Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Why IndyCar can’t fire Brian Barnhart

NASCAR race today; Oswego Safety Crew rides to the rescue – again

Following a season of almost near-unanimous condemnation of his officiating, highlighted by his decision to restart a race at New Hampshire speedway in mid-August when it was raining, IndyCar chief steward and operations manager Brian Barnhart received a vote of confidence from his boss, Randy Bernard, who said he had no plans to make staff changes.

That was before Barnhart called for the green flag on a restart Sunday at the Baltimore Grand Prix while a safety vehicle was still on the track (video here). Graham Rahal came very close to colliding head-on with that truck.

As you can imagine, the boo birds are out in full force again.

"That was the last straw," read one tweet. "Fire him."

"Get rid of that incompetent a–h—," read another.

"Bye-bye, Brian," was yet another. And so-on.

It’s easy to say that. Even I have suggested that Bernard consider making a change. It’s not good for the business of racing (or any sporting business, for that matter) when an official gets more attention from the media than the drivers.

It started with Barnhart back in 2002 when he made the call that robbed Paul Tracy of the Indianapolis 500. Last year in Edmonton, it was Barnhart who robbed Helio Castroneves of the race win there.

This year, right from the start, it’s been his wrong calls, or non-calls, that have infuriated the race drivers and fans of the series. And Bernard’s reluctance to fire Barnhart has been curious.

Many years ago, when CART was still in business, the series went to England to race at the Rockingham Motor Speedway. The operations manager was Kirk Russell, a good and faithful servant of the series who did a variety of jobs.

A problem with "weepers" (water coming up through the pavement) forced a cancellation of the scheduled race. Fingers were pointed and Russell was fired on the spot by then-CART CEO Andrew Craig. In fact, the termination was so decisive and sudden that Russell had to pay his own way back to the U.S.

So why hasn’t Bernard tied the can to Brian Barnhart’s butt?

Probably, as a friend of mine explained at the weekend, because he can’t.

Not yet, anyway.

My friend is someone who’s been around Indy car racing for years and years. This is how he explained it:

"When the George sisters convinced their mother that their brother, Tony, had to go, it was because he’d spent millions and millions of family money on the war with CART and Champ Car. When Randy Bernard was hired, he was told to promote the series but mainly he was told to get the budget under control. So he’s limited in the amount of money he’s got to spend.

"Brian Barnhart has had his job for years. In fact, for a few years there, he was president of the IRL. He’s a long-term employee who undoubtedly makes a lot of money, likely in the hundreds of thousands. To get rid of a guy like that is going to cost a bundle and Bernard probably doesn’t have that kind of money. So, in the short term, he’s stuck.

"Bernard has said that over the next winter, they (meaning he and some special advisers) are going to take a hard look at the rule book to, as he says, ‘help Brian.’ What that means is they are going to rewrite the rule book to take a lot of the power out of the hands of the chief steward.

"Right now, everything in that rule book can be interpreted, or not interpreted, by the chief steward. In short, he has all the power to make any decision he wants, right or wrong. So they’ll change that. They’ll get rid of all the grey areas and make it more black and white.

"Meantime, Randy will start to squirrel some money away to offer Banhart a buyout. If he takes it, great. If not – and he probably won’t – then IndyCar, the drivers and the fans will just have to put up with Brian Barnhart for a while longer."

I thanked my friend for his explanation. I didn’t like it, but it makes sense.

Notes on the IZOD IndyCar Series Baltimore Grand Prix:

– A fabulous crowd and a fabulous first event. They have some work to do on the design of the circuit but other than that, it was a dynamite spectacle.

– Will Power won the race, with Oriol Servia second and Tony Kanaan third. Alex Tagliani of Montreal finished seventh, with James Hinchcliffe of Oakville 24^th. Danica Patrick was top woman, finishing in sixth place after starting 24^th. Simona de Silvestro was 12^th and Ana Beatriz was 16^th.

– Kanaan drove from last place (27^th) to finish third in a spare car that was set up for the ovals. An incredible performance. He lost his brakes at more than 160 miles an hour during the morning warmup and was forced to sideswipe Helio Castroneves to slow himself down enough so that when he hit a series of tire walls his car came to a stop. It was too badly damaged to enter the race, hence the spare. Whew.

– Dario Franchitti, who finished fourth, still leads the standings but Power is just five points behind.

– In the American Le Mans Series race on Saturday, Kyle Marcelli of Barrie stood atop the podium for the second time this season, partnering with Tomy Drissi of Los Angeles to finish first in the Prototype Challenge class and third overall in the feature race, which was won by Humaid Al Masaood of Abu Dhabi and Steven Kane of Northern Ireland in a P1 Lola.

