Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Weekend preview: Pinball and NASCAR? Yup!

Go Canada Racing team owner Steve Meehan and Michael (Pinball) Clemons with the race car.

Lots of racing going on this weekend. Here’s some info you’ll need to plan, but first . . .

 J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge will be driving the No. 67 Go Canada Racing Ford in Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series at Watkins Glen and instead of corporate logos on the car there will be several promoting charities.

Canadian businessman Steve Meehan, who owns the team, is using the race car to drive awareness and raise funds for charitable causes not only at the Glen this weekend but at Montreal next week when the Go Canada team will compete in the NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

Fitzpatrick’s car at both races will be decked out with logos for the Michael (Pinball) Clemons Foundation (MPCF) and the Rally for Kids with Cancer Scavenger Cup in support of SickKids Foundation.

Said Meehan: “The NASCAR team is a great way to raise funds and awareness for good causes. Given the huge popularity of NASCAR in Canada and the potential exposure a team can receive, it creates a great opportunity to help other organizations and inspire others to be philanthropic in their community.”

Sad news. One of the founders of the Deutscher Automobil Club and a sports car racer in his own right back in the Fifties and Sixties, Rudolf (Rudy) Mueller, died on Monday and his funeral is planned for today (Friday) at noon at the Marshall Funeral Home, 10366 Yonge St., Richmond Hill. He leaves his daughter Margaret and his brother Inge. He was predeceased by his wife, Norma. Rudy, who’ll be buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, was 77. A trophy honouring the DAC Women’s Champion is named for him.

 Okay, the racing.

 As mentioned, Fitzpatrick will be driving the 67 car in the Nationwide race Saturday afternoon (pre-race show at 1 on TSN2, with the race to follow at 2). Ron Fellows will be partnering Jimmie Johnson on Dale Jr.’s JR Motorsports team. Said Fellows this week about driving the 5 car at the Glen:

“You can bet our Canadian Tire team will be ready to go this weekend. We came so close to winning at Road America. It was an emotional rollercoaster for everyone after that race. As a racer, it’s so difficult to have the win seemingly in your grasp and then be told you’re runner-up instead. And unfortunately, there is no trophy for second place. So we’ve got a lot of motivation on our side heading up to Watkins Glen. 

“I’m confident in this team. I’m thrilled to be back with (crew chief) Tony (Eury) Jr. and all these guys. Their hard work and dedication showed when we unloaded at Road America as fast as we were. I know they’ll do the same this week at the Glen.”

By the way, Brad Keselowski’s injured ankle is still hurting him, so he’s stepped out of his Penske Racing ride in the Nationwide race and will be replaced by Kurt Busch.

That puts Kurt Busch and Johnson on the track together for the first time since their little dust-up on the final lap at Pocono last weekend, following which there were angry words exchanged.

As someone wrote in the last day or two, this could set up a little joust in which these guys can “have at it” without worrying about being penalized and losing points in the Sprint Cup series.

We’ll see.

In any event, Fellows, second Canadian Andrew Ranger and all the Cup regulars in addition to Busch the Elder and Johnson will be lining up for the Sprint Cup race at the Glen that will go at 1 on Sunday on TSN2 with the pre-race show coming on at noon.

Tony Stewart – who says he’s broken up with his girlfriend, sprint car driver Jessica Zemken – has won this race at the Glen about six times, so I suggest  he could be a favourite.

If you’re interested in watching practice and qualifying in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series, all of which are on Speed TV, go to www.racefantv.ca for the schedule of times. Oh, and by the way: the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race from Watkins Glen can be seen on Speed at 6 p.m. on Saturday.

Later on Sunday at 4 p.m. on TSN2 (unless the Cup race goes late), the IZOD IndyCar Series return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway will be covered and it’s great to see James Hinchcliffe’s name on the entry list. For a rookie, he does pretty well on ovals: he finished seventh in Iowa and sixth at Milwaukee.

Having said that, IndyCar hasn’t raced at New Hampshire for eons and Hinchcliffe hasn’t even seen the place. Ergo, he was planning to watch some old videos of races there (I would suggest the ’93 duel between Paul Tracy and Nigel Mansell as one place to start).

“Certainly old videos help a lot,”  Hinchcliffe said.  “They give you a sense of what the place looks like from onboard and also the old race footage can teach you a little bit about how the track races.  I wish I had a simulator that had this track!  That would help a ton!”

A big field – 27 cars – will take the green flag for that New Hampshire race. Besides Hinchcliffe, Alex Tagliani is the other Canada entered.

One quick thing before we go. Sprint Car racing’s biggest show, the Knoxville Nationals, are on this weekend but for the second year in a row there is no live TV coverage.

The people who run the Nationals noticed several years ago that crowds were declining and reacted by taking the live show off TV but showing the Saturday night final heats and the A Main a couple of weeks later.

Boo. Hiss.

For the sake of a couple of thousand tickets sold (the place is still pretty much packed for the Nationals), a potential TV audience of millions is blacked out.

