I hate to say it…

but I am soooooo relieved there is no racing this weekend. (at least none of the series I cover) I have so much to catch up on this weekend. Tons of reading, a truckload of writing, and approximately 5 days worth of cleaning, all of which is to be somehow packed into the 2 days allotted. I will however attempt to find a feed of the A1GP finale somewhere and watch for fun. For fun!? imagine that…

oh and in case you haven’t seen it yet…

booyah! NOW I’m excited about the Month of May….

*thanks to @kvracing for the pic!! *

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breakfast bloggy…

So, let’s look at where we are heading into the month of May shall we? (This is me killing time on the commute… Via Blackberry… So spelling may be an issue!!)

One year and a bit post unifornication and there appears* to be some parity between the IRL teams and what used to be the Champ Car teams.

Appears of couse is a word I use loosely… But on the surface, things have evened out a little over the winter hiatus.

Everyone save for one or two are actually “in the mix”, with the potential to win, podium or spoil.
We are seeing the drivers with skill float to the top despite the perceived demotions (Wilson, Wheldon), & those with the lottery winning rides both perform & disappoint.

Biggest surprises so far?

*Wilson squeezing results out of the bucket of parts that DCR received last year and had to assemble into a car! He is the real deal!

*The Prozac Princess! She’s almost, dare I say it, likeable. I almost… I almost want to root for her. (I almost said almost again…) The season is early however…. Waiting for the tranquilizers to wear off…

*Dixon’s season circling the drain after round two. (The 4 ovals in a row oughta remedy that)

*Just how bad Stanton Roth… Er…. Milka Barrett turned out to be!

When we all gasped at his announcement and predicted backmarker status, he came out swinging full of “just you wait!” bravado. Well SB… We waited. And will be for a while apparently.

While I give him points for his mad evading skills (I expected nothing less from a stuntman) his moving chicane-ness is epic! He does stay out of the way however, so he’s avoided being parked for “handling issues” thus far.

*VERSUS coverage, despite being available in about 4 markets, is kicking ass & taking names. Although I have to wonder about the market research done by advertisers.

From what I can tell by the ad placement, they’ve determined that their viewing audience are horny middle aged men with midlife crisis fantasies about the Princess, who pop Viagra like tic-tacs. (Who knew there were so many erectile dysfunction products out there!)

*A relatively full field of actual drivers for the 500! Not the usual motley crew of arrive and drive cheque holders… Good thing they tightened up the schedule! With only what, 5 rookies?! That ain’t gonna be riveting to cover… Oh, but coverage we will have! Thanks again VERSUS! (On behalf of the 12 people in the U.S. That will get to watch…)

Ok… Brain sufficiently purged! And all before coffee!

Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 *Live* race blog

“I’ll get you my pretty…and your little dog too!”

We’re live from from Kansas. (well, I’m not, but the series is)

I’m tuned into a horrible stream of the Versus broadcast. (better than nothing) as the race airs here in Canada at the following timeslots:
3am & 6am Monday.

Yup, you read that right. Fuck TSN. Moving on…

Penske spinning the Power situation. Love how he brought Rick Mears in as a prop. LOL…

So… here’s what we know…
Two of the big three guys got sent to the back… Helio was dead last in Chicago and won the race… don’t count FROchitti or Twinkletoes out just yet.

Most are calling for Dixon to win and Doornbos for the first timer. (with a nod to Wheldon and Carpenter)

Ok…. gotta get everything running… brb…

Drivers start your engines!

Strategy with Arute:
Get to the half way mark (150 miles)
Fuel strategy (blech)
plan for cautions
Watch the radar

Here we go kids! Green green green

Rahal shot out of a canon!
Bobby D dropping like a stone
Dixon by Bobby D for 2nd

The AGR cars not playing nice… Patrick throwing block parties all over the place.

EJ. carving his wa throught the field with the more experienced Helio and Dashley. All three are up several positions.

Dixon inhales Rahal.
“Thanks for warming up the track little buddy! See ya!”

Bobby D holding strong in 3rd

CAUTION Lap 14!
Vitor and Helio get into each other. Vitor lifts BIGTIME and Helio slams into the back of him. Major damage to Twinkletoes schnozzola. E.J caught up too. Front wing damage.

Festival of pitting! Entire field to the pits.
Bobby D out first!
The entire Netherlands breaks out into spontaneous happy dancing!
He may have hit something coming out of the pits however (rahals tire I believe) (hard to tell, I’m watching a grainy 4×4 inch box)

OH, Iron Hand of Justice! Doornbos sent to the back. The dancing comes to an abrubt end.

