Deluxe Notes Taken During the 2008 IndyCar Race at Iowa Speedway

Notes taken at the track and from the ABC broadcast of the Iowa Corn Indy 250 Presented by Pioneer at Iowa Speedway, 6/22/08.

Word from Iowa Speedway in tony Newton, Iowa. We're high and dry here and the water is draining elsewhere. pressdog is in the house! Me and 35,000-40,000 of my closest friends.

Let me take a second here to give the Iowa Speedway a huge and extended shout out for doing a total 180 on their parking problem.

Last year I was extremely enraged that the track completely fubar-ed the parking so that people had to wait around 3 hours in line once they got to the track just to park. Seriously. It was a nightmare. And then the track compounded it by minimizing it publicly and blaming the customer.

Well, we have some trained professionals working in track management now, apparently, because first they were in the local paper saying they screwed up last year and telling us how it will be different. Second, the used the local media to get the word out to fans how and when to arrive (something the didn't do last year).

We rolled into the track at 9 (dude, I just ain't gonna show up six hours early for something I paid $350 for my family to see. Just ain't gonna do it.) and were parked by 9:30. I almost kissed the phalanx of parking flag wavers. Manly tears were shed.

Getting out was a little more challenging and the speedway had zero people directing traffic out of the lot, so they need to work on that. But we spent about an hour taking our time getting to our car and were out 45 minutes after that.

So huge props to the Iowa Speedway for the progress. Since I sent them a scathing bitch email last year for the problems, I sent a gushing congratulatory email this year for the change.

pressdog beer of the race is Miller Genuine Draft tall boys consumed in extreme splendor in section 206, row 24, seat 13. It was a hugely awesome day at the track, bright sunshine, 81 degrees with a breeze and low humidity. About as good as it gets in Iowa in late June.

At the track with the fam at 9:30. Cars are inspected in the paddock. T-shirts are purchased. Beer is drank.

In our seats at 11:15 with the first beer of the day. The Metal Mulisha is getting airborne on motorcycles. Monster air. Sick stuff like somersaults in mid-air. Plus they have a pretty good head wind that they gotta deal with. At one point the dude lets go of his motorcycle ENTIRELY and is like superman up there (see photo from the most excellent Dana Garrett of the IRL to the right). INSANE.

I notice the guy in front of me is wearing an Fernando Alonso (F1) hat. I swear. Lots of Knoxville/sprint car t-shirts. Lots of IndyCar stuff as well. Danica stuff is everywhere, of course. I saw a couple of Sarah Fisher shirts (besides mine!). My brothers! Not that much N-word apparel! I'm insanely happy about this. Manly tears are wiped again.

11:25 -- The Firehawk is on the track with his T-shirt gun. Some dude nearly died right in front of me trying to get a T-shirt from the Firehawk shirt gun in Milwaukee. He's a MENACE!

Ethanol E and Ear of Corn Man mascots are now on the track. Must be about 109 degrees inside those costumes. Earn of Corn Man has a T-shirt gun too. Everyone is armed with T-shirt guns. He puts a shirt into the catch fence. I expect a 32 lap yellow later in the race to get that shirt down. Someone behind me says "Stupid corn!" I laugh out loud. It ain't easy being an ear of corn.

11:30 -- I bust out the scanner only to discover the parking people are bogarting the IHJ's channel. OMG. Charles may have to be dispatched. This will detract from my race experience if I cannot hear the IHJ give Commands.

11:45. All cars to the grid.

11:53. The Old Super Deuce (Rusty Wallace) addresses the crowd. Thanks us all for coming about four times. I appreciate Rusty knowing who pays the bills around here. We introduce some dignitaries. Driver intros. Marco picks up a check for $5,000 for best punt job at Texas or something. Not sure what it was for. $5,000 to an Andretti is basically bar tab money.

Wheldon introduced. Guy behind me: "Nice teeth, Dan." Helio ovated. Danica majorly ovated. Dixon interviewed trackside but we can't hear a word of it. Track sound guy, crank up the volume, baby.

National Anthem. Nicely done. FLYOVER. About two-thirds through the anthem you can see the heads start to swivel around looking for them. Air Force trainer jets from Texas. Dude, we got an Air National Guard base right in Des Moines. How about some hot F-16s from there? Texas? Came over kind of leisurely. Dude, next time bring those bad boys over HOT, then dump some fuel, LIGHT THE BURNER and go vertical, baby! I want to feel my hair rippling and piss my pants next time. Work with me. "Ripper control, this is Ripper 1, we are inbound Iowa Speedway .... supersonic."

Drivers to your cars. Announcer asks everyone to get to their seats so we can look good on national TV. Still lots of milling about in the pits. Roads into the track look pretty clear. I can't see any problems but I can't see all the roads either.

Moving the introduction stage (which is a stage pulled by a big truck). WE GOT DEBRIS from the stage! Safety car dispatch to see what it is. It was a piece of paper. Saved us a 13-lap caution by checking it out.

