IMS Breaks Up Fuel Doping Scheme

Note: Hold your outrage. Everything below is made up. Do not call law enforcement or boycott the AGR merchandise trailer in protest.

In a daring midnight raid, Indianapolis Motor Speedway security forces claim to have broken up a fuel doping scheme by Andretti Green Racing.

IMS yellow shirts raided the AGR garages at the speedway earily Wednesday and confiscated 50 gallons of Everclear, a 190-proof grain alcohol. Security forces said they became suspicious when they found dozens of flattend cardboard Everclear cases in track dumpsters. Security routinely checks dumpsters to make sure anyone inside holds the proper credentials.

Chester Vigilant, spokesman for the IMS security force, said authorities now believe AGR was planning to mix the Everclear with their fuel supply to increase its ethanol content. In 2006, the IndyCar series started using a 90% methanol/10% ethanol blend. They plan to switch to 100% fuel-grade ethanol in 2007.

Two key facts in the scheme:

1) ethanol (or ethyl alcohol, sometimes called "grain alcohol") distilled for use as fuel is the same alcohol as that distilled for use in alcoholic beverages. In fact, federal law requires 100% pure ethanol be mixed with gasoline or another substance to make it unfit for human consumption (denatured) before it can leave an ethanol production plant.

2) ethanol contains 77,000 BTU per gallon, compared to methanol's 64,250 BTU/gallon content. That means, all other things being equal, a vehicle will travel farther on a gallon of ethanol than it will on a gallon of methanol.

Since Everclear is 95% ethanol, AGR allegedly figured it was close enough to fuel-grade ethanol to give them a few laps more per a tank.

"It was a fuel mileage scheme," said Vigilant. "They mix the Everclear with their fuel, that drives up the ethanol content, they go more laps without pitting, bingo, the bitchslapping ends. Plus, it's a good thing to do for the American economy."

Vigilant said AGR was apparently driven to the scheme after going winless in the season's first three races. In fact, Marlboro Team Penske drivers have led 317 of the first 400 laps of 2006. AGR is winless in the first three races of the season, finishing every race behind Penske and Target Chip Ganassi. Rumors that Penske plans to put stickers on its cars that say "How ya doing back there, AGR?" or "Is that a Toyota engine you got there?" could not be confirmed.

Representatives from AGR insisted the 50 gallons of ethanol were collected in preparation "for our Indy victory punch party." AGR said they would vigorously contest all charges and make full use of the appeal process. Paul Tracey allegedly responded with an e-mail wishing them the best of luck on that deal.

In other news, Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford Rookie Sensation Katherine Legge responded to rumors that she would drive at Indy this year with, "225 in a car on an oval? You'd have to be daft."

Notes from the 2006 Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi

Notes taken from the ESPN broadcast of the Indy Japan 200 at Twin Ring Motegi on 4/22/06.

Holy budget cuts! Jerry Punch, MD, goes solo on the track reporter front. No Jamie (maybe her height and blonde hair scared the Japanese fans). No Vince. No Jack the Root.

First mention of Danica is under two minutes in! Someone must have sent the ABC/ESPN guys a memo: "MORE DANICA." After relatively little about her during the first two races, it's a Danica Fest!

Danica Montage! FHM photos. Complete with audio from Todd Harris from last year. Good times, Todd. Somewhere in a bar Todd is screaming "ROOKIE SENSATION." Jerry Punch, MD, with Danica who is sporting her Jumbo Shades again. Jerry: What did you learn last year here? Danica is stumped. Not sure. Jerry: what's your strategy? Danica: move up fast.

Rusty and Scott. Rusty -- Danica is good. Scott -- Danica is good. Last year was her "coming out party."

Video of first practice -- Sam going ass-first into the wall. Video of second practice. Jeff "No Relation to Gene" Simmons in the ultra-stylish ethanol car going into the wall. Everybody go out and buy a tank of E10 to make Jeff's sponsors feel better!

Punch and Helio. Helio says turn 1 and 2 are flat out, turn 3 and 4 you have to drop two gears. Set up is a challenge. Do you set up for turn 1 and 2 or 3 and 4? Punch gives him an egg. The track is egg shaped. Get it?

WTF? ESPN is repeating the SAME EXACT video that we just saw two minutes ago. Danica montage. Danica interview. Video of race accidents. Helio interview. The egg from Punch. Nice. It's like the Groundhog Day movie. Maybe ESPN is letting the college mascots that run around their offices handle the tape replay. I hear there's a high school media production class in Trenton, N.J. that does a good job.

Come on, let's light this candle.

We're back from a commercial and it's lap 17. WTF again? ESPN did not show the start. Shocking. Dude, seriously, this is just sad. I hope some production manager at ESPN is screaming into the phone right now.

Let me bust out the lap chart and go back in time for ya: Lap 10 -- Helio, Dixon, Wheldon, Hornish, Franchitti, Kanaan, Matsuura, Herta, Meira, The Famous Author Danica.

The televised race started on lap 17. I'm seriously tempted to just bag the whole race and go watch a soccer game. But no, pressdog hangs in there.

Helio is dominating. Posting the top nine laps of the race. Marty Ried talks about lack of yellows.

Helio puts Simmons (Jeff, not Gene) a lap down. Major air for Jeff. Tough situation coming in after Paul Dana's death.

Lap 25 -- Wheldon, Helio, Dixon, Dario, Sammy, Kanaan, Matsuura, Herta, Vitor, Scheckter (Danica 11th)

Lap 27 -- yellow yellow yellow. Enge is junk. Smoldering black car. Eddie Carpenter is junk as well. Enge is getting out of the car.

