Notes Taken During the IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio 2007

Notes taken from the ABC/ESPN broadcast of the Honda IndyCar 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course July 22, 2007.

Holy race delay. The British Open golf tournament goes into a playoff on ABC so the race gets moved over to ESPN where it gets a lead in from the Geicko PBA All Star Shoot Out. (I am totally not making that up.) Here I resist the chance to make a joke that features Dan Wheldon an how he sounds similar to the Geiko. And if you put him in green, he bears some slight resemblance. (Confession: Put me in a green fire suit and I look like a fat-ass frog. Jussayin.') But, because I like Dan, and it seems a little gratuitous, even for me, I resist. (I'm going for the most commas in one sentence.) Yet, by even mentioning it here, I get in a little poke at Dan. Sorry, mate.

pressdog's beer of the race is MacTarnahan's Oregon Honeybeer, brewed with real honey in Portland, Oregon, where they love a street race!

Welcome to Lexington, OH (looks to be about 60 miles northeast of Columbus on I-71) and the 2.25-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Three of the final six races are road courses (stock up on caffeine now!). Scott Dixon montage. Dixon on a roll. Wins Watkins Glen, Nashville. Team Penske frustrated. Video of Helio Castroneves in a flat spin at Watkins.

Vince Welch, pit dude -- Dixon is the hottest driver in the league. Said he feels major pressure to win every road race. It's also Dixon's birthday. Since Dario Franchitti is finishing so well, Dixon feels like he has to win to catch Dario in the points championship.

Jack Arute -- Helio Castroneves not happy with car. Inconsistent. Not sure how it will perform on long runs.

Brienne Pedigo, ICS Pit Hotty. Danica Patrick has some goals: One was to get into the fast practice group. Did that. Second was to get into the Fast Six to qualify. Did that. Qualified second. Third was to land a major hair-care product endorsement (Kidding. Made that one up.) Bre - Now just has to win it. Danica says a win is a win, but winning on a road course would be extra sweet, (Because why, Bre? Probably because that's her background? Help us out here.)

Marty Reid, booth guy -- Will there be any wing man action here? Will Andretti Green get Dario up front and then have three blockers for him? Booth guy Scott Goodyear -- That was the talk in the paddock this week. AGR claims there are no team orders. Everyone is out there to win for him or herself. (Riiiiiiiight.)

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland gives the command: "Drivers, start your engines."

Scott Goodyear (who I hear lost in go-karts AGAIN to ABC/ESPN Stat King Russ Thompson recently) takes us on a tour of the track. Probably two passing zones. (Rig up the electrodes in preparation for those self-administered jolts to keep you awake now.) Very demanding. Fitness key. Drivers talk about favorite parts. Massive crowd on hand.

Starting lineup: Helio, Danica, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, Dario, Dixon, Sam Hornish, Darren Manning, Buddy Rice, Ryan Hunter-Reay (replacing Jeff Simmons in the ethanol car. Insert profanity from MoneyCJ here), Dan Wheldon, Tomas Scheckter, Kosuke Matsuura, AJ Foyt IV, Scott Sharp, Ed Carpenter, Sarah Fisher, Vitor Miera. Vitor had to go to the back since he smucked the wall in practice so hard he had to replace the engine. Vitor does not strike me as enjoying life about now.

Ryan Hunter-Reay in the car for Simmons (imagine MoneyCJ frothing so hard spittle hits his monitor right here) . Bre -- Deal was done on Wednesday. In the car for the first time Friday. Team is confident that he can get them the results they are looking for.

Arute -- Vitor crashed. Very hard. Had to change engine and bunch of other stuff. Had to go to the back.

Vince -- Marco. Turned season around. Five-race stretch average finish was 18th. Recently string of top fives.

On-board cameras -- Helio, Danica, Scott Dixon, Manning, Danica, Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Goodyear -- Aero vs. Drag. Put a lot of wing into the car, lot of drag. Great in corner, pig down the straights. Lay the wings down a little, flies in the straights but slow through corners due to lack of grip. Balancing act. Props to Goodyear for explaining the value of wings on a road course where most people think they are just ornaments.

