He may be largely unrecognised in his home country, but Justin Wilson is one of the UK’s finest racing drivers.

At Daytona the weekend before last he showed his stuff yet again as part of Mike Shank’s winning team in the Rolex 24 Hours. It was Justin’s first race since suffering a compression fracture of his T5 vertebra in an IndyCar accident at Mid-Ohio last August and he had no problems at all in the race. Wilson drove three times during the 24 hours, beginning with a double stint lasting almost two hours.

“I got out from the first stint and I could feel a tingling from a lot of the muscles in my back that hadn’t been worked-out for a while,” Justin said. “I thought, ‘this might not be good.’ But the second time I got in the car after four hours rest I felt much better and when I got in for my third stint, I felt great. I did four stints in a row from 5.50am until 9.10am – three hours and twenty minutes – and I felt 100 per cent.”

Justin and his team-mates – AJ Allmendinger, Oswaldo Negri and John Pew – enjoyed a faultless race. “The car was fantastic,” Justin declared. “There were no reliability issues whatsoever. We didn’t have to do anything to the car – we put fuel and tyres on it, changed brake pads, and that was it. We refilled the driver’s drink bottle a few times and it went pretty much perfectly.

“Everyone was focused on what we needed to do and although we didn’t talk about it, we all knew. We just got in and did it. AJ did a great last three hours and Ozz did a fantastic three hours before that and John Pew was driving really fast. It all came together.”

Wilson has nothing but praise for team owner Shank who’s also trying to put together an IndyCar team this year with Paul Tracy driving. “Mike is a great person, a great team owner and someone you always enjoy driving for,” Justin says. “There’s no hidden agendas, nothing going on in the background. What he says is what he’s going to do and it just happens. There are no games with Mike.”

After his crash at Mid-Ohio last summer Wilson wore a plastic back brace stretching from his shoulders to his hips for 10 weeks. Fortunately the compression fracture in his back was such that an operation wasn’t required and after four weeks wearing the brace he started swimming on a daily basis.

“You just had to be very careful. I did six lengths the first day and slowly built it up. Being able to use the muscles without risk of damaging your spine anymore sped up the rate of recovery. By eight weeks I was feeling really good and just itching to get back in a car.”

The first time he drove a racing car after the accident was in January’s three-day Rolex 24 test session at Daytona. He had been out of action for five months. “The first lap around Daytona up on the banking was a strange sensation. It was, ‘OK, I’ve got to get the body used to this again.’ But after a couple of laps you forget about it and get back into a rhythm. It wasn’t too bad. I was able to get back up to speed and built it up over that test and it all felt good.”

Justin has rejoined Dale Coyne’s team for the upcoming IndyCar season with Honda engines. Bill Papis will engineer his car this year. Papis was his engineer when Wilson scored Coyne’s only win at Watkins Glen in 2009. Todd Phillips has joined Coyne from Newman/Haas and will be Wilson’s crew chief.

“We’ve got some good people and hopefully we can win some races again,” Justin remarked. “I think we’ve got a good opportunity with Dale and the Honda engine. If we do some good testing I think we’ll be in with a shout. We just have to work it out. I think it’s going to be an exciting year. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a great opportunity and a chance to really build something and hopefully win a few more races.”

A Formula 1 superstar he may not be, but Justin Wilson is an excellent driver and true racer. If you want an underdog worth cheering for, he’s your man.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

What a pleasure it was to watch Mike Shank’s team run a faultless race to win the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

It was the first major win for Shank’s burgeoning team and the first Daytona 24 Hour win in 13 years for Ford. It was also a great win for drivers Justin Wilson, AJ Allmendinger, Oswaldo Negri and John Pew, all of whom shared the delight of scoring the biggest victories of their careers.

Shank is a former driver who won the Formula Atlantic C2 Championship in 1996 before starting his team, first in Atlantic, then moving into the Grand-Am’s Daytona Prototype category in 2004. Shank’s cars have always been powered by Ford engines and they’ve been able to win three Grand-Am races over the last eight years and have challenged unsuccessfully to win at Daytona.

But this year Shank was ready with two of the new generation of Riley Mk XXVI-Fords. Both of his cars were in the hunt all the way and as the long night wore on Shank’s lead car, driven by Wilson/Allmendinger/Negri/Pew, established itself in front and over the race’s last half they were the men to beat. The strongest challenge came from Chip Ganassi’s lead Riley-BMW driven by last year’s winners Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas/Graham Rahal/Joey Hand, but Shank’s Ford-powered car was quicker on the banking and Pruett and his team-mates admitted it was going to be tough to beat Shank.

In the middle of the night Ganassi’s second car driven by Juan-Pablo Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Scott Dixon/Jamie McMurray fell out of contention because of a broken gear lever. Other leading lights to hit trouble included all four of the new Corvette Daytona Prototypes. Most notable of the Corvettes was Wayne Taylor’s car driven by Max Angelelli/Ryan Briscoe/Ricky Taylor and Bob Stalling’s Gainsco car driven by Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty/Memo Gidley. Taylor’s car suffered a valve train failure after only a few hours while the Gainsco Corvette ran into trouble with a failed water pump and then a crash, which required a change of nose.

By the time the sun came up on Sunday morning only three cars remained on the lead lap – Shank’s and Ganassi’s number one cars and Starworks Motorsports’ lead Riley-Ford driven by Ryan Dalziel/Alan McNish/Lucas Luhr/Enzo Potolicchio/Alex Popow. The Starworks car started from pole and stayed on the lead lap all the way, eventually claiming second place when Pruett/Rojas/Rahal/Hand hit gearbox trouble. A long stop was required to change the Ganassi car’s gear stack, which lost four laps and dropped Pruett and his team-mates to sixth at the finish.

Meanwhile Allmendinger/Wilson/Negri/Pew ran the distance without any trouble or mistakes to score the biggest win of all their careers. Allmendinger brought the winning car home, driving the last three hours without relief and scoring his first win in five years, since departing Champ Car for NASCAR at the end of 2007. “It’s such a prestigious race,” Allmendinger said. “It’s one of those races you want on your résumé. It’s just amazing. I’m going to cherish it. This is the biggest win I’ve ever been a part of and those last three hours were some of most fun I’ve ever had in a race car.”

It was also a great accomplishment for Wilson who was driving his first race since breaking his back in an IndyCar accident at Mid-Ohio last August. “This is a tough race,” Justin said. “It was flat-out all the way. We gave it everything, every lap. That’s the way it has to be in order to be competitive and win this race. I’m really pleased for Mike and Ford, and the whole team.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

What is now known as the Rolex 24 Hours was founded 50 years ago as a three-hour race called the Daytona Continental.

The race was run over three hours in 1962 and ‘63, then extended to 12 hours in 1964 before becoming a 24-hour grind two years later. The first Daytona Continental in 1962 was won by Dan Gurney driving Frank Arciero’s Lotus-Climax 19 and he did it in memorable fashion, coasting beneath the chequered flag after his engine blew on the last lap.

Gurney first raced Arciero’s Lotus 19 near the end of 1961 in the LA Times Grand Prix at Riverside. He didn’t finish at Riverside but was second to Stirling Moss’s UDT-Laystall Lotus 19 at Laguna Seca the next weekend and scored his first win with Arciero’s 19 at Nassau in November. Dan was ready for Daytona in February of 1962.

The 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959 and was the first modern, high-banked super speedway in America. A 3.8-mile road course running through the infield, that used more than half of the banking, was ready to go in 1962 and Bill France Sr. went all out to attract a quality field for Daytona’s first sports car race.

A star-studded line-up arrived including a NART Ferrari 246SP driven by Phil Hill/Ricardo Rodriguez, a NART Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa for Rodriguez and Canadian Peter Ryan, Jim Hall and his front-engined Chaparral 1, Stirling Moss and Innes Ireland in Ferrari 250GTs, Pedro Rodriguez in another Lotus 19, Roger Penske in his own Cooper Monaco, Jim Clark in a Lotus Elite, plus American stars AJ Foyt, Fireball Roberts, Marvin Panch, Joe Weatherly, Rodger Ward, Walt Hansgen and Dick Rathmann.

While some teams used two drivers, Gurney drove Arciero’s 2.5-litre Climax-powered Lotus 19 alone. Near the end of the first three hours Dan was leading by almost two minutes only to have his engine fail on the final lap about three-quarters of a mile from the finish line. He coasted down the front straight and with great presence of mind stopped at the top of banking just short of the start/finish line, waiting for the starter to wave the chequered flag at the expiration of the three hours.

Gurney then turned the wheel and allowed his car to coast down the banking to win the race. Legend has it that he used the starter motor to cross the line but that’s not true.

“The engine blew pretty seriously and I thought a rod had probably gone through the block, so the starter motor wouldn’t have turned the engine,” Dan explains. “I just put it in neutral, then used the banking to let the car roll down and across the line.”

Phil Hill/Ricardo Rodriguez finished second aboard Luigi Chinetti’s Ferrari sports racer with Jim Hall’s Chaparral third and Stirling Moss taking fourth place in Chinetti’s Ferrari 250GT.

The following week Gurney made both his NASCAR stock car and oval racing debut in the Daytona 500 driving a Holman-Moody Ford. Dan was the first F1 driver to try NASCAR and would go on to win five NASCAR races at Riverside, his home road course. Jim Clark would follow Dan five years later, making a one-off outing in another Holman-Moody Ford at Rockingham, North Carolina in 1967.

Gurney finished fifth in his hundred-mile qualifying race, and was running with the leaders in the 500 before his engine blew. In spite of that disappointment he thoroughly enjoyed his first taste of NASCAR. “All the great names of NASCAR were there like Lee Petty, Fireball Roberts, Junior Johnson, Curtis Turner, Banjo Matthews and Lee Roy Yarbrough, and Smokey Yunick and Cotton Owens were big names among the car owners.

“The marques included Dodge and Plymouth, Ford and Mercury, Chevrolet and Pontiac, with Firestone and Goodyear both supplying tyres. It was plenty serious racing, no doubt about it.”

50 years later it’s a very different sport, but Gurney is still going!

