Blog Posts
Constructive IndyCar Criticism: The NASCAR Way
by Tony Johns on Jul 30, 2010 12:42 PM EDT
in Blog Posts
4 comments
As usual, anytime the IZOD IndyCar Series has something that gains them publicity and/or notoriety, NASCAR has to come along and upstage them.
In the wake of last weekend's Honda Indy Edmonton that featured a controversial "regifting" of the winner's trophy to Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves nearly becoming pulpier than a bowl of oatmeal at the giant hands of Security Chief Charles Burns, the Associated Press reported early this week that NASCAR has fined two drivers - apparently, Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin - for comments made that, according to NASCAR, were detrimental to the sport.
I can only imagine how frustrated the IndyCar cognoscenti were by NASCAR stealing the spotlight again - even though it was stealing a spotlight made of embarrassment and the mental image of a monkey seducing a football.
Eliminating the "red-striper": Milka Duno facing expulsion from IndyCar
by Tony Johns on Jul 25, 2010 12:35 AM EDT
in Blog Posts
3 comments
I got the news after a day "off the grid" - my first vacation day in seven months and largely free of the necessary evils of e-mail and Twitter.
It was good news. The IZOD IndyCar Series powers-that-be had finally - finally - put Milka Duno on probation.
It's good news because, if the IICS rulebook is followed even in the most bare of circumstances, Duno will be suspended from the series within the span of a couple of races. The probationary period requires Milka to get up to speed and drive in a safe and respectable manner, or else the series will take steps.
Milka, likable as she is, is no miracle worker. Her days as an IndyCar driver are (hopefully) numbered.
IndyCar driver conflicts signal new direction in couples therapy
by Tony Johns on Jul 23, 2010 1:24 PM EDT
in Blog Posts
0 comments
The world of behavioral psychology was rocked this week by the revelation that indirect, passive-aggressive taunting and criticism proved to be the quickest route to reconciliation in situations of interpersonal antagonism - not the face-to-face dialogue that virtually every therapist has recommended since, I don’t know, forever.
This controversial new theory is the brainchild of Dr. Carl Turkeybaster, a heretofore unknown voice in the counseling community. His 24,000 page case study was published in this week’s edition of Nutball Quarterly, a progressive journal on the subject of couples therapy.
"It’s a landmark finding," says Dr. Turkeybaster, who holds a PhD in psychology from DeVry University. "We’ve discovered that face-to-face communication does not allow for the proper agonizingly long interval between insult and reconciliation required to give individuals proper closure. It sets decades - even centuries - of psychological thought on its ass."
As the IndyCar turns: Why oval and road racing both belong
by Tony Johns on Jul 20, 2010 2:05 PM EDT
in Blog Posts
5 comments
In Tony Stewart's shadow-written biography "True Speed," Bones Bourcier describes the young "Smoke" as a child sitting on his living room floor with an oval-shaped rug and his Matchbox cars. Stewart was recreating the Indianapolis 500 on his floor, driving the little cars around and around on the rug as if Al Unser and A.J. Foyt themselves were at the wheel.
Not far away from where the young Stewart grew up in Columbus, Indiana, a young boy ten days younger than the future IndyCar and NASCAR champion was sitting on the floor of his living room in an apartment a few blocks from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Scattered around him were Matchbox cars - including a highly-prized John Player Special Lotus 77 - and in front of him was an oval-shaped rug almost identical to Stewart's. He too was enacting his own Greatest Spectacle in Racing with endless laps around the rug's periphery.
I have always wondered what would have become of me if my father had put me in a go-kart at that age - like Stewart's father did for him - instead of picking up and moving away from the Racing Capital of the World. Certainly, I loved cars and racing and the Indy 500. Eventually, we got rid of the rug, and in one of our many moves the little Lotus 77 disappeared. But I never got rid of my love for the 500-Mile Race or oval-track racing.
But although I was weaned on the Indy 500 and USAC sprint and midget racing in Indianapolis, I don't consider myself an "oval fan." At least, not in the way that many IndyCar fans describe it when they try to convince each other that IndyCars belong on one type of track or the other.
All's Fair In Love and Twitter...
by DaleNixon on Jul 19, 2010 1:56 PM EDT
in Blog Posts
3 comments
A quick spin through the post-race comments from IZOD IndyCar team PR releases seemed to indicate that the Honda Indy Toronto was all unicorns, rainbows, baby seals and sponsor mentions, mixed with an occasional allusion to a "learning experience."
Very scarce were direct references to what Versus Tour de France commentator Phil Liggett would call the "argy bargy" of the carbon-shredding, wheel-banging, tire-barrier-stuffing 85 lap race. Drivers Ryan Briscoe, Graham Rahal, Tomas Scheckter, Dan Wheldon, Takuma Sato, Mario Moraes and Alex Tagliani, among others, all had their share of paint trading during the course of the race.
But to read the official post-race quotes, everything was more mellow than a lazy afternoon spent listening to James Taylor and Carol King while sipping Chardonnay.
When It Comes To IndyCar Fuel Strategy, Don't Believe a Word
by DaleNixon on Jul 8, 2010 10:00 AM EDT
in Blog Posts
2 comments
Don't Believe A Word
'Don't believe me if I tell youNot a word of this is trueDon't believe me if I tell youEspecially if I tell you that we've got plenty of fuel'- Paraphrase of the great Irish poet and band leader,Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy
When Andretti Autosport's Tony Kanaan rolled into the pits at Watkins Glen for a splash and go fuel stop on lap 59 of the 60-lap Camping World GP at The Glen, the intense Brazilian was running in eighth place and just six laps removed from his fastest lap of the race.
The stop, which lasted less than 10 seconds in the pit box, totally derailed all hope of a Top-10 finish for Kanaan and may just have hung a "Closed" sign on his IndyCar championship hopes. He returned from the sojourn in 21st place, the last car on the lead lap, and posted his worst finish in almost a full year.
The result represented a total breakdown in the Andretti team's fuel strategy - three stops proved to be catastrophic without the usual predicted late caution and only two short yellow flag periods in the race. But if Kanaan's race strategist Tom Anderson had been polled by the crack crew of pit reporters (as Roger Penske was interviewed in the closing laps), he would have sworn up and down that Kanaan had plenty of fuel-grade ethanol in the tank for a flat-out, fun-tastic finish.
In the world of race day fuel strategy, disinformation is the name of the game. Subterfuge and counterespionage are both accepted facts of life.
And the lies often last well past the end of the race.
Taking the tube to task: IndyCar broadcasts under the microscope
by Tony Johns on Jul 5, 2010 1:48 PM EDT
in Blog Posts
19 comments
Bay-area beauty: The joy of racing in California wine country
by Tony Johns on Jun 28, 2010 4:35 PM EDT
in Blog Posts
6 comments
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
