Otay, so I originally intended to post this a week
ago but somebody named Dario decided to do a barrel roll in "H-Town"
as Leigh Diffey took to calling it over the double header weekend...
Race 1
Saturday, October 5th
And I'd
really, really wanted to use Dumb 'N Dumber in my title, which isn't in
regards to the actual on-track racing itself, well most of I-T; BUTT! As
typical, IndyCar seemingly is shooting itself in the foot with A-L-L of the
brilliance going on behind the scenes, I mean WTF? Moving Houston into June
when its 94deg-f with 1,000% HUMIDITY in the beginning of October... Brilliant!
ABSOLUTELY FUCKING BRILLIANT! I mean, let's kill off another race, shall we?
And let's move Fontana to a HOTTER time of the year too while we're at it...
And then there's the STUPIDNESS of trying to
build a street course in a scant 4-days time after hosting an NFL game the
weekend prior to racing around a parking lot which led to the unforeseen
cancellation of Friday Fast-Six qualifying 'cause there was a really B-I-G BUMP
in the way of one of the corners that required 12-hours of grinding... Which
put Saturday morning's schedule into shambles; Yee Haw! Let's go racing shall
we? Just make sure to stay hard right at that one corner Fellers,' GidddieUp!
Holy Humidifiers Batman! As let's try a
standing start, shall we? As Open Wheel Curmudgeon 'R's (Robin Miller) word's
about how standing starts lead to far less carnage then a regular Double-wide
start seemed ironic - since the first starting lights seemed overly longish with
Charlie Kimball being unable to disengage his clutch leading to an abortive
start. Round 'em up boyz, let's try I-T again.
ROLLIN' ROLLIN' ROLLIN' - let's get 'Dem
IndyCarz a-rollin,' Y'all hear? As thee Mayor 'O Hinchtown (James Hinchcliffe)
stalled his No. 27 while apparently "FAST EDDIE" (Ed Carpenter) isn't
a fan 'O Pink as he rammed Hinchcliffe straight up the 'Keister; Aye Karumba!
With Tristan 'Turbo Vautier smacking the wall whilst taking evasive action...
Oh Brother! Here we go, another FREAKIN' Street Race...
As Hinchcliffe was priceless while evading
"Snidely Whiplash's" (Marty Snyder) rhetorical questioning... By
saying he needed to PEE! When Snidely said he couldn't keep up with him... As
Marty's really starting to agitate me with his insensitive Pitlane interviewing
technique.
Whilst I cannot recall everything that
happened, albeit I worried a little bit
of this event becoming somewhat Silversone-ish tyre wise with two cars
mysteriously cutting tyres, most notably Justin 'B-I-G UNIT Wilson, who managed
to evade disaster by calling his deflating tyre correctly and being able to
duck into the pits before extreme shreddage occurred!
Meanwhile up front arch nemesis's 'DJ WillyP
(Will Power) and Scotty thee "Iceman" Dixon were pulling away from
the field running one-two, as Dixon was apparently just chillin' behind Power,
waiting to strike shortly.
And all I know next is that I erupted in
jubilation - possibly even waking thy neighbors up with my joyous Hooting 'N
Hollering over 'HULIO's sudden mechanical maladies, as the points leader
transmission needed servicing, requiring a gear stack (cluster) replacement
which the team did with zeal, taking
only 8-9mins, which dropped Castroneves nine laps, or was it seven? AnyHoo, a
long ways behind; GOODY!
And then Dixon jumped Power for the lead, as
I marveled to myself that the stop was so long that I could clearly read the
number 12 on Power's stationary Dallara, as a slight bobble with the jack
caused Power's stop to be a miniscule 1.8-seconds slower then Dixon's who
swooped by for the lead, which he'd never relinquish.
Meanwhile there was great Dicking about from
P3 backwards, as Luca Filippi really shone this race, first out
braking "Symone Pagenoe," (Simon Pagenaud) a truly impressive feat -
vaulting the Italian rookie into third, who'd run as high as second before one
of the races seven cautions ultimately caught him out - after being instructed
to do whatever the then leader Will Power did, who stayed out, while Dixon had
pitted "Justin-time" prior to the yellow flag, cycling back in third
and ultimately leading with Power and Filippi still
needing to pit...
and how 'bout "Symona-Symona," (de
Silvestro) as the Swiss Missile ran up front all day long, ultimately scoring
her series best ever finish in P2, runner-up to Dixon, while Wilson came back
from his overly frustrating day with traffic and a flat tyre for an excellante
third place finish - while I celebrated in further jubilation as Castroneves
ultimately stalled his car after late race dicing with Mike Conway, while the
two drivers had needed to take evasive action to avoid the safety truck
assisting Oriel "Suitcase" Servia, whose Panther Racing team
apparently ran him out of fuel, as you could hear the team instructing him to pit;
OOPS!