Wolf Henzler of Germany and American Brian Sellers won the GT class in a Porsche 911 while Tim Pappas of Boston and Jeroen Bleekemolen of Monte Carlo were first in the GT Challenge class, also in a Porsche 911.

That race was carried live on Sporrtsnet 1. I'm sorry to report that Sportsnet 1 did exactly what TSN has been doing for years: as soon as it could, it cut away from racing to join a recorded soccer game. I wish they'd stuck around long enough for the recap. Oh well, I guess you can't have everything. And I guess all the soccer fans in Canada were flooding the switchboard, demanding to know when soccer would be on. I mean, that sport is only available on - what? - five or six other channels at all hours of the day and night?

Notes on NASCAR:

– The Sprint Cup race from Atlanta has been postponed twice because of rain and is now scheduled to get the green flag at 11 a.m. today. Carl Edwards won the Nationwide Series race at Atlanta Saturday night and Ron Hornaday was first in the Camping World Truck Series race last Friday night.

Notes on all kinds of other racing:

– Last July (as in 2010), I wrote a feature about life on the road with the World of Outlaws. I focused on the son of a friend of mine, Darryl Turford of Stratford, who is the chief cook and bottle washer (and mechanic, and cheerleader, and friend) for driver Sam Hafertepe Jr. of Sunnyvale, Tex. Well, on the weekend, at Skagit Speedway in Washington State, Hafertepe won his first World of Outlaws feature race and the $20,000 that went with it. Darryl was thrilled, you can bet. And his dad, my friend Peter Turford, is undoubtedly proud as punch.

– Otto Sitterly of Canajoharie, N.Y., passed his teammate, Mike Lichty of Kitchener, on the last lap Sunday to win the 55^th Budweiser International Classic 200 for supermodifieds at Oswego Speedway in New York.

It was the first time a Classic win had been decided on the last lap and, so far as anybody could remember, the first time team cars had finished 1-2 in the big race.

Lichty was hired by team owner John Nicotra on Saturday when regular driver Davey Hamilton was unable to travel to Oswego because of commitments he has with the IZOD IndyCar Series, which was racing in Baltimore. Hamilton takes corporate guests for rides in the two-seat Indy car and is the on-site PA colour commentator and analyst on the IndyCar radio network.

Randy Ritskes, formerly of Brockkville, finished third. He won the pole and led the most laps. Track champion and Indy 500 veteran Joe Gosek finished eighth. Former NASCAR star Johnny Benson Jr. was 13th; his dad won the Classic in 1966. Dave McKnight Jr. of Brampton was 18th and Gary Morton of Stouffville was 24th.

– The Oswego Speedway safety crew was at it again on the weekend. The best short-track safety team on the continent went into action on Saturday night when modified driver Jake Rought of Rome, N.Y., suffered a heart attack in the pits. Rought flatlined but his heart was restarted by paramedica George Feeney and others before he was taken to Oswego hospital and then Syracuse where he underwent a triple bypass.

If I’m hurt, or fall ill at a race track, I want George and the boys around, I’ll tell ya.

Vettel wins pole for Grand Prix of Hungary

Sebastien Vettel is back where he belongs – on the pole for a Formula One race.

After an "off" weekend last week in Germany, Vettel put the hammer down in Hungary today and took the pole away from Lewis Hamilton for Sunday’s Grand Prix (7:55 a.m., TSN).

"Yes, yes!" said the world champion to his crew over the team radio. "That is what I was talking about."

Jenson Button will line up third, with Felipe Massa fourth, Fernando Alonso fifth and Mark Webber sixth.

The difference between the pole time of Vettel and the sixth-place time of his Red Bull-Renault teammate Webber was 6/100ths of a second.

Alonso had been the pace-setter most of the weekend and it was a huge surprise to see him drop to fifth in the final shootout, even finishing behind his Ferrari teammate Massa, who’d nearly lost his life at the Hungaroring several years ago but is obviously not cowed by the place.

Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Michael Schumacher and Sergio Perez are the other drivers in the top ten.

– F1 teams have learned that even if they object to F1 races going to pay television (see post below), there’s nothing they can do about it. Having said that, the teams are all going to get a lot more money out of this deal and so, as you can imagine, are all quite happy about it.

The World of Outlaws raced in Brockville last night (Tony Stewart won the race at the Brantford-area Ohsweken Speedway Wednesday night) and the victory went to Tennessee driver Paul McMahan with Jason Meyers second and Craig Dollansky third.

