Commentaries From The Paddock

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2001:Homestead, Infiniti Grand Prix-Miami......As at the season opener, Sam Hornish, Jr., now with Panther Racing, would win the race, but, like a certain Indy 500 winner, the press focused on one of the drivers behind him. Having snuck up to the front from a back-grid start, Walker Racing's Sarah Fisher fought a tooth-and-nail dogfight with Hornish for the win(sorta' like Indy this year!) but came up less than 1 sec. short. To this day, it is still the highest finish for a woman in the modern-era of top-level AOWR. (Patrick's 2 4th's in 2005 are the highest since 2001; Katherine Legge's 3 Atlantic victories are the highest in any major open-wheel series.)

2001: Atlanta, ZMax 500K.......The highlight of the IRL's last visit to Hampton, Ga. wasn't seeing Greg Ray run away with the win, it was seeing an 11-car melee that took out some of the front-runners. In the words of Billy Boat...."all h--- broke loose". Enough said.

2001, Indianapolis, 85th Indy 500.....As the competitors returned to the Brickyard, they found several things had changed. New facilities to accommodate the Formula 1 USGP, a new "pagoda"(control tower), and some new faces. Okay, not new, but....the last time a Penske-owned car won at Indy, it was 1994 and the "split" was yet to occur. This year, the Captain returned with two veteran CART racers, Helio Castorneves and Gil de Ferran, and it was simply no contest; the pair ran away with the race; when Castroneves took the checkers, the top-6 spots were filled with non-IRL regulars; Eliseo Salazar, in 7th, was the highest series regular. Indeed. after Penske's pair, in 3rd sat Michael Andretti, while two of Chip Ganassi's boys, Jimmy Vasser and Bruno Junquiera, were 4th and 5th. NASCAR even had a foot in the door, as ole' Smoke himself, Tony Stewart, finished 6th in a Ganassi car. Sadly, it wasn't the IRL's finest hour.

2001: Kansas, Ameristar Casino 300....Ever since the Nissan Infiniti V8 was introduced to the IndyCar Series, it hadn't acquitted itself very well...until Eddie Cheever put one in Victory Lane. How'd he do it? By not shredding the engine, as other Infiniti-run cars had done that year.

2001: Texas(fall race), American Memorial 300.....By rights, this race could've have disappeared; originally scheduled for Sept. 16, 2001, it was postponed following 9/11, and, since Sam Hornish, Jr. had already clinched the points title, they could've cancelled the race that year. They didn't, and the three-way dragrace to the checkers btwn. Hornish, Scott Sharp and Robbie Buhl was worth the month's wait.

2002: Homestead, 20th Anniv. GP of Miami.....Going into the season opener, the pundits had a prediction, that Roger Penske's team would run away with the IRL crown from the series regulars. Guess aqain, as Hornish was repeat his win from 2001 and bring Castroneves and de Ferran "back to Earth", so to speak. The fight, it would seem, was on, and would be so for the entire year.

2002: Indianapolis, 86th Indy 500......Unlike 2001, Helio Castroneves had to earn his 2nd win at the Brickyard; in doing so, Spiderman became the first back-to-back winner there since Al Unser, Sr. did it in 1970-1971.

2002: Kansas, Ameristar Casino 300.....Sam Hornish, Jr. had the win in Kansas sewn up...until a late-race restart, when the cars piloted by Airton Dare and Gil de Ferran passed him and checked out; Hornish eventually caught up to and passed de Ferran, but Dare would win a hard-fought race for his team owner, A.J. Foyt, Jr.

2002: Michigan, Mich. Indy 400....Going into the race, it looked as though young South African Tomas Scheckter was driving for his career with Red Bull/Cheever Racing, and it showed, as the team qual. 1-2-3, with rookies Scheckter and Buddy Rice on row 1, and their team owner, Eddie Cheever, in 3rd. Scheckter would go on to win the race, with Rice in tow; however, it didn't help him, for the team sacked him prior to the series' round at Gateway.

