Notes Taken During the 2009 St. Petersburg IndyCar Race

Notes taken during the VERSUS broadcast of the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on April 5, 2009.

pressdog beer of the race is Land Shark Lager brewed at Margaritaville Brewing Company, Jacksonville, FL. 

Kick it off with a montage that includes Danica doing a little jig apparently while coming out for intros. Scott Dixon, Graham Rahal get air.

Holy HD meltdown. A freak April 5 snow storm here in Iowa is hosing my Dish HD. I'm going to emergency reception maneuver Zebra Bravo Tango.

We interrupt these notes for a report from pressdog/MyNameisIRL.com correspondent Nancy Hunka who is on the scene in St. Pete and sent us this memo Saturday:

The word from St. Petersburg is MORE! We came here expecting less...not as many vendors, fewer attendees, a scaled down event. We got here late on Friday afternoon, and found a crowd we would have normally expected on Saturday. Today (Saturday)  seemed to be as busy as you would expect on race day (not in the stands mind you, but the grounds were FULL!). Vendors....double that of last year and with more variety. They opened up a whole new section behind the ball field designated as a "fan zone" sponsored by Brighthouse (local cable co). Two beer gardens (with tables and needed shade) have been added along with a pleasant feature called the "floating cocktail barge" on the water.

The merchandise, well again I just have to say MORE! Izod has added a new line and I have to say that I am impressed. Ken's been trying to buy me a t-shirt for the last 5 years from the trailers and I just couldn't find one I would wear. $36.00 later, I have an Indy Izod t-shirt. OK...it's not for everyone, but it's something that appealed to me that was not available before.

Nancy is almost like having our own Grid Walker. Thanks for the on-the-scene report.

We return now to your regularly scheduled notes ...

Switch to the Standard Definition VERSUS channel and I got picture. Fabulous. I get my picture back just in time for Bob Jenkins, the new play-by-play guy, to throw it down to Jack Arute, VERSUS "Pit Strategist." Jack is in a booth that overlooks the pit lane. Jack has graduated from the pit fire suit and now stands astride pit road like a colossus with his own pit lair.

Dixon montage featuring race action narrated by Mike King SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS. Dixon says "Champ Car" right out loud. (In the context of how SUPER AWESOME it is to have Dario Franchitti [and his lovely wife, I'm sure] back in the league). We also had the Flowing Tribute to the Return of Dario package earlier. Dan Wheldon, some how, was not interviewed for that.

Noted Shakespearean Pit Reporter Arute is warming up his own ALL CAPS DRAMATIC VOICE as well when he says "it's a chance to prove in your first outing that YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES." (Dun-dun-dunnnnnnn. "Cowards die many times before their deaths / The valiant never taste of death but once." W. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)

First win package staring guess who? Package city. VERSUS continues the ESPN tradition of packages. Graham Rahal package. Pole sitter! It features the now-immortal moment of Arute asking Bobby Rahal to "describe the feeling of a father ..."

Down to Lindy Thackston, New IndyCar Pit Hotty (NIPH). Lindy has a formidable pony tail. She's with the Rahal, I believe. Notes are unclear. The pony tail may have spooked me.

Over to fellow pit newby, Robbie Floyd with Justin Wilson. Wilson is roughly 7 feet tall. Wilson and his Dale Coyne team, which I think actually sells plasma in order to race, are starting P2. That's like winning the Indy 500 by a lap for them. Wilson, who is disconcertingly nice in person, says the team is "over the moon" about it (twice) and that they are doing the best they can with what the have. 

Wheldon gets air walking down the pit lane and zipping up the fire suit. Smiles at some small children and instantly vaporizes them with a nuclear blast flash from The Teeth. On camera talking about his new son, Sebastian. Dan is now talking about being urinated on by his son while changing the diapers. Note to Dan: they continue to urinate on you off and on (usually figuratively) long after the diapers are gone. Just a tip from a 17-year veteran father, Danno. Let's hang at Kansas!

