal with John Surtees to put Brett in one of his cars," he told me. "That was the year (1976) that Brett crashed with Niki Lauda at the Nurburgring and Lauda was nearly killed. Niki had crashed and Brett T-boned him; he and Guy Edwards pulled Niki out of the car.

"I still have his trophies; he wasn't interested in keeping any of it. I have his shoes from that crash, with burn holes through the soles."

When Lunger decided to stop racing, Campbell went to see Walter Wolf, who'd purchased all of Frank Williams' equipment after supporting him for a year.

"Walter knew I was the only other Canadian on the scene and he ran with the Maple Leaf flag on his car. He said to come in with him and be his marketing guy and PR guy and it was the most fun I ever had in racing. Jody Scheckter was the driver, Harvey Postlethwaite was the designer and Peter Warr was the team manager. We finished second in the world championship: we won Argentina, Monaco and we won the 1977 Canadian Grand Prix. It was fan-tastic."

By the time Wolf got out of racing, Campbell had started Campbell and Co. in Detroit and the rest, as they say, is history.

These days, he's still hard at it. He's currently busy helping young California racing driver Gustavo Menezes to establish himself as a professional racing driver and he's very involved in the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame, a project that -- as many of us know -- can use his help.

Which reminds me.

The Motorsport Hall is offering an Early Bird Discount for 2012 Induction Gala tickets. (Rod's been a marketing and PR guy all his life, so won't mind me sticking this in . . .)

Tickets for the 18th annual Gala, scheduled for April 21, 2012, at On The Park, Toronto, went on sale this week and those purchasing and paying for tickets prior to Dec. 31, 2011, will received a $20 discount per ticket - a saving of $200 for a table of 10.

You may order tickets by calling 905-852-6764 or emailing countryroad@andrewswireless.net

I'll be there to act as Master of Ceremonies, and if that trial in California that's kept him from attending tonight's celebration at Ryerson is over, so will Rod and Sandy.

Why not plan to join us? We'll have a swell time.

ROD CAMPBELL (RIGHT) WITH CANADIAN F1 TEAM OWNER WALTER WOLF AND HIS SON MAX.

Roundup: No NASCAR winner, Hamilton tops in F1

WEEKEND ROUNDUP:

1. The NASCAR race at Phoenix didn’t solve anything. Carl Edwards, who led the Sprint Cup Chase for the Championship by three points over Tony Stewart going into Phoenix, flew out of Phoenix leading the championship by three points over Tony Stewart. It will all come down to the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway next Sunday.

2. World Champion Sebastien Vettel suffered a flat tire and spun out of the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi on the first lap and that was all she wrote for Lewis Hamilton, who inherited the lead and led the rest of the way.

3. World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb wrapped up his eighth consecutive championship on Friday  (take that, Jimmie Johnson) and then, heading for the final stage, he collided with a car that wasn’t even in the rally.

What???

4. Other racing results, but first . . .

FORMULA ONE

Just about the only reason to continue watching Formula One races this season evaporated about 10 seconds into Sunday’s Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi when something caused pole-position winner Sebastien Vettel’s right-rear tire to lose all its air and he spun off the Yas Marina Circuit, handing second-place starter Lewis Hamilton a gift victory.

Fernando Alonso, who really earned his money this weekend by charging up from fifth on the grid to second by the end of the first lap, finished in exactly that position for Ferrari while Jenson Button, Hamilton’s McLaren-Mercedes teammate, was third.

Except for the first lap excitement, it was a largely uneventful Grand Prix. Full story and results here

Mark Webber finished fourth for Red Bull-Renault, Felipe Massa fifth for Ferrari, Nico Roseberg sixth for Mercedes, Michael Schumacher seventh for ditto, Adrien Sutil and Paul di Resta eighth and ninth for Force India, and Kamui Kobayashi tenth for Sauber.

"Way to go, boys," an elated Hamilton said over the team’s radio on the cool-down lap. "I'm glad I could do it for you. I want to dedicate this victory to my mom: happy birthday – and thanks for coming."

It was the first time Vettel hadn’t finished a race since last season at Korea, when his car suffered engine problems. It also ended a remarkable string of 19 consecutive races in which he had scored points.

So far as the tire is concerned, Pirelli, the manufacturer, said it would conduct an investigation but had no immediate theories and suggested they may never find the cause.

