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While many may
have thought Dan Wheldon would be in points/championship
protecting mode Sunday in the Honda Indy 225 at PPIR, Wheldon
ran hard all day and went wheel to wheel often. Once clear of
teammate Dario Franchitti, who stalled the engine on his final
pit stop, Wheldon drove away from Sam Hornish and stunk up the
rest of the show. Earlier in the race, first Hornish and later
Franchitti were also able to drive away from the field and
dominate that segment of the race.
Danica Patrick
managed to stay in the top ten all day, and showed that she had
the ability and courage to mix it up with the likes of Tomas
Scheckter, Scott Sharp and Bryan Herta. Early in the race,
Patrick forced those three into a brief 4-wide stint,
"winning" the corner and beating the other three to
the straightaway. Danica finished 8th, two laps off the lead. The
running recap of Sunday's race can be found here...
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The final practice session has
ended and Scott Sharp set the pace. Sharp is one of those
schooled in road racing that usually excels on the short,
low-banked ovals. In fact, if you look at the top 5 on the grid,
only Sam Hornish is what you consider an oval track specialist.
Pole sitter Helio Castroneves can get the job done on streets,
road courses and ovals, but he is at his best while turning left
and right, and gets his best oval track results on the short
tracks. Of the others in the top five, Bryan Herta is another
road racer the field will have to contend with today, and Dario
Franchitti has gotten his best IndyCar results on the short
tracks. While most of the IndyCar drivers have strong road
racing backgrounds, I'll add Vitor Meira to the list of road
racers I expect to do well both today and at Infineon Raceway
next weekend. From the list of those that seem to favor ovals
that could contend today; there's Sam Hornish of course, as well
as Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon Tomas Scheckter and Buddy Rice. Read
more about today's race, see the final practice speed chart and
follow the race in running recap format here...
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The cars of the IndyCar series
return to the Colorado Springs area today, with the defending
champion Dario Franchitti claiming last week at Kentucky
Speedway that unless the IRL allows the teams to use safer and
more reliable bearings for the half-shafts and uprights at the
rear of the AGR Dallara's, he won't race again until they do.
While I'm sure that Franchitti spoke in haste and anger after a
bearing failure took him out of last Sundays event at Sparta,
KY, the IndyCar site did a short track feature on him this week
and not a word was mentioned about bearings and not racing. I'm
sure that Dario will race this weekend, but it will be
interesting how he will explain away that outburst and eat those
words.
There have been two major instances
of bearing trouble this season, at Nashville and Kentucky, and
both of those tracks are very rough, while I think that the
bearing situation could be rectified by design changes, I doubt
we will see it until the series has another chassis cycle, if at
all. I have heard in the past that to fix the situation, larger
parts would be needed, and those would require the replacement
of every wheel the teams use. They are very costly, and most
teams have at least 30 per car. PPIR isn't one of the rougher
tracks on the circuit, so I think there will be no bearing
troubles this weekend.
PPIR is one of the slowest
venues on the circuit, only a mile in length, the track
elevation is in the "mile-high" region, and that
lessens both downforce, horsepower and the resulting speeds run.
Last year "Q" runs were rained out, so practice speeds
were used to set the grid, with Tony Kanaan the only driver
above 174 mph, I expect faster speeds today, perhaps in the
176/177 range. In the past PPIR has had produced a snoozer
or two, but lately the races have been close and exciting.
I do expect that we will see a
much more competitive effort from the Toyota teams this weekend,
because as I have often mentioned, "having less horsepower
on the hard-to-handle tracks can be an asset. I look at Helio
Castroneves as a favorite this weekend, but don't count out
Dario and last week's winner Scott Sharp, those road racers
excel on the short ovals with little banking, and PPIR has only
10 degrees of banking in the turns. While not "flat,"
it is almost as low-banked as any short track the series runs
on.
I will follow today's P&Q
sessions beginning at noon EDT in running recap format here...
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