TV kicks off a 30-minute pre-race (!) with a flooding montage intro. Eastern Iowa is a lake, although we're moving rapidly into cleanup mode as the huge water heads down the Mississippi to bitchslap Missouri and Illinois.

Booth guy Marty Reid says we're celebrating a beautiful day here in the nation's heartland (you can almost hear the cracking of beers in the background).

Much of Cedar Rapids was under water and now is a festival of ruined crap dragged to the curve, ditto for Iowa City. Marty deploys Google Earth to give everyone an idea where those places are from the track. Nice move. CR is about 100 miles east and a little north from Des Moines, which is just south of dead center in Iowa. Iowa City is two hours due east on I-80 from Des Moines. The entire eastern third of the state got smacked hard by the water.

Marty: As we found out today, this is a very resilient bunch. ("Iowa" is Native American for "home of tough little bastards." Kidding, it's Native American for "land between two rivers." Irony savored.)

Iowa Speedway and others have started Race 2 Recovery and aim to raise $1 million to help flood victims. They had booths set up in front of the track.The pdog made a festive donation to the Red Cross online earlier. You can help Race 2 Recovery help Iowans at Race2Recovery.com.

Let's go to Jack Arute, pit veteran and the Old Super Deuce (Rusty Wallace) himself! Rusty helped design and is part owner of the track, which is why I call it Rustyville most of the time. Say what you want about Rusty -- God knows I do -- but from all appearances the guy wakes up ON FIRE. He's SUPER EXCITED all the time. So you gotta give it to him for positive attitude, at least publicly.

The Deuce says there will be more passing this year. (Last year it was a one-groove parade. Hug the yellow line and win.) Race track has had a year to season in. There's a visible groove now. Lots of rubber down.

Over to Vince Welch with Danny Wheldon. It's Danno's birthday. Dan and Scott Dixon are donating any winnings from the race today to flood relief. Danny says he "learned a lot about giving from Target and Chip Ganassi." Chippy? A giver? Who knew? Target does the whole "use your red card and we'll send a school some money" thing and is pretty charitable. One of the reasons the pdog is a Target shopper. That and they have a store about seven blocks from my house. Plus they sponsor an IndyCar. Plus they are not Wal-Fart.

Danny says the goal of the league and drivers is to put on as how that takes people's minds off the flooding trouble and lets people smile a little bit. Danny said earlier he and wife, Susie, drove from Chicago to Des Moines and saw a ton of flooding first hand.

Vinny says it's Danny's 26th birthday. That makes him 25.5 years old than his teeth. (Rim shot!)

I talked to a bunch of people who flew into Des Moines and could see the lake-ish situation from the air and were a little freaked out about it as well, including the lovely an talented Brie Pedigo (gratuitous hotty mention #1!). And yet they're not donating their pay checks for the weekend. COME ON PEOPLE, step up! (Kidding. We Iowans are kidders. We appreciate your concern and support more than you know. We're appreciative people. Motto: The Appreciative State.)

A moment, please, for the NHRA's Scott Kalitta who died Saturday when his nitropowered Toyota Funny Car caught fire and the parachutes designed to slow it down never filled. He crashed at the end of the track with a huge explosion at nearly 330 mph -- never really slowing.

pressdog howls for Scott Kalitta.

Back in Iowa, we have about 300 green-shirted members of the Midwest Corn Growers striding bruskly about, none of them wearing shorts. Farmers, as a rule, don't do shorts. For most of them their legs haven't been seen in public for upwards of 54 years. It's a farmer thing.

Marco Andretti Montage! It's either awesome or awful with that guy. There he is tangling with his new best friend, Ryan Hunter-Reay, at Texas. There he is going under Tony Kanaan at Indy. (Sucks to be Sarah Fisher in that one.)

Brienne Pedigo, IndyCar Pit Hotty, in the pickup (driver's circle the track in the back of a Toyota pickup after being introduced) with Marco. Marco says it's a series of being in the wrong places at the wrong times. (And since he's one of three unfireable drivers -- along with Danica and Ed Carpenter -- no big whoop.)

Speaking of Marco victims, Arute is with Tony Kanaan. Tony says it's a tough year so far. You try very hard and have some misfortune. That's what happens in racing. When it's your year, it's your year. Going to keep trying.

This just came to me -- has anyone ever seen Tony Kanaan yelling or in full froth? I never have. He's pissed sometimes, but it's always the same even delivery. If Tony yelled "(F-BOMB) you!" I think activity on the track would grind to a halt immediately. (At least he keeps it even in public, anyway.)

Vinny with my close, personal friend, Danica Patrick. He's in the pickup with her. I'm really sure she noticed the squatty graying man with the questionable media credential at the news conference.

Vinny asks Dani (my pet name for her!) about an AGR "driver's only" meeting recently. Danica said it was good to get together and talk out all the stuff and get things off the chest. We're all good. (I can see Marco and Tony asking Danica to "at least mention us during your seven-times-weekly news conferences.")

