Franchitti Wins at Long Beach

Welcome to Long Beach, one of the greatest street car races in the world.

The VERSUS team gets right to it with the story of Helio’s court case

(Thanks: WFOR-TV)

He was welcomed back with open arms in the pits.

And then there was the mistakes of Helio was he tried to get used to his car and team again.

His hit during qualifying hurt resulting in a headache.

But Helio’s troubles including the headache are gone and he is ready to race.

Over to Grahm Rahal, “We want to do well for them.” (Paul Newman’s friends and family) Long Beach was one of Newman’s favorite tracks.

Paul Tracy is back for the Indianapolis 500 and presumably Edmonthon and Toronto.

Yes that is the GEICO geko with Max Pappis inder the head. “I am going back to the Indy 500 with hopes of coming back to the series.” According to PT, a win at Indy should equate to his return to the series.

Kick the tires and light the fire, Will Power is one the pole but didn’t immediate roll off with the grid. No worries, he is off and rolling.

We are green!

Unlike last weekend there are now circus antics lake last weekend at St. Pete. In fact there were no incidents on the first lap. Mr. Barnhardt’s lecture must have been effective.

Lap 14 and Mike Conway meets the tire barrier.

Soon after leader Will Power slows and in the backup ScottDixon and EJ Viso touch and Viso goes airborne.

Now to lap 23 and we have a big mess.

Bring in the clowns.

Dan Weldon, Darren Manning, Mario Moraes, Hideki Mutoh and Junsin Wilson were involved in the traffic jam.

Stanton Barrett goes off course bringing out a local yellow.

Later, Ed Carpenter noses into turn one.

Mike Conway looses it and puts it into the wall.

Now under caution, Graham Rahal goes to leave the pits and the fuel hose is attached.

It looks bad and could have been much worse but thankfully VERSUS did not report any injuries.

Mario Moraes hits the rumble strips and buries himself deeeep in the tire barrier.

Ed Carpenter got a little off and pulled up besides Moraes but all was good.

Under caution, Ryan Briscoe gets into the back of Scott Dixon coming out of the hairpin spinning him around and damaging Briscoe’s car.

Briscoe is called to pit lane for a penalty as a result of the hit under caution.

In the final laps, March Andretti gets into Dan Weldon in the hairpin but both continue.

As Vitor Meira gets into the tires on the final lap,

Dario Franchitti takes his first win since returning to the series as his wife celebrates.

The win is Franchitti’s 9th in the series and comes on his wife’s (Ashley Judd) birthday.

IndyCar Series Long Beach Finish
Dario Franchitti
Will Power
Tony Kanaan
Danica Patrick
Dan Weldon
Marco Andretti
Helio Castroneves
Raphael Matos
Robert Doornbos
Alex Tagliani
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Graham Rahal
Ryan Briscoe
Vitor Meira
Scott Dixon
Darren Manning
Stanton Barrett
Ed Carpenter
Mario Moraes
Hideki Mutoh
Mike Conway
Justin Wilson
EJ Viso

Ideas, thoughts, questions? Drop me a line at bjohnson_292@comcast.net.

Images appearing in this blog courtesy of IMS Productions and VERSUS.

Ryan Briscoe Wins IndyCar Opener/ Carl Edwards Wins WWE Championship

Ryan Briscoe Wins IndyCar Opener

Welcome to the IndyCar Series opener at St. Pete.

Green flag and the IRL takes a page out of

Champ Car and a cluster evolves.

Tony Kanaan gets into pole sitter Graham Rahal.

Other cars go spinning.

On the replay we see Alex Tagliani

going “Dukes of Hazard” over Graham Rahal’s nose.

This accident isn’t anyone’s fault in particular, it was just the whole field going for the same spot.

Mike Conway who appears to get the worst of it.

Rahal and Kanaan come in for new front wings. Green again and this time the single file start is clean. We go to commercial break and all heck breaks loose.

Raphael Matos gets a run on Danica Patrick but does not get beside her

and takes her out

in a turn that was not the best for passing.

The result is an extremely HARD slide into the wall that had to hurt. The hit was so hard it moved the temporary wall.

After the incident, the two drivers got out of their cars to discuss the incident.

Talking about Matos’ move, Danica Patrick told VERSUS’ Jack Arute, “It was a brave maneuver that did not make it.”

About the same time that the Danica Patrick and Matos spin-o-rama was occurring,

Hideki Mutoh gets into Mario Moraes

and he goes spinning.

And Vitor Meira got into Alex Tagliani cutting Atag’s tire.

Will Power makes a mistake and misses his pits which kills the pit stop of Scott Dixon. The result, a horrid pits top by Dixon whose team has to slowly slide back his car to even get close to the fuel nozzle.

Lap 55 and Stanton Barrett brings out a full course caution for a stall.

Lap 81 now and Scott Dixon gets into Hideki Mutoh and breaks something in this left front suspension.

The next turn and Dixon is into the wall as a result of the suspension.

Robert Doornbos gets into Dan Weldon and Hideki Mutoh and Marco Andretti all get collected.

In the mayhem Ryan Hunter-Reay gets by for second place on this corner.

Alex Tagliani slides to the inside and takes out Marco Andretti.

Green with three laps to go. Ryan Briscoe gasses it and holds off Ryan Hunter-Reay for the win.

After the race, team owner Roger Penske told VERSUS, “This one is for Helio.”

IndyCar Series St. Petersburg Finish

Ryan Briscoe
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Justin Wilson
Dario Franchitti
Tony Kanaan
Will Power
Graham Rahal
Darren Manning
Vitor Meira
Alex Tagliani
Robert Doornbos
Stanton Barrett
Marco Andretti
Dan Weldon
Hideki Mutoh
Scott Dixon
EJ Viso
Ed Carpenter
Danica Patrick
Raphael Matos
Mario Moraes
Mike Conway

Carl Edwards wins the WWE Championship (Not Really)
(No stills due to restrictions)
When John Cena won the WWE World Championship belt tonight, he headed out in the crowd to pose with Open Wheeler Carl Edwards and his Roush PR dude Randy Fuller. Nice!

Images appearing in this blog courtesy of IMS Productions and VERSUS.