Dario Franchitti heeft in de spannende afsluitende race op de Homestead-Miami Speedway de IndyCar titel 2009 gegrepen. Na een teleurstellend experiment in Nascar in 2008 heeft de 36-jarige Schot zijn terugkeer in de IndyCar Series met een tweede kampioenschapstitel kunnen bezegelen.

Eind augustus zag het er nochtans naar uit dat het kampioenschap in het voordeel van Penske rijder Ryan Briscoe zou beslecht worden. Na de race op Chicagoland had Briscoe zich comfortabel aan de leiding van het klassement genesteld, maar de Australiër speelde zijn riante puntenvoorsprong kwijt op Twing Ring Motegi met een onbegrijpelijke slipper bij het uitrijden van de pitlane. 

Op Homestead-Miami voerde Briscoe lange tijd het commando, maar het uitblijven van gele vlaggen dwongen Briscoe en titelrivaal Scott Dixon vijf ronden van het einde opnieuw de pits op te zoeken voor een splash-and-dash. Dario Franchitti kwam dankzij een andere brandstofstrategie aan de leiding en reed uiteindelijk als eerste onder de finishvlag door.

Voor Chip Ganassi Racing is 2009 een uiterst succesrijk seizoen geweest. Franchitti en Dixon pakten elk vijf overwinningen en eindigden respectievelijk als eerste en tweede in de eindstand. De dominantie van Ganassi en Penske is dit jaar overweldigend geweest. De twee renstallen kaapten alle overwinningen weg, met uitzondering van Watkins Glen waar Justin Wilson van het bescheiden Dale Coyne Racing zegevierde.

.

Hoje às 18h (horário de Brasília) a Band transmitirá a última etapa da temporada 2009 da Indy, no oval de Homestead – Miami. O grid de largada tem Dario Franchitti na pole com Scott Dixon em 2º e Ryan Briscoe em 3º.

Dixon, Dario e Briscoe: um deles será campeão hoje!

Os três brigam pelo título do campeonato e a diferença entre eles está em apenas oito pontos: Dixon lidera com 570pts, Dario tem 566pts e Briscoe 562pts.

A parada é simples: Quem vencer a corrida leva os dois canecos!

Não perca essa emocionante disputa, às 18h na Band!

Penske and Ganassi drivers are dominating the championship this year – and they dominated the action on track at Chicagoland Speedway as well right from the start, as IRL returned to oval racing and came under the spotlight in a literal sense in the chilly and windy conditions at the Windy City.

Showing that the aerodynamic changes and reintroduction of push-to-pass had succeed in their intent, we got some breathless, tight running at the start. Ryan Briscoe led Helio Castroneves as the two maintained side-by-side formation for several laps, while Scott Dixon charged through the field to take up third spot ahead of Dario Franchitti. Briscoe continued to lead until the first round of pit stops under green at the quarter-distance mark, managing to stay out longer than either Penske car and putting himself into the lead as a result as he rejoined the track.

However, Briscoe soon resumed the lead over Dixon, and then both drivers struggled as they hit started to lap traffic. As they got stuck behind the slow runners, Helio Castroneves pulled off a spectacular move, moving up into the high third groove and sweeping past Briscoe, Dixon and the backmarkers all in one go, at one stage three-wide with EJ Viso and Mike Conway having their own private battle.

Dixon tried to emulate the move but found the high line impossible to pull off; instead he ended up in a prolonged wheel-to-wheel battle with Viso who showed no sign in yielding, and even a push from Franchitti did little to assist him, showing that even the leaders’ superior pace counted for little in traffic.

By the time of the first full course caution on lap 92, the lead pack were some eight seconds ahead of the second group headed by Ed Carpenter. The caution was triggered by a heavy crash for Andretti Green’s Hideki Mutoh, who slid up into the wall and wrecked the back end of the car. It came just before the midrace distance, neatly timed for the second round of pit stops of the evening.

Once again Dixon got the best of the pit stops and returned to the lead of the race; but it was a blunder by Briscoe, who came to a stop just a little too far away from the pit wall for the refueller to quite reach, slowing down the stop and returning Briscoe to the track in 8th position. Still, it was better than Dan Wheldon’s pit stop that ended up with a broken half-shaft and an early finish to the day for the Panther driver.

With the pack closed up again by the caution period, the racing was incredibly tight again after the green flag came out: Dixon and Castroneves were locked together side-by-side for first, while Raphael Moraes muscled his way past Carpenter to go two-wide with Franchitti, leaving Carpenter packed up alongside Tony Kanaan. And hen a real wild card came through in the form of Tomas Scheckter who converted these battles briefly to three-wide as be rose up to third place.

The caution flags came out again on lap 109 when Marco Andretti went up too high and lost grip on the marbles, sending him the rest of the way up to a glancing, light impact with the wall. The car was undamaged and returned to the track after a change of tyres. Despite the fact that it was only a short while since the last round of pit stops, many of the leaders came in again anyway: Dixon and Castroneves dropped three places apiece coming off pit road in doing so, and Briscoe’s refueller again struggled with his duties – this time the result of the sharp angle Briscoe presented him with. Meanwhile, Scheckter and Kanaan opted to stay out and assumed the top spots.

It was another incredibly tight and tense restart, with Kanaan taking the lead while Scheckter and Franchitti went wheel-wheel for second, and Moraes and Carpenter’s two-way battle behind them went three-wide when Dixon decided he was going to make the high line work for him this time around – and pulled it off.

The Ganassi duo soon dispatched Kanaan and Scheckter and took over the top spots. With their Penske rivals stuck down the running order (10th for Briscoe, 12th for Castroneves), it was starting to look like a done deal; but the race wasn’t done quite yet and Briscoe briskly made his way back to 3rd place with Moraes in 4th, although Helio laboured and made heavy weather of it before he too returned to the top four.

At the final round of pit stops, Dixon’s Ganassi crew once again performed miracles and got their man out on track in the lead. Less fortunate was his team mate Dario Franchitti: the right front tyre changer had to lay down the air gun to retrieve a lugnut, and the air hose caught on the front of the car and needed to be untangled before Dario could be waved out. It only cost a second or two, but race victories have depended on far less.

It looked like it was going to be a shoot-out between the four of them, but on lap 183 something suddenly broke on Castroneves’ suspension sending him flying up into a crunching impact with the wall; Dario Franchitti, running the outside line just behind him, was fortunate not to be collected by Helio on the way. It eliminated Helio form the race and indeed the championship, and left the race a ten-lap sprint to the chequered flag.

Briscoe, Dixon and Franchitti ran line astern, while the big battle was between Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti, Raphael Moraes and Ed Carpenter behind them for fourth position. Energised by this fight, Rahal and Moraes emerged from the battle of the fittest and took the battle to the leaders, giving Franchitti all sorts of problems trying to hold them off. As Dixon and Briscoe went side-by-side for the remaining laps of the race, Rahal was first to assert his case, sweeping around Franchitti to make it a three-wide battle. But Rahal’s push-to-pass was spent and his challenge faded so that he sank back, leaving Moraes side by side with Franchitti for third place.

Briscoe couldn’t complete the pass against Dixon, but lap after lap he was just in front at the one point it mattered: over the start/finish line. And so as they approached the chequered flag, Briscoe willed himself to do it one last time – and pulled it off, by an eye-wateringly slim margin of 0.0077s or the width of a front wing. Behind them, Moraes also found the outside line to be the right one for the last lap lunge and passed the line half a car length in front of Franchitti.

It had been an exciting and hard fought IndyCar race – the series seemes back to its best after some worrying early duds. No one can say this one was dull, and the best man definitely won at the end in the shape of Ryan Briscoe.

Race result

Pos  Driver             Team                      Time/Gap
 1.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               1h42m34.3051s
 2.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi                  + 0.0077s
 3.  Mario Moraes       KV                       + 0.0699s
 4.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi                  + 0.0997s
 5.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan      + 0.1295s
 6.  Ed Carpenter       Vision                   + 0.1668s
 7.  Oriol Servia       Newman/Haas/Lanigan      + 0.2612s
 8.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold        + 0.2683s
 9.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon             + 0.3356s
10.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                    + 0.4344s
11.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green           + 0.5224s
12.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green           + 0.5840s
13.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green           + 0.8269s
14.  Sarah Fisher       Fisher                   +   1 lap
15.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                     +   1 lap
16.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold        +   1 lap
17.  EJ Viso            HVM                      +  2 laps
18.  Robert Doornbos    HVM                      +  3 laps
19.  Jaques Lazier      3G                       +  5 laps

Retirements:

     Helio Castroneves  Penske               184 laps
     Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    155 laps
     Dan Wheldon        Panther              95 laps
     Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       90 laps

IRL championship standings

Briscoe’s championship lead is stretched to 25 points with just two rounds to go – by no means safe or even comfortable, but the title is looking like Briscoe’s to lose.

Helio’s retirement means that he is now mathematically ruled out of the title hunt. It’s a thee-way fight to the finish, starting with Motegi in two weeks’ time.

Pos Driver              Points
1   Ryan Briscoe        550
2   Dario Franchitti    525
3   Scott Dixon         517
4   Helio Castroneves   383
5   Danica Patrick      353
6   Marco Andretti      342
7   Tony Kanaan         335
8   Graham Rahal        331
9   Dan Wheldon         318
10  Justin Wilson       316
11  Hideki Mutoh        309
12  Ed Carpenter        286
13  Raphael Matos       274
14  Ryan Hunter-Reay    269
15  Robert Doornbos     257
16  Mario Moraes        248
17  Mike Conway         234
18  Ernesto Viso        219
19  Will Power          215
20  Tomas Scheckter     161
21  Alex Tagliani       114
22  Paul Tracy          113
23  Milka Duno          100
24  Oriol Servia         83
25  Sarah Fisher         77
26  Jaques Lazier        65
27  Richard Antinucci    63
28  Vitor Meira          62
29  Stanton Barrett      50
30  Darren Manning       38
31  Townsend Bell        32
32  A.J. Foyt IV         26
33  Alex Lloyd           17
34  Scott Sharp          16
35  Nelson Philippe      16
36  John Andretti        12
37  Franck Montagny      12
38  Davey Hamilton       10

As the race attempted to dodge the bad weather that had caused the cancellation of qualifying, it was time to see what effects the new aerodynamic parts and in particular the return of a version of “push to pass” would make on the evening; would it stave off another of those dull processional races that we’ve seen twice so far this season?

With the running order set by championship points, initially there wasn’t too much movement up front; but Dario Franchitti was finding the pace noticeably too hot and was the big loser in the early stages, falling behind not only the two Penske cars but also the hard-charging Raphael Moraes and (somewhat startling!) Ed Carpenter, so that Dario fell to 6th.

There did seem to be more side-by-side action from the start, however, with the Andretti-Green Racing cars in particular seemingly locked in hand-to-hand combat with each other. Up front, Scott Dixon led from the start but Ryan Briscoe coasted up to his rear wing and then stayed in exactly the optimal spot, picking up the draft but not feeling inclined to take the lead outright. It was a clear declaration of intent: I’m here, and I can have you any time I like. The two of them dropped off the rest of the field during the first stint, until finally Briscoe used the distraction of passing a backmarker (Robert Doornbos) to trap Dixon on the inside line and take the lead.

