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Graham Rahal - the super-sub of 2010

If you paid any attention to CART/Champ Car in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, you know that Roberto Moreno seemed to be the dude that car owners would tap whenever they needed a substitute driver. Eventually Moreno became known as the “Super-Sub“.

But fast-forward a decade to 2010, and a new super-sub of sorts has appeared in the Indy Car paddock: Graham Rahal.

Since finding himself on the outside looking in for the 2010 season after a drive for Newman-Haas racing fell through, Graham has been able to put together a few runs, including the Indy 500 two weeks ago. He’s driven for Sarah Fisher Racing, Rahal-Letterman Racing, and next week in Iowa he will make his debut with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing as a sub for Mike Conway who was roughed up pretty bad in a crash at Indy.

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Swift Concept 70 - A chassis that is trying too hard to be revolutionary

Swift engineering released yet another Indy Car concept chassis today through a Racer.com story dubbed “Concept 70″. It’s a design that seems to be a mashup of previous Swift designs, including some pretty sexy sidepods and wicked looking shark fin.

However, the front and rear wing look like they were borrowed from a Hot Wheels car, and I’m not sure I can take this design seriously until they remedy that. This evolution still looks a bit like a car for development series to me, not a fire-breathing Indy Car. To me, it’s just trying a little too hard to be “forward thinking” and radical.

But at least it looks like a race car that could be used on ovals and road courses. You can’t say that for the Delta Wing.

Briscoe keeps his cool while others boil over in the Texas heat

Now *that* was an Indy Car oval race. The Indy Car Series exchanged the flat track of Indy for the 24-degree lunacy of Texas, and put on one heck of a show. Ryan Briscoe won from the pole, giving a boost to the Penske team that had a less-than-spectacular race at Indy. And for a guy who was hired by Roger to drive Porsche prototypes in ALMS, Briscoe has unexpectedly become a force on the 1-1/2 mile tracks like Kansas, Texas, and Homestead.

As the race unfolded, the main challenge to a race that Briscoe had controlled most of the night came from Danica Patrick. Patrick started eighth, but moved up into the top five early in the race. Danica even held the lead for a brief moment after she and Briscoe made their first stops. In the end, she just didn’t have the kind of car that Briscoe had, and she finished second.
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Briscoe keeps Penske pole streak alive at Texas

Ryan Briscoe rebounded from his crash at Indy to take the pole for tonight’s Firestone 550K at Texas Motor Speedway. Briscoe’s run gave Team Penske six poles in a row since the streak started in St. Petersburg. Briscoe, in particular, has taken a liking to the mile-and-a-half high banked tracks, taking the pole at Kansas last month and now at Texas.

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Memorial Day Weekend Racing Review

Dario Franchitti dominates to win second Indy 500

The 2010 Indy 500 won’t go down in the history books as a race for the ages, but it did have some interesting story lines and one terrible crash. The big story was the absolutely destruction of the field by Dario’s Target car which seemed to have a gear nobody else had which enabled him to lead 155 laps.

Unfortunately for the fans, no only did Dario’s domination make for somewhat of an uneventful race at the front of the field, but the race turned into a fuel mileage marathon at the end. In fact, Franchitti may not have made it to the end if it were not for a terrible crash that involved Mike Conway and Ryan Hunter-Reay in the closing laps.

In post-race celebrations, Ashley Judd once again displayed her love for attention, and made sure the world knows that her man is “the man”. We know, Ashley, we know.
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Indy 500 Bump Day 2010 - Highs and lows

Every year at the Indy 500 time trials, bump day usually provides plenty of drama as the field gets set for the Greatest Spectacle In Racing. And not only did this year’s bump day live up to the hype, but the closing hour left viewers and fans catching their breath with everything that unfolded.

Lead Story - Kanaan’s conundrum
The story that dominated the day was that of Tony Kanaan’s troubles in getting into the field. An annual favorite to win the race and take the pole in recent years, Kanaan found himself on the outside looking in today after a qualifying crash on Saturday that caused heavy damage to the 7-Eleven car.

To make things worse, Kanaan took out his repaired car in morning practice, and crashed again in turn one in an episode of the worst kind of déjà vu. Kanaan’s team picked up the pieces (pun intended), pawned off some parts from other Andretti Autosport cars, and put Kanaan back ont he track. And Kanaan responded by firmly putting his car in the field. The man earned his paycheck today and showed just what he’s made of, that is for sure.
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Tony Fernandes Of Lotus F1: Call Me Mr. Blue; Rural New York F1 Track?

Some of you may recall the old Fleetwoods’ tune “Call Me Mr. Blue”? Anyone, anyone, Buehler? Didn’t think so. Regardless, me thinks Tony Fernandes should adopt it as his team/personal theme song. Read more

Monaco GP: Webber, Vettel, Kubica Too; Williams And Schumy Cry Boo-Hoo-Hoo.

Yeah my poetry (if you can call it that) might suck, but it’s an accurate short version of the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix results.

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Spanish GP: A Perfect Day For Red Bull, Almost

Mark Webber used his pole position for an easy romp of 66 laps in the Spanish sunshine of Cataluña and secured his first win of 2010. Not so exciting a day for teammate Sebastian Vettel . Read more

F-Duct or not Red Bull demolished the field in F1 Spanish GP qualifying

Formula 1 has returned to Europe this weekend for the Spanish Grand Prix at Catalunya, and the talk in the garages is of the major upgrades that the teams have made on their machines in the recent off weeks. The buzzword in F1 continues to be “F-Duct”, a term for the aerodynamic device that modifies airflow over the rear wing on high speed straights.

The ironic thing about the results for today’s qualifying session is that the top two qualifiers didn’t even have an F-Duct on their cars. So despite the buzz, and the talk of it’s advantages, the F-Duct just might really be voodoo aerodynamics.

F-Duct or not, the Red Bull team destroyed the field today. Webber captured the pole by winning a fierce battle with his teammmate, Sebastian Vettel, by a mere tenth-of-a-second. But while this intra-team battle was firece, the other drivers were effectively running for ‘best in class’ of the non-Red Bull machines.

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