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Michael Andretti announced this week that James Hinchcliffe has joined Andretti Autosport and will drive the team’s Go-Daddy car in a three-car team with Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti. Michael says he hopes to add a fourth car before the season begins.

Hinchcliffe, 25, comes from Toronto and ran his rookie IndyCar season last year with Newman/Haas where he was teamed with veteran Oriol Servia. Hinchcliffe led at Mid-Ohio and finished fourth in three races, beating JR Hildebrand to IndyCar’s rookie of the year honours. When Newman/Haas closed its doors in December Andretti decided the promising Hinchcliffe was just the man to fill the void in his team created by Danica Patrick’s move to NASCAR and Dan Wheldon’s death in Las Vegas last October.

Prior to his death Wheldon had agreed to replace Patrick in Andretti’s Go-Daddy-sponsored car and Michael explained why he selected Hinchcliffe to fill Wheldon’s shoes. “What caught my eye last year was Oriol is a very good, very experienced and very fast guy,” Andretti remarked. “And many times and many places James out-raced Oriol and out-qualified him. That said something. That was a good benchmark to look at.

“We’re really excited to have James join us,” Andretti went on to say. “We feel like he’s going to fit right in. I think he’s going to be really good with the chemistry with Marco and Ryan. He did an awesome job last year. He proved that he can run up front and he’s a great personality. He’s going to be perfect for our team.

“When you have a multi-driver team it’s very important that everybody gets along and we feel that the three of them are going to get along really well. I think James is a team player. I asked Marco and Ryan their opinions of James and they both had high marks for him. So that made it a no-brainer. You’ve got to have good drivers who are capable of winning and I think we’ve put together a really strong driver line-up. I’m really excited about it.”

After many years with Honda Andretti’s team has switched this year to Ilmor’s new Chevrolet turbo V6. Hunter-Reay has driven IndyCar’s Dallara-Chevrolet test car and the team will start testing the first of its own cars and engines this coming weekend at the West Palm Beach road course in Florida before moving on to IndyCar’s open four-day test at Sebring the following week.

“I’m excited about the way things have been going with Chevrolet,” Michael said. “We’ve got a lot of development programmes we’re doing within the team and the excitement on the floor of our shop and in the engineering room is quite high. We have high expectations for coming out strong right away.”

Hunter-Reay will drive for two days at West Palm Beach. Marco Andretti (above with Wheldon) then takes over for two days with Hinchcliffe running his first test with the team at Sebring the following week. “We have a pretty aggressive test programme,” Michael said. “We were involved in every one of the tests so far with Chevrolet and I think we’ve learned a lot. It’s been good for us and helps us to get going with our own cars. We’ll start on Saturday at West Palm Beach. We’ll be on the track for the first time with our own cars and we’re ready for it. The guys have been working extra hours to get the car prepared.

“We’ve got a lot of days booked before the start of the year. We’re flat out on it. We’re going to be out every week for sure. Right now we have only one car. We get our second car next week and then we’ll start running two cars and multiple drivers at each test.

“We’re working hard on a fourth car,” Michael added. “We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire. The chances I would say are 60 to 70 per cent, definitely better than 50-50. Hopefully, we’ll have something done in about two or three weeks.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

I have to agree with Rob Widdows’ words about John Surtees.

Without doubt the man deserves a knighthood and here’s hoping the honour will soon be bestowed. Here in America, of course, we live without such lofty titles so our greatest American racers will remain merely Misters. Debating who the greatest are in any field is a typical mid-winter pastime so here are my thoughts about the USA’s greatest racing men.

One thing that’s hard to debate is Mario Andretti’s claim to achieving more than any other American racing driver. A dozen years ago votes from both fans and media chose Andretti as the USA’s greatest driver of the twentieth century and it’s an uncontested fact that Mario’s record of success over a wide range of racing categories – and an abnormally long and competitive career – puts him in a league of his own, undisputed by his many challengers.

But there’s more of a debate about who America’s greatest overall racing man of all-time may be. You could nominate Bill France Sr. and his son Bill Jr. for founding and building NASCAR into the USA’s most successful form of racing. You could also nominate Roger Penske for creating America’s definitive race team of the past 50 years. Or you could reach back and select a guy like Harry Miller, who designed and built the fantastic Miller Indycars from the 1920s and ‘30s.

Then of course, there’s Dale Earnhardt who has become even more of an icon of stock car racing in death than he was in life, or Richard Petty, NASCAR’s King, with an incredible 200 wins to his credit. And there’s Andretti for not only making himself the personification of the international American racer but also for transcending the sport and becoming a renowned example of the American immigrant made good.

But there’s no doubt in my mind that Dan Gurney is America’s greatest overall racing man. Dan’s driving career is one of the few that rivals Andretti’s for diversity and achievement while his remarkable second career, spanning more than thirty years as a team owner and innovative car builder, elevates Gurney to a unique category.

Dan was as versatile as they come, winning in Formula One, long-distance sports cars, Can-Am cars, Indy cars, NASCAR stock cars, Trans-Am cars and almost anything in between. He always preferred to do his own thing and his record as a driver in F1 is probably less impressive than it might have been had he chosen not to pursue his dream of building and racing his own Eagle racing cars out of his All American Racers shop in Southern California.

Gurney raced F1 cars for twelve years from 1959-’70. In that time he won four world championship Grands Prix and three more non-championship F1 races of which there were many in those days. He finished third in the 1961 world championship, tied with Stirling Moss, and was fifth in the championship in 1962 and ‘63, sixth in ‘64, and fourth in ‘65. He started from the front row twenty-two times in 86 world championship starts and set track records at true driver’s tracks like Spa and the Nürburgring.

As a long-distance sports car driver Gurney was as good as they come. Dan won the Sebring 12 Hours and the Tourist Trophy at Goodwood with Ferrari in 1959; the Nürburgring 1000Kms with Stirling Moss in a birdcage Maserati in 1960; scored a famous win in the inaugural Daytona international sports car race in 1962, run over three hours; and co-drove a Ford Mk IV with A.J. Foyt to win at Le Mans in 1967 the week before winning at Spa in his own F1 Eagle-Weslake.

Dan’s driving career is unrivalled by any American other than Andretti, but his highly successful second career as a team owner and car builder sets him apart. All American Racers built and raced winning cars for many categories – F1, Indy/Champ cars, GTO & GTP cars – over a 34-year stretch running from 1966-’99, starting with the beautiful and very competitive 1966 and ‘67 F1 and USAC Eagles. AAR’s record of wins over that time includes fifty Indy/Champ car wins in USAC and CART, two F1 wins, four in IMSA’s GTU category, six in GTO, and 21 in GTP.

So there you have it. No other American racing man measures up to Dan. And with the Delta Wing, he’s still at it.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

As January arrives the torpor of the holiday season begins to fade and in the northern hemisphere we start to enjoy a welcome lengthening of the days.

Already our thoughts are turning to the new season and Chip Ganassi and Dario Franchitti are among those looking forward to America’s first big race of 2012 – the 50th Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona on January 28/29.

Chip’s Grand-Am team, led by Scott Pruett, has won the Grand-Am championship five times and the Rolex 24 Hours four times in the past six years. Grand-Am champions Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas (above with Chip) shared Ganassi’s winning Riley-BMW last year with Graham Rahal and Joey Hand while Scott Dixon/Juan Pablo Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Jamie McMurray completed Ganassi’s first one-two sweep at Daytona. As you might expect Chip is looking forward to flying down to Florida at the end of this month.

“You go down there in late January and it’s just a great event,” Chip says warmly. “Everybody’s there, not only our guys from our three different teams (NASCAR, IndyCar and Grand-Am), but a whole field of people from all over the racing world that you know – drivers, managers, engineers, mechanics.

“You see a lot of people down there and it comes at a time of the year when championships aren’t on the line and everybody’s fresh from a little vacation. Everybody’s in a good mood and with our success there it’s really jump-started the season for us the past six or seven years. Having some success in that race starts our season off with a little spark.

“At the end of the day it makes absolutely no sense that it’s the first race of the year, but then it’s so damn fun. We go down there and we’re as serious as we can be because we’re sort of the target these days. I feel so lucky and so honoured to have the group of guys that I have. They’re all taking shots at each other all weekend but they’re just so damn serious when it comes to driving the car.

“I remember Montoya’s first race there when he came back from Formula One and he ended up winning it. I remember him saying, ‘man, we’re doing so well. I just don’t want to crash the car.’ And since then he’s probably hit everything except the guy selling hot dogs!”

Franchitti won the Rolex 24 in 2008 co-driving one of Ganassi’s cars with Pruett, Montoya and Dixon. Dario finished second last year co-driving with Montoya, Dixon and Jamie McMurray and they will be together again this year. Last year in particular Montoya used his best fender-bashing NASCAR skills to push many other cars out of his path and Franchitti joked about their reputation.

“Our biggest problem with the Rolex 24 is getting the other drivers to understand when Montoya’s in the car and when we’re in the car,” Dario grinned. “We’re going to have a sign on the car this year when Monty goes out saying ‘Montoya’s in the car’. Then they’ll know it’s not us because last year he hit about everything out there and when we would go out people would take their revenge.

“All joking aside, I look forward to working with Scott, Juan and Jamie again. We always have a good time but we’re pretty competitive about the whole thing too. So we’ll be giving it our best shot. Being the 50th anniversary it’s a big one and everybody wants to go there and win the watch. It’s a great way to start the season.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The first picture of the radical new Delta Wing race car has been issued from its base at All American Racers in California, USA.

We previewed the Delta Wing Le Mans project in the December issue of Motor Sport, explaining the theory behind one of the most exciting racing cars we’ve seen in years which is set to fill the 56^th grid slot reserved for technically innovative machines at La Sarthe next year.

Following the completion of a prototype machine, work on the actual race car is proceeding, but inevitably problems have been encountered in completing the design details and building something that’s truly revolutionary.

Speaking about the project, designer Ben Bowlby said: “It’ll probably be the end of January before we’re ready to go testing because we’ve had a few things come up that we’ve had to handle. But none of them were serious problems, just things you encounter when you’re doing an entirely new project.

