A Few Predictions for Mid Ohio

1) Dario Franchitti will become churlish and possibly have a violent breakdown after yet another race spent looking at Will Power's rear wing. He'll call P2 "pretty OK, I guess." He and all the other "road course specialists" will express eagerness to get back to ovals.

2) The Versus on-air crew will try to tell us why they had no clue about The Rule last week, claiming they missed the driver's meeting at Edmonton since the race was called from a booth in Indianapolis.

3) The Versus on-air crew will not explain how they missed mention of The Rule in many other previous twisty race drivers' meeting, nor will anyone explain why the "broadcast partners" are the chosen few who get into these meetings. Even Curt Cavin of the Mighty Indy Star has asked repeatedly to get in and been told it's NONE OF HIS BUSINESS. Apparently he doesn't know the triple-secret high sign.

4) Twitter will be a live with "OK SO IF HELIO BLOCKED, WHY ISN'T THAT A BLOCK THEN????" Tweets all race. The resulting flavah will be that of a bunch of 10-year-olds who think they were wronged by the ref. Restarts will be microscopically analyzed, frame-by-frame.

"Power is CLEARLY 18 inches right of the GPS established center line, and Barnhart did not call it, THEREFORE HE MUST BE FIRED!!"

5) Everyone will continue to diss Milka Duno from the green flag, now that such dissing has been pretty much officially sanctioned by IndyCar and all the popular kids are doing it! It will remain as charming as watching someone pump slugs into a dead horse. It's like blood for chickens -- they just can't pecking at it.

6) The facility will be gorgeous, the crowd tremendous, the racing neither of those.

Unknowns:

• Can Jack "The Prop Master" sustain his schwerve? The bowling ball on the helmet, cheese grater/marbles on the floor were epic, but CAN HE MAINTAIN THE PACE? It's like blog posts, everyone has a couple good ones in them, but sustaining it long term separates the adults from the children. Help Jack out. Go to Jack's blog to suggest a prop for upcoming races.
• Driven by "difficult to pass" desperation, will a Toronto-like Festival of Carbon Fiber break out?
• The small-stalled, packed pit lane has the Circus Clowns stretching out and carbing up for a big day. Will they spring into action?
• What drinking term, if any, will emerge? Robbie Buhl's "Get the power down" has been in low supply the last few Twisties. No "lock step" or "holding station" since this isn't a Marty Reid production. "Momentum" is out since this isn't an oval. Drinking term concerns abound. Maybe "it's so difficult to pass here."

We shall see. Coverage starts at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on Versus.

Comments

[outtaphase]

Here's the thing about dead horses P-dog - They aren't usually STILL GALLOPING AROUND THE PADDOCK! ZOMG ZOMBIE HORSE! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

And big ups for the Prop Master J hopes. Let's see if he can give us a dram of water in the middle of our forced summer death march.

[Jack The Root]

Yes, the Milka Duno bitchfests became tiring months ago.

We get it. She sucks. This just didn't happen overnight. Its because of Indy Car's ass-backward way of running race teams/"choosing" drivers that she is out there and has to stay out there to keep Dale "Goodwill" Coyne in business for another year.

The absolute worst of the inane Milka-bashing came from Jake Queery on the IMS network, who announced as the race started in the gorgeous streets of Toronto, that "the backmarker Milka Duno rounds out the field". Classy Jake. Maybe that's why you lost both your Indianapolis TV and radio sports gigs in the past few years. You would be the "backmarker" of Indy sports media entertainment.

[pressdog]

At some point the Milka thing started sounding like the taunting of an unpopular, unfashionable, slightly off kid gets at a junior high. The mob mentality descended and now it's cool to make fun of Milka. Makes us feel awesome about ourselves to diss her mercilessly. Rise above it, people. We're better than that.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

"The absolute worst of the inane Milka-bashing came from Jake Queery on the IMS network, who announced as the race started in the gorgeous streets of Toronto, that "the backmarker Milka Duno rounds out the field". Classy Jake."

Ehhhhh... what's wrong with that?

[Jack The Root]

Leigh,

"The Backmarker....." should not be used as a phrase to describe another driver on a radio network broadcast. This was a cheap shot, plain and simple.

It had the distinct sound, as Pressdog put it, of a guy just piling on when the runner was already down and the whistle long been blown.

Its open season to bust on Milka now, because the CEO got this ball rolling with candid (too candid???) public comments.

Tools like Queery, joined the fray when he saw others doing it. And its really not cool.

Milka is bad. She has never belonged out there. Where is this news? How many cars as she put into the wall over the years? Compare her record in that regard, to a hack like Moraes.

This is not the fault of Milka. This is the fault of the sport, for allowing ride buyers to dominate the sport and for teams to have to take them on to keep alive for another month or another year. So you just invite the Duno's and the Dracone's and the Howard's and the Moraes's, to bring the sport down and make the races look "amatuerish" to the buying public.

[Jack The Root]

BTW, Pressdog...

My "drinking game" moments on Indy Car broadcasts start when I hear that 'jiggy' Brazlilan music on the Apex Brazil spots.

After the first 9 or 10 times you hear that tune, you can get totally sloshed.

Also, anytime you hear the word "blocking" today, take a swig. Might not be able to remember the green flag though.

[Dylan]

I have nothing against Dunothing bashing. When it's a victory to be second to last, that's a major problem. Plus, when Tracy, Hilderbrand, Rahal, Servia, ect. all are rideless? Yeah, I'm all for Dunothing bashing!

Otherwise, this race is going to be pretty boring. It will be interesting to see how the blocking call will be used, if Barnhart doesn't throw a lot of them, then it'll look really bad, so I guess that's something that might keep it a little interesting...

[redd]

drinking term nominations for this race:

"off-sequence" or "pit strategy"

[Leigh O'Gorman]

@ Jack,

"Backmarker" is a phrase that has been in motorsport long long long before Duno ever got in a car.
I hear it in every form of motorsport to describe the driver at the back. I don't have an issue with it, but if you do, fair enough

[Mike]

How bad does it suck to be on Duno's crew, knowing that th only way your driver will get a top 10 finish is if some 15-16 other drivers crash out within the first 10 laps or so before the IRL parks her? I would guess thier only motivation would be that they are still getting a paycheck.

[Mike R]

What's the high/low on when they park her?

Redd or P'dog's phrase will work. Double up if they say "It's so difficult to pass that you'll have to go off strategy"

[Jim Bob]

20 laps in, and literally nothing has happened.

Nothing.

Everybody running "lock-step". No passing. Just looks like a practice session.

Boring-ass racing. And this series has WAY, WAY too many boring-ass races.

The Cup road race (from what I have seen) is 100 times more entertaining.

[Jack The Root]

I'd really like to say something nice about the Mid Ohio event, but I don't think I can think of anything.

Sorry folks, but that was boring. Boring early. Boring in the middle. And boring late. And I actually watched it and can put up with good road racing.

Might be a beautiful historic track with great country scenery. Honda might love it. They might draw some fans (because Ohio probably has the 2nd most AOW fans in the country). But the actual RACE? L A M E. Again. Even the drivers seem to know it and almost are apologizing afterward.

I am sure Snore-noma will be a page turner in 2 weeks. Can't wait.

[GeorgeK]

All that and Randy has confirmed only Indy and Mid-Ohio as firm dates for next year. They must be doing something right out there, liked MAYBE coming up with the cash to pay for a race?

[pressdog]

GeorgeK: I'd say that Mid-O will be around as long as Honda is a big dog in the series. Same with Snoretegi.