Let's light this candle. We are green-green-green. Danica, come on. Green flag!! Put the whip to it, Danica. She's slow on the start. The people behind her aren't, though, so we're about to go three-wide with someone inside and outside Danica.

Turn 4. Yellow yellow yellow. Wooooooooo nelly, we got Marco up and over on his lid. WTF? Danica is involved. Close ups of Marco inverted. (You can almost hear the profanity through the TV.) Down to the AGR pit with Mike Andretti and Jack. Jack showing Mike the replay. Mike -- "Tony spun. It's Tony's fault. Ah, Jesus." Tony's fault not in terms of doing anything wrong, just lost control and lit them up and Marco was a victim.

Arute -- Mike has had the experience of being in the air here. (Not like Marco flipped 500 yards down the track, Jack. He just kind of caught a wheel on the curb and tipped it over. The moment was not "scary.")

Replays. Tony gets squirrelly. Gets into Danica and she's bumped off the track, through the grass. Then TK into marco and we got flippage.

Mike Andretti montage of CART at Mid-Ohio. Won 1990 and 1991 back-to-back. Vintage video of Mike going into the sand at Mid-Ohio and flipping off the track like a freshly beheaded chicken. Came out of the car with dirt and shit all over his firesuit. Striking.

Lap 3 -- Vince -- Teams replay monitors in the pits don't work. (That's so old school! Soon they'll have to bust out the pit boards.) 

Pits are open. Tony is in.

Lap 4 -- Bre with Marco. Marco is fine. Marco -- "It's a bummer when people act that way on starts and things just get crazy. This isn't the first time." I was on the outside and (saw nutty stuff happening ) and tried to go on the inside all the way over to the right just to try and avoid it. (Kind of seems to say that Danica's starting skills are questionable. That's the vibe I got. Her start was pretty fugly, I gotta say, not that the booth boys will take a look at it.)

Booth guy Marty Ried says Tony getting into Danica (!) started the whole thing.

Manning is third. Goodyear says he's a road course racer. Probably a Road Course Specialist as well.

Danica radio replay -- Danica -- I'm still on the track so many cars back. Slid a little bit out of four. (They start asking her if crap is working right, etc. My viewing is enhanced.) 

Lap 5 -- "Green flag, starter, green flag." Dixon is second. Trying to pass Helio. Goodyear -- Helio driving down the middle of the road to "protect" both lines.

Lap 8 -- Manning has the fastest lap so far. Tony has gone from 17th on restart to 13th.

Helio montage. Win at St. Pete. Flat spin at Watkins.

Lap 10 -- Helio, Dixon, Manning (!), Dario, Hornish, Hunter-Reay, Wheldon, Danica, Rice, Scheckter.

Lap 13 -- Arute -- Hornish loves his car! Ryan Hunter-Reay (MoneCJ: "SHITWAGON!") is 6th. Replay of RHR going into the fence in warm up. Bre -- Ryan is happy. Has zero vibration from a part they replaced. Will pit around lap 28. New boss David Letterman came on down to watch him race (Letterman gets air.) His goal is to finish in the top 7.

Lap 16 -- RHR Radio -- "Push hard do my best for ya." He's raced in Mid-Ohio before.

Lap 17 -- Miera is 11th. From last to 11th. Passed Scheckter. Matsuura battling. Goodyear -- Matsuura driving the wheels off it this weekend. Isn't one to put a whole race together in most cases.

Commercials every 23 seconds on this race. Not that you're miss much. It's a Holding Station Fest.

Lap 22 - Arute -- Hornish will pit on 28th. Then Castroneves.

Rice is totally working over Danica for a spot.

Lap 23 -- Wheldon charging.

Vince -- Wheldon says you have to find a car that fits your style. Has one of those today.