“We’re flat out getting all the CFD and simulation work and crash test stuff done. So much of getting a new car on the track is almost a paperwork exercise. Of course safety criteria have to be met and that’s not a simple thing – the whole process of negotiating and performing the crash test and the multiple layers involved with things like the steering column and selection of the steering wheel.

“And we’ve got to build everything for this car – the wheels, the brakes. Everything is half the weight and pretty much half the size and most of those pieces are hi-tech and made from scratch.”

John Ward (on the left) with Simon Marshall leaning over his shoulder. Simon is an ex-Lola engineer who designed Champ Car’s Panoz DP01 spec car, raced in 2007. He was recruited to the Delta Wing project by Ben Bowlby. John has worked off and on for AAR for more than 30 years and was responsible for the unique 1981 Eagle-Chevy and the very successful Toyota IMSA GTP cars of the early nineties.

Bowlby is delighted to be working with Dan Gurney and his AAR team, including long-time engineer John Ward. “Dan is a real racer, this project would not have happened without him. I’ve learned a lot from him and John Ward.”

Master fabricator Phil Remington, who has been with AAR since 1968, used to work for Lance Reventlow’s Scarab team and Carroll Shelby’s Cobra and Ford GT40 operations, and is renowned as one of the finest craftsmen in the business.

“Phil is creating beautiful components for the Delta Wing and has plenty of strong opinions about design, techniques and functionality,” said Bowlby. “He’s in his mid-eighties, and I think there are a lot of guys in the shop who are not only better because of Rem’s presence but because they aspire to achieve like him.”

Bowlby added that the Delta Wing team is closing in on an engine deal. “These things take time. Anyone who’s seriously interested wants to look at it in meticulous detail and that’s been taking place. It’s all coming together.”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

IndyCar finally announced its 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series calendar on Thursday of this week.

Fifteen races are included and IndyCar’s CEO Randy Bernard (below with 2012 car) says he’s still working on adding one or two more races.

Gone from next year’s calendar are oval races at Milwaukee, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Twin-Ring Motegi and Las Vegas. Those returning include a street circuit on Belle Isle Park in Detroit and the 2.0-mile California Speedway oval, both of which have tried before with CART and IRL without much success. IndyCar’s 2012 calendar includes eight street or temporary circuits, three road courses and only four ovals – fewer than ever.

The California Speedway will conclude IndyCar’s 2012 season with a Saturday night race. New to IndyCar in 2012 is a previously reported street race in Qingdao, China in August. The race in Detroit will be promoted by Roger Penske as it was during its last iteration in 2007 and ‘08 and defending champion team owner Chip Ganassi believes Penske will make it successful this time around.

“Detroit has always been a good market for us and being around Detroit with everything it has to do with the car businesss is important,” Ganassi said. “But I think more importantly we have a promoter there who’s friendly with the sanctioning body and I think that makes a better marriage when you have that. It says a lot of the kind of leadership that Roger shows.”

Ganassi is less impressed with racing in China. “I think our sponsors, or at least Target, has always felt that one race off-shore whether it’s in Japan or China is fine,” Ganassi commented. “It adds a bit of cachet. But I don’t think we need to get into having four or five races outside North America. I have to say I would think that’s going to start having a detrimental effect on the series.

“I’m not sure I’d be in favour of a lot races outside North America – the US, Canada and Mexico – for our series. There are so many venues here in the United States that I think we could make a success of, that would be a lot easier, and better for us than traveling halfway around the world.”

Ganassi also briefly discussed IndyCar boss Randy Bernard’s first two years on the job. “There are a lot of facets to this sport that somebody coming in from the outside has to learn and no one’s been a more willing learner than Randy Bernard,” Chip observed. “Look at the things that have gone on since he came into the sport. We had a new car and a new engine formula and rules package and a new way of buying and distributing the cars and undertaking the testing. And obviously, there was the Las Vegas tragedy.

“Just about every time the guy comes up for air he gets pushed back under the water again. The good news is Randy has shown great ability to breathe under water. So I think he’s doing fine.”

2012 IZOD IndyCar Series schedule:

March 25        St. Petersburg, Fla. (street course)
April 1             Birmingham, Ala. (road course)
April 15           Long Beach, Calif. (street course)
April 29           Sao Paulo, Brazil (street course)
May 27           Indianapolis 500, In. (oval)
June 3            Detroit, Mich. (street course)
June 9            Fort Worth, Texas (oval)
June 23          Newton, Iowa (oval)
July 8             Toronto, Ontario (street course)
July 22           Edmonton, Alberta (airport course)
Aug. 5            Lexington, Ohio (road course)
Aug. 19          Qingdao, China (street course)
Aug. 26          Sonoma, Calif. (road course)
Sept. 2           Baltimore, Md. (street course)
Sept. 15         Fontana, Calif. (oval)

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Four-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti and team boss Chip Ganassi (below) have been discussing the teething troubles with next year’s new Dallara DW12.

Franchitti and his Ganassi Racing team-mate Scott Dixon have done most of the donkey work on the Honda-powered DW12 development car, but Dario is convinced that IndyCar’s teams will sort out the Dallara as long they are given the room to do the job.

“It’s been fun and a little frustrating too,” said Franchitti of the development work. “I did most of the running on the Honda car in November and Scott did a lot in December. I really enjoyed working with Honda again on the areas we need to get right to be competitive.

“They’re starting to make some progress now. We’re starting to fix the car’s imbalance but it’s important that the series allows us the latitude to adjust the car to suit different driving styles. It’s one thing saying everybody must drive the same stuff, but what they don’t realise is that it’s going to suit certain drivers and hurt others. Hopefully they can come up with an elegant engineering solution to fix the imbalance problem.”

Franchitti has confidence in Will Phillips, IndyCar’s vice-president of technology, who has plenty of experience in engineering Indy and ALMS cars. “I think with Will we’ve got a good guy, he knows his stuff. We can fix the car; we’ve done it before. All the teams have done it.”

Ganassi, a winner of nine CART/IRL/IndyCar team titles, agrees with Franchitti that IndyCar needs to allow the teams room to work. “This is a tall order,” he said. “Everybody has questions about the new car and I think you have to realise it took two or three years to get the car we’ve just retired right. When we were getting new cars every year in CART, they were just evolutions of the previous car. This car is something of a revolution, so it might take a little extra time to get it right for everybody.

“I think IndyCar is keeping an open mind. They’ve said we need to change the testing rules and they seem open to changing [other] things when they need to. We’ve just got to buckle down and get to work on it, which is what we’re doing.

“Having been in the sport a long time you need a dose of reality every once in a while,” added Ganassi. “With a new car they don’t fall off the truck and set lap records right out of the box. It takes a little tweaking sometimes, like every car in the past. Time will tell whether the new rules package and new way of doing things with the car is the right way to go about it.”

Ganassi also paid tribute to IndyCar champion Franchitti following his latest title win, comparing him to previous champions he has run including Jimmy Vasser, Alex Zanardi, Juan Pablo Montoya and current team-mate Dixon.

“Some guys are Friday and Saturday drivers, and some are Sunday drivers,” said Ganassi. “What I mean by that is some guys are better at getting the car ready on Friday and Saturday, and some are just sheer racers. Zanardi had a great ability to transform himself on Saturday night from a mad scientist to an all-out racer and I would say Dario does the same thing.

“But Dario is similar to Vasser in that while he is very cerebral and serious about racing, he also finds time to have a smile or a joke during the weekend. Dario can also put together one lap like Montoya would do from time to time. I’ve said a few times I’m not feeling good as we go into qualifying and all of a sudden he pops up at the top of the chart and you say, ‘Where did that come from?’ So he has that ability like Montoya.

“And like Scott Dixon he understands the whole picture. He gets the job done without much fanfare. So Dario has a little bit of each of those guys in him and I’m sure he has a lot of talents that he picked up from Jackie Stewart when he drove for him.”

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IndyCar has released its report on Dan Wheldon’s fatal accident in the IndyCar Series finale at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway two months ago.

The report concludes that Wheldon was killed when his car struck one of the retaining posts holding up the track’s catch fencing. The impact tore a hole in the top of the car’s monocoque and hit Wheldon in the head, killing him instantly.

“The chassis impacted a post along the right side of the tub,” said IndyCar’s operations chief Brian Barnhart. “That created a deep defect in the tub that extended from the pedal bulkhead along the upper border of the tub and through the cockpit. The pole intruded in the cockpit and made contact with the driver’s helmet and head.

“That caused a non-survivable, blunt force injury trauma to Dan’s head. Dan’s injury was limited to his head. There was no evidence of mechanical or structural issues contributing to this accident. The Safer barrier and the fence system appeared to function as designed during the accident. The impact with the fence that resulted in Dan’s non-survivable injuries involved the circumstances of location, direction and orientation that was the chance result of previous interactions.”

In examining the crash IndyCar took data from the onboard accident data recorders and Pi data systems from each of the 15 crashed cars. A thorough examination of Wheldon’s car and helmet also took place and video and still photographs of the accident were studied.

The posts at the Las Vegas track are located inside the fencing and some critics have suggested this exacerbated Wheldon’s injuries. But Barnhart refuted those claims: “The fence appeared to perform as designed. There’s no indication whatsoever that had the fabric or mesh been on the inside that the outcome of this accident would have been any different.”

Running in 24th place in the middle of the pack of crashing cars, Wheldon had time to get off the throttle and on the brakes before hitting the tail of Charlie Kimball’s car, which launched him towards the debris fence. Wheldon had decelerated from 224 to 165mph before the impact, which measured 23g longitudinally and negative 23g vertically but wasn’t enough to do Wheldon any damage. However, the collision sent Dan’s car flying for about 325 feet before striking the fence.

IndyCar announced last week that it would not race at Las Vegas next year. But Barnhart and IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard said they would evaluate next year’s new Dallara DW12 to see if it’s possible to return to the track in the future. Barnhart said IndyCar is taking a close look at all the high-banked ovals where it races.

