Hello everyone… has reality returned since last week's Indy 500?  For me, yeah, but barely… I'm still on my high from that spectacular week/weekend… did I TELL you how much fun it was??… and I promise, photos ARE coming soon… this week, in fact.  Anyway, keeping with the IndyCar mojo, I must start these news and notes with Milwaukee IndyCar results…

IndyCar
Tony Kanaan took the checkered after Helio lost his wing while leading… bummer for Helio, but he did make Tony’s day.  And after the heartbreak for TK in Indy, it was impossible not to feel good for him for winning at the Milwaukee Mile.  Danica Patrick, TK’s teammate, started showing her woman-ness after the rub with Dan Wheldon on the track.  Danica did a fantastic job of saving the car, but what is great fodder for each of us is the verbal trash talk they gave each other during and post race.

Danica (on scanner after incident): (not verbatim) I should just brake check
     Dan right now… I would like to tear his front wing off!

Post Race…
Dan:  She’s a little disgruntled, but as Brian Barnhart says, what goes
     around, comes around. She nearly put me in the pit wall at Indianapolis,
     and I certainly have no problems with anyone else on the track. She’s
     probably feeling the pressure of not winning races when her teammates
     are. It’s unfortunate for her.

Danica:  I don't know if he has tunnel vision, but this is racing and a pass
     is a pass… He turned down into me and spun me sideways and luckily I
     caught it, kept going… the incident from my perspective was that, is that
     Dan got passed and he didn't want to let off… I said (to Dan), 'I was
     clearly inside of you,' because I heard him saying in an interview that I
     wasn't all the way up alongside of him. So I'm not sure what is lost in
     translation there, but I was completely alongside of him. I've made many
     more passes happen with being less far up on someone.  And then he said,
     'Well, you can't get caught out in the marbles.' I said, 'Well, then
     that's a pass, Dan. I got by you, you need to let off [when you’re in the
     marbles] and you didn't, you turned into me.' That was about it.

Dan:  I’ve been in this business long enough to know when someone is there and
     when somebody is not. Maybe it’s a bit of inexperience there on her part.
     Certainly, everyone else that was alongside me got by, no problem.

Danica:  If you don't think I'm going to remember this, I don't know why you're
     being like this, but if you don't think I'm going to remember, you're crazy.

Dan:  She’s just feisty. There’s a lot of pressure on her because she has not
     won a race, and her teammates are (winning). I think in a situation like
     that, sometimes you get desperate. It’s never nice to come into contact with
     somebody… She’s just being Danica. She’ll be fine when she calms down. She’s
     messing with the wrong person if she wants to get feisty. I’m a lot tougher
     than she is on track.

The IndyCar series has to be peeing on themselves loving this type of attention, especially one week after their Indy 500 high AND during a NASCAR rainout!  It doesn’t get much better than that, folks.  Need more?  Check out http://www.indycar.com/ , http://www.tracksideonline.com/ , http://www.indystar.com/

In the Pro Series, Lucas Oil’s Alex Lloyd won another one… how many in a row is this now?  Yep, five… a new record.

**Speaking of Lucas Oil and of female drivers, I must brag a bit about Chrissy Wallace… daughter of NASCAR driver Mike Wallace.  Chrissy, also sponsored by Lucas Oil, won herself a hard fought late model race at Hickory Speedway in North Carolina this weekend, the 57th anniversary of the track.  She literally drove around the boys and won it the hard way… keep your eyes out for this Wallace family member… Chrissy Wallace just may be the first good female stock car driver in the sport.  She’s proving herself so far.

Well, since I so eloquently segued to Stock Cars, let’s move to NASCAR for a moment…

 

NASCAR
Dover gave us a weekend winner in the Truck series (Ron Hornaday) and the Busch race (Carl Edwards), but rained like heck on Nextel Cup day, so the race has been postponed to Monday at Noon ET.  Should we wait on any scoop until then, too?  Nah… how about Jeff Hammond’s predictions on Dale Earnhardt Jr.?  And we talked about it in length on our Sunday night show, too… Dale Earnhardt Jr. will go to Joe Gibbs Racing for the 2008 season, possibly replacing JJ Yeley, and NOT with his typical Budweiser sponsorship… instead with Visa Credit Cards as Joe Gibbs has been adamant since the beginning about no alcohol on his cars.  Then who may fill the void for Bud?  And possibly for DEI?  Insert Greg Biffle…

Now that the Cup race is complete, Click here for my Cup race results blurb… besides the fact that I now need to eat crow, let me please emphasize that Bill France Jr., you will be missed.  Thank you for all of your hard work and passion for the sport while elevating motorsports to the mainstream. 

