Full Throttle

When last seen Jacques “International Man of Mystery” Villeneuve was getting summarily booted out of the Bill Davis Racing Toyota Camry for lack of greenbacks. Greenbacks, it should be added, the organization was promised would flow like water down a flushing toilet. (metaphorically speaking of course. I think. -ed)

The cash never materialized and neither did Villeneuve’s performance after crashing out of Daytona 500 qualifying and failing to secure a spot on the grid for The Great American Race.

The man is nothing if not undaunted by his tin-top efforts in America and has risen like the proverbial mythical bird Phoenix, resurfacing in Asia’s Sprint Cup clone the Speedcar Series.

Villeneuve will race with Speedcar in the last two rounds of the Series’ inaugural season. He will take to the grid for the upcoming race at the Bahrain Grand Prix on April 4-6 followed by the final round in Dubai a week later on April 11-12.

“Speedcar Series looks like a great event and I have heard that it is a lot of fun,” Villeneuve said. “It’s a series still in its infancy and will build up but I think it’s a great idea. On a personal level, Speedcar will give me more road racing experience with this kind of cars which will be useful in future NASCAR road courses events, and it’s also a great excuse to meet race fans.”

Well, ok Jacques, but next time don’t show up with empty promises of bulging wallets.

Villeneuve won’t be the only Johnny-come-lately F1 driver on the Bahrain Grid, Heinz Harald Frentzen will also be on hand and at the wheel of the Legends Car.

Alternative Capital Invest (ACI) introduced the Legends Car into the Speedcar Series mix, featuring a different celebrity driver behind the wheel at each race weekend. The ACI sponsored car is part of the German Phoenix Racing Team.

Cross posted @ Asian Motor Sports

A track I once called the Turkey in Tulare looks to be on track for completion with gates opening Spring of 2009.

According to Circle Track Racing News Tulare Motor Sports Park is working its way through California’s strict development requirements and the final plan and environmental impact report, EIR, could be presented to the Tulare City Council by early summer.

The one mile D shaped track will have 24 degree banked turns and paved with polymer asphalt.

Just a bit inland from the extreme Left Coast “The Track Your Mother Warned You about,” Death Valley Raceway (warning, site is oh so… 1985! - ed) opened its gates for the first time this past weekend.

The brand new one third mile clay oval is located in Nevada’s Amargosa Valley approximately four miles east of the California and Nevada state lines.

And finally, in an update to a post from last week 15 year old Jessica Brunelli scored the USAC California Ford Focus Pavement Series pole at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale and finished sixth in the 30 lap feature.

The next event in the pavement series is April 12 in Blythe, CA at Lucas Oil I-10 Speedway

It’s almost too good to be true.

The very thought of Mad Max goose-stepping in his nazi father’s footsteps with a bevy of hookers is just too rich.

Even more interesting is how the major F1 sites are handling it. Some note the story with very little meat to it, others flesh it out but don’t link to the rag that printed the original, nor the video that is floating around that shows The Mad One bent over… well you get the idea.

Hell it turned respectable sites into proclaiming the “story has reduced people to mute disbelief.”

It’s as if it was Too Hot to Handle, and I don’t mean the 1938 flic of the same name.

Regardless, and taking a cue from those much smarter than I, I’m restricting my thoughts to the inner recesses of the frontal lobe until such time this story gets more confirmation.

‘Til then I’ll just laugh like a hyena on crack!

UPDATE: Reports say the FIA may be preparing a vote of no confidence in Mosley’s leadership. (um, that would be FIA leadership, not leading his little group of five. -ed)

UPDATE II: You can always count on my favorite writer of headlines, say what you will about the The Sun’s veracity, but for to the point headlines they can’t be beat: “F1 Nazi Nookie Boss to Keep Job.”

What! …You say you’ve missed the ruminations and discombobulated non-sense usually posted here from the Half-Vast Staff?

Well, don’t blame me, blame a.) a web host that operates in and uses technical expertise pulled from a time zone near One Million Years B.C. (minus the Rachel Welch bikini pics) or b.) if you must, the less intelligent, and [forever] nameless, members of The Staff that stayed with The Despicable Host so long.

Be that as it may, there’s good news. The Despicable Host is toast, history, KAPUT!

In its place, and under the Iron Fist of Luke, is a new and soon to be improved Full Throttle hosted at Thunder Lounge where it joins On Pit Row, Steve & Charlie’s Bench Racing and Bram at Backstretch Motorsports. (not to mention a cast of thousands)

More later, still have a lot of admin, behind the scenes work to do.

As happens with most breaking stories as time passes they gain more detail and consequently more credibility. When Roush-Fenways owner first hit the wires with charges of theft of a proprietary part I was skeptical.