If I’m a sponsor of World of Outlaws sprint car racing, I’m not happy.

And regardless of how terrific a race (or the racing) might be, I do not watch something that is two or three weeks old, whether it’s baseball, hockey, football or auto racing.

The folks who produce tape-delay events always seem to be able to come up with glowing viewership numbers and I’ve never been able to figure that out. I could understand it in 1991 but in 2011, forget it.

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.

F1 going to pay TV; VIDEO: Kasey Kahn’s flips sprint car out of track

That got your attention, didn’t it? (The F1 report is down below.)

Several days before NASCAR star Tony Stewart took on the World of Outlaws sprint car regulars at Ohsweken Speedway and beat them (that happened Wednesday night at the Six Nations Reserve track near Brantford), another Sprint Cup regular, Kasey Kahne, was racing with the Outlaws at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania.

This is what happened:  watch video here

Kahne survived but it was a close call and his NASCAR employers might be having a talk with him, even as we speak, considering that the NASCAR circus is in Indianapolis for a race Sunday.

Stewart and Kahne are throwbacks to the old days of barnstorming racing drivers, or "Outlaw" drivers, who didn’t race regularly at a particular track or in a particular series but showed up now and again to beat the regulars and make off with the prize pot, which was usually large, which attracted them in the first place.

The locals didn’t like ‘em in the old days and – if truth be told – the regular Outlaw tour drivers today probably don’t really like ‘em all that much either. I mean, Tony and Kasey might be okay guys but Stewart won $10,000 at Ohsweken Wednesday night and that’s a pay packet any one of the other tour regulars would have been very happy to pocket.

The World of Outlaws series is at Brockville Speedway tonight and in Drummondville, Que., tomorrow night. Stewart and Kahne won’t be there.

By the way, an aside: If Kahne is not in the NASCAR Chase for the Championship, it is a good bet he will be in an Indy car at Las Vegas in mid-October for that final IZOD IndyCar Series race in which a $5 million bonus will be paid to any outsider (or "Outlaw") who can beat the regulars.

FORMULA ONE GOING TO PAY TV

I have been suggesting for some time now that as more and more countries balk at continuing to pay extortion money in the millions to Bernie Ecclestone for the pleasure of presenting F1 races on their home soil, the chances of making you and me pay to watch the races on special pay TV channels has been increasing.

Well, the penny dropped today when it was revealed that Britain’s BBC (where TSN gets its signal) will only carry half the races next year and the rest will go on Sky TV, which is a pay TV channel in Britain that charges more than 30 British pounds a month ($45 a month Canadian) for its sports package of soccer, rugby and – now – F1 races.

Canada was the first to call Berni’s bluff and is now paying a sanctioning fee that is significantly lower than it was previously. We lost our race for a year but it paid off (at least in the short term). Other countries are starting to follow suit. Australia has served notice it no longer will pay up, as has the local and state government where the Nurburgring is located in Germany, and so-on. Even Malaysia, Singapore and China have been rumbling about the costs. (It seems that only the newbies, India and the U.S., are willing to fork over outrageous amounts, but give them a few years and they'll see the light.)

F1 is going to have to get the money from somewhere, so guess what? Get ready to shell out.

It’s too early to say what the implications are for Canadian fans in the short term but I’ll bet you right now that within five years (and maybe a lot sooner), you’ll have to pay Rogers or Bell a pretty penny to watch those races.

They already have Major League Baseball packages you can buy, and NHL and NFL packages, and WWE wrestling pay-per-view and MMA pay-per-view.

How does F1 pay-per-view sound?

Meantime, it’s still free (okay, you have to pay a cable fee to get "free" TV, but you get my drift) and you can watch qualifying from Hungary tomorrow at 7:55 a.m. and the race on Sunday at the same time – all on TSN. Lewis Hamilton’s still hot, with Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Sebastien Vettel rounding out the top five in practice today.

NASCAR, of course, is in Indianapolis for the Brickyard 400 (TSN Sunday at noon; green flag at 1 p.m. approx.) The Camping World Truck Series will race on SPEED tonight at 7:30 – they’re at Lucas Oil Raceway (which used to be Indianapolis Raceway Park) – and the Nationwide Series will race on TSN2 Saturday night at 7:30, also at the Lucas Oil track.

No IndyCar this week. They go to Mid-Ohio next weekend for a double-header with the ALMS.

VIDEO: Tony Stewart wins Outlaws race at Southern Ontario speedway

If anybody ever asks how come NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers are the most popular racers in North America, here’s the answer.

Tony Stewart was having so much fun racing sprint cars at Ohsweken Speedway over on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford Tuesday night that he told the sellout crowd that he was going to stick around and run a race with the World of Outlaws Wednesday night.

Which he did — and not only did he race with the Outlaws, he beat them.

Stewart won the annual Six Nations Shootout over Steve (King) Kinser, Sammy Swindell, Jason Sides, Craig Dollansky and the rest of the Outlaws regulars.

