Champ Car ESPN Deal Part of Covert Unification Drive

Note to the gullible: everything below is made up.

The multi-year agreement between the Champ Car World Series and ESPN is really part of a stealth unification scheme, according to multiple sources within both series.

"The ESPN deal is just the tip of the iceberg," said one IRL insider. "Underneath the water line a bunch of us are working toward merging together one little thing at a time, when no one is looking. We plan to eventually tell (IRL chief) Tony Geroge (left) about it once everything is unified, maybe bring it up during a round of golf. Like, 'Hey, Tony, a bunch of us went ahead and got that unification thing out of the way.' "

ESPN announced November 16 that at least 11 Champ Car races in 2007 and the full series in 2008 will be aired on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. ESPN and its sister stations currently broadcasts all the Indy Racing League's races. The announcement from ESPN means that the series will now have a unified broadcaster.

The IRL and Champ Car are the two major open-wheel series in the U.S. A large contingent of open-wheel fans have long called for the merger or "unification" of the two open-wheel series into one. Proponents claim unification would help ensure the survival of American major-league open-wheel racing by combining resources and creating a larger fan audience that would make sponsorship of the league more appealing.

According to insiders, people associated with both leagues have grown tired of waiting for George and Champ Car leader Kevin Kalkhoven to make a merger deal. The frustration has led to a plan to "just merge stuff and maybe just e-mail Tony and Kevin when it's done."

Beside having a common broadcaster, IRL and Champ Car insiders plan to use the same telephone carrier, switch to a common Web host and start using the same providers for "coffee cups and other disposable paperware."

"We also think we're getting close on having a unified lawn service and the same janitorial supply vendor," said a Champ Car source familiar with the covert plans.

"With The Grand Puppetmaster (ESPN) on board, we think the merger will happen sooner, rather than later," said a Champ Car insider. "Maybe we'll get the job done and tell Tony and Kevin when they come back from a long weekend. We're actually targeting having everything done so we can break it to the guys after Christmas break 2007."

Reports that Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network announcer Mike King has spent several hours practicing pronouncing "Bourdais," "Junqueira," and "Pizzonia" could not be confirmed.
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Open-wheel Racing Mulls Making all Hiring Decisions Based on Sponsorship

Come on. Do I have to? OK. Everything below is made up. Sheesh.

The jobs of engineers, pit crews, PR people, even transport hauler drivers in the Indy Racing League and Champ Car World Series may soon be determined by how much sponsorship the applicant can bring to the table.

Strapped for cash, the premier American open-wheel racing series are considering extending the practice of hiring drivers in part based on how much sponsorship they can generate to other positions within teams.

"We figure there may be some engineers out there who can bring some cash to the table. There may very well be some rich kids who want to be engineers in the IRL and wear the fancy team stuff home to show their friends," said an IRL insider. "All we're saying is that may become more of an element in hiring."

Many teams routinely make driver hiring decision based on how much sponsorship the driver can bring to the team. The practice, known derisively as "ride buying," is prevalent in both the IRL and CCWS.

Under the new program, ride buying would be a model for engineering buying, pit crew buying and even public relations representative buying. So, for example, a right front tire changer with $10,000 in his pocket could get the job over a changer with more skill but less cash. "From our point of view," said a Champ Car insider, "if it works for drivers, why not extend the model, so to speak?"

In other news, Champ Car leaders denied rumors that the remaining Lola chassis/Ford Cosworth engine Champ Cars may soon show up on eBay. Champ Car is going to its much-anticipated Panoz DP01 chassis with Cosworth engine (right) in 2007. Rumors that Panoz got the job designing the DP01 because it brought "significant sponsorship dollars to the table" could not be confirmed.

Notes from Champ Car World Series in Mexico City 2006

Notes taken during the SPEED broadcast of Champ Car World Series Grand Premio Telmex presented by Banmex, Mexico City on 11/12/06.

pressdog's muy frio beer of the race is race sponsor Tecate. Una cerveza muy excelente.

Sebastien Bourdais montage. First guy since 1948 to win three points championships in a row.

