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IndyCar Debate: Is Series as Competitive as Standings Say It Is?

Posted by Chad Smith on April 22, 2011
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Franchitti and Dixon

The speculation around the IndyCar Series this year is that it is more wide open than it has been since the merger. While it might feel that way right now, time will prove otherwise.

As they sit right now, there are eight different teams represented in the top ten of the season points standings. While that may be a strong argument for those that believe there is a lot of parody, it may be somewhat smoke and mirrors. There have been many factors that have led us to where we currently stand.

First off, we have only had three races this year. It is still too early to speculate as to how much parody there actually is in the sport today. We have not yet completed a quarter of the races on the schedule, and as we all know, drivers perform better at certain venues than others. For instance, Long Beach is one of the most demanding circuits on the schedule, both mentally and physically. As a result, some drivers are better suited for this course than others, while it may be the other way around for another driver.

While on the topic of the schedule, it is also important to note that we have yet to even see our first event on an oval. With so many new drivers and teams, it is impossible to predict how they will fare on the ovals against the top teams like Penske, Ganassi, and Andretti Autosport. When people talk about the equipment advantage that those three teams have over most everyone else, it applies even more when talking about the ovals. The dominance that those three teams have shown on the ovals, especially Indianapolis, is really the main thing you want to look at when considering how much parody exists.

Since 2000, only one team other than Penske, Ganassi, and Andretti has won the Indianapolis 500. That was 2004, when Buddy Rice won it with Rahal/Letterman Racing.

Buddy Rice

The growing perception about this season is that some of the smaller teams are finally able to step up and compete with the “big three” with new drivers. Veteran Tony Kanaan is now with KV Racing, Newman/Hass has seen a revival, Dreyer & Reinbold is looking to get into the mix with Justin Wilson and Ana Beatriz, and some of the one-car teams have had success as well.

KV Racing has probably seen the biggest improvement this season, not only with T.K. leading the way, but Takuma Sato has been impressive as well. E.J. Viso continues to find different ways of hitting the wall and other cars, collecting more DNFs, but the team is still doing much better than any previous season. Experienced driver Oriol Servia has been one of the biggest surprises this year, and rookie driver James Hinchcliffe has been living up to the hype so far in just two races.

All of this does add up to more excitement for the series, but just how legitimate are the results just three races in? We have to start with Ryan Briscoe, and his horrible luck in the first two races. He was one of the victims of that lap 1, turn 1 embarrassment at St. Pete. The next week at Barber, he was having a great run in second place for most of the day before he got taken out by a terrible move by Ryan Hunter-Reay. He rebounded nicely last weekend, but those first two races cost him dearly.

Helio Castroneves has not been himself in any race this year, and with the points getting away from him and the Indy 500 just around the corner, I think he is going to return to form. He has one more race to prove it before Indy, but even if he doesn’t do it next weekend he will probably still be lightning quick at Indy. The third Penske driver, Will Power, has looked good in the first three races. The ovals cost him the championship last year and he will not let that happen again.

Looking at the two (sorry Kimball and Rahal) Ganassi guys, there really is no cooler pair than Franchitti and Dixon. These two are quite the pair, on and off the track. While Franchitti has been his normal dominating self this year, Dixon has had some bad luck in two of the first three races. The first lap accident in St. Pete took him out of that, and after finishing in second at Barber, he got into Helio’s mess at Long Beach. Both he and Dario are two of the best at Indianapolis and these two know how to get it done on the other ovals.

When talking about bad luck, you also have to mention Marco Andretti and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Both of these drivers have had a couple of DNFs so far this season. Marco was flipped upside down in that first lap crash at St. Pete and RHR also got some damage that ended his day. Ryan also had some bad luck last weekend at Long Beach where it looked like he would win another one there, only to have mechanical problems end his run. Marco ended his day when he turned into another car leaving pit road.

On the same topic of Andretti Autosport, you have to look at Mike Conway. Despite winning last weekend’s race, his first two races went south fast. He got tangled up in the opening lap crash at St. Pete and then had another accident at Barber that took him out of the race. It was great to see him rebound and get that win in Long Beach, which was really an impressive run.