 

WoO
Backup real quick to insert more open wheel… the World of Outlaws raced Friday at Sharon Speedway and Saturday at Eldora.  Friday’s win went to the King Steve Kinser and Saturday’s victory to Paul McMahan, his first of the season, appropriately so at the team owner’s own track!  Check out http://www.racingone.com/ for the stories and stats.

 

NHRA
The drag boys and girls were back in action after a month long hiatus… hmmm, a month long vacation must mean there was no news going on, right?  Well, until this week, there really wasn’t any news… but just this week, the big announcement of the series being bought out came across the wires.  WHAT?  More on that in a bit… the winners in Topeka this weekend were Budweiser’s Brandon Bernstein in Top Fuel, Mike Ashley (his first win in Funny Car – congrats Mike) and Pro Stock’s Greg Anderson.

Now, back to the buyout… there are a lot of suspicions about this new NHRA takeover and who it really benefits… according to our sources, some folks at the NHRA (4 board members to be specific) may have their pockets lined quite nicely after it all shakes out.  Right now everyone is talking the company line saying it is good for the sport, blah, blah, blah.  The money laid down wasn’t good for the sport… it was WAY undersold, in fact… what the $100 million bought the new owners was 4 pieces of fabulous real estate (the Indy track, Atlanta, Columbus, OH, and the rights only to Pomona), 20,000 hours of race footage and company stock if/when the company goes public.  Sponsors weren’t told of this behind the scenes decision until the 11th hour and many are a bit miffed.  Something smells fishy and at this point only time will tell how it all shakes out.  Until then, hit their site for the politically correct verbage:  www.nhra.com

 

Two Wheel
Well, it rained on both MotoGP in Italy and AMA Superbikes in Wisconsin.  But of course these boys race in the rain no matter how hard it is to keep traction.  In Mugello the sun did come out for the actual race, which shone brightly on hometown hero Valentino Rossi.  “The Doctor” won again in Mugello, though Casey Stoner is still atop the points after his 4th place finish.  American John Hopkins finished 5th and last year’s champ Nicky Hayden was 10th. 

Up at Elkhart Lake, WI the Suzuki boys split the wet and wild Superbike races… Mat Mladin winning by a large margin on Saturday and Ben Spies running away with it on Sunday.  Spies also won in Superstock, Aaron Gobert took the Supersport victory and it was again Josh Hayes in Formula Extreme.

The Flat Track winner out of Tennessee on Saturday was Jared Mees, the Supermoto winner from E-town was Mark Burkhart and the Hillclimb win in PA went to Phil Libhart.

For all 2-wheeled action, check out both http://www.amaproracing.com/ and http://www.motogp.com/

 

Rally
The WRC held their Acropolis Rally this weekend, and Marcus Gronholm won himself another one… for complete details, hit http://www.wrc.com/

 

Off Road
Finally, the Baja 500 ran this weekend with over 200,000 spectators watching a record 492 starters!!!  That’s huge!  After the melee, overall winners were (again) Larry Ragland and Brian Collins.  NASCAR’s Robby Gordon drove the entire race without a co-driver and was able to finish 2nd overall.  For the complete story, check out http://www.score-international.com/

 

Other
Congrats to Graham Rahal for graduating from High School this weekend… welcome to the real world baby! (As if you weren’t already here with us all).  Catch the Champ Car series as they return from their Spring Break in Portland this coming weekend.  But wait, there’s more!  As a sort of graduation present, Graham tested the Sports Car prototype of Michael Shank Racing and was up to speed in no time… hopefully the test may lead to a race drive with the team in the near future.  Remember, on SpeedFreaks not so long ago, Graham told us that besides F1, his true love is Sports Car Racing.

For more comments and fodder, check it out on my blogs… www.myspace.com/crashgladys , http://www.myracer.com/