You can't help but feel for Justin Wilson. As pleasant as he is talented, Wilson scores the Champ Car lottery ticket by securing the ride of the departing four-time champion, only to find out he's now a newly unified mid-pack entry on most weekends.

Well at least he can bask in a few weeks of glory after scoring his first IndyCar podium at Edmonton right?

Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver Justin Wilson was uninjured in a crash this afternoon while participating in a one-day test at the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway. It was the first test on an oval for the team since the pre-season test at Homestead-Miami Speedway March 24-25.

After completing an installation run and a subsequent pit stop to analyze the racecar, Wilson returned to the track and was near the end of his first run when he lost control between Turns 1 and 2 and made contact with the Turn 2 wall. The car, a new chassis which made its racing debut in Watkins Glen where he started second, sustained extensive damage and is unlikely to be repaired in time for the IndyCar Series Meier Indy 300 race here on August 9. Wilson’s other McDonald’s race car is being driven by teammate Graham Rahal at this test while his No. 06 Hole in the Wall Camps race car is being repaired after being hit twoseparate times in Edmonton.

(MORE from SPEEDtv.com)

At some point during this coming winter the folks at N/H/L are going to look back at their season, where they've had an owner with serious medical issues, a longtime crew member senselessly killed, any number of extended days due to repairs, and they're going to just vomit. But for now, it's back to work!

UPDATE: According to the Braintrust at TrackSide Online, Rafael Matos, also in Kan-Tuck-Kee for testing, showed why he’s in the Indy Lights series by promptly taking Tony Kanaan’s #11 for a joyride into the wall. In case you see Nariz wielding a large piece of carbon fiber and babbling incoherently in Portugese, you know why.

Here’s a note to “Self” and others who have graciously taken the time to comment on the “Descending into scheduling madness” post - and that includes the entire Anonymous family.

Although sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, I try to stay on focused whenever I’m posting on a subject such as the above. In that instance my point was that this is a nation more impressed with oval racing, and as such adding non-ovals to the schedule - particularly street courses - seems to be counterintuitive to the growth of the league. That was what I was trying to say, using what ratings information I could find to corroborate that.

But I’m not blind, and as much as races like Watkins Glen and Mid Ohio appear to me to have huge helpings of dullness, I recognize that they are in fact popular with many other racing fans. In my best Richard M Nixon voice, “let me make this perfectly clear…”

At no time have I EVER said the schedule should be ALL ovals.

I just wanted to get that out there, so please reference that whenever necessary. I want the Indy Racing League to grow because I think it’s the best racing on earth, and I recognize that holding races at different types of circuits can be used to draw quality owners, drivers, team members and most importantly fans to the sport. I get that.

But (big but here) I am in NO WAY a proponent of adding races for any reason other than helping to grow the series. I’m not a fan of the “50-50” racing league officials spoke of because it sounds to me that the league is on some Quixotic quest in search of the perfect track formula. We’re talking about a racing schedule, not some sort of Sudoku box that has to perfectly balance.

The realities of scheduling are that some tracks have good promoters and some have bad ones. Some tracks are in areas that can draw lots of race fans and some aren’t. Some are in places with accommodating weather and some events just get rained on every year. Some have one racing groove, others more.

This is why I have never written down my dream schedule, because it would be forever incomplete. I guess my “dream list” would include Indy, Phoenix, Michigan, Texas, Chicagoland, Milwaukee and based on this year Iowa, but beyond that the rest could be filled with any other number of tracks so long as they contributed to helping grow the popularity of the sport so that it kept those first events in existence. I’m all about viability, which seems to be related more towards ovals.

And speaking of dream schedules, let’s try not to get too carried away with making it 1995 again. Yes, the PPG CART IndyCar Series was quite popular, drawing drivers from other series around the world while hosting a roster of impressive names. It was a wonderful time, the sky was always blue and the birds sang sweet songs and never pooped on your windshield.