The fourth driver at Andretti Autosport, Danica Patrick, has surprisingly been the quietest of them all. She has had mediocre runs in every race, but has been able to finish them all, to her credit. The spotlight will return to her once we hit the ovals, and as the midpoint of the season comes around where all anyone wants to talk about is her contract and future plans. She should be better once we get to the ovals, and she knows her way around Indianapolis.

Basically, the next few races are really going to show us if guys like Hinchcliffe, Servia, Sato, Wilson and Silvestro are going to be able to keep this up. Outside of the Penske, Ganassi, and Andretti teams, there are a few people that I think will be able to hang near the top. Veterans and proven drivers like Tony Kanaan, Alex Tagliani, and Justin Wilson should be in the mix at the end.

There are some fresh faces and people in new places, but that doesn’t always translate into parody, especially in a sport that has been dominated by two or three teams. It was great to see some new blood like Conway win a race, but I don’t know if we will see much more of that this season. I would like to be wrong, but it’s hard to count out the big boys already.

IndyCar Season Review: Mario Moraes

Posted by Christopher Leone on November 2, 2010
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Mario Moraes hit a wall in more ways than one in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season.

After a stretch of strong finishes to close out the 2009 season, Moraes looked like an up-and-coming hot property in IndyCar with KV Racing Technology. In fact, before the season, many were saying that KV had, as a team, surpassed many others in the garage, and were poised for a strong run with Moraes this year.

But Moraes was initially not brought back by KVRT, replaced in the team’s flagship No. 5 with ex-Formula 1 pilot Takuma Sato. Much of Moraes’ family backing, coming from of Brazilian conglomerate Votorantim, was lost with the death of his father in the middle of the 2009 season. When the team finally brought him back in a third car, the No. 32, it was only days before the season opening race at Sao Paulo.

Moraes had not tested an IndyCar all offseason, and his rust showed in a spectacular first-corner wreck. As the field kicked up dust and bunched in the first corner, Moraes misjudged the braking zone, lost control of his car, and landed on top of Marco Andretti.

That event proved an omen for the rest of the season. Moraes wrecked six times this year, up from only four in 2009. Five of the six came in the first half of the season, all but killing any chances of a solid season.

Notable incidents included wrecks on the fourth day of practice for the Indianapolis 500; an accident 17 laps into that race; a frontstretch crash with Helio Castroneves at Texas; and a hard crash at Motegi that sent Moraes to the hospital with back pain. It was part of a nightmare season for KV, which saw its three full-time cars fail to finish 21 times in a combined 51 starts.

His season-ending DNF at Homestead, coming off the hard Motegi wreck, was attributed to mechanical failure, not a surprise given the amount of damages the entire KVRT team accrued over the course of the year. The final two races were especially disappointing given that Moraes had finished fifth and seventh in the same two events last year.

Worse, his third place finish at Chicagoland in 2009 would remain his career-best performance. In 2010, Moraes could muster no better than a fifth place finish at Watkins Glen, though he also had top-10s at Long Beach, Kansas, and Edmonton. It all amounted to a 15th place run in the final standings, down one position and 17 points from last season.

It was far from the 2010 season that many were expecting Moraes to have. Granted, it wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t able to test before the season, that his team may have over-expanded, or that his teammates had similar problems staying out of the garage on race day. Nonetheless, had Moraes continued progressing as in 2009, a top-10 finish in points should have been attainable.

IndyCar Season Review: Raphael Matos

Posted by Christopher Leone on October 23, 2010
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Raphael Matos could have used some better luck in 2010.

The 2009 IZOD IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year headed into 2010 looking to continue a three-year streak of winning awards in every series in which he competed. He had won the 2007 Champ Car Atlantic title, and followed that up with the Firestone Indy Lights crown in 2008 before scoring his IndyCar rookie award last year.

One of the hottest young drivers in the sport had a new advisor, as former Indianapolis 500 champion and countryman Gil de Ferran bought into the Luczo Dragon Racing team, renaming it de Ferran Dragon Motorsports in the process. The team also added a limited program for Davey Hamilton, who brought Hewlett-Packard funding to the team full-time. Both driver and team set goals for a top-10 points finish this year after running 13th last year.

