IndyCar Notes
Milka Duno, the first woman in history to win a major international sportscar race in North America, and CITGO Racing, announced Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway that they will compete in the 2007 IndyCar Series with SAMAX Motorsport. Duno will drive the No. 23 CITGO Racing/SAMAX Motorsport Dallara/Honda/Firestone in ten IndyCar Series events this season, including the 91st Indianapolis 500.
She also plans to compete at Kansas, Texas, Iowa, Watkins Glen, Nashville, Mid Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Chicago.
Duno joined Felix Rodriguez, president and CEO of CITGO Petroleum Corp., Peter Baron, team principal of SAMAX Motorsport, and Tony George, founder and CEO of the Indy Racing League, in announcing the sponsor and team plans to field an entry in the 2007 IndyCar Series season.
Although the team is new to the series, SAMAX Motorsport
Poor Danica! She can’t figure out why the car is soooo slow. Especially when her teammates qualy’d in 3rd,4th and 5th places. Not to mention Sarah Fisher coming in at 9th, ahead of Danica and teammate Buddy Rice in 13th.
I can’t wait to compare Danica’s results against two other women who know how to race. The “Myth of Danica” is soon to be exposed as the marketing fraud that created it.
Hey give the poor thing break George.
At least she admitted being slower than a Paris Hilton clone. Much worse could have occurred.
She could have pulled the “my hooters hurt from 6 point belts” card again as an excuse.
Post race comment: Danica was well on her way to dicrediting my sarcastic assessment of her non-racing skills last night. She actually managed to bring a poorly handling car up to 7th place, executing several well done passes along the way. And then on her last pit stop she locked the brakes on the entry to pit lane and put the car in the wall; race over.
Better to DNF due to a mechanical-driver failure than limp around the track in an unaggressive posture. In short she performed way beyond what I expected.
While you two swap Danica shots I will address the real issue.
The IRL seems to be going from strength to strength, here’s another new driver/sponsor/team added to the grid. All this while CC languishes with some teams down to single car entries. Thoughts of reunification are a waste of time, the two protagonists are just to far apart. What concerns me most is that if the IRL is the last series left standing I honestly don’t believe TG has the brains to lead OW in the States back to its place as a premiere example of single seater racing.
AOW needs to be returned to the diversity of super speedways, ovals, road courses & street circuits that made it sp popular. This will also require a fundamental rethink of the cars specs. The existing chassis were built for ovals, when the conversion pack for road courses is installed it produces at best a hack job & worst an embarrassment. Compare the look, handling & performance of a IRL car to that of a GP2 Dallara or even the A1GP Lola & the IRL comes off as a poor cousin doing nothing to inspire passion in the spectator; coming through the corners they look plain slow.
If Tony does end up with a monopoly he has a obligation to repair the destructive consequences of his selfish, ego driven actions of 96.Unfortunately because the Hulman family was foolish enough to entrust him with the legacy of the 500 & the IMS he thinks he can do what he likes. Somebody should take a branding iron to his forehead, with the words “With great power comes great responsibility”……………………just in case he forgets.
The truly shocking thing about the race was the vast amount of empty seats. Maybe it was the rain, but if the IRL is to continue, it needs people at the track. Let’s see what St. Pete produces in attendance.