Extreme cage fighting promo. Danica intro (the may actually go together). Motegi win montage. Be ready to see that several thousand times this year. Swimsuit montage.

We've entered the Qualification Package Recycle Zone. I saw most of these packages during the qualification show. You can imagine how on fire I am to see the Danica swimsuit montage and interview for the SECOND time. I note that the video of the photo shoot shows Danica's base-of-the-spine ink that got air brushed out for the mag. Pretty sure Danica is going to get pressdog logo tattooed on her buttocks very soon as well. Reminds me to get a pressdog thong made for The Seldom Visited Online Store.

Down to the Pit Strategy Colossus (Arute) with Danica. They have a special bond. Danica even confesses her love for Arute. (The Playful Danica!) Danica says "I'm trying not to get so angry all the time." This causes me to stop breathing temporarily and almost lose bladder control, the shock is so great. Then she says "I'm trying to be nicer and smile more. Doesn't help to be mad all weekend." Bill Murray speaks to me here.

Then Danica laughs. Out loud. On TV. Seriously. My world is officially inverted.

I just realize that Land Shark Lager smells like burnt popcorn.

Penske and Will Power with Briscoe are now Team Australia. Helio Castroneves is on trial for tax evasion and, as such, unavailable to drive today. Everyone wishes Helio well. Standing behind him. Etc. Power is in his seat. Arute says Helio texted in a greeting (to Arute, I guess) saying he wishes the team well. Video of Penske's Helio guy Tim Cindric saying Helio is awesome.

R. Floyd with Briscoe. Have butterflies driving for Penske. Will is great. Hope he stays right behind me the whole race. Will is happy to be there.

Dario with curly hair. Flash back to Indy 500 with the shaved head. Gone from shaved to long all over. Kanaan talks about his helmet design. Hair montage! Arute shows a photo of him with hair and a non thermal-nuclear tan compared to today's Arute. Then shows Dario before and after. Dixon/Dario montage. Video of Dario inhaling Dixon at Chicagoland (and right in front of me) in 2007. (I may or may not have used profanity in the stands that day. My fellow spectators were most likely SHOCKED.)

Dixon and Dario "superteam" gets more air, but oddly the are not interviewing Wheldon (who got bounced out of Target in favor of Dario) about it. Odd.

I realize here there's not a lot of air for AGR. Tony got a bit and of course Danica, but Target and Penske dominate. Look for the make-up AGR packages next time. Dario says the first corner will be interesting.

Three booth guys on camera. Jenkins, 20-year veteran and former driver Jon Beekhuis and former driver and current car owner, Robbie "Incredi" Buhl. Jon says street race gives the small teams a shot to go after the big guys. (Good point right out of the chute for Jon. He's got skills.) Robbie: Driver breaks down physically around here and when you break down physically, you make mental mistakes. (Another good point. Off to a good start.) Booth crew seems juiced. Like the enthusiasm.

Jon picks Rahal to win and Power to be the big non-winning playah. Robbie says Tony Kanaan to win and Will Power the non-winning playah. Jenkins says Wilson will win but EJ Viso will be the non-winning playah. 

There's a graphic here showing who the pit guys picked, but it's up for about 4 seconds so it's hard to tell.

My HD is back on line! Hosanna. Intro montage that's very Sam Posey F1-ish. DRAMA. Vin Diesel gets more air than half the field thanks to clips from Fast and Furious cut into the montage. Some kind of nutty running-with-the-bulls computer generated intro thing. Bulls turn into cars. Down to the grid for the command. Erik Berkman, President, Honda Performance Development: "Drivers... start your HONDA engines." We're fired up. Rolling. Four of the top 6 teams start on red tires.