A lot of Canadian 360 sprint cars made the show, led by 14^th-place finisher Rick Wilson of Joyceville. Many of those guys (and girls) run with the SOS series and I would suggest it would be a big thrill for them to be out there running against legends like Sammy Swindell and Steve Kinser.

Canadian to try for Bistol speed record

Although most eyes will be on the Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend because the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series’ will be racing there, some of us will be more interested in an attempt to break the Bristol track record that will take place following the Nationwide race on Saturday.

Mike Lichty of Cambridge, driving his ground-shaking International Supermodified Association (ISMA) winged supermodified PATCO Transportation No. 84 rocket, will attempt to obliterate the record of 13.860 seconds (138.442 miles an hour) around the half-mile banked oval that’s currently held by Sammy Swindell driving a World of Outlaws winged sprint car.

In addition to Lichty, ex-California sprint car star and sometimes-NASCAR racer Brad Noffsinger, at the wheel of Howie Lane’s No. 97 supermodified out of Essex, Mass., will also take a crack at the record.

In addition to the supers, two sprint cars – including one owned by Tony Stewart and driven by Brian Clauson – and a racing motorcycle will take a shot.

Although news of whether the attempts are successful or not will undoubtedly leak out, the promotion is really a SPEED Channel production that will not air until April 2 following coverage of a NASCAR Camping World Series truck race.

Oh, for the record, Ryan Newman holds the record for the fastest lap set by a NASCAR Sprint Cup car. In 2003, Newman lumbered around the half-mile in 14.908 seconds.

Kinda slow, eh?

I predict a supermodified will be fastest on Saturday and 13 seconds flat sounds just about right.

Go Mike!

Racing reporter fired for cheering

In 2008, I was in the media room at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal when Robert Kubica won his first Formula One race.

There were, I would estimate, about 100 reporters from around the world in that press centre at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

As Kubica crossed the finish line, most of those 100 reporters started to clap, whistle and cheer.

I was sitting beside my Toronto Star colleague, Gerald Donaldson  who was working for TSN at the time. Dean McNulty of the Toronto Sun wasn’t far away. We were about the only three in that room who didn’t show emotion.

I can’t speak for the others, but I was pleased to see Kubica win. It was his maiden victory in the top auto racing series on the planet and a year earlier he’d survived one of the most wicked crashes in modern F1 history at that very track, so it was a great comeback story.

But one of the things you learn early on in North America is that whether you’re covering hockey, baseball, football, golf, racing — what have you — you do not outwardly cheer for your team/favourite player. It’s considered poor form and an indication of bias. You cannot be seen as objective if every time your team scores/wins you jump up and down with excitement.

So you do it silently . . .

I’m telling you this today because Sports Illustrated dot com (SI.com) just fired one of its reporters for cheering the victory of Trevor Bayne at the recent Daytona 500.

He’s written a post about it on his own website (this is the link, if you’re interested) and acknowledges that he probably shouldn’t have done it but was carried away by the emotion of the moment.

I sympathize with the guy, because I know how he must have felt when that kid won that big race. But he shouldn’t have done it because that North American tradition (see above) extends beyond the press room and into the board room, where media executives worry about appearances and reputations.

It’s different in Europe. If you’re ever in a press box at a European soccer game, you think you’re in the middle of the grandstands. Reporters are cheering, arguing — you name it, they’re doing it. They freely (and cheerfully) acknowledge pulling for their city’s or their country’s team. And their reporting reflects it.

Same with the motorsports reporters. The British writers, in particular, make no excuses for focusing almost exclusively on British drivers or drivers who race for British teams. It’s what they’re paid to do.

So that was my first reaction when I heard that this American reporter had been bounced by SI for his outward display of enthusiasm for Trevor Bayne’s victory: too bad he didn’t cover F1. Or Old Country Soccer.

But he didn’t and now he’s had to pay for it.

It’s a grim reminder for everybody else: if your driver, or your team, wins, keep your hands in your pockets and your lips sealed.

Wait till you get home to celebrate.

TAGLIANI TEAM SOLD

Although it’s a bit of a tangled web, in that I thought there had been one sale of this team already, the news today is that Alex Tagliani’s FAZZT racing team that competes in the IZOD IndyCar Series has been taken over by Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

Here is a link to the story.

NASCAR VETERANS TO RACE AT FLAMBORO

Flamboro Speedway near Hamilton will celebrate its 50th anniversary this summer and to mark the occasion, a special Race of Champions will be held there on July 1, Canada Day, and feature three NASCAR legends.

Jimmy Spencer, Ken Schrader and Sterling Marlin will join a field of local competitors to compete in a main event featuring the Freedom Village Thunder Car class — a division known for full-contact racing.

