Heading into this coming weekend's penultimate championship event at the 1.5 mile Kentucky Speedway oval, the main focus is heavily on the two title contenders. After having dropped as far back as 65 markers behind rival Dario Franchitti, Will Power has returned to form and posted an 11-point lead over Dario after capitalizing on a bad weekend for the Scot. Power has run very well at Kentucky in the past and looks to do so again. He looks good, especially considering Franchitti is winless in 7 attempts at Kentucky.
The secondary story going into these final two races though is all of the cars and entries that are coming out of the woodwork for the current chassis' (which has an 8-year tenure, by the way) swansong. There are currently no fewer than 35 projected entries for the Las Vegas World Championships finale. 35! And to make this more exciting, they're pulling out all the stops for fan experience this race. They're hosting a kickoff party for fan on Thursday night, but not until AFTER they've run the cars for 6 laps in between the Monte Carlo and Flamingo hotels. AcrossTheBricks is actually planning on being at this race, so stay tuned for behind the scenes pictures, videos, and more from the event!
What I'm looking forward to, and the rest of the racing community as well, is finding out whether or not race control can get their stuff together from these last two races. I think I speak for the majority of the fan base when I say we don't want to see these guys try and tackle Kentucky in the rain like they did in New Hampshire. In all seriousness though, race control has a penchant for sniping against non-red-car (Penske/Ganassi) teams when it comes to punishable offenses. Could we see more of that this weekend? I've been saying ever since Sonoma and their last-restart debacle that the championship was firmly in the hands of race control to give away. In a season full of excitement, the championship is going to be decided by the monkeys crowded around a couple of tv cameras instead of the drivers on track. We're talking about a group of guys that spend the vast majority of practice sessions hollering at the drivers not to run so close to each other. HOW ELSE DO THEY PLAN ON FINDING OUT HOW THEIR CARS WORK IN TRAFFIC? It's ridiculous!
Finally, I'd like to add that I'm really looking forward to the race in Kentucky. Last season the race itself was dominated in large part by Dan Wheldon and Ed Carpenter from the Panther/Vision collaborative effort. There were also several shocks in qualifying, including the Conquest racing duo of Bertrand Baguette and Tomas Scheckter qualifying 4th and 6th, respectively. If this race is anything like it was last year, look for a lot of action up front, and perhaps a few new faces as well. If you're assembling a fantasy team for this race, it's hard to ignore the drivers in the Penske/Ganassi ranks.. however, it is reasonable to suggest that the Panther Racing outfit may be primed for a good weekend with drivers JR Hildebrand and anticipated addition Buddy Rice. Both drivers have shown flashes of brilliance both this season and throughout their careers on speedways, and together at Indianapolis they both posted very strong results in qualifying and the race. Either driver would make for a solid darkhorse pick. Graham Rahal has also been looking very good the past few races, and appears to have finally brought the satellite Ganassi effort on-line. He almost stole the pole in Baltimore before a last-second effort by Will Power to reclaim top honors, and ran right with Power for much of the Baltimore Grand Prix. He was also very far up the running order before contact with teammate and championship hopeful Dario Franchitti ended his challenge for the victory. The long and the short of it is that the 2008 GP St. Pete winner is due for a win, and is itching to go. Kentucky and Las Vegas are the first (and final) returns to speedways for these cars since the Texas Motor Speedway, where Graham finished 9th in race 1 before being struck with issues in race 2 relegating him to a 30th place finish. Point is, Graham has speed when it comes to the tracks with left-hand turns, and I'd be shocked not to see him duking it out up front come the checkered flag next Sunday.
That's all I got for now. Stay tuned for highlights from tomorrow's Sprint Cup Series race in Loudon, NH, and updates and outlooks on this week's upcoming three-day test session with the 2012 Dallara at the IMS.
- K
I like your concept and your style. Be aware though that Pressdog will come down on you hard for the white-on-black type.
ReplyDeleteNoted, I did some research and found that black-on-white is easier on the eyes to read. Hopefully I'll get it looking the way I want it to soon. Thanks for reading, and thanks for the heads-up!
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