Matos opened the season in his native country of Brazil, where he took a career-best fourth place finish, second-best among Brazilian drivers in the event. He followed that up with three laps led and an eighth place run at St. Petersburg, where he had crashed out in 2009. Through the first quarter of the season, Matos maintained ninth place in points, easily within the team’s goal for the year.

But next on the schedule were Kansas and Indianapolis, two tracks at which the team had failed to finish in 2009. Matos survived Kansas in 16th place, but for the second year in a row failed to complete the sport’s biggest race. Not long after losing a wheel in the pits, Matos slammed the outside wall on lap 73, and his day was done. His crash, combined with Hamilton’s first-lap incident, meant the team would scramble to prepare a single car for the next two oval events.

It took a return to the road courses for a reversal in Matos’ fortunes, as another fourth-place finish came at Watkins Glen. But Toronto saw an accident with E.J. Viso kill any momentum the team may have had.

Mid-Ohio saw Matos’ fourth and final top-10 of the season, as he came home seventh, but the rest of the year wasn’t much to write home about. Back-to-back DNFs at Sonoma and Chicago were less than conducive to maintaining his position in points, as he dropped all the way down to 15th in the order. In each of the final three races, the team finished outside the top 15 as well.

When all was said and done, Matos finished 14th in points, despite qualifying no better than 10th all season and producing half the amount of top-10s he had in 2009.

Indeed, declining qualifying performance was a decisive factor in Matos’ 22-point decrease from his rookie season. 2009 saw Matos start no worse than 18th, as he qualified in the top 10 seven times for an average of 11.8. This year, Matos started 20th or worse five times, never making it to the Firestone Fast Six as he had in 2009, resulting in a 16.5 average start. His average finish also dropped to 15.7 from 12.8 in 2009.

With the hopeful addition of a full-time teammate and mentor for 2011, Matos’ prospects may improve markedly, but only if the team is able to expand and thus retains him. With Tony Kanaan on the market, there have been rumors that Matos may be replaced, as nobody knows the status of Matos’ multi-year contract with the team. But the addition of the fellow Brazilian and former IndyCar champion to the team, if in a second car, should help Matos improve as a driver dramatically next season and beyond.

IndyCar Season Review: Alex Tagliani

Posted by Christopher Leone on October 20, 2010
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Alex Tagliani spent more of this season racing up front than anybody could have expected.

The Canadian spent the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season with the newly established FAZZT Race Team outfit. While much of the personnel, including former Walker Racing team manager Rob Edwards, had been taken from established teams, their cars had been purchased from Roth Racing, a former series backmarker. Expectations were, therefore, not overly ambitious for the new team.

So it was a surprise, to say the least, when Tagliani opened the season from the outside pole at Sao Paulo.

Unfortunately, through 28 laps of that race, Dan Wheldon got into the back of Tagliani and sent him spinning into the wall. The damage was severe enough to knock Tagliani out of the race, setting an unfortunate trend for the rest of the season: strong, quick runs in qualifying sessions, only to be marred by relatively disappointing finishes.

St. Petersburg and Birmingham gave the team its first top-10 finishes of its short existence, but Tagliani suffered a wrist injury during the Long Beach weekend, crashing out of that race as well. The team would thus head into the first oval segment of the season mired in 14th in points. Expectations were once again low, as the former Champ Car driver had only three oval starts in IndyCar.

But Tagliani and FAZZT shocked and surprised in the next three events. Kansas and Indianapolis alike yielded fifth place qualifying runs, and two more top 10 finishes. At Texas, Tagliani managed to lead 33 laps, although he only came out of the weekend with an 18th place run, finishing three laps down.

From there, unfortunately, the finishes were not particularly strong.

A series of low finishes from Iowa to Toronto was punctuated by a crash coming off a restart at Edmonton, where the Canadian was tagged by Mario Romancini in his final start of the season. The high point of this period was the stylish Hot Wheels livery that Tagliani carried in the two races in his home country; unfortunately, he could not bring home a solid finish in either event after nearly taking the Toronto victory in 2009.

