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Saturday Notebook, Part 1...........


With all the happenings around and about Homestead, here are some of the major highlights................

1} Welcome to the series! The major announcement of the day in the paddock was the arrival of a new team to the IndyCar Series, as SAMAX Motorsports, currently involved in the Grand-Am Rolex Series, will contest 11 events in 2007(including Indy.......... ) with current sportscar veteran Milka Duno. Assuming everything goes as planned, Duno will make her IndyCar debut at Kansas in late April. Besides Kansas and Indy, Duno will compete at Texas, Iowa, Watkins Glen, Nashville, Mid-Ohio, Kentucky and Chicagoland.

2} Not again..........Back in 1999, pit mechanic Ty Manseau was injured during a CART race in Milwaukee after getting run over by Michael Andretti's car. He recovered(after a year's recovery) and returned to the paddock. Yesterday, he was hit by a tire which came off of a Daytona Prototype during practice for the Rolex Series race this afternoon; Manseau was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center for observation. Good news, though......Manseau was awake and conscious, although he suffered possible head injuries from the tire hitting him. Doctors at Ryder Trauma believe he'll make a full recovery, although he'll stay there over the weekend while they check for concussions or other related injuries.

3} Like father, like son. It was late March 1997 when a rookie IndyCar driver named Jim Guthrie took the veterans to school, winning on the tricky 1-mile oval in Phoenix. His son, Sean, was just a young kid happy and excited to see his father win. Well, the tables are now reversed; Jim, who had several successful seasons in the IRL, is now his son's business manager and Sean, now 18, begins his first full Indy Pro Series season(he ran several races last year). While racing can have its' dangerous times, there are those times, like Phoenix in '97, when you're reminded that there are good times as well.

Brief update on tonight's race.................

Leading 179 of 200 laps this evening, Target/Ganassi's Dan Wheldon has sent a message to the rest of the grid, winning tonight's XM Satellite Radio 300 by 6.49 seconds over teammate Scott Dixon and by over 17 seconds in front of third-place finisher Sam Hornish, Jr.

More to follow tonight...........

Good to see Scott Dixon do well. From what I saw of the race it looked like that their were only three drivers in with a chance to win it.

XM Satellite Radio 300 Highlights and Thoughts...........
~~Dominant Dan. Put simply, Dan Wheldon put one heck of a whuppin' on the rest of the grid, leading 179 of 200 lap. How dominant was he? Even after stalling the car in the pits midway through the race, it only took him 11 laps to go from 9th to 1st.

~~Ganassi 1, Penske 0. Throughout 2006 the question wasn't who would win each race, but whether the winner would come from either the Penske camp or from the Ganassi stable. Man, I hope 2007 isn't more of the same.

~~Oops! In 2004, Scott Dixon wrecked trying to enter the sometimes tricky pit entrance at Homestead; in 2006, Tony Kanaan did the same......add Danica Patrick to the list; late in Saturday's race, on her final pitstop of the night, Patrick spun the car entering the pitlane and hit the inside pitwall; Patrick finished 14th.

~~Not a good night for Mikey's team. During most of the race, Andretti-Green Racing co-owner Michael Andretti had a look of utter confusion at his team's ill fortunes.....let's see; Patrick crashed entering pitlane......little ole' Marco's car broke(....2 yrs. running now.... .......) and Tony Kanaan fought a wickedly-ill handling car all night. Only the Scotsman, Dario Franchitti, managed to notch a decent finish(7th).

~~The ethanol era begins. When the green flag fell Saturday night, a new era in NA motorsports began as the IRL became the first major series to run using a 100% renewable biofuel(ethanol). In case anyone's interested in learning about ethanol, here's a great site to visit: www.drivingethanol.org

Well, it's on to streets of St. Pete!!!!