“Each oval has unique characteristics and should be considered individually,” he said. “The banking itself is not the only geometry taken into consideration. There are a number of factors including the length and width of the track, the progressiveness of the banking, the length of the transition and the overall grip or co-efficient of friction of the asphalt. There are a number of factors that should be taken under consideration on an individual basis, not simply by banking alone. IndyCar, CART and Champ Car have successfully conducted many races over numerous years on high-banked ovals.”

Bernard added that the 2012 IndyCar calendar will be released imminently while the first batch of 15 Dallara DW12s were delivered to teams in Indianapolis this week.

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Four years ago the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show departed Indianapolis after many years for the warmer climes of Orlando, Florida.

PRI’s move left a void which has been filled by a new show – now three years old – called the International Motorsports Industry Show (IMIS). The IMIS is organised by NASCAR champion Tony Stewart, C&R Racing owner Chris Paulsen, trucking magnate and USAC team owner Jeff Stoops and his partner Tom Weisenbach.

Stewart is a proud Indiana native, a true Hoosier from Columbus, about an hour south of Indianapolis. As well as owning his own championship-winning NASCAR Sprint Cup team Stewart runs a midget and a sprint car team and owns three dirt ovals, including the legendary high-banked Eldora track in Ohio, just over the Stateline. Stewart has also become an event promoter and he was there in Indianapolis last week to help kick-off the third annual IMIS.

Chris Paulsen is the dynamo that makes the thing happen. Paulsen was an Indycar mechanic back in the ‘80s and is a legendary master craftsman and fabricator who has built his company C&R Racing into a major supplier of transmissions and radiators to NASCAR’s Sprint Cup and Nationwide series.

More than 600 businesses were represented at this year’s IMIS, most of them devoted to the thriving world of American short track racing – engine and chassis builders, suppliers of every conceivable component, safety equipment suppliers, etc.

Paulsen invited former CART technical director (from 1979-2001) Kirk Russell (below) and retired Chrysler engineer Michael Royce to organise a safety and technical conference in conjunction with the IMIS. Russell and Royce have quickly built the two-day conference into a thorough review of the latest technical and safety developments in all areas of the sport from F1 to short track racing.

“The first year was strictly safety,” Russell said. “I was able to lean on some of the people who have helped me out over the years like Dr John Melvin and some people from Chevrolet engineering and many others. We had a full day the first year. We went from early in the morning until well past where we were supposed to be. People liked what was going on and Chris said let’s make it a two-day event next year.”

This year Russell and Royce invited me to moderate a panel discussion at the end of the two days about the future of motor racing. We enjoyed a lively debate and it was a great pleasure to witness the tremendous diversity and vitality of American motor sport.

NASCAR, IndyCar and the ALMS have their various problems these days and America’s economy is no better than Europe’s, but last weekend’s IMIS emphasized that the wide reach of American motor sport and its grassroots remain in rude health. Kudos to Tony Stewart, Chris Paulsen, Jeff Stoops and Tom Weisenbach as well as Kirk Russell and Michael Royce for their successful efforts in launching a very useful show for the American motorsports industry.

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One of Indycar racing’s great drivers from the 1950s and early ’60s passed away last week. Jim Rathmann won the 1960 Indianapolis 500 after a fierce, race-long duel with Rodger Ward and finished second in the great race three times in 1952, ‘57 and ‘59.

Rathmann’s brother Dick also raced at Indy, and Jim won international acclaim in 1958 with victory in the ‘Race of Two Worlds’ at Monza, beating Indy rival Jimmy Bryan and a 4.1-litre V12 F1 Ferrari driven by Luigi Musso/Phil Hill/Mike Hawthorn.

The Race of Two Worlds was run in 1957-58 over 500 miles on the high-banked 2.64-mile Monza oval. The race was supposed to be a showdown between the top USAC and Formula 1 drivers and cars, but none of the F1 drivers or teams were interested in taking up the challenge of racing the more powerful Indycars of those times on an unfamiliar oval that was both bumpy and notoriously dangerous.

The only European contenders in the first race were a pair of Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar D-types, fresh from a 1-2 finish at Le Mans. Without any serious post-Le Mans maintenance the Jags ran without trouble but were no match for the Indycars. The bumpy oval was hard on equipment and most of the Indycars dropped out with chassis or suspension failures, while the Ecurie Ecosse cars ran all the way to finish fourth and fifth. The race, run in three 64-lap heats, was won by Jimmy Bryan who went on to claim the following year’s Indy 500.

The second running of the Race of Two Worlds attracted a couple of factory Ferraris, one a 1951 F1 car with a big V12 stuffed into it, the other a current F1 car with a 3-litre V6 engine. There was also the ‘Tec-Mech’ Maserati, a 250F with a 4.2-litre V8 sports car engine driven by Stirling Moss.

But even those monsters were no match for the Indycars and Rathmann proved untouchable in winning all three heats and averaging a staggering 166.722mph. But the rough, high-banked corners again tore apart most of the field. Moss ran well in the Maserati but crashed heavily in the third heat after his steering failed. Musso tried bravely to chase Rathmann but the beast of a Ferrari wore him out and he had to hand over to Hawthorn who proceeded at a more sedate pace.

So Rathmann won comfortably with Bryan second and the Musso Ferrari eventually salvaging third place. Rathmann said he wasn’t bothered by the daunting track: “It’s fine so long as you don’t look at the trees.”

Prior to his Monza win Rathmann had finished second to Bryan in the 1957 USAC championship. He was also second at Indianapolis that year behind Sam Hanks in George Salih’s lowline ‘laydown’ roadster and was runner-up to Bill Vukovich in 1954 and Troy Ruttman in ‘52.

Rathmann’s big day finally came in 1960 when he won a tremendous race-long duel with Ward. The pair traded the lead 14 times during the race, with Rathmann leading 100 of the 200 laps and eventually winning easily after Ward was forced to back off in the closing stages when his right front tyre showed signs of coming apart.

Rathmann continued to race Indycars until 1963 before announcing his retirement in May ’64. He went on to run a thriving Cadillac and Chevrolet dealership in Melbourne, Florida not far from Daytona Beach, and also built his own successful go-karts called Rathmann Xterminators. A quiet, unpretentious man, Rathmann was a renowned practical joker. Motor Sport sends its condolences to his wife Kay and family of four sons, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

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You couldn‘t ask for a better championship battle than NASCAR has enjoyed this year through its 10-round ‘Chase for the Cup’. Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards raced for the Sprint Cup all the way to the flag at the Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday night. Stewart drove an excellent race, coming back from losing time in the pits – first to fix damage to his car’s nose, then with a troublesome wheel gun – to charge into the lead on the race’s final restart. Edwards chased him all the way, leading the most laps and crossing the line just one second behind the winner.

Stewart and Edwards finished the year tied on points, but Stewart triumphed by virtue of having more wins – five to one. It’s the first time in NASCAR’s 63-year history that its championship has finished in a tie. This is Stewart’s third Sprint Cup title and his first as a team owner/driver since buying into Stewart/Haas Racing. He also becomes the first owner/driver to win NASCAR’s premier championship since the late Alan Kulwicki 20 years ago.

“This is just unbelievable,” Stewart grinned. “If this doesn’t go down as one of the great championship battles in history I don’t know what will.”

After starting his NASCAR career in 1999 with Joe Gibbs’ team, with whom he won two titles in 2002 and ’05, Stewart bought a half interest in machine tool manufacturer Gene Haas’s outfit three years ago. At the time Stewart also made a deal with Rick Hendrick to supply his team with chassis and engines, considered the best in the business.

“I can’t thank Gene Haas and Joe Custer enough for giving me this opportunity,” said Stewart. “And I couldn’t have done it without my good buddy Rick Hendrick and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. [Crew chief] Darian Grubb and everyone on this team have dug deep and never given up. I’ve got the best team in the business. It’s just awesome and I’m so grateful to be able to do this for Gene Haas because the man has invested a lot in this sport.”

Edwards was gracious in defeat: “Tony Stewart and his guys rose to the occasion, they beat us fair and square. That was as hard as I could drive. My guys did a really good job. We led the most laps but Tony and his guys did a good job with their strategy and came out in front of us. I told my wife that if I can’t win this thing, I’d be the best loser NASCAR has ever had. So I’m going to try really hard to keep my head up and know that we’re going to be just as hard to beat next year and the year after that.”

An Indiana native Stewart, 40, is one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers, second only to Dale Earnhardt Jr. Brash and outspoken, he is the perfect champion for American stock car racing.

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Randy Bernard has confirmed four international IndyCar race dates for 2012, including a new event on a 3.87-mile street circuit in Qingdao, China.

Qingdao, a city of 8.7 million people located on the Yellow Sea coast between Beijing and Shanghai, hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics sailing competition. Series boss Bernard has also confirmed that IndyCar will continue to race on street circuits in São Paulo (below) and Toronto and at Edmonton’s airport course. A second street race in Brazil is believed to be on the cards.

IndyCar’s first race in China will take place on August 19, coinciding with the Qingdao International Beer Festival. It’s said that the promoters’ long-term goal is to build a permanent race circuit somewhere in the city.

“Last year at our sponsorship summit, China was the number one place that our sponsors wanted to go to outside the United States,” said Bernard. “We are very excited and truly grateful for the full support of the Chinese government, Qingdao City government and related government bureaus in providing the opportunity to bring the IZOD IndyCar Series to China. We are committed to doing our part in making this a fantastic event to be seen on the world stage.”

IndyCar announced that its 2012 season will begin on the streets of St Petersburg, Florida on March 25 and that previously announced races at Belle Isle in Detroit and the California Speedway will take place on June 3 and the evening of September 15 respectively. Next year’s Indianapolis 500 will be held on May 27, with Pole Day on May 19.

The belief is that 2.0-mile ovals like the California Speedway are more manageable than 1.5-mile ovals such as Las Vegas and Texas, because there’s more room on the track and the radius of the turns is less severe. But Bernard is facing strong opposition from IndyCar’s drivers about continuing to race on high-banked 1.5-mile ovals in the wake of Dan Wheldon’s accident, so it will be interesting to see the final make-up of the 2012 schedule. The race in China confirms IndyCar’s inexorable slide toward running on more and more street and road courses.

