Jul 26

Written by: The Commish
7/26/2010 4:19 PM 

I wish I could get a good, hi-res screen capture of Helio grabbing big, strong, burly Charles Burns, IndyCar's head of security, by the shirt after the Team Penske driver got out of his car following his being black flagged for blocking teammate Will Power on the last restart at yesterday's race in Edmonton.

No, it didn't help.  Helio was moved from first to 10th, Scott Dixon won without ever leading a lap and Mr. Burns, bless his heart, just smiled knowingly, and passively, while Castroneves ranted and raved and tugged at his shirt.

Burns, after all, knows Helio well.  He saw, or at least had the opportunity to see Twinkletoes on Dancing with the Stars; he understands physics and he's obviously taken enough psych courses to realize the little Brazilian just needed to blow off some steam and then it would be over and life would go on with no one getting hurt.  Especially him.

Ah, but there was some damage.  The IZOD IndyCar Series took one to the solar plexus after replays, driver interviews, fan polls and the media were almost unanimous in their condemnation of the penalty.

Helio didn't block Will Power.  I mean, if you want to see blocking just check out any NASCAR race.  Or even some F1 races, especially at the start.  Or the sports car races.

But this was just good racing.  Chief Stewart Brian Barnhardt make a mistake and now IndyCar has a new black mark on its freshly sponsored face.

Never the less, Scott Dixon was the winner over Power with Dario, Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay filling out the top five.  Paul Tracy, Mario Moraes, EJ Viso, Takume Sato and Helio were next with Marco 11th, TK 12th and Danica 15th.  Simona De Silvestro qualified seventh and ran there until being spun by Viso, eventually finishing 22nd after running out of fuel while on track.

All three NASCAR series were in Indianapolis this past weekend, with Cup at IMS and the Nationwide and Truck series at the short track formerly known as Indianapolis Raceway Park.  Jamie MacMurray won the Cup race to give Chip Ganassi a Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 win this season with Harvick, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, Jeff Burton, Carl Edwards and Kyle all scoring triple digit FMFL points.  Ryan Newman (17th), Brad Keselowski (19th), Jimmie (22nd) and Jeff Gordon (23rd) had their own issues which gave them all big fat zeros along with Dale Jr. (27th) and Juan Pablo (32nd after qualifying on pole and leading the most laps).  Pisser.

At IRP Ron Hornaday finally got the monkey off his back and won his first truck race of the season over Kyle Busch, Matt Crafton, Johnny Sauter and James Buescher with Todd Bodine seventh and Mike Skinner 15th.  Kyle was one position better in the Nationwide race in beating Carl Edwards, Aric Almirola, Trevor Bayne and Reed Sorenson with Brendan Gaughan, Justin Allgaier, Brad Keselowski, Paul Menard and Rusty Wallace's son Stephen -- who is every bit as good a TV commercial actor as his father -- rounding out the top 10.

The ALMS ran at Lime Rock and the No. 6 Porsche took the win over the heavily favored No. 1 Acura with spec Oreca LMPCs third and fourth in front of five GT cars.  The only big heartbreak, for select Super 7 Sweep players at least, was the retirement of the No. 16 Castrol Lola Mazda after qualifying third.  Dyson and Smith, the drivers who also have to deal with racing a car that usually carries BP livery, retired with mechanical problems after just seven laps.

F1 was in Germany and wonder of wonders, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa finished one-two after qualifying two-three.  Polesitter Sebastien Vettel was third in front of Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Mark Webber, Robert Kubica and Nico Rosberg with Michael Schumacher, Vitaly Petrov, Kamui Kobayashi, Rubens Barichello, Nico Hulkenberg, Pedro de la Rosa, Jaime Alguersuari and Vitantonio Liuzzi filling out the top 16.

Ah, but the big deal wasn't that the Ferrari's finished one-two; the BIG deal was that Massa pulled over and let Alonso by near race's end thanks to team orders.

Hey.  Isn't there some rule that says team orders are illegal in F1?

Why yes, as a matter of fact there is.  The race stewards found the Italian team guilty of both team orders and disrepute and fined them $100,000 -- and Ferrari is not appealing.

Because at the end of the season Ferrari will benefit more from finishing higher up in the manufacturer's standings.

Ah, the sport of commerce.

Copyright ©2010 The Commish