Mid-Ohio broke the streak of subpar finishes. The team’s best race of the season saw Tagliani, who had seen bad luck take him out of races all season, finally stick around for the finish. He led a race-high 30 of 85 laps to finish fourth. It would prove to be his only top five finish and final top-10 of the season. Even still, it affirmed the paddock opinion that Tagliani and FAZZT were no pushover, if only their luck could improve a little bit.

From there, the rest of the season was nothing to write home about. Tagliani, who had qualified eighth or better in five of the first six races of the season, only had three top-10 starts from Texas to the end of the season. Four of the final five events yielded finishes between 13th and 15th, with the lone exception a crash out at Chicago. He ended the season 13th in the overall standings, scoring 302 points with five top-10s and four DNFs. He also placed 13th in both the oval and the road course sub-championships.

As far as new teams went in 2010, Tagliani and FAZZT were far and away the best. With sponsorship somewhat stabilized, the team establishing a solid rapport through the growing pains, the potential of a teammate, and Tagliani entering the second of a four-year contract, 2011 should be an even better year for the small all-Canadian outfit. In fact, Tagliani may be primed for his best season since his seventh place run in the 2004 Champ Car World Series.

IndyCar Season Review: Vitor Meira

Posted by Christopher Leone on October 19, 2010
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Vitor Meira showed a lot of heart by returning to the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2010.

In 2009, his season was ended prematurely after a major wreck in the Indianapolis 500 broke two vertebrae in his lower back. The Brazilian, who had made 97 career IndyCar starts without a win, was not a lock to return to A.J. Foyt Enterprises.

But the immortal A.J. Foyt, after going through a revolving door of replacements the rest of that season, retained his driver for 2010, hoping once again to put together the team’s best season in recent memory. Immediately Meira paid back his owner’s loyalty.

Meira scored a third-place finish at Sao Paulo, making him the highest finishing Brazilian driver in his home country. An emotional Meira wore a Brazilian flag on the podium to celebrate. He then led 12 laps in the next event at St. Petersburg, a race he may have won on an alternate pit strategy had it been about ten laps longer.

The rest of the season would not be as quite as strong. Meira fell out of the top 10 in points by Long Beach, but through the first five races of the season managed four top-15 finishes. Indianapolis, once again, proved a struggle, but for different reasons; he qualified a poor 30th and crashed out on the backstretch after 105 laps. Regardless, simply surviving the 500 was a small victory.

The first four ovals marked Meira’s strongest period of the season, even with the Indianapolis disappointment; all three other tracks, Kansas, Texas, and Iowa, yielded top-10 runs. Meira was now ranked 12th in points, a position he would generally hold to the end of the season.

Meira spent the next five races, all road course events, in the middle of the pack. A negative sign was that Meira never qualified better than 17th in any of those races; however, in four of those five events, Meira made up at least six spots by the end of the race, and never finished outside of the top 20. His Toronto drive was most impressive; from the last starting spot, he posted his best finish of the third quarter of the season, a respectable 11th.

Next up, Meira led his final six laps of the season at Chicago on his way to a ninth place finish, but an errant move in the next race at Kentucky into a passing Simona de Silvestro ended both of their days and killed his momentum. Meira ended his season with a 17th-place run at Motegi and his sixth top-10 of the year at Homestead, a sixth place effort.

Meira’s return to IndyCar yielded a 12th place finish in points, his best result since 2007. He also ranked 12th in the oval championship, to go with a respectable 14th in the road course standings. It wasn’t one of his best years in the sport as a driver, nor one of Foyt’s best as an owner, but the results give both hope for another, even stronger go-round in 2011.

IndyCar Season Review: Ryan Hunter-Reay

Posted by Christopher Leone on October 8, 2010
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Once again, despite uncertain circumstances, Ryan Hunter-Reay managed to put together a solid performance in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season.

Last season, he put together some surprising finishes for Vision Racing before finding a ride at A.J. Foyt Enterprises as an injury replacement for Vitor Meira. This year, carrying the banner for series title sponsor IZOD at Andretti Autosport, he took the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and finished a career-best seventh in points.

Originally, Hunter-Reay landed a limited deal with the reorganized Andretti team on the strength of his personal services contract with IZOD. Much like his 2009 season started, he would have enough money to run through the Indianapolis 500, but anything beyond that would require additional funding. Some strong finishes would be required to keep Hunter-Reay in the car for the full slate.