It turned out to be a fleeting success, because pit stops started just short of the 50 lap distance, and Scott Dixon proved that – despite leading almost every lap so far – he had also made the best fuel economy, as he was able to stay out a lap longer. Briscoe, Castroneves and Franchitti all came in together into consecutive pit boxes, meaning they lost time manoeuvring around each other, whereas Dixon had the place to himself and coasted in and out in a straight line to resume the lead ahead of Briscoe once more.

There was drama further back in the pit lane involving one of the hitherto front runner, Raphael Moraes. He was coming into his pit box when Mike Conway and Ryan Hunter-Reay in the pit boxes behind were just being released; there was crunching impact, with Moraes turned around and extensive body damage inflicted on the car that would take a long time to repair. After such a successful start to the evening it was a hugely disappointing outcome.

The pit stops didn’t seem to have done Dario Franchitti ay favours, as he was now overtaken by the AGR cars of Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick and at one point washed dangerously high up the track and had to pull off the throttle altogether.

As the midpoint of the race and the second round of pit stops approached – still with no yellows in sight – Briscoe once again used the opportunity of lapped traffic (Hunter-Reay this time) to get alongside Dixon, and the two traded the nominal lead as they ran wheel-to-wheel for multiple laps. Finally it was Dixon who blinked first, this time the Ganassi needing to pit first for fuel, and that meant Briscoe was able to get the later, better stop and emerge on track firmly in front of Dixon – albeit only by a couple of car lengths.

The race was running at a fast and furious pace; with no yellows, half the race distance was run in a little over 45 minutes at an average speed of over 210mph, an incredible pace, but motivated by the rain radar which showed a huge bank of rain on its way in within the next half hour. The extra motivatation meant everyone was racing hard and not waiting for the alleged “final laps”.

Finally a caution came out on lap 122 as Justin Wilson suffered electical problems and crawled back to the pits. Moments later the pits opened, and almost the entire field streamed in – which it was off-sequence for the full race length, the prospect of rain made a stop a no-brainer – except that the wily Roger Penske kept his third car, Will Power, out on track to cover all bases. With Power taking over the race lead, and Castroneves opting not to take new tyres meaning that he beat Dixon out of the pits, all of a sudden the Penske team had a clean sweep of the top three positions – oh, how they would have loved the rain to start right that minute!

At the restart, Castroneves was slower than expected going into the final turn, catching out Dixon who passed him before the restart lane. He was ordered to cede the position back to Helio in subsequent laps, which cost him crucial time and positions.

Meanwhile both of them were blitzed by Ed Carpenter, who shot past them both in pursuit of the leaders. He got inside Ryan Briscoe, and Briscoe suddenly went shooting up the track – keeping his car off the wall by the narrowest of margins, and dropping to 8th before he could get back up to full speed. That left Carpenter to go wheel-to-wheel with Will Power for the lead in a series of thrilling laps, while Castroneves now found himself running alongside Tony Kanaan competing for 4th.

As the laps clicked past 150, Power’s pit stop was fast approaching. He alone would be able to go full race distance after that, everyone else would have to stop again – unless the rain intervened. Carpenter appeared to back off and inherited the lead when Power duly came down pit road a couple of laps later. But Carpenter’s astonishing turn of speed at the restart was now over, and he found the rest of the field closing up fast behind him – headed by Castroneves, a fully recovered Briscoe, Kanaan and then Graham Rahal getting the better of the fading pair of Ganassis who were duelling over 6th place.

With final pit stops now set for around lap 175, requiring only 3-4 seconds of fuel to get to the end of the race, the question now became: whether to take the extra time for fresh rubber or not? No one felt inclined to take the gamble, however, and all the front runners opted to wait for fresh rubber. As the pit stops cycled through, scrambling the running order one last time, and we entered the final dozen laps, Carpenter had resumed the lead ahead of Tony Kanaan, Ryan Briscoe, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves and Dario Franchitti.

Now Briscoe made his move, winning a wheel-to-wheel battle with Kanaan and then going alongside Carpenter for the lead in a nerve-racking few minutes of side-by-side racing. And Castroneves was following Briscoe through as well, ready to pounce if either should make a mistake – but it was Helio that made the error, drifting too high up the race track and having to ease off the throttle to avoid disaster, putting him back behind Kanaan and out of contention for the race win.

Up front, it was a tense, thrilling high-speed finish to the race – the kind we’ve been missing this season until now. Confirmation, whoever should now win, that the changes IRL had brought in had reaped immediate rewards. Lap after lap, Briscoe and Carpenter remained locked together side-by-side; Briscoe was out of push-to-pass and unable to complete the overtaking move on Carpenter, but Briscoe seemed to be practising exactly where he needed to be off the last turn to get the slingshot across the line first when the chequered flag came out, and that’s exactly what he did at the end of lap 200 – beating the Vision Racing car by a mere 0.0162s – the 7th closest race in IRL history.

Everyone could breath again after an exciting event that showed IndyCar back to its best. “It was so close,” Briscoe said. “I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to touch wheels with Ed Carpenter here.’ It started getting closer and closer. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so excited crossing the finish line. It was very hard-fought out there.

“Now [with the changes] you can run down under people and get aggressive. That’s what made the racing so good. The aero changes, the tyres, the push-to-pass – I don’t think you can put your finger on one thing that made it better”

“Nobody knew if the changes were going to work, but they did,” agreed Carpenter. “This is definitely the most fun I’ve had in a long time.” And a special commendation for Carpenter, who has generally been a non-entity or an accident waiting for a place to happen, but who drove the best race of his IRL career here today. You almost felt sorry that it didn’t come off for him this time – but maybe a win is in the offing in the near future on this evidence.

And as the drivers and crews celebrated in the pits, the rain started to fall. That it waited until after the final lap showed just how this weekend at least, the luck was with IRL.

Race results

Pos  Driver             Team                      Time/Gap
 1.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               1h28m24.3246s
 2.  Ed Carpenter       Vision                  +  0.0162s
 3.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green          +  0.1614s
 4.  Helio Castroneves  Penske                  +  0.2728s
 5.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan     +  0.6346s
 6.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi                 +  1.7670s
 7.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi                 +  3.2512s
 8.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green          +  4.7231s
 9.  Will Power         Penske                  +  6.1424s
10.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green          +  6.9963s
11.  Dan Wheldon        Panther                 + 12.7597s
12.  Sarah Fisher       Sarah Fisher            + 15.9732s
13.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green          + 27.9705s
14.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                    +   3 laps
15.  EJ Viso            HVM                     +   3 laps
16.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon            +   4 laps
17.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold       +   8 laps
18.  Mario Moraes       KV                      +  12 laps
19.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan     +  15 laps
20.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold       +  35 laps

Retirements:

     Justin Wilson      Coyne                120 laps
     Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold    59 laps
     Jaques Lazier      3G                   43 laps

IRL championship standings

Briscoe’s win is critical in the championship standings, caterpaulting him over the Ganassi duo into the top spot.

Pos Driver  Points
1   Ryan Briscoe        416
2   Scott Dixon         409
3   Dario Franchitti    405
4   Helio Castroneves   341
5   Danica Patrick      309
6   Marco Andretti      279
7   Dan Wheldon         274
8   Tony Kanaan         274
9   Graham Rahal        265
10  Justin Wilson       253
11  Hideki Mutoh        237
12  Ed Carpenter        226
13  Ryan Hunter-Reay    210
14  Will Power          209
15  Robert Doornbos     209
16  Raphael Matos       208
17  Mario Moraes        181
18  Ernesto Viso        179
19  Mike Conway         173
20  Tomas Scheckter     137
21  Alex Tagliani       114
22  Paul Tracy           87
23  Milka Duno           63
24  Vitor Meira          62
25  Sarah Fisher         61
26  Jaques Lazier        53
27  Stanton Barrett      50
28  Darren Manning       38
29  Richard Antinucci    36
30  Townsend Bell        32
31  A.J. Foyt IV         26
32  Alex Lloyd           17
33  Scott Sharp          16
34  John Andretti        12
35  Nelson Philippe      10
35  Davey Hamilton       10
35  Oriol Servia         10

Staged on the distinctive converted ’street’ track of Edmonton City Center Airport’s runways, the Rexall Indy is the second leg of IRL’s Canadian tour. And Penske had the whip hand, with Will Power, Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves locking out the top three spots at the start. Could they convert that dominance to a race win?

As the green flag came out, Raphael Matos was an early spinner as the race got underway. Matos was spun after squeezing Mike Conway going into turn 1. He was able to keep the engine going and he got the car pointed in the right direction after an accidental 360 degree donut to rejoin the race, but he later had to pit with right rear suspension damage and rejoined 111laps down; meanwhile, Mike Conway himself went off later on in the first lap going through the high speed chicane and ploughed through the grass, which also put him into the pits for lengthy repairs that put him 33 laps down.

Mario Moraes was also an early visitor to the pits when he suffered left rear suspension damage as a result of collision with his team mate Paul Tracy who was trying to get past on the inside line. Tracy’s car seemed undamaged by the collision.

As things settled down, Power, Briscoe and Castroneves led the field ahead of Ganassi rivals Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, with Tracy slotting into 6th place behind them. By lap 25, Power had pulled out a 4.35s lead over his team mates in a hugely impressive display.

Tomas Scheckter pitted on lap 17 with suspected tyre or suspension damage; he was sent back out on a new set of tyres but there was still something clearly wrong with the car and he was back in again the following lap for a deeper look eventually rejoining the race 19 laps down. Richard Antinucci also came into the pits for an extended stay, making four out of the 23 starters now on pit road.

Green flag pit stops commenced on lap 32, with Franchitti and Tracy the first of the top runners to come in, most of the others coming in on the following lap to ensure they weren’t caught out by a yellow flag coming out in the meantime and Helio Castroneves the last on lap 33, using the extra laps out on track to leapfrog Ryan Briscoe for second and gain a place.

But there was drama a lap later when Tony Kanaan’s pit stop ended with a major fuel spillage when the car pulled away, and the fuel hose failed to seal after being extracted. Flames started to dance all over the bodywork and even into the cockpit, and Kanaan braked and tried to bail out of the cockpit; all the pit crews leapt into action to throw water and bring extinguishers, and to help Kanaan out as he’s still suffering from rib injuries sustained at the Indy 500. Crisis over, Kanaan was okay and giving the thumbs-up, although he was clearly feeling the effects of the flames on his face where the helmet visor had been open during the pit stop.

None of this triggered a yellow out on the track, however, where Will Power was finding it impossible to stretch out the sort of comfortable lead he’d enjoyed in the earlier laps of the race now that Helio was leading the hunt, especially as they had to contend with lapped traffic as they went – Marco Andretti in particular proving to be a Royal pain.

