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.

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