Green Flag 5.30.08: Indy in the Rear-View Mirror, Plus a Little NASCAR
Posted by Jim Carson on 05.30.2008
No one's angry at me for being a day late, at least not as angry as Danica was at Briscoe.
Between a busy short week at the real job and Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals, I guess I didn't get things done on time this week. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last.
It also won't be the last time that I make bad predictions about racing, especially signature events like the Indianapolis 500.
THAT YARD OF BRICKS IS THE NEW DIXON LINE
Yeah, Bryan Kristopowitz nailed his pick of Scott Dixon winning at the Brickyard, and I had the wrong Target teammate. Dixon and Dan Wheldon dominated the early action. Then in the middle and later stages when others like Marco, Tony Kanaan and Vitor Meira (how did HE get in there?) got around the two Ganassi cars, Dixon came back with a vengeance and Wheldon didn't.
If the Indy 500 is supposed to crown the #1 open-wheel driver, at least for one weekend or one month of May, then this race certainly accomplished that. Forget the fact that Dixon was on the pole. He won a CART race as a rookie in 2001. He won the IRL championship in 2003, his first year in the series, and won eight races in the four-plus years since then, including three in a row last summer. He was just behind Helio Crazydancer in this year's IndyCar standings entering the Brickyard, leading more laps than anyone in March and April, and moved back into first place after swigging the milk. And he's the only driver that's been with the Chipster since before the team made the jump from CART. In other words, the Kiwi is a darn good driver.
Indy didn't just uncover the best current driver. The best team was also revealed. The same crew with the red-and-white dots that put together a car that Dixon averaged 226+ over four laps on Mother's Day Eve was the same group of guys that got Dixon into the lead on the last round of pit stops. Remember that he came in second behind Meira when that yellow flag waved. Had Meira exited the pits first, the underdog just might have had enough car and confidence to keep the New Zealander behind him. But Vitor definitely didn't have enough to pass Dixon. (Dang, eight runner-up finishes with no wins ... that's torture.)
Bryan K didn't just accurately pick the winner. He also ID'd the man with the best chance of making an embarrassing mistake and causing a crash. Ryan Briscoe ... good call. But he didn't mention that the boo-boo would come on pit road, when he'd swing wide coming out of his box and plant a wheel-to-wheel kiss on Danica. Doesn't she look cute when she's angry? OK, not that much. You think she was pissed off at Wheldon last year at Milwaukee? Anyway, if Briscoe had lost control and drifted out and crashed with Enrique Bernoldi, no one would give it a second thought. But it's Danica, whom more fans watched on pit road than anyone else when on the racing surface. Briscoe's probably going to be under as much pressure to redeem himself as Danica is in the next race or two.
Personal story: I was on the road during most of the 500, watching only for about 30 laps in the middle of the race while eating at a Buffalo Wild Wings, and then watching the last 20 laps or so when I arrived at my destination. I was wearing my Tony Kanaan T-shirt in the BW3, and the server asked me who it was that was on my shirt because she'd never heard of TK. I pointed to the big screen and told her that Kanaan was the guy who had just taken the lead in the Indy 500. She asked where Danica was running (at that time, eighth). Right as the girl brought me my food, Kanaan wrecked. I can't place blame on Marco; yeah, it was a little early for that move, but TK lost control and spun more than a full corner later, and had the even-worse fortune of being in the path of Sarah Fisher. I'll place Kanaan with Danica in the category of "no way am I going to NASCAR until I win this dang Indy thing."
Holy cow, Milka Duno was still on the lead lap 150 laps into the race. And Ryan Hunter-Reay was the top rookie, passing Hideki Mutoh in the last few laps for sixth place. I'd pegged all three as headed for the early DNF category with the likes of Jaime Camara and Little Anthony (Honest, A.J., I didn't want your car to catch on fire).
Welcome back after a year's absence to Jim Nabors. And Julianne Hough ... stick to dancing.
Here's a reminder to check out Milwaukee this Sunday. Time to move on to the cars with fenders.
A COUPLE OF NASCAR ITEMS, WITH NO RAGGING TONY STEWART ON HIS FLAT
Let's accentuate the positive for once. Last week at Mansfield OH, the Craftsman Truck Series community witnessed its greatest upset since Randy Tolsma in 1997 at Bakersfield CA. Donny Lia won at Mansfield (mmm ... short tracks) in only his eighth start.
If you're in the Northeastern United States, you probably knew who Donny Lia was before Memorial Day weekend, because he was the 2007 champion of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Series (and won the mod race at Mansfield last year). If you're in any other part of the galaxy, you likely never heard of the guy and might have pronounced it "LIE-uh."
Somehow Kevin Buckler had heard of the guy back in the fall when he took over the Truck team formerly owned by Darrell Waltrip. Buckler's biggest impact in motorsports before November 2007 came through his Racers' Group team's success in the second-division GT class of sports car racing; in 2003 Buckler's GT gang won the overall title at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, sparking the series to revamp its top Daytona Prototype class to get more and better teams. Entering Mansfield, Buckler's two Truck teams weren't even in the top 20 in owner points, with rookie Lia and another rookie, longtime road racer Andy Lally.
At Mansfield, Lally started third, while Lia was back in 28th after qualifying. But after most of the contenders had made their pit stops to set up the stretch run in the 250-lap race, it was Lia hanging around sixth or seventh. By then most of the crashing involving the leaders was over, but Lia's moving up wasn't over. A little bump (OK, a pretty big bump) rooted Todd Bodine out of second place. Then coming to the white flag, Lia used the eight-tires-are-better-than-four trick to get alongside leader David Starr, and after a moment of three-wide with Bodine, Lia left Starr fishtailing to the finish line in second. Lia had gone into the record books.
The exact opposite of Buckler's team's elation can be found in the Sprint Cup garage. The two Haas CNC Racing cars, the #66 of Scott Riggs and the #70 of ... dang, who was in it at Charlotte ... Jeremy, no, Kenny, no ... oh yeah, Johnny Sauter, were discovered by NASCAR tech officials to have some kind of abnormality with the wing braces. NASCAR decided to emphasize the first syllable in Wingboxcars.
Both the #66 and the #70 teams were docked with an all-time high 150-point penalty. The century mark was the previous whammy, levied against heavyweights such as the #24, #48 and the team formerly known as Junior's for stuff concerning the Wingboxcars. But points can mean a whole lot more to the teams that aren't in contention or in the news every week.
The #70, which will have Jason Leffler in the seat at Dover, now has no shot of becoming exempt from qualifying on time for the rest of the season, and the team also does not have a full-season sponsor. And the penalty knocked the #66 down to within only six points of the 35th Parallel. Gee, you think the rumors tying this team to Tony Stewart are still gonna fly? Don't forget that the team owner Gene Haas is in the slammer for a kind of tax fraud.
The previous NASCAR suspensions of crew chiefs have been six weeks. Not a big deal, especially for the #48 last year and the #99 this season; the "car chief" or second-in-command just takes over at the track each week. But NASCAR also pulled the hard cards for the car chiefs of the #66 and #70. Where do these two teams go now? It's not exactly the situation you want if you're a team fighting for your future.
There's a chance that this ruling from after the Coke 600 could turn out to be the most damaging blow that NASCAR has ever given to a team. Maybe I'll be wrong, like I was when I picked Dan Wheldon.
Next week, it'll be the early-season report card for the Sprint Cup teams. I think I spoiled it for the #66 and #70.
