It's Saturday, so let's crank up the lights, fill up the stands, and have ourselves a good, old-fashioned short track race.
I'll skip the endless gushing about how great I think Richmond International Raceway is, but just understand that I think this track is just fantastic. The IRL needs -- NEEDS -- to go out into America and dig up good, unique tracks like this one. Unlike the soulless, nearly identical 1.5-milers at Chicago, Kansas, Las Vegas, and Kentucky and the slightly better but just-as-identical tracks at Texas, Charlotte, and Atlanta, there are a ton of tracks out there that are their own beast. Since the IRL is obviously trying to diversify its schedule CART-style, they need to get more unique little tracks that actually require that the driver drives the car, don'tcha know.
Tonight's race, much like the first half of the race last week at Iowa, has a chance to be rather interesting, since the teams that spend the most time in the wind tunnel won't necessarily be the teams at the front at the end. As we saw last week with omas Scheckter, the driver that feels very confident in his or her equipment can make a ton of noise on restarts and in traffic. There are some pretty good drivers lined up pretty deep in the field, so we'll see if guys like Tony Kanaan can put on a few passes and work their way toward the front.
My predictions that were spot-on last week for whatever reason:
Winner: Dario Franchitti. He was fast in practice, he was really fast in qualifying, and I see no reason to not believe that Dario will make it two-for-two on the short tracks this season. Richmond has lower banking and a shorter lap, but the layout and the style of racing is pretty similar to what we saw last week, where Dario dominated the last portion of the race.
Dark Horse: Hideki Mutoh. Hideki was very solid last week and, despite being mired back a bit in qualifying, he has been very fast in practice. Hideki is one of those guys who very quietly works his way towards the front and just kind of sits and waits for his time. If Tony Kanaan doesn't work his way up towards the front at one of his better tracks, Hideki could be the guy to bring Andretti/Green their first win since this time last year.
Ninja Dark Horse: Raphael Matos. He's not really that far behind Mutoh in my opinion, but I'll put down his inexperience and his place on a team that has never found victory lane as the reasons his victory would be a huge surprise. Matos has been surprisingly fast in his U.S. Marines car this weekend and we know he's had the speed to be near the front on other tracks. Perhaps tonight can be the night Matos and Luczo-Dragon make it happen.
Danica Watch: The outlook is not particularly good for Danica. This is a very middle-of-the-road kind of race for Danica and it will probably be a victory for her to be in the top half of the field by the end of the race.
Coverage starts at 8 on VERSUS (thank God) and the green flag should be dropping at 8:45. A friend of mine is celebrating his birthday tonight, so no live blog for me. I'll have the DVR fired up and I'll try and get a review up tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment