Champ Car Dukes it Out while the IRL Sloshes through their Raceday plus Ashley Judd

Champ Car Dukes it Out while the IRL Sloshes through their Raceday plus Ashley Judd
Who ever was the genius that scheduled the IRL and CCWS head to head on an off weekend for NASCAR needs to be fired. If you aren’t going to unify, you need to at least try to not fight over what fans you have between each other. But I digress. Ok, we only have 2.5 hours to get this thing in on over the air broadcast TV so lets light this puppy. But wait, it seems Mother Nature is going to make sure the two series do not go head to head. Over on ABC it is raining at Michigan. It looks like the IRL will have to run a clean race to finish on ABC.

Click. Over to NBC for the CCWS. They are in sunny California.

CCWS unveiled their new car for 2007. Who better to introduce us to the party than Michelle Beisner who is showing off her guns (arms).

Nice but she needs to do something with her hair.

Hey it looks like they are about to go green in San Jose.

AJ Allmendinger runs into Sebastien Bourdais and breaks his wing.

While AJ is in the pits Will Power (wasn’t he a GI Joe action figure?) punts Bruno Junqueira. Under yellow in SJ.

Click. Back to Michigan where the talking heads are waiting out the rain delay. Waiting for Rusty to say “I gotta tell ya” or “hot rod.” No joy, back to SJ.

Click. Lady Katherine has a flat tire. Click. Over on ABC Jamie is interviewing Helio Castroneves. Watch out for her killer pony tail Helio.

This rain delay has gone too long. Jack Arute has resorted to wearing goofy stuff on his head.

Click. From having a tire go down on her to hitting the tire barrier, Katherine Legge is having a bad day.

Speedy Dan is speedy no more as his car lost its gearbox.

Paul Tracy misses a turn and comes back from a run off road and

runs right over Alex Tagliani’s nose ending both drivers day. But it wasn’t over there.

Alex gets out of his car and goes to find Tracy.

They exchange pleasantries and the f-word several times and then,

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It’s on like Donkey Kong! Fight Fight!

This is great TV.

Better than watching the track dry on ABC.

To the Tracy interview where he is bleeding. He has a cut to his head. (We assume it was from the fight.) Dude this is better than the WWE!

Andrew (go go power) Ranger is in the wall. This program is beginning to be like Saturday morning TV.

Sea Bass easily wins and extends his points lead. Wow, the race is over at 4:26pm central and they are scheduled to stay on the air until 5pm.

Time to interview everyone and give sponsors TV time that they were cheated out of earlier this season.

Sebastien Bourdais does doughnuts. To see what he did when he went to victory lane, please visit our sister website, http://tvvictorylane.blogspot.com/.

Click. Thanks to the weather, (despite the schedule makers) we should see both races today. They are cleaning up the weepers and we should be ready to go but I am not holding my breath. Down to Dr. Jerry Punch and some eye candy. Ashley Judd is asked where her husband Dario will be in 2007.

She says she doesn’t care and will support and follow him wherever he races. Talking about their home race in Nashville where she had the whole family there, she says her family gets “jacked up” about Dario’s racing.

Now the bad news, over two hours of watching the track dry and now we are told that they are going off the air at 6pm eastern time and will have a complete airing of the race at 11pm central time on ESPN2. Well I feel screwed. They try to make the viewers feel better by telling us that we can watch updates on ESPN News and Sports Center. That’s just great. At least I saw a exciting WWE style CCWS race. At 5:10pm central time they start the engines at Michigan. Dam. Time to turn in the IMS Radio network online and find a blank video tape.

CCWS San Jose Results
1. Sebastien Bourdais
2. Cristiano de Matta
3. Justin Wilson
4. Nelson Philippe
5. Mario Dominguez
6. Will Power
7. AJ Allmendinger
8. Oriol Servia
9. Charles Zwolsman
10. Nicky Pastorelli
11. Jan Heylen
12. Katherine Legge
13. Andrew Ranger
14. Alex Tagliani
15. Paul Tracy
16. Dan Clarke
17. Bruno Junqueira

Images appearing in this blog courtesy of Indy Racing League, IMS Productions and ABC, NBC and CCWS.

Edwards Wins STL Busch Race/ Team Penske on the Front Row Again/ Sea Bass on the Pole

Edwards Wins STL Busch Race

Carl Edwards won the NASCAR Busch Series race tonight at Gateway International Raceway, just across the river from his home state of Missouri.