(IndyCar reminder: teams have two kinds of tires. Black tires that are harder compound and red tires are a softer compound with a red sidewall so you know the difference. Each team has to use at least one set of both for at least two green laps in the race. Reds have more grip but degrade faster [in theory]. Blacks have less grip but last longer [in theory]. Adds to the strategy.)

Cue the HAT (rolling order across the screen). Shout out to some of the ESPN B-unit that is now working for VERSUS.

Starting lineup brought to you by Trackside Online fan-supported news service. Joe and Patrick do a fabulous job. Be like the pdog and subscribe! You'll be flooded with original content PLUS all the team PR releases.

Graham Rahal, Justin Wilson(!), Tony Kanaan, Ryan Briscoe, Dario Franchitti, Will Power, Alex Tagliani, Scott Dixon, Raphael Matos, Darren Manning, Dan Wheldon, Mike Conway, Robert Doornbos, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Danica Patrick, E.J. Viso, Vitor Meira, Marco Andretti, Hideki Mutoh, Mario Moraes, Stanton Barrett, Ed Carpenter.

Buhl: Get cars rolling calms the drivers down after being wired all weekend. Jon congrats Robbie on the 200th start for Dreyer and Reinbold Racing in the IRL. (Note: I read somewhere that Milka is doing back to DRR. May have been an April Fools joke, though.) Onboard cameras. Danica (of course), Wheldon has Ass Cam, Dixon, Dario, Tony Kanaan has nose cam (HAR).

One to go until we're green. Air temp is 83 degrees. Track temp 123 degrees. 53% humidity. Bob makes sure we know the reason they went to the alternate tire rule was to increase the excitement and competition in the race. Bob has used the f-word ("fans") repeatedly so far. My viewing is enhanced each time. We're down into the last turn. Get out into two wide.

Let's light this street candle. We're two wide and we're .... green green green. Keep your ears open ... listen for it ... the soft notes of a of calliope ... FIVE WIDE into turn 1. Some things never change.

Cue the circus music! Rahal is ass around. SPEARVILLE by someone. Conway slides into the tires. Dirt flying. Tag goes dune buggy right over the top of Rahal's front wings.

A yacht pulls into the harbor and wheels out a tiny human-cannonball cannon and FIRES 12 clowns with full-course yellow flags into Turn 1.

Yellow yellow yellow. Full course. The only kind of yellow the IRL has. R. Floyd says Brian Barnhard, the Iron Hand of Justice, is going to be upset about the Turn 1 carnival. He's always upset every year. And it always happens every year. Because there is never anything but stern warnings. So the IHJ being upset is not news.

Replay. Dario inhales people with a banzai dive to the inside of T1, he's CLEAR but sets off a festival of checking up which cues circus music and serves as the opening ceremonies for a Festival of Carbon Fiber behind him. Rahal goes wide to avoid Dario, then Kanaan ass-ends him, sending him spinning. 

Lap 3 -- Conway's rear suspension is snapped. Not sure who hipchecked him into the wall. Robbie does well not to weep audibly in the booth.

Lap 4 -- Jack is impressing us with his commentary despite the fact that we are going green. Focus, people. Did I see a pony keg in the background when Arute was talking? The Pit Road Lair is the new Club Patron.

Lap 5 -- Wilson leads after the hockey scrum and FCY (Full-Course Yellow). Wilson, Franchitti, Briscoe, Power, Manning, Dixon, Wheldon, Tag, Doornbos, RHR.

Rahal and Kanaan are inhaling people on their way back up front. We even get to see a bit of it!

Lap 7 -- VERSUS goes into their "let's show every driver even if they are driving on their own and not battling for position" mode because, really, who wants to watch Rahal and Kanaan passing people for many minutes? Not me.

Dario looking under Wilson. St. Pete 2007 montage. Yes, by all means, show us a race from two years ago because we didn't actually tune in to see this race.

Lap 11 -- Dario is 1.75 seconds behind Wilson. Manning is P5, did a great job here last year.