My original conclusion was based on the venue Jack in the Hat aired his charges (ESPN the Magazine that has a long lead-time before hitting the news stands and the fact he chose to run to the press vice NASCAR officials.)

Roush said that he’s requesting NASCAR to look into the matter and is still considering legal action against an unnamed Toyota team over intellectual espionage. He would not name the Toyota team. (Rumors are the unnamed team is Michael Waltrip Racing -ed)

Roush identified the piece as a front swaybar vice a “spring” as first reported, and it came up missing at Dover last fall not this Spring at Atlanta.

“The tool boxes are back to back,” Roush said. “The non-descript Toyota team went behind my tool box and took my bar out of my inventory and put it with their inventory and took it home with them. That’s a fact. It has not been refuted. It has been discussed with the team.”

“I found out about it, I wanted to go supersonic,’‘ Roush said. “We’re going to do a search warrant. We’re going to get the bar. Intellectural espionage is going on here. They stole a part and had access to it and had an opportunity to see what it does. We’ve been damaged, we’ve been harmed by this theft.”

“So a clandestine meeting was arranged at 6 o’clock in the morning to return the bar, one manager to another,” Roush said. “I got the bar back. It’s been sandblasted. it’s got its appearance changed, but it’s still got the serial number on it.”

How Cloak & Dagger is that? Clandestine early morning meetings for a part swap. What’s next Jack, a call to Chief Inspector Clouseau?

My snark aside, obviously there’s more of an ember burning under Jacks smoke than first thought. Where it goes is anyone’s guess, but if I were to guess, not much further than a few more printed protestations by Jack.

A NASCAR spokesman is already on record as saying they don’t “do disputes between teams” so it also remains to be seen whether they get more involved as the story gains more life.

UPDATE: NASCAR is being consistent with their original thoughts. Autosport is quoting NASCAR’s vice-president of competition Robin Pemberton as saying “We’re not going to do anything,” Pemberton stated. “This garage area has to co-exist. If there’s somebody out there that takes a part or a piece form another team, in my opinion, I wouldn’t have a guy like that working for me.”

“If you have issues, then you have to work it out.”

Pemberton makes one salient point, the garage is an open area and subject to all sorts of shenanigans, both good and bad, to make a comparison to F1’s Ferrari/Mclaren fiasco as some have done is a bit of a stretch.

That said, I still think this won’t go much further, at least not without intervention by NASCAR and that appears unlikely at this point.

While working on a much larger post here are a few things spotted ’round the web.

Things that make you say… WHAT!!!

Formula Drift has competition. But you have to ask how do you compete against max-horsepower when all you’ve got is one hay burning “engine.” And somehow I don’t think Miss Amish Drift will be a marketing winner either.

“I shot into Terry, Terry shot into Dale and I shot into the lead!” a grinning, gleeful Waltrip said in Victory Lane. A controversial ending at Martinsville! WHAT!

WHAT! A Microsoft/BAM Racing marriage made in “Service Pack #29,039,847,634 Heaven!”

Monte Dutton… song writer. WHAT!

Put on a few extra pounds over the Easter holiday did you Danica. Don’t worry SI will just find another flavor of the month next year. WHAT! (that was Luke’s “WHAT” BTW, not mine.)

For the 2008 IndyCar season several rule changes have been introduced. The one to raise the most comment is the minimum weight required for IRL cars. (and the change gives Robby Gordon one less reason to Whine! - ed)

The minimum weight has yet to be disclosed but the rule is intended to minimize the difference between the heaviest and lightest drivers, where the gap can be as much as 30 to 45kg.

The drivers will be broken into three groups, with the heaviest getting a weight reduction and the lightest getting a maximum of 16kg ballast.

The introduction of paddle shifters could have the biggest influence, especially on road courses. A lot of the drivers are uncomfortable with making a lot of gear changes using the existing sequential boxes.

On ovals they’ll only change gears a couple of times. In the past the likes of Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti dominated road courses, having grown up on H-pattern gear shifts. Now drivers like AJ Foyt, traditionally back-markers on road courses, have closed right up to the rest of the field in pre-season practice.

All the oval circuit will now use the same qualifying format as the Indianapolis 500 where grid positions are determined by the average speed over four laps.

Road-race qualifying stays the same in which the six fastest cars over a flying lap get 10 minutes extra track time. Another technical change is the addition of variable-assist steering racks to reduce some of the physical exertions required on road and street courses.

The steering rack will help at tracks like Sonoma where there are many elevation changes and the steering reportedly locks up in places.

And finally, the control of the fuel mixture will be returned to the teams.

On fuel related note; IndyCar’s use of bio-fuel places another roadblock before the former Champ Car teams progress to the top of the field. They all have to learn the differences in tuning the engine using the new fuel.