Welcome to Mexico City. 14th and final race. Wet weekend off and on. Rookie of the Year running down to Will Power and Speedy Dan Clarke. Power leads ROY by 15. $50,000 to the ROY. Noticeable cash.

Rick Benjamin and Derek Daly on camera. Talking about AJ Allmendinger bailing for NASCAR and Paul Tracy rolling his golf cart (or ATV or whatever) in Vegas. Both are out. So 2004 Indy 500 champion Buddy Rice (right) gets AJ's ride and David Martinez fills in for Evel Knievel Tracy. Buddy's ride is widely considered to be a tryout for a full season next year. Buddy got no sponsor love and therefore wasn't re-signed by the IRL's Rahal Letterman.

Speedy Dan and Power get air. ROY candidates. Power says has to finish to get it, so may be a bit cautious. Speedy Dan sucking on his water bottle says he's going for the win. Season-end video montage.

Wilson has a broken wrist. Wearing a carbon-fiber brace. Gets the pole. With Cameron Steele. Wilson is getting taped. Is fatigue an issue? Wilson -- Don't know. Give it our best shot going for the win if he can, if not he'll drive for second in the championship.

Nation's Cup -- France has clinched. England second. Surfers Paradise recall. Nelson wins. AJ Allmendinger pit fire and then taking the wall. Bourdais smacking Will Power out of the way.

Nelson goes to an orphanage in Mexico City. Giving away some race tickets. Video of the kids and Philippe. Nelson wipes a manly tear.

Mazda Power Play. Cooper Tires will be the official tires of the Atlantics.

Pace laps. Three sweet Mustangs out in front pacing.

Starting lineup: Justin Wilson, Sebastien Bourdais, Bruno Junqueira, Will Power, Ryan Briscoe, Speedy Dan Clarke, Oriol Servia, Alex Tagliani, David Martinez, Nelson Philippe, Mario Dominguez, Charles Zwolsman, Katherine Legge, Buddy Rice, Antonio Pizzonia, Andrew Ranger, Jan Heylen, Andreas Wirth.

Cameras onboard with the pace car, Justin Wilson, Mario Dominguez, Andrew Ranger. Ranger is also sporting the Visor Cam.

DD - race track is long and fast. Turns 14-15-16 are a first-gear chicane and then 200 mph down to turn 1. Have the circus music ready. We're going 66 laps, 185 miles. Two pit stops. Pit windows right around Lap 18 and 40.

Yo tango cerveza! Let's light this candle. We are green-green-green.

Holy sideways! Katherine Legge is sideways. She's into the inside wall even before the start finish. She's noseless. Replays. Katherine Legge moving to the right side, Dominguez already there (in back fo her) and they touched. Legge into the wall. This is all before the line. What Dominguez, who started two in front of Katherine was doing back there, I have no idea. Either he fell back or Katherine moved up, obviously. Briscoe in to the pits to get a flat replaced. May have hit debris. Dominguez in. Left front suspension is trashed.

Replay of Katherine going end-over-end into the kink at Road America. Video of her coming out of the infield medical center afterwards like it was no big thing.

Jan -- Briscoe -- tire had gone down. Checked the suspension. No damage found.

Mario into the pit. Damaged toe link on the left front. Busting out the wrenches. Looks like a long repair. Katherine coming around sans nose. Checking suspension. Getting the new nose out. New nose on. Legge out. Lost at least a lap.

Bruno interview. He wants to win this year. My viewing is enhanced.

Restart while at commercial! I should have been watching Race Director -- no commercials!

Bourdais has a major run on Wilson right off the green. He's got him on the inside. Bourdais leads. Wilson let him go because he's not an idiot.

DD says Boudais was mad at DD for blaming Bourdais for going mental at Surfers and taking out Will Power. Something about telemetry showing Bourdais' car bottomed out worse than it ever had before, blah blah blah. I guess the car and telemetry decided to try the pass at that point on the track all by itself as well. DD "With that bit of information, if I was wrong, I apologize."

DD calls Wilson "the one-handed wonder."

Video of Bourdais talking about Wilson -- Be hard if his hand cramps up. Wish we could battle fair and square.

