Root for the Underdragon

Ah Lotus and Dragon Racing. Arriving just in time to perk up my sagging interest in the road-and-street dominated IndyCar schedule.

Dragon Racing announced recently that their team will feature Katherine Legge and Sebastien Bourdais, both of whom I dig for different reasons.

Katherine, of course, is a Woman of pressdog, which means she's female (duh), connected to racing (preferably open-wheel) and has brains and schwerve (that combination of attitude, confidence and humor). Katherine has all that going on. She rode out a trip into the catch fence at Road America without making a big thing about it. She stalked Kevin Kalkhoven to get a ride in Champ Car initially. She won in Atlantics, went to female-driver-hostile Europe and drove in DTM. Came back to America. Got a ride. (Read more about her here.) So I'm on board with Katherine.

But what of Sebastien Bourdais? To be sure, nobody can give Bourdais any kind of shit for skill, what with those FOUR CONSECUTIVE Champ Car World Series championships in his display case. Bourdais was also a nice counter-point to the brash Paul Tracy while in Champ Car. Bourdais drove for a while in F1. Drove sports cars for Peugeot. By all accounts has major skills.

But the reason I like Sebastien Bourdais is that he's different -- and he doesn't appear to regret being different. When I think of Bourdais, I think of the clip below from Tallagega Nights. It's a exaggerated caricature, but think of Bourdais as the French Jean Girard guy crashing into the good-old-boy Ricky Bobby racing league ...

Talladega Nights - Ricky meets Jean Girard by Arcade_Mode

The upshot of this is I now have a team to root for on the twisties. SURE, I root for Sarah Fisher's team at all times. YES, I am a big fan of Ed Carpenter. But neither have proved to be twisty contenders. Here we have two drivers who grew up on road and street courses, one of whom has kicked ass repeatedly on them and the other of whom could be the First Female Threat on twisties (tip of the hat here to fellow female threat Simona De Silvestro). Jury is still somewhat out on Katherine's open-wheel twisty ability -- her second season in Champ Car was not that spectacular, by her own admission -- but Katherine Legge has a formidable pedigree on the left-and-right-turn courses.

On top of all that there's Lotus engines, which have been shrouded in suspicion and doubt. Honda is the incumbant dog and Chevy has The Racing Name. Lotus always seemed a bit last-second, a bit tossed together, and somewhat behind the curve. That makes them well positioned to do some major script flipping.

So I'm going to get me a (figurative) Dragon tattoo (you knew it was coming!) this year, and root for the French Honey Badger Bourdais (He doen't care what you think. He takes what he wants) and the intriguing Katherine Legge. And I'm going to start using the word "crepes."

Comments

[Brett M. Waldrep]

Yippy Katherine Legge is back! It is about time someone filled the void left by the departure of Milka Duno as moving chicane. You want a female threat on the twisties stick with you first choice of Simona De Silvestro! Simona is still young and getting better and is already FAR better acomplished then Katherine Legge will ever be.

[pressdog]

The beauty of it, Brett, is we'll see how Simona and Katherine do head-to-head now. Which creates ... interest. Shazam.

[Savage Henry]

If the Lotus engine is competitive this could add a lot of interest to the season. Bourdais is a proven talent that should strike fear into the Death Star. He was able to make some noise last year racing part-time for Dale Coyne, so I think it bodes well for this year.

I hope that I'm not getting my hopes too high for the Lotus/Judd engine, but I'm encouraged by the fact that it is lighter and has a lower GC - that might give it an advantage with the balance problems that the DW12 has. Judd has been out of Indycar for a long time but hopefully they have enough experience developing engines that they aren't too far behind going into the season.

[Dylan]

Dragon looks interesting. The main positive going into 2012 is that Indycar has a lot of potentially good teams. My concern is how competitive they'll actually be. I'd love to believe someone other than Penske and Ganassi (and even Andretti) could win the title. I thought Newman Haas and KV might have that potential. But my fear is the engine's won't be close together and that we might end up with one team winning everything. Hopefully that won't happen, but that would pretty much make having 30 cars pointless if only one engine or worse, one team, wins.

