IRL Toronto ***SPOILER***

Pos Driver Team Gap
1. Dario Franchitti Ganassi 1h43m47.1408
2. Ryan Briscoe Penske + 1.6745s
3. Will Power Penske + 2.1355s
4. Scott Dixon Ganassi + 2.4803s
5. Justin Wilson Coyne + 2.9230s
6. Danica Patrick Andretti Green + 6.4095s
7. Ryan Hunter-Reay Foyt + 7.1837s
8. Marco Andretti Andretti Green + 8.2552s
9. Alex Tagliani Conquest + 13.4745s
10. Raphael Matos Luczo Dragon + 16.0983s
11. Mario Moraes KV + 19.0141s
12. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green + 1 lap
13. EJ Viso HVM + 1 lap
14. Dan Wheldon Panther + 1 lap
15. Ed Carpenter Vision + 3 laps

 

Isn't everybody in front of Danica foreign? With her points total, does this make Danica the #1 AMERICAN open wheeled driver??

Seems like the little girl is doing pretty damn good.

 

Is it just me, or was Dan Wheldon at one time a great driver? Now it seems like he's always part of some silly skirmish.

Of course, AGR was once a great team too...when Dan and Dario drove for them.

enjoyed the Paul & Helio show (while it lasted)...

 

No, it means she finished sixth. You might as well say Bourdais is the number one Canadian driver in the German GP even though he finished last.

 

Bourdais is French

 

I disagree. Sixth is rather good, considering the entire AGR team could not figure out qualifying. In fact Danica out qualified Kanaan. If you look at her to date season points, I believe she is the highest ranked American driver. Consistently for years, top 5-6 in points. Lilke it or not, she maturing and getting better. If she goes Gnassi in 2010, whe will be a winner.

 

Specifically from a town they call LeMans. There's a race there once a year.

 

I didn't say 6th wasn't "rather good". I said it's sixth, no matter if she were American, British, Chinese, Australian, Russian, French, South African or whatever. That also includes if she were female, male, white, black, Jewish, Catholic, diabetic, old, young, pretty, ugly, has 8 kids or is single, or anything else you can label her with.

In my book, she's a racer who finished 6th. That's not bad. It's not winning either.

We need to stop grading people by their background, age, sex, or race. If you put your butt in a racecar, you're a racer, no matter who you are. You should be judged on how well you race against your fellow racers, period.

 

bhelp your statement is totally correct - same can be said for Kubica being the number one Polish person in the German GP even though he finished 14 . . .great for Penske 2-3 but he could have had a 2-3-4 ... meaning finished sixth out of 15 is only only being just above half-way of all the finishers!!! DP would have been closer to 10th if Tracy and Helio wouldn't have had a coming together and a few others (something like only 15 cars left running), happened to be in the right place at the right time.... race was a crashfest with pretty empty looking stands... one I feel sorry for is TK, seems like he's on the short end of the stick with AGR....he's even soliciting drives in ALMS in prototypes...hope he finds one for Petit (like to see him drive for Gil and move away from AGR to Gil's irl team next year where he'd at least have reliable equipment and a decent team - maybe his contract could be bought out)

Carol

 

didn't TK get a major contract extension last year? like 5 years, multi-millions? would deFerran (or anyone else, save Penske and Ganassi) be able to make a run for him with that kind of buyout?

I feel bad for him too, obviously in the wrong place at the wrong time with a couple of spoiled brats.

 

A couple of pics from today !
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A few more !
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That's been their problem all year!!

 

Good picture of Roger there... he's the best. If he did to basketball what he's done with racing in America, he'd be as much of an American institution as Red Auerbach plus Phil Jackson.

 

Brazil and canada are "american", too.

But if you're talking US born drivers (several of the "foreign" drivers live in the US now), ...
I count four US born drivers in that lineup:
one "go-daddy girl",
one grandson of Andretti,
one step-son of Tony George,
and one loaner driver in a second-tier car ... who finished right behind Danica.

At this rate, "#1 american open wheel driver" is going to rank right up there with "#1 Jamaican snow-boarder".

 

sure it shouldn't be ranks with #1 bob sled driver ??

and yes you are absolutely correct about Brazil and Canada being American too = North and South which means Paul Tracy could be one of the chosen?? and there's the opening for TK away from AGR - he'd be the best of the possibilities

Carol

 

What a crash fest! Helio and Paul was a common racing accident (blame could go to both sides). I was pretty disappointed as it seems, at least for awhile, every time it went back green there seemed to be another accident.

 

Is it Dan or the car he is being given? Panther has proven they can provide Hornish with decent cars, but then Hornish is amazing in about any car he is given.

No excuses for TK to not be qualifying better than the rest of the AGR stable. This keeps reinforcing my belief that the team is self-destructing internally from the in-fighting and having to all be second to Marco. I just don't find it possible that Mutoh, Danica or TK are causing internal issues. They don't show the outward personalities to have that impact.

+1 on feeling bad for TK. He really made a huge mistake signing a multi-year extension. He should have jumped when he had a chance, but then AGR wasn't in as bad of shape as it is now. No one is going to touch him with a contract buyout right now. $$$ is too tight and there are plenty of other drivers that are willing to work for peanuts just to be behind a wheel of a race car.

I backed that one up several times tyring to figure out "blame".

The way I saw it. Helio went wide to let PT pass. Its a really tight, narrow turn. PT came in just a little too hot which caused him to drift wider than he wanted of Helio expected and that resulted in the first bump. Instead of PT backing off the throttle, it looked like PT stayed on it which choked the space down for two cars where only one should be. They touched again and Helio's steering was yanked from his hands which forced both cars into the wall.

If it had been NASCAR bodies, they would have slid around one another. Since it was rubber hitting rubber, it resulted in the cars getting tangled in one another = racing incident. Kudos to both Helio and PT for being gentlemen about the incident.

 

Kudos to Will Power for making it back to Third place after the incident on lap 1. His yellow car had me thinking about the "old" days with Hornish in the Yellow Panther car.

Still, Ganassi and Penske ruled the podium. AGR who???

For awhile I thought we might be looking at Dale Coyne/Justin Wilson win again.

What's up with EJ & Moraes? I'm starting to think we need to start a duck-pin racing league where they have rubber bumpers along the walls to keep these guys from crashing. Graham Rahal and Dan Wheldon would fit in there too these days.

 

Seems like they kissed & made up after the incedent...
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PT's suit with all those signatures! There wasn't much real estate left on him. Guess they didn't think the smudge possibility through. Oh well.

Hope it brings some serious cash in when it hits the auction. Sounds like a good cause. +1 for PT doing it and for everyone that paid to sign his suit.

Anyone know if this is going up on ebay or where?

 

Side note: Saw Sarah Fisher's Hauler outside Roth Racing today over near Gasoline Alley in Indy.

 

mangled parts swap?

(sorry, couldn't resist )

 

Actually, there were fewer SC periods than I expected for a street course.

I took one look at that course and thought, "8 SC periods". I think they had five or six total.

 

I hope you smacked yourself after that one. LOL!

I credit that to "local" yellows. I didn't keep track of any of them.