And he did it with style.

Stewart is a short-track racer at heart (the Indy cars are his natural home in the big leagues but NASCAR is where the money is) and has raced lots of times with the Outlaws but had never won a feature till Wednesday night.

Here’s what he had to say afterward click on video here.

Stewart originally went to Ohsweken for a Tuesday night show featuring the Corr/Pal Sprint Car Series, which stars his girlfriend, Jessica Zemken of Syracuse.

A Meet & Greet Tony Stewart reception attracted 300 people (at $50 a pop) and then Stewart started 24^th in the feature, fighting his way up to third at the checkers.

Zemken had difficulties and finished mid-pack. Wednesday night, she made it into the Outlaws feature through the B Main and was 14^th.

When Stewart told the assembled fans on Tuesday that he wanted to stay and race on Wednesday, he explained that one of the reasons was his relationship with Zemken.

“There’s nothing she likes more than to beat me at places like this,” he laughed.

The Outlaws are travelling along the 401 today to Brockville for a race there Friday night. From there they go to Drummondville, Que., before heading back to the U.S.

Here is the finishing order of the race at Ohsweken last night.

A-Main — (30 Laps) — 1. 14S-Tony Stewart [3] [$10,000]; 2. 1-Sammy Swindell [5] [$5,500]; 3. 14-Jason Meyers [8] [$3,200]; 4. 9-Brad Sweet [2] [$2,800]; 5. 7S-Jason Sides [4] [$2,500]; 6. 15-Donny Schatz [20] [$2,300]; 7. 83-Paul McMahan [14] [$2,200]; 8. 6R-Bill Rose [12] [$2,100]; 9. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. [1] [$2,050]; 10. 11-Steve Kinser [7] [$2,000]; 11. 7X-Jamie Collard [9] [$1,500]; 12. 32-Justin Barger [18] [$1,200]; 13. 6-Kraig Kinser [6] [$1,100]; 14. 1Z-Jessica Zemken [22] [$1,050]; 15. 77X-Wayne Johnson [17] [$1,000]; 16. 63-Chad Kemenah [10] [$900]; 17. 2M-Dustin Daggett [16] [$800]; 18. O1-Mikey Kruchka [11] [$800]; 19. 91-Cody Darrah [15] [$800]; 20. 5-Keith Dempster [21] [$800]; 21. O-Glenn Styres [19] [$800]; 22. 5W-Lucas Wolfe [24] [$800]; 23. 80-Chris Steele [13] [$800]; 24. 7K-Kyle Moffit [23] [$800]. Lap Leaders: Brad Sweet 1-9, Tony Stewart 10-30. KSE Hard Charger Award: 15-Donny Schatz [+14].

Racing: Whither Vettel? IndyCar penalties and a hot ALMS race

When you’re on assignment at one race (the American Le Mans Series race at Mosport, see post below), it’s a challenge trying to keep up with what’s going on elsewhere. But here goes.

Formula One: When I turned on my recording equipment Sunday night to watch the race, I wondered if I’d somehow (or it somehow) made a mistake. There were three guys on the podium, all right, but Sebastien Vettel wasn’t among them.

There was Lewis Hamilton, the winner, with Fernando Alonso second and Mark Webber third. I had to go back further to watch Vettel cross the line in fourth, with Felipe Massa fifth.

Good grief! That’s the first time Vettel hasn’t been on the podium in eons! And as I rolled the recording backwards even further, I actually saw him spin!

What is the world coming to?

I refuse to believe there are chinks in that guy’s armour. Maybe he didn’t like the chilly weather in Germany (unlike the sweltering heat at Mosport). Maybe he got out of bed on the wrong side.

Whichever, he will be back in form again soon and at the end of the season we’ll find out what was really going on this weekend (maybe his girlfriend dumped him, or Red Bull racing czar Helmut Marko didn't say good morning to him. Or something).

Anyway, a fast-forward review of the race showed Hamilton deserved to win and it was a fighting Alonso who managed to make it into second. The championship is over but those guys are showing that they’ll go down swinging.

Three things to chew on between now and the next race in Hungary next weekend . . .

– Although there is a contract to hold this race through 2016, the government has informed B. Ecclestone, et al, that this was the last German Grand Prix to receive a huge public subsidy. So add Germany to the growing list of countries where the government has said enough!

It won’t happen for a few years but every time there is one of these announcements, the closer F1 is to going on pay television. Trust me. It’s coming and it will happen sooner than anybody realizes. Regardless of what Bernie says.

– Timo Glock has signed a contract to race for Virgin F1 through the 2014 season. Is that nuts, or what? Glock finished 17^th on Sunday, three laps behind the winner. Just the kind of guy you want to sign to a long-term contract, right?

– Although he sat out the German Grand Prix, Lotus insists it wants to sign Jarno Trulli to a contract for 2012. Is that nuts, or what? Trulli finished 23^rd in the last race, the British GP. And his replacement for this weekend, Karun Chandhock, finished 20^th, four laps behind, in Germany. Why would Lotus want to keep either one of those guys?