2002: Texas(fall race), Chevy 500K.....From qualifying to the race finish, it was an action-packed weekend. Going into the round, it was clear...either Sam Hornish, Jr., would repeat as IRL champion, or Helio Castroneves would have his first series crown. Meanwhile, a young rookie named Vitor Meira would capture the pole for the race, while both front-runners qualified mid-pack for the race. By race's end, however, Panther Racing had bested Penske, as Hornish would hold off Castroneves to repeat as series champion.

2003: Motegi, Japan, Indy Japan 300.....Until now, all IRL races had been run stateside; this race would mark the series' first visit to the "Land of the Rising Sun". Already, the grid looked like a ex-CART reunion, as some familiar teams(Penske, Ganassi, Rahal-Letterman and Andretti-Green) were at the tip of the proverbial spear. Their on-track performance showed it too, as Toyota and Honda joined the fray and proceeded to leave Chevy on the side of the road. But some of the series regulars weren't yet ready to surrender. Case in point...Kelley Racing's Scott Sharp, who took his Toyota-powered livery to Victory Lane, besting the field.

2003: Richmond, Suntrust Indy Challenge....On a rain-soaked evening Target/Ganassi's resident Kiwi driver, Scott Dixon, led wire-to-wire in winning at RIR.(He led 206 laps; the original distance was slated at 250 laps). To this day, it is the only wire-to-wire victory in the IRL's history.

2003: Michigan, Firestone Indy 400.....Remember Danny Sullivan's "Spin and Win" at Indy. Alex Barron did; late in the race at MIS, he spun exiting turn 4, didn't hit anyone, and was able to keep the engine going, eventually edging out a newly resurgent Sam Hornish, Jr., whose team had been allowed to use a Cosworth-powered "Chevy" engine. Sam came awful close to winning, though, but Barron, drivng for Mo Nunn, took the honors that day in the Irish Hills.

2003: Texas(fall race), Chevy 500K.....If there is one wish a racer has, it is that, at the end of his or her career, that they can leave a winner. That was certainly Gil de Ferran's wish, and it was granted, as he would his last open-wheel race, albeit tinged with serious concern over fellow racer Kenny Brack, who was involved in probably the most violent crash in series history. Still, it was good to see him go out on top, as all good racers should.

And that concludes part 2......the 2004 and 2005 season memories will be up on the forum in late December. Enjoy!

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A.J. Foyt, Jr. was once asked how much he paid his drivers. His reply.....

I ain't paying anybody a bunch of money to drive my race car. How in the h--- are they going to stay hungry? If 40% was good enough for me, Jim Hurtubise and Rodger Ward, it's good enough for these momma's boys today.

Thankfully, most F1, ChampCar and IRL owners don't subcribe to Foyt's thinking. Some are running away with the bank, while others are "scraping by" on modest retainers. Then again, there are a few who didn't run away with the bank....they robbed the bank(and their owners....)

While salaries are one of motorsports' last "state" secrets(kinda' like Champ Car test session times!), thanks to the marvels of modern technology, there are a few figures worth noting.(If anything's in error....I apologize in advance. Thanks.

Since my 'beat" is NA motorsports......we'll start across the pond in Formula 1. The highest paid driver, to no one's surprise, is Scuderia Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, at around $35 million. The 7-time WDC is worth all of it, and he makes millions more from endorsements. Granted, he won once this year(the "test session" at Indy) but his presence sells tickets instantly. By comparison, this year's F1 WDC, Renault's Fernando Alonso, was paid around $9 million. With 7 wins in the bank, he earned every penny. On the other hand, Toyota's Ralf Schumacher earned $25 million for....no wins, 1 podium and 6th overall in the points. But the winner on the "robbery" side of the pay scale goes to......Honda's Jenson Button, who made off with $8 million in exchange for 2 podiums(I wonder if any of that $8 mil is Sir Frank's money.....?) and pretty much ensured that, if "ButtonGate III" ever happens, that the "winning" F1 team better put a "non-competition" clause in the contract as a way of "reminding" Button how contracts work.