Speedy Dan pits. May have issues.

Dominguez back out. Dan back on pit road. Engine issues. Listening in on Dan's radio. Can't undersand a word he's saying. Many hand gestures as he talks from the cockpit.

DD gives Martinez a shout out. Briscoe is moving up.

Jan with Jeremy Dale -- Team president for RuSPORT and Justin Wilson. -- Restarts are tough here. Long straight away. Bourdais got a tow on the restart and passed us. Wrist is fine. He's done an exceptional job. So proud of him. Can't say enough about him.

Wilson is 1.5 seconds back. If he finishes seventh or better he gets second in the points.

Lap 10 -- Bourdais, Wilson, Junk, Power, Tag, Nelson, Martinez, Pizzonia.

Onboard with Ranger. Briscoe is right up on Rice's ass. Holy Battle of former IRL drivers.

DD- Rice is having issues with his brakes. Not used to them. Way different than his IRL Dallara. Briscoe passes Rice for 10th. Briscoe now around Ranger. He's on the move.

Briscoe interview -- Run within the limits of what the car can do we may get on the podium. Get experience on full tanks. Do as well as he can.

Dan Clarke is out. BLOWN UP, Sir! Differential is junk. Dan gives out hugs in the pits.

Lap 12 -- Briscoe passes Pizzonia.

Cameron with Speedy Dan. Sucking on the water bottle again. Doesn't know what was up with the car. After all the yellow the engine started braking on down shifts. Radio disconnected. Couldn't hear. Carmeron: Thanks. Dan: Is that it? Cameron: That's it. Dan: Thought I'd get to gripe a bit.

Ranger locks his right side tires coming into the bus stop about every time. Major lock ups. Pizzonia also locks them up here and there. Pizzonia is slow through the esses.

Lap 14 - Rice pitting. Going the old "alternate pit strategy" route. Clean stop. He's out. Buddy's coverage during this one CCWS race has now exceeded the race coverage he got all season in the IRL. Buddy has to get onto the whole red sidewall thing.

Briscoe pits early. Briscoe is running about .6 of a second slower than the front runners.

Double D points out that Wilson has a busted wrist. Screw in one of his bones. Ballsy/risky move to drive.

Ranger pits on Lap 17.

Wilson looking inside Bourdais. DD points out that Wilson has been the fastest car all weekend. Not surprised to see him catching Bourdais. Rick says maybe Wilson let Bourdais pass for the lead and is saving himself for the late fight.

Bourdais Bold Moves Moment montage! Come from behind at Houston. Wins on an oval at Milwaukee. Ran in the rain at Montreal. Won the title at Surfers.

In car with Mario. Replay of lap 1 wreck.

Lap 23 -- Wilson passes Bourdais for the lead at the end of the front stretch. What the? Bourdais passed on the track! Media alerted. He may be having rear tire issues. Bridgestone red sidewalls may be going away.

Bruno in. Complained of understeer. Bourdais will be in soon for black sidewalls. Wilson stretching out on Bourdais. Bourdais pits. Two crew members are changing tires with food poisoning.

Wilson comes in after running an extra lap than Bourdais. Gets out in front of Bourdais. But Bourdais is right on him. Everybody is pitting for the harder Bridgestone blacks. Team Australia cars are 1-2 briefly with Power in the lead as others pit, but they're coming in soon.

Lap 24 -- Holy flying rubber! Briscoe has shredded his right front. It's stuck with a gaping hole showing at the top. He's still going around the track so no full-course yellow.

Wirth and Power almost collide on pit lane. Wirth has his head out and swerved right into an empty pit box to avoid Power. Props to him for the evasive action.

Lap 25 -- Tag leads and then pits.

Jan reports rain drops. Looks like we got rain starting. Wilson three seconds ahead of Bourdais. Briscoe replay. Rick says the blow out has to be from drebris or flat-spotting.

Andy Ranger helmet came shows how bad it's raining. DD - "This (rain) will put the cat among the pigeons." He has to have a stockpile of Dalyisms that he just pulls out whenever.