The afternoon event will be a special race format, including heat-race qualifying and a B-feature race that will advance only the top 15 finishers to join the NASCAR stars for a 25-lap shootout.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

SPECIAL SECTION: AUTO RACING 2011

Everything you want to know about Formula One, NASCAR, INDYCAR, Sports Cars and more is included in this special Wheels section on auto racing.

Kennington makes Canada proud

Let’s hear it for D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas, Ont., for an amazing performance in Irwindale, Calif., Saturday night when he finished second in the Daytona 500 of short-track racing, the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown.

Kennington, the reigning NASCAR Canadian Tire Series champion, finished second to sometimes-Canadian Tire Series competitor Jason Bowles, of Ontario, Calif., who was driving a Canadian entry prepared by the Gaunt brothers, of Barrie.

Kennington’s finish in the all-star showdown is the best registered by a Canadian Tire national champion since NASCAR purchased the old CASCAR Super Series from Tony Novotny in 2006.

Previous champions Andrew Ranger and Scott Steckly have entered the race – the Canadian Tire champion is guaranteed a starting spot in the 40-car field, as are the champions of NASCAR’s four other "regional series" – but couldn’t record as high a finish as Kennington’s

The St. Thomas racer, son of Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee Doug Kennington and a man who’s knocked on the door of championships for years but couldn’t take that last step until the 2010 season, qualified 15^th.

Kennington drove a smart race. He moved steadily up through the field from the get-go – a little luck entered into his run as he managed to avoid any number of the wrecks that always crop up in short-track racing – and was in position to give Bowles a run for his money on the last restart.

But Bowles, who raced several times in the Canadian Tire Series last season (he finished on the podium at the Mosport road-course round), was able to hold off the challenge and take the checkered flag.

Kennington was thrilled with his finish – and his girlfriend and two of his Canadian crew members were there to greet him in Victory Lane.

"We didn’t just come here to run around, we wanted to show how good this team is" said Kennington.

"There were a lot of aggressive moves right from the beginning and I just wanted to look after the car. Right from the first practice I could tell we had a good race car and I wanted to have something left for the end of the race."

He described the run to the finish.

"For the last re-start, we lined up third and then quickly moved to second with a few laps to go. I really tried to get up there for the win but the car was just a little bit tight at the end."

And although he was the driver, he couldn’t have done as well as he did without some help.

"I’m so proud of this whole effort," he said. "I have to thank so many people for making this possible. Castrol Edge – they’ll be back with me for an 18^th year this season (in the Canadian Tire Series). Dwight Kennedy and Northern Provincial Pipeline (who supported Kennington when he entered some races in the Nationwide Series) have been great supporters for such a long time.

"And I really have to thank all my guys who came down from Canada with me; they do such a great job and I can’t thank them enough" he said.

Bowles, whose car was entered by John and Marty Gaunt of Barrie, took home a little over $30,000 for his efforts. Kennington collected $26,000 for second and Jonathan Gomez of Twin Falls, Idaho, who finished third, won $17,000.

Former Canadian Tire champion Ranger, of Roxton Pond, Que., who qualified for the race as a winner of races in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, which sanctioned this particular race, finished 22^nd and collected $11,300.

Speed TV’s coverage of the race wasn’t any better than last year’s, which was awful.

I don’t know how you can show a race and not show the starting lineup before the green flag fles. This is an all-star race, with competitors entered from all corners of the continent, and it might be nice to know where your local favourite is starting.

And then, of course, as is the case with any broadcast of any race, the producer has his/her favourite and likes to focus on that driver, whether he or she is in the running for the win, or not. In this case, it was U.S. extreme sports personality Travis Pastrana, who eventually finished sixth.

So Kennington was trying to pass Bowles for the victory and the camera, and the commentators, were so busy following the adventures of Pastrana back in the pack that they missed the excitement at the front.

Too bad, particularly for Canadians watching when a Canadian-prepared car wound up wiinning and a Canadian driver was second.

Maybe they’ll get some of these things sorted out in time for next year’s race.

Expo blog: Remembering Don Biederman

The first panel discussion of the Canadian Motorsport Expo's weekend took place Friday night.

Led by veteran track owner and Race Time Radio host Joe Chisholm, a group including legendary Canadian stock car racer Junior Hanley and featuring photographer Dave Franks and three gentlemen closely associated with the late Don Biederman - Bob Sumak, Peter Andeloro and Ross May - discussed the life and career of 'Daytona Don.'

Biederman raced late-model stock cars primarily in Ontario but was enough of a gunslinger that American and Maritime promoters would pay him appearance money to race at their speedways in order to boost their gates.

