Notes from the 2005 Argent Mortgage Indy 300 (Kansas)

Notes taken during the ESPN broadcast of the Argent Mortgage Indy 300 from Kansas Speedway on 7/3/05.

In case you missed the opening, I can summarize: Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica Patrick, Danica, Danica, Danica, Danica Patrick.

OK, kidding a little. It wasn't as All-Danica All the Time as I thought it would be. Todd Harris opens the show with "Win a pole you're famous for a day; win a race you're famous for life." Then, he pulls out the big guns, "Not since Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz have we seen such a whirlwind surrounding the fortunes of a daring young woman in Kansas."

The ESPN writers are clearly taking it up yet another notch. Danica in her X-men shades. Danica should sell those on her site. Very distinctive. She represents on the keys to victory: This is a momentum track. Need to get through traffic quickly. All about momentum.

Somewhere in there I remember seeing Jamie Little (put her in a car!) in between Danica's mom and Danica's fiance (she inserted the obligatory "Sorry, guys, she's engaged.") Reminded me of the Cingular bars. Think about it. My tape cut out though and I was distracted, so I'm not sure what they said. I think Jamie asked the fiance if Danica was nervous this morning.

Dan Wheldon starting 13th. Not happy with the 13th.

Over to Jamie and Doug Boles. Replay of Boles' "WE GOT SCREWED" reaction at Richmond last week to Enge getting blacked. Scheckter with a helmet-on interview. Back to Boles. Jamie says he "hotly disputed" the Richmond blacking. Boles said he had a sit-down with Brian and understand his position. Wonders why the black wasn't flying a little more often for others.

Ganassi Richmond Recap. Three cars. $360,000 in damages. Lots of red scrap metal. In-car, helmet on interview with Manning. Darren says he "knew we were in for a bit of telling off." Chippy wasn't pleased.

Punchy throws it back to Goodyear and Todd Harris and says "I know you'll keep an eye on them." I'm sure Todd will, if they're in the top five, anywhere near Danica or in the wall, that is.

First mention of "Danica Patrick, Rookie Sensation." She's the pole sitter. Video of Wheldon about dragging his fuel tank down pit row last year.

Eddie Cheever interview! Clearly the ESPN guys are trying to spread the spotlight around and not just focus on the daring young woman in Kansas. Jamie: (I'm paraphrasing) Big track, can Red Bull stay on the lead lap? Eddie: Superspeedway. Different deal than Richmond. Both guys are happy with their cars. Eddie observes we "got 20 guys chasing one girl." Eddie has Danica Fever as well.
98 degrees on pit row. Dr. Punchy (or Todd, I'm fuzzy on which it was) says it's about to get "warner."

Green-Green-Green. Rice passes Danica. Ruh-roe, Danica is fading fast. She's back to 3rd, 4th, 5th in the first three laps. Scheckter almost dusts Rice. Much groaning. Now Rice is fading as well. Rahal in Reverse. Not sure why. We're deploying the pit reporters.

Onboard with Danica. Something on Danica's pit radio about fourth gear not working right. Use 5th. We got gear issues. Danica 10th now. Many frowny faces in the ESPN control center. Jamie has been deployed to Danica's pit.

Buddy has tire problems. Tire pressure. He's a little cheesed at Scheckter getting close enough to shake hands.

Danica is now 11th. Commercial. The first of many times I hear the Argent commercial. The voice-over talent is a friend of mine. I swear to God. Her name is Jennifer. She can make grown men pee just by speaking French to them. But, I digress.

Dario and Scheckter side by side. Scheckter leads. Lap 18, Danica is up to 9th. I look for Todd to get excited.

Jimmy Kite is now going four miles per hour slower than everyone. Attention please, will all non-Penske Toyota's please move to the back of the pack? Attention, all Toyotas. Please move to the rear of the race. Thank you.

Rookie Sensation Tomas Enge, fresh from the "screwing" last week, is now 7th after starting 12th.

Wait a second, ABC runs down the top 10 by showing each car and saying something about it. Moving right down the line. The TOP 10! Might be the first time ABC/ESPN has mentioned an 8th-place, non-Danica car this season, maybe ever. I dig it a lot.

Helio passes Danica. Danica passes Helio back. Scheckter laps Kite on lap 40. Jimmy is going around 176 mph now, I swear. He may be thinking about parking it and getting his Craftsman truck out. The truck may go faster.

Todd: Danica is 9th, can she move up? Find out after this commercial break.