Down to Bridgestone's Al Speyer with Jan. I think they have Bourdais' rear red tires, the ones he had on when he got passed by Wilson. Jan -- what up? No wear bars left at all. These are shot. Al -- That's why we come here to race. Next year come back with a better tire. Briscoe flat spotted it and finally let go coming down the main straight. Jan predicts people will becoming in soon for rain tires.

Lap 28 -- Drivers say it's raining in the back straight. Teams start preparing to get the rain tires out. Tell drivers to come in when they think they need them.

DD - Rain. What will this do to Buddy Rice? Buddy Rice montage! Atlantics in 1999 and 2000. Won title in 2000.

Lap 31 -- Massive pitting for rain tires. Raining harder now. Lap 33 -- Wilson pits for rain tires, Bourdais stays out. He's a death cheater, that Bourdais! DD is incredulous. Bourdais will pit next lap and hope he can get back out in front of Justin. DD thinks Bourdais has lost time to Wilson. Wilson just flew by.

Video of Bruno. Racing to hold onto his ride, according to Rick. Raining like crazy now. Bruno montage. This season he's had a pole and four top fives.

Ranger helmet cam. Much spray.

Half way. Recap. Katherine Legge into the fence on the restart. Katherine and Mario both smacked. Ranger gets major air. Former ice racer. Used to the slick conditions. More Ranger Helmet cam.

Lap 40 -- Wilson is now six seconds in front of Bourdais. But, Bourdais was a full second faster on lap 40. Will Power short cuts a chicane in the esses.

Cristiano da Matta is back in Brazil. Now can drive his regular passenger car. Doing very well.

Tag may be auditioning for a job next season. Team Australia may field two Australian drivers. Briscoe (an Australian) may end up there. Nelson Philippe goes through the grass in the esses.

Lap 43, Buddy passed by Oriol. Rice gets out of the throttle enough to fall in about eight inches behind Oriol. DD -- all engines have pop-off valves. Since 1979 had pop-offs. New Champ Car engine has none. Electronics do the same job.

Andreas Wirth is holding up people. Not sure what his issue is. Champ Car trying to get him out of the way. Wirth gets the blue flag.

Tracy mini-montage. Nine top 10s this season.

Katherine Legge is putting down some serious times with the rain tires. Last lap was 1:39.5, about what the leaders are posting.

Helmet cam! Mario's left front changer guy wearing the helmet cam. Fablous.

Lap 46 -- Wirth gets black flagged for failing to yield to faster leaders. Has to do a drive-through.

Lap 47 -- Power is working on Bruno for 3rd. Got it. Passed Bruno for P3.

Wilson is now pulling away from Bourdais. Adding seconds.

Lap 53 -- Bourdais is 6.67 seconds behind Wilson. Legge puts up a 1:39.2. Driving like she's enraged. Justin Wilson pitting. Final stop. Clean. Bourdais stays out to try to stretch it out and come out of his stop at least close to Wilson.

11 laps to go. Bourdais tells his pit that his tires will last to the end. Bourdais is the one-word answer guy on the radio. Will the tires last? Bourdais -- "Yes." Derek says that means Bourdais will come in for a splash and go at the end giving him a better chance of catching Wilson. "This is good stoof here."

Graham Rahal gets air! Gonna drive with some Champ Car team next year, just not sure which. Big talk that it may be Newman Haas. Third car or bye-bye Bruno?

10 to go. Bourdais, Wilson, Will Power, Tag, Bruno, Nelson, Oriol, Andy Ranger, Buddy Rice, Martinez.

Lap 57 -- Bourdais will pit. Gonna be a fist fight. Bourdais in. Splash and go. No tires. Wilson blows passed the pits and takes the lead just as Bourdais is coming out on cold tires.

Derek is on the Power to Pass himself -- "This is going to be a straight fight now."

8 to go. Can Bourdais catch Wilson? Bourdais is 4.5 back but gaining. Derek -- This good stoof here. Rice is 7th but still has to pit.

