pressdog's Year-End Representation

Ah, 2006. A colorful year for both the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series. Although they remain technically separate series, pressdog joins ESPN in sort of ignoring that technicality and presenting the one, the unified, Year End Representation:

Best Finishes -- The last-lap, turn-four pass of Marco Andretti by the freakishly charging Sam Hornish in the Indy 500. A real "No (rhymes with "trucking") Way!" moment. Over in Champ Car, give the nod to Sebastien Bourdais (rumor: "Bourdais" is French for "bitchslapper") chasing down Justin "World's Tallest Open-Wheel Driver" Wilson in the season finale in Mexico City.

Even though Wilson and Bourdais were about a day ahead of the rest of the field, the last 10 laps were about as exciting as you'll get on a street/road course as Bourdais slowly reeled in Wilson and hip-checked his way by on a final-lap pass. Adding to the excellentness was Wilson driving with a broken wrist, and his refusal to whine, cry to the refs and talk smack about Bourdais' final pass in the post-race interview. That's courage and class. Bourdais got the checkers, but Wilson was the winner.

Biggest Crashes -- Katherine Legge at The Kink at Road America. Dude, when you lose a rear wing, going about 180, that ain't good. Your car tends to drift a smidge. In Legge's case the car went butt first into the barrier at about 188, then belly-first into the catch-fence, end-over-end until all that was left was the cockpit and Katherine saying "get me out of this (bad word) car." Later she pops out of the medical center like she's stepping out for a ciggy. Couple bruises. No big deal. Commentators Derek Daly and Rick Benjamin were incredulous, as was everyone watching.

Ironically, CCWS probably wants her to take the fence again since walking way from the frightening crash got Katherine on about a billion major network morning shows and -- all by itself -- quadrupled Champ Car's press coverage for the year.

Biggest Ado About Nothing -- Marco and Eddie Cheever at Watkins Glen. It's, like, 53 degrees on the track and wet so the tires are basically discs of ice. Marco is taking a bunch of chances and gets whacked by Cheever who was coming out of the pits on ultra-icy tires. Marco gives Eddie a fist shake. Come on, Marco. Like you wanted to GO right there with Cheever. Dad and Grandpa jump to his emotional rescue. Cheever, they say, should be shot by a sniper for this outrage. Simmer-frigging-down.

Here's the thing, maybe Marco should have waited a bit to pass Cheever. No doubt he would have gotten around him within a lap. Going for it on that point on the track was a smidge reckless. I'd love to see the Young Future F1 Driver (Marco) racing against Paul "Outta My Way" Tracy.

Best Off-Track Action -- Gotta be Tracy vs. Tagliani at San Jose. The Slap Down in Silicon Valley. After Tracy suffered brain lock and drove over Tag's front end, Tag found Tracy in the pit and started with the shoving. Pretty soon we had a scuffle. Tagliani kept his helmet on, though. Tracy should have worked the body, I guess. Look for the Unification Fight -- Tracy vs. Cheever (or Marco).

For some odd reason, right as the major haymakers started in the pits, Champ Car cut away from the fight to show a routine pit stop. WTF? The director must be a pacifist or something. Even as it was, the fight caused a hundred-fold increase of air time for Champ Car on SportsCenter. Now if Katherine Legge could crash, not get hurt and start a brawl with Tracy in the pits Champ Car would be in coverage nirvana.

Best Glimmer of Hope -- Ryan Briscoe for giving Dreyer and Reinbold Racing (or Reyer and Deinbold as the IRL calls them) a thrill by driving to third place at Watkins Glen. DRR. Third. Dude, seriously. Team co-owners Dennis Reinbold and Robbie "Incredi" Buhl and the DRR posse probably did shots of Patron into the night.

Worst Race -- That would be Snore-noma for the IRL. Number of clean passes: zero. Number of cars taken out by Vitor Miera and Scott "The Iceman" Dixon during the race, about seven. Parade city. Then, at the end, when there was some drama about whether Young Marco would make it to the end on fuel, Bryan Herta spun bringing out the yellow and the last glimmer of interest in this race was snuffed. There's two hours none of us will get back. Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z.

Over in Champ Car, the worst race was easily Milwaukee. Worst oval race I have ever watched in my entire life, and I have watched a lot of oval races. Bourdais LAPPED THE FIELD. Any time the leader (Bourdais, try to act shocked) can pit on a one-mile oval and come out of the pits still in the lead, that's a serious bitchslapping.

