AJ's getting some IZOD duds

From the Twitter today:






Boo for one less permanent car, but yay for the end of RHR's crazy Vision ride that never felt full-fledged to begin with.

Foyt's team may be kinda...bad but at least this team will actually be trying to give him the best car possible. RHR is an upgrade over Quattro, especially with a July full of right turners. It will also give them a chance to have some continuity from here on out rather than have a revolving door of drivers. Hopefully he pulls some great results out and shows his calibre as a driver.

The IRL is trying to make me a NASCAR fan

After the snooze fest tonight, I'm actually looking forward to the Pocono "Why the hell is this terrible ass race 500 miles long?" 500. Who would have ever thought Texas Motor Speedway could produce such a terrible race? I said it several times on Twitter tonight: IndyCars on ovals are broken.

Tonight was not an aberration in 2009. Kansas was a boring race, Indy was a boring race, and Milwaukee was a slightly less boring race. What the hell happened to my beloved side-by-side racing? The kind of action that made me like IndyCars in the first place? The aerodynamics in these cars suck royally. And without any significant differences between the cars (like say, another engine), we get high-speed parades. When the series champion is calling you on your national television coverage (albeit to a very small mass of fans), that's a serious problem.

It's not just a problem for us bored hardcores. How is the series supposed to recruit new fans when there is nothing interesting to draw them in?

We don't see another high-speed oval until August. In the meantime, let's try and fix what's wrong with the races on them (or at least consider new things for 2010). First, rip the effin' fuel dials off the cars. Every race has the exact same pattern now: Green Flag, a few laps of dicing for position, then everybody sets the knob for fuel saving and files in for the parade. I get bored and flip around until I find Indonesian synchronized swimming championships or something. Repeat on every restart.

Also let everyone have varied wheelbases again. Clearly that experiment has been an EPIC FAIL. If teams can't afford extra parts, whatever. It's not like the current rules is seeing a Coyne car battling for the lead with the red guys.

And while we're at it, make the guy in the last pit box have to turn like everyone else. In the last two years there have been several races (the one coming right to my head is Edmonton) where somebody won because of that damn pit box. Even if you want to justify it as a "reward" for success, Helio wasn't deserving of it. And the less on-track passing we see, the more this will have an impact.

God I'm pissed. Can't wait for F1 tomorrow. At least there a leader's engine could blow and change everything, although if Button is leading it's not bloody likely. I'm rooting for Vettel though.

Driver Rankings for Weekend of May 24, 2009

My rankings are a little late, but I've updated rankings reflecting the races in Monaco, Indy and Charlotte. I've also added a brand new graphic showing the biggest gainers and losers in the week's rankings.

Jenson Button is looking impossible to beat at this point, being nearly 16 points ahead of the new #2, his Brawn teammate Rubens Barrichello. The Indy 500 has had the biggest effect on the rankings, with a bulk of the gainers and losers coming from IndyCar. Franchitti went up by three, Castroneves went up four, and Danica Patrick went up seven. Nobody though is close to Jenson Button, who will need several DNFs for anyone to get close to him.



Gainers and Losers

The theme this week for the top gainers are High 500 finishers and Ferrari superstars. Leading the pack is Kimi Raikkonen, up 21 spots from 61st to 40th, followed by 500 runner-up Dan Wheldon (43-24), and Ed Carpenter (67-49). The big losers are mostly guys with bad ends to their 500s (namely, putting it in the wall), led by Graham Rahal, Justin Wilson, and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Another factor to remember for Wilson and Hunter-Reay is that they are likely still coming down to earth from their strong starts in St. Petersburg.

Making F1 Budget Caps work

The plan for a budget cap in F1 has been announced. Realizing that most of the current team would find it impossible to cut their budget down to 40 million pounds in 12 months, the FIA has decided instead to let teams that do use the cap to have greater technical freedom, like more off-season testing and no rev limiters on the engines. Unsurprisingly, the current teams don't like it, and feel it is creating two classes of teams.

McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh:

Equally, we recognize the excellent work done recently by the FIA in the area of cost-reduction. Having said all that, we understand that some teams' operational budgets may still be unnecessarily high in the challenging global economic situation in which we now find ourselves. Nonetheless, we believe that the optimal solution - which may or may not include a budget cap, but which ideally would not encompass a two-tier regulatory framework - is most likely to be arrived at via measured negotiation between all parties.

