Green Flag 5.22.08: The Greatest Spectacle in Racing Columns

Posted by Jim Carson on 05.22.2008

What?!! This column has a guest!?? What?!! This column also picks on Kyle Busch!??


No matter how much NASCAR dominates the motorsports landscape in the U.S. and all of North America, there's one time when that's not the case. In the ranking of the biggest and most important races in every season, #2 would be the Daytona 500, then probably #3-#5 in some order would be the Coca-Cola 600, the Brickyard 400 and the August 500-lapper at Bristol, then #6-#37 are the remaining races on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule. Wanna keep going? #38 is the Sprint All-Star Race and #39 the Bud Shootout. Probably the Rolex 24 at Daytona sports car race lands at #40.

But the #1 race in the entire season (and obviously the most historic) still takes place in the capital city of the Hoosier State early in the afternoon on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. It was unquestionably that way before the Big Split of '96. There were some shaky times for a couple of years after that, then it gained more status when ownership names like Penske, Rahal, Andretti and Green came back, and people didn't hide the fact that they were paying attention again. Having a petite and gorgeous road racer from Illinois certainly helped, even though Indy was still Indy back to the year 9 B.D. (Before Danica). And now both sides have done the best they could under the circumstances to repair the Big Split.

And now both 411Mania zones with die-hard racing nuts in the credits are doing the best they could to analyze things. And this isn't about a gratuitous B-race.


TWO GUYS WITH THE 411 ON THE 500

The first-ever Green Flag guest, Movies/TV columnist Bryan Kristopowitz, goes gaga over the big stars in racing just like anyone would, but Bryan also knows what's just as important in the sport. Anyone who mentions the Oswego Speedway International Classic and the dear-departed ESPN Thursday Night Thunder USAC silver crown/sprint/midget program to the worldwide media on a website with roots in professional wrestling must be OK. (Yeah, but has he been to the race in Vermont where the winner gets to kiss a cow?) And Bryan, it's OK to call it "Lowe's Motor Speedway" just like "Charlotte." What people should be shot for saying or printing is "Lowe's." For Petty's sake, they are not racing around the parking lot of a home improvement store.

There are 33 people (and the teams they represent) that are a whole lot more important to the Indianapolis 500 than the two of us with computers. So here's the starting grid (R- indicates they ain't been there before until a couple of weeks ago):

---Row 1
_1. (9) Scott Dixon, Target/Chip Ganassi Racing
_2. (10) Dan Wheldon, Target/Chip Ganassi Racing
_3. (6) Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske
---Row 2
_4. (3) Helio Castroneves, Team Penske
_5. (7) Danica Patrick, Motorola/Andretti-Green Racing
_6. (11) Tony Kanaan, 7-Eleven/Andretti-Green Racing
---Row 3
_7. (26) Marco Andretti, Team Indiana Jones-Blockbuster/Andretti-Green Racing
_8. (4) Vitor Meira, Delphi-National Guard/Panther Racing
_9. (27) R-Hideki Mutoh, Formula Dream/Andretti-Green Racing
---Row 4
10. (20) Ed Carpenter, Menards-Johns Manville/Vision Racing
11. (12) Tomas Scheckter, Symantec/Luczo Dragon Racing
12. (99) Townsend Bell, William Rast/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
---Row 5
13. (06) R-Graham Rahal, Hole in the Wall Camps/Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing
14. (14) Darren Manning, ABC Supply/A.J. Foyt Enterprises
15. (18) Bruno Junqueira, Z-Line Designs/Dale Coyne Racing
---Row 6
16. (02) R-Justin Wilson, McDonalds/Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing
17. (15) Buddy Rice, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
18. (22) Davey Hamilton, Hewlett-Packard/Vision Racing
---Row 7
19. (16) R-Alex Lloyd, Wii Fit/Rahal-Letterman Racing with Chip Ganassi
20. (17) R-Ryan Hunter-Reay, Team Ethanol/Rahal-Letterman Racing
21. (24) John Andretti, Las Vegas/Roth Racing
---Row 8
22. (67) Sarah Fisher, Sarah Fisher Racing
23. (8) R-Will Power, Aussie Vineyards/KV Racing Technology
24. (41) Jeff Simmons, A.J. Foyt Enterprises
---Row 9
25. (5) R-Oriol Servia, KV Racing Technology
26. (33) R-E.J. Viso, PDVSA/HVM Racing
27. (23) Milka Duno, Citgo/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
---Row 10
28. (19) R-Mario Moraes, Sonny's Bar-B-Q/Dale Coyne Racing
29. (36) R-Enrique Bernoldi, Sangari/Conquest Racing
30. (34) R-Jaime Camara, Sangari/Conquest Racing
---Row 11
31. (2) A.J. Foyt IV, Lilly/Vision Racing
32. (91) Buddy Lazier, MDA-ALS/Hemelgarn Johnson Racing
33. (25) Marty Roth, Roth Racing