Lap 63 saw Franchitti and Tracy once again herald green flag pit stops. Power and Castroneves cane in the following lap, but Briscoe stayed out a lap longer and put in a blistering performance to emerge just in front of his team mate to reverse the move Helio put on him during the first round of stops. And then Scott Dixon came in the following lap, and came out in front of them both by the narrowest of margins: Briscoe had a brief window of opportunity to pressure Dixon whose tyres were still cold, and sure enough Dixon locked up going into the final turns of his out lap giving Briscoe the chance to get past. Castroneves was unable to follow Briscoe through, however, and remained stuck in 4th place ahead of Franchitti and Tracy.

Briscoe’s triumph was shortlived, however, and a few laps later the group hit lapped traffic. As he tried to get passed, Briscoe managed to brush the wall at turn 10 and Dixon was able to use the opportunity to overtake while Briscoe was reporting that “something didn’t feel right” with the back of his car. He was unable to stop Helio Castroneves getting past as well, his pace now so poor that Scott and Helio quickly pulled out a 4s lap over him; fortunately, Briscoe still had a healthy margin over Dario and Paul behind him and was safe in 4th place.

Further back, Ryan Hunter-Reay’s race came to a crunching halt on lap 7 when he lost the back going through the fast turn 8, spun and backed the car into the wall, badly damaging the back wing assembly. He limped back to the pits and the crew leapt into action to try and put a new rear wing on as quickly as possible.

When Hunter-Reay returned to the track, he quickly found himself tangling with Ed Carpenter – right as Dixon and Castroneves came up fast behind them. The two faster cars split either side of the backmarkers, but Helio was more savvy and chose the right line, sliding past Dixon on the inside. To his credit, the Kiwi gave Helio enough room so that they both avoided an accident, but it cost him second place in the process.

With ten laps to go to the end, there was no touching Will Power who had a 5.8s lead over Castroneves and Dixon. It was a peerless performance by the Aussie, who clearly demonstrated why he deserves a full time ride with Penske in the future by notching up his maiden IRL series victory. But Scott Dixon thwarted the Penske 1-2-3 by claiming third place, a threatening late revival charge by Briscoe (now over his handling problems) stopped in its tracks by the one and only yellow flag of the race, triggered by Tomas Scheckter hitting the wall hard and leaving debris on track. The race finished under the caution.

Dixon’s third place is crucial to the IRL championship, as it puts him back in the lead of the title race by 3pts over his team mate Franchitti. Ironically, Power’s success kept points away from the Ganassi duo’s main rivals Castroneves and Briscoe – but it’s still wide open as IRL heads into the final six races of 2009.

Race result

Pos  Driver             Team                      Time/Gap
 1.  Will Power         Penske               1h42m42.3773s
 2.  Helio Castroneves  Penske                  +  1.0936s
 3.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi                 +  1.3213s
 4.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske                  +  1.8266s
 5.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi                 +  4.4652s
 6.  Paul Tracy         KV                      +  6.3941s
 7.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan     + 26.5700s
 8.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                   + 26.9169s
 9.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan     +    1 lap
10.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green          +    1 lap
11.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green          +    1 lap
12.  EJ Viso            HVM                     +    1 lap
13.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest                +    1 lap
14.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green          +    1 lap
15.  Dan Wheldon        Panther                 +    1 lap
16.  Ed Carpenter       Vision                  +   2 laps
17.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                    +   8 laps
18.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon            +  10 laps
19.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold       +  22 laps
20.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold       +  32 laps

Retirements/not classified:

     Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       34 laps
     Richard Antinucci  3G                   20 laps
     Mario Moraes       KV                   0 laps

IRL championship standings

Pos Driver  Points
1   Scott Dixon         380
2   Dario Franchitti    377
3   Ryan Briscoe        366
4   Hélio Castroneves   309
5   Danica Patrick      285
6   Marco Andretti      259
7   Dan Wheldon         255
8   Justin Wilson       241
9   Tony Kanaan         239
10  Graham Rahal        235
11  Hideki Mutoh        220
12  Robert Doornbos     197
13  Ryan Hunter-Reay    194
14  Raphael Matos       194
15  Will Power          187
16  Ed Carpenter        186
17  Mário Moraes        169
18  Ernesto Viso        164
19  Mike Conway         160
20  Tomas Scheckter     125
21  Alex Tagliani       114
22  Paul Tracy           87
23  Vitor Meira          62
24  Milka Duno           51
25  Stanton Barrett      50
26  Sarah Fisher         43
27  Jaques Lazier        41
28  Darren Manning       38
29  Richard Antinucci    36
30  Townsend Bell        32

Toronto proved to be a tale of two pit stops for Dario Franchitti: one looked to have lost him the race, while the other was that rare stroke of luck that conjours race victories from thin air when all around are collisions and incidents aplenty.

Franchitti led the field to the green flag on the streets of Toronto surrounded by a crowd of unfamiliar names up at the sharp end, including Will Power, Graham Rahal, Justin Wilson, Alex Tagliani and Mike Conway. Would the mixed-up grid result in some topsy-turvey racing? Short answer, yes: Will Power cut his tyre on Graham Rahal’s front wing and shot off at the first turn, before crawling around a full lap to the pits for fresh rubber; Rahal was also quickly forced in for a pit stop for a new wing, along with Ryan Briscoe who had a puncture of his own after running wide onto the start/finish straight and hitting the wall as the green flag flew. The stops put all three runners at the back of the field and close to being lapped.

There was no yellow for those incidents, but the caution came out on lap 8 when Dan Wheldon tripped over Richard Antinucci, spun and stalled in a lazy collision where neither driver looked particularly committed to the overtaking move. The caution was a God-send for Power who was able to close up all that distance to the main pack, and the entire field took the opportunity to pit.

The course went green long enough on lap 1 for Scott Dixon to pass Robert Doornbos for 3rd but was quickly under yellow again for a rather embarrassing solo spin by Ed Carpenter. At the next restart, it was Franchitti once again leading the way ahead of Tagliani, Dixon, Doornbos, Conway and Paul Tracy creeping into the top six.

Doornbos lost another place at the restart when Mike Conway pulled off a brave and effective lunge down the inside; Paul Tracy took advantage of Doornbos’ disarray and followed Conway through, putting Doornbos down two places to 6th in just a few turns. When EJ Viso and Raphael Matos also cruised past him it was clear Doornbos had a bigger problem and it was no surprise to see him peel into the pits and retire.

Tony Kanaan and Ryan Briscoe also came in on lap 23 on an off-sequence strategy; but the big shock was when race leader Franchitti came into the pits the very next lap, a very strange time to give up the lead he’d so effortlessly enjoyed. Ganassi may have been gambling on an imminent full course yellow as Carpenter has spun out on track again, but if so they were disappointed as the marshalls cleared the stalled car out of the way with just local yellows. Even worse for the Scot, it was also not a smooth stop either: a stripped lugnut on the rear left tyre cost valuable seconds and resulted in Dario returning to the track in 15th place ahead of a combative Marco Andretti. The race victory appeared out of reach and now it was just damage limitation on the points front – unless something miraculous happened …

Dixon was in on lap 30 signalling the start of the ‘proper’ round of pit stops, and Paul Tracy was in on lap 32 also switching to the soft ‘red wall’ tyres. Tracy returned to the fray in 10th place, just ahead of Mike Conway who was then distracted by Tracy in front and who then lost the back end of his car trying to react; his rear right tyre slammed into the wall and resulted in an instant puncture that forced Conway to limp all the way back to the pits where the suspension damage forced him to retire.

Alex Tagliani had been leading since Franchitti’s costly and ill-advised pit stop, and he finally came in himself on lap 34. Tomas Scheckter and Helio Castroneves were among the cars that picked up the lead as the pit stops cycled through, with Helio staying out an exceptional 38 laps since his last pit stop before finally coming in on lap 48. Helio’s stop returned the lead to Tagliani, who was concerned about a vibration indicating a possible puncture. He stayed out and the problem seemed to abate.

By lap 51, Tagliani led Tracy, Dixon, Moraes and Franchitti in 5th, but Paul and Dario were approaching their own pit stops and about to tumble down the running order again. When Paul Tracy pitted from second on lap 57 for his final stop of the day, he returned to the track in 9th and Dario could expect similar.

Sure enough, it was Dario’s turn to pit on the next lap. He had just crossed the committment line when suddenly a full course yellow came out: Graham Rahal had tried to sneak under Ed Carpenter only for the two of them to clash wheels. Carpenter was propelled a few feet up into the air and to the left, but while appeared able to carry on Rahal was less lucky, his suspension crushed by the impact.

Because the stewards’ electronics systems said that Dario had already crossed the pit lane commitment line, he was able to carry on with his pit stop even though the pit lane was officially closed; it was the big break he needed to rectify his earlier pit lane problems, because when the pits did open and the rest of the field streamed in for their final stops it left Castroneves, Tracy and Franchitti out in front having already completed their final stops of the afternoon. Dario was then the beneficiary of a curious stewards’ decision that ruled that Tracy had overtaken Dario while he was in the pits, under yellow – a strict no-no, and therefore Tracy had to cede second place back to him. Paul Tracy’s car owner Jimmy Vassar was outspoken in his scorn for the decision.

And it got still better for Franchitti at the restart: Helio was clearly having to be careful with his fuel and tyres to make them last the full 38 lap stint to the end, and he wasn’t able to battle with Franchitti who was box fresh out of the pits. It didn’t take long before Dario passed him and started to disappear off into the distance, leaving Helio to try and fend off Paul Tracy.

Tracy, of course, is known for playing no holds barred. He was determined to pass Helio, and going into turn 4 of lap 65 he blasted down the inside line only to have the Penske turn in on him at the apex. They banged, clashed wheels, separated – and then hit again, the impact jerking the steering wheel out of Helio’s hands and causing the car to turn violently into Tracy’s, crushing the Canadian’s car into the wall and putting both cars emphatically out of the race. It was serious blow for Helio’s championship bid, plus it got the partisan local crowd booing the usually popular Brazilian.

At the restart, Franchitti led the field ahead of Briscoe. Things were getting feisty as the end approached, with Tony Kanaan booted out of the race after hitting his rear wing on the wall, and multiple contacts between Justin Wilson, Danica Patrick and Will Power as they jockeyed for 3rd, 4th and 5th. It was to their huge credit that none of them wrecked or spun. Further back, EJ Viso was less fortunate, propelled into a tyre wall thanks to a rear impact from Moraes; fortunatly a local waved yellow sufficed for the marshalls to clear up, but another three-way crunch occurred on lap 75 that forced a full course caution: Tagliani left his braking too late into turn 4, hit the back of Tomas Scheckter and the two of them collected Raphael Matoes on their way to the tyre barrier. Tagliani was able to carry on, Matoes needed a front wing – but Scheckter was stuck in the tyre wall and out of the race, left to vent his frsutration by hurling his race gloves at Tagliani as the cars came past the accident site behind the safety car.

With only eight laps to go, then, Franchitti led the restart – now ahead of Ryan Briscoe, Will Power, Justin Wilson and Dario’s ganassi team mate Scott Dixon who had already just got around Danica Patrick and then completed a neat, no-drama pass on Wilson after the restart. All Franchitti had to do in the meantime was build up a big enough lead to stay out of any potential trouble – and sue enough, his lead was over 2s over Briscoe by lap 81.

All went smoothly and the race completed its final laps without further incident, Franchitti scoring a win on the 10th anniversary of his first victory in Toronto in 1999 by keeping his head when all around were losing theirs, and not allowing others’ mistakes to affect him.

Race result

Pos  Driver             Team                       Gap
 1.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi                85 laps
 2.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               + 1.6745s
 3.  Will Power         Penske               + 2.1355s
 4.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              + 2.4803s
 5.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                + 2.9230s
 6.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       + 6.4095s
 7.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                 + 7.1837s
 8.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       + 8.2552s
 9.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest             +13.4745s
10.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         +16.0983s
11.  Mario Moraes       KV                   +19.0141s
12.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       +   1 lap
13.  EJ Viso            HVM                  +   1 lap
14.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              +   1 lap
15.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               +  3 laps

Retirements:

     Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold     74 laps
     Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green        70 laps
     Helio Castroneves  Penske                65 laps
     Paul Tracy         KV                    65 laps
     Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan   57 laps
     Richard Antinucci  3G                    41 laps
     Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold     32 laps
     Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan   26 laps

Championship standings

Pos Driver  Points
1   Dario Franchitti    347
2   Scott Dixon         345
3   Ryan Briscoe        334
4   Hélio Castroneves   269
5   Danica Patrick      266
6   Dan Wheldon         240
7   Marco Andretti      239
8   Tony Kanaan         227
9   Justin Wilson       217
10  Graham Rahal        209
11  Hideki Mutoh        204
12  Raphael Matos       182
13  Ryan Hunter-Reay    181
14  Robert Doornbos     175
15  Ed Carpenter        172
16  Mário Moraes        157
17  Mike Conway         148
18  Ernesto Viso        146
19  Will Power          134
20  Tomas Scheckter     113
21  Alex Tagliani        97
22  Vitor Meira          62
23  Paul Tracy           59
24  Milka Duno           51
25  Stanton Barrett      50
26  Sarah Fisher         43
27  Jaques Lazier        41
28  Darren Manning       38
29  Townsend Bell        32
30  A.J. Foyt IV         26
31  Richard Antinucci    24

Dario Franchitti aproximou-se da liderança do campeonato Indy Car Series de 2009, depois de vencer a Iowa Corn Indy 250, na oval de Iowa, batendo Ryan Briscoe, o seu principal adversário na luta pelo título.

O escocês passou para a liderança da prova a 50 voltas do fim, “tirando” Ryan Briscoe desse posto, aproveitando a sua estratégia de paragens desirmanada. Franchitti ainda teve que defender a sua posição do australiano da Penske, que tinha dominado a corrida até aí.

Hideki Mutoh conseguiu o seu melhor resultado do ano, ao ser terceiro, posto que conquistou ao superar Dan Wheldon, Scott Dixon e Tomas Scheckter.

Eis a classificação desta corrida:

Pos  Piloto             Equipa                Gap
 1.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi               250 voltas
 2.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               + 5.0132s
 3.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       +10.9769s
 4.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              +17.5807s
 5.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              +   1 volta
 6.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold    +   1 volta
 7.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               +   1 volta
 8.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    +   1 volta
 9.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       +   1 volta
10.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               +  2 voltas
11.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  +  5 voltas
12.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       +  6 voltas
13.  Jaques Lazier      3G                   + 13 voltas
DNF. Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       (108 voltas completas)
DNF. Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  (58 voltas completas)
DNF. Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         (53 voltas completas)
DNF. Mario Moraes       KV                   (52 voltas completas)
DNF. Justin Wilson      Coyne                (33 voltas completas)
DNF. Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                 (2 voltas completas)
DNF. EJ Viso            HVM                  (0 voltas completas)

fonte (texto): http://autosport.aeiou.pt/gen.pl?p=stories&op=view&fokey=as.stories/72995

fonte (classificação): http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/76459

Dario Franchitti claimed his second IndyCar win of the season at Iowa Speedway as Ryan Briscoe yet again dominated only to be denied victory in the closing stages.

Jumped by his Ganassi rival at the final stops, Penske driver Briscoe had to settle for another second place, albeit one that bolstered his points lead.

Andretti Green’s Hideki Mutoh took an excellent third ahead of Dan Wheldon (Panther), with Scott Dixon completing the top five for Ganassi.

The first half of the race was an extremely wild affair – the action starting immediately as EJ Viso spun into the wall and Robert Doornbos slid into Ryan Hunter-Reay on the opening lap.

Once racing got underway following this early yellow, Dixon attacked the leading Penske pair, passing Briscoe for second and then taking first from polesitter Helio Castroneves on lap 16.

But as Castroneves tried to retaliate on the exit of the corner, contact was made between his front wing and Dixon’s rear tyre, causing minor damage to both and prompting a yellow to clear the debris.

While many of the drivers pitted at this point, Briscoe stayed out and assumed the lead, ahead of the highly impressive Tomas Scheckter, who had surged around the outside of the pack at the start in his Dreyer & Reinbold car.

They waited until lap 35 and the third yellow – caused by Justin Wilson (Dale Coyne Racing) spinning into the Turn 2 wall – before pitting for the first time, after which it was Danica Patrick’s turn to hit the front, the Andretti Green driver having made a very early first stop when she cut a tyre on debris.

She was able to get back on sequence when the fourth yellow followed 19 laps later, this time due to Luczo Dragon’s Raphael Matos spinning into the wall and KV’s Mario Moraes crashing in avoidance.

With the field dwindling fast, that fortunately proved to be the last incident for a while. Tony Kanaan emerged up front at the restart for AGR, the Brazilian being the best of those who had pitted during the Dixon/Castroneves yellow on lap 20, and edged away as Scheckter and Wheldon battled for second in his wake.

Kanaan was hoping for another yellow to allow him to make his second pitstop, but ultimately had to give up and pit under green, going a lap down. Ironically he then caused the yellow he had wanted, as he crashed on cold tyres at Turn 2.

The yellow for that accident finally allowed the whole field to pit and get back on the same fuel strategy, and Briscoe and Franchitti proceeded to dominate from then on.

Franchitti jumped the Australian at what proved to be the final restart just before half-distance, but Briscoe stayed on his tail and hounded the Scot for 15 laps before sweeping back ahead around the outside.

Briscoe then pulled clear, only traffic allowing Franchitti to threaten him, and looked like he would finally get his second win of the year and make up for the frustrations of recent weeks.

Incredibly, though, Briscoe would find victory snatched away in the closing stages for the third straight race, as Franchitti ran two laps further when they made their final stops under green, and emerged a second ahead of Briscoe.

On this set of tyres Franchitti had the pace to charge away, accelerating out of Briscoe’s reach and proceeding to lap all bar Briscoe, Mutoh, who had quietly progressed to third at the track where he scored his last podium a year earlier, and Wheldon.

Dixon and Castroneves took fifth and seventh, having never quite got back into contention following their early incident.

Scheckter dropped back to a still praiseworthy sixth at the final stops, with his team-mate Mike Conway eighth ahead of Patrick and Ed Carpenter (Vision).

Among the handful of other finishers, Graham Rahal lost several laps when he had to pit under green for checks following a brush with Patrick, while Marco Andretti had a troubled race in his spare car after yesterday’s crash and finished six laps down.

Doornbos was able to rejoin following a 157-lap pitstop for repairs and covered enough laps to ensure he was classified ahead of rookie title rival Matos.

Here are the standings of this race:

Pos  Driver             Team                  Gap
 1.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi               250 laps
 2.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               + 5.0132s
 3.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       +10.9769s
 4.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              +17.5807s
 5.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              +   1 lap
 6.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold    +   1 lap
 7.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               +   1 lap
 8.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    +   1 lap
 9.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       +   1 lap
10.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               +  2 laps
11.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  +  5 laps
12.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       +  6 laps
13.  Jaques Lazier      3G                   + 13 laps
DNF. Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       (108 laps completed)
DNF. Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  (58 laps completed)
DNF. Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         (53 laps completed)
DNF. Mario Moraes       KV                   (52 laps completed)
DNF. Justin Wilson      Coyne                (33 laps completed)
DNF. Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                 (2 laps completed)
DNF. EJ Viso            HVM                  (0 laps completed)

in: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/76459

Helio Castroneves lidera Indy 500

Não foi a mais emocionante das 500 milhas de Indianápolis, mas como sempre a prova não deixou de ser movimentada e cheia de alternativas. Apesar de muitos ameaçarem ao longo do mês a ponta foi mesmo dominada pelas duplas da Penske e Gannassi (com os segundos sendo dominantes na primeira metade da prova e Helio Castroneves passeando na segunda metade). Não fosse um pequeno erro da equipe de Will Power a Penske faria uma dobradinha. O australiano por sinal foi um dos grandes vencedores da prova, rápido, constante e sem afobação mais do que justificou o investimento de Roger Penske nele. Espero que a equipe o coloque para correr ao menos ocasionalmente pelo resto da temporada.

Muitos dos pilotos que prometiam deixaram a desejar: Mario Moraes se envolveu num acidente infantil já na primeira volta com Marco Andretti (alias com o seu “the kid will never get it”, Marco disputa com Nelsinho o prêmio de piloto mais sem noção do fim de semana), Graham Rahal depois de eu elogiá-lo o mês todo acertou o muro num replay do seu acidente ano passado e Justin Wilson nunca manteve bom ritmo de prova e acabou no muro. Ao menos Rahal provou que a Newman-Haas pode andar o ritmo das equipes de ponta. Raphael Matos foi de longe o mais combativo dos rookies na prova, andando freqüentemente entre os primeiros, infelizmente se envolveu no seu terceiro acidente em quatro provas.

Não tenho muito a dizer sobre a vitória do Castroneves, mas devo dizer que poucas vezes fiquei tão satisfeito em ver alguém vencer uma prova.

Alguns dos outros destaques fora o já mencionado Will Power:

Dan Wheldon – Péssimo mês de maio recompensado por uma ótima prova. Bi vice para a Panther.

Danica Patrick – Melhor chegada dela em Indy, considerando que Andretti Green as vezes parecia mais lenta que Newman Haas Lanigan ao longo do mês foi um excelente resultado.

Townsend Bell – Menos hypado dos três pilotos da KV, largou em 24º. e chegou em 4º. Foi o piloto que mais ganhou posições na pista.

Alex Tagliani – Foi o melhor rookie da prova. Muito constante. 11º. lugar foi um excelente resultado para a pequena Conquest.

Tomas Scheckter – Tomas não foi para o muro e frustrou todos os bolões sobre em que volta ele destruiria outro carro.

AJ Foyt IV – Medíocre o dia – ok, o mês – todo, mas terminou a prova. Ainda mais que Wreckter isto é por si só uma grande evento. Pela primeira vez completou na volta do líder. Graças ao acidente do Vitor Meira, o avô ainda vai provavelmente colocá-lo para correr boa parte do resto da temporada.

Mike Conway – Pela primeira vez andou bem na IRL, no fim a equipe estragou sua prova.

E os grandes perdedores:

Chip Ganassi – Jogaram fora uma vitória certa. O esporro depois da prova certamente foi épico. Ao menos, Franchitti saiu da prova na liderança do campeonato.

Newman Haas Lanigan – Excelente mês, péssima prova.

Ryan Briscoe – Hélio retornou e de sério candidato ao título voltou a ser tratado como segundão. Foi literalmente usado para proteger Hélio no fim.

Dreyer & Reinbold – Quatro carros na prova. Um bateu, os outros chegaram nas três últimas posições.

Dallara – Por favor, Tony George providencie chassis novos urgentemente.

Direção da prova – Aquela bandeira amarela quando Nelson Philippe tocou no muro foi constrangedora. Pareceu a Nascar nos seus piores momentos e nos roubou de uma janela de pits em bandeira verde.

Sometimes you need to be lucky rather than good to win a motor race. And of course, ideally you want to be both. In Long Beach, Dario Franchitti managed exactly that to record a well deserved yet still very lucky victory.

Will Power got off to a great start in Long Beach, dropping Franchitti who was caught napping and who was dropped to 4th place behind Raphael Matos and Justin Wilson. The good news is that, even on the incredibly tight and difficult Long Beach street circuit, everyone got through the first lap without incident for a change.

Franchitti recovered one of his lost positions on lap 5 with a nice move on Wilson, and then recovered second place on lap 15 with a similar move on Matos down the start/finish straight.

The following lap, Mike Conway ran into a tyre wall on turn 1 and stopped on circuit; anticipating a full course yellow, Franchitti pulled into the pit lane before the yellow could come out and the pits close; but there was no yellow, and Franchitti found himself dumped to the back of the pack.

But fortune smiled on Franchitti because the yellow came out on lap 17 instead for a strange accident sparked by Will Power suddenly losing pace (perhaps expecting a full course yellow himself?) and bunching up the surprised cars behind him. Scott Dixon swerved to avoid going into the back of Power and in so doing squeezed EJ Viso against the barrier; Viso was flipped into the air and then landed heavily, rolling into the escape road with damaged suspension that put him out of the race. This was too dangerous a situation to leave to local yellows, and the track went full caution.

While most drivers pitted, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Briscoe, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Robert Doornbos all stayed out to take the top four positions at the restart on lap 21. Dario Franchitti was now in 7th, while Will Power was 10th just ahead of Helio Castroneves, Raphael Matos and Graham Rahal.

The race restarted on lap 21, but on lap 23 there was a major five car incident which started when Scott Dixon got into the back of Graham Rahal going into turns 10 and 11. They were okay, but the rest of the field behind them got compressed and suddenly Mario Moraes, Justin Wilson, Darren Manning, Dan Wheldon and Hideki Mutoh concertinaed into one another and completely blocked the track. A safety car – and a diversion – were a no brainer while the marshals pulled the cars about and refired the ones able to resume. Wilson was not able to restart, his rear right suspension collapsing as he made it make to the pits.

Now the cars that had stayed out before had their chance to pit, so that my lap 32 it was Franchitti in the lead a comfortable distance ahead of Danica Patrick, who had also preempted the first caution to perfection with an early pit stop. Behind them the running order consisted of Will Power in 3rd, Raphael Matos, Helio Castroneves and Graham Rahal.

Stanton Barrett went off on lap 36 at turn 9, and the marshalls – determined not to interrupt racing – went for a local yellow to recover the rookie. But on lap 39 Ed Carpenter crashed heavily into the tyres on lap 1 and blocked too much of the track to avoid the full course caution, and the yellows flew – a little too early to be of any use for pit stops to the front runners.

It was all coming down to fuel strategy, with the early stoppers like Franchitti and Patrick having to really stretch their fuel to avoid having to two-stop. Patrick and Will Power made it to the end of lap 51 – leaving just too far to the chequered flag if it went all green – while Franchitti made it a couple of more laps which was right on the cusp.

And fortune again smiled on Franchitti, because as he was exiting pit lane the yellows came out after Mike Conway made the intimate acquaintance of the tyre wall for the second time this afternoon. Now everyone who hadn’t already was streaming into the pits for their final stops of the afternoon.

Graham Rahal had a scary moment when he pulled away from his pit stop too early before the fuel hose was detached, knocking over a pit crew member and spilling fuel over the area, but fortunately a quick thinking crew member threw water over the ethanol spill and fire was averted. To rub salt into Rahal’s wound, he was sent to the back of the pack for his dangerous rule infraction.

So with the restart, Franchitti was once again back in front, now with Power in 2nd, Kanaan 3rd, Patrick 4th followed by Wheldon, Dixon and Briscoe. This time at the green flag it was Dario who got the flying start and left Will for dust – nice symmetry against the start of the race – pulling out ove a four second gap.

While it was plain sailing at the front for Franchitti, further back Ed Carpenter got thoroughly mugged and beaten around by several cars on lap 60 that put him down to 19th and sent him reeling into the pits for some TLC.

The yellow came out on lap 72 for Mario Moraes who had hit rumble strips going into turn 5, lost control of the car and plunged into the tyre wall at some speed, demolishing the tyre barrier that then collapsed over the car, firmly burying it and requiring a lot of work both to free the number 5 car and to rebuild the tyre wall for safety reasons. That put paid to any concerns among the front runners on fuel economy, and pretty much meant that only a major mistake could affect the front runners now.

Scott Dixon was the victim of a fairly massive mistake by Ryan Briscoe, who gassed up the car coming out of the final turn onto the start/finish straight and ploughed straight into the back of Dixon. Dixon was spun round and lost a lap before the marshalls got him going again, while Briscoe had to pit for a new front wing – and got a 30 second drive thru penalty for causing the accident in the first place, which put him a lap down as well.

There was a scare for Dan Wheldon in 5th place when Marco Andretti made a clumsy no-go move on him with five laps to go, but up front there was no doubt about Dario’s dominance as he stretched out a four second lead. As he reached the chequered flag we had a flurry of excitement further back – a great move by Alex Tagliani on Ryan Hunter-Reay for 10th, and an ignominious end for Vitor Meira’s race in the tyre wall.

It’s a great return to form and to the series that made his name in the US for Dario Franchitti after his misguided NASCAR excursion. But it’s a shame that this second place showing will be Will Power’s last race for Penske until the Indy 500, because he was consistently near the front while Helio Castroneves was stuck in the midfield and Ryan Briscoe only a couple of places ahead of him. But at least he’ll get a chance to run in the biggest race of the season.

Race result

Pos Driver              Car Difference
1   Dario Franchitti    10    --.----
2   Will Power          12     3.3182
3   Tony Kanaan         11     4.0537
4   Danica Patrick       7     5.0742
5   Dan Wheldon          4     6.5655
6   Marco Andretti      26     7.5900
7   Helio Castroneves    3     8.6332
8   Raphael Matos        2     9.4835
9   Robert Doornbos      6     9.9583
10  Alex Tagliani       34    13.6185
11  Ryan Hunter-Reay    21    15.2097
12  Graham Rahal         2    15.8507
13  Ryan Briscoe         6  1:05.1013
14  Vitor Meira         14    + 1 lap
15  Scott Dixon          9    + 1 lap
16  Darren Manning      23    + 1 lap
17  Stanton Barrett     98    + 1 lap
18  Ed Carpenter        20    + 3 laps
19  Mario Moraes         5    +14 laps      Contact
20  Hideki Mutoh        27    +25 laps
21  Mike Conway         24    +34 laps      Contact
22  Justin Wilson       18    +61 laps      Contact
23  EJ Viso             13    +69 laps      Contact

Championship standings

1.  Dario Franchitti    84pts --
2.  Will Power          69pts   -15
3.  Ryan Briscoe        67pts   -17
4.  Tony Kanaan         65pts   -19
5.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    59pts   -25
6.  Justin Wilson       49pts   -35
7.  Dan Wheldon         46pts   -38
8.  Marco Andretti      45pts   -39
9.  Graham Rahal        45pts   -39
10. Danica Patrick      44pts   -40
11. Robert Doornbos     41pts   -43
12. Alex Tagliani       40pts   -44
13. Darren Manning      38pts   -46
14. Vitor Meira         38pts   -46
15. Raphael Matos       36pts   -48
16. Stanton Barrett     31pts   -53
17. Scott Dixon         29pts   -55
18. Hideki Mutoh        27pts   -57
19. Helio Castroneves   26pts   -58
20. E.J. Viso           25pts   -59
21. Ed Carpenter        24pts   -60
22. Mario Moraes        24pts   -60
23. Mike Conway         24pts   -60

El piloto Martin Truex Jr. (Chevrolet, 1) del recientemente formado equipo Earnhardt Ganassi se anotó con la Poleposition de las Daytona 500, la carrera más importante del calendario de Nascar. Truex logró superar por 0.047 segundos a Mark Martin (Chevrolet, 5), quien sostuvo la Pole por gran parte de la sesión. Completaron el top-five, Ryan Newman (Chevrolet, 39), Juan Montoya (Chevrolet, 42), quien también es piloto de Earnhardt-Ganassi y Bill Elliott (Ford, 21).

Solo las dos primeras casillas de la grilla se definen en la clasificación para las Daytona 500. Sin embargo, si sirven para ordenar la partida de las dos carreras clasificatorias “Gatorade Duel” que se realizarán el jueves y cuyo resultado si se transforma en la grilla para la Great American Race.

Y otra cosa importante es que define la entrada directa de cuatro automoviles que terminaron fuera del Top 35 en las posiciones generales en la temporada 2008. Solo los autos que efectivamente finalizaron en los primeros 35 tienen su puesto asegurado en las “500″, aún cuando su lugar solo se descubre tras los “Duels”. Luego, para completar los 43 automoviles, son ocho autos (dentro de un parque de 21 que se presentaron este año) los que pueden entrar al show. De esos, cuatro se definen en la qualy, y dos se definen en cada uno de los “Duels”.

Claramente, la clasificación es de vida o muerte para estos pilotos, los “Go or Go Home” ya que los Duels se convierten en una carrera desesperada por la clasificación…por solo dos lugares.

Este año, la nota la dieron cuatro pilotos, quienes sobresalieron y se aseguraron su entrada: Bill Elliott (Ford, 21), Travis Kvapil (Ford, 28), Tony Stewart (Chevrolet, 14) y Terry Labonte (Toyota, 66) , este último accediendo por ser el mejor ex-campeón de Nascar, no clasificado directamente. Pilotos de gran calibre como A.J. Allmendinger, Brad Keselowski, Scott Riggs, Joe Nemechek, Boris Said y Mike Skinner , entre otros, se encuentran entre quienes no tuvieron tanta suerte. Solo cuatro de ellos podrán estar en la grilla el domingo.

Serán 28 autos por Duel, 125 millas cada uno y que definirán la definitiva grilla para la gran carrera del domingo. Si bien en el draft no pareciera importar demasiado el lugar de largada, el riesgo de un accidente (The Big One) al largar atrás hace que nadie quiera quedarse en los últimos puestos, la competencia está asegurada.