You know what? It’s never going to be 1995 again. Or 1953. Or whenever you harken back to as your favorite era of racing. We are never going to have another Mario Andretti who competes successfully in nearly every racing series on four wheels. We are never going to have another AJ Foyt who races competitively for 35 years. We aren’t going to have another Unser family who collectively win 9 Indy 500s. Heck, we aren’t even going to have record crowds at Carb Day since they’ve wisely capped the speeds there.

On the other hand we do have a few things going for us in the here and now. We have the opportunity to showcase great drivers of both genders. We have incredible tools like High Definition broadcasts and live telemetry to bring each of us closer to the visceral thrill of racing. We’ve got drivers bearing the names of Andretti and Foyt and Rahal who connect us with those previous generations. We’ve got an incredible number of options for future engine development. And amazingly, we have a unified series built around the one race everyone would agree to have on his or her own dream schedule.

I just wanted to these things out there before I get accused of holding any more positions that I don’t have. As much as I don’t care for street races I could handle half a schedule full of them if they somehow gave me all of the few races on my “dream list” above. But it's not for you and me to decide - it's up to Mr Market - so hopefully the powers that be can secure enough viable events wherever to help grow the IndyCar series and showcase a superior form of entertainment for 2009 and beyond.

Thanks for hearing me out, and thanks for hanging around. You may now safely return to throwing bricks at me or any other commenters.

At first glance there wasn’t too much that was shocking about yesterday’s release of the 2009 schedule, which of course is entirely the problem. After hearing several months about a “cleaner sheet of paper” what we got was more of the same, except the removal of one oval (Nashville) and addition of two street courses (Long Beach and Toronto). Or if you so choose, the cleaner sheet is in fact toilet paper.

”It’s a good schedule ... FOR ME TO POOP ON.” - is it May yet?

The reason for all of the shock and horror (check out your favorite message board) was in what wasn’t added. Artists formerly known as Champ Car fans were disgusted that Cleveland and Portland were excluded, longtime IRL fans were upset that possible ovals in New Hampshire or Las Vegas (or anywhere, for crying out loud) were passed over, and nearly everyone is still upset that the IRL and International Speedway can’t figure out a way to get Michigan and Phoenix back on the docket.

Add to that the horror of having the season possibly clinched in Japan and then waiting three weeks to have a “finale” in Miami on the same night the Hurricaines are hosting a football game. Splendid. Oh wait, if the stars align that could be Australia and a two week layoff, which is soooo much better.

It’s one thing to undergo an evolution. It’s another to go about it in a bad fashion. And I think the IRL is definitely going about their evolution in a bad fashion.” – Indy Racing Revolution

Half road/street, half oval, no sense. Total Monkey Pig of a schedule which once again nonsensically evolves towards MORE road and street racing. Pardon me for repeating myself, but here is what I said in June when comparing the words of TMS promoter Eddie Gossage to Speed’s Robin Miller.

What a businessman like Eddie understands and a guy like Robin does not is that we can all have our personal preferences in our favorite types of tracks, but America as a nation has shown time and again to have very little interest in watching road and street racing. Why? My guess is it's because on ovals the excitement is right in front of the viewer. "Here we are now, entertain us." There go the cars, loud, fast, and passing each other constantly. The drama is evident no matter what you know about the drivers or the cars, and it’s so thrilling even your grandmother can enjoy it.

The point being that although many of you – many of us – can find lots of entertaining things about road and street courses, the average consumer here in America isn’t going to give more than about 5 minutes of attention to this kind of racing. It’s a proven fact, people. Champ Car is no more because they couldn’t connect with the wallets of enough fans to sustain the series. That didn’t make them bad or evil or wrong, it just meant they had a broken business model.

Now it’s one thing for me to say that the highest level of American open-wheel racing should be decidedly slanted towards oval tracks, but simply saying it doesn’t make it more than an opinion. How about we look at some numbers, which in this case would be the ratings for the 2008 season.

