We hardly ever talk about Buddy Rice, and that's not good. Buddy's an Arizona guy like your humble host, Buddy never causes problems, and Buddy won the Indy 500. What's not to like?

Although he's become notwrothy for being the only IRL driver to have had three different women as teammates, Buddy hasn't noteworthy for winning a lot of races since going over to Dreyer & Reinbold. In fact, he kinda drops off the radar from time to time, expecially in the winter. So in case you forgot about Buddy and his flat billed hats reader indyfive has discovered a sign that will remind you.



Makes you wonder who else could attach their names to a business.

Helio Castroneves Dancing School?
Darren Manning's Steakhouse?
Dan Wheldon's Shoe Pavillion?
Vitor Meira's Second-Hand Clothes?

Hey, it's a long winter, people. We gotta pass the time somehow.

Back in 1994 a young Ben Stiller starred in Reality Bites, portraying the first of many successful "neurotic dork" roles. And by "many" I mean every freaking film in his entire career with the exception of the long since forgotten "Permanent Midnight".

Also in "Reality Bites" was a young and previously unconvicted shoplifter named Winona Ryder, who played the female equivalent of the "neurotic dork", which should probably be called the "chattering navel gazer". Honestly, if you watch a movie like this you'll wonder how my generation ever won friends and influenced people.

At some point in the movie Winona (or rather her character) is at an interview for a newspaper job and gets asked to "define 'irony'", and she falls short of the mark like Marty Roth on Pole Day. Now, the reason I present all of this to you is not because I'm going to define "irony", but rather because this story from the PCM racing team today just reminded me of that part of this long-since forgotten movie.

Remember, the PCM car sported this sponsorship for much of the year.



Statement from Mario Dominguez regarding his traffic accident in Mexico City:

"Unfortunately I was involved in a car accident here in Mexico City on Saturday and thankfully no one was hurt. I was on my way to an early golf tournament and I made an error and hit a taxi cab. I left the scene for help because I was assaulted by another taxi driver that stopped at the scene. It was an unfortunate accident and despite there being no citations issued, I have offered to cover the vehicle damage. I am frustrated by the false interpretations reported of this incident, and I would like the media to know and report the truth, which is why I've asked to include this police report. I hope in the future my good results and charity efforts garner the same type of coverage."

It should be noted that PCM no longer has this sponsorship, so maybe Mario arranged all this to happen. Or not. At any rate, if the "Reality Bites" reference wasn't to your liking then I could always re-write the entire post using "Man of Fire" instead. It's definitely a much better movie.

UPDATE: OK, maybe the irony of cabbies assaulting Mario just went out the window. Joel at IRL-O-Rama has discovered some articles in Spanish, and thanks to the trusty translators of the internet we can see they say things like this.

In an unexpected way, Dominguez, who has the title of sporting ambassador of Mexico City, abandoned his car and tried to escape but was caught minutes later and had to agree with the taxi drivers to pay for the damage and was left with that at large, despite driving under the ingestion of alcohol, according to witnesses of the events.

Oh dear. So what we've learned is that when "Visit Mexico City", even though you can escape a possible DUI with enough cash you should still try to NOT drive anywhere near Mr Dominguez. Otherwise you might end giving him a serious shiner.

UPDATE AGAIN: But wait, there's more from Joel at IRL-O-Rama, who is clearly the most prolific racing blog for fans south of the border.

Today, I opened my e-mail and was greeted by a forwarded message. This message, assumed from someone within the Dominguez staff/mob family, contained the official press release and some pictures (one of which is above). Here is the explanation I was given for the news articles released in the Mexican newspapers.

"The reports in these newspapers sadly, are inaccurate in effort to sell papers.

"Mario was not drunk and as stated in his quote below, he left the initial scene because he was being assaulted (hence the wounded eye) by another taxi driver who stopped at the scene. Mario feared his safety, he did not have two accidents and he is the person who called the police!"

No offense to Mario or anyone else in our fellow NAFTA nation, but regardless of which version of this story is true I'm pretty sure the whole mess hasn't exactly left readers clamoring to "Visit Mexico City".

The open-wheel marriage of the IRL and Surfer's Paradise is officially over. Between the scheduling issues and the dollars involved this union had about as much of a chance of lasting as Madonna and Guy Ritchie. Or Sean Penn, for that matter.

IndyCar's will no longer be featured on Australia's Gold Coast after the open wheel series and local government failed to come to an agreement on a new race date.