Goodyear -- In laps and out laps from pit stops are key.

Lap 25 -- Helio, Dixon, Manning, Dari, Sam, RHR, Wheldon, Danica, Rice, Vitor.

Lap 27 -- Manning pits. AJ Foyt on the radio: "You're here, come on down."

Wheldon and Danica pit. Helio pits. In and out. Dixon stays out. He's ON IT to try and stretch a lead so he can pit and keep the lead.

Lap 29 -- Dixon in. Out. Comes out in front of Helio. Can he keep it? Yep. It's a clinic on how to save fuel, pit a lap later than the car you are racing and come out with the lead. Very Sebastien Bourdais-esque.

Lap 30 -- Tony leads. Yet to pit. Came from last to first in 28 laps.

Sarah Fisher is lapped. Taken longer than usual. She must be improving on the street/road races.

Sarah is now in front of Danica. No, I won't scream for her to "PUT IT SIDEWAYS," at least not out loud.

Lap 32 -- Kanaan pits. Comes back out 10th.

Lap 33 -- Dixon leads. Shocker. Fast in and out laps, fast pit stop.

Lap 34 -- Dixon is now up by 3.4 seconds.

Lap 35 -- Dixon, Helio, Dario, Sam, Manning, Danica, Wheldon, Rice, RHR, Kanaan.

Lap 36 -- RHR and  Buddy Rice battle. RHR looks under but Buddy closes the door.

Dixon is turning 1:08 laps, about a second ahead of everyone. He leads Helio by 4.1.

Lap 37 -- Dixon lapping Scheckter. Vince -- Dixon is fast AND saving fuel. (Perfect. Stop watching now.)

Lap 41 -- Dixon up by 4.9 seconds. Go wash the car. Mow the grass. Come back at the next pit window.

Lap 46 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Sam Hornish is off. Video of him going ass first through the gravel. No damage, but stalled. Waiting for a tow. Gesturing. I always love it when drivers do something stupid to go off the course and then get pissy when the safety guys don't get there in 10 seconds to tow them out. 

Lap 49. Pitting. Dixon pits and loses the lead. Presses are stopped. Everyone pits except Kanaan and Sharp.

Green -- TK leads. Stayed out. Helio got out in front of Dixon and is in third and working on Sharp.

Arute with Tim Cindric, Helio's pit guy. Tim says they short filled to get out in front of Dixon. Can stay out to the mid-70s and then will have to pit again.

Arute talks about the driver's meeting wherein Brian Barnhart, the Iron Hand of Justice, presented The Law and told the Drivers to stop acting stupid. Five minute lecture. Said the IRL would not become the WWE of racing and use artificial means to determine the race. (So putting lapped cars to the back, not going to happen, Scott and Marty. Sorry. I agree with the IHJ on this one, and not just because he will eat my dog and spit the bones out in my face if I disagree with him.) Told drivers to move over for faster cars if they are a lap down. (I would not be shocked to hear that the word "snipers" was mentioned by the IHJ.)

Lap 52 -- Kanaan, Sharp, Helio, Dixon, Dario, Danica, Manning, Wheldon, RHR, Scheckter.

Lap 54 -- Vitor is toast. No mention of it on TV yet. TK is up by eight seconds.

Lap 59 -- Goodyear says Danica is great. Doing a great job.

Lap 60 -- Tony pits. 8.7 pit. Has to take the time to fill it to the brim. Last pit stop. Comes out in sixth

More commercials. Mega commercials in this one. Every three laps, I swear. I hope that means ESPN/ABC is at least making money on this deal. I lie awake at night worrying about ABC/ESPN making money. 

Lap 64 -- Goodyear reviews that there are no fuel settings on the car. Drivers have to adjust their driving style to save fuel, can't use the fuel setting knob any more like in the old days.

Lap 64 -- Helio, Dixon, Dario, Danica, Manning, Tony, RHR, Scheckter, Matsuura (!), Wheldon.