Homestead: .8
St Pete: .42
Motegi: .27 (rainout), .19 (live), .33 (re-air)
Long Beach: .51
Kansas: .74
Indy: 4.5
Milwaukee: .8
Texas: 1.0
Iowa: 1.1
Richmond: .9
Watkins: Glen 1.1
Nashville: .5
Mid Ohio: 1.5

(Source: Wikipedia, unless someone has a ratings book to lend me)

Now the first thing you’re going to say is “Look you stupid Gomer – the road courses get better ratings!” You’re going to say that because after diligently reading everything I’ve written you want me to be wrong. It’s alright, I feel the vulnerability of the fan who likes to say “chicane”. I’m sensitive to the fact that you have watched CART and Champ Car both go the way of the dodo. It’s OK. “It’s not your fault.”

The thing about ratings is they don’t occur in the proverbial vacuum. It’s not like these races were the only things on the television in the way of motorsports, so let’s compare most of these dates with any coinciding N-Word events (excluding Indy because it’s Indy and Motegi because it was hosed). Hey, let’s even throw in the ’07 ratings for these races as well.

Here are the Sunday races this year that had no competing stock car Cup event.

Mid Ohio* 1.7 in 2007, 1.5 in 2008, (-.2)
Watkins Glen 1.0 in 2007, 1.1 in 2008 (+.1)
Long Beach .65 in 2007, .51 in 2008 (-.14)
*also had the Danica-Milka towel party as a factor

Mid Ohio and Long Beach both happened on weekends where there wasn’t a Cup race and on the Watkins Glen weekend the Cup race was the day before. The first thing that jumps out at me here is the fact that on weekends where there is no N-Word the IRL has chosen to schedule non-oval races. Why the league wouldn’t at least once feature cars going at full speed is beyond me. The second thing however is the abhorrent performance of the Long Beach race, which is supposed to be the crown jewel of the Champ CART remains. Remember that .51 came the day everyone woke up and got “Danica Wins” jammed down their throats, so it’s not like there wasn’t an open-wheel awareness going on that weekend.

Moving on, here are the Saturday Night races so far this year, all of which had Cup races on Sunday.

Texas .7 / 1.0 (+.3)
Homestead .7 / .8 (+.1)
Richmond .6 / .9 (+.3)

All consistently rated and more importantly all improved to some degree. Now, here’s the part that matters most, because these are races that were scheduled for the same time as Cup events, give or take a few hours.

Iowa 1.2 in 2007, 1.1 in 2008 (-.1) (N-Word at Infineon)
Milwaukee 1.0 in 2007, .8 in 2008 (-.2) (N-Word as Dover)
Kansas .6 in 2007, .74 in 2008 (+.14) (N-Word as Talladega)
Nashville* .7 in 2007, .5 in 2008 (-.2) (N-Word Chicagoland)
St Pete .6 in 2007, .42 in 2008 (-.18) (N-Word at Texas)
*races on a Saturday night

Clearly all ovals are not created equal, but when placed head-to-head with a stock car race it looks like an oval IndyCar race can at least hold it’s own rating. With nearly 40 race weekends this is going to happen more and more with an expanded IRL schedule, so take a good hard look at the fact that the Iowa race going up against the Cup gets the same rating as Watkins Glen going against, well, golf.

And more importantly – no MOST IMPORTANTLY – is the obvious lack of appeal of street races. Not only are St Pete and Long Beach poorly rated but they are both DECLINING in a year in which the overall ratings are improving. That’s completely unacceptable if we’re going to grow this series.

Which is exactly why we’re adding a street race in Toronto. *slamming head into keyboard*

Seriously friends, this is absolute madness. Why in the world does the IndyCar series keep adding street races? They may be exciting on a local level and draw large crowds for “the event” but when it’s all said and done the races are losers. The events lose money. The fans who showed up don’t become racing fans since they’re just there for the local party. The ratings are horrible so national sponsors don’t feel like paying for advertising.

“The Indy Racing League Wednesday vowed to continue the Champ Car World Series' innovative strategy to drive TV ratings down as low as possible heading into negotiations for a 2010 TV package.” - pressdog

No wonder ESPN is ready to walk away from the IRL.