Yellow-yellow-yellow. Roger Yasukawa butt-first into the wall. Looked to be by himself. The Dreaded Dirty Air got him. Whoever had Roger in the First Out pool wins a black flag autographed by Brian Barnhart. (Kidding, of course). It's been a long road for DRR since Sarah Fisher became the first woman to win a pole in the IRL (Kentucky 2002) driving a DRR Infiniti car. Sarah lead the first 26 laps. Finished 8th. Not that I'd bring it up.

Second time I hear the Argent ad with my personal friend, Jennifer, talking. They should let her do it in French. It would touch off a monsterous surge in Argent mortgage demand.

I thought I glimpsed Danica about drive up Helio's butt. No mention of it. Dennis Reinbold interview. Jamie: What happened? Lost the back end. Had to switch engines before the race because their engine was sounding bizarre. I suspect DRR gets the factory-second Hondas. I have no confirmation on this. As Jamie throws it back to the booth, she mentions that DRR has had 6 DNFs in 8 starts. Cold.

Reports that Herta is overheating. The car, that is. Andretti says it's fine now. Other reports that he's hacked that he's the trailing AG car once again. Andretti says he's not sure why. I gotta go with Herta on this one. He must get the leftovers or something. Third at Indy, but Danny was first. Sheee-it.

Let's go to Scott Remke of Rahal Letterman to find out why the RL cars have deployed the boat anchor. Scott says we were out in front until we got pushed into the grass (I knew someone cheated!). Working on it. Tweaking the car.

We got Danica pit video. Todd sets it up by saying in advance that it wasn't Danica's fault. Let's go to the video. Danica fish-tails out of the pit box. An IRL official about craps his pants as he dances out of the way. She almost pulled a Scheckter and flipped it around into the pit wall. Traction control was off and so the burnout got dicey. Apparently it wasn't Danica's fault since the her engineer failed to remind her the traction control was off.

Right here (lap 63) Todd Harris said something about "turn the same trick" at Kansas. Todd, buddy, can we retire the whole "turn the trick" stuff? It's slang for a prostitute "conducting business," OK? Just stop saying it. As a favor to me.

Lap 65, Danica is 10th. Dixon (possibly Manning) behind Sharp, who is weaving like a prize fighter. Sharp isn't afraid to run multiple lines out there.

Scheckter has Hornish behind him, outside high. Shades of Texas. Todd pronounces it a "formation as tight as the Blue Angles."

Lap 78. Danica 9th. Rookie Sensation Tomas Enge is 5th. Lap 85, Danica 10th. Fuel conservation talk. Scheckter is not interested in saving fuel. I wouldn't be shocked if Scheckter ripped the fuel knob off and threw it out of the cockpit.

Lap 92. Patrick 10th. Rookie Sensation Tomas Enge is 4th. Now 3rd. The race is on a torrid pace. Half done in about 40 minutes. People in the beer line at Kansas Speedway are like, "WTF?" This ain't no NASCAR race, baby.

Todd declares that Danica is a comfortable 9th. Got 100 laps to go. It's doable (so don't touch that dial).

Sharp and Danica about touch. ESPN poll: Will Danica win? 54% say yes. Indy mention. Keep hope alive.

Hornish is loose. Loose as a goose. Nobody drives a bad car better than Hornish, but it's clear Penske don't got it today.

We're onboard with Danica. Sets a new record for the most air time for a ninth-place car. Stick a fork in Helio. He's done. 10th is his neighborhood for this one. Toyota can't make it happen on the big tracks.

Dr. Punchy says maybe the "Bow Tie Boys (Chevy) can get a win on America's birthday."

Pitting. I wonder right here if the guy with the water gun who sprays the fueling hole as the car takes off practices. They should have a contest. Toss a target up in the air and see which water gun guy can hit it. I bet those guys could give you a drink as you ran past the pit. BAM.

Yellow-yellow-yellow. Briscoe in the grass. Something happened on pit out. Bad news he's done. Good news is the car is not in the wall. Chippy with Jamie: "This kid is going to be a good race driver if I can ever get him to the end of a race." Says maybe the clutch blew or something.

Scheckter stops. Helio in and has a long stop. Commercial. Third time I hear Jennifer.

Green-green-green. Commercial. Scheckter passes TK during the side-by-side.

75 to go. Scheckter has a moment. A "Depends Moment" as Goodyear calls it. Got majorly wiggly on the track. Much soiled underwear in the 4 car.

