NIGHT SONG GONE

DAYTONA BEACH – “Consciousness streaming,” as was ol DC’s writing style once characterized by one dear friend, (yes, Ol’ DC actually has such; one or two, anyway). That is, when his style is unconstrained by the narrow pillars and conventions of journalism, the AP Stylebook and social mores.

(Surely, given the state of American education, someone out there thinks the, um, plural for “more” is entirely misplaced, above.)

For sure, the reader is about to enter another dimension of sight, sound, thought and time; you’re about to enter Ol’ DC’s mind (with coincident “Thanks” and apologies to Rod Serling) – about the only thing that causes Jon Fogarty great pain. Well, that and anyone other than himself holding a race lead.

Now, on to the Rambling Prose (a great Nat King Cole song?):

To be quite frank, the new Grand-Am Ferrari Italia, or “458” or “maybe both,” that tested Tuesday (and today) at Daytona International Speedway is a letdown. Big Time.

Then again, perhaps still adversely affected, this Prancing Horse admirer still is recovering from his visit to New Jersey Motorsports.

(When NJM truly has a facility that is a park, a la Birmingham’s Barber Motorsports Park, then “Park” will herein become a regularly featured part of NJM.

(Until then, it’s just another Sebring - absent a racing heritage that allows toleration of The Zoo. And, yes, Sebring once actually was a U.S. Army Air Forces base, too. No, it didn’t manufacture thunderbolts. It had ‘em and still has ‘em; plus oranges. Lots and lots of oranges that also were vital to the war effort – for should a pilot have scurvy, he didn’t fly.

(In faraway Daytona Beach – from Sebring, not NJM – it, too, had an airbase, and a naval hospital and a beach with lots of scantily clad beautiful women, for the attention of whom even non-pilots claimed to fly.

Furthermore, July heat and humidity are an Alabama staple, so the recent heat wave that hit New Jersey Motorsports’ neighborhood was a relative lightweight, being only a big deal to those unfamiliar with 100+-degree heat indexes.

Why, with NJM heat so great, one woman, apparently bereft of reality, carried a fully deployed chartreuse umbrella, evidently expecting a hard rain instead of harsh sunshine.

If not heat nor recovery from such, perhaps, then, the Ferrari Italia held unmet expectations.

Yes, Ol’ DC does remember watching Pedro Rodriguez piloting a Dino – a name which most Americans associated more with Sinclair Oil’s dinosaur-mascot caricature instead of Enzo Ferrari’s much-grieved lost son – and most especially, the 312P, born of a time when a great battle had been joined between a previously spurned suitor and the object of his passion.

Bottom line, though: During that time period Ford Motor Company as often as not won on the sportscar front.

Beyond the obvious differences in language and styling were beliefs of how cars should be geared and powered, four speeds for the throaty Americans (two for Chaparral); five speeds for the screaming Italians.

As night settled on the world’s sportscar endurance tracks rarely did one see light coming from anyone, anything other than the competitors – whether a car’s or its driver carrying a “torch” so as to affect a fix of it.

And while one could often ascertain a car make through the front or rear lights’ positioning, one also had to risk his retinas doing so.

As much as any dance anywhere, an endurance race has a rhythm which changes with the hour, ranging from the bold brashness of the daylight to the settled rote of night.

By the wee dark hours of a race most fans were and still are disposed of being anywhere but a racetrack’s stands, which then are left to channel and shape the sound going through its bleachers as would gently swaying wind chimes in a breeze.

With those sounds came the ability to identify a car, a team, a winner-to-be and, often with its silence, a loser, too.

While there are few grunts to be found equaling that of an American V8, Ferrari was king of the night’s song – one missing from the also-beautiful Prancing Horse of the last two days.

“That’s treatable,” offered a Grand-Am type, known forever herein simply as “Nine Lives.”

And that’s exactly what Ol’ DC most wanted to hear – for now.

Later,

DC

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

 

MILLVILLE, N.J. – Let’s just get straight to the point, courtesy of reporter Jason Mazda and the Press Of Atlantic City:

“Driver Max Angelelli said the economy and the new cars are poor excuses, though. He blamed Grand-Am management, and specifically director of competition Dave Spitzer, who was not at the track Friday and was unavailable for comment.

“’I feel like he is responsible for this,’ the always outspoken Angelelli said. ‘Before he came on board (in March 2008), we had 15, 20 DPs. Now he's on board, and we have eight. It's a coincidence, or he's doing something bad. My opinion, it's not a coincidence, because the economy was bad and now it's recovering, and we can see other championships growing. We can see IndyCar growing. We can see part of the (American Le Mans Series) growing. But we're losing cars.’”

Think th-th-th-th-that’s all folks? Hah!