Immediately Hunter-Reay established himself as a force to be reckoned with, leading 20 laps of the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 before Will Power eventually made the winning pass. Hunter-Reay settled for second place, but fans and competitors alike began to expect more out of the Andretti stable, which had failed to win a race for the first time in 2009.

Finishes at St. Petersburg and Alabama were not quite as strong, but Long Beach proved a beacon of hope for the No. 37 team in their sponsorship hunt. Hunter-Reay managed to beat Power at his own game, if only for a day, leading 64 of 85 laps to take a decisive victory. Hunter-Reay went into the first oval segment of the year third in points, only one back of second-place Helio Castroneves.

Unfortunately, the sponsorship well actually began to dry up after the Long Beach race, as a couple of potential deals fell through. A fifth place run at Kansas, combined with the improved fortunes of the entire Andretti team, helped matters a little; Sprint’s two prepaid mobile brands, Boost and Virgin, joined the team once again, and Virgin adorned the engine cover of Hunter-Reay’s Indianapolis 500 car.

Indianapolis ended in spectacular disappointment, however, when Hunter-Reay’s vehicle suddenly slowed on the track and Mike Conway’s car torpedoed over it at full speed. The resulting crash made highlight reels across the nation, ending Conway’s season; after the race, Hunter-Reay apologized for not stopping for fuel and causing the accident.

Hunter-Reay’s season could have ended right there, but the team sent him to Texas, where he came home a solid seventh after setting the race’s fastest lap. For Iowa, Hunter-Reay’s former sponsor, the American Coalition for Ethanol, stepped up to back him in one of the nation’s largest corn-growing markets.

The team put the icing on the sponsorship cake at Watkins Glen, when it was announced that a team of Hunter-Reay and Andretti sponsors would be teaming up to back the team for the rest of the season. These same groups also established Racing for Cancer, a charity initiative to benefit the Michael Fux foundation. The cause was personal for Hunter-Reay, as he had lost his mother to cancer in 2009.

His season secured, Hunter-Reay became a consistent top-10 finisher week in and week out. His third and final podium of the season came at Toronto, followed by a top-five run at Edmonton and two more decent runs at Mid-Ohio and Sonoma. For his efforts, Hunter-Reay placed fourth in the series’ road course championship.

Hunter-Reay’s final top five finish of the season came at Chicago, where he led two laps and finished fourth. The final three races were a bit of a struggle; mechanical failure at Kentucky relegated him to 21st, Motegi yielded only a ninth place finish, and he could only muster 11th place with a subpar car at Homestead.

Combined with teammate (and closest points competitor) Tony Kanaan’s third-place run, this bumped Hunter-Reay down to seventh in the series’ final standings. But the team scored a greater victory that weekend, as Hunter-Reay and Racing for Cancer scored a $10,000 donation from founding partner Inland Industrial Services by building Hunter-Reay’s Twitter base up to 10,000 followers.

Regardless of a late dropoff, Hunter-Reay and the team have established a solid base with which to work in 2011, provided the team can find sponsorship to keep him in the car. Andretti officials have suggested that at least one company within their sponsorship family has submitted a sponsorship proposal for next year, giving the team hope for the future.

IndyCar Season Review: Ryan Briscoe

Posted by Christopher Leone on October 7, 2010
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The championship-run hangover hit Ryan Briscoe hard.

Of the five IZOD IndyCar Series cars campaigned by iconic owners Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske, Briscoe brought up the rear of the field for the second time in three years. It was a far cry from 2009, when Briscoe scored over 600 points and had a solid spectacular lead with as few as two races to go.

In 2010, Briscoe scored over 100 fewer points to finish a distant fifth in the standings, 120 back of eventual champion Dario Franchitti.

This season started off with a Briscoe brain fade, much like the Motegi pit error in 2009 that eventually cost him the championship. In Sao Paulo, Briscoe held the lead before failing to negotiate a corner and stuffing the car into a barrier. From there, he began to recover in the standings, inching up to seventh in points before the Indianapolis 500.