Contrary to what I or anyone else may think or feel, the data is obvious: Street races are bad for the IRL. Period. In case anyone at 16th and Georgetown (not the blog) is reading this: If it's absolutely necessary then go ahead and throw Michael Andretti or Roger Penske a street party here and there and spin it as “variety”, but please have the common sense to understand these events do little to expand the fiscal viability of the product. Street races have already killed two series – don’t let them kill a third.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

The Indy Racing League has scheduled a press conference or teleconference or some such exposition for tomorrow where they are expected to reveal the 2009 schedule, although not in same the way Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson did ther own "reveal" a few years ago.

At least...nevermind.

But why wait for Christmas when you can open some presents on Christmas Eve, right? First up with some goodies is the intrepid Curt Cavin, reports that we will see an "18-track lineup".

The season will begin April 5 with the street course race in St. Petersburg, Fla., and end Oct. 11 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The Indianapolis 500 will be May 24.

Not to be outdone, Chris Estrada at Indy Racing Revolution has done his own reporting (probably using a serach engine, a tool many "journalists" still eschew) and discovered that Richmond has been confirmed for June 27th.

So as of right now we have:

April 5th, St Petersburg
May 24th, Indianapolis
June 27th Richmond
October 11th, Homestead

This list will be updated as Breaking News occurs, although my first impression is that it's difficul to be ecstatic about ending the season at Homestead, where the fans often disguise themselves as empty seats. Whither Chicagoland?

UPDATE: Estrada also kindly forwarded this from ESPN.com to the Inbox.

"We are pleased the IRL selected three SMI facilities," (SMI's Eddie) Gossage said. "But we're very disappointed they didn't want the benefits they could have received from New Hampshire and Las Vegas.

"This had nothing to do with sanctioning fees. They were not interested in New Hampshire and only wanted to run the club-racing road course at Las Vegas instead of one of the most outstanding oval tracks in the country. We're weren't prepared to accept that," Gossage said.

Ack! Could someone please get Mr George a tall glass of Ovaltine? Please?

UPDATE 2: TrackSide Online (sign up today!) says:

2009 IRL INDYCAR SCHEDULE
Date Track
April 5 Streets of St. Petersburg, Fla.
April 19 Streets of Long Beach
April 26 Kansas Speedway
May 24 Indianapolis Motor Speedway
May 31 The Milwaukee Mile
June 6 Texas Motor Speedway*
June 21 Iowa Speedway
June 27 Richmond International Raceway*
July 5 Watkins Glen International
July 12 Streets of Toronto
July 26 Edmonton City Centre Airport
Aug. 1 Kentucky Speedway*
Aug. 9 Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
Aug. 23 Infineon Raceway
Aug. 29 Chicagoland Speedway*
Sept. 6 The Raceway at Belle Isle Park
Sept. 19 Twin Ring Motegi, Japan
Oct. 11 Homestead-Miami Speedway

*Saturday night

Well, what do ya think?

UPDATE 3: Meanwhile, here in 2008...Crikey!

The IndyCar Series will travel to Australia for the Gold Coast Indy 300 on Oct. 23-26 -- the first IndyCar Series event in the country. Following the event at Surfers Paradise, the IndyCar Series will continue its postseason celebration with a championship banquet in Las Vegas.

"We are pleased to announce that the IndyCar Series will hold its first event in Australia this October to celebrate the completion of a successful first season of unified open-wheel racing," said Terry Angstadt, president of the commercial division for the Indy Racing League, the sanctioning body for the IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights.

(MORE from IndyCar.com)

What does this one say?


(Photo: TrackSide Online)

Recall these words your humble host wrote just a few days ago.

...the league’s bipolar relationship with the network swings wildly from the Danica Patrick love-ins on the race broadcasts to the occasionally abusive coverage at ESPN.com. As a consequence there has been a growing movement from fans asking that the IRL consider a different broadcast partner for next year, a proposal that despite the flawed relationship I’m not going to echo. I mean, I’ve seen what happened to the National Hockey League, and I don’t want to go looking for races on Versus.

Now it appears this off-the-cuff "doomsday scenario" of a broadcast partner has an actual chance of occurring.

Conventional wisdom was that a unified open-wheel racing series would result in a more valuable media property. But five months after the IRL and Champ Car joined together, the series is seeing what has been its biggest asset — media rights — struggling to maintain value.