We're a few days removed from Bump Day, which was the first thing that really speared Kristopowitz's excitement, so why don't we start there:

-JIM: You found the drama you wanted in the last hour of Bump Day, with Mario Dominguez crashing as the gun went off. And perhaps for the first time since the Big Split of '96, you had a big name involved in the final 15 minutes, with former winner Buddy Lazier getting in. What did you think about the second weekend of qualifying?

-BRYAN: The second weekend of qualifying was surprising. I was surprised that A.J. Foyt IV wasn't in the show on Saturday, and when it looked like at the end of the day that he was going to have to wait until Sunday and there was rain in the forecast, all I thought about was how Davey Hamilton was going to get screwed. I figured Tony George would remove Hamilton from the car and put in Foyt since Foyt is running for points. But that, thankfully, didn't happen.

I was also surprised by how well Marty Roth did. When he went out for his final attempt I figured that he was wasting his time, that he didn't have the speed. And then he just went for it and got in. I don't think he'll last that long in the race, but hey, he's guaranteed $250,000 plus, so that's not bad.

As for Lazier, yeah, he's in, but I don't know what the hell his owner Ron Hemelgarn was thinking dicking around all afternoon and then being sort of caught off guard towards the end. If you're in the final row and there's even a slight, miniscule chance you could be bumped from the race, you have to be ready to go and thinking and making adjustments to the car. Hemelgarn is lucky that Lazier is such a good driver that they got in.

I was also pretty annoyed by ABC and ESPN's coverage of third day qualifying. The two-and-a-half hour show they put on was confusing. Since ABC didn't have anything "important" on (at least my local affiliate didn't. Just infomercials for three hours) the networks should have had better, more extensive live coverage. I mean, last Sunday's qualifying session was rained out. Saturday became more important than ever.

-JIM: I won't complain about qualifying coverage, because I didn't watch any at all until the last 35-40 minutes of Bump Day (the Penguins flattening the Flyers was much more important). Anyway, it's good to see someone caring about racers other than those on the Ganassi, Penske and Andretti-Green teams (i.e. the other 23-25 cars in the field, depending on if you count Scheckter's team as a Penske spinoff, and Alex Lloyd as part of the Chipster's group or Rahal's).

Hamilton certainly means more to the 500 field than Little Anthony. Was there anyone else besides me that hoped for the slim chance that Little Anthony might be bumped out? (Besides Bruno Junqueira, who lost the rest of his 2005 season after getting in a wreck with Foyt while lapping him.)

And holy cow ... Milka Duno's four-lap total was faster than SIX other drivers that made the race. That's harder to believe than anything this month so far.

I can't be too overjoyed for Roth. He brings along this rookie teammate named Jay Howard who runs pretty well in two of the four IndyCar races this spring, and then he dumps him for Indy in favor of John Andretti. Is that last name really worth that much in sponsorship for the Brickyard?

The feel-good story of the weekend had to be Townsend Bell leading last Saturday's time trials, considering that I had forgotten he was on the entry list. When they drop the green Sunday, he'll even be able to see the cars with chances to win.

-BRYAN: I think you can count Lloyd as a satellite team of Ganassi's. I think it would be better if Ganassi started a third Target team and had him run that.

I'm not a fan of Foyt IV by any means. I mean, yeah, he seems like a pretty cool guy, but he should have stayed in the (now called) Indy Lights series for a few years because I think, even after all these years, he's still rather green. But he's got that name everyone knows.

