News and notes
NASCAR's latest failure to secure a big-city speedway in Seattle can be chalked up to several possible reasons. Perhaps they asked for too much money to help build it. Perhaps stock car racing just isn't their cup of tea -- or in this case, coffee. Perhaps the circuit's attempt to cleanse its supposedly "redneck" past hasn't worked as well as they hoped.
Whatever the reason, the national expansion of America's number one motor sport is hitting some speedbumps. On the heels of New York City's rejection of an International Speedway Corporation-owned facility that would be on Staten Island, Washington state officials have stopped ISC from planning to create a track on Puget Sound, across from Seattle. While they are free to check out other sites in southern and eastern Washington state, the Emerald City is not becoming NASCAR City anytime soon.
All of which rankles ESPN.com's Terry Blount, who believes that state officials aren't getting the point. "These Washington state officials don't get it. NASCAR and ISC want to build tracks in major markets," he writes in his latest piece. "That's the point. That's what sponsors want. Building a new facility that's more than an hour's drive from a major city defeats the purpose. It also causes problems for people coming from other areas with fewer hotels rooms and restaurants, not to mention far fewer things to do near the track."
I can't help but believe that this uprising on the East and West Coasts has rankled the suits in Daytona Beach. NASCAR seems to have hit a plateau of sorts in TV ratings and now, it's nearly common to see a block or two of empty seats for most races. Granted, NASCAR's problems are problems every other series would kill for, so maybe I'm thinking too much about this.
But with NASCAR's noted attempt at future globalization with the addition of Busch Series races in Mexico and Canada, as well as that of Latin American superstar Juan Pablo Montoya, are they going to have to take care of home first before they conquer the globe? The coasts are pretty much the last outposts where stick-and-ball sports enjoy undisputed rule. They're the stock car series' Achilles' heel.
To me, NASCAR looks like they'll do anything to get the coasts' approval, including ours. But seeing as how you're all probably watching Daisuke Matsuzaka right now instead of reading this, I can only imagine that NASCAR will have some more work to do.
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Team Penske's Helio Castroneves bounced back from a ninth-place finish in the IndyCar Series season opener to take his second straight Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg (Fla.) title last weekend on the 1.8-mile street circuit. Castroneves, the two-time Indianapolis 500 champion, defeated a lurking Scott Dixon of Target Chip Ganassi Racing by .6007 seconds, the closest road/street course finish in series history.
The victory by "Spiderman" creates a sense of deja vu in the IndyCar Series. In 2006, the first three races were won by Dan Wheldon (Homestead-Miami), followed by Castroneves victories at St. Pete and at Motegi, Japan. The same has played out in 2007 with Wheldon's victory at Miami and Helio's latest triumph last Sunday.
With the increase of three more races to the schedule this year, 2006's domination for TCGR and Penske may be even longer in 2007 and that's something no one in the paddock is looking forward to, that's for sure. We'll have to see if anybody else is up for keeping history from repeating itself on April 20, when the IndyCars contest the Indy Japan 300 at the 1.5-mile Twin Ring Motegi oval. Castroneves is the defending champion in Japan.
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The Champ Car World Series finally starts its 2007 season this weekend on the streets of Las Vegas after months of driver shifts, testing turmoil and acclimation. As of this writing, the usual 18-car field is still not set as two cars remain without drivers. All of those cars are brand new Panoz-built DP01 machines, designed to cut costs and equalize the field. However, we expect all isn't right with said machines if your defending champion takes shots at it on record.
The defending champion -- make that three-time defending champion -- is France's Sebastien Bourdais and it appears everything's on target for a fourth straight CCWS crown. Backed by the top team in the series, Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, Bourdais remains strong as ever in his McDonald's machine. Not only that, his top nemesis A.J. Allmendinger (who won five races last year) is now off in Nextel Cup, leaving 2003 series champion Paul Tracy to deal with him alone.
His team, Forsythe Championship Racing, will add a second car for Mexican driver Mario Dominguez for the first three races -- how much that will distract Tracy is something to look for. It shouldn't mean much though as the Canadian pilot has been through the fire before.
Another key development is the merging of Rocketsports and RuSPORT into one "team" -- RSports. The new venture features last year's series runner-up Justin Wilson and the return of Alex Tagliani, a Canadian whose only CCWS win in 2004 came with Rocketsports. However, they're still one-car teams essentially. The alliance mostly lies in the sharing of technical info and race data. One-car teams don't often fare well these days, but Wilson's evolved into a solid driver and Tagliani's got experience on his side. A few surprises may be in store.
But the biggest story besides Bourdais and those new DP01's is the CCWS debut of Graham Rahal, son of IndyCar team owner and former Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal. He'll be the Frenchman's teammate at NHL and he comes in off a five-win 2006 season in the Atlantic series, CCWS' development league. Hailed by many as America's newest road racing star in the wake of Allmendinger's defection to stock cars, Rahal is all of 18 years old. And while he performed well during testing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in California this spring, he also hasn't raced a major-league car for a few hours either. His progress may be the only thing keeping CCWS fans from snoozing away the season as Bourdais destroys all comers to get title number four.
I'll swing it over to Speed Channel's Robin Miller for his thoughts on this year's season. I'd read it if you wanted to get the rest of the details on the paddock.
