Not a bad seat either

Will Power accepting the Firestone Tire-ific move of the race

Indy Lights start

Rolling

Indy Lights grid from pit lane!!!

Iowa Corn Indy 250 Preview and Predictions

This weekend IndyCar heads to the short oval of Iowa Speedway and for the first time it will be ran under the lights.  Better still (at lease for me) is I am heading there with them.  This is my replacement for Chicagoland Speedway and Barber.  (I always go to Chicagoland but sense IndyCar does not race there this year I will give my money to Rusty Wallace instead.  I also had tickets and pit passes for all three days at Barber earlier this year but was unable to go so I talked myself in to going to Iowa to make up for it).  This is a very nifty little track with changing banking (done right, more and more tracks are going to different banking in the turns but Iowa did it right with a nice smooth parabolic curve).  The one thing learned from years passed at this track is aggressiveness does NOT always pay off.  Please take not Mr. EJ Viso!  This is also a track where the Death Stars dominance should be at its lease.  As aerodynamics means next to nothing here, they are very important on road courses and extremely important on most ovals this however is that exception.  Here you need mechanical grip not aero grip.  So if “Pork Chop” was going to have a good race this is her best shot.

For predictions, contrary to what I just said about “Pork Chop” I am not going to go with Simona.  Sentimental favorite yes but I just do not think she can pull it off with her confidence shaken as badly as it is.  Pole is going to be hard to pick, as I am afraid that it might come down to track temperatures.  Qualifying is right smack in the middle of the afternoon high so catch a cloud and your golden otherwise be prepared to slip and slide.  Should be interesting how teams attack qualifying as the track conditions will be nothing like race but they do have a hour fifteen minute practice that will also have hot slippery track conditions so we will see.  Meanwhile I have to pick someone so I will go with the hot hand of Dario Franchitti.  For the win, I would love to see Tony Kanaan pull it off and his showing at the Mile gives me enough hope to go with it!  One note though Tony you have to finish to win and this has not been the best track for Tony when it comes to rolling the car home.  Second, I will go with Dario after all if anyone other then his BFF (TK) beats him we know we will have two whole weeks of him crying about it but then again he is likely to cry about something anyway.  To close out the podium I well say Helio brings it home.  Unless you are extreme anti-Helio, you just had to fill heart broken for him last week.  Leading pulling away flat tire no matter still fastest car on the track yellow had to come in.  I strongly believe without TK spinning Helio would have stayed out and brought it home but with the yellow bunching up the field and cooling off the tires he really had no choice but to come in can change.  For the story of the race I am going to say, keep an eye on Danica this week.  This is a very good track for her and she just might be able to back up that top five finish from last week.  The “Legend in His Own Mind” award I am going to say steer clear of Charlie Kimball.  He is in a “Ganassi” car that has no business being a back marker week in and week out.  I try not to pick on rookies too much here but it is well passed the time Kimball needs to show an effort that he is worthy of such a ride.  (*note* he really was not that impressive in lights either)

The Milwaukee 225 Preview and Predictions

This week IndyCar returns to the Milwaukee Mile.  I know this is called a fan favorite track but personal I just do not get it.  Of all of the ovals, Milwaukee is the most follow the leader track IndyCar goes to.  I did not miss it last year and do not understand why IndyCar brass bent over backwards to get it back for this year.  That said it is still an IndyCar race so I will still be glued to my TV to watch the race.  As this is an ABC race there is no coverage of qualifying this week so we hardcore fans will have to lesion to it on streaming audio while “normal” fans just check the web for the results or wait till pre-race to find out what the grid will look like.  (I still do not understand why you cannot have streaming video of practice and qualifying if there is NO telecast that it might “rob from”!)

Let us move on to my predictions.  I hate to say it but I am predicting a death star weekend.  For the pole, I am going to go with Scott Dixon assuming he has enough fuel to finish his run.  For the win, I am going to stick with Scott Dixon as I said in the preview this is a follow the leader track so unless something unforeseen happens the pole setter is likely to be the winner.  For P2 I will go with Ganassi to sweep the top two with Dario Franchitti.  To finish out the podium Ryan Briscoe he let me know last week at Texas lets see if he can make up for it here.  The story of the race is going to be Takuma Sato he really impressed me last week at Texas, he has always been a sleeper for me on the road courses but he has be quite the disappointment there, which makes his Texas showing on the oval stick out even more.  Finally, the “Legend in his own mind” award I will give to EJ Viso.  Yes, he also had a good showing at Texas but I am afraid that he might be someone you do not want to build up confidence in as he will try to do something above his talent level and the car will have to go in the trailer on jacks.

Firestone Twin 275s at Texas Review and Reaction

Well I have had some time to think about it and “cool off” if you will but my thoughts on the draw are the same.  I said I would not like it and I didn’t.  The two worse case scenarios I was afraid of BOTH happened (slow or wrecked car in front with Wade Cunningham, and a fast car up front with the other fast cars in the back).  So if you look at it that was it wasn’t too bad as Wade did not cause a huge crash but you have to ask if this keeps happening is this the rule or the exception?  Will was able to “get gone” which did make for a fairly boring race number two but it was not a bad as I feared it would be either.  The two solutions put out there by drivers were: 1) Invert the field and 2) offer passing points.  Well if you offer passing points, the maximum number of points available is still based on a blind draw, which would still be extremely unfair and therefore solves nothing!  A full inversion of the field guaranties the slowest cars in the front of the field, which is a worse case scenario.  Again I give Wade Cunningham huge credit for jumping into a new (road course) car for the first time on the out side of row one and not causing a big wreck.  However, if you make that the standard and you well have a big wreck sooner rather then later.  Therefore, a full inversion also solves nothing!  If you are going to have a twin race format (which I wish they would just do away with) there are only two ways to set the field for the second race.  First, there is the "old way" which set on finishing position of the first race.  That makes it more of a competition red flag where you reset and put everyone back on the lead lap but other then that nothing changes.  Or what I think is the best idea, would be to use race one not only as a points paying race but also as a group qualifying for race two.  Therefore, the fastest lap time turned in race one would get the pole and so on.  This would still shake up the field some but would still be a legitimate way to set a grid; it is the best of both worlds!  This would have been the grid for race two if they used this system:

Just look at that and think “Oh what might have been.”  We can only hope that they put some real thought into how to reformat this race for next year.

Firestone Twin 275s at Texas Preview and Predictions

Well it is finally here.  Ever sense it was announced in the off-season I have been wondering how this format will work.  I was not a fan of the format at first and I still do not like it.  Double headers are great for support series but this is IndyCar if you want to be treated like the premier racing series that you are then do not set your races up like a supporting class race.  However, if that is not bad enough any creditability to the second race is completely lost due to the fact that the grid is set by blind draw!  This is not even support series style this is go-kart style, but even there only the heats are blind draw the main is set by average finish of the heats.  I would say if you are going to have a double-header type format the second race grid should be set by fastest lap times during the first race.  This would be better then the “old way” of finishing order in that if a fast car has trouble then he will still be in the back while the other fast cars are out front and gone.  With this blind draw format there is potential for things to go wrong.  Lets play the “what if game” for a bit.  What if the front of the field is heavy with slow cars, you get a big pile up early in the race making for a very boring race.  What if there is 1 fast guy on the front row while all of the other people that proved to be fast in race 1 are stuck behind slower traffic, he will check out and be long gone making for a very boring race.  What if your favorite driver gets a bad draw and is the back of the field all of race 2?  This format might “move the needle” but not in the way, Randy Bernard wants, because people (not the hardcore, blog reading, fans) will shut off the second race.  I guess we will see how it turns out.  I hope I am wrong about the second and it is not a complete snoozer but we shall see.