I think Milka Duno is a way better driver than people tend to give her credit for. She just needs more seat time. If she can stay out of trouble she could end up with a pretty okay finish. How about Sarah Fisher, losing her sponsor but still making the race? I'll never understand why Tony George didn't try to get behind Fisher earlier in her IndyCar career, especially considering she was the popular driver in the IRL that one year and yet she didn't have a steady ride. I hope she's able to grow her team to the point where she's able to race more than three times a season.

With the way Roth usually runs, I'm surprised he didn't put Andretti in his car instead of Howard's. I think you're right about the Andretti name because that probably does add some value for sponsors, but come on, Roth's name doesn't. Although I still say kudos to Roth for making the show anyway because I sure as heck didn't think he would.

And you're so very right about Townsend Bell. I forgot about him, too. It'd be pretty nifty if he ended up with a decent finish at the end of the day.

Am I the only one worried about Ryan Briscoe causing a huge accident on the first lap of the race? I know he's got Roger Penske in his pit running things and he's got one of the best teams ever at Indy, but, at this moment anyway, I just don't trust Briscoe. He keeps wrecking, he keeps overdriving the car. I just don't trust him. Same goes for Ryan Hunter-Reay. I think I'd be more worried about them crashing into me than any of the Champ Car guys.

-JIM: Your #1 memory of Briscoe might still be the vertical crash into the catchfence at Chicagoland, which was why Ganassi cut back to two cars when he did. I think a lot of Briscoe, and the Captain almost always has a good eye for talent. I'm with you on Hunter-Reay. I don't think there are any notable "weapons" up ahead of RHR (I used to think that way about Tomas Scheckter, but he's matured). The opening lap will be riskiest in Row 10, with three guys who would have even been rookies in Champ Car this year.

Let's move toward the front of the grid, like the middle of Row 2. Remember the ESPN listing mistake about the Motegi race where I was corrected by someone from ESPN? Because of that, I got to listen to the first 30-35 minutes of ESPN's Indianapolis conference call (questions to Marty Reid, Scott Goodyear, Eddie Cheever, and an executive producer) and it seemed to be 80 percent Danica and another 15 percent on how Danica's career path compares to Sarah Fisher's (and the other 5 percent analyzing this year's first broadcast in HD). These professionals realized or confirmed that Danica's the reason why there's a buzz around the Brickyard, transcending sports and all that other stuff we've been hearing since lap 190 of the 2005 edition.

So what if she flops ... and what if she wins?

And isn't Marco in a really nice position, being overlooked in favor of teammate Danica and the hard-Indy-luck driver who looks like he's always sucking on a lemon, Tony Kanaan? Hello, he was about 200 yards from winning the thing in 2006!

-BRYAN: Briscoe is a good driver, no question about it (the Captain doesn't really pick "bad" drivers, at least he hasn't in the last while) but ever since Homestead, it just seems as though Briscoe can't do anything right. And when he wrecked during practice this past weekend all I thought was "He's on the outside of Row 1. He's going to do that in the race, isn't he?" I hope I'm wrong because I really do want to trust and root for Briscoe.

Yeah, Row 10 should be interesting, especially considering they've never done a flying start at Indy.

The IRL is in a bad spot in terms of Danica because the mainstream sports press and, to a lesser degree, the mainstream motorsports press is only interested in Danica because she's still a novelty and it's an interesting, easy story (the whole "first woman to win an IndyCar race thing"), and the IRL itself has miserably failed to market itself beyond "Danicamania" so regardless of how many great drivers and stories there are on the grid and in the series the only thing the league ends up talking about is Danica. It's like the press painted the IRL into a corner only to find out that that's what the IRL planned on doing from the beginning because the league had no other plan.

Look at Marco Andretti. He almost won the race his rookie year. Last year he flips down the backstretch. There's that whole "Andretti curse" thing that's always a great story if packaged right. It will be completely ignored until Jack Arute makes mention of it on the ESPN2 pre-show. Same deal with TK. He's been close before (like last year), he's a great driver, etc. His story is completely ignored.

