Round 15--Peak Antifreeze Indy 300

[rah]

Ryan is just a social lad who likes sharing. Thats all it is.

[mlittle]

Rah, didn't we have this discussion at Infineon? I mean, we know Ryan's a sociable lad, but there's better ways to meet people than by crashing into them.

[mlittle]

Apparently, Briscoe's injuries are more than just getting his bell rung w/a concussion. Hospital reports indicate he suffered a more serious concussion than first indicated, along with a bruised lung and a broken clavicle. Chances are that he will be out for the remainder of the season, meaning Chip Ganassi now has to find someone to sit in the #33 for Watkins Glen and Fontana.

[mlittle]

So many observations, so little time. Where do I start???

1}Congrats to Dan and Danica.....With his win today, Dan Wheldon clinched the 2005 IndyCar Series championship, the first to win an Indy-sytle title in the same year as the Indy 500(last time was in 1995 w/Jacques Villenueve[the younger]). By finishing 6th today, all Danica Patrick has to do is show up at the Glen for the race, and the Bombardier Rookie-of-the-Year award is hers. Congratulations to both of them; they earned it.

2}Rough day for McCune....Sarah McCune, who secured the pole for the Infiniti Pro Series race, had a pretty rough debut, finishing 8th(out of 12) after being involved in a 5-car scrum after leading the first 8 laps. I hope that she gets a regular IPS or Atlantics ride for 2006, so that she can continue to hone her skills in the single-seater open-wheel cars. For someone used to racing on dirt tracks, this was an initiation to asphalt racing, and while she didn't finish the entire race(67 laps for the IPS race), she wasn't as bad as some of the IPS drivers who've been out there, though.

3}Briscoe's done for the year...If the reports from the hospital hold true, then his season's over. Once again, the seemingly cursed, snake-bit Ganassi team's luck took out another driver. How bad has their luck been? Well, they've lost one driver, who was killed in a testing crash(Renna, '03), fired two drivers(Scheckter, '03 and Manning, 05'), and now have another driver in Briscoe whose injured for what appears to be the rest of the season. Put simply, Scott Dixon needs to start getting as many good-luck charms as he can find....he might need them to get through the Glen and Fontana.

4}Another close finish, again...Of the 10 closest finishes in IndyCar Series history, three have occurred here at Chicagoland. It must be the super-smooth asphalt, because the top 6 cars at the finish were separated by less than .21 secs from Wheldon to Patrick. The margin of victory for Wheldon over Castroneves was .0067 secs(67/10,000ths), another example of why this series is considered to be(in my humble opinion) the most-competitive open-wheel series in the world.

[mlittle]

Here are the current(as of 11 Sept. 2005) standings...

NOTE--(*)signifies driver has clinched award(either overall or rookie)

1st}*Dan Wheldon 570 pts.
2nd}Tony Kanaan 468 pts.
3rd}Sam Hornish, Jr. 456 pts.
4th}Dario Franchitti 413 pts.
5th}Helio Castroneves 400 pts.
6th}Scott Sharp 390 pts.
7th}Vitor Meira 375 pts.
8th}Bryan Herta 354 pts.
9th}Tomas Scheckter 349 pts.
10th}Patrick Carpentier 341 pts.


R-1}*Danica Patrick 299 pts.(12th overall)
R-2}Ryan Briscoe 232 pts.(16th overall)
R-3}Tomas Enge 220 pts.(17th overall)