There, Briscoe had a great chance to win his first Indianapolis 500 and redeem himself from two years of poor finishes with Team Penske. An alternate pit strategy put him in position to steal the win from Franchitti. Another brain fade – pushing the car too hard on cold tires – saw him in the wall with his second DNF in three years.

From the season’s biggest lowlight came its greatest highlight – a victory at Texas over de facto rival Danica Patrick. It led to a run of five races with finishes of fourth or better, and saw him climb to as high as fourth in the season point standings after the Sonoma race. Granted, it wasn’t 2009, when Briscoe finished second or better 10 times in the final 13 races, and the rumors that Briscoe would lose his job at Penske after the season began to fly.

Despite leading the most laps at Chicago, luck was not on Briscoe’s side, as he could only muster an 11th place finish. A DNF at Kentucky allowed teammate Helio Castroneves to pass him for fourth in points and let Ryan Hunter-Reay close the gap on fifth place to 14 points with two races left in the season.

Not wanting to be the only Penske driver to fall outside of the top five, Briscoe stepped up his game in the final two races, becoming one of only two drivers other than Castroneves to lead any of the Motegi race and making things as difficult for Franchitti as possible at Homestead, in hopes that teammate Will Power could come away with the title. In both of those races, he placed fourth, cementing a his top five position in the standings.

2010 wasn’t as difficult as Briscoe’s debut season at Penske; he only had two DNFs, fewer than most drivers in the series and as many as Scott Dixon and Castroneves, the two men directly ahead of him in the standings. But brain fades on track and Twitter wars off it generated the perception that Briscoe was in danger of losing his ride. The team says he is safe for 2011, but with an employer as used to winning as Roger Penske, strong results next season will be crucial for the Aussie.

IndyCar Season Review: Will Power

Posted by Christopher Leone on October 5, 2010
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Will Power nearly had it in the bag.

Clearly the class of the field for Team Penske in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season, Power saw a 59 point lead with four races to go – and thus the series championship – slip through his hands, as oval struggles prevented Power from taking his first IndyCar title.

The fact that Power was even competing at all in 2010 was a bit of a miracle. The winner of the final Champ Car race, held at Long Beach in 2008, Power was signed by Penske in 2009 as a replacement for Helio Castroneves during his tax evasion trial. But Castroneves only missed a single race, and Power was thus shifted to a limited schedule in a third car. He won at Edmonton, but suffered two fractured vertebrae and a concussion in a Sonoma practice accident, injuries that caused him to contemplate retirement.

It was thus a bit of a shock when Roger Penske announced that he would shut down his sports car team, giving him three IndyCars for the first time since 1994, and shift the Verizon Wireless sponsorship to a driver coming off of a career threatening injury.

But Power came through immediately, winning the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 with a daring pass of Ryan Hunter-Reay, and following up with another victory at St. Petersburg. With a worst finish of fourth and a whopping 42 point lead after the first four races of the season, the title looked like Power’s to lose.

Unfortunately, ovals proved to be Power’s Achilles’ heel just as much as they had in previous seasons. Power had only two top five finishes on ovals prior to the 2010 season, and had never stood on the podium at the end of an oval race. Even with Penske equipment under him, Power was going to need to work hard on his oval program.

The results were so-so. With only two top-10s in the first four oval races, with a best finish of fifth at Iowa, Power was incredibly lucky to enter the next road course segment of the season with the points lead. Even then, he needed some help – Dario Franchitti had assumed the lead at Texas, but issues at Iowa gave the lead back to the Aussie.

From there, Power simply did what he did best – win on road and street courses. In the final five twisty races, he took three wins and two second place finishes, locking up the Mario Andretti Road Course Trophy before the final road race of the year at Sonoma. Fittingly, he won that race in dominant fashion, leading 73 of a possible 75 laps. The other wins came at Watkins Glen and on the streets of Toronto.

Suddenly, the wheels began to fall off.

At Chicago, Power started third and led 17 laps, marking the 13th time in the past 14 races that he had spent time up front. But he ran out of fuel in the race’s closing laps, losing a lap and finishing 16th. Kentucky produced a so-so eighth place run and marked the last time that Power would lead in 2010. While teammate Castroneves dominated Motegi, Power scored a third place finish, his first podium run on an oval.