Resultados Clasificación

* Solo los dos primeros aseguran su lugar de clasificación

Imagen: Flickr – pdas00

23rd of October - James Hunt s 10th Grand Prix win at Japan s Fuji circuit is overshadowed by a heavy accident after Ronnie Peterson is collected by a young and over-eager Jacques Villeneuve. The Ferrari cartwheels through the gravel trap injuring several spectators. Two persons died at the scene.

23/10/1937, Giacomo Russo is born in Milan, Italy.

Racing under the pseudonym “Geki”, Russo entered Formula 1 as multiple Italian Formula Junior and Formula 3 Champion, initially by renting one of Rob Walker’s Brabham-BRMs for the 1965 Italian Grand Prix. He failed to qualify for his home GP at the time but made the grid with a third Team Lotus entry the following year. After retiring with mechanical trouble in 1965, Geki’s third try finally resulted in a good ninth place at the 1966 Italian GP. Besides racing for Alfa Romeo’s works sports car team, Geki also occasionally raced in F2 but he fell victim of a tragic accident during an F3 race at the Caserta circuit. The Italian was the first to arrive at the scene of a massive accident when he suddenly found Beat Fehr on foot in his path. Trying – unsuccessfully – to avoid the Swiss driver, Geki’s Matra went out of control and hit a concrete wall. Both drivers died in the accident.

Born: 23 rd of October 1937 in Milan, Italy;
Died: 18th of June 1967 in Caserta, Italy, aged 29.

23/10/1966, Alessandro Leone Zanardi is born in Bologna, Italy;

23/10/1966, Alessandro Leone Zanardi is born in Bologna, Italy;

Alessandro Zanardi´s Formula 1 debut came 1991, having finished the F3000 season as runer-up, with a one-off drive with Jordan and after a season a Benetton´s test driver he joined the struggling Lotus team for the 1993 season. A major crash at Spa´s super fast Eau Rouge ended his season prematurely, he was lucky to survive the shunt though. In 1996 he switched to the US-based CART series, was renamed into Alex, got the Rookie of the Year award and won the series title in 1997 and 1998 racking up an incredible 15 wins and 28 podium finishes over his three-year run with the Ganassi team. Frank Williams lured the Italian back to Formula 1 for the 1999 season, but a disappointing season saw him taking involuntarily one-year “sabbatical”, returning to the CART series in 2001.

Going into the CART American Memorial race at the German Lausitzring, Zanardi was leading when exiting from pit lane after getting fuel and a new set of tires, he hit the throttle too hard. The Reynard-Honda spun onto the middle of the track and got collected by Alex Tagliani at over 200 mph (320 kph). The impact tore Zanardi’s car apart, he lost both legs upon impact, four liters of blood and he remained in critical condition for days.

Three years later, on the 19th of October 2004, Zanardi was already leading an almost normal life with two prosthetic legs, he made his comeback behind the wheel of a BMW 320i at the ETCC race at Monza. Before that he´d surprised everyone by returning to the Lausitzring to drive the missing 13 laps of the race that ended his career at the wheel of a specially modified CART champ car. At full race speed! He has since become a front-runner in the WTCC and returned to his winning ways as a works driver for BMW.

23. Oktober - James Hunts 10. Grand Prix-Sieg wird in Fuji wird von einem schweren Unfall überschattet. Der junge und ungestüme Gilles Villeneuve kollidiert mit Ronnie Peterson, der Ferrari des Kanadiers überschlägt sich in die Auslaufzone hinein, wo sich mehrere Zuschauer und einige Fotografen unrechtmässig positioniert haben. Unter den zahlreichen verletzten sind auch zwei Tote zu beklagen.

23/10/1937, Giacomo Russo wird geboren in Mailand, Italien.

Unter dem Pseudonym “Geki” gewann Russo gleich mehrere Titel in der italienischen Formel Junior und Formel 3, bevor er sich an das Abenteuer Formel 1 wagte. Zunächst mietete er 1965 von Rob Walker einen Brabham-BRM für den Grand Prix von Italien, scheiterte aber an der Qualihürde. Im darauffolgenden Jahre überredete er Colin Chapman einen dritten Lotus in Monza für ihn einzusetzen, damit fiel er jedoch mit technischem Gebrechen aus. 1967 gelang Geki dann endlich Geki mit einem 9. Platz eine Zielankunft beim Heim-GP. Sein Hauptaugenmerk blieb allerdings bei Sportwagen-Rennen mit dem Werksteam von Alfa Romeo und gelegentliche Teilnahmen in der Formel 2. Bei einem Strassenrennen in Caserta wurde der Italiener Opfer eines bizarren Zwischenfalls. Nach einer Massenkollision im F3-Rennen sprang der Schweizer Beat Fehr aus seinem havarierten Auto und versuchte vom das Feld vor der Unfallstelle zu warnen. Geki war der Erste, der die Unfallstelle, erschrak sich offenbar, verlor seinen Matra aus der Kontrolle., traf erst Fehr und dann eine Betonmauer. Beide Fahrer überlebten den tragischen Unfall nicht.

Geboren: 23. Oktober 1937 in Mailand, Italien;

Verstorben: 18. June 1967 in Caserta, Italien, 29 Jahre alt.

23/10/1966, Alessandro Leone Zanardi wird geboren in Bologna, Italien.

Alessandro Zanardi debütierte 1991 als F3000-Vizemeister mit einem einmaligen Einsatz für Jordan in der Formel 1 und nach einem Jahr als Testfahrer bei Benetton hätte mit dem finanziell angeschlagenen Lotus-Team 1993 seine erste volle F1-Saison erfolgen sollen. Ein schwerer Unfall in Spas berüchtigter Eau Rouge, den er mit Glück beinahe unverletzt übersteht, bedeutet des verfrühte Ende der Saison. 1996 zog er in die USA um, wurde von da an Alex gerufen und gewann die Auszeichnung des „Rookie of the Year“, also des besten Neueinsteigers. Mit dem Ganassi-Team fuhr er bis 1998 insgesamt 15 Siege, 28 Podestplätze und zwei Meistertitel heraus. Frank Williams lockte den Italiener 1999 in die Formel 1 zurück, doch bereits nach einer enttäuschenden Saison wurde Alex wieder ausgeladen.

Nach einem Jahr Rennpause kehrte Alex 2001 in die CART-Serie zurück. Beim „American Memorial“ am Lausitzring führte Zanardi endlich wieder einmal, beschleunigte aber bei der Ausfahrt aus den Boxen zu forsch. Sein Reynard drehte sich genau auf die Fahrspur von Alex Tagliani, der fast ungebremst mit über 320 Km/h in Zanardis Auto einschlug. Das Chassis des Reynard zerbrach, Alex verlor beim Aufprall beide Beine und, trotz schneller und kompetenter Versorgung, fast vier Liter Blut. Tagelang schwebte er in Lebensgefahr.

Drei jahre später, am 19. Oktober 2004, führte Zanardi bereits ein fast normales Leben, dank zweier Beinprothesen, und feierte sein Comeback auf einem BMW 320i beim ETCC-Lauf in Monza. Zuvor hatte er bereits damit verblüfft, dass er am Lausitzring jene fehlenden 13 Runden jenes schicksalhaften Rennens mit ein speziell von CART umgerüsteten ChampCar nachholte. Bei vollem Renntempo! Seither ist Zanardi als BMW-Werksfahrer und Siegfahrer in der WTCC unterwegs.

Gill

SHOCK !!……………

WOW, I can’t beleive Kyle went out like that. Does he have a chance ?? I really thought that if Kyle didn’t win the chase it would have been because he was driving to aggressive and crashed in a few chase races to get the DNF’s that knock him out of contention. I would have never guessed that equipment failures would be the cause. I would have bet money that equiptment won’t be the problem. He ran 26 races with very little or no equiptment failures then the first two chase races and it’s over, maybe. Is it karma, bad luck, or both.  Can he pull out of this, I haven’t check yet but is it mathematically possible for him to bounce back ?? I sure hope so, he and his team preformed better than any other driver/team for the first 26 races. I think they deserve it.

DIS-APPOINTMENT !!………

I am really dis-appointed in Red Bull decision to release A.J. Almendinger for Scott Speed. It’s going to be another 2 years now before the no.# 84 Toyota will be competitive. I believe its going to take Scott Speed the same season and a half it took A.J. to get comfortable, is Red Bull going to change again because they don’t understand they’re competing against team that have been around for 10 + years and it takes years to gain the respect and knowledge it takes just to be a weekly top 10 team. Drivers respected A.J. he was starting to come into his own veteran status. It looks like Ganassi is going to be the beneficary of Red Bull’s hard knocks. Red Bull made a mistake and I can’t believe Jay Frye was part of that decision, I know the big wheels in Austraila don’t have a clue but I really thought Jaye knew better.

               2008 Chase Contenders

1) #18-Kyle Busch 5080 [8 wins x 10 bonus pts]
2) #99-Carl Edwards 5050 [6 wins, 5 wins x 10 pts = 50pts*]
3) #48-Jimmie Johnson 5040 [4 wins]
4) #88-Dale Earnhardt Jr. 5010 [1 win, 2nd, 3rd, 3-4ths]
5) #07-Clint Bowyer 5010 [1 win, 2nd, 3rd, 4th]
6) #11-Denny Hamlin 5010 [1 win, 7-3rds]
7) #31-Jeff Burton 5010 [1 win, 1-3rd]
#20-Tony Stewart 5000 [3-2nds]
9) #16-Greg Biffle 5000 [2-2nds]
10) #24-Jeff Gordon 5000 [1-2nd, 3-3rds]
11) #29-Kevin Harvick 5000 [1-2nd, 1-3rd]
12) #17-Matt Kenseth 5000 [2-3rds]

* lost the bonus for win at Las Vegas due to penalty
• To start the Chase, all 12 drivers have their point totals reset to 5,000.
• After the reset, Chase drivers get 10 bonus points for each victory thus far this season.
• Those new totals produce the Chase seedings.
• For drivers starting the Chase with identical point totals, their seedings are determined by the traditional tiebreaker of best finishes beyond race victories.
Courtesy Jayski’s

Who do you think will win the Championship ?? 

Post your Choice. Document it Now…. 

The newly reunified IRL series kept its best for last, with the final championship event being the best oval outing of the year – and culminating in the all-time closest finish the series has ever seen or likely ever will.

Helio Castroneves had to work his way through the pack from the very back of the field, but he did so with efficiency and a great deal of help from terrific pit stops from his Penske crew.

By lap 85, after the second round of stops, Helio was at the front of the race. He was doing all he could to take the title – now he needed chief championship rival Scott Dixon to finish lower than eighth.

From then until the next yellow there were a couple of dozen breathless laps, as first Ryan Briscoe and then Dan Wheldon joined Helio Castroneves so that they were running lap after lap three wide. The lead changed so often and so continuously during this period that such statistics became impossible to keep, and basically meaningless. All you could do was watch in awe.