And look at Helio Castroneves. He won Dancing with the Stars, he's now a part of pop culture, and he's got a chance to win the race for a third time. That story has been drowned out and whatever "rub" he got from winning the show is gone now.

If Danica wins the race (and she could because she's got a great team) it'll be pandemonium. If she doesn't she'll still be the story anyway. That's a huge problem. No one listened to Dan Wheldon back in 2005 when he complained that he won the race.

Now, can anyone realistically stop the Ganassi cars? Is Scott Dixon just going to walk away with this thing or is someone else (perhaps someone outside the top three teams) going to sneak up and take it all away?

And what would happen if Ed Carpenter won? Would that be a bad story for the IRL, since he's related to the owner of the league?

-JIM: If Danica wins at Indy, she will be in a full-time NASCAR ride before two years are up. If it's this Sunday, she'll be in the Daytona 500 in 2010. That's the one downside to the great story of Danica winning, if it happens. I really don't think she's going to leave the pointy cars until she gets her likeness on the Borg-Warner, but if that happens she'll be gobbled up by the money machine. The lure of the Wingboxcars is already sparking Helio Crazyclimber's interest and he might be gone sooner than that.

Every driver in the field, or at least every driver on the Penske, Ganassi and AGR rosters plus a few more like Scheckter, Vitor Meira and 2004 winner Buddy Rice has a story that could be a focal point for the IRL's marketing. Of course, one of the first questions asked by any of today's PR types would be "what do you think of Danica?" But to a man, they're all glad Danica's around (even Dan Wheldon) because the attention she gets trickles down to the others on the grid, even if it's not to the level that it should be.

Oh yeah, Wheldon. Not enough people are looking at him either, but he's on Row 1, the teammate of the polesitter, and his face is already on the B-W. A season or two ago Wheldon was the one whom the NASCAR rumors centered around, even before Hornish started running a few Buschonwide races and Montoya unceremoniously split from his F1 team.

You knew I was going to ask for a pick, so I'll throw out mine: 1. Wheldon; 2. Kanaan (whom I'm rooting for at least as much as for Danica); 3. Danica; 4. Dixon; 5. Meira.

BRYAN: You're right. There really is nowhere else for Danica to go after she wins Indy other than NASCAR. F-1 is never going to happen for her or really any of the current IndyCar drivers (sorry Graham and Marco, but it just ain't gonna happen). Unless they all decide that they don't need the money and want to go hang out in ALMS, which seems to be the kind of racing they all want to do anyway (road and street racing).

Ever since the IRL/Champ Car merger, dang near everyone involved has said that it's going to take many years and lots of hard work to gain fans and sponsor dollars and media attention, which is all true. And since the league already has a bona fide star in Danica to work off of, it "should" be easy to use her as a starting point for everyone else and, as you say, get that rub to trickle down to everyone else. But I don't really trust the IRL marketing types, because it just seems like they don't know what they're doing.

I'm kind of surprised that Wheldon isn't in NASCAR, racing for Ganassi, which I guess still could happen if Reed Sorenson gets the boot or Chip decides to start up another team. Didn't Wheldon supposedly say that he wanted to race in front of huge crowds in America (which would mean NASCAR)? Wheldon will be tough in the 500, no question.

My top 5: 1. Dixon 2. Kanaan 3. Helio 4. Ed Carpenter 5. Wheldon

Hope Davey Hamilton pulls off another top 10.

-JIM: Bonus question: based on the so-called "action" in TRFKA Winston, is the Coke 600 really a can't-miss event?

-BRYAN: If the All-Star race is any indication of what could happen, we're all in for an incredibly boring race. The All-Star race needs two things: 1. It needs to include some kind of inversion and 2. Needs to be shorter. Putting the fast guys in the back and giving those fast guys less time to get to the front is a sure-fire recipe for excitement.

The Coke 600 is basically an endurance race, so it'll be all about attrition and who wrecks in the early stages and who misses those wrecks. If we can get a good mix of top teams and middle teams at the front throughout the race, swapping spots and whatnot, we could be in for a good race. But if a Kyle Busch or a Jimmie Johnson type starts up front and just blasts the field, it doesn't matter if Busch and or Johnson explode and Ken Schrader ends up winning, it'll be a boring race.

