Indy Racing Revolution (temporary site)

How much is too much?

This has always been the question with the IndyCar Series on 1.5-mile ovals. While the combination has lead to incredible racing in the past — and did so again last Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway – it also holds the potential for serious disaster.

That potential will always exist at any track. Such is the nature of this beast we call auto racing. But high-speed ovals also have the higher risk and it’s that risk that had most drivers talking after the Peak Indy 300.

I’m not sure if there is the “happy medium” that Scott Dixon wants with this current package. The extremes may be all that exist. We’ve seen them both now in great detail: the boring, single-file action that ensued at places like Kansas and Richmond, and what happened last Saturday at Chicagoland and earlier this month at Kentucky.

Clearly, we all want to see exciting racing. But drivers’ safety is the top priority for any sanctioning body. And there lies the question: How much is too much? How do you keep from sacrificing the show while making the drivers feel as safe as they can?

Now, I could be making much ado about nothing. Chicagoland’s always been conducive to pack-style racing. The majority of the drivers have road racing backgrounds, so maybe they just need to suck it up. And as Pressdog has pointed out in a previous post, race winner Ryan Briscoe did say the cars are more secure than when the oval racing was bad.

But I keep coming back to Ryan Hunter-Reay’s comments after the race and I keep fixating on his words about cars that “should have gone flying” when they touched wheels.

That’s the last thing we need to see.

And so, a good deal of fans wonder, “How much is too much?”

Let’s count some beans.

—–

1. Advantage: Ryan Briscoe. With a breath-taking win, the Australian finally made some real breathing room in the title fight between himself, Dario Franchitti (-25 pts.) and Dixon (-33) and with four top-2 finishes in the month of August, he’s looking like a champion right now. There’s that “conquering the track that nearly killed you” thing, too. That’s always cool. PLUS 5.

2. First podium for Mario Moraes. With his mother in attendance, the Brazilian survived the frenetic ending to pick up a third-place finish (which he promptly dedicates to his late father). It’s also his second straight top-five run, which seems to signal that he’s come around after having multiple run-ins with drivers earlier this season. PLUS 3.

3. Graham Rahal continues oval progress. While the team isn’t quite at Penske/Ganassi level yet, Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing’s improvement on their oval program has allowed Rahal to battle up front on the speedways lately. His fifth-place finish was the third straight top-five run for him on the ovals; he’s come a long way from last year, that’s for sure. PLUS 3.

4. Helio Castroneves suffers deja vu. For the second straight week, an apparent suspension failure sends the three-time Indy 500 champion out of the race and at Chicagoland, officially out of the title picture. His hopes just never recovered after crashing at Richmond in June. Now he’ll have to wait another year without claiming a series championship. MINUS 3.

5. Late start not OK. Versus’ decision to start the race at 10 p.m. ET goes down bad with drivers and teams — and apparently fans as well, with attendance marked at 20,000. Apparently, Versus made the call to get a World Extreme Cagefighting lead-in for the race. No sugar-coating it, this is a dumb move in retrospect. Maybe they were getting us ready for Japan? MINUS 5.

6. Return of the double? Team owners bring up the possibility of putting the Indy 500 start time back to 11 a.m. ET to try and lure NASCAR drivers into doing the Indy-Charlotte double again. The “double” was always a decent story line and it could lead to better ratings for the “500.” But would anybody bite with all that contract minutiae? I’m sure Toyota would just love to see their NASCAR pilots racing a Honda-powered Dallara. PLUS 2.

This week: +5.

Season tally: -41.

Pack racing returns at Chicagoland, for better or worse

You could be forgiven if you felt you were locked in a time warp while watching last Saturday night’s IndyCar Series race at Chicagoland Speedway.

Two and three-wide action was plentiful on the 1.5-mile oval, but the pack racing was noticeably more pronounced in the second race for the IRL’s new speedway aero package.

The package, which features various aero tweaks ranging from wheel ramps to sidepod extensions that can add up to 300 pounds of downforce, debuted to rave reviews earlier this month at Kentucky Speedway.

However, the package may have worked too well at Chicagoland as nobody could seem to break free or get away from traffic. A rebirth of the IRL’s close-quarters combat from the turn of the millennium ensued. And afterwards, so did the talk about it all.

