Going Pains

Posted by Iannucci | 10/22/2007 | 7 comments »
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On Saturday the Truck series race (or as P1 so bluntly labeled it: “NAPTRUCK”) from Martinsville featured not one but TWO Indy 500 champions. “Jack” Villeneuve – who if he’s changing his first name to “Jack” may as well alter his surname to the translated “Newtown”, or better yet “Newton” – spent much of the race mid-pack before wrecking out at lap 157. This isn't completely unexpected since the half-mile track is shaped like a paperclip (drag strip, left turn, another drag strip, another left turn) there is very little need for a green flag as the 35 trucks spend the entire race bouncing off each other.

Also there with Jack in his shiny red Target truck was Dario Franchitti, who suffered some damage in a wreck and then continued on before being black flagged to please exit the racing surface. Yes friends, Dario + Truck = Milka results. Put Dario and Jack together with Uncle Sam’s qualification struggles and you have weekend that erstwhile open-wheel champs would all rather forget.

Dario will be making his Busch series debut in Memphis this weekend, however there is still no word yet on a Monster Truck date for Mr Judd. Also, if anyone has more info on this notebook entry from Inside Racing News, please share.

A Bike accident resulting in rods being placed in his stomach made the new experience of getting in and out of a race car window a challenge at first for Franchitti.
What a coincidence - I felt sick to my stomach watching him.

7 comments

  1. Anonymous // October 22, 2007 1:48 PM  

    Jeff,

    I loved this quote from the linked story:

    Not only is it a challenge, they are learning and applying something new and it makes them feel like they were 21 years old again.

    According to your write up, not only does driving in NA$CAR making them feel like they're 21 again, it makes them drive like they're 16 again, what with all of that bouncing and banging off of the walls and other trucks like a big ol' pinball.

    Re: the bike accident, will StarChild make her "Dear Sweet Widdle Dawio" stop riding because he "hurt himself weel bad"? Fair's fair, I mean, if he can't drive in the IRL...

  2. Iannucci // October 22, 2007 1:56 PM  

    I don't know if he felt 21 again after the race. In the Talladega post-race interview Dario seemed jazzed, but on Saturday he appeared a bit frustrated, mostly due to an inability to fix the car, err, truck during the race.

    Or maybe it was the rods in his stomach.

  3. Anonymous // October 22, 2007 2:00 PM  

    Bumping in the IndyCar Series is always disastrous, one journalist asked how Dario was going to get use to this aspect of NASCAR racing. Without much thought he replied, "I was a teammate to Paul Tracy for five years!"

    Y'know Dario, it's not a good idea to talk smack about Captain Quebec. Not a good idea to smart off about a guy who has his own Lucha Libre mask at all.

    "Can ya' smell what Paul Tracy is cookin'?"

    Oh, BTW Dario, if you thought having Paul Tracy for a teammate was exciting, wait until Whine Pablum punts you out of the way on a restart. You may want to compare notes with Scott Pruett. I'm not sayin, just sayin'.

  4. Anonymous // October 22, 2007 3:06 PM  

    The "rods in the stomach" comment is a messed-up reference by the writer to the steel rods placed in his back in 2003, when he fractured his back crashing his motorcycle in a road accident back in Scotland. He missed a big chuck of the season -- and Dan Wheldon went from a test driver role to IRL Rookie of the Year as his replacement.

    The rods were installed by Dr. Trammel and as far as I know are still in there.

    Dan Layton
    Honda IndyCar PR

  5. Iannucci // October 22, 2007 5:28 PM  

    Thank you, Mr Layton!

  6. pressdog // October 23, 2007 3:56 AM  

    It'll be a lovely fall day on the sun the day I watch more than a few laps of a N-word truck race of my own free will.

  7. Johnny // October 23, 2007 5:04 AM  

    I don't know PD, the truck races more closely resemble the "good old days" of short tracks and latel models. They also take less than 5 hours to complete. I dig on em.