A1GP will instead replace the IndyCar series in the traditional October festival which has lured thousands to Surfers Paradise since 1991.

The stumbling block to a new agreement was the government's refusal to move the date of the annual open-wheel event from October to March.

(MORE from TSN)

Of course this all but officially kills the Australian Vineyards sponsorship for KV Racing Technologies. Somewhere Will Power is weeping over a Foster's.

Meanwhile, before you get too choked up be sure to check out The Furious Wedge, where the idea of replacing the IndyCar series with A1GP is considered a win-win for everyone. Everyone except Mr Power, that is.

According to an freshly crafted press release, when Team Australia benefactor Craig Gore said he was “retired from motorsport” he didn’t mean it as an official announcement.

“I have not made any announcement regarding my retirement from motorsport,” said Gore.

“I did state that I was taking time this week in Byron Bay to reflect upon things and my future after a life threatening illness and that if it came down to having to make a choice, I would prefer to spend time with my kids rather than go racing. I made no comment of whether I discussed this with my family or close friends. I considered this conversation to be in confidence.

“I am disappointed by the reports in the media today but it would not be the first time I have been disappointed by the way media has dealt with my answers. For the record, I was answering questions asked and there was no announcement being made by me.

(MORE from Team Australia)

So he’s not retired yet but he’s also NOT not retired. OK then. I don't know about you but I'm thinking this guy should run for public office.

On behalf of the handful of us blogger types who were interviewed - starting appropriately with his excellency Bill "pressdog" Zahren - I'd like to thank Curt Cavin and Kevin Lee for the opportunity to speak with them tonight during their Trackside program at 1070 The Fan in Indianapolis. While others might view bloggers like lepers these two rolled out the red carpet for us.


I hope I sounded OK because I was speaking a lot more extemporaneously (look that one up, P1) than intended. I was told initially that I would have 5 or so minutes to "have a take" like they do on The Jim Rome Show ("Phe-nomenal!") and as such I had written out a few paragraphs to try to be as entertaining as the callers on that show.

The unused transcript went something like this.

Hey guys, thanks for the time. I first want to say a word about the misconceptions relating to bloggers. Contrary to popular belief we don’t blog from our basements in our pajamas. First off, I only wear pajamas when I sleep, which is to say when I’m dreaming of a Phoenix Suns championship that never comes. I know this is a racing show but I wanted to at least mention Amare Stoudemire dropping 49 on the Pacers last night.

Also, I live in Arizona where we don’t have basements. The only folks out here with in-ground dwellings are snakes and scorpions, although I suppose Danica Patrick might have used some of her gazillion dollar sponsorships to build one so she can privately practice her international sign language skills. I mean thank goodness for Danica and her hand puppet shows when she stalls on the track, because I don’t know about the rest of America but personally I was about to fall asleep during that race in Australia...

Eh, maybe it's a good thing I ended up just answering their questions.

Click here to listen to the show. My time is in the last 15 minutes or so, which Andy Warhol would state is appropriate. However don't skip around because you'll miss putting voices the other scribes, as well as the super blogger friendly Sarah Fisher who got shoe-horned in as well on word butcher night.

Oh, and be sure to listen for when it sounds like Curt calls Bill a "racist", because Cavin swears that's not what he said.

You may not recognize the name, but this will have all kinds of IndyCar implications.

GOLD Coast business giant Craig Gore has quit motor racing. Speaking from a family holiday at Byron Bay, Mr Gore said he had an epiphany when he underwent life-saving surgery in London last month, forcing him to rethink life's priorities.

"I was given a week to live before my operation, and that's really changed my view of things," he said.

"I would rather spend time with my kids than race cars."
(MORE from GoldCoast)

To those wonder who this Gore fellow is, he’s not the same guy who served as Vice President of the US of A. Craig Gore is an Australian “businessman”, which is to say the son of a successful real estate developer. That’s all well and good, but here are the two points you need to know:

1. Gore owns “Aussie Vinyards”, and as such the sponsorship the paid for the second KV Racing Technoligies entry drive by Will Power.

2. Gore runs the Surfer’s Paradise race, which has been speculated to be removed from the 2009 IndyCar series schedule due to issues related scheduling, which is to say issues due to “who’s gonna pay us to haul all of these cars and teams down here every year?”