As for predictions for the pole I am going to go with Briscoe, he needs to make up walling the car on pole day and having to move to the T car if not for that he would have been in the running for pole at Indy, so keep it off the wall in practice and go for it.  As for the podium, I am going for the top three average finishes (most points scored) as when we look back at the race that is what is going to matter.  For first I am going to stick with Briscoe, I think he is due for a good run he had one going at Indy before “the Townsend Dollar Bill” bounced off the wall and took him out plus Texas has been good to Ryan in the past.  He may not come out with 50 points but unless something happens, he should have a good showing.  For P2 I will go with Dixon, someone else who has a very good record at Texas and I expect him to split the wins with Briscoe so it is going to come down to who has the better other finish.  For P3 let us go with Helio.  As much as I would love to go with a non-Death Star team I just think that the logistics of the format plays into the hands of the well organized teams and even though Penske has not really looked well organized so far this season heads will roll if that is not turned around soon.  For the story of the race, I am going to go with Marco Andretti he could be very fun to watch if he gets, is car hooked up on the high line as he has in the past.  Finally, the “Legend In His Own Mind” award is a “Legend In Her Own Mind” this week as I am expecting Danica to prove that last year when she had a good race at Texas was in fact just a flook.  She is on her way to NASCAR and IndyCar is not going to miss her we just need to get companies to promote other driver.  Plus I am not sure how much Danica is helping IndyCar anymore already as she is always introduced as “NASCAR driver Danica Patrick” whenever she is on TV.

Indianapolis 500 Review and Reaction

Wow what a race.  First thing that has to stick out as we look back at the 2011 Indianapolis 500-mile race is what is wrong with Penske?  Not only did they have pit problems again they were never a factor with any of their cars.  Briscoe was coming from midfield when he ran into the “Townsend Dollar Bill” but even as he was moving up he didn’t seem to have the speed of the leaders through out the run.  One could look at this as everyone has caught up to the big teams which is of coarse makes for good racing and wide open fields.  The downside … next year with 3 different engine manufactures (and those manufactures being able to give “developmental” equipment to there foundation team(s)) next year the big teams are likely to dominate even more then they have been the past 9 years!  Yippy something to look forward too.  Other then the “Death Star” teams nonexistent when looking at the top ten the thing that really sticks out is the one off’s.  Not only the winner but Three count them THREE of the top ten were one off teams.  Makes you question just how good are these regulars really are?  Perhaps ride buying has finally caught up to most of the full time teams.  One can only hope that this would make them think harder before passing up a great driver with some money and taking up someone whose sole qualification is the check book they bring with them.  But be forewarned that the Indy Lights Death Star team is coming to up to play with the big boys and this is a very good start at being the ones to blow up the old Death Star.

As for my predictions.  I think I did pretty well on my qualifying predictions however I was really busy and never got around to making race predictions on here.  That was probably a good thing as the race predictions I did make didn’t turn out too well other then saying the 4 car would finish 2^nd!  The story of the race has to go to Wheldon a one off winning should not even be possible but here we are.  Just goes to show that just how good Wheldon really is.  I was not one of the people that thought Dan should have been in the greatest 33 (even though I knew he has lead more laps then Heilo) but now, now I think maybe he really does belong up there.  Maybe there well be a movement for him to buy out a seat in one of the cars the really did qualify!  The “Legend In His Own Mind” award (as much as I hate to do it) has to go to JR Hildebrand.  I hate to pile on but he had it won if he would have just set behind Kimball, even if he would have ran out of gas he had a big enough lead to cost to the line (he almost made it to the line first even after hitting the wall!).  Even if there was any argument for not giving this award to him it goes away when you hear his explanation.  “I was able to go to the high side earlier in the day.”  That is just the definition of “Legend In His Own Mind” doing something stupid because you think you can get away with.  I just hope he has learned his lesion and will be more patience as race wins don’t come around very often for Panther anymore and Indy 500 wins are even more rare.  I think JR is an extremely talented driver with a very bright future here in IndyCar but Sunday he was just a legend in his own mind.

Overall I think race day was a huge success.  I was worried about the hot wheels stunt when it was first announced but it really seemed to bring in interest from people who do not normally care about IndyCar and even though I was skeptical at first I must admit it was pretty cool to see.  The classic cars were what I was really looking forward too race morning and they did not disappoint at all.  I hope that is something that they continue to do every year.  Having past winners driving past winning cars just seems like a natural fit.