Lap 13 -- Welcome to Parade Land. If you are low on beer or gotta pee, go fill up or drain (or both) now. Come back in about 12 laps. Wait, Danica may be passed in P11. Bt we cut away from that. Jon was shocked to hear Danica say she was not getting angry this year. Me too, Jon. Dario is half a second behind Wilson. I think Wilson is on reds and Dario is on blacks.

(Insert eight laps of lock stepping here)

Lap 21 -- Stanton Barret brings value by causing some overtaking/interest. He's being inhaled by about everyone who has to go to Emergency Overtaking Maneuver William Foxtrot Tango. EJ Viso pits. (Actually on lap 20). In on reds. Out on blacks. Pit posse reports he hates the reds. Got them out of the way now.

Jon -- Wilson trying to make it to Lap 34 before pitting which would make it a two-stop strategy. He's on reds now.

Lap 22 -- Wilson, Dario, Briscoe, Power, Manning, Dixon, Wheldon, Tag, Doornbos, RHR. (EXACTLY the same as lap 7).

LindyCar reports that Wilson will pit around lap something. I missed it. I admit it. R. Floyd says Target thinks they can win on pit stop skills. My heart leaps with joy at the thought that the race will be determined by who has the faster pit crew. Just what fans love!!!

Jon -- Moraes is a slower car holding up the faster Kanaan and Rahal. Another shocker or a street circuit.

Lap 28 -- Robbie -- Wilson has gone 27 laps on reds, which are supposed to "go off" faster than blacks. Been keeping his lap speeds up too. Gives him props. (Props to Robbie for passing on that vital bit of info.)

Graphic shows Moraes has improved 7 positions (and we've seen zero of those improvements). Jon is Mr. Brutally Honest, so I love him already, and says "most of those spots he got in the first corner." BAM. Speak it, Jon.

Rahal looks inside Tony ... NO. Tony could be making himself wide. Not sure.

Lap 30 -- Jack, Pit Titan, turns the mega-subwoofer-driven pit road party rap music down long enough to say you have to make it to lap 33 at least to make it on two stops. Wilson is pulling a gap on Dario. You can see that. How much of a gap -- NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. We go to commercial without our viewing enhanced by key info like the number of seconds Wilson leads when approaching his first stop.

From the track, Flirty Curty Cavin of the Indy Star has Twitter and knows how to use it. He TWEETS from trackside (more likely the buffet-included media center) that Wilson was stretching out 1 second per lap on the last few laps and has 6 seconds on Dario now. Maybe we should get Curt in the booth. Too bad the thousands tuning in to VS aren't following Cavin on Twitter.

Lap 31 -- Tag has a flat left rear.

Circus music encore! Lap 33 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Matos is SMASHED. Confusion. Jon points out the donut on the side of Matos' pod. Some kind of contact. Moraes is also dead stick. Danica is out and walking arm-in-arm with some helmeted driver, so she's toast as well obviously.

We flash to a replay from Danica's in-car camera. Danica looking back at Matos. BANZAIIIII!!! Matos dives under Danica in a fast chicane. Danica has no idea he's there because he's not even with her and we got contact. The two spin and SMASH Danica-first into the barrier. It looked like hockey check with Matos taking Danica into the boards.

Right on cue a tiny Zamboni pulls up and 19 clowns on skates jump out and start slashing each other with yellow sticks.

Vitor and Tag replay. Vitor's end plate gets into Tag's rear wheels. Slices it. Tag gets off into a runoff and then whips around and comes back out to nurse it around for new rubber. (Reminds me: earlier in the show I think Robbie called tires "rubbers." Careful with that Incredi. "Fresh Firestone rubbers" could make me spew beer of the race all over the HD wonder.)

Video of Danica and Matos, forced to stand together like at a bus stop waiting for the safety car. Danica looks super pissed and definitely not smiling, but she's also not kicking the shit out of Matos or giving him the Jacque Lazier head slap even though she has reason. Briscoe pitted RIGHT before yellow, so Merry Christmas to him. He'll move to the front with full tanks as everyone else pits under yellow.

