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Whatever the reason, Graham Rahal's having the best
season of his IndyCar career this year - Hero Card obtained at the 2014 Sonoma
IndyCar race. (The Tomaso Collection)
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Which surely must make Y'all scratch your heads 'N
wonder why the Powers to Be at Starship HC are trying to Kill it Off, eh?
HONDA (11-cars)
AJ Foyt Enterprises, (2) Andretti
Autosport, (3) Bryan Herta Autosports, (1) Dale Coyne Racing, (2) Rahal
Letterman Lanigan Racing (1) and Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. (2)
As going into St Pete, naturally the two
biggest guns in Honda's arsenal were Andretti Autosport and Schmidt Peterson
Motorsports, with no disrespect to the others, albeit the Chevy teams/drivers
have a staggering 150+ to 30+ Me Thinks, edge in victories alone, not to
mention having multiple series champions vs. Honda's lone Ace Ryan
Hunter-reay...
Andretti Autosport (1 Win)
This team has to be the biggest disappointment
to Mwah to date, albeit the team's slowly improving their performance - as
who'd Uh thunk I-T! That Marco Andretti would actually be performing better
than team leader Ryan Hunter-Reay, who's possibly having his worst season ever
at Andretti?
Yet it hasn't been all bad news for Mikey's
team, as Carlos Silk' Munoz scored his debutant IndyCar victory at Belle Isle's
Double-header weekend, even if it came
in rain induced circumstances, a Win's a Win, Baby!
Which just leads us to the latest good news,
although it'll be rough sledding in a Honda powered chassis. Yet nevertheless,
I'm extremely happy to hear that my Numero Uno IndyCar driver Justin B-I-G'
UNIT Wilson will drive Andretti Autosport's fourth car the remainder of the
short lived season's five races beginning at Milwaukee.
As now all we need from the Andretti camp is to see
"Symona-Symona" (de Silvestro) return to the cockpit, with her and
Justin Wilson both preferably with Full season drives!
Schmidt Peterson Motorsports (1 Win)
This team has probably suffered the Highest
of Highs followed by definitely the Lowest of Lows. As let's acknowledge that
thee Mayor 'O Hinchtown's unexpected victory at the inaugural Grand Prix of
Louisiana at Nola Motorsports Park was most fortuitous, due to the team's
daring Pit strategy combined with a Shit-load 'O Yellow flags and wet stuff!
Then the skies literally fell open upon this
scrappy racing team, when James Hinchcliffe suffered a major testing accident
on the final day of Indy 500 practice, excluding Carb Day. As the 28yr old
KuhNuck' lost a major amount of blood due to his soft tissue injury and now is
most likely out for the remainder of the season.
With Hinches departure, the team has since
gone into patchwork mode, with two talented drivers substituting for James. As
first Ryan Briscoe remarkably drove to twelfth at Indy after starting dead last on short notice.
Not to mention an Oh, So 'Uber impressive drive to
the lead at Fontana coming down to the Chequerd Flag before an ultra scary looking Barrel rolling flip when his
car's nose dug into the infield grass after getting a LUV' tap from RHR...
then Conor Daly got the call and impressively
deputized for Hinch' at Belle Isle's Double Header with a best finish of 6th
place in Race-2, along with running up front in the weekend's first race -
before I believe he got caught out strategy-wise due to the rain and was
classified P19.
Briscoe and Daly played Leapfrog at the next
two races; Texas and Toronto, which I
didn't watch either of - having been in Florence, so don't know how they fared, (having since learned that Conor netted a fine 12th
place finish in Toronto in what unfortunately appears to be his final drive of
the season) while supposedly Briscoe will take over for
the remaining races from Fontana onwards.
As that's as far
as I'd gotten Pre-Fontana in this ever mushrooming tome. Which naturally, now
it appears I've been saving the best for last, eh?
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (1 Win)
Begrudgingly, as I've not been a fan 'O
Graham Rahal's forever now, I'll admit that he's had one Helluva season - to
date, probably his best ever since his Champ Car Dazes; Crikeys! Seems a
really, really long time ago since I got his autograph at Portland 'Wayback in
Twenty-oh-six!
As he's been the fastest Honda nearly A-L-L
season long and capped his remarkable string of second place finishes against
the superior Bowtie Brigade with a very impressive drive to victory at Fontana from P17! And
then followed this up with another podium next time out at Milwaukee, moving
him to third in the points standings; Aye Karumba!
As 'Ol 'PT (Paul
Tracy) said it best during the Milwaukee race broadcast, when noting how
Graham's a new man ever since he met Courtney (Force) who seems to have had a
calming effect upon him, as he's no longer arguing with the engineers on the
radio, etc.
A.J. Foyt Enterprises (0 Wins)
Seems like NBC Sports lead announcer Leigh
Diffey summed it up best at Milwaukee when he noted how second year driver Jack
Hawksworth simply cannot buy a break and just hasn't had any luck this year,
while I think it was Townsend Bell noting how he simply hadn't Gelled yet.
'Taku-san, nee Takuma Sato hasn't lit the season
on fire yet either, although he has actually run at the front, even leading
laps I believe, as like all of the Hondres' with the exception of Graham Rahal,
Sato's surely been saddled by Honda's lack of performance - before the Japanese
Auto Giant's season began turning around in earnest at Fontana. Although Sato
did finish runner-up at Belle Isle's first race.
Dale Coyne Racing (0 Wins)
Don't have a whole lot to say about DCR other
then it wins the "booby-prize" for most drivers on its revolving door
policy of who'll be driving this week? Although I'm quite happy with the
current lineup of Pippa Mann and Tristan
Vautier, especially the latter - who seems quite underrated. As I'd also like to
see Conor Daly back aboard a DCR mount, while I'm pretty certain that nobody's
missing Francesco
Dracone, who I nicked him with the moniker Francesco
Floppa; YIKES!
Bryan Herta Autosports (0 Wins)
Really don't have a whole Helluva lot to say
'bout Gabby Chaves debutant B-I-g' CARZ season to date, other than I'm happy
the reigning Indy Lights champion graduated to Indy Cars and think he's been
doing a relatively good job overall, especially since he's driving for arguably
the team with the smallest budget hampered with the Honda Aerokit package!
As Robin Miller eluded to at Milwaukee, the Kid's
doing one Helluva Job as Bryan Herta says he's way better than he's currently
getting credit for...
2015 INDYCAR SEASON
16 Rounds (3 Races Remaining)
(Rd/Date/Venue/Winner/Team/Engine)
13) July 18: Des Moines, IA
14) Aug 2: Mid-Ohio, OH
15) Aug 23: Pocono, PA
16) Aug 30: Sonoma, CA
Note: Sonoma's Season Finale is a Double Points race,
a la the Indianapolis 500 and thus, anybody 100-points adrift of the leader mathematically
could become champion - provided they had a "Clean Sweep" weekend,
i.e.; Pole, Most Laps led and the Win, with the Points leader failing to
finish...