Both incumbent partner ABC/ESPN and suitor Fox Sports have told the circuit that they are interested in broadcasting only the Indianapolis 500. But the IRL is trying to sell a package that includes at least four other races for broadcast as well.

ESPN has been pitching the IRL on a different model, possibly based on revenue sharing. So far, the IRL is not interested in such an arrangement.

While Fox has had some discussions with the series, Versus has shown the most interest in obtaining a package, which would not include the marquee races, according to several sources.

(MORE from Sports Business Journal)

Versus? Are you kidding me? Pardon me, but I have to find a Zippo and some lighter fluid. Just in case.

(Thanks to Will at is it May yet? for sending me into cardiac arrest bringing this to our attention.)

It's official: we have seen the last of the single-grooved oval.

After eight years, the Indy Racing League will no longer be competing at Nashville Superspeedway.

"We’re disappointed for all of the fans and sponsors of open wheel racing in middle Tennessee,” said Cliff Hawks, Vice President and General Manager of Nashville Superspeedway.

“Regrettably, the IRL has chosen to structure their sanction fees at such a level that we had no choice but to re-evaluate whether they fit into our plan. Regardless, we believe the IRL had no further interest in the middle Tennessee market. We are very grateful to Firestone and their support of the Firestone Indy 200 for the past seven years."

(MORE from Tennessean.com)

Please sign your condolences (good, bad, or otherwise) in the comments section.

(Thanks to Jennifer for the alert,)

In an attempt to remain focused it has been the goal of your humble host to limit the coverage of other forms of racing since the start of the IndyCar series racing season. Today, for just a moment, we will diverge from that goal.

Many of you were probably watching in shock and horror yesterday as the N-Word took its act to The Brickyard for a 400-mile race. Despite several sessions of testing the “Car of Right Now” (CORN) was shown to be quite incompatible with the compound provided by Goodyear, resulting in exploding right-rear tires after 10 or so laps of racing. That’s right, 25 miles and the tire is ground down to nothing but dust in the wind. Stupendous.

Of course, the N-Word solution to this problem was to throw NINE “competition yellows”, meaning every 10-12 laps of green flag racing would be met with a yellow flag to slow everyone down so they could change tires again. No matter how bad any IndyCar race has looked this season due to crashes, parades or inclement weather, none of them were as painful to watch as this debacle. It got so bad that the competitors simply slowed down, running laps in the 150s, which compared to the 220s that IndyCars run at IMS is, shall we say, unexciting.

When you find yourself watching an auto race and the most thrilling aspect is trying to determine who’s going to get their right-rear quarter panel blown to smithereens, you can’t help but wonder if the racing product has is instead been replaced by some form of terrorist drinking game. I’m sure Goodyear dealers throughout the country are utterly thrilled about their stock car affiliations today.

And as bad as was for those of us watching (and doing laundry or mowing the yard or simply napping) at home, it was especially brutal for the folks at the track. This site is fortunate enough to have many readers in the Indianapolis area, one of who was kind enough to provide a brief summary of his day at the rack. Here’s frequent commenter “J E Clerk” with the awful truth.

“Utter disgust” are two words that come to mind. My seat was surrounded by mullet heads with drinking problems, and the woman in front of me kept throwing up. Oh yes, it was a real class act. I hardly had time to notice all the green flag laps.

This morning I was watching a replay of the post-race show on Speed, and they were trying hard NOT to blame Goodyear or Nascrap, but instead they were steering the blame towards the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I can see right now they’re going to spin this so it’s nobody’s fault except the track’s, and that’s what angers me. Goodyear should have had its ducks in a row, but didn’t. Everyone was angry. I’d love to know what the drivers were saying OFF camera. If I was a driver I’m sure I would have been fined for dropping F-bombs ON camera. HAH!

I haven’t seen a Goodyear screw up that bad since Scott Goodyear passed the pace car in ’95.

He's upstairs, he's downstairs, and somewhere in between he's jotting down his thoughts during the race. Multi-tasking. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a man who would never EVER break The Prime Directive by punting Danica!, the one, the only, the "mmack".