Vince asks Danica about averaging P15 since Motegi. Vinny isn't afraid to bring a little heat on the questions! Working it for the fans. I appreciate that. Danica says she had some top fives and DNF at Kansas because her wheel mount got screwy and then idiot Briscoe hip checked her at Indy. (Kidding about the "idiot Briscoe" part.) She said "I had a little collision in pit lane." Everyone has their up and down weekends. No big deal. Whatever happens happens. Vince says from riding around the track with Danica he can confirm she is the crowd favorite.

I can confirm that as well based on the ovation she got when introduced and the total hockey scrum in front of Danica's merch trailer which was located INSIDE the gate, while you had to get your ticket scanned and go OUTSIDE the gate to get to the Target trailer and others. Hmmmm.

Over to Brie with points leader Scott "Iceman" Dixon. What's the key to keeping the lead? You gotta keep the ball rolling. Team Target done a fun-tastic job. Brie asks if he's gotten Dan a birthday present yet. Ice -- No. But it's the big 3-0 for Dan. Ice says Dan lied earlier on the broadcast and said he was 26 but it's 30 so it has to be something special.

Brie says Dixon is an accomplished triathlete and like a lot of racers spends time working on the fitness.

Before we get to the Fitness Montage, let me note that the Hy-Vee World Cup Triathlon was going on in Des Moines the very second Brie said that. Winning male and female elite-level triathlete got $200,000 EACH. Dixon might want to bring the Speedo, shoes and bike next time and try for the big money. The top American man and woman qualified for the Beijing Olympics.

Fitness montage! Will Power -- "You can't be fat and lazy and drive these cars, I'm afraid." Will, you seem like a funny guy and may be sidepod worthy. Sent out a feeler to your PR guy earlier who said "maybe later." pdog will make you famous, baby! Let's hang at Chicagoland.

2007 Iowa Festival of Carbon Fiber Parade montage starring Danica. "I had no where to go. It sucks!" BAM. The people in the crowd thought the very same thing, Danica. We had no where to go and it sucked. Here's hoping 2008 is better.

Prerace is over, welcome to Iowa! Danica mention inside the first 30 seconds of the regular race coverage. All is normal with the universe. Cars airborne, Festival of Carbon Fiber montage, obligatory cornfield shot. Marty declares it a "picture-perfect" day. Somewhere Todd Harris is smiling.

Down to Julius Schaaf, chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board for the command: "Driver's start your corn-ethanol-fueled engines!" Dude! The pdog uses nothing but E10 (10% ethanol, 90% gas) in my vehicles. Have for years and years.

Rusty does a lap here in the pace car. I just assume it's Rusty by the way he's waving enthusiastically out the car window. His whole arm is flapping up and down.

Shout out to my girl Sarah Fisher who I'm missing on the grid. Invested $22 in the latest Sarah Fisher shirt at the IRL merchandise tent bringing my collection to three.

Grid is rolling for four warm-up laps. We got one stalled. EJ Viso. He's fired again. Under way.

Cue the hat! (Running order at the top of the page.) Extended shout outs to the ESPN B Unit which does the graphics for the race. I hung with the Killer Bs for a bit on Friday. They're stylish and witty when not hung over.

Starting lineup: Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Dan Wheldon, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Briscoe, Danica Patrick, Hideki Mutoh, Marco Andretti, Ed Carpenter, Oriol Servia, Will Power, Vitor Meira, EJ Viso Caracas, Venezuela, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Buddy Rice, Graham Rahal, Enrique Bernoldi, A.J. Foyt IV, Darren Manning, Justin Wilson, Jaime Camara, Milka Duno, John Andretti, Mario Moraes. Bruno Junqueira and Marty Roth are not starting today due to meetings with the WALL during practice. Bruno may figure he's had enough reconstructive surgery for one lifetime and didn't want to go out in the Not Much Coynemobile after a suspension snapped like a dry twig and put him into the wall on Saturday.

Qualifying was "rained out" so they are starting by points. What actually happened was it rained a little bit at qualifying time, the IRL took a look at the weather radar, panicked, called off qualifying and 45 minutes later it was bright and sunny and the track was half dry.

Vince runs down the three practice crashes. Milka Duno walled it on Friday, Wal-Marty Roth tasted SAFER on Saturday and Bruno rolled it on Saturday as well, collecting Danny Wheldon who was minding his own business at the time.

Milka is in the backup car (yeah, but for how long?) and Marty and Bruno decided to skip the show.

Jack Arute reports that John Barnes told Vitor Meira to go out there and have some fun. Helpful advice.

Brie -- Helio starts second, hasn't won since St. Pete last year. Is an new uncle (sister gave birth a few days ago). Would love to win it for baby Edwardo (not sure on the spelling). Get that kid a pressdog onesy.

Marty says there are 40,000 in the crowd. Sold out for weeks. Standing room only. True dat, Martini.