IZOD IndyCar Series: So after not calling any penalties for avoidable contact in Toronto two weeks ago, when there were a whole bunch of avoidable accidents, the IndyCar race officials were handing them out left, right and centre in Edmonton on Sunday.

Alex Tagliani, Mike Conway and Ryan Hunter-Reay received drive-throughs for plowing into people. E.J. Viso would have received one also but Race Control determined that since he lost a lap in his accident it was penalty enough.

Somebody else who would have qualified was Graham Rahal, who was knocked off the track on the first lap and proceeded to drive right back on and into the path of Canada’s own Paul Tracy. The ensuing collision put them both out - so no penalty.

Tracy would have had every right to be boiling over with anger at Rahal’s stupidity but since he did the same thing at San Jose a few years ago (and drove into the side of fellow Canadian Tagliani at the time) he probably figured what the hell: what goes around comes around.

In any event, Will Power won the race Sunday on the newly configured City Centre Airport circuit with last year’s winner Helio Castroneves second (what? He didn’t win last year? Oh, yeah – that’s right. They penalized him for blocking. The phantom block; maybe that’s why he was on his best behaviour this year . . .) and Dario Franchitti finished third.

Top Canadian was James Hinchcliffe, who finished 15^th, while Tag was 17^th and Tracy was officially 26^th and last.

Top woman was . . . guess who? Danica Patrick in ninth.

Next race is in two weeks on a twin bill with the American Le Mans Series at Mid-Ohio.

Question: should the ALMS race in Toronto with the Indy cars or should the Indy cars race at Mosport with the ALMS?

They had a whopping big crowd at Mosport for the ALMS. I suggest records could be broken if the Indy cars returned to their natural road-course home. Put those two series together for a weekend and it would be like the grand old days of Formula One out there.

One last observation. I don’t recall race promoters ever getting as many pats on the back as Octane Motorsport Events has as the result of the Edmonton race. It strikes me as being a bit over the top when newspaper columnists as well as the sanctioning body positively gush over somebody doing their job.

Is there something going on? I mean, there have been rumours that Octane would like to take over promotion of the Toronto Indy. So is this part of the campaign?

NASCAR Canadian Tire Series: Scott Steckly of Milverton, Ont., driving a Canadian Tire-sponsored Dodge, won the NASCAR Canada race Saturday night at the Motoplex Speedway and Event Park in Vernon, B.C., a race he won a year ago. It was Steckly’s 10th career victory and his first since he won the season opener at Mosport Speedway in May.

Defending series champion D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas, who led a race-high 135 laps, finished a close second in his familiar Castrol Edge Dodge while Kerry Micks of Mt. Albert, Ont., was third in his Dickies/Beyond Digital Imaging Ford.

Ron Beauchamp Jr. of Windsor and Mark Dilley of Barrie completed the top five. Don Thomson Jr. of Hamilton was sixth with Pete Shepherd III of Brampton seventh and J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge eighth. Nathan Weenk of Lethbridge was ninth and Jim White of Kamloops completed the top 10.

The race was slowed 12 times by caution; the race lead exchanged hands eight times among three drivers. In the point standings, Steckly increased his lead over Kennington to 97 points. Fitzpatrick remains in third followed by Thomson and Micks.

The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series will race at Auto Clearing Motor Speedway in Saskatoon on Wednesday.

Other racing: The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series had the weekend off and drivers will next saddle up for the Brickyard 400 at Indy next weekend. The "400," by the way, represents the number of fans they’re expecting at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. . .

Even the Sprint Cup guys like Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick who own teams in the Nationwide and Camping World Trucks took the weekend off and put other drivers in their vehicles.

One guy who should have taken a weekend off was Kasey Kahne, who decided to do a little World of Outlaws sprint car racing and went flying right out of the ballpark at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania.

Kahne won’t be running with them but the Outlaws will be at Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford on Wednesday night. From there, they go to Brockville Speedway and to race tracks in Quebec before heading back to the U.S.A.

Meantime, it was not the greatest of days for Canadians in the Grand Am Series races in New Jersey.

In the Rolex Sports Car race, the AIM Autosport of Woodbridge No. 61 Daytona Prototype normally wheeled by Mark Wilkins of Toronto and American Burt Frisselle was MIA from the race won by Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas.

In the Continental Tire race, Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto finished sixth in the race won by Billy Johnson and Jack Roush Jr. Karl Thomson of Toronto, driving for his Compass 360 Racing team, finish 21^st overall and 9^th in the ST class. Scott Maxwell of Toronto was 46^th overall and classified 20^th in the GS class. Ashley McCalmont of Dundas was 49^th overall and 23^rd in GS.

