Yeah, I know, I’ve been gone a while. I could try to explain my absence but there’s little fun in such, much as there’s little fun in explaining how Butler missed defeating Duke by roughly the same margin Ed Carpenter missed defeating Ryan Briscoe last fall. (DAMMIT!!!)

It would be more exciting to envision my departure as a 10-day penalty served for an inadvertent word butcher attack on Graham Rahal. And an involuntary departure at that. Say, something like I was rendered unconscious while out for a stroll, waking up a dozen hours later in a dumpster in Columbus with the word “OBVIOUSLY” tattooed on my forehead. But that didn’t happen, I swear. Speaking of, pardon me while I take care of an administrative requirement once and for all.

Dear Mr Rahal,
Please accept my apology as I sincerely promise never to make light of any words you may or may not overuse. You are a fine young driver with a great future, one in whom Americans will take great pride for many years. In fact, to represent this I will heretofore refer to you most respectfully as “The Grahamerican”. And I’ll never, ever, EVER mention the O-word again.
Sincerely, Iannucci

OK, with that out of the way, the IRL is now rolling along towards race number three, which in all likelihood will have difficulty living up to the excitement of the first two. Brazil – which by the way is having even more calamitous weather problems than it did last month – was an unprecedented festival of street race passing, and the subsequent race in St Pete was a spectacle of the future of racing. Marco and Viso each led, The Grahamerican and Simona were racy near the front, and Rafa notched another quality finish that has him 5th in the championship standings. If only these drivers could start winning some races we’d be on to something.

However, race number three appears like it might well be the first snoozer of the season. Oh, there’s a beautiful track with a beautiful museum smack dab in a part of America that isn’t known for it’s IndyCar fanbase (Will McCarty aside). There’s even a chance that bona fide “road course specialist” Justin Wilson could give Dreyer & Reinbold their first win since the Clinton Administration. But there’s little if any chance for passing, as I may have mentioned a year ago and Dylan is mentioning now. With the track’s current configuration it looks nothing will help - not Charles Barkley, not Taylor Hicks, not even that creepy giant metal spider that lurks at the facility.

But no matter, because today’s news relates to a better place, as fan-friendly Vision Racing has announced a partnership with Panther Racing that will allow Ed Carpenter a chance to extend his streak of two-straight top-8 finishes at IMS. (And yes, two can be considered a streak.) Added to last week’s announcements of John Andretti’s ride with his cousin’s team and Alex Tagliani’s über-classy addition of Bruno Junqueira the total number of entries for this year’s running of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing looks almost...quantitative.

Here’s the unscientific but up-to-the minute tally of entries:
5 from Andretti Autosport (M Andretti, J Andretti, Kanaan, Hunter-Reay, Patrick)
4 from KV Racing Technologies (Moraes, Sato, Tracy, Viso)
3 from Target Chip Ganassi Racing (Bell, Dixon, Franchitti)
3 from Team Penske (Briscoe, Castroneves, Power)
2 from Dale Coyne Racing (Duno, Lloyd)
2 from De Ferran Luczo Whatever (Hamilton, Matos)
2 from Dreyer & Reinbold (Conway, Wilson)
2 from FAZZT Racing (Tagliani, Junqueira)
2 from HVM (Baguette, de Silvestro)
2 from Panther Racing (Carpenter, Wheldon)
2 from Sarah Fisher Racing (Fisher, Howard)
1 from Bryan Herta Autosport (Saavedra)
1 from Conquest Racing (Romancini)
1 from Foyt Racing (Meira)
1 from Newman/Haas/Lanigan (Mutoh)
1 from Walker Racing (Gordon) – this could partner with another team

That’s 34, and that doesn’t even count the The Grahamerican, who at the very least has GOTTA be with a Rahal Letterman entry. Add another from Team 3G for my very distant cousin named Antinucci, a ride for AJ Foyt IV at grandpa’s team, and maybe a third D&R car for Ana Beatriz or Tomas Scheckter and we’re up to 38 – and a very probable 38 at that. We’re just a Roger Yasukawa and an Oriol Servia away from 40.

And (Jack Arute voice) this is one of the rare instances in life when it’s considered good to be over 40...and yes, that punchline totally deserves an eye roll and a groan.