Here are my notes from Upstairs, Downstairs on the Edmonton Rexall Grand Prix on ESPN. The notes aren't from the big comfy couch or chair because I had too many chores to do. I was running upstairs and downstairs in our house as I mopped, vacuumed, and washed clothes. We'll be out at a family party Sunday, so that's why I'm not sitting on my duff drinking beer and watching racing. Maria is not with me as she is out at the mall shopping with her best friend. I decided to skip shoe shopping to give you my recap:

Nice to see the start wasn't delayed for the World Series of Poker.

Gene Simmons?!?

Graham Rahal is off-roading and immediately I'm thinking Paul Tracy has claimed his first victim. I apologize Paul, it's just a force of habit after all those years watching CART.

Full course yellow for Vitor. Immediate response: "Why?"

IIRC, at a point before Mutoh's yellow they mention that they're monitoring the radio between 3.0 and Kanaan. They want Marco to let Tony past. Marco says something to the effect of "They tell me to move over one more time and there'll be trouble." Three thoughts spring into my mind:

1) When did this become F1, and when did AGR take notes from Scuderia Ferrari?
2) 3.0's act is getting insufferable.
3) Those assurances Kanaan wants in his contract? A Vulcan (Gatling Gun style) cannon installed in the nose of #11, to be used when Marco is ahead of him. Either that or a remote kill switch tuned to Danica and Marco's on board computers.

Godzilla got stomped. Of note: Jenkins says in his understated way "But the tire barriers failed to stop the damage to that car as it is heavily damaged and Mutoh's day is done." Hate to be snide, but gee, ya think Bob? Two of the four tires are off the ground at weird angles. This is way past the point of duct tape helping anything.

Hinton the Wonder Troll is wrong, as usual: NASCAR at Indianapolis is not a sign of Armageddon, AJ Foyt IV LEADING a road course race is a sign of Armageddon. Go Quattro! Nice little loop by Kanaan to give him the lead. Could AJ have pressured Kanaan into a mistake? If so, will wonders never cease.

So much for that: Moraes has to ruin the show by passing AJ and slowing him down enough so Kanaan gets past.

Well it's nice to see EJ Viso is completely recovered from the mumps. Now he's healthy enough to resume the kamikaze moves he's become famous for.

Iceman takes the lead, and I hear The American Mutt's howls of protest over the vacuum cleaner noise.

Agree with Son of 'Stache on Viso and Moraes, the latter after his move on IV. While it's nice to see The Iron Hand of Justice (TM, All Rights Reserved) do a stop and park on EJ, I can't help but wonder if a Big Three driver would get the same if he (or she) did the same thing.

Bernoldi spins. Huh, that never happens.

Like Father, Like Son: Marco pulls the "Stab the rear tire of the car ahead of me with my front wing endplate" trick out of the Andretti family playbook. Sadly for him, he breaks The Danica Directive and punts The Princess into the tires. FINALLY, some excitement! Will Mrs. Romper Stomper stomp her way into Marco's pit? And who will Michael side with, his son, or the most visible driver on the series? Oh, to be a fly on the wall at the AGR team meeting tonight.

Timed Race. Thank you ESPN, because as a Bears fan, I REALLY want to see what Brett Favre will be doing this season, so let's hurry up and get SportsCenter on.

Iceman takes it. Maria calls me about five minutes after the race is over from a restaurant where she and her friend are having a drink and appetizer. She tells me she saw some of the race on TV in the bar. Gist of the conversation:

"So is the race over?"

"Yes it is."

"Did Dixon win?"

"Yes he did."

"Damn it."

She's good at boiling things down to their essence. Now I have to take a load of laundry from the dryer. So long until Kentucky in two weeks.

Wait, that damn Pizza Hut commercial is on again!

Welcome to Canada, eh?

Here at My Name Is IRL World Headquarters we will be eagerly awaiting the start of the Rexall Edmonton Indy since this is a street course featuring a dreaded First Turn of Infinite Doom. Heightening the tension is the fact that not only is the Chrome Horn (seriously, his web site even claims the name) back in action, but he's starting next to The Princess herself.