Sir Frank Williams:

Williams has supported the introduction of a budget cap since the idea was first put forward early in 2008," said Williams. "Since then FOTA has made tremendous steps forward on costs but the rationale for a budget cap has also grown even stronger. We would like to see all the teams operating to one set of regulations and under a budget cap in 2010 and that is the position we will be advocating within FOTA when we meet next week. We understand that this will represent a serious challenge for some of the teams but we expect that FOTA will work together to find a unified and constructive way to take the FIA's initiative forward.

Having two sets of technical rules is a weird way to handle it, and it goes against the general spirit of F1. There definitely has to be an incentive for teams to join in the budget caps, but there is another way to do it.

Make it financially viable

When I think about a soft budget cap like the one the FIA is proposing, I consider what the NBA has done with their salary cap. Like the F1 cap, it is not mandatory to follow thanks to the NBA's dozens of exceptions. However, not upholding the cap comes at a price - the teams have to pay money back to the league for going over.

Idea #1: Luxury Tax

Like the NBA, going over the limit by a certain amount causes a constructor to pay a "tax" back to the FIA. For instance, if Ferrari was 100 million GBP over the cap, they would have to pay back some percentage of that money to the FIA. The money could then be distributed to the teams that did follow the cap, a la the NBA.

The advantage of the luxury tax plan would be that big spenders could still remain that way, albeit with a financial cost. After a certain point I'd assume that those teams, particularly factory teams, would not want to spend money on something with no possible return, and as a result the Toyotas, Ferraris, and McLarens of the world would reduce their budgets either to the cap or to a level where the tax is not so taxing.

The problem that might be perceived by the use of the luxury tax is could essentially be team welfare if done incorrectly. Capped teams would have their budgets entirely covered by the big spenders. To prevent this, I'd propose a limit to how much money a team could recieve from luxury tax sharing and either redistribute leftover money back to taxed teams or give it to charity.

Idea #2: Changing how teams share the money

The other idea follows how F1 teams earn money through the year from FOM. For more information, read F1 Fanatic's story about where the money goes in Formula One. Essentially, what would happen under this plan would alter the share each team gets. While teams exist outside the budget caps, FOM money that goes to teams would be split into two pools: one for teams with budget caps, one for teams without them. The distribution within each pool would be even, but the percentage of money goes to each pool would be different. The percentage would have to be as such that capped teams would ultimately get more money back from FOM than the teams without the cap.

Let's say for example that the FOM money given back to teams is 180 million GBP (I have no idea what the actual amount FOM gives out is). There are twelve teams in F1 in 2010 in this scenario, with the capped teams being newbies Lola and USGP along with Force India, while everyone else is uncapped. Let's split the money in half, with each pool being 90 million pounds . With three capped teams sharing one pool, they'd each get 30 million, while the uncapped teams would get only 10 million each.

For teams on the low end of the current F1 spending, having the budget drop covered somewhat could be an incentive to join the budget cap brigade. Still, a twenty million pound windfall like in my example would hardly be an incentive for a Toyota or Ferrari to be more thrifty.

2009 Driver Rankings: 4/29/2009

For a look at how this works, see here.

Another week, another set of driver rankings to reveal. None of my big 3 series had particularly interesting racing, however that wasn't the case with this week's rankings. The big ones at Talladega had several top NASCAR guys lose big points. With only three races completed so far, the IndyCar rankings are still quite volatile, with the biggest gainer and biggest loser this week coming from the IRL.

The rules of my rankings require that a driver participate in at least half of the events his or her series runs in order to be ranked. Because of that, the most recent NASCAR winner Brad Keselowski, whose run 4 of 9 Sprint Cup events, is ineligible. His current average of 9.625 would place him in 37th place though if he was included.

Top 10 in Focus

1. Jenson Button, F1 (last week - 1)

Fourth week in a row that Button sits #1 in the standings, now by a margin of more than 10. Without any IndyCar races until the end of next month, he's bound to stay on top until at least then. Even if he scored no ranking points in Spain, he'll still have a 31.800 average.