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Tony Stewart or Carl Edwards? NASCAR’s 36th and final Sprint Cup race of the year takes place at the Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend and the championship will go to one of the two. The pair finished second and third at Phoenix last Sunday – Edwards ahead of Stewart – and Carl leads Tony by just three points. Edwards will be trying to win his first Sprint Cup championship next weekend while Stewart will be going after his third title and first as an owner/driver.

Edwards has driven for Jack Roush’s four-car Ford team since breaking into NASCAR’s premier division in 2004. Edwards finished second in the Sprint Cup championship in 2008 and won two of the last three races at Homestead-Miami.

“I’m excited,” Edwards said. “It’s going to be a battle. I truly believe it’s going to be a good race. Tony’s been running really well everywhere so they’re going to be on their game. But that place is magical for us, I really enjoy racing there. At the end of the day I hope it’s a good, hard race. I hope it comes down to the fastest car winning the championship. That would be cool.”

Stewart won the championship in 2002 and ‘05 with Joe Gibbs’s team and started his own team, Stewart/Haas Racing, in 2009. The team’s chassis and Chevrolet engines are supplied by Hendrick Motorsports. Stewart set the pace for much of the way at Phoenix, leading 150 laps and getting the bonus points for most laps led.

“We had an awesome car today,” Stewart said. “At the end we made another tyre pressure change and finally went too far. But we did almost everything we needed to do. We led the most laps and just came up two spots shy. We were a little bit too loose on entry at the end but we were able to get back to third. So we’re keeping him honest. We’re racing for every single point we can get.”

Last Sunday’s race in Phoenix was won by Kasey Kahne who scored his first win in two years and 81 starts. Kahne has driven for the Red Bull team this year but will join Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports next year replacing veteran Mark Martin. Red Bull has run a NASCAR team since 2007 but Deitrich Mateschitz has decided to pull out of stock car racing and the team is for sale. A buyer has yet to be found but the team hopes to continue in business next year.

Five-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson has not been quite as strong this year. He’s won only two races this season and had a bad day at Phoenix last weekend. Johnson is fifth in the points table, 68 behind Edwards, and has been eliminated from this year’s championship reckoning. But don’t count him out as a potential winner at Homestead next weekend. As Kasey Kahne showed last weekend many drivers and teams are capable of winning in NASCAR.

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The past month has been a tough time for IndyCar’s boss Randy Bernard. In the wake of Dan Wheldon’s death, Bernard’s leadership of IndyCar was questioned in stories on the front pages of USA Today, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. There have been calls for his resignation from some commentators inside the sport and Bernard is having a hard time stitching together the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series calendar.

Gone are the one-mile Milwaukee and New Hampshire ovals, while the California Speedway and Belle Isle in Detroit will return for their third attempts at trying to make CART/IRL/IndyCar successful. The California Speedway will try running a night race next year. Bernard has also been working to put together a second street race in Brazil and a race in China. He’s talking to Road America, the superb, four-mile road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, about the possibility of running a twin bill with the American Le Mans Series in August.

Last weekend Chip Ganassi became the first IndyCar team owner to make any comments about potential fixes for the set of circumstances that took Wheldon’s life. “It’s not one thing,” Ganassi told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “Six, eight or 10 things have to happen. There needs to be a change now. And there probably will be.” He suggested taking a look at developing an enclosed cockpit for the cars with a canopy like a fighter jet.

Four IndyCar teams made announcements last week about their 2012 plans. Roger Penske confirmed that he would continue to run three cars for Will Power, Hélio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe. Penske admitted a month ago that there was a chance he would cut back to two cars, but his IndyCar team remains intact. Team Penske is also fully embroiled in testing the new Dallara Indycar and 2.2-litre Chevrolet V6 turbo engine.

Good news came from Bobby Rahal, who announced plans to run two Indycars next year with Honda engines. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing has run only the Indy 500 and other occasional races in recent years. Ed Carpenter also announced his move into team ownership in partnership with sponsor Fuzzy’s Vodka. Carpenter’s stepfather Tony George will be a part owner.

The engine manufacturers are getting their 2012 customers lined up. Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser’s team, KV Racing, announced that it would run Chevrolet engines next year, joining Penske and Andretti Autosport in that camp. Thus far Honda has confirmed deals with Chip Ganassi’s two teams, AJ Foyt and Rahal. The only team to commit to running the third option of a Lotus/Judd engine is Mike Shank’s new team. Shank has successfully run a pair of Grand-Am Daytona prototypes and plans to move into IndyCar next year.

In the meantime Bernard is waiting for details of Wheldon’s accident report to emerge. He also faces continuing criticism about Brian Barnhart and IndyCar’s officiating team. It is said that some leading team owners have put forward a few experienced and respected names to replace Barnhart and help strengthen the IndyCar organisation. The racing world waits with interest to see if Bernard acts on their advice or maintains the status quo.

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For NASCAR fans, it’s time to pay attention to this year’s chase for the Sprint Cup championship. Three races remain on successive weekends in Texas, Phoenix and the Homestead-Miami Speedway, and two-time champion Tony Stewart is making an end-of-season run at winning his first title as a team owner. On the half-mile Martinsville oval last weekend he took the lead with two laps to go to score his third win of the year and move to within eight points of championship leader Carl Edwards, who finished ninth.

Stewart almost went a lap down at one point, but was in second place beside leader Jimmie Johnson for the last of no fewer than 18 restarts with just three laps to go. Jeff Gordon was the most dominant driver at Martinsville, leading 113 laps, and was in third place for the restart. After battling with Gordon for half a lap as the green flag waved Stewart attacked Johnson in an unusual move around the outside to go ahead.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever passed Jimmie on the outside,” said Tony. “It was just determination. I don’t think we had the best car today by any means but we had the most determined team to get it the best they could. I think I was the only guy who didn’t get in a wreck with somebody so I’m kind of proud of that.

“I hit the kerb at [turn] four before the restart and Jeff got underneath me going into one. Then I pulled two car lengths on him and thought, ‘Wow, it’s got more grip up there than I thought.’ And I stayed up there, and man, we went right around Jimmie.”

Defending five-time champion Johnson freely admitted that he didn’t do the best job at the end. “We were in the catbird seat to win,” he said. “But I just didn’t do a good job on the last restart.”

Gordon finished third and is 10th in the points, 76 behind leader Edwards. “The last few runs we lost the edge we had at one time, especially on short runs,” he said. “So I didn’t have much for those guys at the end. We needed more long green flag runs than we had.”

Gordon applauded Stewart for his winning pass. “A great effort by Tony. I didn’t think he could pass Jimmie on the outside. When things get tough you’ve really got to look out for that guy.”

Stewart said he’s ready to do whatever it takes to beat Edwards to this year’s Sprint Cup title. “He better be worried, that’s all I gotta say,” he grinned. “He isn’t going to have an easy three weeks.”

Kevin Harvick finished fourth at Martinsville and is third in the championship, 21 points behind Edwards. Brad Keselowski is fourth, with Matt Kenseth fifth and Johnson sixth.

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You have to tip your hat to Dario Franchitti and Ryan Hunter-Reay. After acting as pallbearers at Dan Wheldon’s funeral in St Petersburg last Saturday and then flying to Indianapolis to take part in the following day’s memorial service for the Briton, attended by more than 1000 people, the pair were in action at Sebring this week testing the 2012 Dallara Indycar.

Wheldon did the initial testing of the first Honda-powered prototype and the new car will be called the DW in his honour. Further testing has now begun with Chip Ganassi’s team running Honda engines and Team Penske and Andretti Autosport running Ilmor/Chevrolet engines. Franchitti and Hunter-Reay ran at Sebring for two days, Dario aboard one of Ganassi’s cars and Hunter-Reay driving for Andretti-Autosport.

“Right now, I would rather have another couple of weeks,” said Franchitti. “But our job is to do this, so here I am. It’s tough for everybody on the team and for everyone in the IndyCar community. The timing is not good, but if we want to show up next year in the best possible position we have to do this work. I definitely want to do my part.”

Dallara is scheduled to start delivering chassis to other teams in mid-December while the engine manufacturers must homologate their powerplants 30 days before next year’s IndyCar season-opener in St Petersburg, Florida on March 25. “We’re at the beginning of a long development process,” said Dario. “It will be a busy couple of months.”

Again, you have to admire the professionalism of guys like Franchitti and Hunter-Reay for stepping up to do their jobs despite personal grief and concerns about the right way forward for the IndyCar Series.

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Paul Tracy found himself in the middle of the 15-car wreck in which Dan Wheldon perished at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway last weekend. Tracy, 42, has been racing Indycars for 20 years but has been without a regular ride in recent seasons and has run only a handful of races for various teams. He made his fifth start of the year at Las Vegas but is seriously considering his future in racing after surviving the carnage at the high-banked 1.5-mile superspeedway.

“My parents and my wife don’t want me in those cars any more and I understand their concerns,” said Tracy this week. “It would be one thing if you were making big money but I do it for nothing now. Is it worth the risk? When I started racing I did it because I love racing and I still do, but I need to go race something else that’s not dangerous.”

The Canadian pointed to former World Champion Jody Scheckter, who wants his son Tomas to get out of Indycars following the Las Vegas tragedy, while title runner-up Will Power’s father has asked his son to do the same. “Power was really lucky,” said Tracy. “Did you see how high his car was off the ground?”

Tracy has always had a sense of humour but he sees nothing funny in IndyCar’s horsepower restricted formula and the ‘pack racing’ it creates on high-banked ovals in particular.

“You can’t run around in a pack like that,” said the Canadian. “You have to be able to go fast enough to spread the field out and be able to make clean, quick passes. We need more horsepower and a different aero package.

“You could go out on that particular track and run 25 laps on a set of tyres and it was like they weren’t even wearing. It’s so easy flat and there’s so much downforce that you’re hardly using the tyre.

