Well, I told you Corner One was gonna be fun.
And I told you Paul Tracy was gonna be fast.
Check and check respectively.
Tracy qualified fifteenth, although less than a second off the pole.
But he managed to avoid the regular-as-clockwork crash in Corner One Lap One, and was something like seventh after just that one lap.
For much of the middle part of the race, it was Canada one-two, as Alex Tagliani and Tracy battled for the lead.
After all the pit stops had been completed, Tracy was looking very good for at least a podium, if not an overall win.
He pulled his patented banzai outbraking manoeuvre at the end of the Lakeshore Boulevard straight, and was clearly inside Helio Castroneves for the Turn Three right-hander.
But the two cars touched, apparently damaging Castroneves' rear suspension. Because as he accelerated up the narrow chute into Four, his car snapped right and drove Tracy into the wall, ending the race for both of them.
"Stick to dancing!" screamed the crowd amidst a chorus of boos for the genial Castroneves.
"They should have jailed you on that tax evasion charge!" yelled someone else.
"That's racing," said Castroneves, approximately.
It obviously wasn't deliberate (although I must say it looked that way on the video monitor) because it certainly did Castroneves no good to lose out on what was bound to be a high-championship-points finish.
"He's the last guy I'd want to take out of the race here in front of his home-town fans," he added. The two had had other confrontations in their past, but were seen chatting amicably after the incident.
So Tracy more than did his job, giving the fans a lot to cheer about, and providing much of the excitement in what was actually a very interesting race.
The first-corner brouhaha involved a couple of the front runners, including Ryan Briscoe and Will Power.
("Mr. and Mrs. Power, you've had a healthy baby boy! What are you going to call him?"
"William."
"Will Power? Are you quite sure?"
I guess it beats Apple Paltrow and Moon Unit Zappa.
I digress…)
This put several of the top cars out of sequence with respect to pit stops, which made it difficult for the fans to see who really was in the running.
For the team managers as well, who were trying to balance fuel loads and tire wear versus their competitors.
Often with Indy Car races it comes down to the luck of the draw. Ideally you'd like to pit during a full-course yellow so the field isn’t going as fast when you're stopped, and you don't lose as much track position.
But of course, you never know when the yellows are going to strike.
Scotland-born Dario Franchitti's strategy came up aces when he pulled in to the pits just as a yellow was coming out.
Tagliani wasn't so lucky - the pits are closed for the first few laps after a crash, a safety measure designed to avoid too much crowding which would happen if everyone came in at once. By the time he got in, it had gone green and he was out of contention. He subsequently also came to grief when he hit Tomas Scheckter's car (Tomas was not impressed) but did manage to finish.
It always sounds weird to hear a guy named Dario Franchitti speak with a stronger Scottish accent than Robbie Burns. Franchitti's father apparently emigrated from Italy to Scotland to open an ice cream stand.
His son has done pretty well for himself; following a reasonably successful Formula One career, he came to North America where he has done very well indeed in Indy Car and now IRL.
And, he married Ashley Judd. How hard must it be for him to come home at night after work?
Although Franchitti qualified on the pole and won the race, it was hardly a Formula One-style flag-to-flag snoozefest.
In fact, I'd say there was probably more passing and more tension in this race than in two decades of the former Molson Indy.
So, the first Honda Indy Toronto was certainly an artistic success.
Financially?
Hard to say. Andretti Green Promotions which acquired the rights to the race doesn't publish attendance figures. Many of the grandstands which were erected for the old Roar by the Lakeshore were not in place this year, the promoters presumably preferring not to broadcast TV images of thousands of spectators dressed up as empty seats.
But a venue as big as Exhibition Place can swallow up a lot of people without looking very crowded. And if the crowd might have been 30,000 - 40,000, name me any other sporting event in the city whose organizers wouldn't do handsprings down Yonge Street with a crowd like that.
And without question, the atmosphere was much friendlier than ever before. Not only the perfect weather (thank you, Weather Goddess) but the marshals, crowd-control people, even the parking lot attendants, were all smiling and cheerful.
Kudos also to Honda Canada, not only for stepping up to sponsor the event, but for helping put Paul Tracy in a competitive car.
This is the first of a minimum three-year commitment to the race by Honda Canada, and they say it will last a lot longer than that.
They're off to a decent start.
Better than last year, in any event.
***
And a tip of the old Bell helmet to my buddy Alain Lauziere who won his class in the Castrol Touring Car Championship preliminary race in the bright orange Mini Cooper S JCW I raced at Mosport last summer. Alain had resigned hmself to a second place finish when apparently the class leader tried a "We Did It!" wave to his pit crew on the very last corner of the very last lap, only to lose control and smack the wall hard, allowing Alain to breeze past.
