Corporate Officials Doze in Skybox as Honda Wins Again

Note: I made this all up. Didn't actually happen. It's for humor purposes only.

A skybox waitress reportedly found all Honda officials fast asleep with 20 laps to go at the Argent 300 at Kansas Speedway on July 3.

Insiders blame the lack of suspense over who would win the race for putting the Honda team asleep. The slumbering Honda execs were a stark contrast to the scene a few skyboxes down where Toyota officials were on the edge of their seats and screaming into cell phones with excitement at a possible seventh-place finish by a non-Penske Toyota-powered car.

Honda eventually finished with seven cars in the top 10, including a first-through-fourth sweep. Target Chip Ganassi Toyota driver Darren Manning managed to secure the prestigious seventh-place finish ahead of a Penske Toyota driven by Helio Castroneves. Manning was carried from his car by jubilant Toyota officials.

"I don't know why we all dozed off," said one Honda official. "Maybe it was because we knew a Honda car was going to win, it was only a matter of which one and if we'd sweep the top 10. Plus, when it was clear (rookie sensation) Danica (Patrick, 5 foot, 100 pounds) wasn't going to win, we kind of lost interest. Personally, I was reading a book and just closed my eyes for a second."

The highest non-Honda in the race was Tomas Scheckter's Chevy Cosworth in fifth. (Chevy has announced it will pull out at the end of the 2005 season. Chevy officials reportedly taped the July 3 race and will watch it later.)

"Our goal right now is to sweep the top 10," a Honda official said. "Even though there are only nine Honda cars in the race, we think we've been so dominate we can get the top 10 places."

Tired of the continuous bitch-slapping from Honda on all horsepower tracks, Toyota has announced it will leave the Indy Racing League at the end of the 2006 season. In reaction, Honda said it wouldn't stay in the league if there were no one to bitch-slap. Honda wants other name-brand manufactures to humiliate and abuse or they'll leave the IRL as well.

"All we're asking is throw us a Ford, maybe a Dodge," said one Honda insider. "Just a couple would be fine. Is that too much to ask? Maybe just glue a blue oval over Scheckter's Chevy emblem or something."

IRL leader Tony George is expected to come out with an engine specification plan for 2007 sometime yet this century. "We're working on it," said Tony who was rumored to be days away from making Michelin the official tire supplier of the IRL. "We've had some interest from Yugo and we also got a nice flyer from Ray's Engine Works in Fort Wayne saying he might be interested in supplying engines."

A dissident faction of the IRL led by AJ Foyt has advocated going old school and letting teams "use any engine we can wedge into the damn frame." Foyt said he has a line on a 454-cubic-inch Chrysler engine he thinks might do the trick. "That som-bitch will pull the wheels of an Indy Car right off the ground," said Foyt. "We'll kick some Honda ass with that engine."

League enthusiast blame a Honda-Toyota research and development spending war for driving the cost of competing in the IRL to insane heights which makes it impossible to compete without Honda or Toyota corporate sponsorship. The result has been a few, well-funded super teams dominating the racing.

"A single-car team without a ton of Honda financing has about as much chance to win on the majority of IRL tracks as I have of becoming pope," said one team owner, "and I'm not even Catholic." League officials expect to rule on the "engine situation" sometime before 2009.

In other news, Kansas Speedway officials have reacted to a controversy about racing below the white line on their track apron by announcing they'd replace the apron with a moat in early 2006.

© 2005 Bill Zahren