Booth guy Scott Goodyear says the drivers feel 4.9Gs around the track due to the speed and banking. Tough to pass. Watch the last pit stop it could be critical. Lot of drivers may just go with fuel only and no tires on the last stop to get track position.

At the track the cars get into two-wide in the back stretch. Everyone stands and waves their Race2Recovery towels. Let's light this ethanol candle! Marty: For all you've been through we're about to go green at Iowa.

Everyone's on their feet, waving their complimentary Race2Recovery towels and we are .... GREEN GREEN GREEN.

FOUR WIDE down the back stretch. Keep the circus music handy! We're looking at 17-second laps here, people.

Goodyear -- different track this year. Last year everyone ran at the bottom and made someone who wanted to pass go high. This year in practice driver's ran the high line.

At the track we obviously have a two-groover going here, which is almost exciting as free beer. (Almost.)

Holy High Octane -- Ryan Hunter-Reay gains SEVEN spots in two laps. pressdog is in the whiskey/moonshine.

Goodyear -- Dixon running a "defensive line" to try and keep Marco back there. You can't block or you'll be penalized.

First of all -- hahahahahahahhaahaha. When's the last time the IRL penalized someone for blocking? Last year, maybe. Your "penalty" is seven warnings. The drivers sure know that they can block at least four or five times, subtly, and not have jack shit happen. So I nearly spew beer out of my nose here.

Second of all, what's the difference between a "defensive line" and throwing a Block Party? I hope the terminology doesn't depend on who's doing it. Call a block a block, please.

Lap 4 -- Tony moving up. Marco and Ice duel.

Lap 7 -- Wheldon and Briscoe lock step.

Lap 8 -- Tony working on Helio.

Lap 11 -- Helio, Tony, Ice, Marco, Wheldon, Briscoe, RHR, Danica, Ed, AJ4.

Lap 17 -- Milka lapped! She's going maybe 120 mph. Davey Hamilton passes her giving pace car rides (kidding). The rest of the field goes freight training by her as well.

Marco's pit: "Think about fuel and tires."

Lap 20 -- Helio reports tiny understeer via radio.

Lap 21 -- Tony leads.

Lap 25 -- Wheldon under Ice. Ice radio: "Stick with him" (catch a tow).

Kanaan, Helio, Marco, Wheldon, Ice, Briscoe, RHR, Ed, Danica, AJ4.

Lap 26 -- Milka lapped again. If she's going 150 I'd be shocked. 

Lap 29 Tony stretching out. Biggest mover so far is AJ Foyt IV who started 18 and is up to 10th. Ryan Hunter-Reay is up seven spots and closing in on Briscoe.

Lap 30 -- Milka pits. Race control: "10-4 she's done for the day." Ashley Judd phones in and says "Milka's a MENACE." (Kidding.) She may be a menace, but she's a menace with folding money. 

Lap 32 -- Tony doing 17.8-second laps. Buddy Rice is the next to be lapped.

Marco on the radio: "WHAT?" Marco's pit: "You're at half tank." Marco: "Don't copy!" Pit: "YOU'RE AT HALF TANK."

Lap 33 -- The Super Deuce gets booth air! Rusty says he's pretty proud. The IRL came in with some new tires this year and the track has had a year to season in. Should be more passing. Rusty gives the crowd a big shout out. 80 degrees, no humidity, Iowa going nuts for the race. Rusty always gives the paying customers a shout out. I give him mad props for that.

This is the second time the Deuce has mentioned the tweaked tire. Nobody before him has mentioned the tires are different. He maybe mistaken.

Danica gets told to save fuel and tires. Her car is a little piggish.

AJ 4 is working on Danica now.

Lap 39 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Ed Carpenter into the wall. Turn Two. Rice is saved from being lapped by this yellow. This sets off a festival of yellow-flag pitting. Helio says no changes. Kanaan says "leave it (not sure what) alone for now."

Dixon: "Car is coming to us better than some others. We'll see." Dixon pit: "Remember how we raced in Phoenix. Let it flow to us." Dixon: "10-4." (Note: I took this to mean "how we raced in Phoenix in years past." Jeff over at MyNameIsIRL.com thought maybe he missed a recent IndyCar race in his backyard. No. Although it does give Jeff a chance to lament the loss of the race at PIR.)

Danica has issues on the radio. Can't make it out. After she leaves the pit her boss says "One of our best left fronts of the weekend." Danica asks how others are doing. Pit says: "Hideki has a push like you. TK is loose maybe because of the wind. Marco is pretty good."

On TV we're back to Rusty who talks about the similarities between Graham Rahal who has gotten zero air so far in this race (and will get zero more after this) and Joey Logano of the N-word Nationwide Series. Why we drag the N-word into a perfectly good IndyCar race is beyond me.

Lap 45 -- Danica's radio: Pit: "We still have 205 laps to go. Good job hitting your marks (in the pit). Perfect on the marks."

Danica's pit: "Take care of the tires and when we get a chance we'll go back down on fuel." One to go at the line.