Race winner Ryan Briscoe and second place finisher Scott Dixon both said that the most important thing was that “the show” was good for the fans, especially after the string of boring oval events in the first half of the season.

“It’s a bit twofold,” said Briscoe. ”Now the racing is a lot closer, maybe a little bit scarier, whatever, but the cars feel a lot more secure in my opinion. Before, you’d sort of get within a couple of car lengths and you’d still feeling loose and you’d have to be lifting and getting out of the throttle. So in a way now, I think we’re all feeling a little bit secure.

“It’s probably making a lot of us maybe a bit too confident at times, but I think the racing has been great and fairly accident‑free, I think, compared to even before when the racing wasn’t as close.”

On the other hand, Dixon seemed more willing to find a “happy medium” that would eliminate the pack racing but still allow drivers to get close and pass each other.

“I’m not sure really how we didn’t have a big accident and whether it’s just waiting to happen,” he said. ”But as Ryan said, I think the biggest factor that we have to look at is the show that we put on, keeping everybody enthusiastic and having exciting races. We’ve definitely got that at the moment.

“If we can maybe dial it back a little bit, it may be better for everybody. But it’s putting on a good show at the moment, so it’s good.”

Fifth-place finisher Graham Rahal said he was “the most nervous [he's] ever been” before Saturday night’s race and his Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing teammate Oriol Servia said the action was “crazy out there” after he finished seventh.

But perhaps the most pointed criticism of the pack racing came from Ryan Hunter-Reay of A.J. Foyt Racing, who said there were too many close calls on the track.

“When we have racing like that, we have to take it back a step and have more respect for each other,” the American said after finishing 15th. 

“There was a lot of chopping out there. I saw a couple times where cars touched and should have gone flying…This racing can be fun if you do it right.”

Some drivers didn’t mind the action, though.

Rookie pilot Raphael Matos called Chicagoland “the most fun race of the season,” while E.J. Viso also enjoyed himself — besides finishing in the back of the pack, of course.

“I like running close to cars,” said the Venezuelan, who came home 17th. “I just wish I had a faster car to be able to run the whole race with them.”

—–

Quotes used in this article were taken from Saturday’s post-race press conference and trackside report.

Penske driver pushes IndyCar title lead to 25 points with two races left

Four years ago at Chicagoland Speedway, Ryan Briscoe nearly left this world.

Then a rookie with Target Chip Ganassi Racing, the young Aussie had gone through a tough first year in the IndyCar Series. It got worse at Chicagoland when he touched wheels with Alex Barron at over 200 miles per hour, ran over the American’s left front tire, and launched himself into the catch fence.

The impact destroyed his car. But he survived.

And now, Briscoe — now with Team Penske — is on the verge of an IndyCar Series title. Last night’s race at Chicagoland was a hair-raising event full of two and three-wide racing, but at the end, it was the “Thunder from Down Under” that conquered the track that almost killed him.

With no push-to-pass boosts left at his disposal, Briscoe still managed to beat Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon to the checkered flag by .0077 of a second to win the Peak Indy 300. Even more importantly, he was able to extend his lead over Dario Franchitti in the title race to 25 points with just two races remaining in the season: Twin Ring Motegi in three weeks and the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway on October 10.

While the battle for the championship shifts to Japan and the notoriously tricky Motegi oval, Briscoe’s mindset is staying the same.

“We’ve seen how quickly that can turn around,” he said. ”Just got to stay focused and try to beat these guys still. Japan and Homestead, they’re going to be tough races. Hopefully we go and have a good car. I don’t see any reason why we won’t.”

Like his close victory at Kentucky Speedway at the beginning of this month, Briscoe had to charge from the back to claim the win.

A refueling problem on a pit stop at Lap 95 knocked him back into the middle of the pack. But he was able to work his way through the field and re-assumed the lead when Dario Franchitti pitted on Lap 158 — a stop that was slowed by an air gun that wasn’t pulled from under the car quicker.

Briscoe had to pit three laps later, giving the lead to Dixon. Both of them would battle for the lead the rest of the night, which featured a caution with 16 laps to go as Briscoe’s teammate Helio Castroneves smashed into the SAFER barrier after a front suspension failure.