Commercial number 82 in the first 30 laps of the race. Marty says we'll be right back, but I wonder on what lap. Maybe we come back from the commercial and it's lap 65, or it's the start of the race. Video guys are clearly involved in drinking games or doing shots every time Rusty Wallace says "I tell you what..."

We're back, right on the tail end of Punch's report. Seriously. We hear his last four words. I have no f-ing idea what is going on. But, hey, let's go to another commercial!

IndyCar Series Magazine ad. Maybe I can buy it and read about the start of the Motegi race, which ESPN thinks is none of my business, apparently.

Coming back into the race, Jeff Simmons says he's a huge sushi fan, so life is good in Japan. Ed Carpenter says the Japanese have great cucumbers. (?)

Race summary, in case you are joining us late, or have been here the whole time ...

Green green green. Yellow Yellow Yellow. Sharp gets sideways in front of the start-finish. Everyone else is on the binders. SIMMONS IS AIRBORNE. Does one barrel roll in mid air and lands again. Forget burning ethanol, Jeff is going to have a shot of the stuff (ethanol distilled for cars is the same exact stuff as the alcohol in beer and wine). Sharp back to the pits. He's rear wingless from the Simmons impact. PJ Chesson is toast as well. Sharp nuked the rookies.

Replay. Major props to the flag man. He hung in there, waving his yellow flag wildly, even leaning over the flag stand thing as debris and Jeff Simmons's entire car flew up in the air toward him. The flag man has major cajones. I would have been diving for cover.

We got 24 laps of yellow as they sweep up the combined crashes.

Scott Sharp with Punch -- no idea what happened. Snapped around on me.

Scott Goodyear -- once you start to slide, you're just a passenger. Goodyear laments Simmons's departure. He came up from the Indy Lights, Goodyear says. I think Scotty meant the Indy Pro Series. Indy Lights is long gone.

Punch with Enge, who has already changed into his street clothes. Enge says he was going for the pits and something in the front end broke. "At that point, I was just a passenger."

Marty throws Japan TV under the bus by saying that video supplied by them was not conclusive on what happened in the Enge crash, so thank God for Punch.

Lap 52 -- green green green.

Lap 53 -- Helio, Wheldon, Dario, Kanaan, Sam, Dixon, Matsuura, Herta, Buddy Rice, Danica.

Helio throws an NFL-worthy block. Booth guys are pretty sure the Iron Hand of Justice, Brian Barnhart, will be cracking down. Danica and Matsuura almost touch. Vitor is rampaging up the field. Rusty drops "hot rod" reference number 1.

Helio ahead by 1.1 seconds. Get used to it. Rice up to 4th by lap 73. Started 18. He's almost as good as Danica. Danica is 9th after starting 14th.

Lap 75 -- (Stop me if you've heard this one before) Helio, Wheldon, Kanaan, Dixon, Dario, Sam, Buddy Rice, Herta, Danica, Matsuura.

Punch -- Danica feeling good about her car. I'm pleased to hear it. Renewed discussion in the booth about how important Motegi was to Danica last year. Coming out party. Knew she belonged. Rusty says no question she belongs. "This gal is very focused." Buddy is on the move. Let's talk more about Danica.

Marty slaps Japan TV again: "Our friends at Japanese television finally show us Kanaan."

Green pit cycle. Rusty begins starting every sentence with "I tell ya what." Mario in for a pit. (An alert poster below reminds me that Mario was not, in fact, in the race. It was Marco. I think they may be related.) Rusty: "I tell ya what, hope he doesn't snap the half shaft this time." Much cycling. We're through it by lap 100.

Lap 101 -- Helio, Dixon, Kanaan, Dario, Wheldon, Sammy, Herta, Rice, Danica, Scheckter.

Lap 109 Wheldon working on Kanaan. Marty says "if you were with us during pre-race, you heard Helio talking about" the different turns. Actually, Marty, we heard it twice. Which was better than actually seeing the start of the race.

Rusty: "I tell ya what ..."

Wheldon around TK on Lap 115, Much momentum talk again. Motegi Momentum. Momentum going into Indy. Indy is coming up. Don't miss the Indy 500.

AGR 5th in points, being bitch slapped hard by Penske and TCG. Matsuura is tied for 5th in points as well. Team Penske has led 317 of the first 400 laps of the season. That is a bitch slapping.

Rusty: "I tell ya what ..."

Hot rod reference number 2

Rusty: "I tell ya what ..."

Rusty: "I tell ya what ..."

If I was drinking every time he said "I tell ya what" I'd be mega twisted right now.

Lap 125 -- Helio, Dixon, Dario, Wheldon, Kanaan, Hornish, Herta, Rice, Danica, Scheckter.

Rusty, who just got done saying Helio was on fire to have 40 more horsepower this year than last year (when he had a pig Toyota) tries to recover the diss to Toyota. "Last year Toyota engines which were good engines, don't get me wrong, but ..." they mainly got bitch slapped every race.

Kanaan in with a leaking tire. Wheldon around Dario on lap 129.

Rusty: "I tell ya what I'd rather be on the tail end of the lead lap for sure." Too much saki in the both. Rusty is starting to double up his "tell ya what's" with two or more in a single sentence.

Lap 130 Helio in.

139 -- Helio's lead is UNDER A SECOND. This is a huge news development in this race.

Danica is surrendering 8th place to come into the pits, Marty says. Dixon around Helio. Touched tires. Dixon backs off.

Lap 143 -- Dario comes into his pit box going about 50 mph. Takes out one of his crew guys! Tire changer down. Slow mo replay. Looks nasty. Guy has some kind of leg injury, gotta be.