2. Will Power, IndyCar (last week - 3)

Being rideless this week actually helped Will Power become the top ranked IndyCar driver after Dario Franchitti crashed out and got his qualifying run thrown out. He will get to run at Indy though, hopefully for him it will be good enough to get sponsor dollars for the rest of the season.

3. Rubens Barrichello, F1 (last week - 4)

Rubens had a solid point gain this week to maintain a high position on the chart. He has not been as strong as his teammate Button, which may be an area of concern as the other teams close the diffuser gap in Spain and Monaco.

4. Sebastian Vettel, F1 (last week - 12)

A runner-up finish in Bahrain together with his victory in China has seen Vettel moved in two weeks from 41st to 4th. Unless Button suffers a disaster run of form the only way I could see someone else getting up to #1 is if this kid gets on a serious winning streak, preferably with a few poles along the way.

5. Jarno Trulli, F1 (last week - 16)

Earning pole in Bahrain was key to Jarno's success this week, as he actually earned more ranking points than Vettel despite finishing third.

6. Tony Kanaan, IndyCar (last week - 7)

Another consistently good week for Kanaan saw him become the ICS points leader if just barely, while he remains the highest ranked driver with a guaranteed ride for the season.

7. Dario Franchitti, IndyCar (last week - 2)

Dario scored a big ol' donut this week, causing him to drop five places.

8. Jeff Gordon, NASCAR (last week - 5)

The biggest victim of the first Big One of Talladega '09.

9. Kurt Busch, NASCAR (last week - 9)

Older Busch has been #9 for three weeks running.

10. Ryan Briscoe, IndyCar (last week - 10)

Briscoe caught an unlucky break on Sunday when the caution flew prior to hitting the pit line, but it did not effect him to badly here.




Other Facts

• Biggest Gainer: Kansas winner and last year's #1 driver Scott Dixon, who went from 60th to 15th in one weekend.
• Biggest Loser: Raphael Matos, who went from 45th to 59th.
• Only one man is keeping Jenson Button from having the top average in all three categories (race results, qualifying and bonus) : Graham Rahal, whose qualifying average of 8.67 points/qualifying session leads Button and Will Power (8.5 each).
  

2009 Driver Rankings: 4/21/2009

For a look at how this works, see here.

My driver rankings have returned for another week after a brief break. I was in Nashville over Easter and unable to post rankings for two weeks ago (I got a reprieve the last week since F1, IndyCar, and NASCAR were all off). Since Jenson Button won in Malaysia no one would be surprised that he retained the #1 spot on the list.

Although Button finally did not win a race, his third place finish in Shanghai was more than enough to keep him in the top spot for another week, his third overall. But it also makes this the first rankings of the season to not have a driver who won that weekend in the top spot.

This week has also had another bit of history for 2009: the first "perfect" weekend in the rankings. The driver who did this was Mark Martin, winning from pole while leading the most laps and setting fastest lap. He gained several positions to finish 11th this week, but he's far from the highest gainer.

Top 5

1. Jenson Button, F1 (last week - 1)

Did not win this week, but enough to stay ahead of the pack. It's an amazing run for a guy who going into the season had one win and thought to be a bit washed up.

2. Dario Franchitti, IndyCar (last week - t-10)

Although most IndyCar fans consider Dario one of the better road racers, his win at Long Beach was his first in an IRL car on a right turner.

3. Will Power, IndyCar (last week - t-10)

Power showed why he is capable of being a Penske driver despite not winning this weekend. It is a shame that he will likely be rideless for Kansas, but fortunately for Will it will have no effect on my points, since your total is averaged against the races you've run and that what the field has.

4. Rubens Barrichello, F1 (last week - 5)

Rubens moves up one thanks to drops by IndyCar drivers Justin Wilson and Ryan Hunter-Reay, who ran well at St. Pete but did not deliver similar performances in Long Beach.

5. Jeff Gordon, NASCAR (last week - 6)

Gordon averaged dropped a bit this weekend thanks to a dud in Phoenix, but goes in rank for the same reason as Barrichello above him.


Here's the top 40 list:



Biggest Gainer: This week's biggest gainer was Danica Patrick. The world's fastest swimsuit model was tied for last going into Long Beach, having scored zero points in St. Petersburg. However, a fourth place finish and a most improved bonus takes her all the way from a tie for 80th to 33rd. Her teammate Marco Andretti gained 33 spots himself, while Chinese Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel gained 29 positions.