The cars in 4th, 5th and 6th were doing likewise and the whole of the top ten were covered by less than a second. It was spellbinding stuff, an accident surely waiting to happen, but it never did – testament to some huge skill on everyone’s part. But Scott Dixon was certainly thinking that discretion was the better part of valour at this point and held back down in 10th just in case the cars in front took each other out.

And this was only halfway. It felt more like the final few laps before the chequered, such was the intensity and passion of the drivers out there. When the face-off was finally brought to a close by a yellow (for debris after Oriel Servia’s wing mirror flew off), everyone was able to breath again.

Almost all the pit stops today took place under yellow, as there were plenty of cautions. Ed Carpenter was first, when something seemed to snap underneath the car, the underside of which hit the concrete and sent the car sailing off into a heavy and fiery impact with the wall on lap 36.

Vitor Meira was next to make impact with the wall on lap 74, and Sarah Fisher made a heavy impact herself on lap 116 and was seen hobbling for the car, with some leg or ankle injury. EJ Viso exited on lap 136 courtesy of a puncture, and Mario Moraes skimmed the wall on lap 177 sufficiently to transfer white paint onto the tyres and bring out the final yellow of the day as he limped back to the pits.

Tomas Scheckter retired on lap 87 with floor damage caused by debris, while the last man out was AJ Foyt IV, who spun across the grass on the final lap just as the leaders were making it to the chequered flag.

The oddest retirement of the way actually happened in the pits, when Buddy Rice was hit exiting his pit box by Graham Rahal. Despite the contact looking relatively innocuous and low-speed it did extensive damage to Rice’s rear suspension that crumpled and collapsed as if it had made a trip to a compressor. Rahal received a penalty for the incident.

But back to the front, and the battle for the championship. After those three-wide laps mid-race, Helio settled into the lead but Dixon worked his way up into third – good enough to secure the title whatever Helio did. And in the final round of pit stops, Ganassi’s pit crew – that had fumbled an earlier stop and put Dixon down several places and come close to incurring a drive-thru penalty for a stray tyre – pulled off a blinder and popped their man out on track first ahead of Helio.

Now all he had to do was hold it there for the final dozen laps.

Dixon clearly relished running in front after playing it safe and running in the pack for most of the race. The laps he led here, added to the others he’s led in 2008, broke the record for the total number of laps led in one IRL season.

As the white flag came out, Helio prepared for one last push, with his team mate Briscoe right behind doing whatever he could to help ‘push’ Helio ahead of Scott. The finish line flew and to the naked eye it was a dead heat. The transponders awarded it to Dixon – but the photo finish showed it was actually Castroneves who cros the line first, by mere inches, and they were able to fix the time difference at an incredible 0.0033 of a second. The closest finish ever, and hard to believe it will ever be any closer; and just 4s covered the whole of the top 12, showing it was no two-horse race.

It was a great win for Castroneves, and to his credit looked completely delighted and was looking for a fence to climb – despite having just ceded the championship. But it was only just that Dixon should win the IRL championship after equalling the number of races won in a single IRL season. And it makes up some way for the heartbreak of losing out on the final lap of 2007 to Dario Franchitti – who will be his 2009 team mate at Ganassi.

Dan Wheldon had been a serious challenge for most of the race, as if making a point about being dumped by the team in favour of Franchitti. But he haded to 6th in the end and was overtaking by a charging Will Power, one of the best of the Champ Car transfers. Power will be looking forward to Surfer’s PAradise in his home country of Australia, although sadly it’s an exhibition event and demoted from the championship proper.

But all signs point to a thrilling season next year. And surely with this race we can finally celebrate the reunification of IRL and Champ Car and lay to rest the history of that sad split, and look to the future.

Pos  Driver             Team                  Time
 1.  Helio Castroneves  Penske                200 laps
 2.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              +  0.0010
 3.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               +  0.0788
 4.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       +  0.6095
 5.  Will Power         KV                   +  1.3580
 6.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              +  1.8729
 7.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 +  2.3224
 8.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       +  2.4627
 9.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman      +  2.7993
10.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       +  2.9276
11.  Justin Wilson      Newman/Haas/Lanigan  +  3.0218
12.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest             +  4.2072
13.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               +   1 lap
14.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    +   1 lap
15.  Franck Perera      Foyt                 +  2 laps
16.  Marty Roth         Roth                 +  3 laps
17.  Oriol Servia       KV                   +  4 laps
18.  Jaime Camara       Conquest             + 13 laps
19.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  + 14 laps
20.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne           + 16 laps
21.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           + 19 laps
22.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       + 23 laps
23.  EJ Viso            HVM                  + 64 laps
24.  Sarah Fisher       Sarah Fisher         + 84 laps
25.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    + 90 laps
26.  Tomas Scheckter    Luczo Dragon         +113 laps
27.  Vitor Meira        Panther              +126 laps
28.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               +164 laps

Final championship standings

1.  Scott Dixon         646     Leader
2.  Helio Castroneves   629     -17
3.  Tony Kanaan         513     -133
4.  Dan Wheldon         492     -154
5.  Ryan Briscoe        447     -199
6.  Danica Patrick      379     -267
7.  Marco Andretti      363     -283
8.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    360     -286
9.  Oriol Servia        358     -288
10. Hideki Mutoh        346     -300
11. Justin Wilson       340     -306
12. Will Power          331     -315
13. Vitor Meira         324     -322
14. Darren Manning      323     -323
15. Ed Carpenter        320     -326
16. Buddy Rice          306     -340
17. Graham Rahal        288     -358
18. E.J. Viso           286     -360
19. A.J. Foyt IV        280     -366
20. Bruno Junqueira     256     -390
21. Mario Moraes        244     -402
22. Enrique Bernoldi    220     -426
23. Jaime Camara        174     -472
24. Marty Roth          166     -480
25. Milka Duno          140     -506
26. Townsend Bell       117     -529
27. Mario Dominguez     112     -534
28. Jay Howard          72      -574
29. Franck Perera       71      -575
30. John Andretti       71      -575
31. Tomas Scheckter     66      -580
32. Sarah Fisher        37      -609

Not really intending this to be a news blog – that’s what the feeds on the right hand side of the page are for – but this one is significant enough to make a post:

Scottish driver Dario Franchitti will leave Nascar and return to IndyCar in 2009 to replace Englishman Dan Wheldon at Chip Ganassi Racing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/7595109.stm

It’s a surprise, since Dario was saying he wanted to stick with NASCAR even after Ganassi shut down the Number 40 team as a result of being unable to find a long-term sponsor for that operation. But despite a few reasonably successful outings in the Nationwide series, the prospects of any real openings for him in the series were looking bleak.

Finally Ganassi has talked Dario back to where he belongs – open-wheel racing. Much has changed in the 12 months since Dario won the IRL championship, with the newly reunified series enjoying an upturn in support, sponsorship and fan attention: it looks a lot more appealing than the split and troubled open wheel scene he left behind.

The person really screwed by this announcement is Ganassi’s current driver Dan Wheldon. Wheldon’s had a couple of mediocre seasons, and his salary (after his title- and Indy 500 winning-season) is astronomical compared with the returns that Ganassi is getting. Small wonder then, that dropping Wheldon and fulfilling his promise to Franchitti is very appealing to Chip right now.

Where will Wheldon go? He’s probably out of luck. Most of the top IRL teams are sorted, and no one is going to pay him the kind of money he’s been getting. His window for F1 is long past, and no one’s knocking at his door from NASCAR. It’ll be a shame if he is without a drive in 2009, but that’s the tough world of motorsport: when you’re hot, you’re hot; when you’re not, you’re at the mercy of market forces.

UPDATE: And now we know where Wheldon’s going: he’s going back to Panther Racing, where he started in 2002 as the team’s test driver alongside eventual IRL champion Sam Hornish Jr. He bumps Vitor Meira form the Number 4 car.

While Panther have been one of the leading challengers to the series’ dominant ‘big three’ Penske, Ganassi and AGR in recent years – and Meira has become the “nearly man” of the driver line-up – they have not won a race since Tomas Scheckter’s victory in 2005 at Texas. And they certainly don’t have anything like the budget to pay Wheldon the sort of money he’s been used to in IRL for the last five years.

The best laid plans of the two men at the top of the IRL championship went awry in Detroit. Not so much as to be a disaster for either or them, but enough to leave both frustrated – and the title undecided going into the final race of the season at Chicagoland Speedway in a week’s time.

Scott Dixon should have had the whip hand here, having beaten Helio Castroneves to the all-important pole position on a bumpy street circuit where overtaking isn’t exactly impossible, but all too frequently does require divine intervention.

Dixon and Castroneves got away well enough, and even a brief hiatus caused by Milka Duno being spun into a stall sideways across the track on lap 1 by contact with Bruno Junqueira (who was sent to the back of the field for causing the accident) didn’t stop a routine procession for the first 19 laps, although a few backmarkers chose to pit for the random chance of going off-sequence.

Then Dixon’s team mate Dan Wheldon tangled with Conquest’s Jaime Camara and bought out the second yellow on lap 17. This was early for first pit stops – most teams would have been expecting to pit on lap 30-31, making it possible for them to reach the end of the 90 lap race with just one further stop.

Really it was a no-brainer, everyone should stay out at this point. Except … Ganassi called Dixon in. Heads up and down pit road were being scratched, because with no one else coming in there seemed to be no upside for Dixon in this move. He ended up being dropped back to 18th place, firmly in traffic, and behind some fierce battles between backmarkers that could at any second end in a wreck that would gather up Dixon with it.

Why had Ganassi not chosen the safe route and simply copied Castroneves’ strategy at every turn? Stay out when he stayed out, come in when he comes in? No one could figure it out. But Helio was at the front when the green flag flew, and with clear air in front of him he quickly started laying down fast laps and pulled away from KV’s Oriol Servia, Newman/Haas/Lanigan’s Justin Wilson and Andretti Green’s Tony Kanaan, while Dixon made slow progress through the midfielders.

Castroneves completed 30 laps before pitting, and even though it was under green he had built up a sufficient lead to come back out on track ahead of Dixon who was left stuck back in 5th place. Whatever had been in the Ganassi team’s mind when they tried that strategy hadn’t paid off.

There was a yellow flag a few laps later when Danica Patrick and Vitor Meira tangled and ended up with damage to their cars, while in a separate incident on the same lap EJ Viso lost the back end coming out of a corner and hit the concrete barriers lining the track with considerable force, writing off the car for the day.

The final pit stops around lap 60 also happened under green, with Castroneves retaining the lead and Wilson jumping Servia in the pits for second, but the field was compressed once more by the fourth and final yellow of the afternoon brought out because of separate incidents for Wheldon and Mario Moraes (Dale Coyne Racing) with 25 laps to go. The caution meant that the race wouldn’t go the full distance and would hit the two hour time cap instead, but if this had ever been part of Dixon’s strategy in coming early it was by now long snce a moot point, making no difference at all.