Lap 151 -- Helio, Wheldon, Hornish, Dario, Herta, Rice, Danica, Matsuura, Vitor, Dixon

Dixon pits. STALLS IT. Can't get underway. Pushing and restarting. Crazy. Punch says the guy down in Dario's pit is Steve Price and the IRL safety posse is on the job. He's sitting on pit wall. He'll get checked out later.

Commercial. Marty: Stay with us. Could go to the wire like Homestead (if there is a dramatic departure from the way the race has gone for the first 150 laps).

Back from commercial. Felipe into the wall. Got up into the marbles. He's done. AJ with Punch -- AJ says Felipe struggling all day. "Just one of them racing deals." Getting lapped by Sam and "he (Sam) likes to use a lot of race track." BAM. Super Tex is always good for one zinger.

167 -- green green. Buddy passes Danica. Kanaan around Sam on lap 170.

Rusty: "I tell ya what ..."

Rice may have blocked Matsuura. I'm sure Barnhart is CRACKING DOWN.

Rusty: "I tell ya what ..."

Penske has now led 388 of 475 laps. If this were a boxing match, the ref would stop it.

Lap 175 -- Helio (shocker) Wheldon, Kanaan, Hornish, Herta, Rice, Matsuura, Danica, Dixon (lap down), Vitor (lap down).

21 laps to go. Helio stretching it out in a Sebastien Bourdais-ish fashion. Driving one handed. Talking on his cell phone. Lap 185 Helio ahead by 4 seconds.

I think Rusty said something here about a top-5 finish for Rahal Letterman would be like the cure for cancer. I tell ya what, I'm not sure what he's saying.

Rusty says there is going to be some passing soon! Only if you count cars passing the start-finish line as "passing."

190 -- Helio (I swear!), Wheldon, Kanaan, Hornish, Rice, Herta, Matsuura, Danica, Dixon, Meira.

Helio is ahead by 5.4 seconds. Five laps to go. Riding with Wheldon. THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME.

200 -- Helio, Wheldon, Kanaan, Hornish, Rice, Herta, Matsuura, Danica (last car on the lead lap), Dixon (1 lap down), Vitor (1 lap down).

Helio climbs the fence. Almost hugs and kisses Punch during the post-win interview. Says again "I drove it like I stole it." Gives a shout out to the team.

14 cars running at the end. Danica was 8th. Wheldon sports some new white shades. Says the event was fantastic.

I was so moved by ESPN's dedication to quality, I decided to check through this for typos and such later. Just slap it up there!

Indy Faithful Hold Good Friday Vigil

Note to the gullible: this is all made up.

Tens of hundreds of Indy Faithful chanting "I am MINDY" converged on the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Good Friday to hold a vigil for any of a dozen drivers they hope will be on the starting grid on May 28.

The occasion was the release of the entry list for the 90th annual Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Along with the expected drivers were cars for 17 "TBA" drivers. The Good Friday outpouring is considered part of the pre-May ritual of trying to guess which drivers will be in the 13 or so "Indy only" cars.

Three-time IRL most popular driver Sarah Fisher had her usually strong contingent at the event. The president of Fisher's fan club was briefly detained by yellow-shirted track security for threatening to chain himself to the track's famous scoring pylon until Fisher secured one of the 17 TBA rides. Security let him go, however, when the saw he didn't have a chain.

"All I'm saying," said the Fisher Fans president, "is Doug 'We Got Screwed' Boles (from Panther racing) and Sarah? Magic. People will be saying, 'Danica who?' " Panther racing has one extra car entered besides one for their regular driver, Vitor Meira. Rumors swirled that Panther was thinking about adding Fisher to the team to form the "Payback's a Bitch" team.

The theory went that after Meira lived in the shadow of Rookie of the Year Sensation Danica Patrick (5'2", 100 pounds) in 2005 and Fisher felt the diss of Danica back in 2004, the duo would be motivated to lap her much-photographed bottom.

"It would be a great story line," said one Fisher Fan. "Tony George, baby, think about it. I'm talking massive ticket sales. And what about those extra Vision cars?"

The vigil was remarkably peaceful. Mostly the fans milled around with homemade signs for their favorite drivers. Jimmy Kite had a strong contingent in the crowd, as did Mark Dismore, Alex Barron, Roberto Moreno, Max Papis and Tora-Tora-Tora Takagi (just to make it interesting). Most people in the crowds carried laptop computers so they could periodically post to message boards.

Notes from the CCWS Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach 2006

Notes taken during the NBC broadcast of the ChampCar World Series' Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, 4/9/06.

The first-ever notes from a ChampCar broadcast for me. Be gentle. Before we get to the race, let's kick this season off with a ChampCar season preview on SPEED TV. The star of this show is Kevin Kalkhoven's $47 million airplane. Much air time for the plane. Jetting from city to city for a "Turbo Tour" in that bad boy has to be rugged. Security? Whatever.

I seriously think Katherine "Show Some" Legge glammed down for the Turbo Tour. Went out of her way to not look glamorous. I think one little girl said something like, "You're not Danica Patrick."

After an arena football overtime game, welcome to Long Beach for the 2006 Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford. (BPCCWSPF). Ties the record for longest series name in the history of motor sports. Since 1975, Long Beach has featured some of the biggest names in racing. Today -- not so much.

Today's show is all about Sebastien Bourdais, the Frenchman, who strikes a boxing pose in his intro. Um, no. Super Fly Weight. The Fighting Frenchy. The look is not working for him.

