DOWN IN THE VALLEY

 

ROJAS’ DEMISE PROVES TO BE WAY EARLY …

In the thick of a points battle needing all hands on board, Chip Ganassi Racing No. 01 Telmex Lexus-Riley driver Memo Rojas arrived in Salt Lake City Friday having fought bronchitis since Monday.

Apparently growing worse instead of improving after stints in his race car Friday, the air was ripe for concerns over Rojas’ health given swine flu’s steadily increasing negative drum beat accompanying  the North American continent’s charge into its annual flu season.

Throw in the driver’s visit to Miller Motorsports Park’s medical clinic and an additional late-Friday consultation with a medical doctor, the paddock’s rumor mill started churning out Rojas swine flu reports that spread faster than the virus itself.

Similar to those which once falsely proclaimed Mark Twain’s demise, actual word of Rojas medical condition proved to be much milder and the driver will be in the cockpit for today’s 3:30 p.m. Utah 250.

 

2010 SCHEDULE, CRYPTICALLY SPEAKING

At Miller Motorsports Park the 2010 Rolex Sports Car Series schedule is at the center of more conversations than illegal fueling methods but don’t look for the series’ 2010 dates to be officially released early enough for owners to provide sponsors with anything but cost-of-participation estimates for corporate budget makers – which thus makes such sponsorship even less likely to occur in an age wherein many are cutting expenses to the bone; on time.

For now, 2010 will get started a week later than usual with the Rolex 24’s test 6-miles inland from a 28-mile beach whereas another supposedly long beach won’t happen at all, having a paddock with an area also too small. It'll be a busier-than-usual late-winter and spring when one early season date absent this year returns next and one hot-and-sweaty date returns to cooler weather.

The northeastern tour will change slightly in form, having a partially new venue added; a long-established and otherwise thought “untouchable” late-spring date moving from one coast to another - the former date-holder for now tenuously clinging.

A midsummer’s night dream is made better with Coke, and a once-absent Left Coast date, possibly two, rejoin the show with a visit to a “second” Paris somewhere around. A false desert mirage thus far tenuously clings.

 

BAGHDAD BOB? DOES THIS MEAN WAR?

The American Le Mans Series and Grand American Road Racing evidently have ended whatever semblance of civility may have tenuously existed for the past 10 years between the North American sportscar sanctioning bodies, with name-calling between officials now supposedly entering the picture (fans have been way ahead on that curve).

Reportedly, those on the ALMS side have taken to referring to NASCAR communications VP Jim Hunter as “Baghdad Bob” after he posted an opinion piece on a company owned site that took issue with ALMS’ reported recent solicitation of Rolex Series teams.

Originally hung on former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, whose 2003 Gulf War news updates were widely ridiculed, “Baghdad Bob” most famously proclaimed there were no U.S. troops in Baghdad just before making like a sewer pipe and getting the crap out of the Iraqi capital as those supposedly nonexistent troops marched on government offices.

“I’ve been called worse,” Hunter said stoically.

 

DP CONSTRUCTORS MEET AT MILLER

If not seen elsewhere subsequent to a second 2009-season win at the Aug. 7 Watkins Glen International Crown Royal 250, Krohn Racing nonetheless had a presence at Miller Motorsports Park as team owner and Proto-Auto principal Tracy Krohn flew in for a meeting of Daytona Prototype constructors.

The DP future design being a principal focus of the talks, constructors as a group were reportedly disinclined of any immediate major bodywork changes, preferring instead to maintain the status quo “for another three years,” said one insider present at the talks.

“The formula is working so why change for the sake of it?” the participant said, preferring to remain nameless herein.

The constructors, some of whom were already in the midst of massaging current designs, seemed uniformly aligned on a matter that will be decided sometime in the coming months.

 

RACING’S PEAKS AND VALLEYS

Situated in a valley surrounded by mountain peaks on three sides and the Great Salt Lake to the north, one can’t but be reminded of a metaphor often associated with life’s highs and lows after the Koni Challenge’s Salt Lake City 200 Friday at Miller Motorsports Park.

Driving the GS-class Horsepower Ranch’s No. 61 Roush Valvoline Mustang, Jack Roush Jr. is on a high after he scored his first professional racing victory with co-driver Billy Johnson, who’s already been there and done that in five previous Koni races.

Roush, who many in the paddock thought simply to be on a personal kick upon first arrival, has since properly paid his dues and has consistently improved over the last few seasons, according to many seasoned observers and competitors.

In a hard-fought contest that didn’t much involve anyone other than the race-within-a-race’s top-two finishers, Dion von Moltke passed APR Motorsport teammate Josh Hurley with two laps remaining in the Street Tuner (ST) portion of the Salt Lake City 200, earning his and co-driver Mike Sweeney's third victory of the 2009 season.

The next morning, though, would prove deflating after Grand-Am officials in a post-race inspection the previous evening found numerous internal engine modifications that ran afoul of Koni Challenge rules. Unapparent superficially in the engine compartment, the noticeable changes were discovered only after officials tore down each of the first and second-place-finishing APR Motorsport Volkswagen engines.

The series had only recently changed the Volkswagen engines’ turbo-boost pressures and Koni officials’ alarm bells began loudly ringing during the race when it appeared the cars were otherwise unaffected, dominating the ST class.

Though not officially released as this is written, sources say APR’s two teams will be levied the Koni Challenge’s stiffest-ever fines and penalties for the infractions, if nothing else because Grand-am types didn’t leave the track until early Saturday morning.

Later,

DC