Danica Readies for Recording Career

Note to the humorless. Everything below is made up.

Indy Racing League Driver/Fashion Model Danica Patrick is preparing to launch a music career, according to advisors close to Danica.

The source, who asked not to be identified, said Danica decided to record an album after her less-than-ideal performance of Take Me Out to the Ballgame at a Chicago Cubs baseball game in September and the success of such musically gifted people as Paris Hilton.

"God, if Paris can do it, I sure as hell can," the hyper-competitive Danica reportedly said.

Danica is supposedly in negotiations with the owners of the rights to I'm Too Sexy made popular by the British dance-pop trio Right Said Fred in early 1992. pressdog has obtained a copy of the tweaked lyrics that Danica will record sometime in November.

I'm too sexy for the league
too sexy for the league
League's going to leave me

(Intro bridge)

I’m too sexy for the irl
too sexy for the irl
so sexy they hurl

And I'm too sexy for The Glen
too sexy for The Glen
Newton and Japan

And I'm too sexy for my teammates
Too sexy for my teammates
No way I'm drafting Simmons

I'm a hotty you know what I mean
And I do my little laps on the racetrack
Yeah on the racetrack, on the racetrack yeah
I do my little laps on the racetrack

(Bridge)

I'm too sexy for Rahal
Too sexy for Rahal
Too sexy to call
(The preceeding genius stanza contributed by Jeff at My Name is IRL)

And I'm too sexy for Jamie
Too sexy for Jamie
Think she’s hotter than me?

I'm a hotty you know what I mean
And I do my little laps on the racetrack
Yeah on the racetack on the racetrack yeah
I shake my little tush on the racetrack

(mini bridge )

I'm too sexy for my
too sexy for my
too sexy for my

'Cos I'm a hotty you know what I mean
And I do my little laps on the racetrack
Yeah on the racetrack yeah on the racetrack yeah
I shake my little tush on the racetrack

I'm too sexy for NASCAR
too sexy for NASCAR
Even though I’d, I’d be a star

I’m too sexy for Marco
Too sexy for Marco
He can never beat me

And I'm too sexy for this song

Rumors that the song will replace "I Am Indy" as the league anthem could not be confirmed.

Don't miss the next pressdog blog update. Sign up to be notified when the blog is updated. Go to the home page and use the form at the top right. The pressdog mailing list is double secret, more secret even than the IRL or Champ Car's exact definition of "blocking."

Notes from the 2006 Champ Car World Series at Road America, USA

Notes taken during the SPEED broadcast of the Champ Car World Series Grand Prix of Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI, 9/24/06.

pressdog beer of the race is Leinenkugel's Honey Weis. "Select malted wheat, cluster hops and a hint of Wisconsin honey give this unique refresher a clean, crisp, slightly sweet taste." Party on, heirs of Jacob Leinenkugel and your beer-making posse in Chippewa Falls, WI.

Welcome to Elkhart Lake where on August 3 Cristiano da Matta came over a hill to see a effing deer standing on the road, hit said deer and suffered major head trauma. (A deer. WTF?) Cristiano has recovered enough to jet to his home in Miami to continue his recovery.

Points leader Sebastien Bourdais montage. He could clinch his third straight points championship today if he leaves Road America 70 or more ahead of second place. It's going to take major brain lock up for Bourdais not to win his third straight title this year. Only a matter of time. Hasn't been done since Ted Horn and his leather helmet won it three times in 1946, 1947 and 1948. Back then "telemetry" was some veteran standing in the pit saying "he looks fast."

Rick Benjamin on camera. Battling for the Vanderbilt Cup. A who's who of open wheel has won it twice, but nobody has won it three times in a row since Horn.

Derek Daly on camera. Looks stunning in his mainly red outfit. Very fall-ish. Predicts Bourdais will be in attack mode today to try and clinch the title.

Jan Beekhuis in the pits. AJ Allmendinger's car is inconsistent. Went to a new set up. Justin Wilson's car is consistent -- consistently pushing. Went to a new set up for the race as well.

Cameron Steele in the pits. Big news is Speedy Dan Clarke gets his first pole ever. Sebastien is second. What kind of fireworks will we see in turn 1? (Always the main question on a road/street race, Cameron.)

Season retrospective montage including all kids of wacky driving and Paul "Nacho" Tracy showing up in a blue wrestler's mask and cape for Montreal.

Bridgestone commercial. This is a breakthrough because this commercial does not feature people dancing, preferably in the rain. An actual rebate offer. Crazy! They appear to be trying to sell tires. THAT'S INSANE.

Shot of where the deer was standing when da Matta hit him or her. My daughter asks, "Did it kill the deer?" Good question. I assume it was a large adult deer who died at the scene. Michelle Beisner is in the house. Story about going to see da Matta at the Wisconsin hospital. There he is walking down the hall. Strumming a guitar. Walking with Jimmy Vasser. Much amazement at his progress.

Cristiano on video -- he thanks everyone for support, well wishes, and gets this party started with "driver's start your engines!"

After exclaiming how great it is to see Cristiano doing well, Derek gets warmed up on the telestrator by showing us where Wilson's drink bottle tube is. Just trying to get the telestrator up to temperature. Can't perform well with a cold telestrator.

Bourdais-Newman/Haas tribute. Mario and Michael Andretti won with Newman/Haas, Nigel Mansell, da Matta, Bourdais. 96 wins. 6 championships.

Paul Newman gets air. Newman -- We got the best engineers we got the best drivers. Really a sense of brotherhood in the pit. Paul may, in fact, be 109 years old.

Carl Haas. Don't recognize him without the c-gar. Carl says N/H had a great bunch of people who work very hard.

Newman/Haas at Road America has 9 wins, 7 poles, 18 podiums. I get the feeling that Newman/Haas is the shit.

Katherine Legge is driving a pink car today. Part of the Warriors in Pink campaign to fight breast cancer. Video of Katherine posing with her car. Katherine in her pink hair scarf. Fetching.

Holy crap, it's true, Speedy Dan "Cleveland was a kick in the balls" Clarke is on the pole. What the? Who's idea? It's pandemonium. Dogs and cats, living together. Clarke got the pole by doing on slicks when the track was still damp while everyone else was on rain tires. But still, a pole is a pole.

Starting line up: Dangerous/Speedy Dan Clarke (!), Sebastien Bourdais, Charles "Chuck" Zwolsman (!), Alex Tagliani, A.J. "The Lone American" Allemdinger, Justin Wilson, Will Power, Katherine "Pretty in Pink" Legge, Andrew Ranger, Bruno "Is this Season Over Yet?" Junqueira, Paul Tracy, Jan "Van" Heylen, Oriol Servia, Tonis Kasemets, Mario Dominguez, Nelson Phillippe, Jaun Caceres.

Rick tells us Mario is with Rocketsports for the duration of the season. No reason given. Apparently Dale Coyne was not working for him, so he's over to Rocketsports. Maybe Mario said I move or I leave and, with Mexico City coming up, well ... Anyway, it's none of our business why he bolted! Uruguayan Juan Caceres replaces Mario at Dale Coyne Racing.

DD - There's a great amount of guessing today since qualifying and practice on Friday and Saturday was wet. Today is the first day in full drive setup for most teams.

51 laps. Air temp is 65 degrees F, track is 73. Let's light this candle. Kiki, this one's for you. We are green green green green.

Cue the circus music. Someone is hosed. Someone is around. Full-course yellow. Bruno is sideways on the start. Will Power is off into the "kitty litter" as Derek calls it. Replays. Bruno got darted. Will Power hip checks Bruno who goes around. Will Power goes off into the gravel. Many others spin, swerve or bang. Van Heylen may be in there too.

Will Power montage including the wicked ass-first crash into the tires that sent the camera man bailing for his life in Edmonton.

DD takes us through "Derek's Daily" (Keys to the race.)

• Will Dan be Speedy and not go mental?
• Will Zwolsman sink or swim?
• Will Newman's own the title? (Get it? NEWMAN'S OWN?)

Beisner. In effect. Champ Car gives Dr. Johnson, whose first name I missed but he worked on da Matta, a signed tire as a token of appreciation to him and everyone at the Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah, Wis. who cared for da Matta and denied the reaper like a goaltender turning away a slapshot, eh? Beauty.

Will Power in. Has black sidewall tires on. No damage from the turn-one mishap. Bruno in. Two- minute pit stop. Right sidepod change. Didn't cost him very much since Road America is FOUR MILES around and under yellow you have, like, 5-minute laps.

Bruno montage. I'm detecting a pattern here on the drivers' montages. This one features Bruno getting speared/punted at Long Beach, Milwaukee and now at Road America.

Ranger got into the back of Bruno on the turn 1 incident. Didn't help much. Bruno and Van Heylen had to pit when the pits were closed so they'll go to the back of the pack.

Dan and Zwolsman are 1-2. Nutty. Lap 3 and we are green.

Zwolsman leads into 1. Katherine Legge may have issues. Slowing. Speedy Dan is back to third.

Lap 4. Legge is OK, just got bum rushed. Zwolsman leads, then Bourdais and then Clarke.

Restart replay. Zwolsman goes inside to get Dan on the restart.

Lap 5. Bourdais leads. Try to act shocked. Bourdais checks out. GONE. He's 1.6 seconds ahead almost immediately.

Lap 6 -- Dan working Chuck Zwolsman for second.

Dan hits the power to pass to get around Zwolsman and into second.

Derek -- "Speedy Dan has hit everything but the lottery as the season has gone on." pressdog Quote of the Race right there. Derek is starting to get warmed up. Bring it, Double D.

AJ around Zwolsman for third. Chuck is in trouble.

Down to Cameron with Chris Mower who is Chuck's team manager. Issues? Mower -- Nope, just trying to get Chuck settled in and settled down.

Lap 8. DD says Road America rocks. Everyone loves it.

AJ goes off the road one tire into the final turn, kicks up some dust, but no biggy.

Beisner schleping the Champ Car text messaging service. You can see standings, etc. from your cell phone now. My viewing is enhanced.

We're onboard with Wilson who is chasing Chuck. The pit window is open. We do a lap with Justin Wilson.