But the bad news was that Franchitti had outplaced him in each of those three races. His win at Chicago was a huge factor in the championship – it allowed him to cut Power’s points lead from 59 to 23. The lead sat at only 12 heading into the season finale at Homestead, meaning Power could only guarantee the title by winning the race. If Franchitti won from pole and led the most laps, even a second place finish would take the title from Power by a single point.

Power qualified a respectable third, but Franchitti set a blistering pole speed to cut the points lead to 11. By lap 124 of the 200 lap event, he had already secured two more bonus points by leading the most laps in the race. It was clear that Power was going to have to win the race to win the title.

Then, all hope was lost – while trying to negotiate past Hunter-Reay in a turn, Power brushed the outside wall. He brought the car back to the pits, where it was discovered that the damage to his right rear suspension was terminal. Power finished 25th and lost the championship by five points, the closest margin since 2006′s tie by Sam Hornish Jr. and Dan Wheldon.

Regardless of the bad luck to finish the season, Power set some performance standards that even Franchitti would be hard-pressed to top. Only once did Power fail to qualify in the top five all season; he started seventh at Kansas. His eight poles are a new IndyCar record for most in a season. And his 412 of a possible 477 points on road courses are a marker which may never again be approached – unless Power is even better in 2011.

Opinion: Still a Lot of Work for Versus

Posted by Christopher Leone on March 17, 2010
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Versus may be back on DirecTV and in 17 million more homes as of Monday, but that doesn’t mean that the network – or its coverage of the IZOD IndyCar Series – is completely legitimate just yet.

The network and its personnel have made far too many mistakes in presentation over the past year, especially in IndyCar coverage, and this is part of the reason why a lot of people do not take Comcast’s sports-oriented network seriously.

I’m not just talking about Bob Jenkins and the rest of Versus’ on-air personality stumbling over their words, although Jenkins is sadly not the broadcaster he was on ESPN’s NASCAR coverage in the late 1990s. I’m talking about serious technological issues, many of them simple, stupid errors, that detract from the IndyCar experience that Versus puts forth.

One example of a stupid mistake: When one searches for the terms “IndyCar” and “Versus” on Google, the first URL provided is http://www.versus.com/irl… which no longer exists. (For the record, Versus’ IndyCar home is now at http://www.versus.com/indycar.) Why the URL change? Why make people go through the inconvenience on your site?

But the internet is not, and has never been, Versus’ bread and butter – the actual television network is. But weather-related issues notwithstanding, there were some serious mistakes made during the channel’s coverage of the Sao Paulo Indy 300, and the issue comes down to a lack of communication between the production crew and the booth.

A minor example of the problem came during the qualifying show, when Jon Beekhuis attempted to describe the chassis vying for use in the 2012 IndyCar Series. Instead of going to the drawings of potential entries by Dallara, Swift, and Lola, as Beekhuis described, the crew cut to a studio shot of the Delta Wing model. After that, they began to cycle through the slides faster than Beekhuis could describe each company’s innovations.

The worst mistake came during pre-race coverage, however. As the Speed Channel does with its Formula 1 coverage, Versus does not send its commentary crew to the track for foreign events; instead, they only send a pit reporter (in this case, Jack Arute) and the production crew. The goal during these types of broadcasts is to give viewers the illusion that the commentary crew is indeed at the track, interacting in real time with the pit reporter.

Sadly, we all learned on Sunday that this interaction is not live.

Bob Jenkins attempted to send coverage down to Arute with a driver in the pits. The first few seconds of the interview played before technological malfunctions cut to the start of an interview we had not yet seen, and then the start of one that we already have, before restarting from the very beginning of the interview that Versus had originally intended to show. The illusion was gone, and I’m sure a lot of viewers learned for the first time that these interactions are pre-taped. (Count me among them.)

What’s most bothersome is the pedigree of all folks involved. Jenkins and Beekhuis have been calling races since before the split in open-wheel racing that divided the sport for 12 years. The production crew, the Lingner Group, has won awards for its auto racing work, especially behind Jenkins and ESPN in the 1990s. Founder Terry Lingner has won three Emmys for his contributions to sports broadcasting. And yet the whole network, with this excellent history behind everybody involved, cannot put together a professional-looking broadcast.