Scott fiance Emma Davies gets air. Emma is hot. I just gotta be up front with ya on that one. At some point Marty/Goodyear says Emma was also a world-class runner for (I'm thinking Great Britain) and her and Scott go running together. 

Tony. Eighteen seconds back from the race leaders, but they all have to pit. Can't get around Manning.

Lap 69 -- Helio pits. 6.1. Fuel only. Danica in and out but she got tires.

Lap 70 -- Dixon in. Stays out a lap longer than Helio. Getting better mileage. Vince says Dixon is a road course specialist. Out in front of Helio? ..... Yes.

Goodyear -- Dixon didn't change tires so his tires were not cold so Helio has no advantage. Dixon out in second and Dario, leader, still has to pit. Not so good for Dario.

Dario behind Quattro who is a lap down, but Quattro moves over, because he's like that.

Can Dario stay out front? He has to try to stretch his lead as much as possible so it's big enough that he can pit quickly and get out in front.

Dario has raced her six times. Dario's engineer on the radio -- "Need three good ones. You are P1."

Lap 74 -- Dario, Dixon, Helio, Mannig, Kanaan, Scheckter, Danica, RHR, Wheldon, Rice.

Lap 75 -- Dario sets his fast lap of the race on his in lap. Perfect time for it. He's pitting. Cory McLish is the fueler. It's all on Cory since Dario isn't getting tires. 4.8 second stop. Props to Corey. Dixon is out ... BEHIND DIXON. WTF? Dixon drove his fastest race of the lap on the lap that Dario pitted. HFS! That was the perfect time for Dixon to turn on the jets. Won the race for himself (barring air strike) with that hyper-space lap while Dario was pitting. 

Nine to go. Go walk the dog. This is over. Helio third. Tony fourth. Her Majestizzle is fifth.

Lap 80 -- Dixon, Dario, Helio, Kanaan, Danica, Mannig, RHR, Scheckter, Wheldon, Rice.

Six to go. All pitting is over. Dixon up by 2.6. Will win barring air strike. Three in a row montage. Kenny Breck did it 1998(ish), Wheldon did it in 2005 and now Scotty.

Vince -- Never panic in the Dixon pit. (It's the Ice Pit, what do you expect?) Mike Hull and Eric someone (engineer) are always calm and cool (again, the Iceman wills it to be so).

Four to go. Quatro gets over for Dario. He's  good like that. Three to go. Not even the dreaded lapped traffic (Goodyear: MOVE THEM TO THE BACK! Kidding. Goodyear didn't really say that. Just thought it. I think.) will hurt Dixon now. Matsuura lets Dixon go too. Festival of Driver Courtesy breaks out.

Emma Davies gets more air. White flag. Marty -- Tony was 17th after lap 1 chaos and is now about to finish fourth. Goodyear -- Tony was stuck behind Manning for a long time so it may have screwed him from finishing even higher. Too bad ABC/ESPN showed us exactly zero of Kanaan's passes on TV. He's marching up the field, from last to almost first, maybe put a camera on him. Just talking out loud here.

(This just in: an alert reader explained to me that Kanaan made it to the front mainly on fuel strategy. Passed his way up to 13th-ish, got stuck behind Kosuke, then made all his "passes" by staying out when others pitted. So it was mainly due to an alternate pit strategy, not carving up the field.  I stand corrected and probably smacked on ABC/ESPN a little unfairly, and the 'dog is not about that.)

Dixon wins. Ice, ice baby -- too cold, too cold. Emma gets air. Mike Hull looks like he's just coming back from the library or something -- no big deal. After three in a row, maybe it gets to be kind of a day at the office. Vince with Mike -- Mid-Ohio all about track position (unlike every other road/street course). Driver have to drive to a number for the last segment. (Have to hit a fuel mileage number in order to make the strategy work). Dixon is super fabulous at that. 

Dixon wins by 2.6 seconds. Dixon, Dario, Helio, Kanaan, Danica, Manning, Hunter-Reay, Rice, Scheckter, Wheldon. Ten cars finish on the lead lap. 