Justin video -- Just gotta go for it and try to win the race. If we can win the race, we can maybe delay things.

If Bourdais leaves Road America leading by 70 or more the party is over.

Lap 12 -- Bourdais, Clarke, AJ, Chuck, Wilson, Tagliani, Servia, Nacho Tracy, Ranger, Legge (!)

DD -- Katherine is better than her showing this year. She's been very hard on herself. DD thinks she's going to get better and she shouldn't be so hard on herself.

Legge montage! I bet they have one for every driver. Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal, video of Legge spearing Ranger which got her put on probation.

Derek -- Legge is doing a good job. Just needs time.

DD -- telestrator. Derek circles the engine's pop-off valve. The new Champ Car (I think Derek has a poster of it on the ceiling above his bed) does not have a pop-off valve.

The new champ car, the Panoz DP01, ran some demo laps at Road America. All teams get theirs after the season is over.

Speedy Dan montage! DD says Dan was "looking to keep himself out of hospital at one point" in the season.

Pitting. Tire Changer Cam rocks!

Lap 16 -- Bourdais in. 10.8 seconds. AJ in. Wilson in. Much pitting.

Rick -- Justin Wilson needs to get the whip out today.

Beisner. Full day for Michelle. She says Ford Cares. Teamed up with the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation. Katherine Legge is driving a pink car and wearing a special pink-highlighted ensemble. All part of the Warriors in Pink effort. All the stuff will be auctioned off after the race to benefit the foundation. Go to www.fordcares.com for more info.

Rookie of the Year update. Power leads. Dan is 19 back. Legge is 50 back. Van Heylen is 56 back.

Bourdais is now ahead by FIFTEEN SECONDS. Dude.

Lap 18. Bourdais, AJ, Clarke, Wilson, Tracy, Tag, Zwolsman, Oriol.

Lap 18. Power into the gravel trap on turn 1. Yellow yellow yellow. Full-course. Seems bogus. He's WAAAAY off the track. There goes Bourdais' 15-second advantage.

Jan with Al Speyer from Bridgestone. Cool temps are easier on the tires. No big issues. DD -- Al Speyer largely responsible for getting Bridgestone into racing at the level they are. Went to the marketing department and said we gotta be in racing.

Bourdais montage! Long Beach. Houston. Monterrey. Milwaukee. San Jose. Montreal.

Cameron with Jeremy Dale, Team President. RuSPORT. Carl Russo has retired from on-camera work, apparently. Never see him any more. Jeremy says thanks to their partnership with CDW they record eight channels of video. Constantly eyeballing it. Much technology working for them.

Lap 20 of 51. Kelly Loewen, Speedy Dan's engineer. Dan doing well. No changes during the pit stops.

Lap 20 - Green. Everyone is freaking out on the Power to Pass. Wilson into third. Passed Clarke on turn 1. Tracy has a run on Clarke.

DD -- "Paul Tracy is the bravest man I know." Dan vs. PT. DD -- "It could get ugly. When you fight with Paul Tracy, be careful because seldom do you leave with all your (car) parts."

Lap 21 -- Tracy around Clarke and into fourth.

Lap 22 -- Derek gives Dan a shout out for showing maturity.

Paul Tracy montage! Cleveland. Video of Tracy putting it into climbing gear over Bourdais. Drop-kicking Tagliani. Spearing Bourdais.

Jan -- Bourdais is 5 seconds ahead of AJ. Bourdais did 1:45.0 on the last lap and AJ did 1:47.0 on the last lap. DD -- Bourdais is running away from the field like a scalded cat.

Tracy montage again! The Fight with Tagliani. DD says something about "the legend of Sugar Ray Tracy."

Speedy Dan closing in on PT. The kid has balls. Somebody says the wrestler who wears the blue mask in Mexico wants Paul Tracy to come to the ring for some faux wrestling when they get to Mexico City. Look for Bourdais to slip the real wrestlers major pesos to "make it look very real."

Replay of Turn 1, Lap 1. Power into Junk. Ranger ass-ends Junk. Power into the kitty litter.

Lap 25 -- Half way. Bourdais has the fastest lap. Shocker. Rick -- Bruno has had a hard time getting up to pace. Derek reminds us that Bruno has two 11-inch rods and 10 screws in his back from Indy 2005.

Second pit window is open. Lap 26 -- AJ 5.7 seconds back from Bourdais. Bruno in. Filling. 7.8 seconds. Full fill? Don't think so.

Rick -- third window is around lap 37. Back markers may come in early to try to get pit strategy going, get to the front of the line. Pray for yellow.

Yellow yellow yellow! Juan Caceres is off. Turning into a yellow fest.

Half way recap. Turn 1 carnage replay.

Lap 26. Massive pitting. AJ pit cam. Bourdais loses lead. Holy short fill! Tacy and Allmendinger short fill (I believe). Speedy Dan almost smacks someone. We think Clarke may get flagged for a blend-line violation (failure to blend). Yellow lap. Wilson comes up beside Dan to send a message of displeasure.

Bruno gets the lead on his alternate pit strategy. Comes from 10th to first. Nelson Philippe in the same boat goes from 12th to second.

Denver replay. Sugar Ray Tracy again.

Craig Hampson -- Tough call on the fueling thing. (Went for a full fill while others short filled to get ahead.) Real happy with Bruno's run. Hope he and Nelson can keep other two and then we (Bourdais) can go further on a tank and get the position back.

Restart. Turn one. Much power-to-pass going up the hill to the start-finish. We got people squirrelly. Booth guys say Dan may get the black for jumping the start. Ranger is off. We got YELLOW.

Replay. Ranger tries to get inside of Katherine. Katherine holds her line. Gets tagged by Ranger. Derek declares it a "brave move by Ranger."

Katherine Legge is so pinked out today she has pink sidewall tires as alternates rather than the regular reds. Those nutty people at Bridgestone are getting into the spirit of the pink.

Black flag for Dan has been withdrawn, Rick tells us. He was out of line and didn't obey the race steward, but they say Dan can't hear anything so he didn't know. He's back in line and we got a restart so all is good.

Michelle reports on some go kart race for some reason. National championships Road America? Doesn't really say. My viewing is enhanced.

Replay of part of the front wing coming off Ranger's car. Maybe he got that little gift from Katherine Legge when they smacked each other.

Lap 31. Crack another Leinie, because we're GREEN.

DD -- Junqueira was the fastest in morning warm ups and thinks he can run up front.

Servia uses power-to-pass to get by Tracy without leaving chunks of his car behind. Tracy is out of P2P. DD -- "When you try to pass Paul Tacy he will absolutely take you to the limit." AJ is also out of P2P.

Cameron -- Oriol was complaining of spongy breaks earlier, but they are OK now.

Power to Pass graphic on the SPEED screen. Easily the most unreadable graphic in all of racing. Little bits of white and red bars. My viewing is enhanced.

Lap 33 -- Yellow. Rick -- Paul Tracy is off. Full course. Tracy into the gravel on the "Canada turn." Booth speculation that he has a bent wheel. Jan -- Tracy's pit boss Neil Mickelwright radioed to ask if there was contact but Tracy didn't respond. Too busy killing a deer with his bare hands while waiting for the safety truck to arrive, I bet. (Kidding. Lighten up.)

19 laps to go. Tracy is out of the gravel. The Champ Car guys are scrambling to get him back out. Tracy probably just gave them The Look and they knew he would eat their spleens if they didn't get him out before he lost a lap. Tracy is on it to come around and get to the back of the field so he can pit.

Mazda Power Play. Recap of the Atlantics race. Turn 1 zaniness (appear to be about eight-wide going into turn 1). Graham Rahal, BLOWN up, SIR. Engine frags and he coasts to a stop. Jonathon Bomarito wins the Atlantics race. Simon Pagenaud takes the series championship.

Back to the big leagues. Tracy pitting.

Lap 34. Green. Bruno on the Power to Pass. Bourdais 5th. DD doesn't think Bourdais will make a "banzai move" here.

Lap 35. Junk, Nelson, Wilson, AJ, Bourdais, Servia, Clarke, Tag, Legge (!) Zwolsman.

Lap 36. AJ takes a look inside Wilson. Just kind of pops out of line for a look, then gets back in line. Not going to make a move yet.

DD -- AJ (who was fired by RuSPORT) would love to make a point here by passing Wilson (who currently drives for RuSPORT).

Bourdais video. Sure it would be great to win the championship here for all the families of the team. HQ of McDonald's just down the road.

15 to go. Junk is head by three seconds. Bourdais has more gas than everyone in front of him.

AJ video -- No matter if it's (championship chase) is over or not, we're fighting for second. What to win every single race left. Never know what might happen.

AJ into third. Passes Wilson.

Replay shows AJ closing behind Wilson. Derek -- Oh he's coming like a freight train. AJ swerves a bit as he goes by. Rick asks DD what's that about? DD-- You want me to be honest? Rick -- Yes. Derek thinks that AJ "wanted to squeeze him a little bit to make a point."

Servia passes Bourdais for 5th.

Pit window is open. Lap 39. Tracy in. Tires and fuel.

Derek -- Junk's speed of stop is key and how far can Bourdais go before he has to pit.

Bruno is now 5.3 ahead.

Lap 40 -- Junk, AJ, Wilson, Bourdais, Philippe, Servia, Clark, Tag, Legge (!), Van Heylen (!).

Nelson pitting.

Nelson back out. Left rear is screwy. Didn't get the nut on it. Wobbling. Nelson is screwed. Trying to get around to get a new tire and not bring out the caution. Wheel comes off. Trying to make it on three wheels. Major scrapping. Going about 40 mph.

Bourdais stayed out. Not pitting. Hoping it stays green. Race officials say the tire came of and is in a safe spot, no need for a caution right now. Keep that yellow flag in your back pocket, Sparky. We're coming up on NASCAR-level yellowage for this race.

Bourdais is third. Rick says Nelson is "crabbing" around the track trying to get back in. Perfect description of how it looks. Bruno and AJ pit. Bourdais stays out. Takes the lead. 28 laps since he stopped. Lots of yellow in there.

