Well perhaps NOT really, but I was tryin’ to think of something clever to tie into this past weekends Indy Car race at Edward “The Goose” Gossage’s joint… Of which fortunately, Danny B informed me was being tape DELAYED on “The Deuce” do to some minor league Stock Car race… So I decided wisely to tune into the IMS Radio Broadcast instead… Although this way I didn’t get to see Robby Knievel jump 21 Hummers for the pre-race festivities… Anyone wanna buy a used Hummer? I hear they get really LOUSY gas mileage…
Did I hear Mike King correctly? Saying it was 92 degrees at 9:25PM in the Lone Star state.
And although I took two pages of notes during this caution flag infested event, they were primarily devoted to the ever flapping yellow flags, which saw a total of 8 cautions for 52 laps, just shy of the record set in 1997. (58 caution laps)
And although there were 28 cars entered, with Luczo Dragon Racing making another start with Tomas “NO SHOW” Scheckter… Who apparently blew off his second scheduled appearance on Donald Kay’s ‘lil Autosport Radio show this past Tuesday, I was drawn to the fact that John Andretti was still masquerading as an Indy Car regular behind the wheel of Jay Howard’s #24 Roth Racing entry. And although I haven’t found anything to verify this, according to Indiana Bureau Chief Danny B, Andretti will take over the ride for the remainder of the season…
And while some have claimed that CART’s demise can be loosely traced to their attempt to takeover Texas Motor Speedway back in 2001, its worth noting that some of today’s Indy Car World Series drivers were just starting their Oval Track careers at this time in point and the Firehawk 600 race was correctly cancelled due to the drivers exceeding 5G’s, as driver safety was paramount after Dale “Ironhead” Ernhart Sr.’s death at Daytona. Its worth noting that Kenny Brack, the events pole sitter, obtained a top speed of 237+ mph, nearly 25mph faster than this year’s pole speed set by Scott Dixon at 214.878mph…
In a further parity ‘O comedic blunders… Indy Car debutant winner Ryan “Disco Inferno” Briscoe took a page out of EJ “Don’t call me Ernesto” Viso’s playbook, by deciding to stop in the WRONG pit box during the beginning of the race, which dropped him nearly two laps behind. Oh well, at least Eddie “F-Bombs Are Us” Carpentier didn’t make any waves or get fined this time, eh?
And while it was a fairly entertaining event, with multiple passing, as Y’all may know by now, Marco “Marky Mark” Andretti and Ryan “Sniff Petrol” Hunter-Reay apparently decided to disagree on who’d go where in the final laps, causing Vitor Meira too do his best Dario “Where’s my pants” Franchitti summersault impersonation, which saw Scott “The Milkman” (DON’T Go ‘dare fellas!) Dixon claim his third victory of the season…
As interestingly, prior to the races beginning, Dave “The King” Wilson tossed out an impressive statistic. For his Indy Car career, Scott Dixon averages a win EVERY 5.7 starts. And if you take out the forty abysmal Toyota starts, when they were getting WHOOPED by Honda... He averages a WIN EVERY 2.6 starts!
Even funnier yet, according to Danny B, the Deuce made a major boo-boo, when they couldn’t figure out how to stop the live broadcast audio for two minutes during the pre-race portion of the DELAYED broadcast… So, its pretty DAMN funny to read that Tony George & Co. are claiming that this late night/early morning TV broadcast set a record for TV viewer ship on ESPN2…
And speaking of Jay Howard, it was interesting to listen to “Hi, I’m Ron Dixon, Father of Scott” on Autosport Radio this past Tuesday… As apparently the Brit was scheduled to be on the show, but at 5:10PM (ET) had called Mr. Kay to inform him that he’d missed his aeroplane as he’d forgotten to set his watch for the time change and hence, Ron Dixon was pressed into service… Which was actually a very enlightening interview, although I think some of that moisture Indiana’s been having musta seeped into their broadcast equipment as once again I lost the broadcast when it froze during the end of the show!
Ron mentioned how in fact, his son Scott is a “Kiwi” and NOT an “Aussie” contrary to popular media belief Down Under… As Ron works as a spotter for Roth Racing’s John Andretti and previously Jay Howard, interestingly Ron also mentors and spots for three Flinstone Indy Lites competitors… When he’s not busy being threatened by their fathers, since he’s NOT spotting for their sons on said weekends…
Ron also runs some sort of Toyota race team Down Under in Australia and when being asked to comment on Jay Howard’s current situation, Ron noted that he’d had Jay drive for him and he was absolutely brilliant, as he’d never seen the track, nor driven the car and was straightaway on it, leading nearly everything… And was leading by over ¾ lap before the race was red flagged for rain and subsequently punted off on the restart…
As for commenting on Jay’s driving at Roth Racing he tries to stay out of the politics, since he likes keeping his job, but mentioned that things looked good for Jay next year if he’s released properly…
So, once again it sounds like its all down to whoever’s got the largest satchel of dinero, eh? Although Ron eluded to the possibility that Jay would drive for Roth Racing before the end of this season.
Ron also noted he’s got a female New Zealander currently running his Toyota program who’s just itching to test an Indy Lights chassis and she’s scheduled to make her test stateside in about five weeks time…