It's a couple minutes into the show before the NBC posse mentions Katherine Legge. Admirable restraint. Over in the IRL, they were busting into double-figures on the number of mentions of Danica by minute two of her first race. They came right out of the chute with a montage of DanicaFHM shots, all of it. Here we get Legge in her race suit. Rick Benjamin declares it a new season and says "everyone is a favorite." Yeah. Right. I see Andrew Ranger running down Sebastien sometime soon.

Let's go over to Derek Daly for some unintelligible words. Derek started on the front row with Mario "No Last Name Needed" in 1984 according to Rick. Derek covers the fact that Sebastian and Paul "No Relation to Dick" Tracy don't like each other. Much mutual punting. Derek says there's a "turd star team about to emerge." A turd about to emerge? Oh, a THIRD team. Oh, OK. Well, that makes sense.

It's AJ "The Lone (full-time) American" Allmendinger and Justin Wilson for RuSPORT. These boys might cause Boudais to lead somewhat less than 95 percent of all the laps of ChampCar this year. Mechanical failures are good for two percent, but RuSport could actually lead Bourdais for five or six laps this year. We swear.

Starting lineup -- Bourdais, Justin Wilson, Bruno Junqueira, AJ Humdinger, Mario Dominguez, Tracy, Alex Tagliani, Oriol "goes great with milk" Servia, Will Power (will power? Nice parents) Christiano "What's" da Matta, Antonio Pizzonia, Jimmy Vasser, Dan Clarke, Jan Heylen, Nelson Philippe, Andrew "Lone" Ranger, Legge, Charles Zwolsman.

Early question: If Katherine wins, will she get her picture taken with the ChampCar Grid Girls?

Michelle Beisner is in the house. She's deployed with the viewing-enhancing job of showing you all the super-fun and exciting non-racing stuff that goes on during the weekend in Long Beach. Michelle is all about the low cut and sleeveless tops, better to show off her impressive guns.

Jan Beekhuis in the pit. Talks about Bourdais doing 6 laps in qualifying and then parking it. Maybe he sat in his car and talked on the cell phone about how he was going to be on the pole, again. Nobody managed to knock him off the pole, so Bourdais now has fresher tires than the rest of the field. Oh great. Bourdais with fresher tires. Video of Paul Tracy banking it off the wall during practice.

Let's light this candle. Green-green. Cue the circus music as they head into turn 1.

Woeeeeeee nelly. We got cars everywhere. At first Derek blames Tracy for being too aggressive (That never happens! We swear.) but then the 42 replays (including Chopper Cam) show that Mario got into the ass end of Tracy, who banked off the wall and took out the Lone American. Junqueira got collected as well. Sucks to be AJ. Minding his own business and suddenly he's got a car in his side.

Video of AJ walking back to his pit. In ChampCar, I think the drivers get out and walk back to the pit rather than wait for five minutes for the safety crew to get there. We got pedestrian drivers everywhere.

Breaking News: Legge is up to 13th after lap 1. We're going down to "hook up" with Michelle, right on national TV. Michelle enhances our viewing by showing us scenes from a car show. Some motorcyclists jumping over stuff.

Bruno into the pit. Furious taping of the side pod. Back wing replacement. NBC shows Bruno's X-rays after he got shown the wall at Indy last year. Indy Motor Speedway is hellish on backs. Bruno's back looks like a set of hooks you'd mount in your garage to put tools on. Two 11-inch rods and 10 lag screws. Yow.

Crew sees an oil leak at the back of Bruno's car. He's done for the day.

Lap 5 -- Bruno is with Jan. Bruno said he felt someone hit him from behind. Then it was over. Insightful interview Jan! Bruno felt someone hit him in the rear.

Cameron Steele with Tacy. His teammate drilled him. No comment from Mario's pit. He's still running.

Replay number 432. Derek: "Dominguez just drop-kicked him."

Oriol in the pit. Felt Paul "landing on my left front." Oriol says it's pretty standard stuff for turn 1 of race 1 of a season.

AJ is identified as the "top-qualifying American," a title he has locked up forever, since he's also the only American. I bet Dominguez is going to always be the "top-qualifying Mexican" as well. (An alert reader points out that Jimmy Vasser, also an American, is in this race. I stand corrected. We go two Americans out of 18. But Jimmy is not a full-time driver, so we'll let AJ remain the Lone [full time] American.)

We're back to green. Bourdais is posting the fastest laps of the race. I think he may actually be talking to his pit on the radio asking them to name a time and he'll see how close he can get to it. I also thought I saw a cup holder in his car.

NBC interrupts this race for a SportsCenter-like sports update? What the? There's Al Troutrig on my TV telling me one NBA team blew another out by 25.

We're back to the race just in time to see a full-course caution for the Cedric the Entertainer car driven by Dan Clarke in the tires. Not sure why. No video that I saw. Dan has no rear wing, but once pushed out of the tires he's still driving about 176 around the course to get back to the pit. Rear wing? We don't need no stinkin' rear wing. Derek is impressed with Clarke's ability to go fast without a rear wing.

Rick says Bourdais is in for fuel only. Nobody told the tire changers, however, because the changed the tires right there on TV. Rick may have been looking at the car show that Michelle alerted us to earlier. Later Rick corrects himself and says Bourdais did, in fact, get tires.

Lap 15. NBC advertises Race Control on ChampCar's Web where you can get telemetry from cars, in-car radio, etc. Way cool. I actually signed up after the race. Advertising works! Note to the IRL -- you gotta get cha some off that on your site.

Lap 17, Legge is 12th and Plucky.