A "can't-miss" though? Not really. It's just another Sprint Cup race.


NOW FOR THE KYLE BUSCH SECTION

Hey Shrub, how's it feel now that the shoe's on the other gas pedal? No, it's not about the done-blowed-up in the race formerly known as the Winston. That stuff happens, especially when the Gibbs boys figure it's a good time to experiment with radical engine tuneups in the #18 and #11 since it's not a points race.

Remember the last 10 laps at Richmond, when Shrub slid up into leader Junior, and even though most of it looked like just a racin' deal, the overwhelming majority sided with Junior? (Junior could admit fault for the Exxon Valdez and New Coke and still be the overwhelming favorite of NASCAR fans.) It made Shrub an even clearer Public Enemy #1. But I tried to see things his way a bit.

The roles were reversed with about 25 laps left in the Craftsman Truck Series race at Charlotte (I've already done my mandatory first reference to the official track name). It wasn't quite in a battle for the lead because Shrub was battling his way back up front after a slower-than-expected pit stop. But Shrub was still on the high side, and Ron Hornaday was underneath him with the nose of his truck up to Shrub's front wheel. Then Hornaday's truck got loose and the rear end skated out ... right into Shrub, and Shrub went ... right into the wall. And just like in the Richmond crash, the guy on the inside didn't hit anything and kept on to be a factor in the race. Shrub didn't yell too much, but then again, it was only a Truck race.

BTW, big congrats to Matt Crafton, who has been in the series for seven full years without winning until last Friday. (Yeah, an Erik Darnell tire-spinning adventure, a bogus restart-jumping call against Johnny Benson, and a budding rivalry escalated between Hornaday and Todd Bodine helped it happen, but Crafton was still there when it counted.) And his win came with the team that gave that twentysomething from California his original break in the Trucks, ThorSport Racing. Crafton left Duke Thorson's team after a few years and spent a year with Happy Harvick's powerhouse team, but things fell apart there (i.e. Hornaday became available, which is a damn good reason to hire him), so Thorson took him back. Good decision, because this was ThorSport's first win in the series since 1998, when Terry Cook broke away from anonymity by winning at the now-closed Flemington Speedway in New Jersey.


TWO MORE FEEL-GOOD STORIES FROM LAST WEEKEND

In 2006 there was the Danica of drag racing, when Melanie Troxel jumped out to something like a 180-point lead in the NHRA Top Fuel standings halfway through the season. The summer and fall didn't turn out like she wanted, with her results going down the tubes and then-teammate Tony Schumacher getting hot and staying that way to take the last honest TF championship. But she still broke into the mainstream a bit, and not because a few years earlier she appeared in the Letterman audience to play Know Your Current Events.

Troxel's now driving a Funny Car as a teammate to Mike Ashley, although only Melanie's running the full season. Her first seven FC events resulted in three first-round losses and four DNQs. Then came Bristol last week (yes, Bristol also has a dragstrip), where Melanie won her first-ever round ... then her second, then third, and finally beating Mike Neff in the final. (Neff, the rookie with John Force's team, had also never won a round in eliminations until the previous event near St. Louis).

Keep that up, Mel, and Troxelmania might start running wild again.

The day before, and three time zones away at the road course formerly known as Laguna Seca in Monterey CA, there was another from-the-depths victory celebration in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series. Ryan Dalziel and co-driver Henri Zogaib collected their first win. And it wasn't a fluke or fuel-mileage derby, because Scotland native Dalziel (pronounced dee-ALL) took the lead after a three-wide pass against Scott Hitomyfamilyathome Pruett (driving for defending series champion Ganassi) and Marc Goossens (driving for the Riley-Matthews team which had won earlier in the year).

Dalziel and Zogaib race for Samax Motorsport, better known as the team that was stuck with Milka Duno because of the lure of her Citgo sponsorship from Venezuela for six IRL races last year and a season and a half in Grand-Am. I swear, Troxel might be able to outdrive Duno on the road courses and at Indy.


Yep, it begins and ends with Indy this week. Well, it almost ends ... GO PENGUINS!

---Jim