So… here’s what I’m thinking…

Toronto Race purchased by Andretti Green!!

I may be having one of shittiest weeks personally, but by GOD, there will be a race in my city next year, and that gives me such happiness at this moment… I have no words.

No wait… I thought of a few more:

GET PAUL TRACY IN A FUCKING CAR GOD DAMNIT!!

now I’m done.

Moist… *sigh*

hmmm… did I really go the entire week without an entry? Apparently so.
I suppose I just felt like I was blogging as I was doing the majority of the coverage for www.openwheelworld.net this week, so I’ve been writing about everything, just not here. I was also a bit of a commenting bunny on everyone elses blogs this week instead of my own. Oh and I spent the last three days of the week losing, then looking for and then getting another Job. Can you say tense??? Holy crap. Anyway, crisis averted, lets get back to the racing.

So, I’m gonna say it, this week was… meh.
I’m trying to get into the whole spirit of the “Month of May”, I really am. But good lord, it’s like watching paint dry. And Pole Day… that my friends was a bit of a let down. I don’t really know what I was expecting exactly, but it was more than that. I was exhilarated when Graham was getting ready, with a few minutes to go, to go back out and try to bump Scheckter. That of course never happened, as the crew made an uncharacteristic error in judgement, so everyone stood around and stared at the gun dude for 2 minutes. *yawn*

ok… so the week in review:
Rain, rain, rain. Nuff said.

******
Tough week to be a crew member:
Following the unthinkably tragic Davey Evan’s situation that the NHL crew had to deal with, we then got to watch the Princess plow down DCR’s chief mechanic during Fast Friday (or Freaky Friday as it turned out to be) then with all the emotion her cold heart could muster she chalked it up to being “unfortunate” Gee, you fucking think so??
Even worse was the people defending her and blaming him!! LOL! classic.
Even the media spinners were in full tilt. Jack Arute had the audacity to say, on air, live, at the top half of the ABC broadcast yesterday, that Chuck was “doing fine, taking full responsibility and would probably be at the track tomorrow”. When in fact he was still in intensive care with a skull fracture and arachnoid hemoraging. (hell even I knew that and had already written about it in an update for the site, and I’m in my livingroom in fucking Canada) Dale Coyne confirmed what I knew later in the broadcast. Maybe a little fact checking and a little less spin is in order Mr. Arute.
Then today it was reported that two other crewmen, from RLR, were in an accident on the way to the shop. Neither were injured thankfully. Their car and the deer weren’t so lucky.
These things happen in threes, so hopefully that is the end of this string of bad luck.

******
Diplomat of the year award:
Jay Howard very diplomatically answered awkward questions from the ESPN track reporter (not sure who it was) regarding his being bumped from his ride. Hesitating slightly and choosing his words very carefully, I’m sure he ended up spitting out blood from biting his tongue so hard. He said he understood they had a very difficult decision and that he will be back in the car from Milwaukee onwards. But the pauses and silence said more. Personally, I think Marty should take his ass out of the car and let John and Jay contest the race. I mean come ON! Even Whindretti knew when it was time to say enough is enough, just stick to being a team owner and put someone in the car who could possibly get some results.

******
If I had a dollar for every time I heard a rumour about PT getting a ride:
Rumour has it that should both Penske cars comfortably qualify this weekend, it could open the door to a deal being brokered behind the scenes between Penske and Walker Racing to provide Walker with a spare car to run Paul Tracy for the Indy 500. Well… Both Ryan and Helio are in the show…
Please Mr. Penske!!!! PLEASE!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!! Please…
:collapses from embarrassing display of beggatry:
A Penske prepared car would be almost as good as running on a top tiered team… right? Paul?
If this does come to fruition, then the weather has played an integral part in improving PT’s chances at a good grid position considering positons 12-33 are still up for grabs. Mother Nature must be a PT fan! LOL! *fingers crossed for my boy as usual*

******
I don’t like this crashing business:
Sure crashes happen. It’s racing. It’s part of the deal. But crashes in open wheel cars on ovals are just plain scary. I know we had big scary crashes and injuries in Champ Car too. (Hell Paul’s broken back last year came from a much more innocuous shunt.) But I don’t like the whole “driving on the edge” careening towards the wall thing. Thankfully for both Alex and Ryan, neither were injured in their SAFER barrier christenings. *fingers crossed* for everyone else for the remainder…

******
In other racing news:
Voted multiple times for Patreek to get into the All-Star Race. Ya… not gonna happen, but I did my part!