Lap 19. Legge segment. Had three victories in Atlantics. Moved up to ChampCar this year. Jan chatted with her pre-race. Katherine. Kathy. Kath, baby. Seriously, I missed about your first nine words. No idea what you said. Very Daly-ish. An English or Irish accent speaking as fast as possible is tough for us Yanks to catch. When I finally figured out what she was saying, she was talking about her goal being to finish. As a rookie, she'd like to be in the top 10 and on the lead lap. Katherine won in Atlantics last year at Long Beach "Believe you me it's a bit of a different car" this year, Legge says.

Lap 23. Bourdais in front by 5.8 seconds. NBC never shows in-car video from Bourdais because you could clearly see him talking on a cell phone as he drives or maybe checking his wristwatch. Daly says Bourdais is still pissed that F1 has snubbed him. Taking it out on the ChampCar field, apparently.

Bourdais' fastest lap is half a second faster than any other fast lap.

Legge up to 10th! Legge came in for fuel under the yellow. Off sequence pit strategy. Very Danica Patrick-esque. Replay number 781 of the turn 1 wreck.

Over to Michelle who has a segment that features her in a go-kart. She's miked and makes some screeching sounds as she turns laps. Then calls out Katherine Legge.

Derek says Will Power (the name kills me) "is not going to try some ban-zie move" on teammate Alex Tagliani. Wait a second, Power is off his line. Blocked a driver behind him and then was way wide and had to lock them up, go off to a run-off and do a half donut and come back on. BAN-ZAAAAAIIII!

Legge spins! Legge spins! Legge Cam (camera on the dash that shows Legge's head and torso) Derek says this, I swear: "LOOK AT HER CHEST. LOOK AT HER CHEST." Dude, seriously. Right on TV? Oh, he's talking about her chest going up and own from exertion. Sorry. My bad. Derek's point is it's a lot of work to drive a ChampCar. I get it. I'll always LOOK AT HER CHEST whenever I can, I guess.

Safety crews take about an hour to get to Legge's car, which is stalled. She didn't hit anything.

Commercial. OK, the Mobile Clean 5000 oil ad is seriously dumb, OK? A series of "tough guys" coming up to admire some oil a guy is putting into his car. Besides being lame, most every oil lasts for 5,000 miles just fine under normal, non street course driving conditions. Simmer down.

Lap 39. Replay number 987 of the turn-1 crash.

Legge back to 12th and a lap down after she spun and we looked at her chest. Bourdais is lapping the field. Throwing out wrappers from the Big Mac Value Meal he's eating while driving. (He's loving it!)

Rick says Justin Wilson is saving fuel. Darek declares it a "cat and mouse game." Supposedly Wilson is going to try and stay out when Bourdais pits, then stretch out in front of him and try and pit an not lose a position. Right after that he'll look for the quarter the tooth fairy left him under his helmet.

Wilson pits ahead of Bourdais. So much for that strategy. Pit reporter says starting this year you can't adjust fuel economy in the car. No fuel settings in a Champ Car? Nobody got the booth guys the memo, apparently.

Nelson Felipe is done. Was he in the race to begin with?

Dominguez bounces off the wall. Pizzonia locks them up in the front straight.

Let's go to Michelle for another tour of the venue! She shows us places we can watch the race from. That would be handy about now since I can't watch the race from where I am sitting in my living room since we keep going to Michelle and her tan guns.

Legge is TENTH and a lap down.

Rick talks about Legge's quick rise. (KK swears it has nothing to do with Danica Patrick. Swears.) Daly: "She is relentless." Legge pits. Flash back to last year. Video of KK jumping up and down in the pit as Katherine wins. You can almost hear "ka-ching" each time he lands.

Turn-1 crash replay number 1,092.

Will Power gets sideways. Not so good. Katherine Legge is now back on the lead lap. Huh? How did that happen? She passed Bourdais? ??? When he pitted or something? None of my business since the announcing team doesn't explain it.

Restart: Let's go to the pits with Rocketsports Paul Gentilozzi. He's pissed because one-lap-down Pizzonia got told to move over on the restart and let the leaders through. Gentilozzi says Pizzonia wanted to unlap himself "I guess we're not supposed to pass and that upsets me." Pizzonia was going to pass Bourdais and unlap himself? Ah. Riiiiiight.

More NBC SportsCenter here.

We're back. Legge is EIGHTH on Lap 61. Relatively little freaking out over this.

Video of Clarke coming around to his pit with a tire that's flat and flapping off the rim. First he loses his rear wing, now he's driving on three tires. Wildman.

Rick starts calling Legge "Lady Katherine Legge." Nice. Is that a British thing? Lord and Lady? Or is he calling our attention to her gender, as if we're not clear that "Katherine" is a female. (Derek: LOOK AT HER CHEST. LOOK AT HER CHEST.")

Lap 64. The clock is up on the screen. We're doing a timed deal here. There's a limit to the amount of time we can watch Bourdais lead by 10 seconds. Too much carnage and too small of a TV window, I'm thinking. Bourdais is about a day a head. Already waving to the crowd.

Again with the "Lady Katherine" thing. What's that about? Please stop.

Bourdais now leads by 12.5 seconds. If Pizzonia hadn't been FORCED to let people pass, he'd be right off Bourdais rear end right now. Bourdais is going to win this thing with the least camera time of any winner in the history of racing. NBC has shown him maybe five minutes of the whole race. They may know focusing on Bourdais will cause rampant napping among the dwindling audience.

Shot of Bourdais' pit crew. They have all the excitement and anticipation of the win of someone waiting in line at Starbucks. Bourdais wins and does donuts. Legge is 8th, last car on the lead lap.