Lap 50 -- (under yellow) -- Tony, Helio, Marco, Wheldon, Briscoe, Dixon, RHR, Danica, AJ4, Power (!)

Lap 51 (after a 12-lap yellow) -- GREEN. Helio gets a monster jump. Kanaan throws a block party for him at the line but still gets inhaled.

Lap 55 -- Cuatro gets more air. He's up 11 spots from the start. Danica is dropping fast. Went from 8th on the restart to 12th by lap 55 when John Andretti passed her. Temperature of hell -- 39 degrees.

Ed Carpenter -- Suspension failure. Had a vibration in the car at turn four. Turn two right front, possibly rear, collapsed. Got held up by Danica finally got around her and was going to the front.

Arute with the cut-away car during side-by-side with the race. Talking about the push rod. On TV it looks like a lot of back lines especially in the small side-by-side window. Not enhancing my viewing a'tall.

Lap 60 -- Had a bunch of suspension failures in this race/practice. Marty asks if they will tell the other drivers about the suspension issues. Goodyear says not unless they see something going south on their telemetry.

Lap 61 -- Marco and Wheldon fight. Now we're onboard with Marco. Briscoe is up 18 places in points since the first two races. John Andretti is marching. He restarted 14th and is up to 9th(!)

Brie -- Third time in his career that Penske missed a race. First time was to get married, second time was due to 9-11, third time was because the race was in Iowa. Kidding. Third time was for a "follow-up medical procedure." Going well. Sounds well. Brie talked to him this morning. Good spirits. Been in constant communications with the team here.

Lap 64 -- Danica goes to fuel position 3. Can you say "Motegi?"

Rusty says Roger has all the "electronical" devices and is fully engaged here at Iowa.

Lap 75 -- Helio, Tony, Wheldon, Marco, Briscoe, Cuatro, Dixon, RHR, J. Andretti (!), Power.

Lap 77 -- Buddy Rice way off the pace and is now pitting. Not sure why. His car became a pig and he pits. WE GOT FIRE. Fire dudes are on it quick. It's out. Buddy is out. Done for the day.

Lap 85 -- Arute says Tony is "making fuel." Oh god, here we go. RIP the fuel knobs out! Do it now. I may have to start watching drag racing where they don't wuss out and "make fuel."

Brie says Wheldon told to use more fuel(!). Here Jack and Brie go back and forth with dueling pit reports. At least they are running down the top 10-ish. Arute chimes in that Cuatro is also saving fuel. So is Dixon. Oh Joy. Vince talks over an Andretti radio replay.

OMFG. John Andretti -- seriously -- gets air! The two race drought is over. His march up the field caught the attention of the booth guys or my boy Russ the spotter/stat king! I think it was Vince who says John is going to meet with Marty Roth later to see what is what for the rest of the year.

Lap 92 -- Manning pits. Looks BLOWN up, SIR!

Lap 98 -- More air for Rusty who now has been on TV more than Enrique Bernoldi.

Lots of commercials in this race.

Marco on the radio: "NO COPY!"

Lap 100 --Helio, Tony, Wheldon, Marco, Briscoe, AJ4, Dixon, RHR, J. Andretti, Rahal.

Oriol Servia is toast. Going N-word speed. Lapped.

Lap 103 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Jaime Camara is dead stick. Festival of pitting coming. Tony in for tires and fuel only. Danica was coming back a little at the end of that run.

Wheldon gets out but TK gets out in front of him. Radio: "Sorry, Dan, he came out of nowhere."

Helio has a bit of a pit circus moment when his right rear has issues. Has to go back up on the jack and get the right rear on. Cost him three spots.

Wheldon's spotter/pit: "Ryan Hunter-Reay got two wheels out of the groove and got SHIT all over his tires. It took him about three laps to get them cleaned off." Tony radios in his car is pretty good.

Lap 111 -- GREEN. Wheldon and J. Andretti nearly touch on the front straight. I saw Wheldon get fishy right after the start-finish. Holy paint swap. I think they did touch. Wheldon gets high and gets waaaaaaaaaay out of it going into 1. Drops from second to 8th in one lap. Ironic he got up into the gray right after his spotter warned him about getting up into the gray.

John Andretti gets MORE air. Holy crap. Too bad he's got naked sidepods. He's 9th on the track. 45 years old. Replays. Wheldon goes high. They touch. Wheldon puts a hand up for some reason. Then gets way high and almost whitewalls it. I'm amazed the yellow didn't come out for Wheldon getting high, slowing way down and hitting nothing. Usually that's about all it takes in the IRL.

Dan's radio, post-moment: "You have one of the fastest cars. Let's get up there and start picking them off." I also think I heard him say to tell John Andretti he was sorry, he got loose at the start. I think that's what he said. My scanner only got the back half of the sentence.

Lap 122 -- Vince with Buddy Rice. Now Buddy is getting air. Dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria! Buddy says something was up with the steering. Not turning. Car wants to go straight. If I can't turn the car, then that's not good.

