It must be Tuesday

Forgive me if I’m feeling overwhelmed, because there’s so much to talk about here with racing starting in JUST FOUR DAYS!

First off, everyone is a-twitter about Marty Roth being on top of the scoring pylon after last night’s testing at Homestead. Roth and teammate Jay Howard posted speeds over 210 mph, while none of the 8 CCWS refugee racers could manage above 209 mph. Before thinking that suddenly Roth will be running up at the front you should take a breath and look at last year’s qualification speeds, where Roth was at 209 and Dan Wheldon was over 214 mph.

So although a year later Roth has found a little more speed, this is more indicative of how difficult it’s going to be for the refugees to tweak their cars to a competitive level. All of the technology at the disposal of even the NHL team – who may or may not have skipped the Sebring test for some shaker rig excitement – can’t change the fact that they’ve only been testing these Honda/Dallaras for about two weeks. That speed just ain’t happening in a month, and those teams would probably agree it’s not worth risking the equipment to find it.

That said, congratulations to Roth for the improvement. We shall see if he can hold them off for another round of testing tonight.

Meanwhile, Craig Gore of Team Australia unleashed quite the Press Release yesterday. In summary, his response to Derrick Walker’s threat of a lawsuit is essentially “Bring It!” Gore – who took his sponsorship and Ricky Bobby look-alike driver to KV Racing Technology – not only says he’s paid Walker, but Walker owes him. Here are some fun highlights.

Derrick provided me with an unacceptable budget and costings with nefarious funding schedules to continue in 2008...

(Derrick Walker) was insistent on operating the team from Walker Racing premises and his conditions of funding were ludicrous, fanciful and self-serving to say the least.

I look forward to any court action Derrick Walker may take. I relish the opportunity to have my day in court.

(READ the whole thing)

Gore also uses fun words like “nefarious” and “vexatious”, which although colorful are substantially less than Kumbaya. Come one guys, if Rahal and Sharp can get things settled you can do the same. We’ve got a green flag to drop in a few says, so as Ari Gold says: “Let’s hug it out...”

Oh and lastly it’s Danica Patrick’s birthday. She's 26 today, and now that there is a minimum weight requirement for all cars INCLUDING the driver she can have all the cake she wants. Unfortunately, that doesn't make her happy.

"If someone's going to take the hit it's going to be me," Patrick said Thursday. "It's disappointing the league decided to do that. In so many other sports, athletes don't get penalized for being too strong, or too tall or too fast.

"(It's) just your God-given stature is being penalized. What am I going to do, though? It's not my decision. That's the people higher up (who) made their bed, and they've got to lay in it."

(MORE from USAToday)

Someone get her a hanky, please. Seriously, The Princess of the Pavement may be deeply upset about this issue but I'm certainly not. If this is what it takes to get an IndyCar driver in an IndyCar firesuit written about in USAToday then I say "Bring it!"