The green came back out with nine laps remaining, but with five to go, Briscoe snuck to the point on the high line as Dixon stayed glued to him down low.

The two stayed locked together the rest of the way as a giant pack of drivers including Mario Moraes, Franchitti, and Graham Rahal attempted to chase them down. But the win would be decided between Briscoe and Dixon, who said that his team had to find more speed on the mile-and-a-half ovals.

“Definitely as a team, I think we need to redefine what we’re doing on the mile-and-a-halfs and try and speed up,” said the defending series champion. ”I think aero‑wise, we’re lacking a bit, whether it’s in body fit and car preparation or whatever it is.

“I think as a team, you know, tonight we did our best job, and we still came up short. So we’ve definitely got to clean a few things up.”

Franchitti remains in the hunt for the title, but he was unable to break through traffic and finished fourth in the race behind Moraes. After the race, Franchitti said he was unwilling to help Briscoe in order to go for the win at his teammate’s expense.

“I was boxed in almost, because my ideal thing would have been to get behind Briscoe, get a draft and try to go three wide and use the overtake to pass,” he said. “But I had my teammate leading the race and the guy we’re fighting against the championship on the outside…

“…And I couldn’t and wouldn’t push anybody else apart from my teammate in that fight, and I was trying to push Scott, and that got me hung up there and allowed Moraes to get past.”

That pass enabled Moraes to score his first career IndyCar Series podium in the No. 5 KV Racing Technology car. It was also his second straight top-five finish after finishing fourth on the road course at Infineon Raceway.

“It’s amazing,” the young Brazilian said. “The team did a great job in the pits. Our mechanics did a great job and we had really great pit stops. The team has been working really hard for this all season and I’m really pleased with a third place finish.”

On the final sprint to the checkers, Rahal often took to the high line and appeared ready to pounce on Briscoe and Dixon. But he was unable to hang on to the leaders and had to settle for fifth place.

“Honestly, when I went up high, I thought we were going to [win] finally because the car had so much momentum,” he said. “…I pulled out of the draft, went up high and (the momentum) just died. 

“Unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough speed. When you go up that high, the distance you’re taking there is massive, and unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough speed.”

Briscoe didn’t have that problem. Now he has the advantage in what has been a back-and-forth brawl between him, Franchitti and Dixon for the 2009 title. 

But the fight’s not over yet.

“We’ve got to stay focused,” he said. “The Target cars are going to be there in Motegi and Homestead, so we just have to stay focused…We had a couple of mistakes tonight but were able to come back. We’ve just have to try to avoid those situations.” 

—–

Quotes used in this article were taken from last night’s post-race press conference and trackside report.

(The following is a recap of tonight’s race, which comes after storms that affected the Baltimore region — and the quick delivery of what would have been the live blog for tonight’s race — forced me offline and into the TV room. If you’re reading this, then obviously, the storms are gone. The bottom half is the part of the blog that made it online before I cried uncle. I apologize for the inconvenience. — CE)

Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe increased his lead in the IndyCar Series championship by defeating title rival Scott Dixon by .0077 of a second — the fourth-closest finish in series history — to win the Peak Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway.

Briscoe extends his lead to 25 points over Dario Franchitti and 33 points over Dixon, who finished fourth behind KV Racing Technology’s Mario Moraes as the Brazilian claimed his first podium finish in IRL competition.

Having been as far as the mid-pack earlier in the race, Briscoe cut his way through the field and was running in second place when teammate Helio Castroneves crashed in Turn 4 with 16 laps to go, the apparent victim of a part or suspension failure.

The incident set up a nerve-wracking sprint to the finish that ended with Briscoe using the last of his 20 “push-to-pass” boosts on the final lap to help him best Dixon, who won the 2008 title last year at Chicagoland.

The IndyCar Series now looks ahead to Twin Ring Motegi and the penultimate round of the season — the Indy Japan 300 on the night of September 18 (10:30 p.m. ET, Versus).

For a full recap, check back here tomorrow on Indy Racing Revolution.

