Notes & Bolts, Vol 2
Written by Douglas Brown · May 2, 2008
My observations, random reads and stream-of-consciousness rambling from around the open car world.
- So far, Target-Chip Ganassi is romping the season. Helio leads the points, but Dixon and Wheldon are right behind him. Dixon has two poles, a win and two thirds; Wheldon, who dominated in Kansas, also has a win and four top-5s. Watch out for those two as we move to Indy and through the ’08 campaign.
- With four races past, all attention moves to Indianapolis. The 500 Festival Mini-Marathon (13.1) is run on Saturday and includes some track time. Official Opening Day of the tack is Sunday May 5th at 9AM.
- Unification seems to be brining ad dollars back to the Indy 500. Coca-Cola was the nig return, but more interesting are some of the minors suddenly appearing:
- Cardio-Chek, an associate sponsor of the No. 20 Menards/Vision Racing car driven by Ed Carpenter, will screen fans’ cholesterol and glucose levels during the month of May;
- ChaCha has been selected the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as its Official Mobile Answers Service. Whatever that means. Try ChaCha.com.
- Red Gold Brand Ketchup, an Indianapolis favorite, is being served throughout IMS for fans and race teams to enjoy. They’re supporting the $10K Red Gold Red Zone Award for the quickest bump day driver.
- You can still get tickets online for The Race, but stay tuned here at Fastmachies for our first ever Indy 500 Ticket giveaway.
- I owe a nod to Juan-Pablo for his second place finish lat weekend at Talledega. I still don’t like the fact he’s limited to turning left in a manufactured-home version of a race car, but he proved that he’s remembering how to drive an oval. He did win at Indy, after all.
- Also, a shout out to A. J. Allmendinger as he led a lap in his first start in … how long has be been in Nascar? Even if it was a matter of shuffling through pit stops, it goes in the stats. Will he be back?
| Driver | Starts | Avg Start | Avg Finish |
| Allendinger | 1 | 4 | 30 |
| Carpentier | 6 | 25 | 33 |
| Franchitti | 7 | 32 | 32 |
| Hornish | 9 | 22 | 30 |
| Montoya | 9 | 21 | 17 |
| Villeneuve | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Comments
One Response to “Notes & Bolts, Vol 2”
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I think this Indy is going to be the most interesting in years.The unification should really be good for the open wheelers. Hopefully the ex “champ car” guys can get their new equipment up to speed quickly.
I just wish the IRL (or whatever they call themselves now), would use this time to change their caution rules and start doing NASCAR style double wide restarts, with lead lap cars nose to tail.