Remember, the sponsor's name sounds like "Wrecks All". Just saying.

0: Gene Simmons will give the command. Loudly. Meanwhile P2 just asked "Who's Gene Simmons?" Why, Jeff Simmons's dad, of course.

0: There's no Race Control feature this weekend. Bummer. I was looking forward to hearing Danica's first ever Paul Tracy commentary.

1: And we are green...and Graham Rahal is in the grass. Not good for the car carrying the same sponsorship as the race. Looks like the suspension is toast after getting together with some unknown red and white car.

2: Same top 5 as when we started. Briscoe, Helio, Servia, Dixon, Power. Highest AGR car is Marco in 12th.

4: Briscoe makes a mistake and gets passed by Helio, who hasn't won in like 16 months. Let's all beat that horse to death.

5: Paul Tracy is up to 11th after starting 16th. Somewhere at the track Meesh is smiling proudly.

7: Will Power had dropped back to 13th and now he's pitting. I apologize for jinxing him with the "favorite" tag.

8: And Power is back in the pits. Turns out he's got a bent wishbone on his Dallara. Eight laps in and this race for him has indeed been "the pits".

11: This race is 95 laps. How odd. I guess we lost 5 laps in the Canadian exchange.

13: Lots of coverage of Paul Tracy, now in 10th. Interview package. More coverage. He's the new Danica.

14: Speaking of Danica, she's up to 12th. I know this because I'm following with the IndyCar.com Timing & Scoring, not because ESPN has mentioned it. Yes, things are definitely done differently up North.

18: Townsend Bell hits a bump and slides but somehow keeps the car from stalling. Nice work there!

19: Full course yellow (ugh!) as Vitor has introduced the front of his car to a tire barrier. Speaking of the front of the car, those vertical flaps on the front wings do indeed look like cattle guards on a train. Those need to go along with the fuel setting knob. Please.

20: Helio, Briscoe, Servia, Dixon, Wilson. Of note, Tony Kanaan is up to 17th after starting at the back due to an engine replacement.

21: Free Canadian Bacon in the pits, so there go most of the competitors. Looks like Helio, Briscoe, Dixon, Servia and Wilson lead the way out. Camara seems to have lost a tire on exit. Tony Kanaan tried that move at Homestead, and he is Camara's mentor.

22: "Link" says Paul Tracy's car looks like his sponsor should be John Deere. Interesting observations.

23: Marco, Kanaan and Rice are leading since they didn't pit. We'll see how that strategy works out.

24: We're still yellow. Stop the insanity!

25: Finally back to green. Mercifully. Helio quickly goes around Buddy for third. Apparently Helio is the only driver capable of passing others while on camera.

28: Eminem has some bent suspension, or as Scott Goodyear says "That's what we call Canadian discombobulation". Check out Scotty getting witty!

29: Full course yellow again as Hideki Mutoh spins and seriously damages his car on impact with a tire barrier. Yes, his car is damaged (damaged) damaged (damaged) ... So how they gonna fix it, fix it, fix it?

30: Kanaan and Buddy pit but Marco does not. He's using the force.

34: We go green and Helio busts out his own Jedi in passing Marco to reclaim first place in the first turn.

38: And now Briscoe goes around Marco, who still has not made a pit stop. He may be trying to make this race on one pit stop, so we'll see what happens.

40: Nevermind. Marco finally pits, moving Dixon to third. Helio, Briscoe Inferno, Dixon, Servia, Wilson. Wheldon sneaks up to 6th.

41: P1 asks "Does Dixon have a blue car today? Why are they showing his '9' with blue?" Nothing gets past her. She's ready to call production for ESPN.

43: Bernoldi is in 7th, Paul Tracy has climbed to 8th. Meesh is probably getting silly.

44: Brienne Pedigo tells us Danica's pit crew is "yelling at her to let Tony Kanaan by." Danicker is having none of that. Feeling the AGR love.