As the race finished under yellow for points
leader Castroneves stricken racecar - ultimately finishing 18th, while Pagenaud
who'd suffered all day long on restarts pulled himself back up to fourth while
Joseph 'STUD Newgarden who's Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing car sported a
brilliant paint job that reportedly took 500 man hours to complete came home a
fine fifth place to round out our field of 24 entries Top-5, with Filippi
recovering
for a Top-10 finish in tenth place.
And say Bye-Bye! To Helio's 49-point lead
which was whittled down to a scant eight by Dixon's impressive victory with
third place contender Pagenaud now only 50-points adrift of Castroneves who
leads with 513 prior to race #2 at Houston...
Race 2
Sunday, October 6th
And the hits just kept on pouring, or as Ron
white would say, Uh-pourin', as guess what happened next? Yep, after a heat
index of 100-degrees the day before I-T RAINED! And it rained & rained,
causing qualifying to be cancelled... And then there was the 'lil blunder by
Race Control? Or some IndyCar officials who claimed that starting positions
would be based upon entrant points after having awarded Scott Dixon Pole, holding
a press conference to this effect and even reportedly having gone so far as letting
Dixon put the Verizon P1 sticker upon his rear wing before somehow Helio
Castroneves ended up on pole, which is quite confusing since his team had been
docked 15 entrant points for their car being illegal at Texas, although
apparently somebody read the rule book after the fact and there's some proviso
for Double Headers being different; Uh, who'd ah thunk I-T? As it was pretty
smart of Dixon to dedicate his Saturday victory to Beaux Barfield, eh?
Hmm? As Castron-nervous had doged one bullet
named qualifying. And I get I-T, that it's a street race which equals copious
amounts 'O yellow, or as 'Ol 'Dippity Dawg DW (Darrel Waltrip) sez; Yeller's
breed Yellers - Yuck-yuck-yuck! But really eight FREAKIN' yellow flags; URGH!
And let's NOT even get started on standing
starts shall we? As the powers-to-be found Saturday's so fantastic that they
thought they'd do it all over again, I mean may be there'd be some more start
line carnage? As first Taku' (Takuma Sato) forgot which side he was starting on
while Dario Franchitti also encountered problems on the aborted start - before
'Marky-Marc got nabbed for creeping and ultimately given a drive-thru penalty
for jumping the start... While perhaps duh 'Peacock-lite's (NBCSN) chronicling
of Dario getting his hand smashed in the window during the parade lap when
somebody rolled it up on him was an omen of things to come?
But
the fourth standing start of the weekend was actually a good one as
'HULIO actually got off the line ahead of
Dixon who began screaming on his radio OIL, OIL! Coming everywhere from
Castroneves leading racecar... As I've read somewheres that Dixon said it
appeared to happen immediately after Helio had driven straight over the big
bump on the track where everybody else was avoiding it; as Dixon wrenched off a
visor tear-off quite early in the race... Before the No. 3 Penske sponsored by
Shell that weekend suffered its second straight gearbox malady, as this time
'HULIO ground to a complete halt on-track on lap-11 as the gearbox itself had
sheared away from the engine itself - as I burst out into delirious glee over
Castroneves bad fortune, since I just don't wanna see him win the championship;
not to mention it seems like some sorta divine intervention for the past
shenanigans Team Penske's pulled upon Scott Dixon, eh? (Although I'm NOT
claiming Dixon's NO Saint...)
Thus Dixon took over the point with lots of
great racing going on behind before Will Power passed the Target car for the
lead and drove like a scalded cat the rest of the race, taking twelve potential
points off of Dixon and trimming his then 38-point lead to 25 by winning plus
leading the races most laps.
And Kudos to the Penske Boyz, as its 'Uber
impressive that they repaired an entire ARSE-end of a Dallara DW12 during the
race in some 36 laps I belief? As I guess it's a good thing that those
Kardashian haunches are so wide, eh? Hya!
And it was nice to see thee Mayor 'O
Hinchtown rebound in the Pink-mobile with a third place finish, while Justin
'B-I-G UNIT Wilson and le 'Hamburgular, nee Sebastain Bourdais rounded out the top-5, with Wilson vaulting
into fourth place overall in the points standings, his and the Minnowesqe Dale
Coyne Racing's best ever results, albeit there's still one 500-miler Oval
remaining, eh?
Yet I'm guessing Y'all know by now 'bout the
HORRIFIC last lap shunt that Dario Franchitti endured, as he even tried to keep
from ramming Takuma Sato who he'd seen going wide by running to his left side I
believe? Yet it wasn't to be as Dario's car went airborne after riding over
Sato's rear wheel hump in what was a violent looking crash! Which fortunately
Dario survived, albeit with two broken vertebrae, concussion and broken ankle
which he's since had surgery on, as the back will probably take six months to
heal itself? As hopefully we'll see Dario behind the wheel of his No. 10
racecar next year - since he'll probably be itching to break his victory
drought which will now be over a year long - as its been years since he went
winless in an IndyCar season, right?