Same reporter; same publication; different mouth:

“His team owner, Wayne Taylor, said one of the big problems is a rule limiting most teams to only five sets of tires for an entire weekend. Since three sets are generally needed for a race, it often leads to teams skipping practice sessions because they don't have enough tires. But designated teams with either new drivers or "pro-ams" - for whom driving is a second career - get an extra set, and thus more track time.

“’It's not really exciting when you spend all this money and all this effort on the track and on the cars, and you're sitting in the pit lane (unable to practice),’ Taylor said. ‘I'm just sick of it. Really, it's just ridiculous.’”

“’It makes no sense whatsoever. It is just absurd. And I just don't know how much more one can go and sell something when before you get to the racetrack you know you can't even get out to run.’”

REALLY, THEY AIN”T DUMMIES

Beyond the once high-octane world in which they live, Max Angelelli and Wayne Taylor are enmeshed in business ventures throughout the world, driver management (Penske Racing’s Ryan Briscoe among those represented) and are a closely knit “family” all but lacking common “bloodlines.”

For the most part, Angelelli has been Ricky and Jordan Taylor’s mentor, both having access to the thoughts and talents of not just one “great,” but two when father Wayne Taylor is considered.

It’s little wonder the two already are forces with which to be reckoned.

IS BREAKING UP HARD TO DO . . .

. . . or just appears so?

For months rumors have swirled that Taylor , who has denied such, would take his SunTrust sponsorship and undertake IndyCar racing, which Taylor Racing already has to some extent, having embraced the Indy “Light” series.

So, then, like lovers having seen different lights at the end of their tunnel of love, Taylor and Angelelli have actually addressed the same subject, they’ve just taken different tacks.

It’s kind of interesting to note, however, that for all of Angelelli’s criticism of Grand-Am’s David Spitzer, he could likewise have criticized his business partner, as well as hisownself, for Spitzer being there in the first place.

Yes, Spitzer is qualified, but who hasn’t seen qualified people – from race car drivers to engineers – otherwise lack a job largely owed to who they don’t know?

Taylor, Angelelli and Spitzer were first an item when they teamed on the Cadillac prototype program, where Spitzer served in a variety of functions, all upper-management level. They evidently liked him just fine, then, and afterward, when Spitzer scored the Grand-Am job after Taylor put his name in nomination.

Yet, by the end of Spitzer’s first season that support was fast dwindling.

Where and how this’ll all play out isn’t now known, of course.

Later,

DC

CHILL, MAN, CHILL

 

THE PITS . . .

. . . Which, in this case, the meaning is more akin to “bad news” or “at a low point” than that stretch of asphalt on which are found defined areas for servicing a race cars temporarily at rest.

Never before has this scribe climbed aboard two airplanes in which race car drivers have been more bummed.

From Daytona Beach and it’s infamous northerly “transfer station to everywhere,” Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International - where still more grumbling sorts were added – drivers are bummed that their weekend was to be spent in Millville, New Jersey’s New Jersey Motorsports Park. (Below image courtesy of NJMP)

Surprisingly, especially given past hassles at the track, the drivers’ attitude had more to do with being in a car at NJMP rather than being at the track, itself.

Mostly centered on “heat issues” – National Weather Service temperature predictions say the thermometer’s ambient readings will reach 100 degrees Saturday and Sunday – drivers predicted cockpit temperatures would easily climb into the 140-degree range.

At Lime Rock Park, GAINSCO Auto Insurance’s Alex Gurney (at left, with Jon Fogarty in hat, at Miller Motorsports Park in 2009) all but poured forth from his No. 99 Chevrolet-Riley Daytona Prototype, so exhausted was he after a fourth-place finish.

Dehydrated far more than even he realized (which is a commonly occurring aspect of the condition) the two-time Daytona Prototype championship-winning driver, most recently victorious at Laguna Seca (with capable assists in all above categories from Fogarty, of course) was on the tail-end of his recovery when he arrived in Watkins Glen for the Sahlen’s 6 Hours at The Glen three days later.

It was a relatively hot Lime Rock Park race for everyone – especially given the humidity readings after morning storms drenched the area – but at Lime Rock it was Gurney’s cool suit that delivered the knockout blow.

“As a whole, I’m concerned for my drivers,” GAINSCO’s “brains’ on the pit stand Kyle Brannan (left) said Thursday in the NJMP paddock between tweaking the “Red Dragon’s” settings for Friday’s first Rolex Series practice.

Brannan suggests one principal improvement: “Move the radiator from in front of the drivers.”

Failing such, for years an evidently intractable position within the series, “then allow us more air channeling” within the driver’s compartment, Brannan insisted.