My heart is empty right now...

Yes, this blog is about racing, but I am also a huge fan of the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies were the first sports team I ever latched on to, and to see them win the World Series last October was my favorite moment as a sports fan. As a Phillies fan you're conditioned to deal with disappointment, but no string of last place teams can help cope with the lost of the lost of the voice of the team.

I watched the resumed Game 5 with the television on mute. I wanted to listen to MY announcers make the call - especially Harry knowing he didn't get to call the first title. To hear it was pure heaven. It's difficult to believe it will no longer be heard in person again. I did get the chance to see him in person earlier this year, when he emceed the Philadelphia Sportswriters Association awards. It's open to the public, and my dad got tickets for me as a birthday gift. The food might have been the typical rubber chicken sort of stuff, but in hindsight to see and hear him in the flesh before he passed is something I can't forget.



R.I.P. Harry

2009 Driver Rankings: 4/2/2009

This week's rankings are a tad bit late, but with the appeals regarding Trulli and Hamilton that is probably a good thing. Unsurprisingly, there's a new #1, and that's Jenson Button. Button opens the rankings with a super high 47.000 average (a.k.a. the number of points he scored in Melbourne). So far in 2009 this is the highest total that has been tallied in one race, and is three points shy of the maximum 50 points a driver can earn (Rosberg's fast lap prevented the sweep).

Top 30



Because of the new entries, only one driver actually went up in the rankings (although certainly other drivers enhanced their averages): Denny Hamlin, the runner-up at Martinsville, moving up from 12th to 10th.

Expect more fluctuations next week as IndyCar drivers get added to the pile and a second F1 race smooths out some of their scores. I expect things to begin to settle by the beginning of May, once each series has run a couple of races.

2009 Driver Rankings: 3/24/2009

For a look at how this works, see here.

It's been nearly a month since my last set of driver rankings, but with only one covered series running at this moment it's not quite ready for primetime. All that will change next weekend, since Formula One begins its season and IndyCar the next. With the way the rankings have appeared in 2008, this weekend is likely the last with a NASCAR driver in the top spot.

And that driver in the top spot? This weeks race winner, Kyle Busch. Shrub takes over the #1 spot from older bro Kurt who was #1 after the last race. Another interesting trend has emerged from the rankings: the driver who won the race that weekend has been #1 every weekend: Kenseth was obviously #1 after Daytona and retained after Fontana, Kyle took over after Las Vegas, then Kurt at Atlanta. #1 will again go to the most recent winner, although the Australian GP winner instead.

Top 25 (all NASCAR guys since nobody else has started)



Biggest Gainer of the Week: With his first good race of '09, Ryan Newman moved from 30th to 21st this week. Mark Martin moved up 7 thanks to his second straight pole.

Whatever Bernie Wants, Bernie Gets...

...Although not completely. The FIA's World Motor Sport Council decided to award the Formula One championship based on the number of wins a driver gets, irregardless of the number of points he earns thoughout the season. Points would only matter if the drivers are tied, but do matter for all positions but the World Champion

It's not the entireity of Monsieur Ecclestone's stupid medals concept, but has the same gist. I think it's a rather unnecessary concept that could have been remedied in a better fashion - changing the points and widening the gap between P1 and P2.

The modern era of Formula One has been so slanted towards one or two power teams that the rule would rarely be an issue. But what if this year is different? Say Kovalainen wins four races but performs poorly otherwise (wholly possible if McLaren is just sandbagging it so far), meanwhile the Ferrari guys and Hamilton each get three wins and dominate the podium? It would be a farce.

I have looked back every Formula One season since the beginning to see how the champs would have differed under this system. Of the 58 seasons so far, 10 have had the World Champion not be the driver win the title.