So as you can see, if this story holds true then this could potentially be not only the end of a well-attended race but also create tremendous sponsorship problems for a prominent team. Remember, the “K” in “KV” is for Kevin Kalkhoven, also Australian but more noteworthy as the former head of Champ Car who famously shook hands with Tony George at the Bimergification Summit at Mount Homestead.

Looking beyond the "epiphany", this probably means that it won’t be long before there is word that the Surfer’s Paradise race is declared dead. In fact, Mr Gore telegraphed this exit as much a few weeks ago with some very telling quotes.

"I think Tony George's management has a huge influence over his decision-making process and in business you employ people to give you advice so you can understand the path forward…I just don't think he has the best people advising him."

"I just hope that Tony George and the rest of his boys of the IRL see sense and recognise that this is probably like throwing away the Indy 500.”

"It is far and away their second biggest race. They ... probably need to hand out corn cobs at some of the races to get people to some of them. This (Surfers) is an already made up and set up race for them."

"I can tell you now if there's no IRL on the Gold Coast, there's no Team Australia," he said. "I have invested $20 million into this event and this team and flying the Australian flag, and made a significant contribution to the state and the country. Hopefully we can win it this year so if I do have to walk away, I can say we that have achieved what we set out to do."

"Tony George needs to make a decision and needs to make that decision without the influence of his lower management. He needs to decide based on the merits of the event."

Hmm, not feeling the love there. And not to discount Mr Gore’s current health status but it sure reads like he already had one foot out the door.

Which in a way is lamentable because the Surfer’s Event surely seems popular with the folks down under, although as noted with other events of a street car nature it’s not very clear “popular” means “profitable”. My guess is that when a “businessman” like Gore walks away the answer isn’t too difficult to derive.

In the meantime let’s hope there aren’t giant virtual dominoes striking Mr Kalkhoven, Mr Power and everyone else on that racing team so forcefully that they aren’t able to show up for the 2009 season.

(Thanks to our sometime guest host "mmack" for bringing this to our attention)

About 12 months ago most of us were sitting around in shock at the departures. Newly-crowned series champ Dario Franchitti had just signed with Classy Chip Ganassi Racing - as a stock car driver. Previous champ Sam Hornish Jr was "thinking" about a similar move, losing himself in thought in a Penske stock car every weekend. Even previous IndyCar drivers like Jacques Villeneuve and Patrick Carpentier were getting their boogity-boogity on.

But now, pffft. Of all of those drivers the last man standing in the Sprint Cup series is Uncle Sam, who despite remaining in contention for Rookie of the Year over thar might soon be following the exodus of open-wheel drivers AWAY from stock cars. So sayeth SI's Lars Anderson.

For the past few weeks the garage has been rife with rumors that Hornish is considering moving back to IndyCar in 2009. Hornish has been a huge disappointment this season. The three-time IndyCar champ's best finish was at Charlotte in the spring (13th) and his average finish is an underwhelming 29.5. He'll likely win rookie of the year honors, but that says more about the weakness of this rookie class than it does about Hornish's season.

Why has Hornish struggled so much this year? I chatted with him earlier this season and he pointed to the fact that stock cars have far less grip through corners than the open-wheel IndyCars. Hornish simply hasn't been comfortable behind the wheel because he frequently feels like he's on the verge of wrecking in the turns. And this problem doesn't seem to be going away, which is why there's so much speculation in the garage that Hornish will be done with NASCAR after the final checkered flag waves at Homestead.

This information is provided purely for the sake of discussion, as there seems to be more than a few reasons why Sam wouldn't be back to the IRL just yet.

For starters, there's Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe, who arguably drove as well or better this year than Sam did in 2007. We all know about Helio legal problems but so far Roger Penske is standing by his man, and should Helio somehow emerge victorious with his "the agent did it" defense there seems to be no reason to think Penske would kick him to the curb.

And as for Briscoe, all he did was win more races than Helio.

Additionally, it's been reported that Penske can only field two cars, because the Team Penske contract with the primary-sponsor-that-cannot-be-named-due-to-legal-reasons requires that Roger provide two and only two cars that look like a pack of smokes for each race. I suppose with enough wild-eyed lawyers in the room any contract could be changed, but that's definitely another hurdle.

And lastly, well, have you seen Sam? He's not gone on the full Tony Stewart diet (who by the way was shockingly dropped by Subway as a spokesperson), but Sam appears to have added some sympathy weight since the birth of his first child. I'm not saying the guy is out of shape, just that he could afford to mix in a salad here and there.