While Gurney’s coolsuit failure can be blamed for aggravating the situation, then would it have been needed at all had Lime Rock’s temperatures been far lower? (The coolsuit shown below is offered by FAST Racing Products, long a leader in offering driver-safety products. It was not the coolsuit worn by Gurney, by the way).

“Yeah, in the 30’s, maybe,” one driver sarcastically offered.

“I’m not interested in playing follow-the-leader with anyone in anything,” said a race-winning Rolex Series’ GT driver, who like many drivers quoted herein wasn’t interested in repercussions possibly arising from “shaking the tree,” and thus shall remain anonymous.

“But the series needs to adopt a policy of assuring cars run cooler in the cockpit. They’re gonna have a serious accident that’s attributable to either heat (exhaustion) or (too-high) carbon dioxide levels – if they haven’t already,” the driver continued, hinting that Gunter Schaldach’s Road America flight of the No. 07 CoolTV Chevrolet Camaro might’ve been carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide related.

Another driver, separate from the above discussion, spoke of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) having mandated maximum in-cockpit temperature readings and that Chevrolet has for years been working on a now-successful race-car air conditioning system. The ACO rule requires all closed-cockpit cars, prototype to touring, be fitted with air conditioning systems which maintain a temperature of no more than 32-degrees centigrade (89.6-degrees Fahrenheit).

“If we could just get better airflow through the car, maybe that’d help,” said still another driver whose race car is well known for hitting the highest of the upper-level heat ranges in the Rolex Series.

“Right now, I’m jumping into a sauna that gets hotter than the one I’ve got at home,” he said.

“The biggest problem for transportation of any sort is the efficiencies that are lost to throwing a mass at an atmosphere. And the faster you attempt to travel, the more exponentially significant air-mass resistance becomes.

“The way we’ve overcome that condition, to only a given extent though, is through aerodynamics. A more aerodynamically efficient car allows for greater top-end speeds and fewer BTUs expended in getting there.

“The downside is that aerodynamic efficiency quickly channels air around and away from the car. Make a car more aerodynamic and the car consequently also becomes hotter because airflow into a car creates drag, which creates a whole new set of circumstances to overcome insofar as a race car is concerned.”

While a cool suit failure can be blamed for what has happened to Gurney and others, if interior car temperatures were a tad more bearable no one would have to wear cool suits that too often fail when a failure of just once in a racing car could lead to a conflagration of considerable proportion.

In an ESPN.com report, a 23-year-old Motocross rider died earlier this month after suffering a heat stroke during the RedBug National in Buchanan, Michigan.

According to the story, Bill Lichtle, older brother of the deceased rider, Josh Lichtle, said, "He got overheated, basically, and by the last laps he was practically passing out on the bike. He just wouldn't quit."

Rushed to Saint Joseph’s Medical Center just across the state line in Mishawaka, Indiana, Josh Lichtle was placed in an induced coma in an attempt to reduce his core body temperature and save vital organs subject to failure when overheated. Nevertheless, the rider was pronounced dead early the following morning.

The high temperature recorded at nearby South Bend Regional Airport on the day Lichtle died?

93 degrees.

That’s at least seven-degrees cooler than the predicted ambient temperature for this weekend’s Rolex Series and Continental Tire races.

It was Josh Licktle’s “wouldn’t quit” attitude that so closely reminds one of Gurney – and just about every top driver ever seen.

Perhaps one can make the argument that such is a common but undesirable trait; maybe it’s the difference between a champion and a loser.

How about an argument that these types of drivers are needed, both in terms of entertainment (“door-to-door, wheel-to-wheel racing excitement!”) and marketing the series (“poster children”) and that they, in having such importance, should actively be preserved?

It seems, then, not killing-off drivers as a result of too much heat is of as great importance as any HANS device, fire extinguisher or five-point seatbelt harness.

Later,

DC

MOVING ON UP, QUICKLY

 

Leh Keen and Andrew Davis, driving the No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche GT3 scored their second win in three races Saturday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, in the process posting a 10-point lead over second place in the Rolex Sports Car Series GT-driving championship.

In arrears by four championship points to the No. 88 Autohaus Chevrolet Camaro’s Bill Lester and Jordan Taylor as the series arrived on the Left Coast, Keen and Davis had a veritable Sunday drive when the Autohaus Camaro was “ticketed” for malfunctioning brake lights and sent to the pits for a repair – and a lap deficit when the dust settled. Taylor, more or less, was left to manually signal his use of brakes. Really.

One wonders the big deal. Had everyone just followed one car length for every10 mph in speed, all would’ve been well. Then again, that particular mandate is in the Florida Drivers Handbook and, perhaps owed to its lack of funds, perhaps California opted to leave it out of their counterpart so as to save some ink costs. Ink money gets big when one talks tens-of-millions of books.