Restart lap ? (can’t read it)

Poor E.J. he’s a lap down now after making up all that ground. Stoopid Meira.

back from commercial, E.J in the pits again. fucking stream froze. No idea why EJ was in pits again.

feed back…

Vitor crying big crocodile tears. What a fucking baby. Suck it up man, christ. Is it EVER your fault?

commercial

I’m actually surprised (pleasantly) that Rahal is holding his own out there.
(she types as he gets inhaled by Tony Kanaan… LOL) (I’ll shut up now as Bricoe creeps up on the son of the stache)

Apparenly E.J. had gear box issues?

Bobby D now being lapped. Welcome to the roundy rounds Bob. Sucks doesn’t it?
and now about to be lapped by his teammate. Play nice boys.

commercial
Pitstops happening druing the commercial break…
Dixon (leader) in now. Made great fuel.
Castroneves in now.

Jack Arute: Weatherman! …

hmmm… ovals…
not really anything to talk about I’ve realized. LOL!

Apparently there was a 2nd “big one” in the Talledaga race which is also running right now. That got the chat beside the video box all fired up.
and … commercial. oooh, not even a side by side.

and we’re back. (really wish I could read what lap we are on) If I boot up the t&s I’m convinced it will crash my browser.

Briscoe and Kanaan battling it out for 2nd spot. Briscoe FTW!

Matos kisses the wall, brings out the caution. Bitten by the Turn 4 wall that snapped up all those kids in the lights race.
“wiggle wiggle chase it up the track”
Thanks for repeating that twice Robbie… LOL

Festival of pitting!
Briscoe wins the race off pit lane! Briscoe, Kanaan, Rahal.
What the fuck happened to Dixon?

commercial… *yawn*
Apparently there was another crash at Dega. Pretty scary.

and we’re back. And still driving around under yellow for no apparent reason.

Green green green
Dixon up to second. Everyone getting racy and three wide. Trying to get up into that lead pack before the rains come.

Getting dicy between Helio, Rahal, Patrick

Arute using props to describe the “egg under your foot” theory…. as P-Dog would say, my viewing is enhanced. (not really, but we’ll go with that)

Commercial Lap 115/200! I can actually read the numbers!

back from commercial… I actually just zoned out for a minute. No idea what they were talking about, but they gave kudos to the spotter.

TG gets air.

BWAHAHAHA… Marco and Mario “battling” for 10th. The rear view from Moraes car, you can barely see Marco! hardly a battle.

more driving in circles…. and commercials…

we’re back. Recapping all of the “action” in this race. Beekus doing a great job of forcing the enthusiasm. I’m almost convinced it’s been exciting to watch….

LOL… we are talking about how great Ana Beatriz is in the chat room. Talking about another series driver during a live race is never a good sign.

Sarah Fisher finally gets air! (with 54 laps to go) Shout out to the sponsor!

Jack “weatherman” Arute, updates us on the impending rain and then we go to a plethora of Danican’t commercials.

back:
Briscoe coming into the pits just as FROchitti slams hard into the wall. Shit luck for Briscoe who was pitting from the lead. He drives thru, to cycle back in with the field. (power karma tickles Penskes ass…)

Replay shows Rahal and Franchitti coming into the pits, Dashley’s car will NOT stop, locks it up, barely misses slamming into the back of Rahal. Holy crap! Evasive maneuvers STAT!! slides up the track into the wall. Out and ok. That could have been nasty.

commercial for clean up….

We’re back with 157/200 complete. A little IZOD Indy 500 package while we clean….

back to green with 41 to go!
Full rich, balls to the wall, petal to the metal! Go go go!

nothing much happening… so we’ll go to commercial again. No side by side. Apparently we don’t deserve these last laps… :shrug:

we’re back and everyone is actually racing now.

We are giving a shout out to Hideki Mutoh. I don’t know why, but there ya go.

Wind speed has died down, making it a little easier for the drivers in the waning laps.

woah! Graham and Hideki split high/low around Roth 2.0. For the first time this entire race, I got excited and made an audible “woah” sound.

commerical….

back… Lot’s of chit chat in the booth…. it just feels like we are waiting it out.

ooh… the brats could make this interesting… battling for 5th. Marco got squirrelly, lost air, couldn’t make the move on the Princess.

Final lap…. Looks like Dixon has finally shaken the bad mojo monkey off his back.

LOL at Emma! “he’s been grumpy for 3 weeks”

Commercials… (just how many commercials is the Princess in? geesh)

Interview with Dixon, who is now up to 4th in the standings as he goes into Indy to defend. “of course I was grumpy, I wasn’t winning!”

Commercial….

Twinkletoes came across in second. See… never count him out even starting from the back. Wow… replay on the Meira incident. Nice control from Helio keeping it off the wall.