Top 10 -- Bourdais, Wilson, Tagliani, Dominguez, da Matta, Ranger, Heylen, Legge, Lady Katherine, Power, Pizzonia.

NBC is outta there as soon as the race is over. Tick-tock. Must be an infomercial they need to run.

Notes from the IRL Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg 2006

Notes from the ESPN coverage of the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on 4/2/06

Something like 15 seconds into the broadcast and we're talking to Danica. Danica-fo-fanica. D-D-Danica! She's wearing possibly the world's largest production sunglasses. Looks like someone stapled a tinted visor to her head. Massive. Let's do this: Let's give the Danica interviewers some new questions. Let's veer sharply away from the "So, you going to win today?" line of questioning. Work on it. Maybe ask her about her power yoga or something. Mix it up.

Brent "Street Cred" Musburger is trackside with Rusty "Hot Rod" Wallace. Got themselves some kind of NFL on Fox Super Bowlish set up there. Talking about Paul Dana. Montage representing about how it's unfair to Paul to go off about what caused the accident, etc. Ed Carpenter talks about how it's wrong to diss Paul. Tony George and Buddy Rice also represent on Paul's behalf. Nicely played. Major props to Paul for chasing down his ethanol sponsorship and being part of the league switching to ethanol. A little video montage tribute to Paul. He earned his ride.

Commercial break: Peter Brady is now schleping the "Ab Lounger XL." Commercial break features Christopher Knight, aka Peter Brady, promising sculpted abs if you try the Ab Lounger. Hey, a guy's gotta eat. I did not, oddly, run to my phone to take Pete up on his offer of a free trial.

Obligatory "I AM INDY" promo coming out of the commercial. I wonder if Gene gets paid residuals for it.

Over to Vince for an interview with Wheldon. Wait a second, Wheldon looks very de-jelled. Dan is not jelling for this race. There are no visible hair products. Kind of has the dry look going. What the? Dan has what appears to be the same sun glasses on as Danica. Those things are huge. Maybe they both have the same endorsement deal.

Helio with Jamie Little (get her in a car!). Helio and Jamie together make the perky-o-meter hit the rev limiter. They are both ON FIRE to be there. If Helio and Jamie reproduced the child would exit the birth canal doing a cheer. That also would be one attractive baby. Helio says patience is the key. Don't get freaked out to lead on lap 6.

Over to Jerry Punch, M.D., with Dario. Talks about Dario taking the tires in practice. Dario thanks Punch for bringing it up. The whole race-day practice thing. Dicy. Rusty is not in favor of race-day practice sessions. He's spoken to Brian Barnhart about it.

Over to Jack the Root in the Andretti pit. I'd like to know how many races it takes before someone interviewing Marco can complete the entire interview without mentioning that Marco is, in fact, related to Michael or Mario. Sha. "Your dad" and "grandpa" are like the fifth words out of every interviewer's mouth. Um, maybe make MORE of the family connection and just call him "Michael's son is here with me and ..."

Jack asks Mario's Grandson what he thinks of Cheever. Video of Cheever and Mike's son getting together in practice. Mike's kid says Cheever chopped him. Arute ends the interview in a truly unique way by saying, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." GENIUS. Wait a second -- you mean Marco is RELATED to Michael and Mario? I had no idea ... No chance for Cheever to give his side. Screw Eddie! He's not an Andretti.

Gene Simmons goes for audience participation on the "lady and gentlemen, start your engines" with marginal success. Maybe if he had the makeup on they would have been with him more.

19 cars, 14 turns. Let's go to Marty, Rusty and Scott Goodyear.

Goodyear talks about 14 turns and tough to pass. Shows Kosuke going nose first into the tires followed by Dario. Rusty talks about his taking a spin in Sam Hornish's Indy Car back during the Homestead test. Video of it. Rusty is not exactly lighting it up going around the track. Helio: "How long has this guy been racing again?" Dissed by the Brazilian! We ain't got no power steering in an Indy Car, Rusty. This ain't cushy NASCAR, here. Prepare to get your ass beaten like a rented mule for 100 laps on a bumpy course and work the wheel until your shoulders scream for mercy. Welcome to open wheel.

We're riding with Danica around the course. Goodyear narrates. Danica starts 14th. Wheldon 13th. Marco 10th. Tony Kanaan 3rd. Dixon 2. Dario 1.

ESPN/ABC is into talking to the drivers while they are on the track. This is Rusty's job for the entire season. He gives it kind of a citizen's band radio thing: "Dan Wheldon, this is Rusty Wallace in the ESPN booth, you got us?" Very Smokey and the Bandit-ish. "Breaker 1-9, this is Rusty Rocketship. You got your ears on, Danny? Come back."

Coming down the front straight during the warm up they set off a bunch of fireworks causing a major smokescreen. I can't see the cars. Drivers are probably "WTF? I can't see sheeee-it."

Let's go to Jack who reminds us that the average rookie takes 33 races before he or she wins, and Danica is only about half way there. Expectations managed. Let's go around the horn -- Punch with TK. Jamie talks about Ed Carpenter who is sitting this one out with a bruised lung. Roberto Moreno is in Ed's ride. First race since 1999.

Let's light this candle. Green flag. Green flag.

Cue the circus music as we head into turn 1. Wait a second. We're through turn 1 with no one rolling it! Now we've competed a whole lap without a yellow. Tony Kanaan is very strong. Fitness is key. Tony's got the guns on him. Rusty says he has arms like a World Wrestling Federation wrestler. Tony "Super Fly" Kanaan.