—–

9:45 p.m. ET — I’m dealing with some bad weather extremes. A big storm in the Baltimore area (where I’m currently situated, waiting to move to Delaware) has knocked out satellite and internet earlier tonight and right now, I’ve only got live online audio back. Not to mention my usual online TV stream for Versus has been snuffed out.

In other words, I’m going blind on this blog — no visuals.

But I’m not the only one dealing with strange weather. The IndyCar Series drivers and teams at Chicagoland Speedway are dealing with much cooler temperatures than the norm in late August. As we head for the green in 15 minutes, both the track and air temps are in the low 60s according to IMS Radio Network coverage. This could be a wild card in how tonight plays out.

9:48 p.m. ET — Tonight’s big story: the championship. Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe will start from the pole and leads the title fight by five markers over Dario Franchitti and 21 over Scott Dixon. The last time we saw the IndyCars race on a 1.5-miler (like Chicagoland) was earlier this month at Kentucky — Briscoe won the race, but Franchitti and Dixon finished sixth and seventh. For those two Target Chip Ganassi Racing pilots, that can’t be repeated tonight.

9:53 p.m. ET — You also have to watch out for how the new aero package fits this racetrack. Will we see another action-packed event like we did at Kentucky? Can Ed Carpenter put up another great run on a speedway? Or will another dark horse emerge?

10:00 p.m. ET — According to my twitter feed, we are now awaiting the command to start engines. My server continues to blink in and out due to the storms and it’s getting very aggravating.

10:01 p.m. ET — Charles Tyson, vice president of marketing for Advance Auto Parts, gives the command. We’re hot!

10:04 p.m. ET — The cars are now on the track taking their pace laps on this hyper-fast 1.5-mile oval. Hearing lots of talk about the cool weather…We may seem some early incidents due to tires not getting warmed up on the cars. Keep an eye out.

10:06 p.m. ET — We saw some great action in the Firestone Indy Lights race earlier this afternoon. Let’s see if we get that again tonight with the big cars.

10:08 p.m. ET — GREEN, GREEN, GREEN! Franchitti and Tony Kanaan fight for third, but Briscoe leads the first lap.

Lap 6 — Ryan Briscoe still holds the point. Meanwhile, hearing some dicey racing between Mario Moraes and Graham Rahal…Ed Carpenter and Tony Kanaan trying to bust into the top 5.

Lap 25 — Sorry for the delay, but we’re still having problems up here due to the storms…it’s making the server very slow. In any case, Briscoe continues to hold the point, followed by Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, Ed Carpenter and Helio Castroneves.

Lap 30 — Andretti Green Racing’s foursome did okay in qualifying, but they’ve fallen back in this opening stint. Tony Kanaan, Hideki Mutoh, Marco Andretti and Danica Patrick are 11th, 12th, 13th and 16th respectively.

Lap 34 — Mario Moraes goes below the white line trying to fight for a position with Graham Rahal, but they keep going…Apparently, Rahal’s team has been told to contact Race Control, so Rahal must have pushed the Brazilian down below that line.

Lap 38 — Hearing that the pit window may open up within the next ten laps. Get ready…

Lap 42 — Tweet from @PlanetIrldotcom: “Take off those friggin fuel knobs! In fact, take the F1 route and make them go the whole distance without refueling. Stop saving fuel!!!” Maybe I’m not missing much…

Lap 46 — Robert Doornbos, E.J. Viso, and Ryan Hunter-Reay have made their first stops. Frontrunners coming in soon…

Lap 49 — Carpenter gets his stop, as does Briscoe…All of the leaders have pitted now.

Lap 51 — The first wave of stops are complete and Scott Dixon is now at the point, followed by Ryan Briscoe, Helio Castroneves, Dario Franchitti, Ed Carpenter and Tomas Scheckter, who’s jumped eight positions in a great run.

Lap 57 — Dixon and Briscoe go side-by-side for the lead, but it’s Briscoe taking the lead by a nose at the line…The lead is .0068 of a second on Lap 58…Sounds like a great fight.

Lap 60 — The front four are now locked in close-quarters racing. On Lap 60, Dixon leads Briscoe by .0004 of a second. Cripes.