Kanaan across in third. Now the points leader by one over Briscoe.

commercial…

wow… I just realized there was not one comment today. Maybe it is time to hang it up… 😦

Interview with the Princess (finished 5th) Guess 4th place doesn’t count…

Rahal gets some air. Talks about the sandwich maneuver. The Versus interview is barely over and Bruce sweeps in with this digi recorder! LOL! That man is everywhere!

commercial…

recap of the race…
There we go, Briscoe finally gets some air.
Ed Carpenter gets air! nice!

and that’s it… we’re done.
Thanks for playing… or not as the case was.

ciao for now…

Grand Prix of Long Beach *live* race blog

woohoo! It’s race day Kids!

Started off with a little history throw back… then of course the Helio story… now on to Will Power, the saddest pole sitter ever…

Briscoe… always the “cool” one…

Aww sweet, PLN’s friends and family are at the track this weekend…

I still think they should make those car/transformers from the animated opening…

*back from commerical*

still doing driver intros…
and now on to the Indy 500 one off driver announcements…

PT!!! He looks fine! to the dude who texted me from the track on Friday to tell me that Paul was fat, you’re full of crap.

LOL! Dario FROchitti smack talks Andretti during Leno feature! A little more mention of the silly bet with TK… reiterates the importance of the first turn.

*commercial*

back… IZOD feature… Graham, RHR, and Al Unser Jr
and the predicted Princess feature…
wow… I didn’t realize that Michael won his first and last race at LB

*commercial*
Back with Dixon and his brutal start to the season…
(I love how both Scott and Dashley are holding the Pepsi cans. Like they are drinking a carbonated pop before the race!)

Picking the winners: Franchitti is the favorite, with Power the fave as the first timer… :bites tongue on that one:
I’m joining Jenkins on the Viso first timer

*commercial*
back… it’s race time kids!!!! woooot!!

DRIVERS START YOUR ENGINES!!!
Oh burn! Power isn’t firing!!
Nevermind… he is running and catching up to his rightful spot.

Robbie Thackston… LOL… oops!

Damn… now Will has no radio? geesh…

Track temp is smokin hot!

Here we go….

Green green green!! Will gets a huge jump on the field! Matos up to second, and Wilson up to 3rd!

let’s forget for a minute who the drivers are, but look at the two teams fighting for 2nd/3rd… Luczo Dragon & Dale Coyne…. oh how times have changed…

FROchitti gets around Wilson…
What is it with IndyCar and it’s revisionist history?? only the second time Power has lead laps? um he was on pole and lead for most of OZ! oh ya… OZ didn’t count right? just like LB 08 didn’t count… I call bullshit…

*commercial*

wow.. that overhead of the start was awesome! Nice jump by Power!
(lots of aluminum though…)

“Alex Moraes”… *sigh* Now I remember why we didn’t like Jenkins in the booth… he screws up the names!!!

Having Jan in the booth adds soooo much to the commentary! A++

*commercial*

Back…

rear tires are going away (12 laps in) No surprise… as the track temp is so hot. The reds must be turning into goo….
Dashley around Matos. Nice pass.

Oops! Conway into the tires.
“trouble Robbie for one of your cars” LOL!

Dashley in for a pit? What? why? did he think there was a caution?

Woah… Power slows… bunches up the field. Dixon takes out EJ… wtf?!
Gong show! Clown cars! mayhem!!

Festival of pitting…

Long stop for Wilson… gah! Power still with no communication with the crew.

And now we’re all fubared as far as who is leading. It’s off sequence pit strategies for about 3 different groups now. Ick.

What? another pass??? on camera???

Poor E.J!! My sweet boy. You are so right. Totally not your fault sweetie!

WHAT THE FUCK! Holy crap! Looks like tetris out there!

Moraes into Tags, stacking up Wilson, Wheldon, Manning, Mutoh
LOL… bad day for red, white and blue cars!

Interesting detour provision… that’s cool!

*commercial*

Wilson done for the day.

LOL! You know that we are on weird strategies when the order is Parko Andretti, Frochitti, Carpenter, Patrick…

Apparently the Penske back up car wasn’t quite race ready…

LOL! Dashely is just sitting pretty…

Poor Justin. That bad pit stop put him in the middle of that mess…

*commercial*

Dashley is leading. I guess Parko and Ed pitted. Will… get around the Princess dude! Japanica cannot podium!!

Barrett in the run off *mocks suprise* local yellows… blah blah blah… a look at the Celebrity race…

and commercial again… random…

back…
Ed Carpenter into the tires… repeat of St. Petes, but this time he gets going.

and we’re green again (Lap 42/85)

Geesh… Helio is right up Will’s gearbox!