Marty says we got word that Darren Manning is out of the race because he' can't turn the car either. Someone, possibly Vince or Brie, reports that Manning "fell out of the seat" or was just too wussie to turn the car. I have trouble believing it was that. Probably couldn't turn it because it was a piece of shit. This track snaps suspensions and binds steering racks. That's what it does. References back to the fitness package. Goodyear says Manning had fitness issues last year and may need to train a little harder. Darren might report to the broadcast booth to throw down on Scott later.

Lap 125 -- Tony, Marco, Helio, Briscoe, Dixon, RHR, AJ4, Wheldon, Rahal, J. Andretti.

Lap 129 -- Marco and Tony are in front. Marco on the radio: "I'll work with him. I'll work with him."

Lap 130 -- AJ 4 around DIXON. Temperature in hell reported to be about 48 degrees.

Dixon get way fishy! OMG, tank slapper. Dixon's pit radio: "Good save."

Goodyear -- last year the race was almost a parade. Firestone came with a new improved tire (the Deuce may have known what he was talking about).

Lap 134 -- Wheldon is P6 and marching forward.

Lap 136 -- AGR trying to break away in the front.

Lap 144 - Marco's pit: "Think about fuel. Think about fuel."

Lap 150 -- John Andretti gets MORE air. Seriously. The fire lakes of hell report a thin crusting of ice. Larry Curry is focusing on the best race car they can have.

Marco, Tony, Helio, RHR (!), AJ4 (!), Wheldon, J. Andretti (!), Dixon, Briscoe, Rahal.

Briscoe is dropping. Inhaled by Justin Wilson.

Lap 152 -- Justin Wilson Unification. Likes the variety of tracks. Short and long ovals, street and road.

Danica is 13th

Lap 157 -- Yellow Yellow Yellow. We got a spin at pit in. Replay -- ass around on the pit lane. I THINK it's Bernaldi. Notes aren't clear. Going too fast. Loops it right before reaching pit in. No contact so this should only be a 24 lap yellow. (Turns out to be only 7.) I think there must be a rule that if you have a yellow, it has to be long enough to let everyone pit.

The circus band is warming up. I think Vitor had issues getting into his pit. Vince reports John Andretti (the new star of the broadcast) was going to take fuel only but they couldn't get the fuel hose into the car.

Arute reports that Danica's peeps are telling her (ARUTE VOICE) REMEMBER JAPAN. Called that laps ago.

Marco on the radio: "Even when he's leading, tell him to stay low and give me the outside line so I can stay flat. Gotta be sensible about this." Pit: "We're very close to making it now, so you have to work fuel very hard." Marco: "Was Tony really doing better at saving?" Pit: "Fuel is very close. Need very good mileage to make it to the end."

Lap 164 -- Restart coming ... NO. Yellow. No start. Waved off. We're all professionals here. Perhaps the IHJ was stung by criticism that he let some seriously Circus Starts go last year contributing to the Festival of Carbon Fiber, much of which happened either coming out of 4 or going into turn 1. It was on a restart last year that the Danica Sandwich touched off a 6-car Circus Moment.

Lap 165 -- GREEN. RHR is in third. Satan pulls on a parka. Vitor got a drive-through for striking equipment. I think he hit a tire inside someone's box.

RHR gets monster air. He's having a killer race and it don't hurt to be the race sponsor's car either.

Lap 170 -- Power passes Danica on the outside. Hell temperature: 34 degrees.

Lap 175 -- Helio, Kanaan, RHR, Marco, Dixon, Wheldon, AJ4, Briscoe, Rahal, Mutoh.

Lap 181 -- Helio leads.

Lap 184 -- Texas flashback.

Lap 188 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Bernoldi spins. Spins and doesn't hit anything. Crazy. Should only be a 23-lap yellow. (It's actually 8 laps.)

Marty: will everyone pit? Goodyear: for sure. They will pit. Take no chances.

Marco pit: "Marco, do you want to put new tires on?" Marco: "How many laps to go?" Pit: "62". Marco: "Let's go for it." Pit: "You're saying no new tires?" Marco: "Copy, no tires."

Lap 189 -- pitting. Race leader in. Marty: Everyone following in LOCK STEP.

Marco goes for no tires. Fuel only. Danica, Wheldon and Mutoh stayed out against the advice of Goodyear.

Marco's pit tells him to save fuel. Marco: "I still have to save fuel?" Pit: "Just to be on the safe side."

Lap 194 -- One to go until green. Wheldon leads. Arute tells us Danica's pit is telling her it's Motegi all over again.

Lap 196 -- GREEN. Dixon gets a MONSTER jump on Danica, but Kanaan gets passed Dixon.

Yellow yellow yellow. Moraes brushes the wall. Why is this a yellow? He's on his way back to the pit. Like he's pitting. Not a hazard. Dude. Put that yellow in your pocket. Bogus quick yellow here, folks.