10:36 p.m. ET — Unfortunately, we’re still having problems here in Baltimore with the internet servers…However, we’ve got satellite again. With that, I’m going to watch this race and recap it as best I can for afterwards here on Indy Racing Revolution. I apologize for the early end to this live blog, but it’s out of my hands, unfortunately. See you in a bit…

AFS/Andretti Green driver J.R. Hildebrand got through a wild and wooly Chicagoland 100 that saw him finish fifth and clinch the Firestone Indy Lights championship for 2009.

A pair of incidents in the first half of the race whittled the 16-car field down to just 10 by the finish, but Hildebrand, a native of Sausalito, California, managed to stay away from trouble and inject himself into a frenetic battle for the win.

That fight eventually went in favor of Daniel Herrington, who held off James Davison to score his first Firestone Indy Lights win as a driver and the first FIL win for his team owner, former IndyCar driver Bryan Herta.

Wade Cunningham paced the field for the first 41 laps, but as he and Davison went side-by-side for the lead on the backstretch, Herrington got a massive run on the high groove off Turn 2 and managed to get the point for good coming out of Turn 4.

The series now takes the month of September off before heading to Homestead-Miami Speedway in October to close the season.

Deadline for contract dispute comes Monday

While Versus has given the IRL a much needed boost in terms of coverage and promotion, ratings for this year’s events have been lacking. Now the Comcast-owned sports network is facing even more bad news.

Monday is the deadline to settle a contract dispute between Versus and DirecTV that could keep over 24 million DirecTV subscribers from getting the IRL’s cable partner.

Terry Angstadt, the IRL’s commercial division president, seemed to believe that the dispute would be solved before the deadline, telling the Los Angeles Times‘ Jim Peltz that league officials “think they’ll find a solution.” Meanwhile, National Hockey League spokesman Frank Brown simply told SI.com’s Allan Muir that it was August 25 and that the next NHL game on Versus is on October 1.

IRL, NHL, and college football fans in the Big 12, Mountain West and Pac-10 conference regions could all pay dearly if Versus goes off of DirecTV systems. In addition to those properties, Versus also carries the Professional Bull Riders, the Tour de France, World Extreme Cagefighting, and a major block of outdoors programming.

Personally, I think it’s clear that while Versus is growing, they still need DirecTV more than DirecTV needs Versus. I expect a deal to be done and if it doesn’t come before the Monday deadline, don’t expect their spot on DirecTV to stay black for too long.

But I’m still worried about this and if you are as well, then feel free to let DirecTV have it. Or you can tell Versus to get their rears in gear via Twitter.

You know what’s worse, though? This quote in Muir’s piece from an unknown industry source that’s following the dispute — she seems to question why Versus got the IRL in the first place:

“They went way out on a limb for that one. They offer great coverage [of the sport], but it’s not like Americans are lining up for it. The IRL is a non-entity to most people.”

This quote should be put on a giant banner and hung on the wall of the league’s marketing department as a reminder that this is what the mainstream thinks of their series and that this is why they have to do better.

Alex Tagliani back to full-time IndyCar racing in 2010

Canadian pilot Alex Tagliani may be getting ahead of himself when he talks of giving the big teams trouble next year with the new FAZZT Race Team. As he tells RACER.com:

“I am so happy right now. This is the best present anyone has given me for many, many years. I don’t want to sound too cocky, but I have no doubts that we’re going to be up to speed very quickly. We’re going to be giving the big teams trouble, right from the start of next year. I mean that.”

But considering that he hasn’t had a full-time gig since the merger between the Indy Racing League and Champ Car, he has every right to be joyful.

The Champ Car fan favorite, formerly of Conquest Racing, will be part of the recently-formed squad as its driver for the next four seasons, with an option for a fifth. FAZZT will feature Andre Azzi as chief executive officer and Jim Freudenberg as chief operating officer. Rob Edwards will serve as team manager.

For the rest of the story, just click the link above.

As you may know, the IndyCar Series awards “bonus points” — one for winning the pole position and two for leading the most laps in a race.