Castroneves had been the fastest car on track all afternoon, easily pulling away from the pack at restarts, but when the green flag flew for the final stint of the race he seemed oddly slow: and Wilson now in second place seemed very, very fast. It was clear Justin had the edge on Helio, but the Brazilian was focussed on the title fight and wasn’t going to let Wilson through for love nor money.

Even if it meant … blocking. Which he did, quite blatantly, on lap 70. The problem is of course that blocking is forbidden in IRL, punishable by being forced to give up the place to the person you just blocked – and that’s exactly what race control decreed minutes later.

There was a pause before Castroneves complied. He was clearly fuming at the decision – normally a driver would be warned first, not penalised straight away. But if he didn’t cede Wilson the lead then he risked getting black flagged with even more dire consequences for his title prospects, and so he finally allowed Wilson past on lap 73.

Despite Helio’s best counter-attacking efforts for the remainder of he race, Justin had the pace to hold him off and make it to his maiden IRL victory. Castroneves had to settle for second, 10pts worse off than if he had keep the lead, and critical in the title race as it would mean that he went into the final race 30pts behind Dixon, whose 5th place wasn’t enough to clinch the title this round and would mean he has to face a last-race decider like he did in 2007 – when Dario Franchitti had stolen the title from under his nose.

Franchitti was in Detroit for the race today, interestingly enough. The idle chatter was that Chip Ganassi are trying to lure him back to pen wheel as compensation for axing Franchitti’s NASCAR operation. Are they planning on replacing Wheldon in the number 10 car?

So the race had brought satisfaction for neither Dixon nor Castroneves, who was so furious by the penalty that he refused to say more than a few words with the pit lane reporters – highly unusual for the likeable and normally talkative Helio.

They finished comfortably clear of third-placed Kanaan, with Servia holding off Dixon for fourth and Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman) rounding out the top six. Bruno Junqueira used some brilliant strategy to recover from being penalised and sent to the back of the grid on lap 1, and ended up an impressive 7th ahead of KV’s Will Power, who lost ground when he damaged his front wing on Hunter-Reay’s car, and Ryan Briscoe (Penske), who became caught in traffic having followed the same pit strategy as Dixon.

The misconceived pit stop strategy also backfired for Wilson’s teammate Graham Rahal, who dropped back from sixth to 13th when he had to make a late extra fuel stop.

Marco Andretti’s uncompetitive weekend ended in a gearbox failure. Tomas Scheckter’s Luczo Dragon car broke a half-shaft on the opening lap, but he was able to rejoin following a long stop for repairs, as was Alex Tagliani, whose Conquest Dallara developed gearbox problems in the early laps.

Pos  Driver             Team                       Time
1.  Justin Wilson      Newman/Haas/Lanigan      87 laps
2.  Helio Castroneves  Penske                +   4.4058
3.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green        +  17.6815
4.  Oriol Servia       KV                    +  26.5468
5.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi               +  27.7185
6.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman       +  28.2688
7.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne            +  28.6815
8.  Will Power         KV                    +  28.8776
9.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske                +  35.5244
10.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               +  38.1040
11.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       +  38.3811
12.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 +  44.4662
13.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  +  47.8028
14.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               +1:01.2770
15.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           +    1 lap
16.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       +    1 lap
17.  Vitor Meira        Panther              +   4 laps
18.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       +   6 laps
19.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    +  11 laps
20.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              +  23 laps
21.  Tomas Scheckter    Luczo Dragon         +  31 laps
22.  Alex Tagliani      Conquest             +  33 laps
23.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    +  41 laps
24.  EJ Viso            HVM                  +  55 laps
25.  Jaime Camara       Conquest             +  71 laps

Championship standings:

1.  Scott Dixon         606      Leader
2.  Helio Castroneves   576     -30
3.  Tony Kanaan         481     -125
4.  Dan Wheldon         464     -142
5.  Ryan Briscoe        412     -194
6.  Danica Patrick      359     -247
7.  Oriol Servia        345     -261
8.  Marco Andretti      339     -267
9.  Ryan Hunter-Reay    338     -268
10. Hideki Mutoh        334     -272
11. Justin Wilson       321     -285
12. Vitor Meira         314     -292
13. Ed Carpenter        310     -296
14. Will Power          301     -305
15. Darren Manning      297     -309
16. Buddy Rice          296     -310
17. Graham Rahal        276     -330
18. E.J. Viso           274     -332
19. A.J. Foyt IV        263     -343
20. Bruno Junqueira     244     -362
21. Mario Moraes        232     -374
22. Enrique Bernoldi    220     -386
23. Jaime Camara        162     -444
24. Marty Roth          152     -454
25. Milka Duno          124     -482

Next/final race of 2008:
PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy 300, Chicagoland Speedway on Sunday Sep 7

    The August night race at Bristol is one of my favorite races of the year. I’m not sure from a fan standpoint if the racing is better or worse since the new pavement. In the past it was a 1 and a half groove race track now its pretty much a 2 racing groove track, in the past to get around someone you had to move them out of the way and that was the cause of alot of fights now with the new pavement and 2 racing grooves you can race around them.

   So I was thinking as we near the end of the race “is this going to finish without somebody getting pissed off” just about the time I thought that with 30 laps to go Carl Edwards didn’t use the 2nd groove to get around race leader Kyle Busch he moved him out of the way just like the olds days(last year).

   In my opinion Carl made a huge mistake, it wasn’t when he moved Kyle out of the way it was on the cool down lap when Kyle came along side Carl and bumped him and Carl retaliated by spinning Kyle out. Don’t get me wrong I think Carl was right in his actions and I would have probably done the same thing it just wasn’t smart. The reason I think it was a huge mistake is Kyle is motivated when he’s been poked with a stick, when he’s poked he usually feels like he’s got something to prove and he usually does prove it. He runs best when he thinks he’s getting the raw end of the deal or when he’s mad.

   Just a couple races until the start of the Chase for the Cup and Carl lit the fuse hanging out of Kyles butt so now Kyle is going to show Carl that 2nd is just the first loser.

A Statement From Joe Gibbs Owner of Joe Gibbs Racing

  First, we want to apologize to NASCAR, all of our partners, all of our families at JGR, and all of our fans for the unfortunate incident that took place this past weekend in Michigan with our two Nationwide teams. A poor decision was made by some key members of our organization, and 100 percent of the blame rests with us.

   “In 17 years we have never had any representative of Joe Gibbs Racing knowingly act outside of NASCAR’s rules, and that is something we consider essential to how we operate on a daily basis. What we have determined is that these individuals involved used extremely poor judgment in attempting to alter the results of NASCAR’s dyno test following Saturday’s Nationwide Series race in Michigan. Although in no way was anything done that might have altered the race outcome, these JGR employees attempted to circumvent the NASCAR rule book and that is unacceptable.

    “We take full responsibility and accept the penalties NASCAR has levied against us today. We had come to the conclusion that we would add to any NASCAR imposed penalties with the minimum being suspension for the remainder of the season for those involved, including our two Nationwide Series crew chiefs. There will also be an additional monetary fine beyond the amount announced by NASCAR earlier today, which will be the responsibility of those involved.

   “We are, however, disappointed that NASCAR chose to place our drivers on probation, as they had no knowledge or involvement of this incident.

   “On behalf of everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, we apologize again for this most unfortunate situation.”(Joe Gibbs Racing PR)(8-20-2008)

The Garage Area Comment:

I think we all expected better from Joe Gibbs and Joe Gibbs Racing but one of his first comments in his statement was a crock….Gibbs said “In 17 years we have never had any representative of Joe Gibbs Racing knowingly act outside of NASCAR’s rules” there is no way he can make that claim and be truthful. We know teams skirt the rules thats no secret so his comment just makes him look like a liar.    One of the last comments in his statement was…. “We are, however, disappointed that NASCAR chose to place our drivers on probation, as they had no knowledge or involvement of this incident.
It is my understanding that the NASCAR officials took control of the cars when the drivers exited them, so the drivers were the last JGR employees to have access to the gas pedals thats why they were part of the penalty, the six NASCAR officials that impounded the cars did in fact state the drivers were the last to have access to the cars. You don’t have to be a crime scene specialist to figure it out. Most drivers take the heat shields off their shoes before exiting the car, so while doing that you could easily slip a magnet under the pedal without creating suspicion, another blatant lie by Gibbs.
  The smartest thing Gibbs could have done is just say…We’re sorry, I’m sorry, we accept NASCAR’s penaltys we too will investigate and JGR will also penalize those involved. Again I apologize.  Thats it, don’t say anything more. Walk away.

The whole thing was really an ignorant move. Most owners, crew chiefs, and drivers will tell you when luck is on your side and your running as well as the Gibbs teams were you don’t cheat because your being watched, everybody in the garage area is watching you to find out what your doing and half the people in the garage area  think your cheating anyway when your racking up the wins the way Gibbs is. If you do get caught then you’ll really be scrutinized.

 NASCAR officials found magnets placed under the gas pedals on cars out of the Joe Gibbs Racing stables prior to a Dyno test after this weekends race the Carfax 250. By placing a quarter inch thick magnet under the gas pedal it will limit the throttle/carburator from being opened 100% in turn causing lower overall horespower on a Dyno test. Both the #18 and the
#20 Nationwide teams  will be penalized for attempting to manipulate the throttle so NASCAR would not get a true horsepower reading when putting their cars on the chassis dynamometer after the race NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said Saturday night. Both the #18 and #20 teams face penalties for what was a blatant attempt to interfere with the inspection process, Hunter also said.

the garage area: So what do you think the penalty should Be ?? Me personally think it should be very harsh….

  It was Nationwide Series teams but they(nationwide and cup) come from under one umdrella Joe Gibbs Racing. Does that taint Kyle success this season, does this taint Tony Stewart titles and for that matter any of Bobby Labonte’s success. This cast a shadow on their success because you have to wonder how many times have they cheated ?? How many times have they manipulated testing info ?? You just don’t know but what we do know is they(employees of Joe Gibbs Racing) are capable of cheating.

Also
 
   Did you hear Deny Hamlins comments after Sundays race at Michigan International Raceway ?? He stated several times to a few different media outlets that he’s frustrated because Gibbs and Toyota are so far behind on their engine program. Is he on the same team as Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart ?? How can you say that when one of your teammates is leading the points and has won 8 races and the other teammate is 6th in the points. After Michigan all 3 Gibbs cars are in the top 12 that doesn’t look like a team thats behind in anything. He hasn’t stuck his foot that far in his mouth since a Natiomwide driver (Keslowski) raced him too hard so he made the comment that Nationwide driver should give cup drivers automatic respect.

  A good driver can take the car the crew gives him and with good communication can make adjustments compatible with conditions on raceday and finish the race a few spots better than the car was capable of. Most drivers can take the fastest, best handling car and get a good finish, but what car owners need and what makes a driver great is for a driver to be able use his talent take up the slack for the short comings of the car. Deny can’t do that yet, he does show spurts of talent when condition are perfect.

  Is Deny right are they behind in the engine program but cheating has made the others on the team successful and Deny just wasn’t included in on their rain deer games ??

Tell me what you think…….