After lap 1 --Dario, Dixon, Super Fly, Hornish, Helio, Rice, Herta, Scheckter, Matsuura, Mario's Grandson. Danica 14th.

Lap 4, Dario is 1.5 seconds ahead. Jack the Root reports that Dan is up to 6.

Wheldon and Marco (Michael's Boy). I think Marco chopped him. Marco wasn't going to give up on the corner, hung in there. We got contact. Jack rushes to ask Michael if Marco learned that from Mike or Mario? Wait a second. You mean Marco is RELATED to Michael and Mario? I wasn't picking that up.

Lap 10 -- Dario, Dixon, Super Fly, Helio, Sammy, Rice, Bryan "World of" Herta, Scheckter, Matsuura, Micheal's Boy.

Lap 15. Dario has trouble. He's toast. Into the pits. Front right suspension is shot. Jack is all over it. Reports the upper ball joint is popped out. Not good. Jack with Dario. Dario says he felt it coming for a few laps then it popped. Dario: "I'm just pissed off right now. Even with three wheels in the wagon we were still pulling away." Can he say "pissed" on TV? Do we need a five-second delay here?

Lap 20 -- Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Helio, Sam, Rice, Herta, Scheckter, Matsuura (stop me if you've heard this one before) The Third Generation of Andrettis, Vitor Meira.

Dixon leads by 3.5 seconds. Lap 24 he's ahead by about 15 seconds.

Marty: "Let's go to the Triple J Ranch" for a roundup.

Checking in with Danica. She's still in the race. Arute reports that Helio was hanging out with Sebastian Bourdais of that other series recently. Hornish likes his car. Jamie says Buddy Rice is up to fifth. Punch says Herta has understeer. Punch also has a report on Marco in which he, shockingly, mentions Mario and Michael. Marco is a -- get ready for it -- "chip off the block." Where do they come up with this stuff? GENIUS. I'm sensing that Marco is related to Michael and Mario.

Back on the course, Roberto Moreno is driving like he's in a NASCAR. Paint is being swapped. Sticks his nose into the back of Vitor's car. We got yellow carbon fiber flying.

Lap 29. Moreno pits. Might have screwed himself with the partial punt of Vitor. Jamie is all over it. Says they are sending Moreno back out.

Lap 30 -- Dixon, Tony, Helio, Sam, Herta, Scheckter, Masuura, Rice, Mario's Grandson, Vitor. Lap 33 -- Pit cycle begins. Lap 37 -- Danica is 12th. Somewhere Todd Harris is screaming "HERE COMES MS. PATRICK!"

Lap 40 -- Dixon, Helio, Kanaan, Rice, Sam, Herta, Scheckter, Matsuura, Wheldon, Vitor.

Dixon leads the race by a week. I think he stopped for some smokes in turn five. Lap 43 Helio almost rams his nose under Dixon's tail. One of Dixon's front wing flaps is cutting a grove into Dixon's front tire. Smoke rolling. Arute testifies as to the greatness of Firerstone Firehawks.

Lap 44 -- Helio passes for the lead. Televised pass for the lead!

We're coming up on half the race without a yellow. Rusty is used to having about 12 cautions before the midpoint. His attention span may be getting taxed by all this green-flag racin'.

Felipe and Helio touch wheels.

Lap 46. Leaders go around PJ "Throw Some Dirt on this Bitch" Chesson. Not his day. About the closest thing to a street course in dirt track is when someone cuts through the infield. Here I notice that Buddy Lazier is out of the race. None of our business why.

Lap 50 -- Helio, Dixon, Tony (this seems familiar) Rice, Herta, Sam, Scheckter, Matsuura, Vitor, Wheldon.

Lap 53 -- Yellow, yellow, yellow. Chesson went ass around. Stalled off to the side. No contact.

Commercials. Note to Firestone: get some new commercials. The one that starts with Marco's Grandfather saying "I've been racing for 36 years ..." I've seen maybe 102 times and is at least three years old. Those Firestone ads that start with the driver's dream, as in "Danica's Dream, to ... " probably about eight years old. Ditto for Honda. I can about recite the ad that goes "it start with a dream, that led to a philosophy ... "

Dude, how many laps of caution does it take? This seems like about a 40-lap caution. Get PJ restarted and let's rock and roll. Wait a second, DANICA IS UP TO THIRD. She stayed out when everyone else pitted and gained about 10 spots. Danica staying out to move up in the field. This is totally unheard of!

Lap 55 -- Wheldon tries to go around Sam under yellow and gets punted. What the? Wheldon basically came into Sam and got a spanking for his effort. Crazy. Much discussion by the boys in the booth. Chip says race control told Wheldon to get in front of Sam "and the guy hits us." Who hit who, Chippy? Goodyear says it was foolish to get in front of Sam during that tight part of the course when they could have sorted it out on a straight away.

Let's go to Wheldon -- He says he ran over Hornish. Calls it a "silly mistake" and something that "shouldn't happen under yellow." Chippy, take note. Danno stands up and admits a screw up. Props to Wheldon.

Marco (that's Michael's boy, you know) is out. Snapped another half shaft like a dry twig. If you get on it before it's off the jack, you'll bust your drive shaft like a cheap pencil. Mario's Grandson says he needs to learn how not to do that. I give Marco props for being honest about it.

Let's go green (finally) at Lap 60 -- Rice, Herta, Danica (didn't not pit under yellow) Helio, Dixon, Kanaan, Sam, Matsuura, Vitor, Scheckter. Danica watch -- She's third at the restart and seventh one lap later. Not so good.

Lap 64 -- we go to Brian Barnhart who confirms that Wheldon was in fact supposed to move up a spot.