Edwards took the lead away from Denny Hamlin with nine laps to go and never looked back.

The Silver Crown car owner treated the home crowd to a back flip and a big smile. The win was Edward’s 4th of the season.

The race was delayed by rain for about an hour. To find out what happened in Victory Lane, please visit our sister website http://tvvictorylane.blogspot.com.

Busch Series Results Gateway
1. 60 Carl Edwards
12. 77 Burney Lamar
19. 9 Erin Crocker
26. 10 John Andretti
33. 38 Jason Leffler
35. 11 Paul Menard
36. 30 Mike Bliss
37. 18 J.J. Yeley

Team Penske on the Front Row Again
Like a broken record, Team Penske is on the front row again. Helio Castroneves took the pole today for Sundays IRL IndyCar Series race at Michigan turning a time of 33.2138 at a speed of 216.777mph. His teammate will start outside the pole. The race airs Sunday at 2:30pm central on ABC. Our friends over at www.TracksideOnline.com have given their prediction ofr the 2007 IRL schedule which includes stops at Iowa Speedway as well as possibaly more Saturday night races. Visit their website for more on this story.

Michigan Qualifying
1 Helio Castroneves
2 Sam Hornish Jr
3 Tony Kanaan
4 Ed Carpenter
5 Scott Dixon
6 Vitor Meira
7 Dario Franchitti
8 Tomas Scheckter
9 Dan Wheldon
10 Buddy Rice
11 Danica Patrick
12 Bryan Herta
13 Scott Sharp
14 Kosuke Matsuura
15 Buddy Lazier
16 Jeff Simmons
17 Marty Roth
18 Jeff Bucknum
19 Marco Andretti

Sea Bass on the Pole
Sebastien Bourdais is on the pole for Sunday’s Champ Car World Series race at San Jose. The Frenchman grabbed his 23rd career pole setting a new track record of 48.989 at 106.040 mph. Paul Tracy will start outside the pole. A.J. Allmendinger will start third. The race will go head to head with the IRL race Sunday again. The CCWS race will air at 2:30pm on NBC. (This head to head stuff has got to stop.)

Images appearing in this blog courtesy of TNT and NASCAR Images.

Shepherd 4th at Gateway/ Carl Edwards to Drive at ORP/ Chicagoland on TV

Shepherd 4th at Gateway

With Carl Edwards in the broadcast booth, Peter Shepherd finished 4th at Gateway International Raceway Friday night. It was Shepherd’s first ARCA/ReMax Series race driving the No. 39 Griddly Heads Board Games Ford for Roulo Brothers Racing. Edwards joined SPEED’s broadcast crew providing commentary on the race. Burney Lamar did not fare as well falling out on one of the many restarts that plagued the end of the race.

Erin Crocker also had a tough night hitting veteran Bobby Gerhart and touching off this multicar pileup.

Carl Edwards to Drive at ORP

USAC Silver Crown team owner, Carl Edwards is slated to drive the No. 199 Carl Edwards/ R.E. Technologies Racing Silver Crown car Thursday night at O’Reilly Raceway Park. Shepherd will return to the No. 199 at Iowa Speedway.

Chicagoland on TV

The Chicagoland Silver Crown race airs on the Outdoor Channel Saturday night at 4pm central.

Images appearing in this blog courtesy of R.E. Technologies, ARCA/ReMax Series and SPEED.

Milwaukee Leftovers/ The Saga of Bop Em Bob/ Hockey and Racing/ We Need More Umbrella Girls/ New Faces in the Series/ Media News

Milwaukee Leftovers

You know after you’ve had some good food, it is always a smart idea to save what you didn’t eat for lunch the following day.

Well that is what I am doing today in regards to the USAC weekend at the Milwaukee Mile.

There were some stories that I didn’t get to tell because of time. Now that everyone is back home from the Mile, it’s time for some leftovers.

The Saga of Bop Em Bob

This was probably the most under reported story of the weekend. No one gave much thought to the punching doll when he showed up in the pits of the No. 00 Reutimann Motorsports team on Friday. There he was, smiling with his toothless grin.

Did he know something that we didn’t? Bob em Bob hung around waiting for some action.

He got his wish when the USAC National Midget Series took to the Milwaukee Mile Saturday and put on a great show, which ended with Bobby Santos III in victory lane.

The grin on Bob’s face seemed to foreshadow something.

I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time but now I see what he knew.

Sunday was race day and before it was all over, there would be more bopping on the track and it wouldn’t be with Bob but it would affect the out come for his team.