Still in the championship’s top-3 is Turner Motorsports’ Paul Dalla Lana, now alone in third place after Bill Auberlen went elsewhere to race elsewhere.

Raphael Matos was tabbed to render assistance to Dalla Lana in Auberlen’s absence but a needed strong run eluded the team, whose No. 94 BMW M3 finished eighth.

The really bad news is that Auberlen, who raced at Lime Rock Park, is fourth in the ALMS’ GT championship, having about half-as-many points as does first place (Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller) in the ALMS GT championship hunt.

Dropping like a rock in the Rolex Series GT championship points – wherein the team stood in first just four races ago – in one Saturday race absence, Auberlen went from equal standing with Dalla Lana to ninth in the points.

It’s a decent bet that contractual obligations and all that goes with such (primarily: hand tying) caused Auberlen’s “no-win” scenario.

Too bad; Auberlen’s a helluva driver well worthy of gaining even more driving-championship crowns and one suspects he’s wearing a long face about now. So, too, Turner Motorsports, who also is a quality outfit.

Meanwhile, reversed are the long faces worn earlier this season by the boys in the red, white and blue No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche.

Extra credit is given for their tenacity, too.

WHAT GOES UP . . .

Falling steadily over in the Daytona Prototype championship points chase are the dual-Action Express Racing (sorry, couldn’t help myself with the hyphen’s use) cars of Darren Law and David Donohue, in the No. 5 AER Porsche-Riley, and the No. 9 AER Porsche-Riley driven by J.C. France, Terry Borcheller and Joao Barbosa.

A look at the latest Rolex Series points chart shows the teams as being among the more consistent in the series, the biggest problem being theirs is on the lower rungs of the “top-performing” teams ladder.

As unabashedly stated earlier this season by this observer, the winning of a championship by any other than one of the AER teams would be on a road on which cars would have to first pass through AER.

Donohue and Law have pretty well stayed in the standing’s fourth and fifth-place vicinity after a ninth-place Rolex 24 at Daytona season-opening start – their worst finish to date in 2011! A win would have and may yet still bolster the team in the championship fight, but it needs to come soon.

So, too, must the No. 9 AER car pick up its performance, which has gone from offering a credible fight for the championship’s top rung to slipping one below their fellow drivers’ fourth-place standing.

Scoring a win, two podiums and three top-5’s at season’s start, the No. 9 AER team has since slowly spiraled downward, posting one sixth, two sevenths and an eighth-place finish in the last four races.

And the drive-through team?

The same team which in 2005 arrived at their first Laguna Seca Daytona Prototype race with a borrowed red Shelton Ferrari hauler.

“Finally,” one journalist thought to himself, having nearly countless times seen Shelton cars at IMSA v. 1.0 races, “Ferrari has arrived!”

Nope.

Then a “Gurney” was mentioned.

“Dan?”

Nope.

“With a Ferrari Red hauler, Riley DP and shirts, okay then, what’s the deal with this Blackhawk Racing operation?”

While Jon Fogarty had yet to don a black-and-red firesuit, Alex Gurney, Bob Stallings, Terry Wilbert and the rest of the No. 99 GAINSCO team had arrived.

Stallings – largely unrecognized as having thrown the gas on a simmering DP “pro-driving-duo” fire – would soon learn he needed to replace himself with a pro (Fogarty) to drastically improve the odds.

Of course, after scoring championships in 2007, 2009 and fighting like heck for a 2010 repeat, this year fans, and even those disinclined of such, wondered, “What the heck happened to GAINSCO?”

(Oh, to be of such recognition that only two syllables are needed for speaker and listener to know of what is meant; the first to be known as simply as is GAINSCO and TELMEX today was “Red Bull,” a.k.a., the No. 59 Fabcar-Porsche of drivers David Donohue and Mike Borkowski, the latter giving way in 2004 to a former Picchio DP-driving Darren Law.)

Well, it’s about time the GAINSCO guys really showed up (coinciding with Mrs. Stallings’ return, too, BTW).

For the Red Dragon team the Grand-Am Daytona Prototype racing season didn’t exactly start well, in four races tallying only one second-place (some teams would love to have one podium; just one) along with an eighth, a 10th and 12th-place finishes.

Compiling an ordinal a 4-3-2-1 finishing streak over the last four races, “They’re ba-ack!”

But it might be too la-ate.

Nevertheless, having finally punched their way out of whatever bag had previously contained them, one just knows the team is again having fun and everything’s better when it’s fun.

VIR CANCELS AMA PRO RACE

What’s a motorcycle race story doing in Cold Pit?

Below (in part) is a 2 + 2 story, because no matter how you add it, the final tally looks to be the same.

