Notes from the Firestone Indy 400 (Michigan) 2005

Notes taken during the ABC broadcast of the Firestone Indy 400 from Michigan on 7/31/05.

Female Rookie Sensation report: Katherine Legge wins again! Wins the Toyota Atlantic Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San Jose on 7/31. Rookie sensation Sarah Fisher started 21st and finished 8th in her West Series race in Irwindale, CA on 7/23 and started third and finished 11th in Monroe, Washington on 7/30.

ABC opens with the Speed City deal they've been saving since Indy. Danica is the "rookie with dangerous beauty." Wheldon is the mayor of Speed City since he won the Indy 500. Really. He won the thing.

A little tie in with the space shuttle lift off. Shuttle commander: Eileen Collins. Not too bad of a female driver, but hardly a rookie.

Harris comments on Danica's "meteoric rise" and wonders "will this be the day" she wins? Mentions engine parity (between Honda, Chevy and Penske Toyota, apparently). All non-Penske Toyotas, please proceed to rows 6 through 10.

Jack the Root is back in the house and on the AGR beat. Video of Ashley and her Hat of the Race hating life last week as Dario gets passed by Sammy Hornish. AGR does a 4-pack interview. The Root is working each one. Clever intros. Blah blah blah. Four Amigos. Wheldon does not use his few seconds of interview to ask any racing team anywhere with an opening to call him. And the end of the interview, Herta grabs the mic and says "We want to say hi to our friend Darren Manning who is at home ...." That's enough of that, ABC cuts Herta off by cutting to Dr. Jerry Punchy. You can't say hi to fired drivers, OK? What is Dr. Punch a doctor of? Medical? Ph.D. in physics? What? ABC, give us a graphic. (I later learn he's an M.D.)

Castroneves and Hornish interview together. I notice that they aren't standing too close to one and other. Helio tries to quip. Awkward. Could two drivers be more opposite?

Jamie Little (get her in a car!) is in the house! Vince Welsh apparently stayed home this time in favor of Jack the Root. Jamie reviews Michigan 2004 in which Scheckter put it sideways in the pit and broke a crew guy's leg. Dark days. Jamie asks a good question: Why were you crap last year but not this year?

Scheckter: "I'm not sure. Great to be back up front. Texas win helped."

Harris and Goodyear. Rahal Letterman sucking. Why? Not sure. Maybe Michigan is their race. Maybe their engineers are huffing methanol. (Made the methanol stuff up myself. Sorry.)

New record for delayed mention of Danica. Multiple minutes after she was in the intro with her dangerous beauty. ABC makes up for it by teasing a Danica Segment as they go to a commercial.
Danica through-the-windshield interview as she drives a Honda street car around with Jack the Root, who looks like he's on a date or something. Jack is turned sideways in his seat. Has kind of a hidden camera, Punk'd kind of feel to it. I imagine the producers "let's interview Danica in a way that's not been done before. I know, we rig up a camera OUTSIDE the car, and shoot her through the windshield!!"

Harris -- Danica has put the buzz back into Indy 500. Jack, "What do people not know about you, Danica." Danica: that she's a girlie girl. (I think we got that from the FHM photos.) Jack: How did it feel to be voted bested dressed at the ESPYs. Danica: "Awesome!" Danica says the whole media fixation has been "more than I expected." Next week, Jack interviews Danica as they both skydive.
Rice segment: Michigan last year was his third win of the season. This year stats are "abysmal."

Jamie with Chippy. Jamie is not afraid to go in there and ask the Chipster: "Why did you fire Darren?" who was 13th in points, the best among Chip's drivers.

Chip: Difficult situation. Racing has ups and downs. No one thing makes you win or lose. Manning has "performance challenges" lately. Chip starts to make Manning sound mental. He wasn't right. Like him. Wish him well. Needed to get out of the car for a while. Jamie says Target has had to work on 20 crashed cars this year so far.

Dr. Punch. Many seconds of video of Bev Patrick with the headphones on. Worried mother. Michigan is fast and dangerous but 12 drivers have gotten their first IRL win here. Concerned mother.

Let's light this candle.

Green flag. Green flag.

Five wide. Danica starts 8th. By the end of lap 1 she's 15th. Rice starts 3rd and by end of 1 he's 14th. Rahal in Reverse. Miera starts 9 and is 7 by the end of lap 1. Kanaan goes from 14th to third in one lap.

Danica 15th by lap 3. 18th by lap 5.

Punch reports that Rice says he's got no grip. Danica now 19th. Herta leads. Visor Cam from Dario's head. Visor Cam sucks. Can't see squat. Put a little camera on top of the helmet. That would be better than inside it where you see the inside of his helmet.

Danica 20th. Harris isn't giving up hope: Danica is patient enough and has got enough poise, don't count her out. Indy comeback mention. She worked her way through the field and challenged for the win. I think after the Indy experience and the races that followed, Danica appreciates the value of engineers in the IRL. If it's gripless, no rookie sensation on the planet can do much with it.

Bell first to pit. 9.8 seconds, gets some wing. Scheckter gets a black flag for pit speed violation! Drive through penalty. Doug "We got screwed!" Boles with Jamie. Calm about it. Doesn't scream.

Brian is the Even Hand of Justice! One rule book for almost everyone.

Hornish making some hand gesture to Wheldon. Looks like a "get in line" request. Yeah, sure, Wheldon is going to do something to assist Sam. Not.

Danica in danger of going a lap down. CUT TO DANICA IN-CAR. She's battling it. Guys, um, she's going to get lapped. Take a minute if you have to. Cut to Danica Cam. There she is. In her car.

