May 4

Written by: The Commish
5/4/2011 9:48 AM 

Joe Gibbs Racing won both NASCAR races this past weekend at Richmond with Denny taking the Friday night Nationwide race over Paul Menard and Jason Allgair.  Carl Edwards had car trouble to finish 25th and Kyle Busch scored zero because Kelly Bires was driving the No. 18. 

Yep.  I started Kyle too.  Doh!

The Saturday night Cup race was a Kyle Busch runaway as despite starting 20th he led the most laps to beat Hamlin, Kasey Kahne, David Ragan and Carl Edwards.  Jimmie Johnson wound up in eighth in front of Tony Stewart after both struggled mid-pack most of the night, Happy Harvick was 12th and count Dale Jr., Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, a cussing Kurt Busch and polesitter Juan Pablo Montoya among those who finished outside the top 16.

Ah, Montoya.  After what appeared to be unintentional contact with Newman early Juan Pablo came back and wrecked the No. 39 car, a clear example of both "have at it, boys" and "you ruin my night, I'm going to ruin yours."  It was great TV theatre with no penalties because NASCAR likes this kind of drama.

Like they say, it's all good fun until someone gets hurt.  Which is exactly what could happen this weekend at Darlington.

It took two days to get the IndyCar race in Sao Paulo completed thanks to a lot of rain which led to a lot of spins and crashes.  Will Power started from pole again and won over Graham Rahal, Ryan Briscoe, Dario Franchitti and Oriol Servia.  Scott Dixon was 12th while Ryan Hunter-Reay (18th), Helio Castroneves (21st), Tony Kanaan (22nd) and Sebastien Bourdais (last in 26th) all scored bupkis thanks to crashes in the wet.  Pisser.

Done deal:  Robin Miller is getting a collectible Centennial Indy 500 helment from IMS as the prize for most points in May among Super 7 Sweep players.

But that's not the half of it.  Miller is also going to have this helmet signed by all 33 starters for this year's Greatest Spectacle in Racing as well as the three four-time winners:  A.J. Foyt, Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr.

Wowser.  That's a pretty big deal.

And speaking of big deals there was an IZOD IndyCar owners meeting in Brazil where everyone except A.J. Foyt, who abstained, voted to delay the new aero kits until 2013.  Randy Barnard has not made a decision yet but an online pole shows a great majority of race fans want the new bodywork options for 2012, not a year later.

We'll see.

Then there's the other big deal, the furror over Donald Trump being invited to drive the pace car at this year's 100th Anniversary Indy 500.  

It seems the only people who want 'the Donald' to have this great honor are the execs from Van Heusen, which owns IZOD, because it is an advertiser on Trump's Celebrity Apprentice show.

There's even a new facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/BumpTrump) that now has over 11,000 likes and a plethora of pithy comments against this turd-in-a-punchbowl idea.

So we now have two opportunities to see if IndyCar cares more about the owners and sponsors or their fan base.

I hope we soon hear that Dan Gurney or Mario Andretti or A.J. Foyt or a member of the military will replace Trump as the driver of the pace and yes, the aero kits will be required for 2012.

But like I say.  We'll see.

This week it's F1 in Istanbul and Cup and NNS at Darlington.  Starting lineups are due by midnight this Thursday and remember, this is the first round for the month of May and a chance at winning that autographed Centennial Indy 500 helmet.


Good luck to all and boy-howdy am I depressed that I'm not eligible to win!

Copyright ©2011 The Commish