The 2010 Indy Car season is starting to wind down and the points race is starting to get closer and more dicey than it has been all season. On Saturday the Indy Car grid lined up at Chicagoland speedway for an oval battle royal (there are no more road courses for the rest of the season). This race was Will Power’s chance to increase his points lead and give himself a cushion going into the last few races of 2010 but his plans for that were totally dashed when Power was forced to give up fighting at the front to come into the pits for a splash and go since a malfunction in a previous pit stop prevented him from getting the fuel he needed.
It was none other than Dario Franchitti who took advantage of Will Power’s misfortune to take the lead and eventually the win. With Dario’s win and Power finishing 16th Dario was able to shorten his gap to Power by a scant 22 points. This is a dangerous position for Will Power since there are only two races left (Twin Ring Motegi, Japan and Homestead Speedway, Florida). It looks like things have gotten interesting again folks..
The Indy Cars hit up wine country over the weekend for the last road course race on the schedule AKA the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. Things continued with this race as they have for most of the season, with Team Penske and the Target Ganassi team trading blow for blow. However in this round it was Will Power with Team Penske getting the last punch in by taking the win and the Andretti road course trophy. From this point on its all ovals to see who is going to take the big prize! Check out the race highlights below.
So, the Honda Edmonton Indy race was yesterday and with the exception of the last 3 laps or so there wouldn’t have been much to report. Will Power took the pole position on Saturday and for a great majority of the race Will Power was in the lead with teammates Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe in tow. For a while it looked like we were going to see a boring Team Penske 1-2-3 finish. However, towards the end of the race a chain of events unfolded which ultimately resulted in a massive explosion of in-field drama. It started with the leaders of the race coming into the pits to get fresh tires and fuel to start off the last stint. While Will Power’s crew put a set of hard compound black tires on his car, Helio’s team decided to go for the red-sidewall soft compound tires. Because of this Helio was able to take the lead from Will just as they were coming up on lapped traffic.
This is where things got interesting…
As Will Power fought his way through lapped traffic to get back behind Helio an incident in the back pack brought out a full course yellow during the last 5 laps of the race. Two laps later all the cars were bunched together for a restart leaving Will Power poised in the perfect position to over take Helio. As the green flag dropped Power attempted to make his move on Castroneves going into turn 1 but was foiled as Helio pushed Will towards the outside. In this skirmish Scott Dixon (who was in 3rd) capitalized on the opportunity and passed Will Power to take the 2nd place position behind Helio.
Just as the cars crossed the line marking just 2 laps to go a message comes down from the race officials to the Team Penske pit that Helio was being issued a drive through penalty for blocking Will Power on the restart! This penalty would essentially hand the win over to Scott Dixon as soon as Helio came in to serve his penalty. Helio did not come in… He decided he would stay out finish the race and raise hell later, and raise Hell he did!
As soon as the race was over he pulled off, got out of his car absolutely livid and looked for anyone he could find wearing an Indy Car “Track Official” uniform and got in their face demanding answers. He even grabbed a security guy twice his size by the collar! It was one of the most magnificent displays of emotions I’ve ever seen from Helio and he has had some doozies. The only difference is that while usually Helio’s emotional demonstrations are of extreme happiness or sadness, this time it was unbridled anger! Don’t worry though, there were still some tears in the end. Oh, Helio…
It was so spectacular that Indy Car didn’t even release they’re usual “race highlights” video. Instead they put a full recap of Helio’s meltdown out on the interwebs for all of us to see. Check it out below!
At first I agreed with Helio’s anger but after the rule for blocking was explained I could see how the race officials came to the decision to penalize Castroneves. However what I do not understand is how Scott Dixon got the win when Will Power was in 2nd place when Helio committed the infraction. Shouldn’t the person who was blocked inherit the position that the blocker would be stripped of because of the penalty? Apparently, the Indy Car officials do not see it that way.
On Sunday the Indy Car series threw an open wheel race party up north in Paul Tracy’s hometown of Toronto. The fans really wantetd Tracy to be there and Tracy really wanted to win there (his last win in Toronto was 2003). For a while it looked like Tracy was about to get what he wanted but because of a miscalculation by his race strategist Tracy had to give up the lead and a shot at the win to re-fuel. This then left the race up to Justin Wilson who inherited the lead that Tracy gave up. However Justin had Will Power (the last of the three Penske cars that were in the running) behind him as well as Dario Franchitti.
The pressure from the two top tier drivers was soon too much for Justin and he spun in a corner from pushing too hard. From that point Will Power and Dario Franchitti had their own battle for the remaining 15 laps of the race but Dario just didn’t have enough for Will Power and Mr. Power went on to take the win. It looks like the streak of Penske and Ganassi wins is going to start all over again! Check out the video below for race highlights and visit the Indy Car website for a full post race report on their end.
Today the Indy Car Series announced which manufacturer won the 2012 chassis battle. It looks like Dallara will once again be the chassis provider with a brand new design. I know what you’re thinking! “That kind of sucks..” However there are some interesting developments that come along with this choice. The first of which is that the new chassis will be lighter and 40% cheaper than the current chassis. Part of making the chassis cheaper comes from the fact that Dallara has committed to building a facility in the states to make it easier to source the chassis to the teams.
