No live blog today, folks. Father's Day dictated that I enjoy today's race from Iowa over fish and chips and a pint of Guinness...and my dad and I enjoyed the heck out of it!
I also enjoyed the race itself, for the most part. Today's race featured an old friend who has been missing from the series all season: passing. Tomas Scheckter got it off to a solid start by passing seven cars on the first lap before E.J. Viso brought out the yellow out...more on the color yellow in a moment. Scheckter was blindingly fast on fresh tires and was up to second place at one point before falling back...more on Tomas in a moment as well.
Unlike so many races so far this year, the lead of the race was decided under green flag conditions with an on-track pass, then solidified by green flag pit stops. Sure, the racing got a little dull when the green flag ended up being out for a vast majority of the race's second half, but that's how those sorts of things work. That does not change the fact that Dario Franchitti had to catch Ryan Briscoe (first time that seems to have happened this year), then shove his car onto the inside like and complete a pass in order to win. What an amazing and novel concept -- something that certainly didn't happen in the NASCAR race or the Formula One race today.
For an event sponsored by Iowa's corn-growing conglomerate, it seemed appropriate that the yellow flag was so prominent for the first half of the race. Apart from E.J. Viso throwing his car on a suicide run around the outside on Turn 4 on the first lap, all of the incidents took place at the exit of Turn 2. The reason: after two years of settling soil, the ground around the track's infield access tunnel is at a slightly lower level than it was in 2007. The tunnel, however, hasn't moved and there's a fairly pronounced bump between Turns 1 & 2. Everyone played off the incidents as cold tire issues or simple snapping loose, but the evidence is there: lots of black double-helix tire marks heading towards the wall at the exit of Turn 2. Moving an access tunnel is no easy task, but something will need to be done if the problem worsens next year.
As for my predictions this week: I was so completely correct that I couldn't believe it. Dario Franchitti won, and he did it convincingly with obligatory Ashley Judd interviews and everything. I erred a bit in my preview when I said that Dario hadn't won a thing since 2007; he, of course, won at Long Beach this year "like a gentleman" (according to Mrs. Franchitti).
Dark horse candidate Tony Kanaan was certainly strong and held the lead for quite a long time before disaster struck after a mid-race pit stop. A mix of cold tires and that pesky bump sent TK into the wall and ended his day. It'd be interesting to see where he might have ended up had that not happened.
Ninja dark horse pick Tomas Scheckter -- along with teammate Mike Conway -- was the massive surprise of the day. Schecketer, who was crammed back in 16th at the start by the fact that qualifying was set on entrant points, immediately shot towards the front of the pack at the start. He was absolutely spectacular on fresh tires when everyone else was struggling to get up to temperature. Restarts were a festival of three-wide, outside-line passes by the Mona-Vie car and, in spite of "only" finishing sixth, Scheckter was definitely one of the strongest cars out there. Should be interesting to see where he ends up at Richmond.
The Danica Watch turned out to also be correct, as she ended up in ninth place at the end. The #7 car was happy early on, and some sound pit work put her at the front for some time. Unfortunately, the car became less happy as the day wore on and she drifted down the time sheet. Now that her top five run is over, she is starting to lose her grip on the upper tier of the points battle and that could effect things as her contract situation rolls along (since that is obviously based entirely on her talent and not on marketability at all...).
The next round is at one of my absolute favorite tracks in America, Richmond International Raceway. 3/4-mile, 60 foot wide, d-shaped gladiator arena that tends to get pretty good crowds to boot. It hosts two of the NASCAR races that I actually enjoy watching and the IRL race is pretty darn good too. Plus, as an added bonus, we get our VERSUS coverage back and can forget about ABC for a night. Looking forward to it, for sure.
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