The return of Bourdais is great. Especially if you're not a Dario fan and are tired of hearing a Scottish whiner in a Red Car is one of the Greatest of All Time. Legge should be pretty good as long as her equipment is decent.

The only other question is with Pagenaud and Bourdias as Jean Girard, who get's to be Ricky Bobby?

[pressdog]

Dylan ... I wouldn't mind if one or two teams won everything in IndyCar, as long as it's not the SAME one or two teams EVERY YEAR. So if (picked randomly) HVM and DRR won 89% of the races in 2012, I would weep tears of joy. There are usually dominant teams in any given year, and I'm find with that, but the same dominant teams for 6 years is not good.

[HB Donnelly]

"Blaireau Du Miel", 'Dog. That would be "Honey Badger" En Français (according to online translators, at least).

I was big on Luczo-Dragon when they showed up in the old-school yellow car with Briscoe at Indy a few years back, but they lost my support when they stuck with Matos for so long. Their efforts last year brought me around a bit, and I'm all about the Dragon this year!

[HB Donnelly]

Oh, and Katherine got 100% of my respect when she walked out of the medical center smiling and chatty after OBLITERATING her car at Road America. Woman of Steel!

[Jimmy B]

@Brett Waldrep You could not be more wrong in comparing Katherine to Milka. Among the things that Kat did that Milka never did: finish in the top 10 (6 times in 22 races, was 6th with 5 to go at Road America '06, too before her wing failed) whereas Milka holds the record for most races (43) without a top 10. And despite awful luck that knocked Legge out of 8 races in 2007 through no fault of her own, every race she finished she finished on the lead lap, twice in the top 10. I don't think Milka ever managed to finish a single race on the lead lap ONCE, in twice the races. Kat led 12 laps at Milwaukee '06, 10 under green with Justin hounding her, then held 2nd for another 20 laps & ran 131 of 197 6th or better, finishing 6th; when Milka led it was 4 laps under yellow, then just 1 under green before she was completely swallowed by the field & finished 14th. There's just no comparison whatsoever.

[Brett M. Waldrep]

Perhaps you are right, comparing Katherine to Milka might be unfair. After all Milka, has a 24 hour of Daytona win, where Katherine as ZERO major motorsport wins! Not only has Katherine never won a race she has zero poles and zero podiums. Honestly I do not really expect her to be as bad as Milka but, to think she is on the same talent level as Sarah, Danica, and Simona is downright laughable!

[S0CSeven]

Saying a driver sux when they're driving inferior equipment is just plain wrong.

Wait until the autumn & compare her record to Seabass. That's her only competition - Seabass.

[DZ]

...esscept I am froum Fourmoola Uunh.

Anyone beside me think Sebastian's driver intro music should be 'seesh jass moosic'.

[Tammy Kaehler]

Like you, pressdog, I'm pretty excited for this team, and glad to see Katherine and Se-Bass (how do you spell it?) get a full-time shot at things.

[pressdog]

Jimmy B's listing of Legge's career so far shows she's not just some poser. How good she really is is a function of a lot of things, which SOCSeven points out. This is not IROC where all cars, teams, are the same. Many many variables of which the driver is just one. The raw beauty of this situation is the proof will be in the track pudding. As Derek Daly says, "everything in racing lies but the stopwatch." Absolutely, DZ, when Bourdais (I greatly dislike the "Seabass" nickname for some reason) is introduced, the sheesh jass moosic should play. THAT would be hilarious (which is why it will never happen, sadly).

[Julie]

I have a suspicion on who Dylan is that posted above and I think Dario's record on the track should earn him respect whether you are a fan or not. Calling him names is childish...besides there was a lot of whining coming from all directions last season.

I personally am excited to see another women get a chance in Indycar and think the Milka comparison is unwarranted. I would like to see Katherine or Bourdais finish on the podium in a couple races. I do not think they will challenge for the championship this season or even next. Neither one of them has oval experience and there are enough skilled twisty drivers to make a championship hard without top oval finishes. With that said, I am excited to see new (old) blood in Indycar