Marco on the radio: "Do my teammates have to conserve?" Pit: "10-4."

Goodyear -- Once you get up in the gray in the marbles you are just along for the ride. (Variation on Just a Passenger.)

Lap 200 -- Lead cars have gone 40 laps since pitting and have 50 to go. Couple more of these No Apparent Reason yellows and they'll be fine.

After a five-lap caution for no apparent reason, on lap 202 we're GREEN -- AJ 4 gets a big shout out. Arute tells us something about Will Power. That he is having fun or something.

Lap 204 -- Wheldon, Mutoh, Danica, Kanaan, Dixon, Marco, Helio, AJ4, RHR, Briscoe.

Lap 205 -- Kanaan around Danica. CLEAR.

Lap 206 -- Wheldon is leaning it out. Fuel position waaay down. RHR and Briscoe run about four inches apart for several laps.

Lap 209 -- Someone has a double wiggle situation. Holy Double Tank Slapper. You don't see someone get that fishy and save it very often. No note on the deluxe notes as to who it was! pressdog sucks! (Props to Mike Rice who set me straight in the comments below. It was RHR which stands for Real Hard Racer.)

Lap 211 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Tony Kanaan is ass around going into one and ends up in the wall between one and two. Just lost it. Slow spin and then up the track and BOOM, plus a blaze of fire (from oil, I'd guess). Dude, I was watching this crash the whole way. Looking right at Kanaan when he slowly started to spin and I thought, "Wait a second ..." then BAM, flew up into the wall. Hit the wall and half-second later the sound of it reached us. BOOM.

Since there were 59 laps to go, there have been 29 laps of caution. Thrilling for the fans! Kyle Moyer says the caution helps (Danicker) a lot, but sad it was a teammate.

Marco radio: "He's (F-BOMB) blocking me. I don't care if he is the (F-BOMB) points leader!"

One to go until green. 15-lap yellow. Vince with Tony. Something break or did you lose it? Tony -- don't know. Watching it just now it looks like I just lost it behind two cars. Track is more mentally than physically demanding.

Restart coming. We are ... yellow yellow yellow. Waved off again. The IHJ is CRACKING DOWN. Try again, kids.

Marco radio: "I had the RUN of the century!" And he did. I watched it live. May have been part of the reason for no start.

BTW, that whole "you can't go until the green is out" is, um, bullshit. They start going several seconds before the green comes out.

GREEN. Holy SHIZ, Danica gets high-lowed by Dixon (high) and Marco (low) about 20 yards after the start finish. Right in front of me. I thought it was going to be the big one. Danica got out of it rather than go three wide with those guys and had major ass end wiggle (easy, boys).

Lap 219 -- Brie says Helio has problems. Losing right front pressure. And yet he stays out to be a chicane for everyone else. Blows by pit in and keeps going. EJ Viso comes up on Helio who is going N-word speed and puts his front wing into Helio's rear tire. Does some major fishing and then holds onto it. DUDE. Helio should get off the track or go down to the apron or something.

Insert 15 laps of lock step here.

Lap 230 -- Wheldon, Mutoh, Marco, Dixon, Danica, AJ4, Power, RHR, Briscoe, Helio.

Lap 240 -- Wheldon, Mutoh, Marco, Dixon, AJ4, Danica, RHR, Briscoe, Power, J. Andretti.

Lap 245 -- Wheldon, Mutoh, Marco, Dixon, AJ4, Danica, RHR, Briscoe, Power, Wilson.

Two to go. Marco looks under Mutoh. DIVES UNDER. --- No. That was his shot. He had to get out of it and drops way back. He's cooked. Bronze is the best he'll do today.

White: Wheldon radio: Bring it home. Bring it home. Wheldon will win barring air strike.

Checkered: Wheldon wins. Radio: Great job Dan! Dan: Excellent job, boys! We got a little lucky but .. (Big victory yell.) Pit: Happy birthday, old man. Dan: Whatever! Great birthday present for me.

Lap 250: Wheldon, Mutoh, Marco, Dixon, AJ4, Danica, Briscoe, RHR, Power, Wilson, J. Andretti, Rahal, Viso, Helio (-2), Meira (-2), Servia (-3), Bernaldi (-8), Tony (DNF), Moraes (DNF), Camara (DNF), Manning (DNF), Rice (DNF), Ed (DNF), Milka (DNF), Bruno (DNS), Marty (DNS).

Iowa flood victims get first- and fourth-place checks which is $50,000 or $60,000 depending on who you're talking to. Heard it both ways.

Brie with Barry Wanser, Wheldon strategy guy since Chippy BAGGED Iowa. Brie says something about winning with Barry's brother on his mind. Gets Barry a little farklempt for a minute. Barry says great win for Target. Got the backup car ready. Came through. Everyone did a great job. Dan did a great job of driving.

Brie, you can't just drop a Barry's brother reference me and leave us hanging with giant questions marks coming out of our heads. What about his brother? I found out later his brother died of cancer a week earlier.