Add to that Champ Car's phantom "debris yellows" to clean the track of marbles and the fact that it was a timed oval race and you may have a cause for a class-action lawsuit by the people who were charged money to see such a farce. When a "big-league" open-wheel race makes you long for a 25-lap sprint car feature race, that's bad.

pressdog In Your Face Award: A.J. Allmendinger. Winless Allmendinger gets fired from RuSPORT after the debacle at Milwaukee, gets hired by Forsythe and wins about four straight. RuSPORT boss Carl Russo maintains his class, however, refusing to diss Humdinger and congratulating him in victory lane. \

pressdog Show Me the Money Award: Extremely close call, but we gotta go with Danica Patrick. Mid-season Danica's subtle-as-a-chain-saw father, T.J., visibly hob-knobs with some NASCAR teams. Rumors swirl that Danica is jumping ship to Fenderland. Eventually she changes IRL teams and goes to Andretti Green Racing for a ton of cash (by IRL standards. By NASCAR standards Danica got cab fare).

Not sure if Dancia seriously considered (or had offers for) NASCAR, but I am sure she wouldn't have enjoyed being mashed into the wall regularly by the good-old-boys who aren't about to be beaten by a 100-pound "little lady." Danica should get with Sarah Fisher who spent a brutal season in the NASCAR minors or Erin Crocker who got regularly ass-checked into the wall in the NASCAR minors.

Runner up is AJ Allmendinger who parlayed his five Champ Car wins into a ride with Red Bull Toyota in the NASCAR system next year. Ka-ching. See ya!

pressdog Makes Me Laugh Every Time Award: IRL or Champ Car officials claiming the league is "very competitive." BAAAA. That's a good one. Competitive if you are on a Ganassi or Penske team in the IRL or Bourdais, Justin Wilson and Forsythe in Champ Car. Rest of you guys and girls are driving for 5th. Masses of fans are praying the league will somehow address the lack of drama as to who will win next year.

Close second: The Little Baby Jesus prayer in the movie Taladega Nights. I laughed so hard I started crying.

pressdog Best Move for the Future of the Sport Award: Champ Car's development of the new Panoz DP01 chassis. A dramatically cheaper car to replace their aging Lolas, the DP01 may help to level the playing field a bit and encourage more teams to get into the league by reducing costs. If it takes less money to sponsor a competitive car, odds are you'll be more appealing to more sponsors. Duh.

pressdog Circus Music Moment of the Year Award: Lap 1, Turn 1, Champ Car World Series, Long Beach, April. Cars and carbon fiber everywhere. Four cars (nearly a quarter of the 18-car field) is toasted, including Sebastien Bourdais' chief competition. Rumor has it he drives one-handed the rest of the race and wins easily.

pressdog Worst Television Moment Award: ESPN/ABC repeats the intro video during their taped replay of the Motegi race and then doesn't air the first 17 laps of the race. Way to choke the video replay of a race. Good thing virtually nobody cares about or watches the Twin Ring snorefest each year.

pressdog Best Trackside Interview Award: Jamie Little! Get her in a CAR! Chasing down Dan Wheldon who was pissed after not winning at Texas and stalking angrily back to his trailer. Jamie grabbed Dan by the elbow to try and get him to slow down a bit and Dan ripped his arm away from Jamie like, "Don't touch me!" Jamie Little, pit warrior. Then she got assigned to work NASCAR next year. Money CJ leads the mourning for the loss of Jamie. To be fair, Danno bounced back pretty well and had some fun with the heated arm rip away the rest of the season.

pressdog Best Announcer Verbal Eclamation: Derek Daly: "Grandma's on the whiskey!" caused by AJ Allmendinger doing something fabulous during the San Jose race in July 30. For some reason Derek, advised that AJ's grandma was at the race, illustrated the race by telling us at various points what Grandma would think of AJ's driving. When he passed Cristiano da Matta Derek declared Grandma was on the whiskey. I've use that line often in my daily life since then.

Here's to a fabulous 2007. Unification? Maybe. Maybe not. Can't we all get along? Here's to tons of sponsors and millions more fans tuning in to see American open-wheel racing of whatever flavor.

Thanks for reading the blog. My contract (with myself) was renewed for 2007, so come on back and visit. Also take a look at my IRL homeys' sites, So Damn Indy and My Name is IRL. Pressdog gets his own URL in 2007, and the whole deal is moving to www.pressdog.com. The protoblog is up there now, so rush over and eyeball it.

I plan to attend the IRL races in Kansas, Iowa and Chicago and the Champ Car race at Road America. Watch for Expanded Coverage. Me and Derek Daly? Parting? Hold on to your hollyhocks! pressdog is in the whiskey.