His most famous victory of many chalked up over the years came in 1977 when he won the Oxford 250 in Oxford, Me., defeating upwards of a half-dozen Winston Cup regulars in the process. As well, he raced in more than 40 NASCAR Grand National events and finished in the top ten on a number of occasions.

A good friend away from the speedway, Biederman was all business at the track because he raced for a living. He passed away in 1999 at the age of 59.

Of the many stories his friends related, two stuck out as illustrations of the type of man and racer Don Biederman was.

Hanley reminisced about a time when he and Biederman were invited Down East to participate in races in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Said Hanley: "Just as I came out of the tunnel in Montreal, my crankshaft let go. Don hooked everything up and towed us all the way to the New Brunswick speedway so we could go racing."

Another time, Biederman was invited to race at a track in Rockville, Ill. After the feature there, he drove all night to get to Cayuga Speedway, south of Hamilton, for a race the next day. Said his friend Andeloro, "Don looked at me and said, 'You know, if I could just get 10 minutes' sleep, I could be tough.' So we told him to go have a sleep and we'd look after things."

It was that kind of dedication that made Biederman great, his friends agreed.

And the difference between then (when Biederman and Hanley raced) and now is that there are more people on a race team today.

Everyone agreed that, these days, there are specialists for tires and specialists for transmissions and specialists for just about everything having to do with the race car. Back then, two or three guys - led by the driver - did it all.

Talking about doing it all, host Chisholm said that when he purchased Sauble Speedway in 1994, one of the first to drop by was Biederman, who told Chisholm that he was going to teach him something.

Whereupon, Biederman went to the back of his truck and took out a broom. He then suggested the best way to prepare a track for racing was to sweep it clean - from the bottom of the track up to the top and from there into a garbage can, rather than the other way around, from top to bottom.

Chisholm said that he and Biederman talked for a couple of hours and by the time their conversation ended, Biederman had swept the track clean all the way from Turn 3 through Turn 4 and he'd done it his way.

One surprise: Hanley suggested that drivers looking to improve their performance on oval tracks might consider attending road-racing school. "I know the ones who've done that have been better afterward," he said.

Dario Franchitti, Ron Fellows and Max Papis will headline Saturday's Expo.

Racing: Thomson, Stewart back in harness

Great news. Two of the real "pros’ in Canadian motorsport, Don Thomson Jr. and Brian Stewart, are back for the 2011 season.

Thomson, a five-time CASCAR Super Series champion who’s come close (but no cigar) in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, has reached agreement to partner driver Jason Hathaway in the Team 3 Red/Ed Hakonson Racing team out of Stouffville for the 2011 NCTS season.

Thomson, of Hamilton, was released by Fitzpatrick Racing of Cambridge at the end of 2010 and stock car racing fans from coast-to-coast have had their fingers crossed ever since that Thomson would land a competitive ride for 2011.

Best known for piloting the Home Hardware-sponsored No. 4 for Fitzpatrick, there is no official word on sponsorship for the 2011 season but whoever puts their support behind Thomson will get their money’s worth: since the start of the 2007 season, he’s won six races and scored 11 pole positions.

The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series will open its 12-race season at Mosport Speedway on May 28.

Stewart, meantime, is back in harness after putting his Sutton-based Indy Lights racing team on ice for the 2010 season following a disastrous outing at Kansas Speedway in 2009 when both of his cars were destroyed.

His Brian Stewart Racing is running 15-year-old Matthew DiLeo of Innisfil, Ont., in the U.S. Formula 2000 series this year and the team and driver recently finished third in the inaugural Cooper Tires Winterfest Series held in Florida.

Two races were held at Sebring International Raceway and three at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The championship was won by Andretti Autosport’s Zach Veach of Stockdale, Ohio.

The first two races of the 2011 season for the F2000 cars will be at Sebring March 17 and 18 as part of the American Le Mans Series’ 12 Hours of Sebring weekend.

Steward plans to re-establish his team as a contender in 2011 and return to Indy Lights by 2012, if not sooner.

IN OTHER RACING NEWS

– Marc Coma of Spain won his third Dakar Rally for motorcycles, Alejandro Patronelli of Argentina was best in quads, Qatar native Nasser Al-Attiyah in cars became the first Arab to win a Dakar and Vladimi Chagin of Russia won the trucks division as the 33^rd Dakar concluded Sunday in Buenos Aires.

Ninety-four bikes, 14 quads, 55 cars and 41 trucks made it to the finish.

Volkswagens swept the first three positions in the auto class and the victory was the third consecutive in that class for the VW marque.

– In Tulsa, Okla., Kevin Swindell of Germantown, Tenn., just nipped his father, Sammy, at the wire to win his second consecutive Chili Bowl Midget Nationals. Between them, father and son have won the Nationals seven times. Michael Pickens of New Zealand finished third.

It must be asked: is the Chili Bowl losing its luster? For the first time, no NASCAR Sprint Cup driver was entered, nor were any of the "name" NHRA drag racers. Tony Stewart, it seems, preferred to race in Australia. Strange, considering the Chili Bowl was celebrating its 25^th anniversary and has long been a mid-winter "gathering of the clan."

– Jonathan Legard is out as the play-by-play announcer for BBC Formula One telecasts (seen here in Canada on TSN) and ex-colour commentator Martin Brundle will take over.

I’d warmed to Legard and am sorry to see him go. And it will be interesting to see how Brundle does, considering there’s a big difference between filling in the blanks with "colour" and painting the whole picture.

Brundle’s place will be taken by David Coulthard.

Now, it’s curious to see that the BBC has gone to lengths to assure viewers/listeners that they are sure there will be no conflict of interest with Coulthard working the F1 broadcasts while still employed by Red Bull Racing as a consultant.

In fact, here's a direct quote from the Daily Record newspaper of Scotland:

"David Coulthard will not be asked to drop or suspend his ties with Red Bull in the interests of impartiality," a BBS spokeswoman said.

"We take steps to ensure that none of the off-air relationships that our talent may have can compromise on-air activity," she added.

Oh? Now, just how do you do that? David Coulthard is paid by Red Bull. While announcing for the BBC, all he says about Red Bull and the Red Bull drivers is positive and wonderful. How does anybody know that his BBC words are not being compromised by his Red Bull pay packet?

Brundle was Coulthard’s manager when Coulthard was racing and Brundle was commentating and if that’s not a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.

And whether they ever signed a contract, I don’t know, but Brundle was in the running last year to manage Lewis Hamilton and although there might not have been a direct conflict, there was certainly the appearance of one because you can bet that Brundle wouldn’t slag Hamilton on-air if there was any chance he would soon be chosen to guide the young driver’s career.

I have said time and again that the BBC has been playing fast and loose with conflicts of interest when it comes to its F1 broadcast team and it’s still happening.

And by the way, who negotiated David Coulthard’s contract to be an F1 colour commentator for the BBC?

Martin Brundle?

Target news great for race fans . . .

As someone who periodically crosses the border to enjoy auto racing in the United States of America, I am absolutely delighted that department store retailer Target is moving into Canada.

Whenever I head to the Niagara Frontier to cross (unless I do so at 6 or 7 a.m., before anyone else is up), I invariably find myself caught up in a humongous backup of cars full of people heading for either Niagara Falls, N.Y., or Buffalo to shop at . . . TARGET (or, as Miss Piggy used to say, “Tar-zhay”).

So now that Target will soon have stores in Scarborough and Mississauga and all sorts of other parts of Ontario, all those people who used to get in my way when I was trying to cross the border will stay home and shop and I will be able to get to Oswego, or  Lancaster, or Winchester, or Du Quoin, or Watkins Glen sooner.

This is a great day for Canadian racing fans heading for the States and we should bow down to the great God Target for making it all possible.

Oh, and Chip Ganassi won’t have to keep wrapping his cars in the colours of associate sponsors when he brings his team up here for the Honda Indys Toronto and Edmonton. Canada will have Target stores, too, so his Target Chip Ganassi racing team will feel right at home.

Now, speaking of the IZOD IndyCar Series (one of the series in which Ganassi runs his cars), there was a really interesting little nugget of information this week on the Indianapolis Star website. Down near the bottom of a story on IndyCar, reporter Curt Cavin quoted team owner Dale Coyne as saying that for the first time in the nearly 30 years he has been associated with the sport, all but one team in the league is taking money from drivers.

"Team Penske is the only place where you can't buy a ride," Coyne said.

I wrote a column about this sad state of affairs several months ago and got roasted. But like it or not, it’s reality.

For instance, there are stories floating around right now about Canadian racing icon Paul Tracy being close to a deal with Eric Bachelart’s Conquest Racing team for the full 2011 season.

Great stuff, you say? Sad stuff, I say. Because Paul Tracy, who has more talent in his little finger and more drawing/entertainment value to the sport than just about anybody, has either got to write a cheque (which he won’t do) or else sign up enough sponsors to provide the money to Bachelart to put him in the car for the season.