“DAYTONA BEACH, FL (July 11, 2011) - It is with deep regret that AMA Pro Racing is forced to announce VIR's cancellation of the Suzuki White Lightening Nationals, Round 8 on the AMA Pro Road Racing season calendar. Despite AMA Pro Racing's efforts to preserve the originally scheduled August 12-14 event, VIR staff notified AMA Pro Racing late Monday, July 11, of its final decision not to host or promote the race weekend.”

Answer: A 2012 Rolex Series Race at VIR just became improbable, no matter how you add it. Think about it.

Later,

DC

CORPORATE SPEAK

DAYTONA BEACH – Now back on hallowed ground – well, at least in the same neighborhood, give or take – just about the only thing remaining to churn is rumor and innuendo, not that Ol’ DC would resort to conveying either, of course.

BETTER WATCH OUT

Ah, life in, around and near the corporate world is what many embrace and some disdain.

It’s got some positives, assuredly, and especially for those willing to sacrifice or consciously stifle that unique human quality of creativity,  living on the edge or, put yet another way, “thinking outside of the box.”

Mostly, it’s a culture of fear that quashes the latter, ultimately leading one to speak or do what he thinks the boss wants to hear or believes the boss wishes to do – thus caught in a self-constructed crossfire of confusion that causes one to hold a tongue or, even, refrain from even seeking a boss’ opinion, rote’s mediocrity then reigns.

Oddly, such generally results in the promotion of an ideology diametric to that which the boss desires, “the boss” having gotten where he is through innovation, quick responses to given situations and not going where today’s non-entrepreneurial corporate guy would even think to go.

And what has prompted such rant from Ol’ DC, perhaps making proud one Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, (assuming she was still alive)?

"Kentucky Speedway regrets the traffic conditions . . ."

Such statement being issued late Sunday evening after an undetermined but evidently substantial number of fans failed to even gain entrance to Kentucky Speedway’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race before being ordered to return to from whence they came.

(What was that old adage: “Go where you want to go; do what you want to do?” Conditionally speaking, that is.)

IN A WORD

Kentucky Speedway general manager Mark Simendinger on Sunday evening issued that statement, sent through email and posted on the track’s website, in which used was the aforementioned “regret,” most likely in an attempt through nuance to appear as though he was apologizing without directly apologizing. Likely feared was that an actual “apology” most likely would’ve opened a “liability door” through which the corporate guys are loathe to pass.

Like an attempt to stand rigid on the beach against an approaching tsunami, the lack of a clear mea culpa was akin to an attempt to quell a fire with petrol.

On Monday, with flames higher than an elephant’s eye, Kentucky Speedway officials, joined by counterparts from “corporate,” Speedway Motorsports, Inc., issued actual apologies along with compensation offers.

THE RIGHT WAY

Early in the summer of 1969 a group of race car drivers gathered, among them Cale Yarbrough, Bobby Allison, David Pearson and Richard Petty, to form the Professional Drivers Association (PDA).

A “line in the sand” was to be later drawn on Sept. 14, 1969, at Alabama International Motor Speedway, known today as “Talladega.”

Seizing upon supposed tire issues on the day before a race for which 60,000 tickets had been sold and after squabbling with NASCAR head Big Bill France, a drivers-only meeting went late into the night, afterward resulting in Petty and a race-field’s worth of teams loading up their trailers, making like tires and rolling on down the road.

At the ready, William Henry Getty France instituted Plan B and the crowd had its 30-some-odd-car race, albeit empty of the drivers it expected, save one PDA member who crossed the line: eventual winner Richard Brickhouse.

Aware the fans on hand were probably disappointed, prior to the race Big Bill rolled up in a loudspeaker-equipped truck, grabbed a microphone and, standing before the crowd, acknowledged their disappointment, additionally telling them their tickets would also be honored at the following Daytona 500 at  Daytona International Speedway, as well as the next Talladega race.

“It was a gutsy thing for him to do,” the founder of IMSA, John Bishop, said to this journalist.

“It was one of the gutsiest things I’ve ever seen. Mr. France was kissing his profits goodbye. Just like Daytona (International Speedway), he’d been running on a shoestring at Talladega. He literally was depending on that money to keep the company (then “Daytona Speedway Corporation”) alive. But Mr. France was a man of immense integrity and he knew that the most important thing was the fan. I learned a lot that day.”

Bishop also learned a few days later the result of Big Bill “making good” would end direct France-family funding, if not other help, for his young International Motor Sports Association. But that’s another story for another day.

Also running deep was Big Bill’s appreciation for the drivers and teams who nevertheless participated in that 1969 Talladega race, as Richard Childress, who finished 23^rd that day, will surely attest today.

Evidently also running deep were the fans’ appreciation of how Big Bill handled the matter: quickly and using the most correct corporate speak of all: “fan first.”

Big Bill showed he really meant it, not mouthed it.