Lap 58 -- Derek gives his ode to the circa 1970 pop-off valve on the Cosworths again. You can see it on the rear view of an in-car camera. Gone after today since the new engine doesn't have a pop-off valve. Derek is going to miss it.

Down to Jan with the perpetually optimistic Craig Hampson. Hampson says not changing tires at the end was a coin toss. Boudais made the call. Justin done heck of a job. Thinks it will end Wilson-Bourdais.

Lap 61 -- Bourdais is on it. He's cut Wilson's lead down to 2.7 seconds.

Lap 62 -- Ranger (a lap down) goes wide. Let's Bourdais pass. Class move.

DD is on fire. "It's a dog fight. It is a straight fight. The decks are clear, go at it boys. Go at it boys."

Now Bourdais is just .926 seconds back. You can almost hear DD breathing into a bag in the booth. The moment calls out for a "hold onto your hollyhocks" but Derek won't give it to us. He's teasing us. Refusing to give us what we want.

Coming out of the 1st-gear at the chicane before the front straight. Bourdais goes for a pass on the outside. What the? Mashing the power to pass. How do you say "massive balls" in French? Both cars get a little fishy coming out of the Peraltada. Not going to work though. Justin holds tight and fends off Bourdais.

Two to go. Both are on the power to pass down the straight. Wilson is now .74 seconds ahead.

White flag. Boudais is on Wilson's ass, big time. Bourdais is out of power to pass.

Holy slide job! Bourdais tosses his car inside, bounces onto the curb and the ass gets squirrely hip checking Wilson out of the way. Body check city. Bourdais leads. DD -- "Looked like a bit of a Paul-Tracy-like move." Wilson locks up the brakes through the bus stop a few seconds later. He's toast.

Derek declares it a legit pass. Borderline. Replay. Banzai! Dirt-track slide job. Up over the curb, the ass of Bourdais' car slides out, hip checks Wilson out of the way. Stewards may take a look. Don't hold your breath on them taking a victory away on such a close call.

Finish -- Bourdais, Wilson, Power, Junk, Tag, Servia, Nelson, Andy Ranger, Martinez and Rice.

Bourdais is a 7-time winner. Batting .500 for the year (7 wins out of 14 races). Props to Wilson the One-Hand Wonder for putting up a major battle with AJ gone to NASCAR and Tracy recovering from his stunt driving.

Cameron with Hampson after the victory. Hampson says he doesn't think Bourdais has enough to win it (kidding). Really says he thinks Wilson was struggling at the end. Maybe the wrist. He was off the pace a bit.

Will Power is third. First-ever podium for him. Recalling Power going ass-first into the barrier at Edmonton and almost killing a camera guy (who, by the way, hung in there to get the video before finally bailing out at the last second. Major cajones on the camera guy).

Justin (pictured left) -- I was just hanging on the last 10 to 12 laps. Just couldn't hang on for the last lap. Wasn't surprised that Bourdais went for the pass. Quite a bit of contact. "I didn't think it was completely on, but, you know, I'll give it to him." Steering wheel snapped around a bit. (Wilson declines to call it a wanker move. Says it was right on the line between legit and punk-like. Doesn't seem pissy about it at all. Huge shout out for his post-race interview conduct.)

Jan with Bourdais. Says hi to wife Claire who is back home expecting a child. Bourdais -- That was a tought deal. But I didn't want to take Wilson out. Went side-by-side, touched a little. Pretty sure wheel-to-sidepod should be all right. I made up for a big mistake I made trying to catch him earier in the race (a spin-o-rama that TV didn't catch). When it started raining he started catching him.

Bourdais motage. Wins half the races on the year. Season's over. Tune in to see the DP01 make its big debut in April 8, 2007 at Viva Las Vegas. As a special race weekend event, Paul Tracy will jump some haulers with a golf cart! (Kidding.)

Tracy Mulls Snake River Cannon Jump

It's seem silly to have to say this, but 99% of everything below is made up.

Champ Car World Series veteran Paul Tracy is preparing to jump the Snake River Cannon in a golf cart, according to sources close to the driver.

Speculation has swirled since the weekend of Nov. 4 when Tracy (show at right modeling a possible jumping costume) broke his shoulder blade in an accident in his home town of Las Vegas.