“You can do 50 or 60 laps like that without any change in the grip or performance. Until you get to the point where you have to work the car and tyres and have some type of fall-off in grip you’re never going to create any type of separation between the cars.”

Tracy believes that all the drivers in the Vegas shunt were lucky to escape Wheldon’s fate. “It could have been Will or Pippa [Mann] or it could have been me,” he said. “When Pippa drove over the side of me she went right across my face and it ripped the steering wheel out of my hand. Another couple of inches and it would have ripped my head off.”

Tracy is unhappy with the IndyCar Series’ lack of response to making the now-retired Dallara-Honda combination better and has his reservations about the new 2012 car.

“I know racing is dangerous and I know people get killed,” he said. “But this car has had an inherent problem for eight years of taking off and flying. And the driver’s head is 80 per cent more exposed in the new car. We lost a great guy last weekend and I hope they work harder to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

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This year’s Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon was trying to work his way through the closely-packed field to win a $5 million prize offered to him by IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard when he was involved in the terrible multi-car accident that claimed his life. Wheldon’s car flew into the air and crashed upside-down into the wall amid a massive collision that took out fifteen cars.

Today’s restrictor plate-like Indy cars run flat-out around tracks like Las Vegas and everyone was worried about the possibility of ‘The Big One’ occurring, particularly with a field of 34 cars, seven or eight more than usual. Running two-wide and sometimes three and four-wide the inevitable happened and everyone’s worst fears came true in horrifying circumstances.

The race was red-flagged and then cancelled after the sad news of Wheldon’s death. Championship contender Will Power was among those involved in the crash, getting up-side down amid the mayhem. Power’s demise meant Dario Franchitti won the IndyCar championship for the third year in a row.

Franchitti has long been a critic of racing contemporary Indy cars on 1.5-mile high-banked ovals like Las Vegas. We have seen big accidents on these tracks before with both Kenny Brack and Davey Hamilton suffering serious injuries in giant shunts some years ago at the Texas Motor Speedway.

At Las Vegas on Sunday Franchitti jumped into the high groove at the start of the race, trying to make ground from his midfield starting position. But he soon adopted a more defensive style.

“Within five laps people were starting to do crazy stuff,” Franchitti said. “That early in the race I wanted no part of that stuff. I love hard racing, but that to me is not really what it’s about. We said before we tested here that this is not a suitable track (for Indycars) and we’ve seen why today. You can’t get away from anybody. You’re just stuck there and people get frustrated and go four-wide and you saw what happened. One small mistake from somebody and there’s a massive crash.”

“It’s unfortunate that early on in the race they’ve got to be racing so close that we have what they call ‘The Big One’,” added Roger Penske. “You always worry about those on these mile and a half tracks at these speeds with this many cars.” Former Indy 500 winner Eddie Cheever now works as a commentator for ABC television. “There’s just too many cars on too easy a track to drive on,” he observed.

Tony Kanaan qualified on pole at 222.708 mph and led the race until it was stopped. “On a track like this with the cars we have, it’s a potential for disaster,” Kanaan said. “Yes, sometimes you get excited out there but when we’re racing so close one mistake can take fifteen people out. And that’s what happened there. I’ve never seen such a mess in my entire career on the racetrack.

“I think we need to rethink about the way we’re doing things on the racetrack sometimes because it’s not a good feeling. Everybody’s looking for a win. I know this is a competition and you’ve got to win races and you have to perform, but at the end of the day it’s just a race. We have to take care of each other. We’re playing with life here. What happened this afternoon proves that we should give each other a little bit more room.”

“Because of the nature of the track, the banking and the amount of grip, there’s a lot of racing three-wide,” said Alex Tagliani. “You’re in a stack and nobody can go anywhere with the downforce we have. Nobody can break away and you’re just running around in a group. So when something goes wrong you’re just a passenger. Everybody was concerned about that and we have the proof now. The only thing we can do is try to drive with our heads on our shoulders and respect each other out there.”

Observed Ryan Hunter-Reay: “We knew coming into this race racing at speeds of 220 mph that this would be a tough one to get done without a big wreck. It only takes one small mistake to create a very big problem, like we’ve seen here. We need to take a different approach. We need to try to take care of ourselves as drivers.”

Randy Bernard and IndyCar will be asking themselves many questions this week. Meanwhile Motor Sport extends our deepest condolences to Dan Wheldon’s wife Suzy in America and his father and family in the UK.

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With seven races to go in NASCAR’s 36-round Sprint Cup ahead of this weekend’s meeting in Kansas, the title battle remains wide open. This year’s title contenders include defending champion Jimmie Johnson, former champions Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch, plus Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards, who have all won second-division Nationwide championships.

Also qualifying for this year’s ‘Chase for the Cup’ over the final 10 races are 2003 champion Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

It’s easy to criticise NASCAR but the fact remains that it enjoys a more impressive depth of field than any other form of racing and is by far the big dog of American motor sport. NASCAR’s reach in the huge number of races it runs plus its at-the-track audience and massive TV time puts it in a class of its own, totalling more than the rest of the diverse world of American racing put together. NASCAR has also built a comprehensive ladder system reaching down to the grass roots and providing a way forward on a professional path for young drivers, mechanics, engineers and teams.

All this has evolved slowly but steadily over the decades. While other sanctioning bodies have squabbled for control of different forms of the sport, diminishing rather than building the ladder systems that used to exist in open-wheel and sports car racing, NASCAR has done the job well and filled the void vacated by others.

Elsewhere NASCAR continues its glacially slow technical evolution, with fuel injection set to replace carburettors next year in the premier Sprint Cup series and new sheet metal coming in 2013 when the cars should look more like Chevrolets, Fords, Dodges and Toyotas than in recent years with the Car of Tomorrow spec racer.

NASCAR has been working for a couple of years on the move to fuel injection and will adopt a McLaren ECU and Bosch injectors as part of its 2012 package. The new system will debut at next February’s Daytona 500 and become standard in the Sprint Cup. The teams have become adept at getting the most out of their carburettors and everyone seems to agree that the engines will make a bit less horsepower with fuel injection. At the same time fuel mileage should improve, and no doubt it won’t take long for the teams and manufacturers to regain the lost power.

McLaren supplies ‘spec’ ECUs to both Formula 1 and IndyCar, of course, while Bosch’s record and experience with fuel injection is unparalleled. “Having McLaren ECUs made a lot of sense for us,” said NASCAR’s vice-president of competition Robin Pemberton (below). “We interviewed a lot of manufacturers, large and small, but nobody else could match their record of success with providing a box to other major series. Their lack of failure rate and their commitment to do what it takes to help regulate the sport is important to us.

“Right now Bosch is the only injector we’ll allow and the O2 sensors will be Bosch. Those are things McLaren recommended for their system and we don’t see any issues with either Bosch or McLaren supplying everyone. They have strong track records in the industry and we have complete confidence that both can do the job.”

NASCAR has also been working closely with the manufacturers towards a new look for 2013. Sheet metal will be adopted in the Cup series to allow for more brand recognition, as with this year’s Nationwide car. “The safety structure will remain the same,” said Pemberton. “But all the sheet metal will be different. We haven’t had this level of engagement by the manufacturers since perhaps the ’80s.”

It may not be as robustly healthy as it was a few years ago, but NASCAR continues to boast a full field of 43 cars and a steady stream of new American talent anxious build a reputation against the likes of Gordon, Johnson, Stewart, Harvick, Edwards and the Busch brothers. Thanks to the many failures of both American open-wheel and sports car racing, NASCAR’s stars personify US motor sport today.

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Dario Franchitti retook the lead of the IndyCar Series championship on Sunday by finishing a close second on the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway. Title rival Will Power looked good in the opening laps as he pulled away on his own from pole, his eighth of the year. But as Power came in for his first pitstop he collided with Ana Beatriz, who drove into the Australian as she departed her pit. “They just fed her into me,” Power shrugged. “There wasn’t anything I could do. We had the quickest car, an unbelievably fast car.”

The left sidepod of Power’s car was damaged in the incident and he finished 19th, struggling from a lack of straightline speed because of a hole in the bodywork. “We lost 4mph and it was just a fight to hang on at the back of the field. The car was still handling really well; it just had no speed. It had so much drag it was impossible.”

As a result Franchitti leads Power (below) by 18 points going into IndyCar’s season-closer at Las Vegas in two weeks. “It was a great points day,” said Dario. “The Target guys were great in the pits, they got me to the front.”

Needless to say, Power was very disappointed. “I wasn’t expecting a day like that, to lose so many points when we had so much potential. But that’s racing and we’ve got to come back at Las Vegas.”
Oval specialist Ed Carpenter came through to win at Kentucky, scoring his first victory in 113 IndyCar starts. Carpenter ran side-by-side with Franchitti over the last 20 laps, with Dario clinging to the inside. Carpenter was able to edge ahead at the finish line on most laps, and so it was on the final lap as he won by a nose.

“Dario raced me hard and clean,” he said. “I knew we had a better car than him by the second or third stint. I had to check one time that we had enough fuel to go to the end and with about nine laps I used the push-to-pass to get into position. I used it again over the last five laps and it worked.”

Franchitti complimented Carpenter on his clean, fast driving. “He did a great job. I had to use my overtakes to keep him at least alongside me. I couldn’t let him clear me. We did all we could.”

Carpenter struggled with a broken visor in the middle of the race. “My visor was falling off for a while, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from winning. I drove 15 or 20 laps one-handed, holding onto my helmet until the pitstop.”

Having finished second in Kentucky the last two years, Carpenter’s breakthrough win also was the first for Sarah Fisher’s small team. Fisher recently learned that primary sponsor Dollar General (a supermarket chain) will not return next year and she’s hoping the win will help her team secure funding for next season.

So Franchitti goes to Las Vegas in a strong position to take his third straight IndyCar championship and the fourth in a row for Chip Ganassi’s team. The Vegas oval is very similar to Kentucky, so Power is sure to be fast as he tries to secure his first title.