Originally, I felt that the series’ choice to move predominantly to Versus, especially under a long-term deal, would be the best possible move for IndyCar – to move away from ESPN and establish itself with the fastest-growing sports network around, alongside the NHL, Professional Bull Riders, and other niche sports. But now it appears painfully obvious that, for all of its enthusiasm during the broadcasts themselves, and all of its willingness to promote the sport, Versus is simply not up to par.

Its 2009 Nielsen ratings, whether or not they are compared to what ESPN drew in 2008, were anemic. The highest rated race on Versus was last year’s Texas event, which drew a .63. And despite a relatively strong start, with its first two races rated at .30 and .52, eight of the channel’s next nine races drew a .25 rating or worse, suggesting we may see a huge dropoff from the .41 rating we had at Brazil last weekend. The worst rating for an ESPN-produced race run under normal circumstances in 2008 was .41 for the Infineon race, which is a west coast event and generally has lower ratings anyway. And don’t forget the few races a year that ESPN and ABC do broadcast, which are far and away more professionally produced and see more households.

While it may be a strong niche network, and one more willing to promote the sport than ESPN, Versus still needs to make major strides in its production quality and ratings to justify its long-term contract with IndyCar. Without some serious improvement, and fast, IndyCar may slip even further behind NASCAR and F1 in America, and be stuck with Versus not out of choice, but by necessity.

Morning After: Sao Paulo Indy 300

Posted by Christopher Leone on March 15, 2010
Posted in: News. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

A collection of thoughts sparked by yesterday’s Sao Paulo Indy 300 in Brazil:

GOOD TO SEE… Will Power win his first race as a full-time competitor for Team Penske. I’m always rooting for the old Champ Car guys. Power’s going to be the most competitive Penske driver this year – count on it.

DISAPPOINTED NOT TO SEE… Graham Rahal on the grid. Others who deserve a ride: Paul Tracy, Oriol Servia, Bruno Junqueira, and J.R. Hildebrand. You know, if we still had two major open-wheel series…

BIGGEST SURPRISE… Vitor Meira in third place in his return from that back injury suffered at Indianapolis. Honorable mentions: Alex Tagliani’s early performance, Simona de Silvestro hanging with the big boys, neither Chip Ganassi Racing car in the top 5, way too many flub-ups by the Versus folks on the American broadcast, the race being the most watched television program in the history of Brazil (was anybody watching Michael Schumacher’s return to Formula 1?!).

LEAST SHOCKING… A Penske car in P1 at the finish. Honorable mentions: Danica Patrick not being competitive, Ryan Briscoe’s brain fart, Milka Duno failing to finish, Takuma Sato still being Takuma Sato, Mario Moraes and Marco Andretti getting into it yet again, the race being the most watched television program in the history of Brazil (they did get pretty into it, after all…).

BLAST FROM THE PAST… KV Racing Technology made its deal with Lotus and Cosworth official this weekend. From here on out, the No. 5 Dallara-Honda driven by Takuma Sato will carry a green and yellow livery reminiscent of Lotus’ old Formula 1 car, and the one that won the 1965 Indianapolis 500 with Jim Clark. It’s unfortunate that neither company will resume their former roles of constructor and engine builder, and instead join as sponsor and engineer, but any little bit helps… and 2012 isn’t that far off.

LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE… I think Ryan Hunter-Reay is either going to be the best Andretti Autosport driver through Indianapolis, or is going to bring up the rear from here on out. He’s got the motivation to earn a full-time ride, trying to look attractive to more sponsors, but remember the series of disappointments after the season opener last year that nearly culminated in a DNQ at Indy. But if Andretti gives him their best equipment for the next few races, and he goes to victory lane, it should be much easier for the team to convince Izod to further step up their commitment – or bring in another sponsor to finish up the year.

NEXT YEAR’S RACE… is going to have a hard time topping this one. It was a nightmare most of the time, for various reasons, but in the end the results were highly entertaining. The Brazilian people got behind the event in full force, the drivers and teams managed to adapt to the various curveballs thrown at them, and nobody got hurt. St. Petersburg is going to have a lot to live up to.