F1 race as a snoozefest as usual, except for the midpack dicing between Kovalainen & Glock! That was some sweet driving right there! They need more of that. (oh and Lewis made a nice pass and made it stick too)

Little Johnny Edwards (well not so little anymore I hear) has been signed to AIM Autosport’s Star Mazda program for the remainder of 2008. They have only had one race, so he is not at that much of a disadvantage. John was in Atlantics in 07 on the jr. Forsythe team with Robbie Wickens. Good for him! Now if we can just get Charles Anti some sponsorship…

Apparently nothing is going on until Wednesday, so we all get a couple of days to rest and prepare for the next mindnumbingly boring 6hr practice session. (which will be less boring if Paul is taking to the track for the first time this month… ) (just putting it out to the universe… don’t mind me)

Ok… I just nodded off twice trying to write this, so I’m going to end here. (geesh, hope I don’t put you guys to sleep too!)

Ok… so since yesterday was a little… unexpected… I decided to hold off on everything else until today. Basically to allow my brain time to quiet down a bit.

so… the weekend.

NASCAR Richmond:
My sweet Patreek (Carpentier) qualified on the second row for the Sprint Cup race on Saturday night! Wow! Funny story. I was out on Friday night so I missed the qualifying. (movies, “Ironman” go see it! Trust me!) When I checked the race line up, I scrolled down from mid-list instinctively to find him. LOL. I got to the bottom and thought, “where the hell is he?” It never occurred to me to look higher than 15! The sad part is that when I got home from the baseball game on Saturday (well rounded sports fan me) I poured myself an adult beverage, got comfortable in my chair and watched him drop like a fucking stone through the field. Poor guy. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting that. (I really don’t get the appeal of the short tracks btw) What I wasn’t expecting was to watch him be a sitting duck in a target practice on track. Good lord! Talk about having your bell rung a few times. He walked away uninjured (thank you COT) but I’m sure he has stock in Tylenol.
I must say, I find it odd that he is in the Sprint series as opposed to the Nationwide. All of his results have been in the latter. Seems to me that would have been a more logical choice for him.
Oh and for the good Ol boys who reeled in horror at the thought of Patreek running naked… It was one of the highlights that season in Champ Car! (he did it twice as a matter of fact!) Great publicity. Fun for the fans! Vote for PC!!

A1GP Season Finale:
So technically, in theory, they went into the weekend with the title up for grabs.
In reality, Jani would have had to have had an astronomically horrible outing in both races, and New Zealand would have had to pull off two wins in order to shake things up. Mathematically it was possible… but… come on. That said, it was really great racing yet again. (I wish they made a N.American stop) I hope someday to watch a race in something larger than a 4″x 4″ box… gah.
We (my racing ya ya’s) have decided that we are going to Brand’s Hatch for the finale next year. Race Camp 09 - Across the Pond edition! (yes I know I know I’ll miss the earth shattering excitement of Rookie Orientation… :bangsheadondesk: … more on that later)
Team Canada managed to retain their 9th place finish in the Championship. (highest ever) Robbie Wickens had a stellar season, but unfortunately was unable to compete in the finale as his Formula Renault season has started. Instead of throwing rookie Daniel Morad (who has been with the team for the majority of the season as their “shake down” guy) into the driver’s seat for the weekend (which would have been the logical choice… or at least my choice) they recalled James Hinchcliffe who hasn’t driven the car for months. (????) Despite his best efforts to get up to speed, Hinch had a horrible weekend, capped off by a penalty filled feature race. (???) Probably an outing my pal James would like to put behind him and just forget.

Rookie Orientation:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Ok… so ya, not exactly the most exciting 10hrs of track time coverage I’ve been privy to. Listen IMS peeps. You’ve got 10hrs of captive audience airtime. You’ve got a field full of rookies. Use that time to do a little google/wiki research and chat up the dearth of new drivers to the fanbase. That way come the actual race, we all know who everyone is, and you’re not interrupting the on-track action for fluff pieces and fun facts. Everybody wins!
As for the actual orientation itself. Pretty uneventful, other than Camara becoming acquainted with the safer barrier. (doesn’t he have the most if not most recent experience on ovals? and this track in particular?) 11 of the 13 drivers completed all 4 phases of the program. The two Mario’s have one more phase to complete at some point this week I would imagine.
Top time of the rookies was 223 (Lloyd) followed by a handful in the 222 range. It will be interesting to see what the veterans have in store today and how the rookies improve over the next couple of days leading to the qualifying process.