Eric Bachelart is not going out and seeking sponsorship to run Paul Tracy. He’s supporting Tracy’s efforts and ready to talk and will make himself available for meetings, or whatever, but he is not out knocking on doors to make this thing happen.

None of those other owners are, either. They wait for the money to come to them.

This is not a criticism of Eric Bachelart. It’s the way of the world these days in big-league auto racing.

By the way, when Coyne said every team in IndyCar is taking money from drivers, he included Chip Ganassi. That doesn’t mean drivers Dario Franchitti and/or Scott Dixon are having to do what Paul Tracy’s doing. But Ganassi is running a second team this year with Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball aboard and those guys are buying their rides.

Sticking with IndyCar, Oakville’s talented James Hinchcliffe is to test again with Newman-Haas Racing at Sebring next Thursday and Friday. “Hinch,” who set the fastest time on the last day of his first test in December (veteran Oriole Servia was also on track), continues to work hard to land a season-long sponsor for 2011. 

Last November, when we went to lunch following the photographing of the cover for the Jan. 1, 2011 Wheels section (Ron Fellows and Bill Brack also helped out), Hinchcliffe said he had no “Plan B” in place in case he doesn't run IndyCar. “It’s IndyCar all the way,” he said.

Meantime, rising young Canadian stock car racer Steve Arpin of Fort Frances, who will be on stage at the Canadian Motorsports Expo at the International Centre next weekend (check the schedule here), was among the fastest of the 33 drivers to take time during an ARCA Series test at Daytona International Speedway this week.

Arpin skipped the final practice – 23 went out – but there were several interesting names among those who did.

Milka Duno, who’s been run out of the IZOD IndyCar Series on a rail (they have really handled that badly, by the way), was seventh fastest with a time/speed of 48:727/184.703 mph (as compared to pace-setter Grant Enfinger’s 48:418/185:881). Canadian Maryeve Dufault was 13th with a time/speed of 49.203/182.916 and James Hylton, the old campaigner (he’s 77, going on 17) was third fastest with a time of 48.664/184.942.

The ARCA Series race at Daytona will go to the post on Feb. 12.

Finally, they’re racing in Oklahoma this weekend in the 24th annual Chili Bowl Nationals for midget racing cars at the giant indoor QuikTrip Center, located in midtown Tulsa.

Sprint car racing legend Sammy Swindell has won this event five times and his son Kevin has won it once. In fact, the father-son duo won the Nationals the last two years running.

Sammy threw down the gauntlet by winning Thursday night’s qualifying races feature, so he’s got his eye squarely on the checkers again.

The feature race Saturday night will start 24 cars, survivors of a series of heat races and qualifying features that started on Tuesday with an entry list approaching 200 cars. Glenn Styres, who owns the Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, usually carries Canada’s colours into battle but I don’t see his name this year.

Nor do I see the name of the driver I think has had the greatest name for a midget racing driver I’ve ever heard: Critter Malone. (I wonder where that came from?)

But JJ Yeley is there, and Kevin Olson and Julee Jamison and Tracy Hines and they all come from towns with wonderful names like Cody, Wyoming and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

It’s the 24^th annual CHILI BOWL MIDGET NATIONALS!!! and there is still romance in auto racing.

Ted Hogan killed, 50 years ago today

Fifty years ago today, at or about 1 p.m., a major Toronto sports figure lost his life in a plane crash and, hard as it is to believe now, the story was front-page headline news in all the Toronto papers a day later.

Edward Albert (Ted) Hogan, a 5-foot-4 service station owner and operator whose mere presence in a stock car could fill the 20,000-seat CNE Grandstand or the 7,000-seat Pincecrest Speedway, was killed when his two-passenger, single-engine Aerocoupe plane lost power and crashed into Lake Ontario just off Port Union Rd. in Scarborough.

Also killed was his buddy, and fellow CNE racing nut, Bruce Tanner.

Known by a variety of nicknames — Terrible Ted and Mighty Mite, among them — Hogan was a star racing driver whose exploits were covered by beat reporters for the Telegram, the Star and the Globe and Mail. With only the Maple Leafs and Argonauts as competition, the car racers were household names in Toronto.

Hogan, Jimmy Howard and Norm Macareth were mentioned in conversation around the dinner table or in the beverage rooms about as often as Harry Lumley, Todd Sloan, Dick Shatto or Danny Nykoluk.

From 1949, when he started racing at Speedway Park up on Highway 7 west of Jane St., until his death in 1960, Hogan was a terror on the track. His Irish heritage combined with his short stature meant he didn’t take any crap from anybody and he was a fierce competitor, particularly when up against his chief rival, Hamilton’s Howard.