49: Another full course yellow as Townsend Bell goes wide and finds himself a tire barrier. The Delphi Safety team is there to help, and might I point out those orange uniforms complement the William Rast car quite nicely.

51: Who's thirsty for Ethanol? The leaders all pit but several others stay out.

51: Mario Dominguez, you have a tire in Turn Two. Three-wheeled driving is not allowed, senor.

52: This just in: Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is not interested in owning an IndyCar team.

55: We finally restart and Kanaan leads with AJ Foyt IV in second. Quattro in second on a street course. Believe it.

56: "We hear that Ryan Briscoe apparently spun and dropped back". Replay shows Wheldon dive-bombs Ed Carpenter, who nudged over into Briscoe. The Inferno is now in 17th but still running.

57: Meanwhile, Kanaan also spins and loses position so that means Quattro is leading. A street race. There's nothing real in the world anymore. Does it even matter who is behind him? It's Kanaan, Dixon, Rice, Helio trailing Foyt.

58: We go to commercial, but when we come back Foyt is now in third. Order is restored to the universe.

60: Full course yellow for Rahal, sponsored by "Wrecks All". Replay shows Viso brutally sideswiped him into a tire barrier. EJ continues to win friends and influence people.

62: Kanaan and Foyt pit, probably for the last time today. Now it's Iceman, Helio, Nariz, Well Done, and (drumroll) the Chrome Horn. Meesh is gasping for air.

64: Son of 'Stache is saying "Viso and Moraes don't even belong here. They're out of control." Vitor Meira would buy Rahal a beer, but he's not old enough to consume alcoholic beverages. Jenkins follows up the interview by telling us Viso will re-acquire the mumps be held in the pits for 15 seconds by the IHJ.

65: Back to green and Bernoldi spins. Excellent choice of drinking term if I do say so myself. Up at the front Tracy moves into 4th.

78: Not much happening...until Marco drives into the rear tire of Mrs Hospenthal, sending her spinning and damaging his front wing. What!?! So much for teamwork. Marco pits and Danica gets refired. Indeed.

80: Meanwhile, Helio continues to trail Dixon by less than a second. Can't pass him though, and whoever is in third (Wheldon?) is way way back.

81: Looks like Wheldon had to brake to not hit Marco, and Servia ran right into the back of him damaging his wing. What looked to be a good day for KV will be anything but.

82: We are timed, with 8 mintues to go, so why show racing when you can go to commercial. Ack! Is it me or does that guy stalking the woman in the Edmonton commercial look like that creepy Brad Dourif dude?

84: No offense to Dixon, but is there anyone NOT hoping Helio can pass him in the remaining 6 minutes?

85: Well if there is you'll be pleased to know Helio just had to brake hard after losing it going into Turn One. He's still racing in 2nd but he drops way back behind Dixon.

87: Dixon, Helio, Wilson, Servia (still out there with the damaged wing), Tracy. Probably not going to be much of a change there in the next 3 minutes.

89: Oh, Canada! With 15 seconds left Marty Roth spins out and stalls in his homeland. He was thisclose to finishing a road/street race.

91: Dixon takes the checkered flag, and everyone here at the World Headquarters comments using the word "boring" towards another win. No love for the Iceman here today. P1 even asks "Is Dixon cheating?" Hush, child.

Congratulations to Dixon for his 216th win of the year. Helio finishes second again. Wilson will join them for his first podium. And lo and behold Tracy gets around Servia late for fourth. Meesh is unconscious.

Servia finishes 5th and moves ahead of Marco for 8th in the points. Highest position of any non-"Big Three" driver. Also Darren Manning is 10th, so that's four straight Top 10s for Danger Mouse.

Danica finishes in 18th, one spot behind Marco. If she wants to have a talk with him after the race she doesn't have far to stomp.

Thanks again to Bob Jenkins for showing us how it's done. He even did the impossible today by getting Scott Goodyear to lighten up a bit. In fact, I didn't hear a single "enough downforce to fly upside down" or "one thing to catch but another to pass" or "just a passenger" today. Hooray!

That's it from here, so have a nice weekend. Thank you very much, and good night.