Countdown on to F1, INDYCAR seasons

WEEKEND HEADLINES:

1. F1, INDYCAR TO OPEN SEASONS

2. KYLE BUSCH IN FULL FLIGHT

3. THRILLING SEBRING THAT NOBODY SAW

1. F1 NEEDS PASSING, INDYCAR NEEDS TRACY, HINCH

Remember years ago, when former FIA chief Max Mosely, in defending the lack of racing action during Grands Prix, said that Formula One racing is like chess and should be viewed as such?

And remember how Max was pretty much put in his place by just about everybody who said, "No, Max, Formula One racing is about racing and should be looked at that way?"

So here we are, literally on the eve of the start of the already-delayed 2011 F1 season with the Grand Prix of Australia coming up at the weekend, and what does ace Red Bull designer Adrian Newey go and do but say that because of the new adjustable rear wing on this year’s car, overtaking will be way too easy and the races will likely be ruined, as a result.

Gee, I always thought that racing was all about passing, but apparently not. Here is exactly what Newey told Autosport magazine recently:

"If it is so easy that you want to be second going into the last lap, then that becomes overly manufactured. . . If racing becomes too much like a NASCAR slipstreamer, it’s going to lose some of the appeal for me."

Well, as one who watched Fernando Alonso stuck behind Vitaly Petrov for just about all of last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix despite, according to the same Autosport, having been a second a lap faster, I say bring it on.

If flattening out the wing approaching a corner gives a trailing driver enough of an advantage to at least try a passing manoeuvre, I’m all for it.

F1 racing needs more passing, not less.

Meantime, the IZOD IndyCar Series will start its season next Sunday in St. Petersburg, Fla. and, as of this morning, two talented Canadians still haven't been officially confirmed for rides.

James Hinchcliffe of Oakville tested for Newman-Hass Racing over the winter and finished in the top ten in speeds turned during last weekend's spring training exercise at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. But whether he'll be racing that car in Florida next weekend is still anybody's guess.

And Paul Tracy has been on tenterhooks because a deal that was supposed to be finalized at the first of last week still hasn't been. It's apparently close, but no cigar as of this writing.

Both those guys deserve to be in that series. More important, that series needs both those guys.

TV TIMES: If you only subscribe to TSN, you’d best plan to either stay up really late next weekend or else use some sort of recording equipment because the Grand Prix of Australia qualifying and the race itself will be telecast live in the middle of the night and there are no repeats scheduled.

Qualifying can be seen at 1:55 a.m. Saturday and the GP live at 1:55 a.m. Sunday. The race will be rebroadcast, but only on TSN2 and not until 11 p.m. Sunday night (which is kind of the way it used to be in the old, old days - now that I think about it).

All other weekend racing will be found on TSN2. The NASCAR Nationwide race from California will be covered live at 5 p.m. Saturday afternoon. The IZOD IndyCar Series season opener from St. Petersburg, Fla., will go at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, with the NASCAR Sprint Cup race from California on at 3 p.m. (or following the conclusion of the INDYCAR race, whichever comes sooner).

Chase for the Championship lineup looks about right

Although it’s still relatively early in the season, with only four of the 26 regular season races run, the standings for the NASCAR Chase for the Championship look to be just about right.

I'm not kidding.

Kurt Busch took over the points lead as the result of his seventh place finish in Sunday’s Jeff Byrd 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway (good tickets still available for that race, by the way . . .) but was still reportedly very upset afterward because HE DIDN’T WIN AND HIS LI’L BRUDDER DID (which is the way I imagine Busch the elder was yelling at his boss, Roger Penske. Sibling rivalry can sometimes be taken way too seriously).

Kyle Busch won that race, by the way, with Carl Edwards second and Jimmie Johnson third.

Matt Kenseth arrived home fourth, with Paul Menard fifth (who’s running very well for Richard Childress, despite what Tony Stewart said in the off-season about him being a no-talent who bought the ride with his rich daddy’s money), Kevin Harvick sixth, Greg Biffle eighth, Kasey Kahne ninth and Ryan Newman tenth (full race story here).

But it’s fascinating already to see how the playoff lineup is playing out.

Here are the top 12: Kurt Busch, Edwards, Stewart, Newman, Menard, Kyle Busch, Johnson, Juan Montoya, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex, Mark Martin, Kahne.

On the outside looking in – and not necessarily that they should be in the top 12; just that they've been there before – are Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton.

There’s a long road ahead, but it will be interesting to see how NASCAR’s new points system (explanation here) plays out over the season, and how the Top 12 will change/not change going forward.

Get too far behind and – like the Leafs – you can put on a spurt near the end but still fall short.

Kyle Busch, meantime, won both races at Bristol this weekend – the Nationwide on Saturday and the Sprint Cup race Sunday – for the second "clean sweep" of his NASCAR career. He won all three races at that track last August: the Camping World Trucks race on the Friday night and then the other two over the weekend.

If he gets on a roll, and there’s no reason that he can't because he really seems like a changed man (marriage can sometimes do that for a guy), look for Kyle to make life even more miserable for his older brother.