This leads to an interesting stat that was thrown out toward the end of IMS Radio Network’s qualifying coverage earlier today at Chicagoland Speedway. Turns out that by virtue of his pole for tomorrow night’s Peak Indy 300 (9 p.m. ET, Versus), points leader Ryan Briscoe has earned his 10th bonus point of the season.

With that, I decided to figure out how many bonus points each of the three championship combatants — Briscoe, Dario Franchitti, and Scott Dixon — have racked up this season and how they got them.

From what my research tells me, these may be the difference in determining who walks away with the crown after the final race in October down in South Florida.

I checked over this information and I believe it to be correct, but if you hear something amiss, feel free to say so by leaving a comment. I’ll promptly put up corrections in an annotation inside the video.

Ryan Briscoe’s lead over Dario Franchitti in IndyCar championship goes to five points after earning pole for tomorrow’s Peak Indy 300 (9 p.m. ET, Versus)

[Car # - Driver, team, four-lap average speed]

Row 1

6 – Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske, 215.364 m.p.h.

3 – Helio Castroneves, Team Penske, 215.202.

Row 2

10 – Dario Franchitti, Target Chip Ganassi Racing, 214.973.

11 – Tony Kanaan, Andretti Green Racing, 214.661.

Row 3

02 – Graham Rahal, Newman/Haas/Lanigan, 214.556.

9 – Scott Dixon, Target Chip Ganassi Racing, 214.494.

Row 4

26 – Marco Andretti, Andretti Green Racing, 214.470.

5 – Mario Moraes, KV Racing Technology, 214.331.

Row 5

06 – Oriol Servia, Newman/Haas/Lanigan, 214.126.

7 – Danica Patrick, Andretti Green Racing, 214.104

Row 6

4 – Dan Wheldon, Panther Racing, 213.808.

20 – Ed Carpenter, Vision Racing, 213.331. 

Row 7

27 – Hideki Mutoh, Andretti Green Racing, 213.256.

43 – Tomas Scheckter, Dreyer & Reinbold, 213.218.

Row 8

18 – Justin Wilson, Dale Coyne Racing, 213.011.

24 – Mike Conway, Dreyer & Reinbold, 212.671.

Row 9

2 – Raphael Matos, Luczo Dragon Racing, 212.387.

14 – Ryan Hunter-Reay, A.J. Foyt Racing, 212.337.

Row 10

67 – Sarah Fisher, Sarah Fisher Racing, 212.125.

13 – E.J. Viso, HVM Racing, 211.586.

Row 11

23 – Milka Duno, Dreyer & Reinbold, 211.465.

33 – Robert Doornbos, HVM Racing, 211.169.

Row 12

98 – Jaques Lazier, Team 3G, 208.333.

With three races remaining in the 2009 season, the IndyCar Series visits Chicagoland Speedway for what’s sure to be a pivotal round in the championship.

Team Penske’s Ryan Briscoe holds the point in the title race but his lead is just four markers over Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Dario Franchitti, whose last visit to Chicagoland in an IndyCar netted him the race win and 2007 title.

As for the reigning series champ, TCGR’s Scott Dixon, he finds himself down 20 points after a 13th place finish last week at Infineon Raceway.

The three-way dance for the 2009 IndyCar crown has shifted to the ovals for the rest of the year, as 1.5-milers Chicagoland, Twin Ring Motegi, and Homestead-Miami Speedway will close out the season. The last time the IndyCars had an oval race was Aug. 1 at Kentucky Speedway, which saw Briscoe nip Ed Carpenter at the finish.

While Briscoe won the race, the TCGR duo of Franchitti and Dixon were unable to match that pace in Sparta. As a result, the pressure appears on them to raise their game this weekend against the Australian and his teammate, last year’s winner at Chicagoland and three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves.

I’m getting plenty of tweets about rain at Chicagoland Speedway right now, however, so we’ll see when preparations truly get under way. Here’s what was scheduled — the first practice of the day is set to begin at 10 a.m. ET and last until 11:30 a.m. ET. That will be followed by qualifying at 2:30 p.m. ET (live on IndyCar.com; 6 p.m. ET on Versus) and another practice session at 5:30 p.m. ET.

Keep an eye on IndyCar.com for any further developments. I’ll be unable to post updates during the day as I have a family obligation to attend.