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NASCAR’s Chase for the Cup is designed to shake things up and that’s exactly what’s happened this year. Tony Stewart was fighting through an indifferent year, but after two of the 10 Chase races he’s leading the Sprint Cup championship. During the first 26 races of regular season play Stewart didn’t win a single event, but he’s won twice in the past two weekends at Chicago and New Hampshire, both times helped by good fuel mileage.

At Chicago a bunch of cars ran out of fuel in the closing laps and in New Hampshire on Sunday leader Clint Bowyer’s tank ran dry with two laps to go. Bowyer won this race in 2010 when Stewart ran out of fuel on the last lap, but the roles were reversed this year as Stewart came through to win in a bid to claim his third NASCAR championship.

Stewart took the Sprint Cup title in 2002 and ‘05 driving Chevrolets for Joe Gibbs’ team. Last year he started his own team, Stewart/Haas Racing, in partnership with machine tool manufacturer Gene Haas. Stewart/Haas runs a pair of Chevrolets for Stewart and Ryan Newman with cars and engines supplied by Hendrick Motorsports. Stewart has made some public complaints about his team in recent weeks and last week he fired a few of his people.

“We’ve still got eight long weeks to go,” he said. “It’s way too early to count chickens right now, but we got rid of some of the dead weight earlier this week and that made it a lot easier. Sometimes you have to make adjustments in your life and we did that and it definitely helped us this weekend. These guys have never quit. They’ve never given up and we’ve got a shot at this thing.”

At this stage in the Chase for the Cup anything is possible. No driver who’s led the points after two races since the system has been in use has gone on to win the championship.

With eight races to go, all on successive weekends, Stewart leads with 2094 points, seven more than second-placed Kevin Harvick. Brad Keselowski finished second to Stewart in New Hampshire and is third in the points, 11 behind Stewart. Fourth is Carl Edwards with Jeff Gordon fifth, Kyle Busch sixth, Matt Kenseth seventh, Dale Earnhardt Jr eighth, Kurt Busch ninth and defending champion Jimmie Johnson 10th. Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin are the remaining contenders in 11th and 12th.

Johnson had a tough race in New Hampshire, finishing 18th, but he believes he still has a chance to take a sixth consecutive title. “You’ve just got to take each race as they come,” he said. “In my experience of winning five [championships] we lost the points lead due to a wreck on the last lap at Talladega and came back and won. So anything can happen. But days like we had today aren’t what you hope for.”

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Saturday’s IndyCar race at Japan’s Twin Ring Motegi wasn’t a good one for Dario Franchitti. While team-mate Scott Dixon qualified on pole and led all the way to score his second win of the year, Franchitti qualified ninth and spent a good deal of the race working his way back through the field after colliding with Ryan Briscoe during a restart. Dario eventually made it up to eighth as championship rival Will Power drove a flawless race to finish second and take an 11-point lead over the Scot with two rounds to go.

Indycars have raced at Motegi since 1998. CART ran there from 1998-2002 with the IRL taking over in ‘03. The first 13 races were run on the 1.5-mile oval, but this year’s event was on the 2.983-mile road course after the oval was damaged by last winter’s earthquake. Despite drawing a pretty good crowd, Motegi never was able to make a profit on the race, and sorganisers announced last February before the earthquake that this would be the last IndyCar race at the track.

The road course proved slippery but challenging as most drivers struggled to put down the power. Dixon was well down the order on the opening day but came through to beat Power to pole before driving a perfect race. Power chased hard but couldn’t put any serious pressure on the leader, eventually finishing 3.4 seconds behind.

Through the opening 20 laps Franchitti moved from ninth to fifth before trying too hard on a restart and running into Briscoe’s tail. The collision delayed Franchitti, and Briscoe also collided with Dario’s team-mates Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball who spun. It was probably Franchitti’s worst moment of the season and neither he nor team owner Chip Ganassi were pleased.

“Dixon had a great day,” said Ganassi. “He did everything he possibly could for the team and there’s obviously going to be some tough conversations. Before the race we said to Dario, ‘Drive like a champion.’ And that move in turn one was very disappointing. He took out two of our cars. So it’s good news and bad news. Dario is obviously still a champion and still a great driver, but it wasn’t his day.”

“It was a stupid move on my part,” admitted Franchitti. “I saw what I thought was a gap and went down the inside and the gap closed quickly. If I had to do that again I’d definitely not make that move. I’d done a lot of hard work getting from ninth to fifth and basically screwed it up.

“I’ve apologised to Ryan, and Charlie and Graham as well, two of my team-mates to whom I was nothing helpful. I apologised to Chip too. If I’m going to win this championship I’m going to have to stop making mistakes.”

On the other hand, Power could not have been happier: “We raced pretty hard for the win but Scott was just solid all day. But it was a great day because we gained points on Dario and can’t be disappointed with second. Of course, we’d love to win every time, but at no point during the race was I settling for second. It was as good as we could get. If we can win the championship it will be perfect.”

Both this year’s final two races are on 1.5-mile banked ovals – the Kentucky Speedway on October 2 and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on October 16.

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The 12 contenders in this year’s chase for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup were finalised in Saturday night’s 400-mile race on the one-mile Richmond oval. The ‘Chase for the Cup’ takes place over the last 10 races of NASCAR’s marathon 36-race season, starting next weekend on the high-banked 1.5-mile Chicagoland oval.

The Richmond race was won by Kevin Harvick, who scored his fourth win of the year in one of Richard Childress’s trio of Chevrolets. Harvick was chased home by Carl Edwards aboard his Roush-Fenway Ford, with Jeff Gordon taking third place in his Hendrick Chevrolet. Championship leader Kyle Busch finished sixth in one of Joe Gibbs’ Toyotas, so Busch and Harvick go into the Chase as top seeds, both with four wins.

Although Busch and Harvick have won NASCAR’s second-division Nationwide championship, neither have claimed a Sprint Cup title. Busch, 26, is considered NASCAR’s fastest driver and is this year’s championship favourite. He’s been racing Cup cars for eight years and this is his fourth season with Joe Gibbs’ team. Harvick, 36, is in his eleventh year in the Cup series, all with Childress, after replacing Dale Earnhardt following his death at Daytona in 2001.

The 12 championship contenders are seeded based on wins. All start the 10-race Chase with 5000 points, plus an additional 10 points for each win scored in the first 26 races of the season. Busch and Edwards thus go to Chicago next weekend with 5040 points, followed by four-time champion Jeff Gordon on 5030 points.

Seeded fourth is 2003 Cup champion Matt Kenseth, who’s won two races so far this season in one of four Roush-Fenway Fords. Kenseth’s team-mate Carl Edwards is next up with one win and is grouped with defending champion Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Chevrolet), Kurt Busch (Penske Dodge) and Ryan Newman (Stewart-Haas Chevrolet).

Completing the top 10 are Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas Chevrolet) and Dale Earnhardt Jr (Hendrick Chevrolet). Neither Stewart nor Earnhardt have won during this year’s first 26 races. Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin round out the 12 Chase contenders. Keselowski has shown plenty of ability, winning three races in his second full Cup season with Roger Penske’s Dodge team. Hamlin has scored one victory this year aboard his Joe Gibbs Toyota.

This is the eighth year for the Chase for the Cup and, contrived or not, the system does help keep the championship open down to the last race in November at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. In theory any of the 12 seeded drivers has a chance to take the title. Busch and Harvick start the Chase as favourites but each of four-time champion Gordon, five-time champion Johnson and Edwards are entirely capable of challenging for this year’s title, as is Keselowski.

The rest are long shots but NASCAR’s great depth of field means anything is possible. Like it or not, it’s motor racing’s toughest championship.

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Four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon achieved a major milestone in the rain-delayed 500-mile race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on Tuesday. Gordon scored his 85th win in NASCAR’s top league after a furious battle with Hendrick Motorsports team-mate and friend Jimmie Johnson, thus emerging from a three-way tie with Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison to become NASCAR’s third most successful driver behind seven-times champion Richard Petty and triple champion David Pearson (who won 200 and 105 races respectively).

Gordon now stands not only as the most successful active NASCAR driver but also as one of stock car racing’s all-time greats. Jeff has been racing Cup cars for 19 years and celebrated his 40th birthday in August. He last won the championship in 2001 and has had his struggles in recent years, but he’s been very competitive this season and was superb at Atlanta, leading most of the way. His 85th win was his third victory this year and he earned it with great panache as he battled hard with Johnson through the closing laps, both slithering precariously close to the wall on a number of occasions.

“Our car was strong at the beginning of a run but we used it up at the end,” he said. “That was a lot of fun. I was slipping and he was slipping. The throttle control was very tough at the end. He had one or two shots at me and I really thought we were done because I got so loose.”

Gordon clung to the high groove and when Johnson fought a giant wiggle at the end of the penultimate lap Jeff knew he was home free. “When I saw him get real loose off Turn 4 as we were coming to take the white [flag] I could breathe a sigh of relief.”

Johnson took equal pleasure from the duel. “Thank God I grew up racing on dirt,” he grinned. “If I hadn’t raced on all those desert and stadium tracks I think I would’ve spun out four of five times at the end. I had a bit more speed over the long haul but I just couldn’t get by him. I hoped that Jeff would run the tyres off his car and I could catch him, and it kinda worked out, but I couldn’t get by him. But what a lot of fun. To race that hard, that sideways at 180mph for lap after lap, that’s a good time.”

Gordon was so engrossed in the battle that he didn’t think about his milestone win until he was reminded about it in victory lane. “That’s unbelievable!” he grinned. “I’m just blown away by the kind of day we had and the kind of year we’re having. Eighty-five… Wow, I love it!”

Whatever you may think about NASCAR, nobody can deny that it puts on a tremendous show and that Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are among the most accomplished racing drivers in action anywhere today.

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Will Power dominated last Sunday’s inaugural IndyCar race on the streets of Baltimore. The Australian took his seventh pole of the year and led most of the way to win easily from Oriol Servia and Tony Kanaan. Championship leader Dario Franchitti qualified fourth and ran third for most of the race, but finished fourth after the field was scrambled by a late, full-course yellow. Power’s win – his sixth of the year – pulled him to within five points of Franchitti with three rounds to go in this year’s IZOD IndyCar championship.

