Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 Pseudo-Live Blog

Hold onto your hats, folks! The wind is a-blowin and the skies are ugly above Kansas City, KS, but they're still lining the cars up and getting ready to roll.

A brief look into the radar scope tells me that there is a giant, nasty thunderstorm not too far to the west of Kansas Speedway, but the wind is sending all of that northeast past Kansas City. However, there is a big green blob of rain on the radar that has been splitting off to the east of the main storm and that looks to be what will cause problems. No tornado warnings like yesterday, but lots of wind and possibly some rain.

All reports and highlights of the Indy Lights race that I've seen show a massive war of attrition against the wind. Turns 3 & 4 looked like a parking lot/junkyard as cars were spinning, crashing, and flipping all over the place. If the IndyCar drivers are all winding around in their trademark crazy packs of cars, there could easily be many problems. More to come as the race moves along...

4:28, pre-race
Danica's hair is all over the place as she interviews Robbie Floyd about her win last year at Motegi. Obligatory shot of her Shape Magazine cover -- yellow bikinis and airbrushed muscles ahoy!

4:30, pre-race
Obligatory package about Helio. From what I've heard through various sources, he was in some sort of court case...something about money and the government not getting enough and coming up with elaborate conspiracy theories to get $5 mil...


Video of Helio's reaction to the Danica Patrick magazine cover. He tries desperately to avoid a harassment lawsuit and says, "She look fit...nice magazine" Something like that.

4:36, pre-race
Hey, it's Rick Mears! If he jumped in a car and got a few refresher laps, how many of the current drivers do you think he'd whip? I'd say a lot.

4:43, pre-race
As an owner, Robbie Buhl does not like the wind. He also points out some captain obviousness and says you don't want to wreck your car because you don't want to spend the early part of May fixing it. Good work...

4:44, pre-race
Predictions! Arute: Dixon, Thackston: Kanaan, Floyd: Wheldon, Beekhuis: Dixon, Buhl: Dixon, Jenkins: Castroneves. Everyone sees Doornbos as having the best shot of the non-winners except Jenkins, who is looking at Sarah Fisher for that honor.

4:47, pre-race
The Washington Capitals won game 6 of their first round series against the Rangers! Good show, Caps! Give 'em hell!

4:50, pre-race
"Transformers, robots in disguise!" It's still cloudy and windy...can barely hear the command to start engines and it sounds like the IRL officials calling the "hot" engines are struggling through the wind.

4:53, pre-race
Cars are rolling. It really feels like Barnhart is hurrying the start so we can get as much action in as possible

4:54, pre-race
Looks like pressdog and the defender should've brought a few more friends; the stands don't look too great. I suppose there are some road blockages and such from the storms to the west.

Lap 1
We're green! The red cars of...er...N/H/L lead the pack through 1 & 2. Dixon already through to 2nd.

Lap 3
Carpenter holding his own against Dan Wheldon...surprise to me

Lap 5
Kanaan thought about going three wide...not a good plan in this wind, friend.

Lap 7
He goes 3-wide anyway...

Lap 9
Dixon past Rahal for the lead! Who would've thought? He's already faaar away from Rahal.

Lap 12
The front runners are spreading out a bit. Maybe Barnhart said they should stay cool because of the wind.

Lap 15
YELLOW! Vitor backs off and Helio sticks his front wing where it don't belong. Wings all over the track, but Helio might be able to continue.

Lap 17
Looks like Vitor got loose in a gust of wind and Helio had nowhere to go. Tough break for all. Helio pits to remove debris, will change nose on the full-on pit stops.

Lap 18
Pit stops! Butts are whipped mercilessly by Robert Doornbos. Looks like in his haste to get out, he knocked Graham Rahal's tire all over a crewman.

Lap 19
Doornbos bent over Barnhart's knee, spanked thoroughly, and sent to the back of the field.

Lap 22
Restart! Dixon leads....for the moment. Rahal impatient and tries the outside in 1 & 2

Lap 23
Dixon holds the spot

Lap 24
"Look how close they are at 208 mph!" Bob Jenkins has a Scott Goodyear moment there...stop that!

Lap 28
Danica lost a couple spots when the lapped E.J. Viso drifts up the track towards her in Turn 3.

Lap 33
Helio is on a mission...a mission from God. He moves up from the back, broke his wing, then moved back up to 11th.

Lap 36
Helio moves to the top 10

Lap 37
We do they only do the full-screen advertisements during green flag racing? Even as a member of the industry, I do not understand...

Lap 43
Viso throws in the towel. Maybe suspension damage when that wing hit him?

Lap 46
Kanaan showing us how difficult is it to go high in 3 & 4...lots of wheel-sawing and loose car-ness.

Lap 49
Meira says Hideki Mutoh balked him, which led to the slowdown, which led to Helio punting him off the track.

Lap 52
Holy nuts...Wheldon climbed waaaay up the track in a wind gust.

Lap 56
3-Wide madness on the back stretch. Danica, Helio, and some other tiny car on the side-by-side. Kanaan passes Rahal for 2nd.

Lap 64
Kanaan is definitely closing the gap to Dixon...must really want to shave Dario's head. Briscoe looking for third from Rahal.

Lap 69
Pit stops ahoy! Seemingly everyone but Dixon and his magical fuel system into the pit lane.

Lap 72
Dixon in the pits! Let's see where he comes out as Helio also on his way in...

Lap 74
Dixon leads after pit stops by over 3 seconds...please, no more suspense!

Lap 80
Jack Arute tells us that the rains are inching ever closer. Looks like they'll beat halfway and maybe get to Lap 150.

