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Justin Wilson putting up big numbers in Indy Car Toronto practice

The IZOD Indy Car Series heads north of the border this weekend for the Honda Indy Toronto, a tight and super-fast street course that separates the men from the boys. And this weekend, Justin Wilson has been “the man”, posting either the first or second fastest time in all three practices conducted on Friday and Saturday. And in the latest session today, Wilson was almost three-tenths faster than EJ Viso and looks to be the favorite to grab the pole during the Firestone Fast Six session.
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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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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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Paul Tracy and Barry Green reunite for 2010 Indy 500

Paul Tracy tweeted some news news today revolving around 2010 Indy 500 effort that Barry Green is going to wire up the ol’ headset and call race strategy for Mr. Chrome Horn in the duo’s attempt at winning the Indy 500 for a second time. Ok…. In reality Paul is still vying for a first win at the Brickyard, while Green seeks to put an exclamation point on the 1995 Indy win he captured with with Jacques Villeneuve. Speaking of 1995, that race finish was nearly as controversial as the 2002 race, so Green has gotten both ends of the proverbial stick when it comes to winning and losing the Greatest Spectacle In Racing.

This reunion puts Tracy with his former team owner from the FedEx Championship Series (a.k.a. CART) when he drove for Team KOOL Green. Tracy said that the two have “unfinished” business to tend to at the Brickyard. But can Tracy pull the rabbit out of the hat, beat the likes of Ganassi and Penske, and exorcise the ghosts of the 2002 race? Doubtful, of course. I wonder, though, what kind of celebratory exhibition Paul Tracy might put on if he were to somehow win the 500 mile race.

He’s had a long time to think about it.

USA Today also has a real news story about these developments: Barry Green to work with Paul Tracy in Indy 500

Scott Dixon is again the king of Kansas

The fans at Kansas Speedway today experienced an episode of Déjà vu as they watched Scott Dixon run away with the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 for the second year in a row. Dixon led the most laps in a race that started out with a tight and competitive run at the front, and ended with a total blowout by the New Zealander.

The only thing that made the latter part of the race interesting were a string of yellows that kept the field in touch with the leader. But as the race came to a close, Dixon had 18 Honda push-to-pass “shots” with only 15 laps to go, and it was his race to lose. And for a guy with ice-water in his veins, it was a walk in the park.

The field took the green at about 2 p.m. ET, and I was amazed to see a nicely formed field of 2-by-two race cars. That’s how a race start is supposed to look, and a huge improvement over the sloppy starts of the past few races.
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Oval opener brings reversal of fortune during Indy Car Kansas qualifying

Indy Car has finally been un-caged this week, set free from the narrow concrete-canyons of Sao Paulo and Long Beach and unleashed on the tri-oval at Kansas Speedway. And with this change in scenery comes a change at the front of the grid, and tonight there are a bunch of drivers breathing deep sighs of relief to be back in the Midwest on an oval. Others that have had so much success early in the season have been left scratching their heads and wondering how they went from the front to the back.

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Indy Car’s new three-tiered championship a good move but is no magic pill

The talk amongst Indy Car fans today was the announcement by the IRL that they will be adding two new championship titles to the series. The head honcho, Randy Bernard, declared that the series will be adding a “road course” championship and an “oval” championship to the agenda for 2010. That means this weekend’s race in Kansas will be the inaugural race for the yet to be named “oval” championship. Additional, they say that these two new titles will be named by the fans, although they haven’t announced how that will happen yet. Perhaps the oval championship trophy might be named “The Foyt Cup”, or the “Harroun Trophy” (and while this fan involvement is great, I think a better idea would be to find title sponsors for each cup).
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