Initial reports had Tracy getting hammered and trying to jump a golf cart over sand dunes. Later Tracy said he was "playing around with an ATV that I own and it just got a little out of hand; I flipped it over and it landed on top of me."

The injury will cause Tracy to miss the Champ Car season finale Nov. 12 in Mexico City.

Sources close to Tracy said the golf cart story is closer to the truth. For months Tracy has been working with super-modified golf carts in an effort to match the glory of Tracy's idol, Evel Knievel. Friends of Tracy who asked not to be named said the Forsythe driving star was testing out some JATO (jet-assisted take-off) tubes recently mounted on his golf cart.

"He was all right coming off the first dune, but then I think he might have hit a bird or something and the cart just drifted on him," said one witness to the accident. "Landed kind of on the front corner. Could have been a lot worse. Thank God it was sand. When we ran over to him he was saying something about 'goddamn bad aero package.' He was pretty delirious."

Knievel launched his mega-stunt bus-jumping career on New Year's Day 1968 by crashing in an attempt to clear the fountains at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. On Sept. 8, 1974 Knievel tried to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a specially constructed rocket powered "Skycycle" that looked a lot like a plain old rocket. Even though he cleared the quarter mile wide chasm, strong winds blew the malfunctioning parachute back into the canyon, landing just a few feet from the angry Snake River.

Tracy apparently is on a mission to avenge Knievel's Snake River failure, but in a super modified rocket-powered golf cart. Insiders said Tracy got the idea for his second career after his brief experience in the stunt-focused, high-showmanship world of NASCAR.

Another story that Tracy was injured when he tried to prevent someone from passing him during a golf cart/ATV race could not be confirmed. The theory seemed to lose plausibility when sources confirmed that Tracy nemesis Sebastien Bourdais was miles from Las Vegas at the time of the crash.

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pressdog Lauches Free Danica! Campaign

Photo: Shawn Payne and Indy Racing League
Reacting angrily to rumors of oppressive sponsor behavior, pressdog today formally launched a "Free Danica!" campaign.

"It's just wrong man," said obscure racing blogger pressdog. "Danica wants to run the Daytona test so she should be able to run the Daytona test. I mean, why is everyone getting so knotted up about it? You know what that is? It's The Man, bringing her down. We gotta stick it to the man."

Reaction came after IRL sponsor darling Danica Patrick had to drop out of a test of a Daytona prototype car for the 24 hours of Daytona. Danica had been slated to participate along with Champ Car rookie Katherine Legge and Rolex series regular Milka Dumo. The prospect of having three fast women on the track at once had put the blogosphere into a brief-but-intense frenzy.

When the all-knowing IRL insider kings from www.tracksideonline.com said in a podcast that Danica's inability to participate was probably a "sponsor conflict," the blogosphere reacted. (Open your iTunes and sign up for the free tracksideonline pod cast right now and then go briskly to www.tracksideoline.com and sign up for their news service. Do it now.)

Sponsors often times put pressure on their high-profile drivers/celebrities to not participate in something when they thinking it may make a competing company look good. Speculation in Danica's case focused on her sponsor, Honda, which participates in the American Le Mans Series, having a cow when it heard that Danica was going to participate in something that would draw attention to a rival league.

"Dude, Danica has to live her life, OK?," pressdog said. "Maybe all the sponsors should chill. Pretty soon the woman can't even make a phone call unless it's on a Motorola phone or something goofy like that. FREE DANICA NOW."

pressdog insiders said they had heard Danica was "totally pumped" to do the test and then The Man came down on her.

"It's just not right. Drive and let drive, I say," pressdog said. Plans include sending tersely worded notes to her sponsors, thinking positive thoughts about Danica and buying a Jay Z album in her honor.

Sponsors reached for comment on the Free Danica! movement said, "press-who? Never heard of him, or it, or whatever."
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Jeff of IRL Lays Down Some ROI Smack

Our boy Jeff at My Name is IRL is laying down some smack about the Indy Racing League's apparent indifference to the incredibly negative ROI that comes from sponsoring many of its teams. The lack of real steps to help reduce the cost of competing (competing for the win, not just showing up to finish behind Ganassi and Penske) makes us wonder if everyone at IRL HQ is drinking cheap Scotch all day or what.