The other development is that the new chassis will be somewhat modular. This means other aero manufacturers are open to building their own aerodynamic “add-on” packages for the Dallara chassis. This also gives the teams freedom to experiment with set-ups and put together packages they feel work the best. This means we may finally get away from all the cars looking the same! You can learn about all the other juicy tidbits by watching the replay of the full announcement below.
I hope everyone had a great Independence Day where no one lost a digit from an explosion! If you happened to tune into Versus TV on Sunday before the fireworks went off you would have seen the Indy Cars putting on their own show at Watkins Glen for the Camping World Grand Prix. One of the big stories for this race was the “Penske Curse”. Ever since 2005 a Team Penske car has always managed to qualify on pole at the Glen but can never win! They almost have a record for all the poles they’ve captured at Watkins Glen but have yet to catch a “W”. However this year Penske came armed with three cars (Will Power, Ryan Briscoe, and Helio Castroneves) and as usual a Penske Car (Will Power, who is also a past winner of Watkin’s Glen) qualified on pole. In the end Penske’s choice to add Will Power as a full-time driver on his team paid off because he managed to break the curse and score a win at the Glen! Check out some of the race highlights below and a full post race report at IndyCar.com.
While most of us were hanging out with our Dads on Sunday, the Indy Car grid tackled the Iowa Superspeedway short track for the Iowa Corn Indy 250. A race on Father’s Day is a pretty nice gift in and of itself but what was even better was how it played out. Despite having horrible practice sessions and crashing during qualifying, Andretti Autosport driver Tony Kanaan managed to pull off an incredible come from behind win starting 15th in the field and fighting his way to the front. This was Kanaan’s first win in just over two years and the first time he has finished the Iowa Corn 250 since ‘07. In ‘07, ‘08, and ‘09 Tony crashed out of Iowa despite having strong performances but now that monkey is finally off his back as he celebrates this win. You can read a full race report on Indy Car’s website as well as check out race highlights in the video below.
Formula Drift wasn’t the only motorsports action going on this weekend. On Saturday night the Indy Cars were under the lights at Texas Motorspeedway for the Firestone 550K. Texas is known for being a hairy track due to its high speeds and wicked 45 degree banking. Back when the Champ Cars used to run the track the high speeds and high banking actually caused several drivers to suffer G-Lock. These days the speeds have been toned down just enough so that the drivers can race around the track without, you know, blacking out!
Once the debris was cleared and racing went back underway Danica Patrick managed to fight her way up to the front in one of her strongest performances since her win at Motegi a while back. Unfortunately for her with 35 laps to go Ryan Briscoe was able to take the lead away from her and fend her off to take the win, thus redeeming himself for his wreck at the Indy 500. Check out the video below for some of the race highlights.
Miss the Indy 500 over the weekend? Did you record it? If you did you should immediately stop reading this post! Go to another one, or better yet go watch your recording so I don’t have to keep worrying about spoiling it! If you didn’t record it and you live in a cave then read on.
I’ll start off by telling you that this year’s 500 had the most cautions I’ve seen in a while! It was almost like the track was angry at the drivers for some reason. Heck, there was a crash in the first lap and even the last lap with plenty of other incidents sprinkled in-between. Because of all the cautions, the strategy boiled down to fuel and pit stops. It was all about picking the right sequence and predicting yellow flags to make sure you had more fuel than the other guy.
In the last 20 laps or so it came down to a battle between Dario Franchitti, Dan Weldon, and Marco Andretti. Marco fell just short enough on fuel that he couldn’t fight with Dario and Dan. However Dario was also running pretty low on fuel since he built up a huge cap but as he came on lapped traffic he was forced to slow down during the last 5 laps while Dan who was more than adiquate on fuel tried hard to work his way through the traffic and catch Dario. Alas he Wheldon couldn’t quite make it, then a horrific crash involving Ryan-Hunter Reay and Mike Conway turned the white flag lap yellow thus solidifying Dario’s second career Indy 500 win. Check out the race highlights below.
I didn’t want to put a spoiler in the title since the race might re-air soon so if you don’t want to know who wins I suggest you click on another post! Fresh off the Toyota Grand Prix Of Long Beach the Indy Car grid made their annual stop in Kansas for the Road Runner Turbo 300. This race is the last race before the Indy 500 so not only is it important for points but it serves as a test bed for oval strategies that teams might use in May.
If this race is any indication of how the 500 will play out then its safe to say that Scott Dixon will be the odds on favorite to win since he absolutely spanked the entire field in Kansas over the weekend. There were a few cautions but nothing too serious and Dixon didn’t waver at all. His team mate Dario Franchitti did his best to keep up and Tony Kanan stole third place from Helio Castroneves at the last moment making the official end of the race a Target-Chip Ganassi 1-2 with Kanan’s Andretti Autosport car bringing up third. Check out the race highlights below.
Loading ...