Perhaps you've seen this mentioned elsewhere, like say at PopOffValve, pressdog, or Chris Estrada's temporary homeless shelter of a blog. If you have not already read this at some other site then...well I was going to ask "What in the world is wrong with you that you only check for IndyCar news HERE?" but considering I'm about to take the unusual step of asking you to actually do something I figured that would be counter-productive.

At any rate, as you may or may not have heard Vision Racing is now Vision Is Not Racing, due largely to the fact that they do not have adequate sponsorship secured for the 2010 season. As I mentioned before and as you probably are aware, Vision has become a special team for IndyCar fans due to the unparalleled access they have provided to anyone with a computer and access to the wild world of internets. If Tony George sneezes they will tweet it. If a decal flies off the car they will write a 1000 word blog post on what adhesive they were using. If Ed Carpenter has to take a potty break they will post pictures. (OK, maybe not the last part, but you get the idea.)

So what, pray tell, is it that I am asking YOU to do? I'm asking you to write a letter. Or even an email. That's it. It's like 5 precious minutes of your time. And the reason I'm doing this is not because I'm some kind of puppet who can be manipulated by the strings of some racing team - no, most certainly not. It's because our sport - yes, OUR sport - is suffering like many others from what businessmen, politicians and witch doctors alike refer to as "the economy". And by that I mean, "the economy that sucks".

Racing is a sport that thrives on sponsorship, which means the team owners race around in front of thousands of people in the stands and hopefully even more watching on television, and in doing so they provide exposure for those wonderful companies featured all over the actual race cars. However, "the economy that sucks" has made many business hesitant to pay for sponsorship on things like race cars because, well, they don't know if that's money well spent in comparison to a park bench or a billboard or a padded sign at the side of the court at a WNBA game.

So you, dear IndyCar fan, are being asked to do something for the sake of Vision Racing. Actually, if you REALLY hate Vision Racing you don't have to do it for them, but for a different team that might be having the same problem. But I would strongly encourage you to do it for them and pretty much every other team since most if not all could definitely use your help. It's time to activate yourself, and here's Vision's Pat Caporali to explain this simple request. The bottom portion of this post is entirely her words.

Oh, and in case you read this after Monday DO NOT use that as an excuse to not send a letter. Until sponsorship is secured there is no such thing as "too many letters". Just think - in the time it took you to read my contribution to this post you could have already completed this task. As pressdog said, "To arms, IndyCar Nation!" Now quickly, before I break out the Henry V "we happy few" speech at Agincourt and really irritate the bejeezus out of you.



Take it away, Pat.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Vision Racing Fans,

We cannot tell you how much your words of support and encouragement have meant to all of our team members in the past few days. We want you to know that we are working hard to get past this speed bump and get our team back to the business of building race cars & IZOD IndyCar & Firestone Indy Lights racing.

Many of you have asked what YOU, as fans, can do to help.

Well, we thought about it and the fact is YOU guys count A LOT. We race BECAUSE of you. We race for you. Sponsors get involved because they want YOU to buy their products and support their involvement in our sport. Neither of us can succeed without you, the fans.

SO... here's what you can do if you want to help.

"LETTERS OF REFERENCE" Campaign

If you are willing, we would ask you to send a letter, email, short note, fax to Vision Racing that we can pass along to potential sponsors AND the sponsors that have been supportive of us in the past. (They don't all yet understand the power of twitter & facebook)

Think of it as a letter of reference that we can use to find and secure sponsors that want your business.

Please feel free to send these to us so that we can pass them along on your behalf:

by email at Visionmedia@visionracing.com

by FAX at 317-295-7066

or by snail mail to
Letter of Reference
c/o Vision Racing
6803 Coffman Road, Indianapolis, IN 46268

The on-going economic environment has been difficult on ALL the IndyCar teams AND their sponsors. Sponsors need to know that you are still there to support open-wheel racing, the Indy Racing League, teams, and sponsors.

If you don't want to do this for us... then please consider doing it for the teams / drivers you DO support or for the league as a whole.

One of the sponsors that HAS supported Vision Racing and our driver Ed Carpenter for a number of years is MENARDS.

We are NOT asking you to HARASS our friends at MENARDS. In fact, ALL we'd like you to do is let them know that YOU still support us and appreciate the support MENARDS has shown us. The folks at MENARDS love racing as much as you do but they also have difficult decisions to make sometimes.

Let them know how you feel Vision Racing & Ed Carpenter have represented them, and how much you LOVE the day-glo yellow No.20 MENARDS IndyCar.