• 1958: Stirling Moss' 4 victories gives him the edge over Mike Hawthorn to be the first British F1 champ.
• 1964: Jim Clark wins back to back titles (3 wins to John Surtees' 2)
• 1967: Clark wins title #4 (4 wins) instead of Denny Hulme (2 wins)
• 1977: Mario Andretti goes into his real life title season as defending champ, besting Niki Lauda 4 wins to three.
• 1982: No one wins more than two times, with Keke Rosberg winning just once. Didier Peroni edges John Watson for the title on third place finishes (tied with points and second places).
• 1983: Alain Prost takes Nelson Piquet's title (4-3)
• 1986: Prost's title is taken from him by Nigel Mansell (5-4)
• 1987: Mansell wins back to back (5 to Piquet's 3)
• 1989: Senna's six wins beat Prost's four.
• 2008: Massa doesn't need Glock to hold off Hamilton this time.

Looking back at history, this idea is an unfortunate knee-jerk reaction to a situation that outside of the 1980s, is an incredibly rare occurence.

Unofficial 2009 Driver Rankings: 2/25/2009

One of my earlier posts was about driver rankings. With 2009 racing finally beginning, I wanted to show off the so far unofficial rankings for 2009. I'm calling them unofficial since only one major series has begun, NASCAR, and there are only two races so far.

Top 20 (after Fontana)

1. Matt Kenseth (last week - 1), 30.000 average

Unsurprisingly, Kenseth is #1 so far after winning the first two races of '09. He still has room for improvement though, since he has zero qualifying points.

2. Tony Stewart (LW - 3), 21.000

Consistency has kept Smoke up near the top. In fact, he registered the same amount of ranking points at Daytona and Fontana (only Kenseth did the same).

3. Kurt Busch (LW - 7), 20.500

A tenth place and fifth place put him at #3 so far.

4. Jeff Gordon (LW - 13), 18.500

Fontana runner-up Gordon jumps ahead thanks to his finish at Auto Club.

5. Jimmie Johnson (LW - t18), 16.750

Scoring a weak (for him) 5.5 points at Daytona, the three-time defending Cup champ scored the second most points at Fontana thanks to his front row start.

6. Kyle Busch (LW - t14), 16.750

7. Brian Vickers (LW - t21), 16.000

8. Martin Truex Jr. (LW - 2), 14.250

9. Juan Pablo Montoya (LW - t14), 14.000

10. Greg Biffle (LW - t21), 13.000

11. A.J. Allmendinger (LW - 4), 12.750

T-12. Clint Bowyer (LW - t7), 12.000

T-12. Michael Waltrip (LW - t10), 12.000

14. Carl Edwards (LW - 17), 11.500

T-15. Kevin Harvick (LW - 5), 11.000

T-15. David Ragan (LW - t10), 11.000

T-15. Reed Sorenson (LW - 6), 11.000

18. Denny Hamlin (LW - t18), 10.250

19. Mark Martin (LW - t10), 10.000

20. Elliott Sadler (LW - 9), 9.250

Four Left Turns for F1

I was greeted this morning by an article from F1 Fanatic about oval racing for F1.Read the whole article here. I highly recommend it.

I think Keith Collantine brings up a great point for US involvement in F1. If they really want to succeed as a popular form of racing in America, running on an oval is the way to go. Whether we like it or not, the road racing is the USA is a niche racing market. The majority of racing interest is direct towards ovals. An F1 race on an oval would certainly get an IndyCar fan's interest, and likely NASCAR fans would be interested in the novelty of it.

An added benefit of using an oval from an American perspective is that we would see a greater deal of respect towards this type of track from both drivers and fans. To say that "just turning left" is easy oversimplifies what this type of racing requires. I've said this to others in the past that successful oval racing requires a slightly different skill set than road course racing, but nonetheless it deserves to be in a great driver's set of skills. To me that's why I think most highly of guys like Mario Andretti who have been very successful in several disciplines and numerous styles of racing. It's a range that is too seldom seen these days (Montoya may be the last of them right now). It could have an added effect of having older drivers like a Barrichello try IndyCars (or at least the 500) after their F1 careers have run their course in the vein of Emerson Fittipaldi. That would bring a better profile internationally to IndyCars, as it would not just be the F1 reject bin.

But where would they race? The amount of speed an F1 car can generate eliminates high banked tracks like Daytona, Michigan, and Texas from consideration. Besides, a low banked track is an easier transition for oval newbies (see last year's Milwaukee race for proof). That being said, Indy would be an obvious pick: clearly F1 ready, low banked, historical, and could show off the real speeds of these cars. Pocono is one on my radar, since the uniqueness of the track is the most similar thing to a road course. Plus since it's fairly close to NYC the F1 powers that be would be able to tap into the national media easily not to mention allow the muckety mucks to spend time there.