I recall one Friday night at the Ex when, during warmups, Hogan was being held up exiting Turns 2 and 4 by either a rookie or a veteran intent on giving him a hard time. Whichever, Hogan eventually got rid of his nemesis by — first — running into the back of him two or three times (as in, “outta-the-way, junior”) and — finally — just running him off the track.

Racing historian Dave Boon tells the story of one night in June, 1959, when Hogan and Howard got into a little on-track argument that held up the racing for 20 minutes. Citing as his source a story in the Globe and Mail, Boon reports:

“Hogan was leading and Howard was attempting to pass. Eventually, Howard — in a fit of frustration — bumped Hogan into the infield on Lap 30. Hogan managed to get his car back on the asphalt a lap later, blocking the track. Howard then seemingly deliberately drove his car into Hogan’s, which then totally blocked the track and at which point starter Ross Kennedy stopped the race.

“The two drivers then engaged in ‘some choice verbiage’ and Hogan drove his car into the pits. Cooler heads then took over, Hogan and Howard eventually shook hands, and the race was restarted with Hogan in front, which he held to the end of the 60 laps.”

Historian Glen Tustin reports that Hogan was the father of six and served in World War II as a mechanic. In his 11-year racing career, and with the help of the late master mechanic and car designer Doug Duncan, he won two track championships at the CNE and countless races at tracks throughout southern Ontario and the northern United States.

Despite the popularity of the sport, the Argos wanted the CNE Stadium (as the Grandstand came to be called) to themselves and in the early 1960s, the stock cars were being asked to vacate the premises by the end of June. It was the beginning of the end.

Then, because of the international success of runners Bruce Kidd and Bill Crothers, CNE managers tore up the asphalt track surrounding the football field and, in 1967,  put down a cinder track for what they expected would an explosion of interest in track-and-field — something that never happened.

Although racing was gone from downtown Toronto, it continued in the Toronto area at Pinecrest Speedway until 1976, when that track also closed.

Kennington wins NASCAR Canada title

D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas won the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series national championship at Kawartha Speedway Saturday night when he finished third in the Kawartha 250.

Pete Shepherd III of Brampton won the race – his first in the series -- but Kennington’s third-place scored him enough points to give him his first Canadian title.

Kerry Micks of Mt. Albert finished second in the race, with J. R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge – who wound up second in the championship – fourth.

Intermittent afternoon rain delayed the start of the 250 – the 13^th and last race of the NASCAR Canada season – about 90 minutes. Then, when it finally did get going, numerous yellow flags slowed the pace of the race around the .375-mile paved, banked speedway.

Winner Shepherd was caught up in an early-race accident when his National Exhaust/Gates Dodge collided with a Chevrolet driven by rookie Shannon Harding of Sackville, N.B.

Shepherd, a veteran of a NASCAR driver development program administered by NASCAR legend Jack Roush, had to pit twice for repairs.

But he collected himself well and raced his way back through the field and took the lead just over half-distance, after which he wasn’t headed.

In Victory Lane, Shepherd – who only raced a partial schedule this season, on oval tracks close to home -- said he was thrilled and hopes to be able to run a full season next year. “I want to do some road racing, too,” he said.

Shepherd said the victory was almost overwhelming. “I stopped here at Victory Lane and they gave me the (checkered) flag and told me to do another lap because I didn’t know what to do.”

Fitzpatrick and Micks had bumped together several times during the last few laps of the race and Fitzpatrick, who had several one-offs in the Camping World Truck and Nationwide Stock Car Series this season, was furious when he exited his car.

He had to be restrained by NASCAR on-track officials from approaching Micks but eventually calmed down enough to say that although he was disappointed not to have won the championship, he was satisfied with his performance.  

Kennington, who was close to tears in Victory Lane, said it was a thrill of a lifetime to finally win after competing in CASCAR and NASCAR Canada races for 17 years.

“It’s just awesome,” he said, adding that he couldn’t give his father, Doug, whose birthday is Sunday, a better present.

“We worked so hard for this all these years. I can’t be happier for our team and my sponsor, Castrol.”

 Kennington, who won this race a year ago, threw down the gauntlet early by winning the pole, with a time of 17.983 seconds, which translates into a speed of 75.071 miles an hour. At the green flag, he took the lead and held it for nearly 80 laps.

Then, following a pit stop, he fell back to 18^th – and that was because he had a tire that was slowly losing air.

“We had a flat tire,” he said, in explanation. "It was awful; I couldn't figure it out. I was so worried. I started to think the shocks were unhooked."

But after another stop, he quickly caught the leaders and held on to the finish.