Oh, one other thing: race drivers can say all they want about another person’s overall talent level, judgment, driving ability, intelligence and so-on. But they can wind up on a Universal Excrament List when or if they show themselves to be sexist (there are women race drivers now) or racist (Wendel Scott, Willy T. Ribbs) or some other "ist."

Which means that Kevin Harvick has some ‘splainin’ to do to all the senior citizen consumers of his sponsor's product, Budweiser beer. Why? Because he suggested Mark Martin should get his eyesight checked after Martin ran into him at Bristol.

Which is okay, so far as the above rules are concerned. But where Harvick made his mistake is that he called Martin an "old guy" who should get his eyesight checked.

I betcha Kevin Harvick does some backtracking on that crack this week. Martin is 52, which is the new 35, which is not old. Kevin Harvick will find that out.

Bet on it.

A GREAT RACE THAT NOBODY SAW

I’m sure it was a great race and the 100,000-plus who were on hand for the annual 12 Hours of Sebring in central Florida undoubtedly enjoyed themselves tremendously.

(NOTE: It's Monday morning - I post these Monday racing roundups Sunday night - and I've rewritten some of the following paragraphs as the result of emails I received overnight saying there was no online coverage. Others have since written - and I made phone calls - to say they watched the coverage online and it was fine.

(I apologize for the confusion and will endeavour to straighten this out today. I was informed when the initial announcement about the digital coverage was made that ALMS officials were aware that Canadian fans - and others in some places around the world - would be left in the dark and that live coverage would be made available on the ALMS website. So why did some people get it and others not?) 

In any event, I didn’t see it and I didn't even try to see it because my computer has been a little wonky recently and I didn’t want to chance it. So I have no personal excperience one way or the other.

But Nicolas Lapierre, Loic Duval and Olivier Panis driving a privately-owned, year-old, Peugeot 908 won the famous endurance race, with David Brabham, Marino Franchitti and Simon Pagenaud second in a Highcroft HPD ARX-01e (don’t ask) and Franck Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin and Pedro Lamy third in a 2011 Peugeot 908.

There were 56 cars entered in six classes. Here is a link to the full story and results.

Canadian notables: Kenny Wilden of Oakville finished 38^th overall and 13^th in the GT class while Kyle Marcelli of Barrie was 50^th, 12^th in the LMPC class.

Now, in a blog item I wrote last week about the ALMS decision to turn its back on live network TV coverage of its race in favour of digital delivery (click here, if you’re interested) I made a factual error and I would like to make a correction.

Contrary to the figure of 70 million viewers, as I stated in that blog post, SPEED TV, according to Neilsen Media Research, is now available in more than 82 million homes (more than 77 million in the United States and another five million in Canada).

I apologize.

Oh, and a reader named "Bucket" left a comment after that blog, saying that I was incorrect in writing that there was no live TV of that race because it was carried on ESPN2 in the United States.

As most readers know, I write this column in Canada, for Canadians. There was no live TV of that race available here.

RACERS AND RACES

– I lived in Quebec for five years back in the late 1960s and although there were a few things that browned me off about the place, the joie de vivre there can’t be beaten. French-Canadians know how to live and we could all take a lesson from them.

For instance, they hold the North American finals of the incredible Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship at the Quebec Winter Carnival.

Think of Roller Derby going downhill on ice and you’ve pretty much got Crashed Ice racing. They held it at Carnaval for the first time last year and 90,000 people turned out to watch.

Ever think something like that could happen in Toronto? Or anywhere else in the southern part of Ontario?

Now comes word that Mirabel’s Circuit ICAR will host its first 24 Hours on Ice next Feb. 24-26, patterned after the famous Chamonix 24 Hours in France. The endurance will feature World Rally Championship cars from 1973-1981 raced by drivers who the promoters are describing as "internationally renowned."

In previous years, some F1 drivers have raced at Chamonix. It’s unlikely that will be the case at Mirabel but, as they say, you never know.

– The Ontario Formula 1200 Series has announced the creation of a Masters Class (45 years and older) within the championship. The Masters drivers can also challenge for the overall championship and for Rookie-of-the-Year.

So for all you older guys out there who are still daydreaming about winning the Grand Prix of Monaco while trying to fall asleep at night, this could be your big chance. For additional details, go to formula1200.com

– Joey Saldana, who will be racing with the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars when they visit Ohsweken Speedway near Brantford in July, won his second feature of the WoO season on Saturday in California and is now tied for the series lead with Steve Kinser, who will also be at Ohsweken.

– The seventh annual Green Grand Prix will be held at Watkins Glen International on Friday, April 15. A function of the International Motor Racing Research Center at Watkins Glen, the Grand Prix will consist of fuel economy rallies and other energy saving competition around the 2:45-miles short course.

"The Green Grand Prix is all about efficient auto technologies and fuels, energy management and eco-driving styles," said Bob Gillespie, chairman of the Green Grand Prix Committee.

Gates open at 8 a.m. and admission is free. But anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

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!