Lap 67 -- Buddy Rice pitting, Herta in. Danica in. Last stop for these three. The rest of the field has to pit before the end.

Hornish in. Fuel only. Dixon has more front wing issues. Got the wing end plate flapping in the breeze.

OK, is it me, or does Jack Arute end every report from the pit with some all-caps statement. So, he's talking about the flapping nose on Dixon's car, then then he gets like really close to the mic and says the last six words of his report with high drama .... "AND THEY REALLY DON'T WANT DIXON TO KNOW." Yeah, it's bugging me a lot.

Lap 75 -- (this may sound familiar) Helio, Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Scheckter, Matsuura, Vitor, Sam, Herta, Rice, Danica.

Sam has issues. Goes wide and locks up the brakes. Loses about five spots. Tons of issues. Sam is off the course, swings the ass around and gets back on the course. Nice move to avoid the caution. Rusty: "It could be the breaks, it could be the tires -- it's definitely brakes or tires."

Lap 85 -- (Take a guess) Helio, Dixon, Kanaan (how did you know?) Scheckter (!) Vitor (!) Matsuura, Rice, Herta, Danica, Sam.

Lap 88 -- Cheever gets a chance to take out the leader. Doesn't do it. Gets lapped. No air time for Eddie today. He, apparently, is not related to the Andretti's. Dixon is trying to stretch it out so he can pit and not lose the lead. Helio and Kanaan pit. Scheckter is second!

10 to go -- Dixon, Scheckter, Helio, Kanaan, Vitor, Matsuura, Rice, Herta, Danica, Sam.

Scheckter pits on Lap 93. 6 to go -- Dixon pits. Can't get out before Helio passes, but rams it into second just in front of Kanaan.

Four to go -- yellow yellow yellow. Rice gets into Scheckter. ESPN goes to Scheckter's in-car radio traffic but cuts it off when it's clear that Scheckter may soon be using marginal language.

Holy DirecTV outage! Right here a huge thunderstorms hit the pressdog's house. My dish goes black. I got zip. Nothing. I'm pissy. I deploy the emergency online radio broadcast in time to hear that Helio wins. Fences are being climbed.

My TV comes back to life in time for the post-race interview in which Helio yells that his spotter was yelling "Go for it; go like HELL (can he say "hell?") I drove it like a stole it."

Scheckter had 4th until Rice punted him. Nice.

Lap 100 -- Helio, Dixon, Kanaan, Herta, Vitor (!), Danica (Todd Harris is at a bar somewhere screaming: "ROOKIE SENSATION!") Matsuura.

Bonus programming note: pressdog plans his first ever ChampCar World Series racing notes for April 9 at Long Beach. Buckle up, NBC, because the p-dog will be in the hiz-ouse.

Yugoff Praises the Return of Eddie, Laments Harris Loss

Note: Everything below is fiction

IRL Vice President of Spontaneity Gunter Yugoff today said the IRL is "bouncing back" after the loss of Todd Harris in the booth.

"Todd, he was fabulous," said Yugoff said. "I mean, wake up the queen, you never knew what he was going to say. For someone like me -- it was manna from heaven. Someone to add some spark amid all the 'dirty air' references. But now Todd is gone. I amit I was morose for a long time. For a while, I thought about resigning."

Yugoff's spirits got a lift in the last few weeks when long-time IRL driver Eddie Cheever said he would drive in the IRL races up to and including the Indy 500. Yugoff said Cheever, famous for his colorful quotes, is a godsend to the league.

"Eddie's 'like flying a jet fighter in a gymnasim' is one of the all-time classic quotes," said Yugoff. Cheever made his famous quote about driving an Indy Car at the .75-mile Richmond speedway. "I'm looking forward to 'lunacy' and 'insanity' and the rest of it. I just hope Eddie drinks lots Red Bull before each race. Oh ... sorry."

Yugoff was encouraged by this exchange between Cheever and Marco Andretti after a practice crash on April 1.

"I'm learning who I can trust and who I can't," the Indy Star reported Marco Andretti as saying. "I can't believe he did that to me. He turned right into me with the right front (wheel). Now I've been Cheever-ed."

Cheever: "It was absurd. We were at the end of the straightaway in the braking zone, and I was holding my (driving) line. I was not moving to the left or to the right. He clipped my right-hand side. It's true Andretti style that the mistake is somebody else's. Why change something that's been consistent for 50 years?"

Yugoff also has high hopes for P.J. "Let's Throw Some Dirt on this Bitch" Chesson, a rookie driver for a Carmelo Anthony and Gene Simmons sponsored team. Chesson began his career in go-karts and then moved to motocross before going to the famously salty World of Outlaws sprint car series. He's known for his unconventional and often colorful demeanor.

"God I love those sprint car drivers," said Yugoff, "God help me, I do love them so. We have high hopes that P.J. will stand for 'Pretty Jocular.' "

As for the ABC/ESPN booth announcers, Yugoff said so far he's been somewhat disappointed in the trio of Marty Ried, Rusty Wallace and Scott Goodyear.

"I was hoping Rusty would bust into some 'boggity boggity' gibberish and start clipping off random syllables of what he was saying in a NASCAR-ish fashion, but he was amazingly understandable in the first race," said Yugoff. "But, Danica wasn't on the track for that race, so the Danica Factor may cause him to babble as wonderfully as Todd Harris. We'll have to wait and see."

In other news, ABC announced that Jamie Little is in the running to be an in-both announcer for NASCAR races next year. They wouldn't confirm reports that the network sent Little a case of Hooters T-shirts "in preparation for audition."