I don't think it will ever happen though. There would have to be some technical changes for the cars, not to mention enough Eurosnobs who don't get this kind of racing. Still, if they ever want to really break into to the US again it would be the best option.

Good luck Pete and Ken

I watched the USF1 press conference on Speed today. I hope it isn't a mitigated disaster. The culture of Formula One needs to be shaken up a bit - it's not fan friendly and too Eurocentric to be a complete World Championship. I'd love to see a more explicit American involvement in F1 on the team and driver standpoint.

Driver lineup hint? Go young. Develop folks with potential to be great drivers. Avoid Danica, in spite of the sheer amount of publicity it will bring to take her to the grid. I don't think she'd bite anyway (she is too smart about her image to allow herself to look like a major chump).

Taking the Test

Homestead test results so far:

IndyCar (before dinner break)
Justin Wilson has since moved up in the standings though.

Pos Driver No Best Time Best Speed Laps
1 Scott Dixon 9 25.2919 211.372 50
2 Ryan Briscoe 6 25.3614 210.793 53
3 Dario Franchitti 10 25.4939 209.697 46
4 Robert Doornbos 6 25.5077 209.584 70
5 Ryan Briscoe 3 25.5479 209.254 14
6 Mario Moraes 5 25.5680 209.089 62
7 Danica Patrick 7 25.6133 208.720 39
8 Tony Kanaan 11 25.6134 208.719 14
9 Raphael Matos 12 25.6165 208.694 70
10 Graham Rahal 2 25.6476 208.441 63
11 Marco Andretti 26 25.6786 208.189 27
12 Hideki Mutoh 27 25.6984 208.029 54
13 Mike Conway 24 25.7075 207.955 58
14 Ed Carpenter 20 25.7481 207.627 56
15 Will Power 3 25.8672 206.671 43
16 Milka Duno 23 25.8837 206.539 50
17 Vitor Meira 14 25.9387 206.101 33
18 EJ Viso 13 26.1302 204.591 16
19 Jaime Camara 34 26.5155 201.618 16
20 Stanton Barrett 98 26.5531 201.332 46
21 Justin Wilson 18 26.7566 199.801 51

Indy Lights


Pos Driver No Best Time Best Speed Laps
1 Pippa Mann 16 28.4776 187.726 144
2 Ali Jackson 59 28.5138 187.488 70
3 Sebastian Saavedra 27 28.5216 187.437 181
4 Martin Plowman 15 28.5620 187.172 190
5 Mario Romancini 5 28.5674 187.136 106
6 Junior Strous 18 28.6193 186.797 175
7 Ana Beatriz 20 28.6775 186.418 136
8 James Hinchcliffe 7 28.6884 186.347 141
9 Sergey Mokshantsev 3 28.7227 186.125 126
10 Andrew Prendeville 2 28.7416 186.002 149
11 JR Hildebrand 26 28.7427 185.995 118
12 Sean Guthrie 4 28.7734 185.797 147
13 Brandon Wagner 32 28.8110 185.554 171
14 James Davison 21 28.8480 185.316 131
15 Jesse Mason 49 28.9948 184.378 127
16 Daniel Herrington 28 29.0297 184.156 66
17 Jay Howard 37 29.1379 183.472 46

For the second straight day, Pippa Mann tops the charts. Panther was always great on ovals last year, but to see an inexperienced driver on ovals do well bids well for her. Indy Lights might have two women with a good shot of winning races (the other of course being Ana Beatriz).

The long, silly season nightmare is over

Bobby D is employed.

The International "Problem"

Last Tuesday, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing announced a new driver for the 2009 season. Many fans reacted with horror and calls of ride buyer (which Mike Conway supposedly isn’t). Compounding their sorrows was the rumors that Mike Conway’s appointment to DRR would be the end of Buddy Rice’s tenure with the team, as his poorer skilled but richer funded teammate Milka Duno would be a more likely choice for the second car. It was a tragedy, as yet another American driver (one with a 500 win to boot) was forced to the background.

The key debate set off from Conway’s hiring was not about ride buyers and the like, but the increasingly smaller field of American drivers in IndyCar racing today. Is it really a problem, or is the problem something else?