DD -- Bourdais had to run like a rabbit to get as much time on AJ as he can so he can pit and maintain the lead.

Legge is third! Holy crap. Now she's second! She has to pit soon, though.

8 to go. Legg in with her pink sidewalls in effect. Jan Van Heylen in.

Lap 44 -- Bourdais is 31 seconds ahead of Junk. He's going to pit. Bourdais pit boss on the radio -- "OK, guys, this is for the money." Bourdais in. Jan says he needs a sub-6-second pit stop or less. Gets out in 6.9. May be screwed. He's out just in front off AJ and Bruno.

Lap 45 - Holy cold tires! AJ goes around Bourdais for the lead. Now Bruno goes around as well. K. Legge in 6th. Career day for her.

Hampson video. Not happy. Maybe using profanity. Hard to say. I would be in his spot.

Legge and Speedy Dan are battling for sixth.

Holy flying car! Rick -- HUGE CRASH. HUGE CRASH. Oh no. HUGE INCIDENT. HUGE INCIDENT. Someone is end-over-ending it into the catch fence at The Kink.

Derek -- "IT'S KATHERINE!"

5 to go. Much tension. Replays of Legge's car going into the fence. Got airborne. Car up into the catch fence broke apart. Cosworth goes bounding down the fence line away from the cockpit, thank God. Dirt and crap everywhere. Champ Car safety team is on it. You can see the truck approaching even as shit is still flying. Props to them for getting out so quickly.

Lap 48 - Red flag. We got all kinds off crap all over in the Kink. Rick says we're going to stop the race and the go back to green for three laps or six minutes. Not going to turn it off right here. Shout out to Champ Car for not ending under the yellow like this.

Tension City over Legge's condition. Ambulance leaving the crash site. Replays. Aerial view. WTF? You can see part of Legge's rear wing flipping off as she approaches the kink at about 190 mph. No rear downforce. She's cooked. Ass end just comes around as she turns and she goes ass first into the wall. Derek "the car just ab-so-lute-ly disintegrates."

DD -- "When you lose that wing plate the car does nothing but fly off the road." Much discussion of how the car disintegrating is a good thing since it dissipates energy that the driver would otherwise absorb. Derek -- the more pieces you can break off the car the more energy is dissipated and the less that goes into the driver.

Jan is on it in the pits. Steve Johnson, President and CEO of Champ Car says Katherine gave him a smile and a thumbs up as she went into the medical center. According to Race Director Race Notes she walked into the medical center. If I was her, the first thing I'd ask for in the me medical center after that shit would be the world's largest, coldest beer.

Race Director rocks. Go right now to www.champcar.ws and sign up for it. $30 for a year of stats, notes, telemetry, replays of each broadcast etc. pressdog digs it in a major way. The on-demand replay function by itself makes it worth $30.

Derek -- the big danger in a crash like that is that something hits you in the head.

Derek launches a telestrator fest. He's pulling it out. He's on the button, telestrator-wise. Showing us the wing going off Katherine's car. Circling the bounding engine. Double D is en fuego.

DP01 montage. Unveiling video featuring Paul Newman in the car. CC can't love that video more. I've seen it about 12 times now. They show it every race. DP01 did some laps at Road America for the peeps. First race for it is April 8. Awesome April. April 8, Las Vegas street race. April 15, Long Beach. April 22, Houston.

Jan -- Busts into the DP01 love fest with some video of Katherine Legge coming out of the medical center to wave at the crowed. Much applause. WTF? She looks like she's just back from the pub. Amazing after watching the shrapnel-fest of a crash. Smiling. Waving.

Derek -- Is that just hard to believe? Rick -- It is hard to believe.

Video of pieces of car shrapnel on the scrap truck. Derek plugs the book "Rapid Response" by a Champ Car safety guy Stephan Olivey who led the charge to drag open-wheel legend Alex Zanardi back from death's door after a crash in Germany in 2001.

Michael Cannon, AJ's engineer. First, he's impressed with Katherine. One tough woman. Mike says everyone on the track is pretty equal except for Power to Pass. Many drivers are out of it.

AJ montage. Father's Day reference. Cleveland. Toronto. Denver. Hat Trick sign. Montreal when his half shaft was BLOWN up, SIR!

Some drivers are out of the cars during the red. Cameron deployed. He's with AJ. AJ says he has no push to pass so may be a tough one. May have to crash me to get around me. Look for AJ to make his ass wide.

Jan with Bourdais. Bourdais -- great start. All the yellows played against us today. Lost the lead to a lapped car (!) and that's hard to accept. Not sure what that is all about.

Bourdais always throws in some pissy little thing like that. Doesn't help his likeability factor much. He also says his engine may be a pig. High mileage on it.

Cameron with Oriol. He's Glad Katherine is OK. Going to do his best to get forward. Dedicates this race to Cristiano.

Oriol montage. (You saw that coming.)

DD is now fixated on how much more valuable all the Katherine Legge stuff she wore and drove today will be on the open market because of the crash. It's all getting auctioned off to raise money for Breast Cancer research. DD says bust out the Sharpie. Goes off several times about it.

Speedy Dan in-car interview. Speedydan.com on the front of his helmet gets major air. Site is still under construction, though.

Speedy Dan montage. Another driver montage. Try to act shocked.

Cameron with Justin Wilson. Justin Wilson montage. SPEED has to fill this cleanup delay somehow.

Jan with Katherine -- Jan -- how are ya? Katherine -- "A bit shaken but I'm OK. All my bits are in tact so it's good. Goes to show how strong these cars are." Jan -- what do you remember? "I speeded up and hit the wall. I saw the ground and then dirt coming in. I see the fence. Honestly, I was thinking 'What's going to happen next?' Glad to see the engine split away (less chance of catching fire). I think my eyes were closed for a lot of it to be honest."

Jan -- freaked out to get back in? Katherine -- "I'd get back in and finish the race (if she had a car). I think you have to be a bit detached to be a race car driver. You have to have a bit of a screw loose. (It's dangerous) but you have to put that aside, have a healthy respect for it and move on." Says something about riding horses may be more dangerous.

Katherine Legge is definitely sidepod worthy. Everybody lift your favorite English beer for Katherine. Kevin Kalkhoven gives her a ride in the golf cart.

Rick promotes Race Director. Says "free trial when you sign up for a monthly subscription." He said this several times during the race but it makes no sense. If I sign up for a subscription, then it doesn't seem to be anything is free, because I'm paying for it. Maybe I can try it free and then sign up if I like it. Maybe I buy one month and get another month free. Confusing.

Replay number 12 of the Legge wreck.

Craig Hampson. Asked about the whole pig engine comment from Bourdais. Craig says they changed the engine for the race because the other one was a bit piggy. Bourdais says it doesn't have speed in the straight away.

Starting engines. Back on the track. First lap under yellow. Then we'll go green for a two-lap trophy dash.

Green. Servia into fourth. Bruno on the power-to-pass button. Karen Allmendinger gets air! AJ Family Cam is activated.

DD renames The Kink as "Katherine's Kink." Everyone is through OK, presumably because they all kept their rear wings.

White flag. Rick mentions that AJ ran a NASCAR truck race in New Hampshire. Rick may get disciplined for saying NASCAR right on the air. AJ fiance' Lynne Kush gets air.

Bruno making a run at AJ. Uses his last Power to Pass. DD -- "He doesn't have it. Nope."

AJ wins. Mike Cannon -- AJ just drove the wheels off it. AJ does about a dozen doughnuts.

Tom Smith, Bruno's engineer -- Little lucky the way the yellows fell. Too much understeer to stay close enough to AJ in the corners to use the overtake to pass him.

Finish -- AJ, Bruno, Bourdais, Servia, Wilson, Clarke, Zwolsman, Ranger, Heylen, Tracy.

Bruno -- Did well starting from 10th. Good car.

Bourdais does not clinch the title. He's up by 58 on AJ, 67 ahead of Wilson.

Jan -- with AJ. AJ does a stage dive into his crew. He's not a big guy so a couple of them can pretty much catch him and carry him around. AJ -- "That's the best team in the world! I'm not going to let a French guy clinch on American soil. That ain't going to happen."

AJ, what's with the jingo stuff? May have picked that up over in NASCAR truck land. That whole anti-French thing seems a little harsh. Could be just me.

Tune in Oct. 22, 2 p.m. eastern on SPEED for tape-delay coverage Champ Car race at Surfers Paradise, Australia.

pressdog Launches Decal-based Effort to Jump-Start Reunification Efforts

When the history of open-wheel reunification efforts is written, the "tipping point" in the whole deal is going to be traced back to the day I put two decals on my flamin' hot ride.

Just email me your congratulations right now, my friends, because on Sept. 18 I slapped a Champ Car decal right under my IndyCar Series decal on the back window of my high-performance, 2001 Ford Focus. Kevin, Tony, no need for effusive thanks. Just shoot me some free tickets, a few odd hot pit passes and send the $47 million jet to Des Moines International Airport. My pleasure if I can get my girls Katherine Legge and Sarah Fisher on the same track while ending this unification nuttiness.

I know, my move was a little reckless. When I first put the decals so close together, I thought maybe they might both start smoldering and melt through the glass in an Indiana Jones fashion. I briefly considered putting one on each side of the back window, separated by about three feet, but then I channeled Rodney King and said, "Can't we all just get along?"

Still, I had protective gear and a garden hose standing by just in case some X-Files-ish stuff started going down when I put the Champ Car sticker on. But nothing happened. No smoldering. No earth opening up and gobbling me whole. No thunder. Not even static electricity.

Going to a bi-decal configuration is a big step for me. I used to make fun of Champ Car. But then I started watching the races. OK, at first I mainly watched so I could make fun of them, but those street/road races kind of grow on you. And the Champ Car peeps do a waaaaaaaay better job of televising street/road races than ABC/ESPN. (Tip: Get the cameras UP IN THE AIR.)

Street/road racing is a whole different kind of strategy. Qualifying is three-quarters of the battle. Then it's fuel mileage and pit strategy. Red tires or black? How will the yellows fall? Who, besides Paul Tracy, will go mental during the race and spear someone? It's kind off like developing an appreciation for left-brain (analytical) racing. The oval stuff is all right-brain: "Screw the strategy and floor it."

I've developed enough as a left-brain Champ Car fan that I can make it all the way to lap 50 or 60 without starting to doze, even while drinking beer. Before I was napping by lap 20, so that's real progress. Even though Sebastien Bourdais has totally bitchslapped the field and has the title all but locked up, I'm still looking forward to the Sept. 24 Road America race.

Besides, my homey Pat, who may or may not work in the racing biz, says Paul Tracy is a fabulous of a guy. But for some reason she nearly peed herself when I suggested Champ Kerrrr announcer Derek "Hold onto your hollyhocks" Daly replace Rusty Wallace in the IRL broadcast booth. Pat: "Oh, no. No. No no no no. NO."

Since reunification is about compromise, we can stop short of Derek representing with Marty Reid and Scott Goodyear in the booth. (Jan Beekhuis, however, could work well in the pits.) But let's do get this unification thing going. Sure, there are lots of issues to work out. Engine. Chassis. Oval/street/road mix. But you can do it, Tone and Kev. I've ignited the grass roots here in Des Moines. We're getting an IRL race at Rusty's track just 45 minutes east of here in Newton. It's BIG MO, baby.

Besides, if the stickers can co-exist, so can the series.

Indy Racing League Set to Introduce B-Features

Note to the overly serious: everything below is made up.

The Indy Racing League hopes a page out of the tried-and-true sprint-car program will help increase interest in the IRL.

Starting in 2007, the Indy Racing League will introduce "B Feature" races. Long a staple of dirt-track racing, the IRL hopes the B Feature will help hold the interest of people who are "getting a little sick of watching four guys battle for the win."

During a press conference at the Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa Saturday the league outlined details of the new program. Based on qualifying speeds, the back half of the field will hold a "B Feature" race as a warm up to the "A Feature." The top four of the B Feature will be added to the end of the field for the A Feature.

The goal is to provide a second race on IRL weekends for fans of drivers other than the big three teams that generally bitchslap the field every race weekend. "We hope that these B Features will give fans who don't happen to cheer for one of the Penske, Ganassi or Andretti Green drivers for a reason for showing up at the race," said Skeeter Backmarker, director of "competition" for the IRL. "I mean, if you're a fan of Scott Sharp or Kosuke Matsuura or Sarah Fisher or Jeff Bucknum -- any of the drivers for the lower-budget teams -- you might as well have taken a nap during the IRL races last year. No way on God's Green Earth your driver is going to win. This B Feature means you'll at least get to watch your driver compete for a B Feature win. That's better than watching him or her fight hard for 12th in the regular race."

The B Feature move is the latest effort by the IRL to address the disparity of equipment and funding throughout the league. In 2006, even once-mighty AGR got slapped silly by Penske and Ganassi on ovals over one mile.

"When two teams (Penske and Ganassi) win 12 of 14 races, that's a bitchslapping," said Backmarker. "We're trying to address the problem in the same way we addressed the total lack of drama during 'bump day' at the Indy 500, by dicking around with the format."

Fans were generally OK with the change, although they said they'd prefer cost reduction methods that would allow more teams to actually compete for a win.

"Yeah, you know, I guess it's OK," said one Sarah Fisher fan who asked not to be identified. "Last race I went to I just watch Sarah race with Bryan Herta and Jeff Bucknum for 15th during the race. I knew one of the Ganassi cars was going to win so, you know, kind of no drama there. I watched the front four (Dan Wheldon, Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon and Sam Hornish) for maybe 10 laps."

In other news, ABC/ESPN reportedly is considering having a second set of announcers who will broadcast every IRL race on ESPN2. The Deuce's announcers will concentrate on places 6 through 20. "If they want to know who of the four is winning the race, they can tune in to ESPN or ABC," a network spokesman said. ESPN/ABC thinks ratings for the "Sixth and worse" race will quickly exceed those of the "which Penske or Ganassi Car Wins this Week" race coverage.

Don't miss the next pressdog blog update. Sign up to be notified when the blog is updated. Go to the home page and use the form at the top right.

Notes from the 2006 Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 Presented by Mr. Clean at Chicagoland Speedway

Notes taken during the ABC broadcast of and at the track during the Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 Presented by Mr. Clean at Chicagoland Speedway.

pressdog is in the house! Section 431 at Chicagoland Speedway. Keeping a low profile. Hanging with my peeps. Hobknobbing back by the haulers. Marco Andretti nearly ran me over several times with his scooter, for example. I felt something pass between us. I'm sure I'll be added to Marco's myspace as a special friend soon.

I even had a Danica sighting from a distance. I saw her gossamer white carriage made from a pumpkin and knew she had to be near. Saw her by an RV, giant sunglasses in effect. Hair fully pony tailed. Danica. Love ya, but the big shades make you look kind of like a bug. Ditch 'em! Go for the skinny ones. Much cooler. (Unless you get money to wear them. Then rock on!) Or let us see those fabulous eyes of yours. If Danica ever met the pressdog she'd probably say "Lose some weight, lard-ass!" Fair enough, D.P. Love the fire!

Anyway, the pressdog beer of the race is a $6, 16-ounce Miller Light I bought from the vendor while sitting in section 431, Row 20, Seat 8. BAM. Cold and refreshing. And Bitburger Beer, German draft beer and sponsor of my peeps at Dreyer and Reinbold Racing. Sarah Fisher says, "What up, pressdog posse?" Kidding. Sarah didn't say that. But, you know, I bet she was thinking it. Had a chance to chat with Sarah. She's cool. She's hip. Fabulous role model for my daughters. She's most definitely sidepod worthy. If I had a zillion dollars, she'd have "pressdog" on her pods.

Rain in Joliet race day morning. But, it clears off in time to get this party started. No practice sessions or warm ups due to a wet track. Rusty Wallace, who thinks morning practices are an instrument of Satan, is relieved.

Starting lineup: Sam Hornish Jr., Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon, Helio Castroneves, Scott Sharp, Vitor Meira, Tomas Scheckter, Kosuke Matsuura, Buddy Rice, Jeff Simmons, A.J. Foyt IV (Quatro is in the house!), Ed Carpenter, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Danica, Sarah, Jeff Bucknum, Bryan "World of" Herta, Marty Roth. A traffic jam of 19 cars! Some may be driving their last IRL race if the teams go belly up. Sad. I need a big drink of beer just thinking about it.

Today is all about the points, baby. The Big Four all have a chance to win it. Helio leading by 1 over Sammy. Wheldon is in it. Dixon gotta shot. ABC/ESPN will be all over the Points Battle all day.

pressdog clearly has issues with setting the VCR. I need a TiVo but am too cash challenged to spring for one. TiVo needs to sponsor my blog! So my tape comes on with Jerry Punch, M.D., interviewing Dixon trackside.

Dixon -- We gotta push as hard a we can without crashing, of course. Try to get a win and bonus points and hope to come away with it. Need some help.

Marty Ried in the booth -- Goes over how the IRL gives out points for finishes. Difference between first and fifth is 20 points. Get three bonus points for leading the most laps.

Up to the booth with Marty, Rusty "The Old Super Deuce" Wallace, Scott Goodyear. Just a note here: My boy Russ, who may or may not work for ESPN/ABC, once beat Scott Goodyear in go karts. I saw the proof over the weekend. OK, the win happened back in 1970-something. "Goodyear: Oh geeze, he's got that (magazine showing the results) out again? But who won the national championship that year? Ask him that." Russ couldn't recall. And even though Russ got third and Scott got 9th, Scott got his photo in the race article. Seems fair. Rumor has it Russ is a candidate for one of the AGR rides next year, but you did not hear it from me.

Back to the booth -- Goodyear -- the big four were already doing some banging in practice. Penske car has never won at Chicagoland. May have to win to win the title. It could get a little road-course-like with the thumping on the track.

Marty sets up the agony/ecstasy montage! Season montage including video of Wheldon yanking his arm away from mean old Jamie Little (get her in a car!). Sam and the milk. Helio stomping pissed. Brain lock in the Ganassi pit. Marco winning.

Those two seconds of Wheldon with his "stop touching me" move with Jamie are in the permanent Montage Folder for use in all future montages. ABC/ESPN cannot love that video more. Shout out to my girl Jamie for chasing Dan down after Texas and getting that interview. pressdog Pit-side Interview of the Year Award winner!

Jamie trackside -- Marco won last week (couple weeks ago, but we get it) and (at 19) was the youngest person to ever win in big-league open-wheel. Back in Nazareth, PA, the Andretti Hometown. Marco's mom Sandy said the neighbors put up posters and stuff and threw a party for Marco. It was like when Mike was racing. Jamie -- "Today, back to reality. Marco is starting 14th." Owie. Marco is still trying to get those ovals down.

Rusty -- Yesterday his son Steve won the ARCA race at Chicagoland. (He also made a huge burn out at the start finish that the safety guys had to come out and scrub off. Much swearing among the safety guys, I'm thinking). So, Sonoma is Rusty's favorite race because he can relate to how Mike felt when Marco won.

Scott -- favorite finish is Indy 500 when Sammy came charging back and got young Marco in the home stretch.

Marty -- favorite/most memorable finish was Homestead -- Bitter/sweet because of Paul Dana's death in warm-ups. Paul Dana's legacy is the fact that IndyCars will run on 100% ethanol next year. (E100, baby! Made from corn. Iowa leads the nation in production. Stick that in your oil well, buddy.) Marty -- We remember Paul Dana today and next year every time we start engines on 100% ethanol.

Props to Marty for a nice shout out to Paul Dana. Everybody fill up with some E10 today. The pressdog drove home from Chicago on E10 and ripped down a sparkling 32 mpg in my flaming Ford. Most any car made after 1980 runs fab on E10 (gasoline with 10% ethanol). So put something racy in your tank today. Get it? ethanol? RACY? HAR.

Speaking of, the ethanol posse had about a zillion people running around at Chicagoland. Major hospitality space. All sporting the ethanol e. Striking.