Lap 83
Remember how Dan Wheldon seemed to have a different paint job every week last year? Yeah...that's still the same now that Dario's in the car.

Lap 87
Dixon has lapped up to 14th position. This has quickly dissolved into more of a parade than the street races...

Lap 93
Briscoe all over Kanaan for 2nd. Looks like he'll get him.

Lap 97
Rafa Matos apparently found some wall action. Right-front tire not pointed in the right direction at all. He lost the air following Moraes, drove right up the track into the wall.

Lap 99
Pit stops! Right at halfway, too. Briscoe beats everyone, followed by Kanaan, Dixon, and Castroneves.

Lap 101
Halfway through! If it rains now, it's all over. The race is only 52 minutes old...

Lap 102
Arute tells us that, in order to win a race, it's good to be up front...Thanks, Jack.

Lap 104
I assumed we'd be green two laps ago. There was like...no debris on that wreck.

Lap 105
Restart! Dixon wants second and takes it. Lots of side-by-side back in the pack. Dario loses a lot of ground.

Lap 112
Jack Arute definitely just smashed an egg in his hand. Art of the highest caliber there.

Lap 118
The top 8 are in a big straight line. Where's the urgency over the rain? I want silly, Viso-esque crazy moves!

Lap 121
Helio tries to pass Kanaan, but can't. Settles back into the line of monotony.

Lap 124
Dario takes 8th! How interesting is that? Yeah, I feel like I'm being lulled to sleep right now.

Lap 131
VERSUS cuts away right as Castroneves sticks his nose up the back of Kanaan's car. According to timing and scoring, Helio took the spot...I'm glad I got to see it happen...oh wait

Lap 138
Well, as least they went back and showed us the pass. Hey look! M***a D**o is slow as crap!

Lap 140
Dario wants 6th from Danica, but Barrett balks the nuts off of him and Dario falls waaaaaay back.

Lap 143
Danica playing the "Jaws" music for Graham Rahal. Carpenter decided he doesn't like Wheldon being in 8th and takes it.

Lap 149
Being in traffic must be a problem, 'cause everyone who leads runs away

Lap 151
Dario must be hella fast and....he's so fast he runs up into the wall. Timely wreck, Dario. YELLOW! Ryan Briscoe was slowing to pit and he got screwed by the yellow.

Lap 152
Dario was following Rahal to the pits, Rahal slowed a lot, and Dario actually locked his brakes on the backstretch. That doesn't work on ovals.

Lap 155
Pit stops! Dixon out first, Helio follows behind, then Kanaan, Briscoe, and Marco.

Lap 157
I was ABOUT to say that Dario was really hauling. He had passed Danica and probably would've been by Rahal with about 45 laps left. Then he kind of...went a little too fast.

Lap 159
Ah, a retrospective about Tony Hulman. The man is almost single-handedly responsible for making the sport what it is...oh, and there's a race in Kansas.

Lap 161
Some of the most beautiful words I've heard all day: "no conserving fuel"

Lap 165
Danica apparently slaughtered Marco on the restart. he's waaay behind right now.

Lap 170
30-ish to go, it's Dixon, Helio, Kanaan, Briscoe, Danica. They're far adrift of the res of the field and, in fact, starting to split up a bit themselves.

Lap 177
Jack Arute mentions that the wind has died down some. That bodes well for the race for the finish.

Lap 180
20 to go. It's looking like Dixon vs. Helio at the moment, the next three have lost some ground to Dixon.

Lap 184
We could use a "debris caution" to liven things up a bit here. Dixon makes oval racing so boring sometimes.

Lap 185
Rahal desperate for 7th, goes three wide with Mutoh and a lapped Barrett.

Lap 190
10 to go. Dixon still far adrift of the field. Yawn.

Lap 195
5 to go, same story, different lap.

Lap 200
Dixon takes the white flag, still running away with this one.

Checkered Flag
Scott Dixon wins going away! Castroneves, Kanaan, Briscoe, Patrick, Andretti, Rahal, Mutoh, Carpenter, Wheldon.

The wind make this a rather uninteresting race -- well, I think it was the wind. It seemed like, if you got close to any other cars, yours would go silly and lose touch with what you wanted it to do. I'm really hoping it had nothing to do with the chassis or the wing settings or whatever, because that would take away one of the IRL's most marketable aspects.

My predictions: I certainly got the winner right. It's usually not a good idea to bet against Ganassi racing, especially when a driver like Dixon had been having a bad season so far. Good work there by those guys.

Dark Horse: Graham Rahal didn't do too badly for himself in 7th, but he was nowhere near the top guys. Newman/Haas/Lanigan is a good team, but they're still behind on the ovals.

Ninja Dark Horse: Robert Doornbos looked like he would be fast and running near the front...until he ran all over Graham Rahal's tire in the pit lane. The penalty for doing that took him out of the lead and stuck him in a no-man's-land of turbulence and traffic.

Danica Watch: ...was pretty spot-on. She did all the right stuff, stayed out of trouble, didn't bite anyone's head off, and finished fifth. She was in the lead pack towards the end, but this race was not conducive to pack racing and she didn't really have a shot at the lead. Good work for her, though.

Sarah Watch: She kept the car clean and completed 199 of the 200 laps. The car is in one piece and you can bet she'll be ready for May 6, opening day of practice at Indianapolis.

That's it for Kansas. It was a lot more controlled than the Indy Lights race apparently was, and only one of the incidents could really be attributed to the wind. (Matos washing out and drifting into the wall) The IndyCar series is off for the next four weeks because, finally, it is the month of May. The next race is the 93rd running of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race. Oh lord, I cannot wait.