Chippy gets more air time. He may fire more drivers if this keeps up: Fire a driver, get more air than Ray Leto, Kim Green and Michael Andretti combined. Chip calls Ryan Darren. Goodyear says Darren was over watching a Champ Car race recently.

Danica lapped. She's 18th.

Lap 74. Herta, Kanaan. Seven second lead. Lap 75 - Herta, Kanaan, Hornish, Scheckter.

Danica up to 17th.

Goodyear gives the pit crews a shout out. Tremendous pressure to do it all in under 10 seconds.

Lap 80. Danica pits. Almost leaves before fueler is done. Guy waved her out early.

Darren Manning gets air time -- in a Target ad.

Lap 90. Herta, Wheldon, Kanaan, Hornish, Dario.

Harris says AGR got about $30,000 in fines for taking their Sharpies and going home and refusing to be in an autograph session at Milwaukee. But everyone has kissed and made up.

Lap 100 -- Herta, Wheldon, Kanaan, Hornish, Dario, Rice, Sharp, Buddy Lazier, Helio, Bell

Herta's ahead by about half a week. Something like 10 seconds.

ABC is packing this broadcast with a billion commercials. Many side-by-side where we have in-car camera shots from Dario or someone. Average speed 211 so far. No yellows.

Dario asks if Wheldon will let him by. The answer is, ah, no. Wheldon calls him a wanker (ok, made that up).

Herta ahead by 11.3 seconds, which is a month by IRL standards.

Lap 120. Four or five wide. Harris says Barnhart has "eyes like Marty Feldman" when he sees it. Shout out to Harris for that line.

Lap 122. Yellow, Yellow, Yellow. Ed Carpenter has blown up. Andretti is not really thrilled with the yellow. Allows the field to bunch up. May take Herta 10 or so laps to get back to a 15-second lead. Inconvenient. Raise your hand if you think anyone but AGR will win this thing.

Ed Carpenter gets shout outs for not staying on the track when he blows up.

Danica Cam. There she is. I'd recognize her helmet anywhere.

Rice out. Half shaft. The guy snaps them like twigs. In a daring move to get yet more air time, Chip fires Rice. (Kidding!) Jamie interviews Rice who looks like his favorite dog just died. Rice doesn't swear violently into the mic, so points to him. Rahal Letterman has been crap since Indy.

Lap 138. Helio blows up. We got fire. Helio parks it by the fire station and gets out of there. Jogging down pit row.

Jamie with Bobby Rahal. What's your strategy for getting Danica from 18th place and a lap down to the front, aside from witchcraft. Bobby is realistic. Something about staying out during yellow pits. No way to answer that question without just laughing.

Commercials everywhere on this broadcast. Night Stalker is coming back! Sweet.

Lap 142, Herta, Hornish, Wheldon, Scheckter, Kanaan, Bell, Dario.

Danica 14th.

We got a crewman down. Tire from Briscoe came off and smacked a Carpentier crew guy. Briscoe is now taking out crew members as well. The crew guy looks like he'll be OK.

Green-green-green
Hornish leads on lap 155. Danica 16th. Scheckter is freaking out, up to 3rd. Hornish and Scheckter battling.

Danica blows up. Yellow yellow yellow. She pulls it into the pits and is bailing out. FINALLY an interesting use of Danica Cam showing all the stuff that has to happen for her to get out of the car. Jamie Little is in full sprint to catch up to Danica.

Danica interview. Danica says "you know" too often. She needs to work on it. Distracting. Jamie: What happened? Danica: Engine blew. Danica says she was all about getting out of the car because she has a problem with fire, which proves she's a smart girl. Car was off and on and off and on. No grip on the restarts. "I gotta figure something out."

Dixon gets out of the car. Blows Darren a kiss and gets fired by Chip (kidding). Crank case pressure was climbing.

Yellow Yellow Yellow.

Major crash with Yasukawa, J. Lazier, T. Bell, Kosuke. Replay shows Bell gets sideways and sets it all off.

Boles: "Looks like he got a little bit loose." Sha. When you're sideways on the track, um, yeah, that's a "little bit loose." Boles says Hornish cut Bell off and maybe forced him to lift. (I imagine my homeys at DRR scream "We got screwed!" right here).

Back to Chip for still more air time. It's the Chip Ganassi Show. Chip says this business is chicken one days and feathers the next. One day you get not a sniff of air time and the next day you fire someone and get to be on camera for two hours during the race.

Rookie sensation Ryan Briscoe is Chip's only hope now.

Scheckter's crew accuses Wheldon of blocking. NO WAY. I'm sure Brian would crack down on that. Panther must be wrong.

Jamie with Roger Penske. Penske says it's a "real trophy dash" now.

IRL warns Herta not to pull a Helio and jump the restart or, well, he'll get a stern talking to from race control!

Wheldon may have flipped off Kanaan. Most likely they were calling plays or doing rock-paper-scissors to see who was going to get to go ahead.

Green-green-green.

Scheckter gets a push from Buddy Lazier, gets by Kanaan who was victim of the dreaded Dirty Air. Kanaan takes it third. Scheckter goes low. Then high. Forces Kanaan below the white line. Payback for Kansas.

Checkers: Herta, Wheldon, Scheckter, Kanaan, Sam.

ABC spares us the post race group burn out. The rest of the AGR 4-pack joins Herta in victory lane. Those guys probably go to the can together.

©2005 Bill Zahren