Turning back to NA motorsports....let's look at Champ Car. Leading the pack with $3 million was Forsythe's Paul Tracy, who did win 2 races(and threw away two more), finishing 4th in the overall points. Next...Newman-Haas Racing's Sebastien Bourdais w/$1.5 million, who should probably ask for a raise now that he has 2 Vanderbilt Cups to his credit. His two teammates, Bruno Junquiera(who wishes he could've been paid hazardous-duty pay for racing at Indy this year!) and Oriol Servia both received around $600K this year. As far as bargains go, somebody should hire RuSport owner Carl Russo as an accountant; both of his drivers, Justin Wilson and A.J. Allmendinger made about $500K this year and I'll bet Russo will give Wilson a hefty raise as a reward for the Brit's 2 wins this year.

On the IndyCar side of the ledger, 2005 series champion Dan Wheldon, who won six races this year and was "rewarded" by Andretti-Green Racing with a paltry $500K, while his three teammates, Bryan Herta, Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti, made btwn. $3 million(Franchitti), to $1.5-$1.7 million(Kanaan & Herta). While all three did win races this year(2 each for TK and the Scotsman; 1 for Herta); it was a case of highway robbery paying them that much money.(It was that $3 million to Franchitti that sent Wheldon packing over to Target/Ganassi Racing!). Roger Penske's duo, Sam Hornish, Jr. and Helio Castroneves both made about $2 million each, good money considering they both were driving Toyota-powered liveries. Right next to them in pay was the 2004 Indy 500 winner, Rahal-Letterman Racing's Buddy Rice, who had an abysmal season this year but still pulled in around $1.2 million. However, the real bargain in the IRL was Rice's teammate, 2005 rookie-of-the-year Danica Patrick. She was paid $400K this year, which is very good money for a first-year driver, and she earned every peeny of it, garnering three poles, seven top-10 finishes and essentially putting AOWR back on the front-page of the mainstream media. At least four major U.S. newpapers, USA Today, The New York Times, The Detroit Free Press and The Los Angeles Times, led their Memoiral Day front-pages with news of the 89th Indy 500. She also made the cover of Sports Illustrated(first time since Danny Sullivan's "Spin-and-Win" in 1985 and first AOWR driver to make the cover since...A.J. Foyt, Jr in 1981). Not even Katherine Legge's three Atlantic wins did that for Champ Car. At least not during the season, but that's for a different commentary....

All-in-all, congratulations to all the drivers that "ran" away with the proverbial bank, and shame on those who "robbed" the bank. Then again....some took their titles and parlayed them into big advances for 2006. Just ask Dan Wheldon, who will be making about $2.8 million for the Chipster in 2006. Now that I think about it, I think the Chipster might've run away with someone else's bank......if you know what I mean...

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On Thursday, Dec. 15th, the Indy Racing League officially announced that, beginning in 2006, the IndyCar Series will have Honda, through Honda Performance Division(HPD), as its' exclusive engine supplier, as Toyota, through Toyota Racing Development(TRD), bid adieu to AOWR. The biggest challenge they'll face.....how to supply all 33 cars at Indianapolis for the 90th running of the Indianapolis 500? When asked about what this will mean for Honda, HPD's director, Robert Clarke, stated that,

Providing engines for the entire IndyCar field is dramatically different from being one competitor in a multi-competitor championship. It is an opportunity that provides numerous mew challenges, not only for HPD, but for several departments of American Honda as well. Certainly, manufacturing and preparing sufficient primary and backup engines for all 33 starters at the Indianapolis 500 will be a major effort, and it is vitally important, given our new circumstances, that we treat all IRL teams equally. We are confident of meeting our needs and look forward to working with the IRL to grow the IndyCar Series in the years to come.

When they grid for the 90th Indy 500 next May, it won't be the first time that all(or virtually) all of the grid will be powered by a single engine. Offenhauser engines powered the entire grid in the 1954, 1955, 1959 and 1960 races(1960 holds the all-time record for lead changes w/29 total). In 1983, Ford-Cosworth powered 32 of the 33 cars, and in 1998, Olds-Aurora engines powered 32 of the 33 cars. But what will the major benefits be by having a single engine supplier?

