Toyota wins; world still stands

(Note: I apologize for the erratic schedule for my posts. But when I finally get home from covering late games and doubleheaders for the MIAA state tournament -- like I have been doing for the past couple of weeks -- the thing I need to see is a bed and not another computer. Still, I'll try to do better in sticking to once-a-week posts in the future. -- CE)

Today, I got up at 7 a.m. to the sounds of WBUR, which is the norm whenever I crash at my girlfriend's apartment. Pulling some fresh clothes out of my backpack, I got dressed and left the apartment. Grabbing the 39 bus back to Northeastern, I brushed my teeth and took two T trains to the Globe. I also tucked into a couple bowls of Cheerios from the cafeteria and went about the normal morning tasks: getting mail, filling the archives, etc.

Why do I share this, my normal morning routine, with you?

Because it's been 15 or 16 hours since Toyota, the Japanese auto manufacturer and the supposed scourge of those who believe in an All-American NASCAR, won its first Sprint Cup Series race in Hampton, Ga.

And somehow, someway, the world is still standing. People are still doing their normal 9-to-5 jobs. Nothing has fallen off its axis. Well, except the anti-Toyota brigade, who probably fell flat on their backs after Kyle Busch took the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry to Victory Lane at Atlanta Motor Speedway yesterday.

In a race that saw Carl Edwards' bid for three straight wins fall to engine failure and Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. ripping into Goodyear for their apparently dodgy tire, Busch's victory will go down in the history books. But while his win will be remembered as the first NASCAR victory for a foreign car brand since 1954 (Al Linden in a Jaguar at Linden, N.J.), it should also be noted as a comeback of sorts for his car, the No. 18.

It wasn't too long ago that the No. 18, driven by Bobby Labonte from 1995 to 2005, was a true contender. He won the 2000 Sprint Cup (then Winston Cup) title in that car and he also won six victories at Atlanta Motor Speedway in that green Interstate Batteries machine. As a young Dale Earnhardt fan in the late 1990s, I'd cringe a little when the NASCAR circus headed to Atlanta, because at that time, the track was Labonte territory.

If anybody was going to win there -- Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, anybody -- they were going to have to dust the No. 18 to do it. At that time, they couldn't.

So while the "I hate Toyota" legion will probably be crying tears in their beers all day today, I'll look back on Kyle Busch's win on Sunday with a bit of schadenfreude and some nostalgia.

In a world that's still standing. In a world that's still normal.

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In the past two weeks, the IndyCar Series regulars have taken part in Open Tests on the Homestead Miami Speedway oval and the Sebring International Raceway road course in Florida. The usual suspects -- Team Penske, Andretti Green Racing and Target Chip Ganassi Racing -- were on top in both tests and look to be the teams to beat again this season.

The oval tests saw three-time defending Homestead champion Dan Wheldon lead the first day, while AGR's Danica Patrick led the second day while dealing with a flu bug that knocked her out of the previous day's events (teammate Marco Andretti had to shake down her No. 7 machine in her absence). The series then moved to Sebring last week for four days of testing on a 1.7-mile, modified version of the track.

The teams were split into two groups and each group got two days of track time. Group 1 saw AGR's Tony Kanaan take the top spot in both days, a feat that saw Kanaan take P1 from new teammate Hideki Mutoh in the final minutes of Day 2. Days 3 and 4 saw the second group led by new Penske driver Ryan Briscoe, who takes over for NASCAR neophyte Sam Hornish Jr. in the No. 6 Dallara. Following him on both days was his teammate, two-time Indy 500 champ Helio Castroneves.

As for the new teams coming over from the dearly departed Champ Car World Series, that count stands at three. Newman/Haas/Lanigan, KV Racing, and Conquest Racing will bring two cars apiece, making six new machines for the grid. But a pair of teams that were expected to go over to the unified series will not be there.

Forsythe Championship Racing will close down after the Long Beach Grand Prix in April, which will be run under IRL sanction but use Champ Car equipment in a "farewell party" of sorts. And just this weekend, Derrick Walker announced that his squad, which has run under the Team Australia banner for several years in the CCWS, will be shutting down immediately.

But how's this for a possible kicker? Apparently, the hot rumor is that Craig Gore, Walker's former partner in the Team Australia project, is now gonna move over to KV Racing -- which is led by fellow Aussie and former Champ Car series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven. And there's supposedly a bill of $1.5 million that Gore needs to pay to Walker.

With Walker's closedown, his drivers Will Power and Simon Pagenaud are free agents -- and if The Indianapolis Star's telling the truth, Power's set to go to KV. Connect the dots and it looks like Kalkhoven has effectively jacked Walker of his sponsor and his top pilot.

In any case, that sticks the IndyCar Series two cars short of the 8-10 cars they were expecting with unification. The rest of the CCWS teams -- Dale Coyne Racing, Rocketsports, Minardi Team USA and Pacific Coast Motorsports -- have been a bit silent lately. Could we see two more cars from that bunch soon?

We should know more when the Champ Car squads have their first Open Tests as IndyCar Series teams on March 18-20 at Sebring and March 24-25 at Homestead. The season begins March 29.

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Formula One finally gets its 2008 campaign under way this weekend in Melbourne, Australia. But while Melbourne has been the site of the F1 season-opener for many years, the city may not be in that position for much longer.

Melbourne's contract with F1 ends in 2010 and with Bernie Ecclestone putting heat on the Aussies to move their grand prix to a night-time start, it appears they'll be appeasing him -- and TV watchers throughout Europe -- by moving the start time to twilight in 2009. Bloomberg reports that it will cost almost $40 million to install a lighting system at Melbourne's Albert Park.

F1 will make its debut "under the stars" this year on Sept. 28 with the inaugural Singapore Grand Prix.