Check Jeff immediately. Go on Jeff, you tell 'em. Get down with your bad self.

The Iceman Spaketh

The blogosphere cried out for a few, measured words from Scott Dixon (left), who responded by talking about Honda power, Kiwi beer and his stoic demeanor. Mega props to Ganassi PR Czarina Pat for getting these 100%, swear-to-God real answers from the freakishly fast New Zealander who won the 2003 Indy Racing League points championship.

pressdog: You seem eerily calm before, during and after the race. What's up with that? Do you go back to the trailer and scream and yell and fist pump when nobody is looking or is the calm guy just the Real Scott Dixon?

Dixon: That's just me. I don't take life too seriously... we don't get out of it alive.

pressdog: Are you aware that your nickname among the blog freaks is "the Iceman?" How do you feel about the name?

Iceman: Cool.

pressdog: After winning the title, how tough was it to be on the Toyota Slow Train in 2005? How great was it to be back up to speed in 2006?

Dixon: Funny story. My first test with a Honda engine was at Phoenix. I hit the throttle coming out of the pits and my first impression about the engine was "This is like cheating!" They asked Dan Wheldon his impressions. (pressdog note: Dan won in 2005 with a super-tweaked, factory team Honda so he was use to mega power. But the 2006 Honda was distributed to all teams and therefore had toned down power compared to Wheldon's ultra-tuned 2005 engine. So when Wheldon tested the 2006 version of the Honda) ... he was like "There must be something wrong with the engine. This is no where near the power I had last year." The fact that I thought the 2006 Honda was almost illegally fast and Dan thought it was slow gives you an idea of how different the 2005 Toyota and 2005 Honda engines were.

pressdog: What do you think of the IRL schedule for 2007? The perception out here is that you prefer road races over ovals. True or false?

Dixon: True. LOVE street courses. I find them a great challenge over keeping your foot flat around an oval. That can get old.

pressdog: Speaking as a bit of an introvert myself, is it challenging to be teammates with Super Extrovert Dan Wheldon?

Dixon: He’s out there all right. I just sit back and watch him go. At the very least, it is entertaining.

pressdog: Do you read the blogs? Is it true that pressdog is your fav blog?

Dixon: Doesn’t everyone?

pressdog: What's the race scene like in New Zealand ? Dirt tracks? Ovals? Mostly street/road races? Give us a flavah.

Dixon: Pretty cool really. My parents were both dirt trackers. Road tracks mostly. That’s how I got my start. There are even photos out there of me winning my first karting race with a few pillows tied to my arse because I couldn’t reach the pedals! Always a good time.

pressdog: What' the most popular beer in New Zealand?

Dixon: Steinlager probably. Then Speights Gold Medal Ale, Tui, New Zealand Lager, Kiwi Draught. The first beer brewed in New Zealand was made by the order of English explorer Captain Cook in the 18th Century, who believed the nutritional values of beer would help fight scurvy, a disease common to sailors of the time. But then again… do we really need an excuse for beer? (pressdog says: Amen, my Kiwi brother.)

pressdog: I've pounded beers (ok, one beer) with Ganassi IRL PR queen Pat Caporali. She seems cool. What's the real scoop on Pat?

Dixon: Pat drinks beer? Really?!

pressdog: What would be the first thing you would do with your first free moment after winning the Indy 500? (After the milk and the winner circle stuff and the photos.)

Dixon: Probably take a piss. I don’t pee in my firesuit like some others. (pressdog says: Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.)

pressdog: How do you feel abut F1? Dig it? Want a shot at it? Take it or leave it?

Dixon: Had a chance to test a Williams BMW a few times. I’d take it but not just to go in circles. I’d want to be competitive.

pressdog: Unifying the IRL and Champ Car. Good idea? Bad idea? What's your view?

Dixon: Has to happen. The sooner the better for everyone concerned.

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