The first major benefit will be to eliminate any disparities between the "works/factory" teams and the "privateer" teams, since with just one engine in play, everyone is essentially a "privateer" and pays the same amount for leasing Honda engines, ending the relationship that Andretti-Green Racing had w/HPD, as opposed to the other Honda-shod teams. This should be a big boon to teams like Panther, Vision and Cheever, who have had to pay huge sums to Chevy and Toyota, and will now basically receive a major upgrade in engines.

The second benefit has to do with cost. Currently, HPD leases engines yearly at a cost of $1.7-1.8 million to its' teams; now, all teams will receive Honda engines at, for 2006, $1.3 million, dropping in 2007 to btwn. $800K-$1.3 million depending on the cost of parts, labor, and transport. To ensure that all teams are treated equally by HPD, the IRL will randomly distribute engines to the teams. In addition, Honda will begin working on increasing the lifespan of their engines, aiming for a 2-race minimum btwn. rebuilds or 1100 miles, which means upgrading cylinders, blockheads, and other major components.

What will this all mean....just ask IRL President Brian Barnhart:

The cost-savings for the teams will be felt immediately for the 2006 season, with even more reductions set for 2007. We believe the IndyCar Series will achieve a new level of competition, even closer and tighter, with Honda powering the entire field.

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NOTE:This part goes from Homestead 2004 to Texas 2005; you'll have to read the race reviews from Kansas onward for the remainder.

As 2004 dawned upon the IRL IndyCar Series, the teams returned to Homestead with a few changes. Two new teams, Aguri-Fernandez Racing and Rahal-Letterman Racing, arrived from the rival Champ Car Series. As for the drivers......there was one major switch; Tomas Scheckter, who had been bounced from Target/Ganassi, landed at Panther Racing, while the driver he was replacing, Sam Hornish, Jr., landed at what is probably one of the best seats in AOWR, Marlboro-Team Penske.

2004:Homestead, Toyota Indy 300.......While then series-champion Scott Dixon saw his day end early, Penske's new hire, Sam Hornish, Jr, wen on to win the race, doing what no Penske driver, from Mark Donohue, Danny Sullivan, Rick Mears, Al Unser, Jr., Paul Tracy, Emerson Fittipaldi, Helio Castroneves or Gil de Ferran, had done up to that point--win their debut race for the Captain. "Silent Sam" did just that.

2004:Indianapolis, 88th Indy 500......While the race was rain-shortened from 200 to 180 laps, the last 50 or so became a "Last Man Standing" fight, as everyone wondered who could stay out the longest. Although Bruno Junquiera, now w/Newman-Haas Racing, nor any of Andretti-Green's cadre of drivers, nor Penske's, managed to make it, RLR's Buddy Rice, subbing for Kenny Brack, held out the longest to win.

2004:Kansas, Kansas Indy 300......In one of the closest finishes(51-10,000ths' of a second) in IRL history, Rahal-Letterman's Buddy Rice barely edged out teammate Vitor Meira. How close is 51/10,000ths? About 18 inches distance(1.5 feet).

2004:Milwaukee, ABC Supply 225.......Prior to the CART/IRL split, when the teams left the Brickyard, their next stop was The Milwaukee Mile @ the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds, where everyone brought their "A" game from Indy. In a short-track dogfight, AGR's Dario Franchitti edged out RLR's Buddy Rice and Penske's Sam Hornish, Jr. for the checkers.

2004:Michigan, Firestone Indy 400......In what was probably the dumbest mistake Andretti-Green Racing made all year, they convinced Tony Kanaan, who was leading the race with about 40 laps to go, to let RLR's Buddy Rice by, gambling that Rice would have to make a quick dash for gas, letting TK retake the lead.........the gamble failed, and Rice, who was actually running full rich to Kanaan's medium-rich, easily won the race. I'm almost certain that the AGR paddock was not a place to be if you were on TK's team that evening.