And finally, back to the events of yesterday…

The news finally trickled into the mainstream. (kept quiet until next of Kin in England could be notified) First short stories with some vague “facts”, still misleading and misrepresenting what happened and the nature of the confrontation and the people involved. (this was not a drunkin bar brawl in some dive with a bunch of punks!) As the story spread and was expanded, with quotes from NHL general manager Brian Lisles, the true nature of Davey Evans was revealed and the heinous randomness of what occurred brought to light.

People have been commenting to myself and others saying that it must be harder for those of us that knew him. In a way we all “knew” him in that he was one of our extended racing family. One of those uniformed grunts who would nod or smile from the pits when you walked by or with whom we would chat and laugh with in the paddock. He represents all of our friends on teams everywhere. Their joy is our joy, their pain is our pain.

I would like to say I can’t even imagine the sadness affecting the NHL crew right now, but truthfully I can. That kind of shock/sadness/anger feels like you’re suffocating. The saving grace is that they are rooted for a couple of weeks, with the entire racing community in one place. I’m sure the support and brotherhood of the paddock will go along way towards healing their broken hearts. Maybe this tragedy will be the polarizing factor that brings that sense of community that Champ Car had back to the IndyCar side of things.

and with that… I’m outta here

I’m just gutted for the entire team. Heartbreaking story

It’s not like it was some dive biker bar either. According to my sources It was a nice bar/restaurant about 20ft from their hotel. The were about to leave to go home when the goon jumped on the table and kick Evan’s (in the head) unprovoked. The autopsy is to determine if it was the initial blow or the fall that killed him. I guess that will determine the severity of the charges against the braintrust of douchebags that think attacking people for sport is “fun”

From everyone I’ve talked to this morning, it is unanimous that Davey Evans was one of the “nicest guys in the paddock”. I didn’t deal directly with him by any means, but when I received the picture this morning I knew exactly who he was and know I have spoken with and shared a smile and laugh with at the track.

There is oddly NO mention of this on any official Indy news site. I guess “they” (whomever they are) are trying to either snuff it out or spin it so as not to draw any negative press to Indianapolis or the race.

Not what I wanted to start my day/week talking about.

I’ll save my weekend wrap up for later…

UPDATE:
I still find it incredible that there has been virtually NO mention of this incident in the mainstream. (it’s now 5:15pm EDT) Very weird.

Davey was a much loved crew member that was with Newman-Haas since the virtually the beginning (40 or so yrs according to various friends) Current and past crew members from many teams in the paddock are just in shock that this mild mannered gentleman died in such a vicious and senseless way.

The weird thing is, as a motorsports writer, I prepare myself weekly for the possibility that I will have to write condolences and an obituary type article. It’s the nature of the beast. But this… this was just so… stupid for lack of a better word. My heart goes out to his girlfriend. I’m sure she too prepared herself for something happening at the track or in the shop, but this? Not this.

Just goes to show you you never know what’s around the corner.

I’m torn between sadness, ridiculous anger and a need to make changes in my life. It’s too short to not be living it to the fullest.

If you’re reading this today, be happy wherever you are.

Call your friends, hug your loved ones, make your day count. Appreciate the life that those vile punks showed such disregard for.

to back-markers??

Seriously, I just turned on SpeedTV and there is a show called “Go or Go home” that is devoted to all those boys who are outside the top 35 automatic entry into the show. That’s funny. I guess it’s good that they and their sponsors get a little airtime/interview time. Ahh… the Nascar machine man. Hey maybe IndyCar can do their own show called “5 laps down” so that all the kids at the back can get a little face time!

Patreek is looking good today (12th in Cup practice)

I don’t understand why they don’t run him in both series. (especially when they are running the same track that weekend) Seems like a logical way to get some seat/track time. Besides, he’s had all of his results in Nationwide.

*shrug* who knows.

Ok… I just heard the phrase “knock a little new offa them” in reference to warming up the tires… time to change the channel.