Danica Peak Commercial plays right here. Danica -- "220 mph? Any time. Take corners at over 4 gs? Anywhere. Like peak, you've got to be tough enough to take it." Dude, they were playing this under the grandstands at Chicagoland all the time, but it was kind of in isolated zones. First time I heard it I thought Danica was speaking to me in a vision or some shit. Then I figured out it was clever marketing. Those nutty marketers. Many tricks. Both Peak and Mr. Clean are Danica sponsors, so this was the Indy 300 brought to you by Danica's Sponsors.

I am Indy Montage. HEY!

Gridding. Marty points out due to the threatening weather, race could end early. It's an official race at lap 101, so that will figure into everyone's strategy.

Jim Shea, EVP for Auto Zone lights 'em up: "Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines."

It's 67 degrees outside. Track temp is 79 degrees. Shout out to my boys and girls in the B-Unit! That's the ABC/ESPN truck that does the graphics like that stunning weather one I just saw on my tape. They are all freaked out and WIRED on caffeine (or something) in a semi-trailer-sized B-unit trailer. pressdog shout outs to New Guy for "the hat" (the crawl that goes across the top) and to Karen, Bud, Kelly, Heather, Steve and Mike. When you hear a car MASH into the wall, that's all Steve's audio prowess there. Killer.

Goodyear -- Rain washed all the rubber off the track. Starting with a clean track. Have to watch it the first few laps to let the tires get hot and make sure nothing is squirrely.

Marty draws our attention to positions crawling across the top of the screen. The New Guy's crawl get's a shout out! Soon enough Jamie Little will be asking for New Guy's number.

7 on-board cameras. Sarah, Danica, Marco, Simmons, Vitor, Danno and Dixon. The Penske twins are cameraless? Nutty.

Jack "The Root" Arute with Roger Penske. Roger -- Don't need to race the first 30 laps. Need to be there at the end.

Jerry with Chippy Ganassi -- Chipster -- gotta lead the most and win the race and squeeze some cars in between us and Penske. Awesome summary of what has to happen, Chip. Seriously. But good luck with that Chipster. Maybe Vitor if he's strapped some military surplus JATO (jet-assisted take-off) tubes to the back of the flamin' Dallara. Otherwise, let's not hold our breath.

Jamie. Perky. Energetic. Pony tail in full effect. Jamie has a feeling that this will be a close race. In 2002 Sam beat Little Al by .002 of a second. Gonna be wheel-to-wheel, two- and three-wide the whole way. Jamie says this will be one of the best of the year. Rock on Jamie. The hardest working pit reporter in the biz and the only one who can take a motorcross bike 15 feet into the air and live tell the tale. Bust out the boots Jamie!

Marty -- does threat of rain effect strategy? Goodyear -- yep. Gotta go for it from the first green because it might rain.

Let's light this candle. pressdog says the time for all the yappin' and interviewing and hanging with the sponsors and driving scooters through the pits and talking smack is over. It's time to strap in, hook up the HANS, set the adrenal glans to full rich and settle this thang on the track. Hey beer man! We are green-green-green-green.

Woooooooo-who. The green flag start at an IRL race is something you gotta see. 19 cars coming out of turn four and getting freaky. Makes every hair you got (and I do mean EVERY hair) stand up and salute. If you've never gone to a race, you gotta go. 83-year-old grandmas who see this can't help saying "Holy f*cking shit" when those cars come by.

Target is 1-2 by turn three. Goodyear advises them to get in line and check out. This track is all about drafting and two or more can go faster than one. My girl Sarah's car is a bit pigged out today so her only hope is to get into a group or catch a tow from a faster car. At the track I'm listening to Sarah's spotter, Robbie "Increda" Buhl who is killer on the scanner. Worth the scanner rental fee all by himself. He's the shizzzzzzz.

Rusty -- Not smart going side-by-side because if you touch you could go end over end (I'm paraphrasing). Holy Shit! The target cars touch wheels. WTF? Chip has to peeing himself. THEY TOUCH AGAIN on lap 3. I gotta think Chip is using many words that begin with the letter "f" on the radio right now and choking on his own vomit.

Sam declines to make it three wide, but he's poised to take advantage of any carnage.

Goodyear -- Kosuke Matsuura is rumored to not be secure in his #55 ride for this year so he's got something to prove. Might be a wild-card out there. Might get nutty, take chances and cause The Big One. Not Kosuke. Naaaaaaah. We got several of those kinds of cases in the field for this race. Drivers who are driving to audition for next year.

Punch -- Ganassi says "you guys have got to get in line," but he didn't say who should go first. So they are still side-by-side.

Jack -- Penske says to Sam to watch himself and wait. Got plenty of laps.

Lap 6. Helio is back 6th. Marty updates us of how the point championship would go if everyone stays in the same position until the end. This is on lap 6. We got some racing to do yet, Marty.

Rusty -- Drivers very nervous about Chicago. Track is fast. Lots of grip. Plus the pressure of winning a title. Plus the nothing-to-lose drivers. The combo may make people take crazy chances they shouldn't. Rusty seems to believe we are only seconds from having car shrapnel everywhere in a replay of 2005's Briscoe Fence Climb.

Marty -- Both Dixon and Wheldon need to lead the most laps to get the three extra points which may explain the side-by-side insanity for Target. Killer point, Marty.

Lap 10 -- Wheldon, Dixon, Hornish, Matsuura, Helio, Kanaan, Sharp, Scheckter, Marco, Vitor.

Tony up to 5th from 13th. Rusty -- These guys running every single lap like it's the last lap.

Goodyear -- gotta be the right mix of caution and aggression. Not aggressive you get back in the pack and then you got a bunch of drivers with nothing to lose.

Lap 13 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Rusty says we had blue smoke on the track from the rubbing. Replay. Scheckter gets high into Vitor off turn 1 and they bang, causing Vitor to do some major (for an IndyCar, anyway) fish-tailing. Awesome save of the car.

Many most-excellent replays, including some choper cam stuff. Video of safety guy picking up a mirror.

Rusty -- "Those cats cheated disaster." Four-wide off turn four. Rusty has a bad feeling.

Marty -- may have thrown yellow to calm the drivers down. Rusty -- calm them down? I gotta sit down. I'm going crazy. Everybody in the grandstands if flipping out. This race is unbelievable. They are flying out there right now.

Pitting. Fuel only. 4-something second stops. Ganassi beat the Penskes out.

Quatro leads! AJ in for Dario Franchitti who suffered a concussion last week in a vintage car race in England. Dario was well enough to tool around on a motor scooter at the race. AJ leads under yellow.

1 lap to go 'til green. Vitor pits for a second time. May have some big damage after trading rubber with Scheckter.

Lap 17. Green. Restart on side-by-side (with a commercial). Quatro back to 5th in a hurry. Helio is back in 13th. Got a black flag for pit lane speeding violation. Sucks to be Helio. Only good news is he's has one of four competitive cars in the race so he'll be rocking through the field in short order. Gives us something to watch as he picks cars off.

Lap 23 -- Points as of Lap 23 graphic. So far Sam is winning the points.

Top 3 are checking out. Buh-bye. Marco has gone from 13th to 7th and is looking at Matsuura.

Lap 25 -- Wheldon, Dixon, Hornish, Kanaan, Sharp, Matsuura, Marco, Simmons (!), Quatro (!), Buddy Rice (!). Helio is already up to 12th. Danica 14th. Sarah 16th.

Rusty -- Hondas are awesome.

Lap 29 -- Helio around Simmons and into 8th. Only hitch is Helio is working through the second group while the first group, the leaders, are gone. Gah-on. Gone. You have the lead pack. The middle pack and then the back pack with some track separating each.

Goodyear -- Helio wants to win. He's up early in the morning.Thinking about it all the time. Obsessing.

Rusty -- Crystal Hornish (who must talk to Rusty before every race, because he always had the Crystal Hornish Report for us) said Sam is nervous, focused, not chit-chatty. Wants the title as well.

Lap 32 -- Time to be patient. Doc -- Chip implored drivers to be smart. Dixon gotten in line and try to do some teamwork and run 1-2 and hold off Penske.

Helio charging forward, but he's in the mid-pack, so it'll be tough. Goodyear -- Helio looks maxed out. Can't get around Kanaan. Helio's peeps are on the radio to TK asking for help. Good luck with that.

Aerial of cars going around Marty Roth like passing him on the interstate. Marty was lapped by lap 14 and is probably many more than one down right now.

Jack -- Penske says he thought this might be a fuel strategy race.

Lap 50 -- Wheldon, Dixon, Sam, Helio, Sharp, Kanaan, Helio, Ed, Marco, Matsuura, Simmons. Danica 14th. Sarah 17th.

Marty Roth is now 19 laps down on Lap 50. He must have been in the pit for a while or something.

Jerry -- Chip says Dan has "all the patience of a lit fuse." Dixon is very cerebral. Patient. Calm. Cool, etc.

Lap 56 -- Sarah is about to be lapped. Here I briefly consider winging my half-drank Miller Lite bottle as far as I can to get it onto the track and bring out the yellow. But, I restrain myself. (I hear the Joliet jail isn't all that pleasant. No pressdog readers in there, I'm thinking.)

Lap 60 -- Marco pitting. Jamie -- Marco has a flat right rear. Went from 6th to 14th.

Replay. Goodyear gives a shout out to Marco for getting out of the throttle without getting totally out of the throttle. Veteran move there.

Jerry -- Dan picking up where he left off last year (he won at Chicagoland in 2005). Jack -- Hornish likes his car. Being very conservative. Dixon getting good mileage.

Lap 75 -- Wheldon, Hornish, Dixon, Helio, Dixon, Kanaan, Simmons, Rice, Ed, Scheckter. Danica 12th. Sarah 18th.

Lap 83 -- Helio is 12.5 seconds back in fourth. That's half a track.

Miera (in 13th) is about to get lapped. Doc says Vitor reports his handling is going. Left rear tire after the impact is screwy.

Goodyear -- when cars touch early he worries that it might cause some damage that takes a while to actually fail. A sort of slow-mo mechanical issue.

Marty -- Leaders approaching traffic. About to put laps on the middle pack. Chip and Penske are eating Rolaids over it.