Bop em Bob didn’t really have time for an interview with the Outdoor Channel’s Brienne Pedigo.

His team was running up front in an exciting race. The last laps battle between Brian Tyler and Aaron Pierce were incredible. Tyler was leading when the white flag came out only to have Pierce turn him. Under caution Brian Tyler let him know that he was not happy.

When the race resumed Brian Tyler could only get back to third. Pierce won or so we thought.

Following the victory lane ceremonies and the post race news conference, USAC announced that they penalized Pierce one lap for “unsportsmanlike conduct.” They declared Wayne Reutiman the winner and Tyler finished second. Aaron Pierce was scored finishing fifth.

Wayne Reutimann Jr. had won his first USAC Silver Crown race. Bob’s team went to Victory Lane but where was Bob?

No worries, he was probably working, getting ready for the next race at O’Reilly Raceway Park.

Hockey and Racing
I am a University of North Dakota hockey fan and I will usually pull for a WCHA team as long as they are not playing UND.

It was good to see fellow conference rival and 2006 NCAA Men’s Hockey Champs, Wisconsin honored at the Milwaukee Mile on race day. The team had the honor of giving the command to the Silver Crown teams to start engines while the head coach was the honorary starter.

One thing was interesting. During the IRL race, the hockey team found themselves in the lobby of the media canter soaking up the air conditioning with the track’s umbrella girls. Needless to say, more of the player’s eyes were on the umbrella girls that the race on the TV monitors.

We Need More Umbrella Girls

I really don’t care for F1 after the 2005 disaster at IMS but they do one thing right, umbrella girls. Well the Milwaukee Mile, also has umbrella girls. The ladies act as ambassadors for the track assisting visitors as well as promoting events. They also look good. But back to the matter at hand. It was one of several good moves that the management of the Milwaukee Mile made that ensured that the weekend would be a success. The Milwaukee Mile brought out the best in race fans over the weekend. Folks could participate in autograph sessions and fans of all ages seemed to enjoy the events. Good job folks. I look forward to returning to the Mile in 2007.

USAC Schedules

Speaking of 2007, it is way to early to be discussing the 2007 schedule but Phoenix International Raceway has already stirred the pot by announcing that the Copper World Classic would move to November of 2007 from the traditional January date. The rest of the 2007 Silver Crown schedule will probably not come out for a while. I am hearing that the series could add two new tracks for 2007. USAC traditionally has to wait on the IRL and NASCAR to announce their schedules before announcing the dates that they share with the two larger series.

New Faces in the Series
I am also hearing that there could be a new team in the Silver Crown Series as soon as ORP. I also have it on good authority that a NASCAR Nextel Cup driver will compete with the series at ORP.

New USAC Hauler

USAC’s new hauler made it’s maiden voyage this past weekend to the Milwaukee. The new hauler built by United Trailers hosts a larger lounge and meeting area than their older one still on the road. It also has more space for spec parts for the Silver Crown Series as well as storage for a pace car, golf carts, scooters, scales and supplies.

IRL Delphi Safety Team

The Indy Racing League has the best safety team in the business. There is no one that I would rather have taking for me if I were injured than them. They along with the Milwaukee Mile Safety Team were on call all weekend to make sure that everyone got the attention they needed. Fortunately, they were not needed that often.

Milwaukee Images
All of the images from this past weekend have been uploaded into our Flickr website http://www.flickr.com/photos/92448439@N00/sets/72057594134006261/

That’s it for the leftovers. I hope you are full.

Mistress of the Dark in Memphis
A couple of years ago Memphis Motorsports Park would just host races, not events. Over the past few years that has changed. The track is more fan friendly than ever is always looking to do something different to get the fan’s attention. Memphis Motorsports Park is bringing in Elvira, "Mistress of the Dark" for the October 28th race. The track will again host a showcar parade on Beale Street as well as Fanfest on Thursday before the teams hit the track Friday. John Schneider and the “General Lee” will also make an appearance. Schneider will also sing the national anthem. We will be there to cover our Open Wheelers.

Media News
Andretti 3 hits the boob tube this weekend. The reality series follows Marco Andretti at the Indy 500 in this episode. Andretti 3 airs at noon eastern Sunday on ESPN2. Danica Patrick will appear on ESPN Radio’s “Mike & Mike in the Morning” and “The Dan Patrick Show” on July 28. Check your local listings for the ESPN Radio affiliate in your area.

Images appearing in this blog courtesy of R.E. Technologies.