Regardless of whether or not this report holds any water, I look forward to innumerable reports of the massive migration from tin tops to IndyCars this winter. Har har.

(Hat tip to IRL-O-Rama for the article)

More than a few of you have excitedly sent the link to the Inbox, so for the rest of you here it is: Robin Miller riding along with Dale Junior Junior.



"Slow it down to 110. I want the Milka Duno experience."

I bet you do. Blow out the candles and make that wish, big guy.

Look, that certainly seems like it would be a lot of fun, but at the risk of looking like an even more partisan hack than I already am I need to ask: why is a guy known for being an open-wheel reporter taking a ride along in a stock car?

I know, I know - Robin needs to sell that autographed firesuit on eBay to pay for Pepsis in these troubled times. Whatever. I'm just saying that if you're gonna bad mouth Milkalicious then at least take a ride in something like her car. The Junior fans might disagree, but the entertainment factor would have been off the charts if Miller had agreed to ride the 2-seat IndyCar. With Milka driving.

He might have ended up in the wall, but that would only prove his point, right?

Today the IndyCar Race Control product died.

Dear 2008 IndyCar Race Control subscriber,

Thank you for your past support of IndyCar Race Control. Over the past year we have been able to deliver many exciting hours of top-level racing to our subscribers. We hope you enjoyed the content we were able to provide this season. Regrettably, we will not be able to provide access to the race archive as previously intended. Effective November 3, 2008, the site will no longer be accessible to view.

Partial refunds will be issued in November. Please ensure your account information, particularly the credit card information, is up-to-date, so we can refund your credit card appropriately.

Your humble host was pretty jazzed about this product when it was first announced in the Spring, as this was the first product to allow race fans to listen to the driver/crew interaction during an entire race. So I was all too happy to plunk down the cash and even feature a link on my site* for other fans who also wanted to partake in the "sounds of racing", which also included an on-board camera for noticing heavily flourished hand gestures.

Unfortunately, after a full season, it became all too noticeable that the product failed to fulfill in three critical areas.

1. As anyone who has recently attended an IndyCar race with a scanner and a frequency list can attest, listening to someone racing along at 220 mph trying to have an intelligent conversation with a spotter is unlike anything in sports. And by someone we mean the hyper-spastic communicator that is Marco Andretti.

Spotter: "Here he comes...outside...outside...clear!"

Marco: "WHATTHEFUWASTHATFUMANASTICALLYDOINTHERE!!!!!!"

Spotter: "Uh, yeah, OK, so we're gonna pit this lap. Pit this lap."

Breathtaking, isn't it? Sadly, Marco was only listed as one of the four drivers covered in only a handful of races.

2. Even more unfortunate is the fact that Marco was not incredibly competitive in the races he was covered. Maybe the Race Control feature was a bit of a jinx, but every time I turned around it seemed Marco was out and we were back to watching and listening to Scott Dixon, who was usually leading out there by himself with not much to talk about other than fuel settings.

3. Most shocking of all is that for whatever reason, something happened to Marco that made him calm down to a sensible level. I don't mean he was sedate, but gone were the days of "WHATTHEFU...!!!!!!", replaced in 2008 with perfectly intelligible comments like "What the f*** is he doing?" and "I can't drive this f***ing thing!" Sadly, this sounds the same as every other driver.

So unless someone else steps up to the plate for 2009 a sad farewell is due to the Race Control feature and it's accompanying video archive. I for one will miss it greatly, almost as much as I will miss the youthful exuberance of Marco Andretti's early radio transmissions.


*And on a separate note, I'd like to thank the one reader out there who used that link to purchase the product. Thank you so much for your support of the sponsors here at My Name Is IRL. Because of you the kids and I went to town at Taco Bell earlier this year - in your anonymous honor.

"The biggest problem we have is materialism. What kind of car does he own? What kind of clothes does she wear? People get so wrapped up in that stuff, they don't see the other things. What about family? Friendship? Health? Sure, I want to be the richest guy in the world, but I'm not going to be, and being the richest guy in the world isn't going to solve any problems. A lot of people think 'If I had a million dollars, I'd be happy." I know a lot of people in Brazil who don't have much at all, but they're very happy. They have love and family and friends. That's what's truly important." - Helio Castroneves, speaking with irony set to "full rich" in the latest issue of IndyCar magazine.

For some reason this song comes to mind.