Lap 93 -- Danica lapped. Only six cars on the lead lap now. Kanaan is the next one to be lapped.

In-car camera of Danica getting lapped. Did I spy a logo for Jackie O Sunglasses? No. Just my imagination. Earlier I speculated that Danica and teen singing sensation JoJo may be the the same person. But after Dancia sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the Cubs game on Thursday, I know now that I was mistaken. I understand from my various sources that Danica got some crap over her performance from the vocal experts on ESPN. Pfft. Whatever. Danica had cajones for getting up there and giving it a shot. Ease up on her or Danica will go Power Yoga on you and kick your ass.

The latest rumor is that Wheldon and the Geiko Gecko are the same person. Gotta say I don't believe it. Wheldon has a solid foot on the Geko. Although when he wore the green Fuji Film racing suit, I could kind of see it. I think it's mainly due to the accent. For today's race he's wearing stunning yellow race booties.

Mega in-car from Danica. Jamie says it's the last race for Danica with RLR. Wants it to count. Wants a win. Ever since she announced she was going to Andretti Green in 2007 things with the team have been a little tense. They're not treating her the same. She wants to go out and get a win for RLR but she's excited to look ahead to AGR. Looks forward to the unveiling of her new sponsors on Tuesday. Been a good, long road for her and Bobby (Rahal). Rahal "brought her to America" (Like Danica is from Uganda or something. Jamie is talking about Rahal bringing her over from Formula Fords in England to race in Toyota Atlantics) and into the Indy Racing League so Jamie imagines there are going to be some hard feelings.

Check out my boy MoneyCJ's blog So. Damn. Indy. to hear Jeff Simmons' pr guy go off on Danica.

Lap 95 -- Hornish montage.

Lap 100 -- crossed green and checkered flags (half way point in the race) -- Wheldon, Hornish, Dixon, Helio (shocking, I know), Sharp, Kanaan (last car on the lead lap and not for long) Simmons (!), Ed, Carpenter, Matsuura. Danica 11th. Sarah 15th.

Marty with the race summary -- Team Ganassi very aggressive right out of the chute. Sam is steady and consistent and biding his time. Helio was penalized for pit speed violation and is now back to 4th. Marco was up to sixth when the right rear went down.

Wheldon voiceover during the action. Doesn't care to come second, third or fourth. In 2004 he got second. Do I remember that season? Not really. (Heavy drinking?) Do I remember 2005 when I won? Absolutely.

Rusty -- Wheldon often looked like he had the race locked up this year only to have something go south on him.

Lap 107 -- 6th place Kanaan is about to get lapped. If this stays green they may put a lap on Helio in 4th because he's about a half a track back from the leaders.

Doc -- Dan -- Says it's a little to draggy entering the corners. Want to free it up a little. Free it up? Wheldon talking bout his car being draggy is priceless. I'm amazed that he can drive such a pig.

At the track Buhl advises Sarah to "Get on Tony's aaaaassss" and catch a tow from him. Works pretty well for about 25 laps. Sarah rocks her way around Bucknum and Herta moving from 15th to 13th following Tone. At one point there was only Matsuura between her and Danica. Sarah could probably smell the perfume.

Penske on the radio telling Hornish not to worry about laps led but worry about second or third place.

Lap 111 -- Marco in.

Lap 114. Pitting. Helio 10.6 seconds. Wheldon is a blistering 8.6! Rock on.

Hornish pit. Jack -- Very calm. Sam and Helio will lose "Marlburo" on their cars next year. Will simply say "Team Penske." Will stick with the red/ornage and white, though.

Sam pits. 10.2. Dixon is getting the MPGs. He can stay out a couple laps longer than everyone. Pits at lap 121. Dixon is going 52 laps between stops. Punch. Right front tire changer is Ricky Davis. Right front guy gets major air. Must be related to Punch or slipped him General Grant ($50) in the pre-race.

Well, OK, Sarah's fueler is Pat (shout out to the fuelers, the center of the storm during pit stops) and her left front tire changer is fiance' Andy O'Gara. So there.

Laps led recap. Quatro led 3 (under yellow, but still). First three of his Indy Car career. First non-grandfather car he's driven too. Hmmmmm.

Goodyear -- Quatro -- lot of talent. Didn't have the right cars under him. Scott was talking to Mike Andretti and Mike said he had his eye on Quatro for some time. Might be considered to sit in the seat next year in place of Dario. (!)

Is Dario outta there? Is this a news flash from Scott? I thought it was up in the air still. Scott is adding value!

Rusty -- Both Ganassi cars beat both Penske cars in the pits.

Jack -- Penske suffered from some fueling challenges. Very deliberate. That's the difference between 10 seconds and 8 seconds. Descretion is the better part of valor on this deal here.

Rusty -- Something is going on with Penske and the time it takes them in the pit.

Lap 125 -- Wheldon, Hornish, Dixon, Helio (last car on the lead lap), Sharp, Kanaan, Simmons, Rice (!), Vitor, Scheckter.

Helio may get lapped. He's running all alone and cars alone are slower than cars in a pack at this race. The front three are in a line and freight training away, coming up on Helio.

Rusty sees that the mirror from the first debris caution was from Marty Roth and they now have it taped back on there. I have trouble believing that, Rusty. That they'd tape a mirror back on? Maybe. We got no video of it, though.

Helio is going 213 and is about 15 seconds behind the leaders.

Root -- Helio has to go as fast as they can an pray for a yellow.

Punch -- Dixon is going to pop out of Stoic Racer mode here and get a little more mental here in a minute. Has a four-lap advantage on fuel.

Jack -- Last stop could be fuel only. At 200 mph, one second is (say it with me) is 100 yards on the track.

Lap 145 -- Marty is now 22 laps down. I swear.

Rusty looks like a short-fill situation coming up. Goodyear -- It's a timed deal. They know how fast the fuel flows so they time it and when there is enough sometimes there is a light that goes on in the fueler's helmet but alot of times they just smack the fueler with a stick on the back or the helmet to let him know that's enough. Jack says Penske's fueler-smacking stick is chrome. God I love that tidbit, Jack. Shout out for getting it.

Marty -- Helio is now 20 seconds back and, given a lap is something around 25 seconds here, about to get lapped.

Lap 148 -- Yellow yellow yellow. All that short fill stuff just went out the window. Extremely convenient yellow for Helio. I think I saw a Penske PR person tossing Bud bottles onto the track. ABC shows the safety guys picking up something. Uh-huh. Sure.

Pitting. Wheldon -- 7.9, Hornish 7.2, Dixon, 9.5.

Rusty -- Helio should go out and kiss that piece of debris. Yes he should, Rusty. And whoever threw it.

Replays show Dixon right front changer drops his tire on the last stop. The tire changers is pissed! Major head bob that can only be an F-bomb.

Restart coming. Helio has to go through a bunch of lapped traffic. Lap 154 after yellow. Sarah is 14th. Got a smoking' pit stop from Pat, Andy and the posse. Sarah on the radio: "Nice stop. Good job guys."

Goodyear -- NASCAR does the two-wide restart to get the lapped traffic out of the way. Rusty prefers that. So does Goodyear. Too bad this ain't NASCAR. Rusty says the yellow saved Helio from getting lapped but other than that it didn't really help him. (?) Still in trouble a little bit.

I'd prefer to be in a restart with 6 lapped cars between me and the leaders than being 20 seconds back and about to be lapped, but that's just me, I guess.

Marty -- Wheldon led the most in 6 races and hasn't won any of them this year.

Restart with Hornish in the lead. Lap 156- GREEN. We're onboard with Wheldon as they come around for the restart and just as Wheldon is going to make his killer move under Hornish we cut to the flag man. What the? Missed the killer move!

Arute says Penske says there are team orders, but all they are is "don't crash each other."

Helio moving up. 2 seconds behind leaders.

Lap 160 --Wheldon, Dixon, Sam, Helio (last car on the lead lap), Kanaan, Dixon, Simmons, Ed, Vitor, Danica.

Helio is 1.5 seconds back. Rusty -- He can smell it, he can feel it, he can taste it, he wants it.

Lap 170 -- Arute -- Helio is being told to save his tires.

Dixon out in front.

Penske Mini Montage. Sam video -- Roger has won a bunch of things and this is something you can give him that he can't buy.

Well, Sam, ask the have-nots if Penske bought the title. Answer: Sort of.

Lap 175 -- Wheldon, Dixon, Sam, Helio, Kanaan, Sharp, Ed, Vitor, Simmons, Scheckter.

Helio is back to the lead group. Goodyear says he did a "masterful" job coming back up through the field.

Rusty (I think) says Tony is way pissed at Helio. Not sure why. Not happy.

Target guys are like a foot apart and side-by-side.

Tony goes around Helio. Yeah, there's some rage there. Kanaan is a lapped car and still going around a car on the lead lap. Not a sign of friendship.

Lap 186 -- Simmons goes low and almost gets into Ed.

Lap 190 -- Wheldon, Dixon, Hornish, Helio, Kanaan, Ed, Vitor, Sharp, Simmons, Scheckter. Danica 12th. Sarah 16th.

Rusty -- After 14 races it came down to two drivers tied. (Rusty anticipating the finish here.) Never seen that kind of competition in a long time.

Winner gets $1 million extra cash.

Rusty -- Tell ya what. That cat is going to buy the beer, that's for sure. (pressdog Quote of the Race Award Winner!)

Goodyear -- About now you're mashing the accelerator so hard your foot is going numb.

Lap 194 -- Wheldon and Dixon Touch! Holy shizzzzz. Replay. Dixon's front wing touches Wehldon's rear tire. Sam moves into second. Dixon recovers and passes Sam again. Sam let's him go. Third is the place to be for Sam.

White flag. One more lap. Wheldon will win the race and Sam will win the championship barring air strike. Ganassi and Penske get air.

Wheldon wins. Sam wins. Lap 200 -- Wheldon, Dixon, Sam, Helio, Ed, Vitor, Kanaan, Simmoins, Sharp, Scheckter. Danica 12th and one lap down. Sarah 16th and two laps down.

Jack with Penske -- Just at the end I didn't want them to get too racy. Sam is great.

Jamie with Dan -- Jamie is out of breath. Must have been sprinting over to victory lane. Wheldon -- Good race. Been tough. Frustrating. Wasn't going to let this one slip away. Roger Penske put together a fun-tastic organization and obviously so did Chip. Two teams are a step ahead of the rest because of a dedication to winning (and an ass load of cash). Sounds a little froggy. No, he's not the gecko. He's had a cold/flu or whatever.

Hornish out of his car. Gets his jumbo $1 million check.

Root. Helio-- Give Sam congrats. Best driver on an oval I know. No question. Deserved it. It's about one pushing the other. Sam pushes Helio on the ovals. Helio pushes Sam on the road courses. Helio is classy. Shout out to him. Doesn't scream "SECOND SUCKS" into the mic.

Marty gives props to Ed Carpenter who got fifth. Rusty gives props to Vitor and Tony.

Sam -- Just about as excited as I've ever been. To win the 500 was the highlight of my career and this is a close second. The first two (championships) came easier. This one special to give to Roger. Unbelieveable season. Team Penske worked very hard.

Penske -- this guy is some driver. No mistakes. We're even now. He got Indy and we got a championship. Penske thanks the fans.

Brian "Iron Hand of Justice" Barnhart gets air. Presents check. Gives congrats to Chip. Thanks the fans. Really glad people are thanking the fans here.

Final points: Sam by virtue of a tiebreaker (most wins), Dan, Helio -2, Dixon, Vitor, Tony, Marco (7th), Dario, Danica, Scheckter.

Dixon -- Plenty of mistakes for everyone all year. To be honest I think the best car did win. Congrats to Penske. (Dixon will obviously never be great because he didn't say SECOND SUCKS!). I like Dixon. Very honest. Doesn't get all freaked out about everything. He may be sidepod worthy.

Dixon -- tired to race side-by-side like we did all day (late in the race) but Dan seemed to have a problem with that so, whatever.

Here we get a comercial every 19 seconds, it seems. Went commercial free for most of the race so they have to pack them in now. Gotta pay some bills here. I'd rather to it this way than break away for commercials every five laps while we're green.

Final thoughts -- Rusty -- Unbelieveable season. Dramatic. Loved it. Goodyear -- Most competitive series anywhere in the world (if you consider just those top four cars, sure. But top-to-bottom? Not so much).

Who will replace Rusty when he bolts to ABC/ESPN NASCAR next year? I vote strongly for Robbie "Increda" Buhl. Does a good job on the IPS races. Bring him up to the bigs ABC/ESPN!

Closing montage. Simmons waving the flag at Homestead, Helio climbing the fence, Danica's "Cheever -- is an idiot" moments. Mario fist shake. Danica hopping mad. Helio hopping mad. Wheldon pulling his arm away from mean old Jamie. Hornish getting Marco at the stripe at Indy. Shifter cam. Pit circus. Sam and the fuel hose break. Dario mashing his guys into the wall.

Game over for this year. Thanks for reading. A few more Champ Car recaps to go and then it's offseason for pressdog. Word to your IRL posse. Send my girl Sarah some sponsors, OK? See ya next year or as humor-worthy IRL stories warrant.

p-dog

Notes from the 2006 Champ Car World Series at Montreal

Notes taken during the SPEED tape-delayed broadcast of theGrand Prix of Montreal on Sept. 6, 2006.

Welcome to Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford (BPCCWS) in Montreal. The race was originally scheduled for August 28, but it rained really, really hard, so they ran the race on Monday, August 29. Speed aired the race on Sept. 6.

pressdog's beer of the race is Peroni. Italian. Light color. Light taste. pressdog gives it two paws up.

Paul Tracy enters wearing a Nacho Libre mask complete with the fleur-de-lis-festooned Quebec flag as a cape. Oddly enough, in my race notes from Denver, I suggested "Tracy is all class. I could see him in pro wrestling trunks and boots." Crazy that he shows up in Montreal in wrestling gear. Perhaps you have heard of him, he is Nacho Tracy -- nachoooooooooo.

Starting lineup: Sebastien "Another pole, ho-hum" Bourdais, A.J. "The Truck Driver" Allmendinger, Justin "World's Tallest Open Wheel Racer" Wilson, Nacho Tracy, Oriol Servia, Bruno Junqueria, Will Power, Speedy/Dangerous Dan Clarke, Andrew Ranger, Nelson Philippe, Chuck Zwolsman, Alex Tagliani, Antonio Pizzonia, Jan Heylen, Mario Dominguez, Katherine Legge, Nicky Pasterelli. 17, count 'em, 17 cars.

Replay of the start of the race on August 28. Much rooster-tailing water everywhere. Sebastien Bourdais has the semi-wet setup despite the monsoon and A.J. is around him by about turn three. Katherine Legge goes ass-first into the tires. After six laps, race officials display the red flag and hurricane flag simultaneously. Standing water and the threat of sleet (kidding on the sleet part) finally cause race officials to call the race until Monday.

Jan Beekhuis and Rick Benjamin in the booth (or back at the studio working from the tape, hard to tell). Our boy Derek Daly apparently bolted the scene. He only does live races on Saturdays or Sundays.

Let's relight this candle. We are green-green-green. (Restart, technically, on lap 9). Single file. Everyone on slicks. No rain tires in the group. AJ gets about a four-turn jump. He's on it. Jan says the race line is getting dry, but the rest of the track is still damp and "slick as a button." Which button are you talking about, Jan?

Bourdais is pressuring the upstart-and-only American (AJ). Jan -- Wet vs. dry. Anything with a sheen to it is like ice. Expect the race line to widen as the day goes on.

Lap 10 -- Let the spins begin. Tagliani spins and continues. Lap 11 -- Ranger spins his Wal-martmobile. Went through the chicane and spun and stalled. So we got yellow-yellow-yellow.

Lap 13. Pits are open. We'll be green in a second here. Champ Car is not dicking around here. No five-lap full-course yellows for a stall today. They must all be on overtime or something.

Lap 13/14 -- Green. AJ was on it early again but this time Bourdais is not fooled.

Lap 15 -- Holy Power Outage! AJ is slow off the hairpin. Coming around to the pit entrance going about 50 mph. Many replays. Jan suspects he went for a gear and she blew up on him. AJ in the pits. Looking in the back of the car. Gear box. Half shaft. In any event, it is BLOWN up, SIR! First DNF for AJ with Forsythe.

Bourdais has a moment. He locks up a tire and Jan and Rick froth at the mouth. He's fine.

Jan gives a shout out to Nacho Tracy (Paul Tracy) for taking something serious and turning it into something fun. Jan is referring to the way Paul handled the whole "punt Bourdais and get no real penalty" deal from Denver by acting like the bad-guy wrestler, wearing crazy fleur-de-lis hats in the pits and finally showing up in the mask and cape in Montreal. Not only did he have fun with it, Jan, but he about doubled the press a random Champ Car event gets, so there's always that.

Down to AJ in the pit -- AJ -- Went from first to second gear and something broke. (Jan called it! Turned out to be a half shaft, I believe.) I had Sebastien all over me but I knew there was no place to pass (due to the slick-as-a-button wetness) so AJ said he was driving 1 to 1.5 seconds slower than his fastest.

Jan -- Finishing last will damage AJ's points championship hopes.

Back on the track, Speedy/Dangerous Dan and Chuck Zwolsman are battling for seventh. Dan makes a run but backs out of it rather than just mashing over Zwolsman. Many shout outs for the growing maturity (and corresponding decreasing lethality) of Speedy Dan.

Lap 19 -- Katherine Legge does the spin-o-rama and stalls in the front strait. That means yellow-yellow-yellow. Tough rookie year for K. Legge. This break in the action gives us a chance to see, yet again, video of the unveiling of the Panoz DP01, the future of racing. Unveiled way back at San Jose. Testing at various tracks, most recently Sebring. Roberto Moreno is the test driver. Roberto -- so far it's fun-tastic. The car is performing well for a totally new chassis on a shake-down testing run. Car also passed initial controlled crash tests.

Mazda Power Play -- Highlights from the Atlantics race. Graham Rahal beats Simon Bagenaud by .071 seconds, which is about a nose.

Lap 21 and we're green. Another hyper jump on the restart. Bourdais says SEE YA. Nelson Philippe through the run off, back onto the track, spins, almost T-bones some people, then has a hard time getting it whipped around to keep going. But he doesn't stall it. Several replays of Nelson trying to get it turned around on a narrow run off.

Jan -- the DP01 has an onboard starter AND no-stall technology that automatically kicks the car out of gear if it start to spin.

Power is 5th. I have no idea of the running order or laps since this SPEED broadcast is free from the running ticker and stuff at the top of the screen. It's kind of nice for a change, except I'm all like, "What lap is this?" I'm busting out my Champ Car Race Director Race Notes to see what's what. BAM.

Jan says that Chuck Zwolsman was very pleased with the morning warm up. Topped the charts. Will put that up on his fridge at home and enjoy it. Unfortunately doesn't bring any championship points but shows that he's improving.

Lap 26 -- Mario does a spin-o-rama on Turn 1 but keeps it going. The dreaded Wet Race Track is blamed. Discussion of the little vapor trails each car leaves off its back wing. Kind of cool. Jet-fighter-ish.

Will Power is on the black sidewalls while everyone else is on the reds.

Tag passes Nicky, gets squirrely, gets passed by Power.

Lap 31 -- Power is pitting. (Power Pitting. BAAA.) Stays with the blacks.

Bourdais leads by about five minutes. Bourdais pitting on Lap 31. Wilson stays out. Tracy pits.

Yellow-yellow-yellow. Oriol bashes into "Champion's Wall" so-called because of all the champions who have smucked it. Oriol's car is TOAST in the middle of the track. We're going full-course yellow, kids. Wilson may be screwed hard here.

Pits are closed but Wilson comes in anyway. It's either that or run out of fuel. In the Indy Racing League, if the pits are closed you can still come in for a splash if you are about to run out of fuel without penalty, but here in the CCWS they are a bit more anal about it. Actually, if you do that in the IRL you generally go to the back of the pack as well, so it's about the same, I guess.