2 laps back to commercial…

back…
Fuel strategy race… gah… I hate that…
Wow.. Mikey… a little unresolved bitterness towards Dario?

and back to commercial… ?????
Guess they are expecting some big action at the end, so they want to run them all now.

Back:
Power and Patrick in the Pits. What? She is sketchy out there like crazy. Power just needs to push her a little and she’s toast

Yes!! Go Will! He’s around the Princess

Dashley in…. where is Will?

woah… FCY again… Conway.. again… What a mess

WOAH!! Bad call for NHL! crew gave him the go sign!

WOAH!! fueling issue for Tags too!

*commercial*
back to green lap 59/85

Carpenter is a moving chicane today…
Woah! Doornbos gives Ed the chrome horn!! (wonder how you say that in dutch?)

Graham in for his drive through.

*commercial*

back… 66/85
talking about fuel… can they make it to the end…
2 laps and back to commercial… geezus…

and we’re back 71/85

Franchitti given the green light on fuel
Power has been told to conserve, as have Kanaan and Danica.

so much for the fuel strategy conversation. Moraes deep into the tires! (shoulda put Paul in the car guys!!) and Ed pulls a Danica and gets stuck between the safety car and the wall… No temper tantrum though…

*commercial*

back… they cleared Ed during the commercial. LOL!
Moraes out from the tires…
10 laps to go… still under yellow…

*back to commercial*

Back…. WOAH!! Stopped and facing the wrong way. Replay: Watkin’s Glen redux in reverse!! Briscoe into Dixon! Briscoe damaged front wing. Fixed and back out.

Green green green!
8 to go, full rich! Come on Will! Bring it home clean to the podium.

Briscoe apparently has a drive thru for that bonehead move…

Come on Will….
Marco! what the hell? Wrong place to make a pass dude! Cripes!!

*commercial*

back with 3 to go… 4 second lead for Dashley… Looks like Kanaan is growing his hair….

wow! nice driving by RHR there. Tags totally had him but RHR held him off…
WOAH! Tags gets him back!

Dashley gets the win!
Will gets on the podium!!
Kanaan gets a podium and a new do!

Hey Penske, you might want to rethink that deal with Will…. your key players screwed the pooch today…

Ashley is still as annoying as ever….

Will! NO telemetry and no radio! Poor bastard. He seems just gutted knowing that his

Arute just has a big ol luv affair with Danica. What the fuck is she whining about. Blend line?

LOL Dixon shows class in his interview regarding Briscoe. (mentions Watkin’s)

Helio… he’s just gonna be all happy and teary all season isn’t he?
everything is FUNtastic! LOL!

So Will is second in the championship, and sidelined… crazy…

Ok… gonna check comments and make the rounds..

It’s Race Day!

and I’m not there. *sigh*

Soon enough I will be updating from the track, but for now, I have to make due with the cone of silence information highway I’m on. (what good is having friends/colleagues at the track if they don’t feed you information the entire time?!) I promise here and now that I will not let you guys down in that regard! (oh, and please exclude Jeff from MyNameIsIRL from that group as he has been more than forthcoming and communicative!)

I started to write a little something last night, but I was having a mini “woe is me” pity party, feeling overworked and underappreciated and ready to just say… well… something very unladylike and thus “Meesh like”, so I deleted, shut the lid down, and went to bed.

Bottomline is this: I bust my ass for this, both here and at OWW because I love it. Not because I’m paid for it, or because I have to, but because I want to. And I intend to keep doing it.

If we (I) fly under the radar and get left out of things, so be it. Don’t want to include or recognize me or either of the sites? pffffffft! whatever. I’m gonna keep on keeping on. We’re gonna keep on keeping on. :shrug:   Nothing else to say… moving on…

I keep getting all worked up that I’m missing Paul at the race, but then I realize that he is actually just watching this weekend, as I would be. I would be standing beside him in the pits, rather than snapping him doing his thing, which might actually be a little more heartbreaking. He should never be a spectator in my opinion.

Twinkletoes has been cleared to drive as of, well, a few minutes ago. (thanks again Jeff!) Be prepared for an entire Heliocentric preshow this afternoon. (which will be a nice change from the Danicacentric preshow we usually get) (of course I fully expect an entire segment on her win* last year at this time, *cough* and her “importance” to the sport *choke* and the usual propaganda they spew at us week after week… ) (hmm… maybe I shouldn’t watch the preshow… LOL!) (I wonder if I should write this entire entry in parenthisese… )

anyhoo… Hopping in the shower quickly… then gonna listen to the Lights race. (don’t expect to be able to watch it) Then heading over to the most awesome @greggtilston ‘s abode to watch the race!

If you’re so inclined, I’ll be here bloggin live, so drop back later…