Arute with Wheldon -- Awesome job by Target. Thoughts and prayers to all the flood victims out there. What say to the state of Iowa? Hope we put on a good show and it put a smile on their faces for a little bit.

Why is TCG bitchslapping? Dan -- We work hard together, improving in all these little areas. Then Dan kissed Arute on the head. And Arute kissed him back on the cheek. Directors are screaming "CUT AWAY BEFORE THEY GET NAKED!" (kidding about the director screaming part)

Vince with Marco, Mike Andretti and Mutoh. Vince -- what about Mutoh! Mike -- improving every race. Got the talent just needs the experience. Mutoh -- Pleased to finish second. Marco couldn't get passed Mutoh. Marco -- He wasn't going to just give it to me. We were racing. Good clean racing. Proud of the Blockbuster boys get us toward the front. Completely different than last year. Fun. Restart when he high-lowed Danica. Marco -- Danica could have put me below the line but she didn't (probably wanted to though, Marco). Replays -- Danica has a big wiggle as the two go around her.

Dixon -- Danica tough to get around. "Everyone else raced pretty fair." Keeping people in back of you is racing somewhat, but she made it tough. (This may be another Indy 500 champion who finds The Ring is no match for The Money Maker.)

When you don't have the car to win, you get as many points as you can. Fourth doesn't suck.

Vince with Cuatro and RHR. Tight shots of blisters on AJ's hand and RHR's elbow. Anthony -- Really challenging out there. Lot of grip and really fast. Very fun race. Fifth is good. Car was good to start off with. After hitting the wall at Indy good to turn it around here.

RHR -- Got to third I thought now we're doing something. Got caught out on fuel strategy. (Ended up 8th.) Great race car. Didn't have the finish we wanted but we ran up front all day. Great to be here (in Iowa) and be a positive thing that's happening. We're trying to help out any way we can. Nice to see me go under Marco and get by him without him pitching me, wasn't it? (Holy parting shot!)

Points: Dixon has 316, Helio 48 back, Wheldon 49 back, Tony 100 back, Mutoh 117 back, Briscoe 121 back and Danica 124 back.

That's it from Iowa. Thanks for tuning in to watch us here in cornland. Word from my fellow cattle and hog lovers!

Tune in to ESPN on Saturday, June 28, 8 p.m. Eastern for the .75-mile bull ring at Richmond.

Comments

[Marty]

Good notes, P-dawg. My hat's off to Rusty for only charging $10 for the Fan Walk pass. While down there, I just happened to come across pit hottie Brie Pedigo and Jack Arute yucking it up and getting ready for the race. Jack was smoking what looked like one of those little bidi cigarettes. Smoking in the pit/garage area??? A few minutes later Vince Welch showed up and put his firesuit on right there and said he left something (headset?) in a truck. Maybe Vince had a rough morning. Also got to watch several cars (Foyt, Power, Meira) go through tech inspection and came across a crew from Iowa Public Television doing an interview for a racing-in-Iowa edition of The Iowa Journal. It's a nice setup down there.

I was sitting in the very top row of the Manatt Grandstand in the Family Section, Sec 404. Absolutely awesome spot to watch the race from. Even that little bend in pit road where Target Ganassi was pitted was still visible. I had a great view of the close and side-by-side racing between TK and Helio coming through Turns 3/4 during the early laps. I also think I was the only one in my area who noticed Wheldon and John Andretti getting together. People were probably wondering what this idiot was Oooooh-ing about.

Oh, and about Milka. My God, I about crapped my pants so many times when she was getting lapped. What a relief when she finally went behind the wall.

Note to self for my next race: Get better (louder) headphones for my scanner.

[pressdog]

Dude, awesome. Thanks for rolling to Iowa. Hope everyone treated you well or I'll have to kick some ass. You can see the whole track from virtually any seat except the first few rows. Up high it's KILLER. $65 a pop for the race -- and worth it. One of the nice things about the IRL going to a market like Des Moines is that we're not saturated with pro/big-deal events so we get cranked when one comes to town. We appreciate your business!

[Mike Rice]

Great report, 'dog. The combo effect of your at the track report plus the broadcast review made it a pretty complete experience, 'specially with the scanner reports. Too cool.

The BIG double wiggle was RHR. Call it double-wiggle/soft seat, 'cause if he didn't crap himself then he wasn't awake 'til after it was over.

Always good stuff here in your website...

[ramblinman]

"Dude, next time bring those bad boys over HOT, then dump some fuel, LIGHT THE BURNER and go vertical, baby! I want to feel my hair rippling and piss my pants next time. Work with me. "Ripper control, this is Ripper 1, we are inbound Iowa Speedway .... supersonic."

I think that you've outdone yourself p-dog. Great commentary on your home track.

Ditto on the fuel knobs (why go slow?) and Milka (again, why go slow?). She was crazy slow at Indy in the final stage and about 50 laps down.