“Oh man, that was the toughest race I’ve done all year,” declared Power. “Honestly, I’ve never driven so hard in my life. Before the last stop they said I had 10 laps to get enough of a gap if you want to win this thing, and I just gave it everything. I’m exhausted. I was thinking in my head, I want to win this championship. We’re coming.

Franchitti was no match for Power in Baltimore and now has a serious battle on his hands if he’s to win his third title in a row and his fourth since 2007. “Getting stressed about it doesn’t make you go any faster,” he said. “You just go out each week and do your best. That’s what we’ve done when we won the last three championships and that’s what we’ll do this time.”

Graham Rahal enjoyed his best race of the season in Baltimore. He qualified second and led Power for a few corners on the opening lap before settling into second place hard on his tail. But Rahal was caught out by the late yellow, which meant he had to pit under the green flag for his final splash of fuel. The stop dropped him into the midfield and he was able to finish no better than 10th.

“The strategy killed us but it wasn’t our fault,” said Rahal. “The officiating was terrible, if you ask me. Why did we stay yellow for so long? There were no cars on the track. We didn’t need to stay yellow for 10 laps. [President of competition and racing operations Brian] Barnhart said in the drivers meeting that he wasn’t going to wait to figure any scoring problems out. We needed about 10 or 12 laps of hard running to pull that gap and unfortunately we didn’t get it.

“If they had said there was a lot of oil on the track and we were going to be down for another five or six laps then I would understand. I’m really disappointed. Between Will and I we were the class of the field. We had everybody covered by half a second.”

Kanaan’s third place was particularly impressive after the Brazilian crashed heavily in morning warm-up when his brakes failed. Kanaan had to start the race from the back of the field in a hastily prepared spare car.

Three races remain in this year’s championship – the Motegi road course in Japan in two weeks’ time followed in October by two high-banked oval races in Kentucky and Las Vegas.

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Will Power led a Penske clean sweep at the Infineon Raceway (Sears Point) road course on Sunday. The IndyCar Series title hopeful qualified on pole and led all the way, save for pitstops, to score his fifth win of the year ahead of team-mates Hélio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe. Power’s victory allowed him to close to within 26 points of championship leader Dario Franchitti.

It was the first top three sweep for Team Penske since 1994 when Al Unser Jr, Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy scored no fewer than four 1-2-3 finishes for Roger Penske’s CART team. Meanwhile Brad Keselowski won again for Penske’s NASCAR team at the half-mile Bristol bullring on Saturday night. Roger himself was on the scoring stand in Tennessee, and after flying west to California did the same at Sears Point.

‘The Captain’ is one of America’s leading entrepreneurs as well as one of its top team owners, and he was delighted to see his NASCAR and Indycar teams perform so well. “It’s been a long time since we’ve had this kind of run on the Indycar side,” said Roger. “And then for Brad and Kurt [Busch] to run so well and Brad picking up that win it’s an awesome time and a credit to all our people, whether it’s the Indycar or NASCAR side. What a run here, I just can’t believe it. There’s a lot of competition [in IndyCar] and I think we had a good set-up this weekend, just a little bit better than Ganassi.

“But we’ve got a lot of work to do. We want to win this championship. We’ve been ahead and fell behind and now maybe we’re making a surge. But Dario and [Scott] Dixon are outstanding and when you get on the [Sprint] Cup side, man, it’s a whole other story.”

Four races remain in the IndyCar championship – two street or road races and two ovals. Franchitti has 475 points to Power’s 449, while Dario’s Ganassi team-mate Dixon is third and another 49 points behind Power. Franchitti and Dixon qualified fourth and fifth at Sears Point and finished in the same places, unable to offer a challenge to Penske’s cars.

Giorgio Pantano, the 2008 GP2 champion, stepped into the injured Justin Wilson’s Dreyer & Reinbold car and drove an excellent race to finish sixth. Pantano did so without the benefit of testing and was able to shoulder out Sébastien Bourdais in one of Dale Coyne’s cars, but was penalised for diving inside the Frenchman to steal sixth place on a late-race restart. Pantano was unaware of IndyCar’s strict restart rules, which don’t allow such aggressive manoeuvres, and the disappointed Italian then found himself moved back to the tail of the unlapped finishers.

IndyCar races again this weekend at a new street circuit in Baltimore, followed by a visit to Japan Motegi’s road course and two oval races in October at Kentucky and Las Vegas. It will be interesting to see if Power can run down Franchitti to win his first IndyCar title and stop the Scot from taking his third championship in a row.

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IndyCar has upheld Ryan Hunter-Reay’s controversial win at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway on August 14 by denying the protests made by Newman/Haas and Target/Chip Ganassi Racing. The top three finishing positions in the race remain the same and are now official, with Hunter-Reay having won from Oriol Servia and Scott Dixon.

The protests were issued after the rain-affected race ended in acrimony. Following a late restart called by IndyCar senior official Brian Barnhart, a multi-car crash in slippery conditions eliminated title contender Will Power among others. The race was red-flagged and the results were reset prior to the restart, handing Hunter-Reay the win. But following the restart he had been passed by Newman/Haas driver Servia and Ganassi’s Dixon, hence their challenge.

Servia, Hunter-Reay and Dixon at New Hampshire

The hearing was held on Tuesday before a three-man panel comprising New Hampshire Motor Speedway general manager Jerry Gappens and experienced USAC officials Rollie Helmling and Jeff Stoops. They issued a statement which said: “After hearing the presentations by each participant, the Protest Panel was unanimous in its decision. It is this panel’s conclusion that IndyCar senior official Brian Barnhart had the authority under the governing 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series rulebook to render the decision that was made. We also agree that his decision to abort the restart and set the finishing positions that existed before the attempted restart to be an exercise of reasonable discretion. The protests as to Chip Ganassi Racing Teams Inc car number nine and Newman/Haas Racing car number two are hereby denied.”

“We are very pleased with the decision given by the committee on the New Hampshire race,” said Andretti Autosport team owner Michael Andretti. “Ryan drove a tremendous race at Loudon and his crew was outstanding that day. We believed all along that Ryan was the winner and this decision verifies his victory. We have two big road racing events coming up in the next two weeks at Sonoma and Baltimore, and we can now focus on getting back to victory lane at those races.”

Hunter-Reay added: “I have always felt that we won the race in New Hampshire. The conditions were not ideal that day, and a proper decision needed to be made. I know that the entire Andretti Autosport team is pleased with the outcome of the hearing. It is a relief to now concentrate on the next race at Sonoma. We have scored more points in the last four races than any other driver, and I would love to continue that pattern at Infineon Raceway.”

Hunter-Reay and Servia jostle for position on a restart

On the losing side, a philosophic Carl Haas said: “We feel we gave the panel proof that Oriol was the winner when the chequered flag ended the race. Naturally we are disappointed in the panel’s ruling that five laps of the race be struck from the results, but we appreciated the opportunity to state our position.”

And Servia added: “I am proud of Newman/Haas Racing and how they proved that the restart procedure was correct and that we were leading when the yellow came out. The panel doesn’t deny that. Their resolution states that Brian Barnhart has the power by the rulebook to make certain decisions at his discretion, and that is what happened.”

On Wednesday Chip Ganassi said he had not decided if his team would appeal the decision in the limited time available. “Everything the chief steward did might well be within his power, but is that the right thing for the sport? There’s a fine line between what constitutes the legality of a chief steward’s decisions and the integrity of the sport.”

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Marcos Ambrose underlined the point that he is NASCAR’s top road racer these days as he came from the back of the grid to win Saturday’s second-division Nationwide race at Le Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montréal. It was Ambrose’s second road course win in six days coming hard on the heels of his first Sprint Cup victory at Watkins Glen.

But the story of the day was Patrick Carpentier’s retirement. The French-Canadian ran the last race of his career in a Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota sponsored by race backer NAPA Auto Parts. He qualified eighth and ran with the leaders until getting involved in a couple of fender-banging incidents, eventually crawling to a stop on the track.

Carpentier is one of a number of drivers whose careers were overshadowed, if not diminished, by the CART/IRL war. A native of Ville la Salle, outside Montréal, Patrick won the Canadian Formula Atlantic championship in 1992 and the Toyota Atlantic championship in ‘96 with a record nine wins. He broke into CART’s Indy Car World Series in ‘97 with the late Tony Bettenhausen’s team and took rookie of the year honours before joining the top-ranked Player’s/Forsythe team in ‘98.

Carpentier drove for Forsythe (below) for six years and established himself as one of CART’s top drivers. He scored his first win in the 2001 Michigan 500, beating Dario Franchitti by a car length, and enjoyed his best year in ’02, winning at Cleveland and Mid-Ohio and finishing third in the championship. In 2003 he won from pole at Laguna Seca and won there again in ’04 when he finished third in the points.

But by then CART had been driven into bankruptcy as top teams like Penske, Ganassi, Andretti-Green and Rahal defected to the IRL. Champ Car replaced CART for three years, while Carpentier also switched to the IRL in 2005 with a less than stellar team for what was his last year racing Indycars. He made his NASCAR debut at the end of 2007 and ran most of the Sprint Cup season in ‘08, taking one pole. In ‘09 he ran a handful of races but it was clear his career was coming to an end.

Patrick has run a few more NASCAR races over the past 18 months and went to this year’s Indy 500 in an uncompetitive car only to crash while trying to make the field. He celebrated his 40th birthday on August 13 and decided a few months ago to conclude his career in the Nationwide race in Montréal, where he was enthusiastically applauded as a national hero.

Carpentier is a fast, clean driver and a gentleman at all times, on and off the track. He is an amiable, good-humoured man who honoured a bet after winning at Mid-Ohio in 2002 by running a lap of the track on foot in the nude, save for a small chequered flag wrapped around his loins. But he is much more than that – an intelligent, softly spoken man who splits his time between Las Vegas and Quebec. Married in 1998 to the equally low-key but charming Anick, the Carpentiers have a daughter Anais and son Loic. We wish them the best in their new life after racing.

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