Justin will have to go to the back of the pack. Champ Car Race Director Race Notes say that Nelson Philippe also pits for fuel when the pits are closed, so he'll have to go to the back as well. The TV peeps missed this fact.

Lap 33 pits are open. Legge, Ranger, Bruno are in.

Lap 34 -- Wilson pits for a top off. Might as well since he's at the back of the field due to penalty.

Bourdais leads and, therefore, all is right with the Champ Car universe.

Lap 35 -- Green. Bourdais, Tag, Tracy, Nicky, Chuck, Danno, Power, Van Heylen, Pizzonia, Mario. Wilson is at the end of the field and cranky about it, I'm sure.

Holy Bonsai! We got Chuck Zwolsman going through the run off in the hairpin turn, back on to the track, almost nails someone, gets going again. Now Dominguez tries to pass Pizzonia and Bruno sneaks through. We got cars all over the place.

Dominguez and Ranger roll through a chicane. Cue the circus music. Some crazy stuff going on on the track. Ranger is insane to get around Pazzonia.

Rick -- Dominguez is frustrated at losing his ride to AJ. (So, I guess, he's driving like Paul Tracy on crack as a result.)

Bruno gets around Chuck.

Yellow yellow yellow. Ranger leaves a Wal-mart-colored skid along the Champions Wall. Bruno into the wall in the hairpin. Somebody throw a big top over the whole race course! A small car pulls up and eight clowns jump out.

We get a Crazy Shit montage that recaps the mid-pack Festival of Craziness we just had.

Michelle Beisner deployed! Guns covered. Talking about the Festival Ford Raving Festival. Apparently they park a lot of Ford race cars around as part of the CCWS weekend. Ford guy talking about it. Hard to understand him. He's a fast talker and the volume on the audio sucks. Missed most of it.

Pitting -- Tag, Nicky, Nelson, Katherine all pit. Bruno in the pit and they're working on it. This year has been nightmareish for Bruno.

LAP 40 -- Bourdais, Tracy, Dan Clarke (!), Power, Van Heylen, Chuck, Mario, Justin, Tony Pizzonia.

Lap 41 -- GREEN. Jan -- Justin is having a hard time trying to get through the traffic after the penalty. Slicing and dicing his way.

Jan -- During the rain out, Heylen, who is from Belgium, said he likes the rain. Runs in it all the time back home. Jan says rain is the "great equalizer." Puts more stress on driver skill. Rick -- "If this were a horse race you might call him (Heylen) a mudder." (Horse that runs well on a wet track.)

Video of AJ in street clothes in the pits. Waving good-bye to any championship hopes (OK, I made that last sentence up.)

We're seeing way too much racing, so let's go to a package on RuSPORT. Rick -- "Champ Car is by far the most technologically advanced motorsport on the continent." Champ Car and their six-year-old Lolas.

RuSPORT talks about how Justin is the World's Tallest Open-Wheel Driver so he needs a special shifter lever to allow for his extreme height. Engineered it right there at RuSPORT.

Lap 49 -- Back to the actual race and Justin is trying to use his special shifter to get by The Mudder (Heylen) for 5th. Wilson is all over the power to pass and gets by Heylen but heads into the S going about 215 mph and BASHES the Champions Wall. That's going to leave a mark. We got debris and go yellow-yellow-yellow.

Replays. Carried way too much speed into the turns after the pass. Experienced brief tire lockage. Got onto the curbs. Couldn't turn it hard enough to stay out of the wall. Jan -- "Ka-blammo, another one hits the Champions Wall." pressdog Quote of the Race Award winner for Jan right thurrr. Heylen turns inside Wilson and keeps going.

Video of Jeremy Dale, RuSPORT Team President. Talks about how he had to pit when the pits were closed. Got the penalty, put to the back, "we were driving around with a bunch of guys we, quite honestly, shouldn't have been driving around with" and hit the wall. Either Jeremy thinks they got snaked on the penalty or Justin was way too good to be driving with the people he was driving with. And yet, oddly, Justin is the one who put it in the wall while Jan Heylen, amazingly, did not. Dissing the "bunch of guys" is a bit insane thing to do after your driver makes a mistake and nails the wall.

Lap 50, pits are open. Expect a bum rush of pitting. Bourdais, Tracy, Dan Clarke, Power, Heylen, Zwolsman, Mario, Tag, Nicky all pitting. Should be their last stops. Jan reminds us that a bad pit stop last year screwed Bourdais out of winning Montreal. Will they choke again? No. perfect pit stop. And Bourdais is out in first place. You can almost see him cracking open a beer as he comes out of the pit. Stick a fork in this race, she's done.

Dan Clarke! Coming out of his pit box, gets loose. Does a little fish-tailing and totally hip checks Will Power. Tag says "thanks very much" and goes past Power. Jan -- "Power gives (Dan) the international sign for you're number one." Close second for pressdog Quote of the Race honors.

Restart -- Nelson leads but he did not pit. Rick says -- 15 laps to go. Actually, this is going to be a timed race, but on the broadcast there is no mention of this. No lap counter on screen means we have no idea that we are only at 53. Those tricky SPEED replay people. The fact that this is a timed race is none of your business!

Nelson, Bourdais, Tracy, Nicky, Tag, Clarke, Power, Heylen, Chuck, Mario.

Jan says Nelson will have to pit, so winning isn't going to happen, but if he stretches it out he can pit and get back out in third-ish. Nelson's goal is to build up a lot of time on positions 3, 4 and 5 so he can pit and come back out and still get the podium. Shout out to Jan for that interesting insight. (I am not being sarcastic. Just giving Jan credit for enhancing my viewing experience.)

Lap 56 -- Tag goes wide to pass Nicky but gets all sideways and shit and loses a bunch of spots. Tag has been all over the place today. Positions 5 through 8-ish have been Circus Music City the whole race. Tag has spun or cut the course about seven times today, I swear.

Lap 58 -- Power goes wide and Tag passes him back. Tag and Heylen go racing through a chicane. (See what I mean?) Dan Clarke is lurking, thinking about passing. Dan makes it three-wide down the straight. Everyone is mashing the power-to-pass button. The other two drivers probably wet their pants when Dan pulled up and made it three-wide.

Nelson still leads, but his wickerbill on the top of his rear wing is coming off. Sliding out. Shouldn't effect performance much.

Speedy Dan around Nicky for 4th.

Lap 61 -- On TV, it's no big deal, Rick and Jan are all like, "Nelson will have to pit before the end" but in the real race, since time was running out, there was a chance that Nelson could make it to the end if he got some lucky yellows. We got 10 minutes to go, not that Rick or Jan would mention the time thing.

Lap 63 -- Philippe will have to pit or run dry. He's in for a splash and back out in third just as Jan predicted. Props to Jan for that bit of announcing.

Bourdais will win barring airstrike.

Heylen, Will Power, Tag are all going nuts back in the pack. Three-wide and all kinds of insanity. Battling for 6th. Jan Heylen behind Tag totally nose-rams him and punts tag through the chicane. Tag goes wide. Jan avoids him. People get into the water. I tuned into a CCWS race and NASCAR broke out!

We got yellow-yellow-yellow for debris that I think came off of Jan's car when he nose-rammed Tagliani.

Lap 66 -- A green-white-checkered finish. Again, NASCAR-ish.

Dan is all over the back of Nelson for third, but it's not going to happen unless Nelson brain locks. Zwolsman isn't done with the bonsai dives, however. Goes inside to get move from 8th to 7th.

Lap 67 -- Time is up. Bourdais wins. Does immediate doughnuts. Everyone does doughnut so often now that doughnuts are no longer a big deal.

Bourdais, Tracy, Nelson, Dan, Will Power, Pastorelli, Tagliani, Chuck, Van Heylen, Mario.

Bourdais interview -- Felt bad for screwing up on the start in the rain. Benefited from AJ's mechanical and a big mistake by Justin.

Bourdais will have to have major and sustained brain lock not to win the title again now.

Big shout out to Race Notes from Champ Car Race Director. Everyone should rush to www.champcar.ws and sign up for Race Director immediately.

Tune in on Sept. 24 for Road America from Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. 2 p.m. eastern on SPEED.

--
Don't miss a pressdog blog update ever again! Go to the top right corner of the home page and sign up to get a short, tasteful email every time my blog is updated. Member's of the dog blog mailing list are kept strictly confidential. I barely look at the list myself.

League Officials Suspect Danica and JoJo are the Same Person

Danica Patrick/JoJo










Indy Racing League officials Wednesday admitted they are investigating the possibilty that driver Danica Patrick and singer JoJo may be the same person.

"Yeah, we're taking a look at it," said a league official who asked not to be named. "Nobody thought twice until one day when one of our interns said, 'Wow, you dye JoJo's hair black and she could be Danica (5'1", 100 pounds). Then, when Danica wanted to sing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' at the Cubs game Thursday, well, let's just say we put two and two together. I know that I, personally, have never seen Danica and JoJo together."

Other league officials said it wouldn't be a big deal if Danica was actually JoJo, in fact they estimated that JoJo alone may have more fans than the entire Indy Racing League. But officials worried that being JoJo (whose real name is Joanna Levesque) might distract Danica from trying carrying 100% of the IRL marketing department's hopes and dreams on her small-but-well-toned back.

"We need Danica to be available to do any random dog-and-pony-show deal we come up with. We can't have her touring in the greater Toledo, Ohio area when we need her to sign autographs at the Ft. Worth Wal-Mart, for example."

The upside, league officials admitted, was that Danica/JoJo may be able to double race attendance by offering a concert after the race.

"Even if Danica isn't JoJo, she may be able to sing well enough that we consider it," said the IRL source. "I mean, if friggin' Paris Hilton can have a top 40 song it must not require a ton of talent."

To try to settle the issue, IRL officials have invited "JoJo" to the IRL race at Chicagoland Speedway on Sept. 10. "If she shows up while Danica is on the track, I guess we'll have our answer."

--
Don't miss a pressdog blog update ever again! Go to the top right corner of the home page and sign up to get a short, tasteful email every time my blog is updated. Member's of the dog blog mailing list are kept strictly confidential. I barely look at the list myself.