T-Minus and counting: Petit Le Mans

Have you been watching ALMS? Don’t lie. You haven’t. Well, GT2 is a blast. LMPs? Well, there’s a running theme there. Jon Field is faster than the Acuras by tons in straight lines, tries to take positions from better drivers, and goes off course and ruins his 2 year old Lola. Repeat over and over. Too bad, really. In better hands, we would have had a duel at Mosport.

But that’s okay: In a couple weeks, Audi, Peugeot, and one of the closed top Lola chassis with a Judd engine will be out there and, well, it won’t be pretty kids if you’re an Acura supporter.

 

Renault: Not how to lie

Pat Symonds (pictured above) was asked by the FIA as to whether or not he and Flavio asked Nelson Piquet Jr., the oft crappy driver they just let go, to crash his car and give the win to Alonso. Assuming this is true, you lie and say otherwise. If its untrue, you tell the truth. Instead, he states to the FIA that, in fact, there was a meeting and it was talked about. Oh, but you see, it was okay, because Nelson came up with it.

I suppose at least that Alonso won the Fuji GP on his own merit. But boy oh boy, that doesn’t look good.

 

Prelude to the Dream: TONIGHT

Did you forget about this? Tony Stewart is having a bunch of dudes from NASCAR and the NHRA (sorry IRL – no one cares about you) busting out in late models around Eldora. I forgot to see if Red Farmer is in it this year, but as long as he can breathe, I’m sure he is. I’ll wait for the replay on SPEED though.

 

Watching the IRL go down the tubes

I just got back from a vacation to Europe yesterday: Did you know they show WSBK qualifying live on Eurosport2? Really. But I’ve returned to see that Murphy the Bear’s claim that the state of the IRL was far worse than being reported seems to be coming true. Among the items:

-Vision Racing is having trouble finding sponsorship and money for next year. I repeat: VISION RACING.

-DirecTV really did end up dropping Versus. No one cares.

-Indycar owners want the 500 moved pronto and are making that clear. Chances someone will listen? Actually possible now.

-Grand-Am really will race at Indy, even if the tires are shit.

-Brazil’s track is picked, and its somewhere that has trees in the runoff area. Chances that race will really happen? Almost zero.

-Danica is leaving for Nationwide and will debut in a stock car in Daytona in ARCA.

-Bourdais shunned the IRL for SUPERLEAGUE FORMULA

In short, the IRL looks to be in absolute chaos at the moment, and probably in the death throes. I can see one more year.

 

Super Quick Update

Okay, so I’ve been busy getting ready to head over to the Old Country (TM), and so I haven’t had so much time to take care of things here this week. But just so you can catch up:

-Will Power is still a hot mess after crashing into Frenchie DeRidebuyer. Poor guy.

-Sonoma wasn’t so bad for the IRL. Chicago could be better, since everyone will be within a few tenths of each other minus 3G and Milka.

-Robin Miller sez Takuma Sato will race at Homestead and the Brazil race might not happen. The first part: YES. The second part? Color me shocked! Miracle money doesn’t exist. Next stop: China! Or South Korea, perhaps.

-David Stremme is supposedly out in 2010. Why isn’t he out now? We have no idea.

-Grand Am and Nationwide are in Montreal this weekend. It might rain. WHY DO I ALWAYS MISS THIS

-F1 is at Spa. It might rain. WHY DO I ALWAYS MISS THIS

-MotoGP is within 5 hours of my house. WHY DO I ALWAYS MISS THIS

 

My Amateurish Plan for US Open Wheel

So, over the years, lots of people have said that they have ideas as to how to save Indycar racing. I mean, lots of people. Some even had ideas they implemented when Indycar racing didn’t need saving. Well, you see the result now.

So, for the first time, I, some desk jockey in the midwest, am going to outline a plan that will, yes, *will* work to save American Open Wheel for future generations and may actually, over the long run, save the sport.

 

CAMPOS F1: Announced?

Rumor mill is churning big time: Supposedly, its Pedro De La Rosa in the 1 slot and Vitaly Petrov in the #2. Petrov brings sponsors and DLR is a very experienced hand.

 

Wednesday Night At The Races?

Did you watch Speed last night? You probably didn’t, realistically. But there was high level racing: Trucks raced live and the Modifieds made their first ever run at Bristol on tape delay. Both races were pretty interesting, with the two Cup drivers in the Modified race ending up near the bottom (Ryan Newman crashed on lap 3, Kahne was out with mechanical problems) and the Mystic Missle piloted by Donny Lia winning the 150 lap feature.

Meanwhile, the trucks raced late into the night. After 1/4 of the field pit in the early going, the remaining trucks raced hard around the facility. While track position was botched frequently due to the retarded pitting rules for the Trucks, all was not lost. Kyle Busch stormed through, passed the leader going three wide through 3/4, and ended up running away with the win. Not too shabby. Much was made of the not-so-special record Ron Hornaday had made for himself by winning a bunch of truck races in a row. While he didn’t win, he finished 3rd, further putting him in the lead in that series pointwise. If only it meant something…

 

Boring Boring Boring

Well, its been tough to put up anything this week thus far because the news has gone and dried up. Maybe we will do something about Modifieds at Bristol? Its a shame they’ll lap half a second or more faster than Cup. They’ll put on the show of a lifetime then never come back. Oh well. MotoGP is coming? Jon Summerton has a Speedtv.com blog? Times are tough.

 

HOT HOT RACIN’ NEWS & RUMORZZZZ

All IRL Edition today:

-Marco Andretti is on his way to Charlotte to lock up the #2 slot for USF1. Unimaginable wreckage will be left in his wake.

-Baltimore is going places. It looks to be a place filled with long straights and chicanes, which will make people happy by providing passing zones and some high speed.

-Sarah Fisher plans on racing all the ovals next year now that she has a new car. How cute.

-For all the chatter about Fernandez and De Ferran entering IRL, one problem; no cars bought yet. Hmmmm.