Monday Morning Crew Chief
Written by Jonathan Ingram · June 23, 2008
The Weekend In Ten:
1. Scott Kalitta’s fatal accident at Englishtown — Including Darrell Russell’s Top Fuel crash in 2004, Kalitta’s Funny Car crash was the third fatal accident in four years involving nitro drivers. Given NASCAR’s record since Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s fatal crash in 2001, the NHRA needs to ask itself some tough questions. Can the Top Fuel and Funny Car chassis safely handle the current quarter mile speeds in excess of 300 mph in the event of crashes, fires or engine failures? Is there an equivalent of the Car of Tomorrow for nitro competition?
2. U.S. Grand Prix Back to Indy — Rumor has it the lads of F1 will be back at the Brickyard in 2009. America is the pre-eminent racing market in the world due to the richness and variety of its major racing series. But it’s tough to make that claim without an F1 event. On the other hand, the MotoGP will be here twice this year, including Indy, and it increasingly appears America can do just as well without F1, especially now that open-wheel unification has taken place.
Given the value of the dollar’s slippage against the euro and loonie in Canada, Indianapolis remains a great value for fans. And therein lies the rub. The Speedway will not pay exhorbitant prices for the bragging rights to host F1 and then try to pass them along to fans. So it will be interesting to see if there is indeed a long-range plan to host F1 and how the finances work.
The viewpoint here is that unification scares F1’s business domo Bernie Ecclestone enough to make a U.S. Grand Prix a priority — i.e. finding a sponsor to foot the bill for both the FIA and the Speedway. Unification means the U.S. fans and the Speedway, which is likely to do well with the MotoGP, may well lose interest in the future. Given that entire governments fund the F1 circus throughout the rest of the world, the only place possible to have one in the U.S. is Indy. And, it dovetails nicely with the Canadian GP.
3. Busch Gets Cheers At Sonoma — At Sonoma, a Sprint Cup victory by Kyle Busch was cheered for the first time since his run-in with Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Richmond. This could mean one of three things: 1) They’re used to Toyota dominating in California, so what’s the big deal with the Camry? 2) Californians have always thought younger and they appreciate a 23-year-old winner. 3) Anybody but Juan Pablo Montoya.
4. Hamilton Suffers At Hands Of Stewards Again — Having declared he would take his 10-position grid penalty on the chin, Lewis Hamilton promptly ended up with another penalty due to an ill-advised trip through a chicane shortly after gaining a position early in the French Grand Prix. The jury is still out on whether the stewards are picking on him (and McLaren Mercedes), but Hamilton is hardly helping his own case.
5. IndyCar Competition Has Picked Up — Or, so it would seem. The competition has been good this year in IndyCar, witness the weekend’s race in Iowa. But for the most part it’s been the usual battle between the teams of Chip Ganassi, Michael Andretti and Roger Penske. This could change on the road courses at Watkins Glen, Mid-Ohio and Sonoma. But so far unification by Champ Car has mostly meant power to the Big Three.
6. NASCAR Has Gone Nationwide In Lower Ranks — The country’s second most popular series has secured its status with the battles between the young Sprint Cup guns such as Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Clint Bowyer and Denny Hamlin versus the new guns in the Nationwide Series like Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and (soon) Landon Cassill. Although Busch concentrated on the road course in Sonoma, fans got their money’s worth in Milwaukee last weekend at the Nationwide race. It’s shows like these that will enable tracks in places such as Nashville, Kentucky and St. Louis to survive — and lose any legal cases of monopolistic practices against NASCAR when they can’t get a Sprint Cup date.
7. Jaundiced But Cool At Mid-Ohio — If there’s been one constant criticism by this writer of the Grand-Am Series, it has concerned too many caution flags due to unskilled driving. At Mid-Ohio on Saturday, there were plenty of cautions due to the rain, but some necessarily good driving as well. The fact the defending series champs Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty got their first win indicates the level of competition has stepped up at the Grand-Am. Unfortunately for those looking for supremacy, the appeal of the rival ALMS has also dramatically improved due to Audi’s upset over Peugeot in a spectacular 24-hour at Le Mans.
8. Stoner Back In The Hunt — By time the MotoGP arrives in Indianapolis in October, there could be a three-way battle for the championship, including defending titlist Casey Stoner, who took the victory at Donnington over the weekend. A title on the line between Ducati’s Stoner, Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi would be sweet for the inaugural MotoGP at the Brickyard.
9. The Ringers Lose Again — What a miserable Sprint Cup race at Sonoma for the usual batch of so-called road racing ringers. They failed in a garden variety of manners. Could we have seen the end of any real challenges for victory by the likes of Ron Fellows, Scott Pruett and Boris Said? Can Marcos Ambrose and Max Papis pick up the slack?
10. IMSA Sanctions Atlantics — The fact IMSA has picked up the sanction for the Atlantic series, now in its 35th season and still currently owned by Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe, is another plus for the owners of the American Le Mans Series. It remains to be seen if the ALMS buys the Atlantic series. The sanctioning agreement was announced only for the remainder of 2008.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
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