Kyle Bush beaten but is still the best

WEEKEND HEADLINES:

1. Gordon wins Phoenix Sprint Cup Race
2. Two bad ideas need a re-think

NASCAR'S BEST GETS BEATEN

Kyle Busch is the best racing driver in North America today.

That Busch, who’d earlier won the Camping World Truck Series race Friday night and the Nationwide Series stock car race Saturday eventually finished second to Jeff Gordon in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday is of no consequence.

As he said afterward, he hadn’t had the car to stay equal with Gordon and to fight for the win, but he was all alone in second place and nobody was going to take that away from him.

Defending series champion Jimmie (Five Time) Johnson was third, Kevin Harvick finished fourth and Ryan Newman rolled home fifth. Full Sprint Cup race story here.

Busch was hoping to sweep a NASCAR race weekend for the second time in his career. He’d thrown the triple for the first time at Bristol, Tenn., last season and was two-thirds of the way to his goal Sunday before Gordon got in his way.

In fact, he was winning the race with eight laps to go when Gordon finally got past him coming out of Turn 4. After that, despite continuing to charge, he couldn’t get near the eventual winner.

When I say he’s the best driver on this side of the pond, it’s because when conditions are right and his race car is humming, nobody can touch him. I’ve always thought it a shame that he hasn’t tested himself in other than the NASCAR arena because I have no doubt that he would more than hold his own.

He even appears to have calmed down – perhaps as the result of his recent marriage. He was gracious in defeat on Sunday and even started off a post-race TV interview by apologizing to fellow driver Carl Edwards for running into him early in the headline event.

He and Edwards saw a lot of each other this weekend. Busch led all 200 laps  of the Nationwide race Saturday and Edwards was right behind him the whole way. Full Nationwide Series race story here

Gordon won his first race in 66 starts Sunday, last visiting Victory Lane at Texas Motor Speedway in April of 2009. It was obvious he was rusty because he stalled his car while doing donuts after the checkers and couldn’t re-fire his car.

A wrecker had to push him and the car into the podium area for the awards presentation.

Gordon was clearly delighted.

“Wow,” he said as he passed beneath of the flagstand, checkers waving. “You guys are awesome! Are you kidding me? Pinch me, pinch me! We just beat Kyle Busch! He’s so tough to beat!”

They’ll all go at it again next weekend in Las Vegas. The racing season is well and truly under way.

Notebook Jottings:

- There was none of the two-car drafting that we saw at Daytona going on at Phoenix. In fact, there was no drafting at all. It was wonderful, foot-to-the-floor, door-handle-to-door-handle, mano a mano car racing.

-The Sprint Cup cars are going faster and faster on the short tracks like Phoenix. Heading out of the “dog-leg” betweens Turns 2 and 3, the cars were sliding right up to the wall, as they were on the main straightaway after exiting Turn 4. It was great stuff to watch.

- The race Sunday was the last at the “old” Phoenix raceway. Since it was built in 1964, the oval (there’s a road course there but the oval is where the action has been) has been a high-speed track where the Indy cars (primarily) and the stock cars have raced.

Between now and the NASCAR race in the fall, the track will be reconfigured to go from a mile to about a mile-and-a-half. They’ll do this by moving the exit from Turn 2 and the dog-leg out about 30 yards and increasing the banking between Turns 1 and 2 and Turns 3 and 4. It will be a big, wide, sweeping D track.

 It will be a faster track, that’s for sure, and perhaps more dangerous.

- Trevor Bayne, the 20-year-old who won the Daytona 500, did not have a good weekend. He crashed his race car on Friday and had to qualify the backup. He hit the wall fairly early in the race Sunday after he tried to cut in front of Travis Kvapel, and was eliminated. (His spotter let him down.) He officially finished 40^th.

The Big  One, which involved more than a dozen cars (it was a bit of a crash-fest early, with more than half the 43-car field having to stop for repairs of one kind of another), was triggered when Matt Kenseth and Brian Vickers traded a little paint exiting Turn 2 and Vickers lost control. Pow! Bam! Whammo!

Feelings were hurt but nobody was injured. Vickers blamed Kenseth but really only had himself to blame for losing control.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 10^th, which should give him a boost.

HERE ARE TWO DUMB IDEAS (there's still time to cancel one of them)

One of the big problems in this “instant everything” age we’re living in is that people (individuals, governments, corporations) often don’t think things through.

Translation: what seems like a good idea at the time often doesn’t work out the way it’s supposed to.

For instance, the Ontario government recently cancelled contracts for wind power with several thousand landowners (primarily farmers) all over the province, not because wind power isn’t a good idea but because the province doesn’t have the transmitting capability to handle all the power being produced.

(Gee, ya think they woulda thought of that, eh?)

And with the rush to produce electric cars, it was interesting to read in Saturday’s Wheels section a story by Mark Toljagic that reported batteries – generally – aren’t as sturdy and powerful as they once were (for any number of reasons) and that a new generation of lithium batteries finding their way into electric cars don’t like cold temperatures. (Hmm. And where is it, exactly, that we live again?)