Danica and Matos are now having words. No bitch slapping yet. Jon checks the replay. Calls it a "low percentage place to pass." Agreed. Matos was "very optimistic." Didn't have the corner before Danica had to turn, so she did the right thing. He dive bombed in there.

Wilson pits. Gets blacks. Dario in and out, but BEHIND Wilson (I think. VERSUS is not showing me this because it is none of my business. I am pretty sure the Coyne posse beat the vaunted Target pit crew.)

WTF? This is turning into a Festival of Circus Music. We got Dixon in trouble in the pits. They are pushing cars around down there. He's ass-first and askew in the pit lane to get fuel. Replays. Power missed his pit box so Dixon couldn't get into his which is right in front of it. Had to stop in no-man's land until the crews could push people around and back. A tiny Disney bus pulls up and 19 clowns wearing Mickey ears begin handing out brochures and squirting each other with fake lapel flowers.

Lap 37 -- Danica -- In Arute's Control Center Lair Astride the Pit Row with his special guest, Danica -- Arute has technology and he's not afraid to use it. Shows Danica the replay. Danica "not exactly the ideal spot to pass. There's no room. Not room for two people there. He just wasn't all the way up to me. Brave maneuver that didn't work out for him or me."

Props to Danica for remaining calm. It briefly disorients me. We may, in fact, be seeing the anger-managed Danica.

R. Floyd shows us a flat spot Dario had on one of his tires.

Lap 40 -- GREEN. Wilson gets inside Doornbos -- CLEAR. Overtaking on camera. Viewing enhancement!

Lap 41 -- Briscoe, Wheldon, EJ, RHR, Wilson, Dario, Doorn, Rahal, Marco. TK

Wilson gets around RHR. Robbie says Viso is not going to make it easy for Wilson to pass.

Lap 44 -- Everyone has done a set of reds except Ed. We're back to lock step.

Oriol Servia with Arute. Hopes to be back in a car. I wasn't even sure Oriol was out. Must have drifted off.

Lap 47. EJ holding station in third. Debris on the track, but outside the racing line. If this was an oval, we'd have a 19-lap caution to get it and let everyone pit, but thank God we stay green here.

Lap 50 -- Half way. Briscoe, Wheldon, EJ, Wilson, RHR, Dario, Rahal, TK, Manning, Doorn. Dario 6th. Rahal 7th. Viso locks the inside tire causing the booth guys to light up. Could be Wilson's shot. Dives inside ... CLEAR. Overtaken on camera.

Lap 53 -- Stanton Barrett performs fan service by causing some overtaking/evasive maneuvers.

 Lap 59 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Barrett is TOAST. Full course, of course. Briscoe was up by 4 seconds on the field, but now will get bunched up again.

Lap 55 -- pits open. Viso in for blacks. Power is in again. Not sure why.

Lap 57 -- green. Wilson great run but can't get by Wheldon. Briscoe is opening up a gap on Wheldon.

Lap 61 -- Wilson taking a look under Wheldon into Turn 1. NO. Only a matter of time. Jack says Power came in off sequence in anticipation of another yellow. Viso pits. Has issues. Back out on reds (?).

Lap 66 - Power pits gain. Briscoe and Wheldon also pit.

Lap 69 -- Wilson stays out. Gambling the track will stay green. If he can go farther before his last stop, he can gap P2 and he'll need less fuel to get to the end, making for a faster stop. SO he COULD come out in front of P2 which would be a HUGE-balled move for Coyne. Dice role here.

Replay -- Rahal into Turn 1. Mutoh! WOOOE. Rahal goes wide and lets Tag through.

Lap 70 -- Dario in for reds. Vitor and Graham pit. Wilson still out. Rahal comes out but Dixon and Manning get under Rahal on cold tires. Manning is kicking it for having about 32 minutes with the team before the race.