Dixon in pit lane while we're at side-by-side time. Gets hug from mom. Gets some sugar from Emma. Goes back for a little more of that sugar. Finally we're out of commercial number 87 and Vince has the Iceman. Vince -- a hat trick on your birthday. Dixon -- tried to stay on fuel strategy and could tell that Helio was doing the same. Stayed out a lap longer on Helio and got the lead. The second stint was more like qualifying. Flat out all the way around. Intense. Tough. Tried to save fuel, keep track of everyone. Imagine all the possibilities for someone coming out of nowhere. 

Arute says he hears the music from Jaws in the background as Iceman is stalking his pray. I think Arute TOTALLY ripped me off on that one since I've used it before. Even talks about the dorsal fin you can see back there when Iceman is following. I totally used that in a Champ Car race with Sebastien Boudais behind ANYONE. Come on, Jack, at least give me a shout out for it. Or go buy a pressdog shirt.

Bre with Dario. Dario is 24 points ahead of Dixon in the championship now. What do you do to keep him back there? Dario -- try to beat him. He's done a hell of a job. Lost places at the start. Had to check up and Dixon got in front of him on the turn 4 chaos. 

Tony with Vince -- Start. Let her (Danica) go, she got so sideways and slow down so much I had no place to go. Hit the brakes and spun. Just a shame. I couldn't do anything to avoid it. Wasn't trying to pass anybody. This year has been tough for me. In the wrong places at the wrong times a lot. At the end of the day, where I started to where I ended up, very happy with that.

Bre. Danica. Top 5. What up with the start? Dancia -- Not really sure what happened. All went into turn 4. I got in there and not sure what happened. I heard clear inside, slid a little and felt a bump. We got in there at max speed. I don't know what ended up happening. Seemed like an unfortunate situation for sure for AGR.

Arute. Helio. "First of all, you know, Scott, I know it's your birthday, so I give that to you." Kidding. Scott drove a hell of a race. Helio says he had a third-place car at least a half second slower than the leaders. Third is good. Points are good. Let's keep going to the next one.

Video of someone rolling in the grass in a sleeping bag. Probably napped through the entire EXCITING race. Check the championship. Dario is up by 24 over the Iceman. Tony is 111 points back. Pretty much a two-person show for the crown. That's it from scenic Mid Ohio. 

Tune in at noon Eastern Aug. 5 on ESPN2 for what might be the last race at Michigan in a while.

Comments

[My Name Is IRL]

Excellent work as usual, although I don't think IHJ would actually eat your dog. If I may paraphrase: there is no theory of evolution - just a list of animals the IHJ let's live.

Seriously though, the ironic thing is I didn't hear a single "holding station" comment from Marty. Either he has officially retired it or was terrified to overuse it every other lap.

BTW - my beverage of choice was Maxwell House. I think next year I may just guzzle some E100.

[pressdog]

Don't forget LOCK STEP. Wouldn't recommend guzzling the E100. Actually had a guy who sipped some E100 at one of the ethanol plants in Iowa. His blood alcohol went from 0 to about .4 in a minute. Woke up during the ambulance ride to the hospital. You'd think Red Bull would do awesome sales at these types of races.

[Shellhead]

Dog! Great recap! Did you notice that Arute's lecture on lapped cars was started by cars passing Scott Sharp and the booth guys wondering if Sharp took IHJ to heart? That totally pi$$ed me off because Sharp was racing for position!!

[Ryan]

Why would sipping a small amoutn of ethanol make your BAC go from 0 to .4 in about a minute and land you in an ambulance? Everclear is 190 proof (or 95% ethanol), and doing a shot or six of that isn't going to do anything of the sort.

It was certainly a lot more than a sip if that's what happened, and while drinking that large of a quantity, you'd certainly know what the outcome would be if you'd ever drank liquor before.

If that was a joke, sorry, I didn't get it. love the blog.