Vettel had won his second consecutive World Championship three races ago at Japan. Although some people have argued that F1 races continue to be worth watching because drivers are fighting for their jobs for next year and so-on, the only real reason (other than simply enjoying F1) has been to see if Vettel could match, or beat, a couple of records.

On Saturday, during qualifying, he matched Nigel Mansell’s single-season record for poles – 14 – and can beat that record in two weeks at Brazil.

(However, in 1992, Mansell won pole 14 times in just a 16-race season – pretty close to total domination in that category. Vettel now has 14 poles in 18 races, with one to go. But a record is a record and there will be keen interest in qualifying at the final race in Sao Paulo.)

The other record Vettel had a chance of equaling was Michael Schumacher’s most-wins-in-a-season – 13, set in 2004. Vettel had 11 going into Abu Dhabi and had his sights set on a tie but the flat tire put an end to that.

Hamilton has not had a good season to date, colliding not only with his own teammate (in Canada) but also several times in recent races with Felipe Massa. To say he was excited to win his third race of the season, the 17^th of his career and No. 175 in the history of Team McLaren would be an understatement.

"I feel fantastic," he said. "After Sebastien went off and I got the lead (he'd been second off the line behind Vettel), it was just a matter of managing the tires and managing the gap (back to Alonso). The team did a great job on pit stops and I'm just very, very happy to be back up here.

"It was one of my best races – I said that to myself as I slowed down. I’m ecstatic, very happy to be back up here. I can get on my flight tonight and smile!"

Alonso, who’s been on the podium 10 times in 2011, agreed that he nearly caught Hamilton just before the second round of pit stops but that there had been bad luck when Ferrari called him in.

"The last pit stop, we were two seconds slower than the McLaren," he said. "We had some traffic coming into the pits, there was an HRT in front of us, but then at the end of the day it was a good fight and a good day for us. It was quite enjoyable."

Button, who’d finished third at Abu Dhabi for the third consecutive year, explained that he'd had problems with his KERS system throughout the race, losing it and then getting it back, and that had created anxiety every time he went to put on the brakes.

"Any time I went into a corner, I didn't know what I was going to get. Would the KERS help with the braking (through engine braking), or not? At the end of the day, though, I'm fairly happy."

With NASCAR wrapping up it's season next weekend in Florida, the Grand Prix of Brazil in two weeks will bring down the curtain on the 2011 racing season.

NOTEBOOK JOTTINGS:

– If Williams is seriously considering hiring Kimi Raikkonen in place of Rubens Barrichello for 2012, Barrichellos’s performance Sunday might make them stop and think again. He started 23^rd and finished 12^th (he was nearly in the top ten) and if you don’t think that’s all that big a deal, it is.

I guarantee that anybody out of F1 for two years is not going to be able to waltz back in and be on pace. It took Michael Schumacher an entire season to get back into the groove and he’s a seven-time world champion.

Williams doesn’t have that much time to waste if it has designs of getting back into the top grouping.

Although Barrichello carried the Williams flag well, their young driver, Pastor Maldonado, had an embarrassing day. He kept getting into people’s way and that’s a no-no in F1.

Oh, by the way, both McLaren and Ferrari, who employed Raikkonen, are egging Williams on to make a deal with him. If he’s that good, who don’t one of them sign him up?

– After he dropped out, Vettel stayed with the team for the rest of the race (good) but didn’t present himself for a pit interview (bad). Racing drivers are always ready to answer questions when things go well but tend to make themselves scarce when things are not so good. They owe their popularity to their fans, who want to hear their heroes speak either way. Sebastien should know that by now.

– Social note: Pro golfer Rory McIlroy and his sweetie, tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, watched the race together and broke into big grins when they saw that the cameras were on them.

NASCAR

Kasey Kahne won the Sprint Cup race, with Carl Edwards second and Tony Stewart third (full story, results here), but the real story of the weekend wasn’t so much the race or the Chase but the difficulty drivers had running the "new" Phoenix International Raceway.

Although there was much fanfare last spring when International Speedway Corp. announced that Phoenix would be renovated, at the end of the day they didn’t do much beyond paving the place. The basic layout is still there; they just added some banking coming out of the second turn and that is where the problem lies.

There is a yellow line that determines the lower limit of the speedway. All drivers in all races this weekend were told they couldn’t run below that yellow line, particularly in turn two.

Now, we all wonder about some of the penalties handed out by the stewards in F1, but at least they’re usually pretty consistent and it also shows that they’re on the job.