As you will recall part of Robby Gordon’s specially aged Whine during the L’Affaire Nosepiece was RGM had come under threat of going insolvent partially due to the 4.5 million dollars he lost as a result of the Dakar Rally being canceled.

Well his chickens, dressed as lawyers, have come home to roost.

Vanguard Integrity Professionals sponsored Team Gordon in the Dakar Rally and is asking for US$1.15 million back from the driver.

“We want the world to know that Vanguard is no longer associated with Team Gordon,” the company said in a statement released to The Associated Press.

Vanguard’s contract for the Dakar event was to run through the 2010 race, was being the operative word.

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in California has taken care of that and the company has gone so far as to demand Gordon remove its logos from his uniforms and equipment as part of the dispute.

This may shock some of Robby’s sycophants but canceling of Dakar isn’t the front burner issue, as always it’s Robby’s mouth at the center of it.

Gordon has this to say at the time:

“Let’s put it in perspective. Eleven people got killed over there,” Gordon said in January. “I’m pretty sure in L.A., we kill 11 a night on the streets of L.A. … It was a couple of kids in the back of a pickup truck with a couple of AK-47s shot a couple of people.

“I’m sorry to say that. But the reality of it is it’s not like it’s this big setup bombing.”

I don’t recall reading those quotes then, and frankly I’ll refrain from commenting now. I’ll let a Vanguard spokesman summarize my feelings:

“It is not positive to be associated with someone who said al-Qaeda attacks are no worse than an average night in America — especially for a security software company. It’s simply not a true or accurate statement.”

Exactly! Sometimes Robby is dumber than a box of rusty wrenches.

UPDATE: I’ve seen Robby do and say many dumb things, but I have to ask, has anyone aside from Jay Busby seen Robby “put a clown on a unicycle into the wall?”

Former F1 owner Eddie Jordan has been gone from the F1 Circus since selling his Jordan team in early 2005 to wealthy Canadian businessman Alex Schnaider.

That team is now co-owned by Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya that competes as Force India. The team still operates out of Jordan’s old premises at Silverstone. But the dream of Eddie Jordan, his pride and joy, the “rock and roll team,” were lost forever to the hard realities of modern Formula 1.

Eddie may be gone, but he’s certainly not forgotten, least of all by the teams current owners.

In a dispute over access to the team factory he’s blocked access, access that Eddie says crosses his land. The ever irrepressible Jordon has constructed a wall of concrete blocks across the main access road while Force India were in Malaysia for last weekend’s GP.

“I had to make a stand, they have to come and talk to me,” he said. “I paid for the road and put it on my land.”

“I’ve got no problem with Mallya,” he added. “It’s the people who are managing the business who don’t want to talk.”

Now I have to admit, that’s funny. And typical Eddie. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn he had trowel and brick jointer in hand and listening to cuts from V10’s last album (or the latest incarnation “Eddie & The Robbers”) as he piled on another row of concrete blocks.

Jim Bickerstaff, ARCA late model race winner and Ohio short track sensation, died Friday, March 21, at St. Elizabeth Medical Center near his hometown of Mineral Ridge, Ohio.

Memories of Jim Bickerstaff go back to my earliest days of following the Midwest Association for Race Cars (MARC), later to become ARCA, and entire weekends shuffled between series home tracks of Flat Rock Speedway and Toledo Speedway.

As the 1962 MARC Late Model champion at Canfield Speedway Jim was the “enemy,” the interloper from Ohio that came into Michigan to steal glory from the local stars of the day.

He was also a track champion at Cloverleaf Speedway in Cleveland and won two consecutive Pittsburgh Racing Association (PRA) championships at Heidelberg Speedway, and scored additional feature wins at Midvale and Sharon Speedways in Ohio. Bickerstaff was successful at both dirt and pavement venues, and drove at tracks from Florida to Maryland and Virginia.

Toledo Speedway was the site of his greatest Michigan triumph as he won the prestigious Glass City 200 in 1975. In many respects that years event was considered by many as a classic that saw two of Michigan’s all-time greats - Joy Fair and Bob Senneker - capture 100 lap wins.

Bickerstaff, by virtue of his second and third place finishes became the first and only Ohio driver to win the Glass City 200, claiming $1,400 for his efforts. ARCA and Mid-West short track legend Joy “Mr ARCA” Fair finished second.

With great sadness and respect the Half-Vast Staff™ of Full Throttle notes the passing Jim Bickerstaff one of the Mid-West’s most decorated and celebrated short track veterans.

He is survived by two children, James “Jim” (Lonnie) Bickerstaff of Mineral Ridge, and Jill (Gary) White, with whom he made his home, and two grandchildren.

R.I.P. Jim Bickerstaff.