Now Wilson is in for tires and fuel. This is HUGE. Could be the race. Can he get out in front of Briscoe? Wilson away. Here comes Briscoe. VERSUS shows us the right angle so we can see Briscoe coming down the track and Wilson leaving the pit. Gonna be close. Wilson out in front of him but on cold tires. Briscoe looks under .... NO! Wilson is too much for him. Keeps the position. Coyne rolled the dice on no yellows by staying out and it came up boxcars.

Robbie -- Absolutely impressive that Wilson came out of pit road on cold tires and held off Briscoe. Amen, Robbie. Well said.

Lap 72 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Ed is in the tires. Cavin Twitters in that TSO Joe says Wilson picked up two seconds per lap after Wheldon and Briscoe pitted. Someone should twitter that up to the VERSUS booth so they could share it with the larger audience. That's why Wilson was able to get in, get fuel, and get out on cold tires and still be ahead of Briscoe, along with his pit crew's efforts. 

Jenkins says Ed's crash has "no serious implications." Jon says "except for Ed Carpenter." HAR. Nice. I love Jon. Very no-bullshit and good at giving fans what they need to know.

Lap 75 (under yellow) -- Wilson, Briscoe, Wheldon, RHR, Dario, TK, Marco, Mutoh, Power, Doornbos.

Lap 78 -- GREEN. Dario goes wide and loses a spot. Doornbos is on someone's ass in Preparing to Spear mode.

Somewhere in here LindyCar interviews Viso who had to park it. Shows his blistered hand. Some kind of steering column issue made it impossible to drive.

Lap 79 -- RHR sniffing over Briscoe for second. Onboard on the restart. Replay. Dario almost gets into RHR and has to get out of it, inhaled by TK.

Lap 81 -- Dario back under Tony. Yellow yellow yellow. Dixon is into the wall in Turn 3. Full course of course.

Replay. Dixon and Mutoh get tangled. Dixon breaks a left front suspension. Won't turn right. Goes into the wall. SMUCK. Looked like a pretty 50-50 deal to me.

LindyCar with Dale Coyne. Went two laps longer on fuel first stint. Fastest car out there. Lot of racing to do. Dale refuse to call it a victory yet. Hasn't won since starting the team in 1986 (ish) so he knows most anything can happen.

Roger Penske. Lots of laps to go. Got to wait to the end to push it.

One to go to green. Robbie gives Wilson another shout out for his cold-tire outlap which kept him ahead of Briscoe.

Lap -- 86 -- GREEN. Briscoe ... on it out of the last corner ... rampaging .. under Wilson for P1 on front straightttttttt ... CLEAR. Briscoe leads into turn 1. (Insert insane, screamed swear words from fans of the underdog here.) He's out of turn one in one piece. Got a monster jump on Wilson and torched him down the straight.

Yellow yellow yellow. Doornbos under Wheldon, then carries too much speed and drives Wheldon into the wall. Mutoh then T-bones Wheldon. Mutoh had no where to go. 6th caution. Wilson will have a chance to pull a Briscoe on the restart coming up.

Jon says Wheldon tried to give Doornbos room but Doornbos carried too much speed and hipchecked Wheldon wide and into the tires.

13 to go. Some guy in the crowd is wearing an Ferrari hat. Nice touch. Ferrari is not having fun so far this year in F1, though. (See the latest pressdog F1 notes here.)

RHR also passed Wilson on the restart. So RHR is P2(!). Vision team is briefly disoriented by the "2" after RHR's name on score sheets. Replays showing RHR under Wilson as he gets off line trying to stay with Briscoe.

Restart. Lap 91 -- GREEN. RHR looks under Briscoe ... NO. RHR is on reds and all over Briscoe's ass, but probably not going to happen.

Lap 92 -- Briscoe, RHR, Wilson, Dario, TK, Power, Rahal, Vitor, Manning, Marco.