Thus coming to conclusion is today’s lesson.

Later,

DC

IN THE YEAR 2525

LAGUNA SECA, Calif. – With the sea fog all around and Monterey Peninsula temperatures dipping so low that the area was being cited among the coolest, if not “coldest” in the U.S. of A. over the July 9-10 weekend, why not delve into the 2012 schedule?

Yes, Ol’ DC’s kinda running a tad late on the discussion, others having grabbed a seemingly fumbled ball. In the grand scheme of things and 1.5 billion years from now, though, who really will give a darn?

But wait, there’s “but first” . . .

HALLOWED GROUND

Anyone who has any serious connection to racing has heard of “Indianapolis” or, to many, just plain “Indy.”

Daytona International Speedway figures pretty doggone prominently in racing. So, too, Sebring International Raceway, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta and Road America.

Whether conversationally or in print, those familiar with racing often use a shortened “Daytona,” “Laguna” or maybe even “’Bring,” and yet be understood.

(“Daytona” actually doesn’t exist, by the way, “not officially” at any rate. The cities of Daytona Beach, Daytona – no beach, just mainland – and the Town of Seabreeze merged in 1926 to form Daytona Beach.)

Arguably, though, no motorsports facility of abbreviated name will produce anything like a near-universal instant recognition like that of Indy’s mention. It, after all, doesn’t also compete with :”The World’s Most Famous Beach” (I don’t make them up folks; just repeatedly mouth that which marketers have worked to ingrain).

For decades organizations like AAA, USAC, CART, NASCAR and IRL have at one time or another been integral in providing the fans an Indy show. Now, NASCAR’s“Grand-Am” (and Nationwide) can as well.

Whatever the reason, however the end realized, the reality now is that should anyone (outside of those having special connections) wish to race a sportscar on Indy’s hallowed ground, that” road” exclusively runs through Grand-Am.

Fairly easy to realize, too, is that Grand-Am, “a NASCAR Company,” likely wouldn’t have gotten its Indy date had big-brother NASCAR not first gained a toe-hold there, starting with 1994’s The Brickyard 400 – the first race at Indy not solely devoted to open-wheel race cars.

The idea of conducting yet another form of racing at The Brickyard began simply enough in a casual January 2009, boardroom brain-storming session of the same nature that brought Formula One and MotoGP racing to IMS.

Still, the matter was made only more difficult when an IMS family squabble broke into the public domain and altogether shifted IMS’ power dynamics, albeit it since having been at least partially reconstituted.

The deal-sealer, though, came when NASCAR added its Nationwide Series to the mix, allowing for near-continuous Thursday-through-Sunday action at IMS (when included is the Thursday, July 26 Rolex Series and Continental Tire practice day that opens the racing weekend).

The Rolex Sports Car Series, Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, Nationwide and Sprint Cup’s “Brickyard 400” made for a three-day race event (four when added is a Thursday practice session) that is expected to give attendees one whale of a bang for the buck.

Thus born is the IMS-named “Super Weekend at the Brickyard.”

Perhaps one of the more important aspects of the 2012 schedule is that it is being scheduled at all – at least at this time of year.

No, the Rolex Series isn’t on the verge of going away.

Rather, Grand-Am president Tom Bledsoe is aggressively pursuing the 2012’s schedule completion and, should  last-minute curve balls absent themselves from the process, it’ll be concluded sooner than any in recent memory.

More importantly – again presuming corporate-type curveballs are held at bay – it’ll be a an upgraded schedule in which Indy, while still a standout, will be among rarely seen venues, at least on this side of the sports car fence.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Thus, if released earlier than has been the past case, team owners will have new, exciting venues to pitch and a reasonable timeframe in which to present that package to potential sponsors.

Corporate-year budgets generally run from October 1^st of a given year and thus are largely “closed” by mid-September of any given year.

Implementation of a corporate budget and past late releases of Grand-Am schedules has made it tough for team owners just to make a pitch to potential sponsors, much less endure a process that can take weeks, if not months, from the time of the first pitch to inking a contract full of particulars that at times seem only to be quibbling fodder for gleeful attorneys.

Though certainly not the only key in opening sponsorship doors, it’s a big one for team owners - if not the series, too, as a result.

THE UPGRADE

Treasured in the world of frequent flyers is being on the receiving end of a “bump.”

Having nothing to do with being physically jostled, it instead means the difference between flying in style – “up front” in a commercial air carrier’s first-class “cabin” – or “riding in the back of the bus” along with the chickens, pigs and various other farm animals.

Usually excitedly discussed among small groups of allied corporate types who gather in little groups facing a nearby flat screen, “The Bump” is a highly desired “ticket to paradise” – especially for transcontinental flights.