We'll make sure to get your letters get to MENARDS or if you prefer, you can send you letters directly to them by fax at 715-876-2774.

We'd like to do this as quickly as possible so that we can put your letters in our presentations to potential sponsors first thing Monday morning. We'd also like to send any thank you letters addressed to MENARDS which may perhaps convince them to extend their support of IndyCar racing in some form.

We have no doubt this will have a positive impact and we will keep you posted on our progress because any success we have, on and off the track, will be because of our fans and your support.

Thank YOU!

Vision Racing

Early this morning the complete removal of Tony George from IndyCar racing was suddenly finalized by Curt Cavin.

Tony George's Indy-car team suspended operations today due to a lack of sponsorship, completing a downfall of his involvement with major open-wheel racing.

And so it is that Vision Racing, for the time being at least, is gone. Excuse me while I react with the F-dash-dash-dash word.



Friends, this is nothing short of a tragedy because despite being neither an historic nor a dominant force in racing this team was head and shoulders above all others in one area: fan support. This team – particularly the PR team of Pat Caporali and Michael Kaltenmark – have built a fan base out of good ‘ol fashioned hard work, and they did it largely using the free medium of twitter.

This has truly been a case study of how to get people caring in your team, because a couple years ago this was just “Tony George’s team” that stepson Ed Carpenter drove for with occasional appearances by other drivers here and there. But while other teams continue to carefully choose what to say and when to say it, the folks at Vision were using twitter (and to a certain degree facebook and their web site) to say just about anything and everything, all of the time. We’re painting the car so here are some pics for you. We’re running test laps before a race and Ed says the car has too much push in Turn Three. We’re in the middle of the race and damn, that pit stop sucked. And if you sent them a note they would more than likely respond almost instantly.

Attention every other team in the universe: it’s this kind connection is that sports fans crave. It’s why some buy T-shirts, others rent race scanners and many more get garage passes to get oh-so-close to those magnificent machines and their pilots. I realize we fans often act like ex-girlfriends in chronic denial but we want to love you – please, for goodness sakes, let us love you! – but Vision’s unprecedented access and interaction was truly a model for making ANY team lovable.

Here, cobbled together from today’s tweets, is @VisionRacing’s own announcement.

It is with profound regret & heavy hearts that we share the following update with you all. Despite the team's best efforts, Vision Racing will be suspending all racing operations. We have an amazing group of people here that appreciate all the support you have given the team. Efforts to find a solid sponsor partnership have been difficult but will continue so that we may take to the track once again. We hope to see you all at the track in the near future.

"Racing is life... everything before and after is just waiting." - Steve McQueen

(Photo: Vision Racing)

It used to be called "Tony George's Folly." The name alone sent most wags and pundits into paroxysms of ironic laughter.

With apologies to the Monkees (and to you for bringing up the Monkees), that was then. This is now.

Vision Racing has gone from being the paddock joke to a sentimental favorite among IRL fans, and it has done so on the strength of an unprecedented and trend-setting outreach led by its crack PR staff, its drivers, and one of its owners.

All you have to do is look at the explosion in popularity of the team's "tweetups" - get-togethers at IRL events organized via the team's Twitter feed - to see how eager the team is to engage the series' fans. Starting as something of a lark, the concept proved to be so popular that the most recent tweetup at Chicago featured Curt Cavin emceeing, loads of guest drivers and personalities, and even a speaking part for "friend of the blog" Pressdog.

In the hands of Vision's PR chiefs Michael Kaltenmark and Pat Caporali, the Vision Racing Twitter feed is one of the most popular destinations of its kind in motorsports. Michael and Pat believe that public relations means reaching out to the public instead of shielding their clients from it - a somewhat old-school approach in their field these days. Vision driver Ed Carpenter has gotten into the act too, putting his Twitter URL on his helmet and making sure to tweet often.

Perhaps most intriguing are Lauren George's regular blogs at Vision's website. Frank, funny, and surprisingly revealing, Lauren's observations run the gamut from action on the track to experiences off it, all within the context of one of open-wheel racing's most famous (and, in some corners, criticized) first families. They're compelling reading, refreshing for their unexpected honesty.

Vision Racing isn't the only team doing these things but they're one of the only teams that make it appear as if the fans are partners and collaborators in their racing enterprise. In an age of red car dominance and diva drivers, what used to be an IRL irony has turned into a fan favorite.