NASCAR’s drivers were cutting below that yellow line all weekend and not one of them was given a penalty, although Elliott Sadler put himself out of the Nationwide Series championship on Saturday by getting a big run down the backstretch courtesy of cutting below that line and causing a great big wreck.

Now, in true NASCAR fashion, Sadler blamed Jason Leffler, who hit him, for the accident. It’s always the other guy, have you noticed? And Leffler, good soldier that he is, accepted the blame.

But I don’t know what either was taking about.

Sadler went below the line and re-entered the race track (yes, he was out of bounds) halfway down the backstretch. He arrived, out of nowhere, right in front of Leffler. Is Leffler supposed to slow down? Hit the brakes? Of course not.

Sadler was offf the race track and had no business cutting up in front of Leffler like that and NASCAR should have disciplined him for it. That, at least, would have sent a message to the Sprint Cup drivers on Sunday that you can’t do that.

Which NASCAR didn’t do and the Sprint Cup drivers were pulling that little stunt all afternoon.

Anyway, Kahne’s victory Sunday was a big boost for the Red Bull racing team, which will be out of business after next weekend unless somebody buys it (Jacques Villeneuve, perhaps?).

Other than the good-news story of Kahne’s win, and the Chase story of Edwards and Stewart arriving three points apart and leaving three points apart, the race was routine.

NOTEBOOK JOTTINGS:

– While Kasey Kahne was winning the race, his teammate, Brian Vickers, continued running into just about everybody else on the speedway, and notably Matt Kenseth. Observers are saying that if Vickers wants a ride next season, he should be behaving himself and showing prospective employers what a good driver he is.

I suggest Vickers knows his career is over and so he’s taking the remaining races to settle any and all scores he might have in his payback file.

– Ex-IndyCar driver and Indy 500 champion Sam Hornish won his first career NASCAR race on Saturday when he finished first in the Nationwide contest. He was a little excited.

It’s interesting that Hornish also won his first Indy car race at Phoenix. And both times, he drove a yellow car.

Team owner Roger Penske said he was thrilled for Sam and that his plan now is for Hornish to run a full Nationwide schedule in 2012 and to try for the championship. Nice. But does that mean Brad Keselowski won’t be in a Penske Nationwide car?

– Kyle Busch is the new Danica Patrick. NASCAR and its television partners always seem to key in on an individual to the detriment of others and to the irritation of fans. It used to be all Danica, Danica, Danica. Now it’s all Kyle, Kyle, Kyle. Will Danica make a comeback in 2012? Stay tuned.

OTHER RACING

– Sebastien Loeb won his eighth World Rally Championship on Friday, then was driving to the 19^th stage of the Wales Rally GB when he collided with a rental car being driven by two fans who were going to the same place.

Nobody was injured in the crash but Loeb’s Citroen had radiator damage and so he couldn’t continue.

"We are world champion so no problems," said Loeb. "I moved to the side (of the road) but we are in (Wales) and he is not (Welsh), so he went on the wrong side and we crashed."

– In the NHRA finals at Pamona, Calif., Matt Hagan won the Funny Car title (after disposing of Jack Beckman, Cruz Pedregon and Robert Hight) while Del Worsham came out on top in Top Fuel, defeating Spencer Massey first and then Tony Schumacher. Both victories were worth $500,000.

Funny Car driver Melanie Troxel had a close call in eliminations. She’d finished her pass against Pedregon and shut everything down and popped the chute when the engine somehow re-started and her car crashed through a fence and into the side of a trailed in the paddock.

Nobody, including Melanie, was hurt.

She told John Oreovicz of ESPN that, "I've never had anything like that happen before. The fuel was off, the ignition was off, but I know it can happen with the motor turning over with the clutch welded like that. You're turning the cylinders over but I wouldn't have thought there was enough fuel in the cylinders to do that.

"Once it fired up, I really didn't have very many options about where to go. I could have hit race cars and tow vehicles, or a fence and whatever was on the other side. I just got lucky there were no racers or no fans on the other side of that. I just hate that someone else's equipment got torn up. That's a terrible feeling but the good news is nobody got hurt."

Drivers pay through nose for F1 'tests'

All of the young drivers who are about to get their first taste of Formula One this weekend in Abu Dhabi - the Young Driver Test is scheduled for next Tuesday - are understandably excited.

But here’s the dirty little secret: either they or their backers are paying millions for the opportunity.