Danica is 14th. Kosuke goes by Danica. Danica is pronounced "not comfortable." Manning makes no room for The Hot One. Kosuke is spraying something out the back. Like a crop duster out there. Looks like one of the trucks that sprays for mosquitoes, leaving a fine mist behind him. It could just be smoke.

Booth announcers are all up on Kosuke for not pulling off. Barnhart deploys the yellow. Barnes yells "WE GOT SCREWED!" (Made that up).

Danica is 15th. Lap 138. Interview John Ward. Says Kosuke got on the apron, thought he got power back, got out on the track, figured out she was going, got off the track again. Seems reasonable to me. Simmer down up there, Todd and Scott. At least they interviewed Kosuke's people, rather than just pronouncing him a punk and moving on (which they did to Roger Yasukawa last race when him and Manning got sideways).

Scheckter goes below the line. All tires below the line. Mike Andretti goes ape shit. Let's get a report on what up with Danica. Ray Leto says they gave her bad pit stops. Everyone is so evenly matched that it's hard to get around people. Harris seconds the "bad pit stop" thing. Danica: victim.

Fifth time I hear my friend Jennifer. Mike Andretti feels that Scheckter went below the white line. Mike didn't see Tony Kanaan coming down on Scheckter to force him down there. During a re-start Tony definitely chopped down on Scheckter. OK, it's real possible Tony didn't see him down there since they both went around a Red Bull car. But still, no reason to get freaked. Maybe Scheckter should have held his position and caused them both go end-over-end down the track. Andretti would have been OK with that, apparently.

35 to go. Sharp in lead pack. Many spotters experience angina.

Todd gets excited that Danica has a teammate in front of her (Vitor. Remember Vitor? Best RL driver this year. Second at Indy. Ringing any bells?)

Todd to Goodyear: "Why has the car come back to her?" This is an excellent question. This is maybe Todd's best question of the season. This is a question I, the viewer, would like to know. Too bad Goodyear never answers. Got distracted by something. So, you know, I guess Danica found a gear or something. Who knows?

Danica 8th. Danica 5th! Todd Harris starts to get excited. Danica will pit sometime in the early 190s. Danica 4th!

Danica is 3rd. Todd: "Danica Patrick is making some noise!" She made a perfect move just there. "Talk about composure for a 23-year-old!" "Can she work the magic in the pits?" Danica does her own pit stops now, apparently. Out. 9th. Costly pit stops cited. I guess the pit stops caused her to go from first to 9th in a hurry at the start of the race. 9th is it for her.

Wheldon and Kanaan got the two-wide thing going all the way to the end. Goodyear makes the right call, "Vitor is out of luck." No way either AGR car backs off, so it's the apron or marbles for Vitor. He goes down on the apron and gets third.

Let's go to the AGR pit. Kim Green, first thing he says, is "I'm disappointed in two other drivers who went below the white line quite often. To me, that's a penalty." Guy just got first and second and he's bawling about the white line. Come on, Kim.

Danica out of the car. Disappointment. Interview Tony. Says "the bigger nose won." Line of the race.

Jamie has Danica: Hard fought. Start on the pole with the target on your back. Dancia: "On the start, nothing I coulda done. It was foot to the floor." 4th an 5th gears were a little screwy. "I was flat on the power and there's nothing more as a driver you can do than that." Lost a lot of time in the pits. Dropped back. Would have been nice to finish up front. Jamie goes right back to the old standby: "Look at how beautiful this girl is after 200 laps!"

I wasn't going to say it, but I just gotta. Danica is having trouble with the racing part of it.

Scheckter interview. White line controversy. Scheckter not impressed with AGR's complaints. Says maybe some people shouldn't push people down below the white line. Wasn't going to lift when Tony came down on him on the restart, so he went onto the apron. White line controversy rages.

Vitor (the forgotten RL guy) says he dove down on the apron because it was his only shot. Wouldn't have counted, of course.

Sharp interview. 4 top 7 finishes. Sharp is looking happy. The days in the Pig Kelley Car are long gone, apparently. Jamie talks to Dan. He says he loves Tony to bits. Loves him more than anyone, with the possible exception of Tony's wife.

Shocking ending: AGR 1 & 2. Hondas top 4.

Tomas "White Line" Scheckter sticks Chevy in there for fourth. Big shout out to Danger Mouse for being the top Toyota in 7th ahead of Helio and Sam. No mention from the booth. Top Toyota should get some kind of mini trophy. Dixon is 18th. Not so good. Red Bulls 13th and 14th. Herta 15th.

© 2005 Bill Zahren