Supposedly among an airline’s means of “thanking” its most devoted, well-traveled pigeons, er, passengers (generally a corporate type), The Bump also provides the means by which to increase revenue in moving one passenger to the front and then selling his former, more affordable seat yet another passenger.

A cheap, cheap, cheap  Ol’ DC, disinclined of needlessly spending money for anything short of a Porsche, books trips well in advance of his actual travel date so as to (hopefully) score two things: a “poor-man’s first class” seat (exit-row) at an inexpensive, non-refundable price.

Though Ol’ DC quite strongly starts each “new flying year” with many bumps to first, such ground is quickly lost as his more expensively ticketed brethren start racking up their points with later-bought tickets.

But by a season’s midpoint this frequent flyer usually is just one or two below the coveted cut line.

While girding for the customary gate-scrum ritual for a recent flight, Ol’ DC found himself at line’s rear and alongside James Guè, of Patrick Dempsey Racing driving fame.

“I’m surprised you’re not up front” Ol’ DC said to Guè, who easily compiles more frequent-flyer miles in a week than does yours truly in a month.

“I was, but I wanted a seat next to my girlfriend,” said Guè. “So I gave mine up” and thus was self-sentenced to the bus’ rear. To add “rearness” to his self-inflicted injury, Guè placed himself directly between the MD-88’s two engines where any “sweet-nothings” conversation becomes a shouting match by necessity. Nice guy, he, still the same.

Having advanced to the line’s head, the ticket-scanning machine whirred, its lights flashed and bells sounded: Ol’ DC’s ticket had hit the “The Delta Lotto!” and spewing forth was a last-moment reprieve from the chicken-carrying section.

Onward to the aircraft and walking the plank (oh, the gangway nowadays has been given all manner of “nice” names, but flying on Delta of late seems ever more like a potential date with Captain Bligh or, rather, a flight-attendant wannabe), Ol’ DC wondered aloud as to the seat Guè had sacrificed for love, surrendering a sometimes provided pre-flight beverage service (a “chance” being better than “no way”).

“1-D,” Guè answered.

One and the same “winning number” Ol’ DC carried – with great appreciation.

Later,

DC

MIXED BOWL

SALINAS, California – Called hereabouts as “The World’s Salad Bowl” it doesn’t take much of a drive outside of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to understand that about which the chamber of commerce speaks.

RINGIING THE BELL

Shout Joe Foster’s name from behind him in the Laguna paddock and he’ll whirl 180-degrees on one of his shoe heels because turning his head really isn’t a option right now.

“It’s pretty stiff,” Foster said, while doing nothing physically to belie his words.

While Gunter Schaldach was able to stroll up the hill on the outside of Road America’s Turn 1 after he launched from atop the gravel pit (he darn sure wasn’t actually IN it), Foster and his No. 40 VisitFlorida.com Mazda RX-8 was left to writhe in pain while awaiting rescue.

Well, maybe not “writhe.”

“I don’t remember a thing between the time I was hit and my first memory afterward, which was in the helicopter on the way to the hospital,” Foster said.

“I really had my bell rung.”

The recorded data (derived from a technology that Grand-Am cars aren’t supposed to have, by the way) showed Schaldach’s No. 07 CoolTV/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Camaro plowed into the rear of Foster’s Mazda having a 52-mph speed differential.

“There was nothing wrong with the front of the car. It was the rear clip that was just flattened,” he said.

I didn’t get the stiff neck from hitting the barrier. It came from getting hit in the rear, before I left the track.”

Foster’s so-called “stiff neck” is owed to a dislocated vertebra, one hopefully returned to the order in which it had long maintained until the wreck.

“All that you see me doing in the in-car (post-wreck) video, moving around; talking to the corner workers, I don’t remember a thing about it.”

Foster said the car’s remains already are undertaking repair at the Riley Technologies’ Mooresville, N.C. shop.

“Pretty much the entire rear will be new,” Foster said. “It’ll get over the hurt before I will.”

HERE TO ETERNITY

“Four tenths-of-a-second is pretty much an eternity,” No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet-Riley driver and second-fast qualifier Jon Fogarty said after another race in which the resurgent Dragón Rojo is fast enough to stake a front-row claim, but still fell short of a total field domination (it’s kinda like “world domination,” Mark) of the kind it has enjoyed previously, especially in 2007.

So, who and what dominated?

“I’m not overstating it when I say that the Dallara makes me look good,” SunTrust Racing’s Ricky Taylor seriously said after claiming his – not just the Dallara’s – fourth straight pole in the No. 10 Chevrolet-powered Daytona Prototype.

Uh-huh, but seriously, folks . . .

TOP DOG, AGAIN

Wayne Nonnamaker did it again: a front row.

Too bad Wayne ain’t “Joe.”