Now, before there is any misunderstanding, this does not include Canadian F1 hope Robert Wickens, who is supported by the Russian car company Marussia and who will drive a Virgin F1 car in Friday’s first practice session for this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Nor does it include Jean-Eric Vergne, the French driver Wickens defeated for the World Series of Renault championship this season, who is sponsored by Red Bull and who will be out in a Scuderia Toro Rosso team car on Friday as well.

What I’m talking about here are relatively unknown kids who’ve been paying their dues in some of the lesser series. They’ve been invited by some of the F1 teams to show their stuff at a bona fide Grand Prix circuit where their performances can be measured against Sebastien Vettel’s or Michael Schumacher’s.

Fathers (or other financial backers) of drivers named Kevin Korjus (who will be in a Renault), Max Chilton (Force India), Stefano Coletti (Toro Rosso) and Dani Clos (HRT) are paying hundreds of thousands of Euros to put their young charges in Grand Prix cars.

As Flagword.com reported this week, 22-year-old Fabio Leimer of Switzerland, who finished 14th in this year’s GP2 Series (and — if anybody’s being honest with him — doesn’t stand a hope in hell of ever getting into F1) will drive a Sauber car in the Young Driver Test and has paid 300,000 Euros for the privilege.

That’s $415,400. For what? Twenty laps?

The asking price for a Toro Rosso seat was 200,000 Euros ($276,933).

Is everybody crazy?

The German magazine Auto Motor und Sport said that “success in the lower classes is no longer enough,” hence the need to prove yourself at the bank.

Don’t kid yourself: young guys like Wickens and Vergne are being courted big time by F1 teams but unless they are signed by Red Bull, Ferrari or McLaren they will probably have to pay big money to get a seat.

Unfortunately, talent alone just doesn’t cut it with the vast majority of teams in Formula One any more.

TV Times: Qualifying for the Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi can be seen on TSN at 7:55 a.m. Saturday and the race can be seen at 7:55 a.m. on Sunday.

Tracy credits Hansen for inspiring Zanardi, others

Alex Zanardi won the Handcycle category of the New York City Marathon at the weekend and fellow Indy car driver Paul Tracy credits Canada’s "Man in Motion," Rick Hansen, for providing the inspiration for Zanardi and other handicapped people to reach for the stars.

Ten years after losing his legs in a crash during a CART race at the Lausitzring Speedway in Germany, the 45-year-old Zanardi won the Marathon's Handcycle race (a hand-operated, three-wheel cycle) by two seconds over Rafal Wilk of Poland.

Zanardi’s time of one hour, 13 minutes and 58 seconds was enough to defeat Wilk and the 91 other entrants in the class.

Zanardi said afterward that his mission this season is to score enough points to be invited to represent Italy at the Paralympic Games in London next year. The ex-Formula One driver and two-time CART champion (1997 and ‘98) raced for BMW in the World Touring Car Championship from 2005 to 2009 and won four races. He’s given up car racing, however, to concentrate on paracycling during the runup to the Olympic year.

Tracy, who was in Toronto at the weekend to participate in Hansen’s 25^th anniversary Man in Motion tour on behalf of Honda Canada, one of the event's sponsors, said if it hadn’t been for him, people like Zanardi might not have realized their potential.

"Rick laid the groundwork for people in wheelchairs to realize it’s not the end of the world," Tracy said. "Here was a guy who went all across Canada and around the world in his wheelchair and he did things that I haven’t done in my life. He’s a great inspiration.

"And Zanardi is a perfect example. He was injured racing and he lost both his legs. But he said to himself, ‘I’m not going to sit in this chair and do nothing for the rest of my life.’ And look at him! He's  gone on to compete in marathons in a racing chair and even come back to auto racing – and he’s won in both!"

Hansen is marking the 25^th anniversary of his astounding accomplishment (he wheeled 40,000 kilometres through 34 countries over 26 months) with a relay that started in Newfoundland in August and is expected to finish in Vancouver in May, 2012.

The Rick Hansen Medal, struck by the Royal Canadian Mint, is being passed from volunteer to volunteer along the way and 7,000 people in 600 communities will have participated when the relay ends.

Hansen and relay volunteers will travel today (Tuesday, Nov. 8) from Toronto to Mississauga.

Canadian racing legend Paul Tracy (left) joins Rick Hansen, Ronald McDonald and President of McDonald's Canada, John Betts, in front of the Honda Civic Si Tracy drove for his leg of the Rick Hansen 25th Anniversary Relay at the weekend.