Which brings me to two things that INDYCAR and NASCAR have come up with in recent days and weeks that could have used a little more study.

First, NASACAR.

For years, up-and-coming stock car drivers complained that the stars of the Cup series were dropping down to the Busch (now Nationwide) development series, or the truck series, and stealing points, money and opportunity, not necessarily in that order, from them.

So NASCAR decided that since it can’t forbid anybody from racing in whatever series they wish (they have very strict right-to-work laws in the United States), the best thing to do would be to prevent the Cup drivers from scoring points in the lesser series.

To do this, however, and to avoid charges of discrimination, they ruled that all NASCAR licensed drivers had to declare before the season started in which series they wanted to score points. They could still run in the other series, but if they couldn’t score points, what would be the point? (Or, apparently, so went the thinking. . .)

Well, perhaps they should have served notice of doing this in a year or two, rather than instituting the rule immediately. Because now they have the Daytona 500 winner, Trevor Bayne, unable to record points in the Cup series (he’d opted for the Nationwide), which is a bit of a public-relations disaster, and they still have all the Cup drivers running in Nationwide or trucks because they either had already-signed contracts before NASCAR came up with this bright idea or else they own teams in those series.

Maybe it will work out – eventually. But the two Nationwide Series races to date have been won by Cup drivers and the current points leader – Reed Sorenson – hasn’t finished on the podium in either of them.

(In fact, get this: Danica Patrick finished 14^th at Daytona and 17^th at Phoenix and is fourth in points. Duh.)

The INDYCAR bright idea is even nutsier.

New CEO Randy Bernard has had a stellar year since he took over the top job and just about everything he’s done has deserved applause (new cars, new engines, new manufacturers, new tracks for 2012). His idea for the 2011 season-ending race at Las Vegas Speedway in October, however, might be his first mistake.

He wants to add five, non-INDYCAR regular drivers, to the field and if one of them should happen to win that final race, they would be paid a $5 million bonus.

Now, Bruton Smith owns that speedway and it was Mr. Smith who first proposed the $20-million  bonus to the first driver to win the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 at the Smith-owned Charlotte Motor Speedway on the same day.

So I wonder who came up with this brainwave . . .

But did anybody really think this thing through (see above)?

What if one of these interlopers (how about our own Jacques Villeneuve, for instance; Michael Andretti and Al Unser Jr. are some of the other names being floated) causes an accident and takes out – or injures - one of the drivers in contention for the INDYCAR championship?

How stupid is that going to make INDYCAR look? (If they’re looking for coverage, I guarantee they’ll get lots of it should that happen.)

Some of the reasoning behind this is that Bernard (or Smith, whichever; maybe both) thinks that if one of the NASCAR drivers – the Busch brothers, Kurt and Kyle, come from Las Vegas and might want to race in front of their hometown crowd – should happen to take a crack at this that it will bring incredible publicity to INDYCAR.

But that will not happen for two reasons. 1, Robert Kubica (Jimmie Johnson’s insurance company won’t let him do it because of what happened to the F1 star, not to mention Rick Hendrick) and 2, NASCAR is racing that same weekend – the night before, in fact – on the East Coast and it would be difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to finish racing a stock car in the Carolinas at 11 or midnight and then take a plane west to the desert to strap into an unfamiliar Indy car less than 18 hours later.

It’s a really dumb idea and it’s got potential for disaster and somebody should convince Mr. Bernard to throw the red flag on it before somebody gets hurt and everybody looks foolish.

There’s something else at play here that might even be the most important point of all. By doing this, INDYCAR is saying that its regular field of drivers isn’t good enough and needs some of these “star” outsiders to elevate the playing field. To “goose” the interest, so to speak.

Hmm. Wonder how Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves and the rest feel about that?

DYNAMIC DUO WINS AGAIN

The 2010 Canadian, American, and North American Rally Champions, Antoine L’Estage of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. and Nathalie Richard of Halifax, N.S. won Missouri’s Rally of the 100 Acre Wood this weekend, the second round of the Rally America series.

There's just no stopping those two.

Special Section and F1 in Bahrain

Please check out our Special Section on Auto Racing in 2011.

You can’t beat the lineup of subjects — in-depth previews of NASCAR Sprint Cup, INDYCAR, Formula One, Sports Cars (the ALMS and the Rolex series) plus local racing and TV guides — and you can’t beat the lineup of expert writers: Gerald Donaldson, Sylvia Proudfoot, John C. Bassett and Mark Zwolinski, among others.

Read it yourself, print it out for reference (particularly the TV guides) and tell all your friends.

You can find it here.

The news today, of course, is the serious situation in Bahrain where the F1 season is scheduled to start in less than a month – March 13.

Although the Grand Prix’s organizers maintain that the show will go on, I’m not so sure.

You can’t have popular civil unrest, with people dead in the streets, and then go racing three weeks later (when you can bet there will be more people dead, many injured and many more in jail).

F1 will have to cancel. The sooner, the better.

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.