2004:Nazareth, Firestone Indy 225.......In Nazareth's final race event, AGR's Dan Wheldon led a 1-2-3 sweep of the podium, giving teammate Kanaan enough of a cushion to eventually clinch the series title at Fontana in early October.

2004:Texas, Chevy 500K.......In the 2004 season, Honda won 14 of 16 races, while Toyota won 2. One was Hornish's win at Homestead, while his teammate Helio Castroneves would win the series' final fall visit to Texas.

2005:Homestead, Toyota Indy 300......While Dan Wheldon would win the first of his six wins in 2005, the highlight was the 8-car wreck that ended the day for several drivers(Scott Sharp, Tomas Scheckter, among others) and sent series rookie Danica Patrick to the hospital for a mild concussion. The wreck involved the most cars since Atlanta 2001, and for Patrick, it could have been worse. (Remember the posting on the SAFER barrier earlier in 2005? Her wreck was crash-rated at around 153+ G's, and had the car made contact with the backstraight wall, which dones't have a SAFER barrier, chances are the injuries would've been worse.)

2005:St. Petersburg, Honda GP of St. Pete.......The series' first non-oval event saw series rookie Ryan Briscoe nearly win....until he tried to tangle w/then-reigning champion Tony Kanaan, who punted him into the turn 10 tirewalls. As at Homestead, Wheldon would go on to win in a 1-2-3-4 AGR sweep.

2005:Motegi, Bridgestone Indy Japan 300.......While Dan Wheldon would notch another of his wins' the media focus turned to Rahal-Letterman's Danica Patrick for two reasons. First was the qualifying run that nearly put her in P1 for the race.(Sam Hornish, Jr. edged her out for that by just over .03 secs.). Then, on race day, she executed a near-perfect start, catching Hornish off-guard and taking the lead, holding onto it for the first 19 laps. Patrick would lead 32 of the 200 laps, finishing a solid 4th, setting up a lot of the buzz that would follow to Indy and throughout the rest of the 2005 campaign.

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If you've read my commentary posting, Marketing Blunders 101, you probably know how I feel about the Indy Racing League's marketing strategies. Put simply, if I gave a blunt assessment of the topic, the forum's auto-censors would have a field day, if you know what I mean.

But, I digress. Since the IRL's founding in the mid-1990's, they've hired about every major marketing and PR firm from New York to Hollywood(at about the same rate that they hire marketing officials!). They've tried every gimmick in the book, from(and I am not making this up...) Buzz Calkins pencil sharpeners to their last two slogans, "You had to be there" to "Adrenalin Amplified". As for star-power....they hired Elaine Mellencamp as a series spokesperson(which lasted two years) and her husband, John Mellencamp, wrote a song, "Take a Ride with Me", which served as an "unofficial" anthem for the series.

If I could give advice to the crowd on 16th and Georgetown(like they would ever listen to this heah' scribe! ), I would say this:

1}Remind them why the ratings for 2005 were a lot better than in recent years. However, instead of just promoting one driver, try promoting all the drivers instead.
2}Instead of focusing on actors and PR firms, try focusing on drivers in the various feeder series(Star Mazda, Formula BMW, etc.) and help them get rides where the teams pay them, not the other way around.
3}Instead of constantly trying to find new audiences, here's an idea...try connecting with the audiences you've had in the past. For evidence of this, just look at the crowds(or lack of em') at Milwaukee and Phoenix.


Now, ask AOWR fans what should be done, and they will say almost universally....Unify the two series back into one!

Unfortunately, the folks at 16th and Georgetown decided on another tack....hiring a near-burned out rocker. The reference is to former KISS frontman Gene Simmons, who's marketing agency has been hired by the IRL to market the series to new fans, new markets, etc., etc., etc..

Simmons', of course, is best remembered for sticking out his black-painted tongue at fans during concerts. With this deal, I wonder if it ain't added a silvery sheen, so to speak. Then again.....as I said in a commentary, Where's the Money, I wrote,

(paraphrasing)Some ran away with the bank, and others robbed the bank.

Of course....over the past decade, taking the IRL's money and running away with it has become an entertaining sport, especially when you watch em' do it over and over and....I rest my case.