Lap 94 -- RHR pushing Briscoe, but Briscoe should win barring air strike (which could actually happen in a street race, so stay tuned).

Lap 96 -- Tag and Marco contact. Marco around. Right in the racing line. Ripe for a T-bone. No yellow yet. Yep, yellow yellow yellow. Mario gets air. Not happy. Track dudes are Marco out of the way quick. Trying to finish green. Replay. Alex inside, no place for Marco to go.

Lap 98 -- GREEN. Wilson thinks about going outside RHR, but no. RHR will defend second. Doesn't have anything for Briscoe. Dario pops outside to look at Wilson into Turn 1 -- NO. Stick a fork in this one.

Lap 100 (finish) Briscoe wins. RHR P2 (!), Wilson P3 (!), Dario, TK, Power, Rahal, Manning, Meira, Tagliani, Doornbos, Barrett (!!), Marco, Wheldon, Mutoh, Dixon, Viso, Carpenter, Patrick, Matos, Moraes, Conway.

Penske says this one is for you, Helio. RHR is amazed/en fuego that they got the team together so fast and did well. I they could have raced off line he may have gone for it, but too dicey/marbly out there. Wilson says fun-tastic weekend. Straight line speed of Briscoe was too much. "That's what millions of dollars in development will do for ya." (Unfortunately.) Dario says he had a little bad luck and didn't have the right strategy in the end. Tony -- first corner was difficult. Rahal pulled out to avoid Dario and "stopped" so he hit him. Rahal is not pleased with Tony's turn 1 circus maneuver.

That's it or me. VERSUS gave us what seemed like nine hours of air time on race day. Nobody should be complaining about the quantity of air, for sure. Quality was pretty good. Camera angles seemed improved over ESPN and we did see some overtaking. In the end, the Big Three won -- again -- but P2 and P3 to small teams is encouraging. At least the enhanced possibility that a small team may win adds a reason to watch a street/road race.

For more notes/live blogging, check out Jeffy at MyNameIsIRL.com and MEESH at SHWIT. And be sure to click around the IndyCar blogs for the latest on the latest, including discussion of VERSUS's maiden effort.

Tune in to VERSUS on Sunday, April 19, 3:30 p.m. Eastern for another street race, this time in Long Beach. Tweet/follow me @pressdog on Twitter. Thank you, and be sure and tip your bloggers.

Comments

[Doug]

I gotta say, for not expecting much, it was a good show all around. Let's hope that sets the tone for the rest of the season.

[The Speedgeek]

Good race all around. Decent on-track action and a much better-than-competent job from the Versus crew. They could take some notes from Steve Matchett's timing & scoring watching (which would expose stuff like Wilson's 1+ second per lap advantage around pitstops), but for a first time out, those guys did a great job. Chops busting, good technical and strategery knowledge, light on the cliches/catchphrases (funny how nobody became "just a passenger" this weekend). That's the stuff I'm looking for. Keep it coming.

Oh, and nice job by you, 'Dog. Keep it up.

[pressdog]

Agreed on all your VERSUS points, Geek. F1 is the standard when it comes to relating strategy quickly to viewers. I also liked the chemistry in the booth and AMEN on the lack of "lock step" and "holding station" and "passenger" stuff. Arute's new role may be great for him, as long as VS goes to him in moderation. For their first time out, I thought VERSUS hit a solid double off the wall.

[The American Mutt]

You forgot to mention that we didn't ONCE hear road course specialist. Thank god.

[Squall]

Here's hoping the theoretically classic Long Beach circuit lives up to what has now become one of the historically-best open-wheel street races in America, St. Petersburg.

[Bash]

Ah, it feels like racing season again. Pdog throwing down mad notes and circus clowns and a few brews of the race. Nice to finally catch up with the posting mayhem here!

Beware Flirty Curty - he'll be hitting you up for free lodging next thing you know. He already knows where the free food is.