Full Throttle

Had your fill of auto racing yet?

For myself, there’s never enough but I’m kinda weird that way.

In wrapping up the weekend lets us start with the scowling Danica pictured left. The scowl is the result of her wanting to kick some Aussie ass after Sydney native Ryan Briscoe took her out of the race in a pit road incident. (Note to Ryan, she’s done it before)

That was after she spend much of the afternoon giving her own mechanics an earful over her cars performance. Which truth be told wasn’t bad, she spent most of the day in the top ten and ran laps that were consistently, and on average, only a tenth behind the leaders.

“It is probably best I didn’t get down there, isn’t it?” she said after track officials interrupted her progress towards Briscoe’s pit. Tell that to the large group of fans that could be heard cheering on her progress down oit lane. Hey, what can you say, she was ready and even dropped her gloves enroute.

Final thought, wonder what all the ink-stained wretches will write this week. Many spent last week predicting the Indy 500 would provide more excitement than the 600 at Lowes would later in the day. After 69 of the 200 laps were behind the pace car under yellow they’ll all have to eat crow. Under their desks of course because they’d never admit a mistake in public.

The final, final thought on Indy. Last year Eddie Gossage promoted a “Round 2″ after Danica and Dan Wheldon had a incident at Milwaukee Speedway the weekend prior to the Texas race. In adittion t a Danica advertising referance I foresee a billboard with the words of Tony Kaanan: “It was a stupid move,” in describing how teammate Marco Andretti took him out of the lead and the race with 96 laps to go. The mind reals with the possibilities of what Eddie will come up with this year.

Moving to F1, isn’t a bit too early to think about Lewis Hamilton following “Senna as [a] multiple Monaco winner?” I guess not for Reuters fueled by a Hamilton quote:

“I’m not going to say that next year I’m going to win it. Next year I’m going to aim to come back and win it, but again, anything can happen. I hope this is the start of something very special.”

Jumping the gun by 360 plus days isn’t going to make it happen, and he can’t expect to be as lucky and smack the arrmco a second year running and not suffer enough damage to retire for the day. Not to mention, as Peter notes, the stop to replace the punctured tire stet-up the Mclaren team in the best possible position to make the switch to drys on the next stop.

How about this for a tail of two drivers, early in the year Massa was the talk of the paddock, and all the murmers were about the Brazilian’s days being numbered at Ferrari and his poor showing after the first couple events.

Now it’s Mclaren teammate Kimi that looks like his head is in the clouds rather than on the track. If he hopes to regain the championship lead he better step it up in Canada a place where he hasn’t won since 2005 and Hamilton is the reigning champ.

The place to be, for a while, in Monaco would have been on Force India owners mega-yacht in the harbor as Adrian Sutil sliced his way from 19th on the grid to within reach of a fourth place finish. The place not to be was on Force India owners mega-yacht when Kimi punted Sutil out of the race and the best finish of his young career. It haven’t seen any reports of “floaters” in the harbor but wouldn’t be surprised to learn a few people got tossed over the side in anger. I know if I were a multi-billionaire I would have emptied the decks and paid for the lawsuits later.

Last be not least was the 600 at Lowes. I have one question: Just who was it that “voted” for Tony Stewart’s flat tire that paved the way for a Kasey Kahne win?

After Kasey wo the All Star event via a fan vote inquiring minds want to know how many chads were dimpled getting Goodyear to provide a tire that would blow at the most opportune time for the GEM driver?

Snark aside, it was a well deserved win and one that was two years in the making since his last points win in 2006.

Brian Vickers provided the “fireworks” for the evening. From third on the grid Vickers was arguably the surprise package of the night in his Red Bull Toyota, taking it to the leaders and paced the field for more than 60 laps as the race approached the half way mark.

However a rear wheel broke clean off as Vickers headed into turn one on lap 184, sending Vickers hard into the wall and his left rear tire into a spectators camper van in the infield. Injuries were avoided but Vickers’ night was over on the spot.

When asked during the post race media gaggle Vickers couldn’t explain what had happened with the wheel: “We knew we had a problem the last two runs and we had the left-rear wheel work loose toward the end of a run, but it stayed on. At the beginning of that run it started vibrating a little bit.

The first time it happened was very gradual and the last time it happened it was very, very sudden. It was like one lap it started with the vibration and a couple guys got by me and the next lap it just completely came off.”

Because the wheel was taken by NASCAR for inspection Red Bull plans to send the fan/fans that had possession of it some driver/team schwag as a replacement. Not a bad deal but whatever they get it can’t replace a race used tire especially one that came bounding into your lap while sucking beers in the infield.

The incident places that tire in the Mastercard-like “priceless” category, and the fans camper would gain a few hundred bucks in value if Vickers autographed the dent the Goodyear put in it.

Greg Biffle duplicated his All Star finish and ended the day second to Kahne again. “Overall, I was probably more frustrated last week not getting the win, because I felt like I had the fastest car,” said Biffle, who is 11th in the Cup standings. “Tonight, I didn’t feel like I had the fastest car. I had a really good, solid car and just kept passing and got the track position where we were at the end.”

Notes: Stewart finished 18th, the first car one lap down, and held on to the eighth spot in the Cup standings. Jimmie Johnson tumbled three spots to ninth in the points standings when his engine failed late in the race. He finished 39th with his first DNF of the season. David Ragan’s stay in the top 12 lasted one race. He finished 12th and dropped to 13th in the standings. Kahne moved back into the top 12 in 12th, 56 points ahead of Ragan.

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