Along with being a huge fan of racing, I happen to enjoy hockey. I bring up these sports because like open wheel racing, at the top levels they happen to be very international in their demographics. The National Hockey League has 83 percent of its teams in America, but only draws about one-fourth of its talent from the USA. More than half its players come from Canada, and the remaining from a smattering of Scandinavian and Eastern European nations. Fans still show up in spite of this lack of American born boys. Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York (the Rangers), Minnesota, San Jose, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Detroit, Washington, and Dallas all average at least 95 percent capacity.

I have never felt having a majority American lineup has been essential for IndyCar. It can be beneficial to have an international field to help grow the series fanbase, as unlike NASCAR there is a broader global appeal for open wheel racing. If a driver is really serious about having a career here in the States, should it matter?

I do have one concern. I want to use another sports league for an example of what I worry about. I also follow soccer heavily, in particular the English Premier League. The EPL is truly the most international sports league in the world, with stars from every continent with names, like Cristiano Ronaldo, and Fernando Torres. Some of the stars, however, have grown up on home soil. Guys like Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, and Rio Ferdinand are held in similar high regard as those born outside Britain. Certain folks might like the fact they had similar upbringings to themselves and kids dream about being the next one too.

What am I saying in all this? The international flavor of IndyCar works when there is a mixture of foreign and domestic talent, both in the entry sheet and the podium. Unfortunately, what has happened in the past few years is that the American talent at the top has withered to non-existent.

I have studied IndyCar results since 2000 to look at the receding results of American drivers. Take a look at the win percentage for American drivers in that period:



The amount of wins has dropped dramatically since 2001. For those of you who have not followed the sport for long, the drop coincides with the arrival of Penske (2002), Ganassi, and Andretti Green (both 2003) to the IRL. Each brought primarily foreign drivers with them (save for AGR’s Bryan Herta). This stat doesn’t necessarily tell the entire story since a dominant foreign driver or two could easily take the majority of wins (like 2007, when Dixon, Franchitti, and Kanaan won 13 of 17 races). Further proof of the drop-off can be seen in the amount of Yanks in the top 5 and top 10 (FYI, blue lines are Americans, red from other countries):



Eek. Not only has the amount of Americans in the top 10 tailed off, the majority of those that did make it to that point finished in the sixth-tenth range. Only once since the Ganassi/AGR move have two American made the top 5 (Hornish and Sharp in ’05), but for the first time in series history no American was in the top 5 last year. Danica Patrick was the highest ranked American at sixth, but she was a distant sixth to Ryan Briscoe.

The problem exists that there are only eight or nine cars every that can win every week, and only two spots are held by Americans: those being the AGR cars of Marco Andretti and Danica Patrick. Marco has not been able to put together a complete run to win despite some great promise last year, and Danica has not run in a “leading” position in a long time.

So what can be done to alter this situation? The hope is that Marco has a breakthrough year in ’09 and Newman/Haas/Lanigan can return to its old glory and thus bring Graham Rahal towards the top, but that is not enough. The push to grow American talent needs action, not prayer.

Australia powering Penske in '09

The long awaited decision by Penske as to who would replace Helio Castroneves in the #3 car was (sort of) announced today, with Will Power joining Team Penske. I say sort of, since Tim Cindric only announced the Power would be running the preseason tests at Homestead and Barber, not at St. Pete or any other race. The situation was a tad bit strange, with Helio present and presumably still under contract with Penske. Should Helio escape a jail term and be able to race again, there is no word on what if any rides Power would have. My guess would be a ride in the 500, but nothing else barring that he is not farmed out to another team (Luczo Dragon maybe?).

I wonder if the arrangement set up by Team Penske may have scared a driver or two off from the deal. Yes, it's a possible Penske ride, but with no known guarantee to drive this year or in the future is scary. Just look at the "development" deal Alex Lloyd has been in with Ganassi which has led to a single run at Indy. Personally, I think Lloyd has been hung out to dry. For someone like Wilson or Hunter-Reay there isn't much to fall back on, like a family name (AJ IV) or a fanbase (Sarah Fisher) that could help.

Speaking of Justin Wilson and Ryan Hunter-Reay, somebody give them rides please! They're damn good drivers and don't deserve this limbo.