Though once performing well in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series, the team has languished by comparison after stepping up a couple of seasons ago into the Rolex Series’ Grand Touring category.

Now hitting on all cylin . . . um, rotors, Nonnamaker cited changes made to the team’s personnel structure as being key to Sahlen’s return to rarified air.

“Jay Chapman is our team manager, who really worked at getting the team organized and put together,” Nonnamaker said after his topmost qualifying run Friday at Laguna Seca, powered by Mazda.

“Then we’ve got Kate (Kathryn) Crawford Wallace, who is our engineer and who has done just a superb job in getting us a very driveable car, improving what is already a great Mazda platform.

“I think the last piece we had to put into place was John Edwards. He and I are a perfect fit, in terms of what we do for set-up, how we drive.”

More from and/or about Laguna,

Later,

DC

ON THE ROAD TO INDY

The faithful among us will remember that indeed it was Ol' DC who first put the word out regarding Grand-Am scheduling an Indy race.

Of course, he was a year short the first time and, in one of those moments every writer loves (read with great sarcasm), soon thereafter retracted it.

It's kinda, sorta funny now (and sure to get funnier as the years pass) but I'll likely not forget my landing at Atlanta one year past, heading for some race somewhere, and my phone being alight, um, vibrating with messages far beyond the usual count. So much so that had I been elsewhere and with a certain other . . .  oh, never mind.

Each of the messages concerned my piece on the Indy date (scheduled for 2011; incorrectly so, of course). Some were congratulatory (as if I did a darn thing to get it scheduled) while others were just shrieks of joy from owners like Mike Shank, who could hardly contain himself.

Shank's racing heritage, especially in the cockpit, is open wheel. At one point, he was named "Toyota Atlantic Owner of The Year" or something to that effect after he climbed from the cockpit to the top of a pit stand. So standing on a real Indy race grid with one or more of his cars in the field was an end Shank had pursued for as long as he'd been consciously aware.

Feeling pretty darn good, I worked my voicemail, arriving at Grand-Am president Tom Bledsoe's message.

Playing voicemail tag with Mr. Bledsoe wasn't all that unusual but when I got to his succinctly stated, "DC, we've got to talk," it sent a shot across the bow that'd make proud any Coast Guard cutter gunnery crew.

Dutifully dialing Mr. Bledsoe's number, believe me, I already was clear on one thing: whatever he was to say such wasn't going to be congratulatory.

"Maybe he's giving me a heads up on JJ O'Malley getting fired," I thought to myself. "Maybe Mark Raffauf finally got some good-smelling cigars."

It was neither: Raffauf's cigars still stink, as does JJ, who every morning takes a 5-mile jog before work. (Remember the Peanuts charater who had a "dirt aura?" JJ has an aura of another kind, if you catch my drift.)

"DC, we've got a problem with your Indianapolis piece," he said as my heart sank to my stomach and my stomach went somewhere else. I honestly have no idea exactly where, but it darn sure went.
And the "Delta Jet" hadn't even arrived at the gate. Somewhere on the ATL tarmac today is my stomach.

Moments later, ensconced in my "away office" (Delta Sky Club, and to me it's worth every doggone cent) Ol' DC quickly hacked his retraction.

Today, it seems, bloggers take liberty with journalistic principals, if they even are aware of their existence. I started learning them while a high school sophomore, who scored a cherished job on the newspaper staff. (Actually, I wasn't so inclined to write as I was to goof off, and the newspaper staff was supposedly very good at that. Little did I know.)

Thus, erring factually is tough, mentally and emotionally. And that's what I did; I had erred. Did I mention embarrassment?

Perhaps wrongly so, I imagine most of today's blogger's really don't give a darn if they stretch facts or, even, if they use facts at all.

The scary part? I perceive such attitude as slowly sneaking into today's newspapers and periodicals.

The "Indy Incident," as have others of similar nature, wore heavily on this journalist's heart. It just wasn't the best fun I'd ever had, even though I had incorrectly stated only one material fact: the year in which the Indy race was to occur.

Inasmuch as "negotiations" were in a "delicate phase," this writer chilled, completely so, and the topic was self-deemed verboten in his own space until the appropriate letters had been crossed and dotted between Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Grand-Am and NASCAR.

Indeed, some of those letters had yet to be dotted and crossed when a certain open-wheel reporter weeks ago said that done was the deal.

So, as this writer today heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway (writing this in one of Hartsfield-Jackson International's Delta Sky Clubs, BTW) now that the T's and I's have been appropriately inked and such has dried above the signatures of all involved, he can accurately say: "I told you so," even if a year out of kilter. (And what in heck IS a "kilter?")

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, the rest of the 2012 schedule, should it come together as now proposed, will be a mindblower. Finally.

Later,

DC