Notes from the 2009 IndyCar Race at Richmond

Notes taken during the VERSUS broadcast of the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway on 6/27/09.

Lead in to the broadcast is bull riding. Bull riders are insane. It's dangerous, like IndyCar, but an IndyCar car's mission in life is not to buck you off an then stomp your brains in.

pressdog beer of the race is Point Nude Beach, a summer wheat brewed by Stevens Point Brewing, Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Even before the coverage starts, we have a Peak commercial featuring Danica Patrick. An estimated 87% of all commercials during an IndyCar race on VERSUS feature Danica Patrick.

We're seven races in and 29 points separate the top four drivers (guess who they are? Clue: they drive for two teams). Target Chip Ganassi and Penske have won all seven races so far.

Last five races, Helio Castroneves won twice, Ryan Briscoe has finished second the last three races in a row.

Race play-by-play man Bob Jenkins in the sky lair. Briscoe has led the most laps of anyone this year, 509 so far. Over to Lindy Thackston with the hair down. Going away from the pony tail tonight. LindyCar asks Ryan Briscoe if he's being tough enough out there. Ryan: "I'd like to think so." Parents are concerned with Briscoe's questionable language! Clearly LindyCar is trying to get him to use profanity. Briscoe -- need to be consistent for the championship. Keep doing what we are doing and the wins will start rolling in.

Jenkins channels Marty Reid and uses "markers" instead of "points" when talking about the championship race.

Jack Arute with Dario Franchitti. "You know, Jack, this is a team sport and you cannot win without your guys." Dario thanks everyone. This would be the positive pole Dario. When he's winning, he thanks everyone. He even does a little stand-up going into the commercial thanking the crew, whose names are shown briefly.

Robbie Floyd, pit guy, has taken over the sky lair. Danica involved commercial number 2. Oval recaps the thrill of two teams (four drivers) winning everything. Five of the next six are on road and street circuits, with the Kentucky oval wedged in there.

Tomas Scheckter and Mike Conway in the sky lair. Two from DRR in the sky lair. Human safrifice ... dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria.

Scheckter is sipping his energy drink and Conway has his Dad's root beer drinking bottle. Conway's hand is in front of the logo. These guys need some tips from the Constant Nos Sipper (Dan Wheldon) on product placement.

Helio montage. Danica-involved commercial number 3. OMG, it's the man melons commercial which I had not seen until now. OK, so, explain this to me: We see a quarter second of Janet Jackson's shielded breast during the Super Bowl and people claim lifetime scars for kids and the FCC fines the network a jillion dollars, but THIS is OK? Dude. That IS wrong.

Helio and Scott Dixon contact in Iowa recap. Helio got one of his end plates into one of Dixon's rear tires. End plate flies, Dixon's tire is cut. Dixon does a killer job saving a double tank slapper.

Tony Kanaan crash montage. Oh no, it's one of those black-and-white Arute interrogating someone packages, complete with mafia music. Holy Hobbson! Technical difficulties abort the airing of the package. I suspect Silent Pagoda's Roy Hobbson, Arute's arch nemesis, is jamming the package transmission. Awesome viewing enhancement!

Unfortunately the package is unscrewed, so we go to it, and I mute my TV. Seriously. Point beer can send Jack a note of thanks for getting me to consume another of their beers. Let me know if Jack asked Tony "If you were a color, what color would you be?"

Floyd does an interview on a chiropractor's table. Fabulous. And they did it without black and white and mafia music. Go figure.

Fitness montage. Danica said she felt better coming from Iowa than any other track. That's all the Iowa Love, Danica. You're welcome.

Booth guys -- Robbie "Incredi" Buhl, Jon Beekhuis and Bob. Beekhuis takes us through the whole G thing. Talks about pulling four Gs around Richmond. Robbie dusts off the "fighter jets in a gymnasium" Eddie Cheever Jr. quote. Crowd looks big. EJ Viso only driver to DNF all races so far.

Down to Scott Sims, Executive VP for Central Virginia Retail Banking. Driver's ... start your engines.

It's all hot and the grid is rolling. Dario on the pole. Cute the hat. Props to my posse in the B (graphics creating) Unit.

Trackside Online Starting Lineup. TSO's Patrick was at the track in Richmond kicking out copious original material you can't find anywhere else. For just $22 a YEAR, you get killer stuff. Be like pressdog and subscribe today.

Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe, Raphael Matos, EJ Viso, Graham Rahal, Mike Conway, Dan Wheldon, Hideki Mutoh, Danica Patrick, Ed Carpenter, Robert Doornbos, Tomas Scheckter, Justin Wilson, Marco Andretti, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Mario Moraes, Jaques Lazier. Twenty whole cars!

Lazier is carrying an onboard camera so at least we'll see some passing in this race.

Arute in the sky lair. Thinks the winner will be the car that gets the new tires at lap 275.

Let's light this candle. We are .... green-green-green. Actually a pretty good looking start. Not the standard IRL single-file fugliness.

Cue the circus music! Yellow yellow yellow. Lazier in the wall. So much for seeing passing tonight. Great onboard camera views of them cleaning it up, though. Lazier is not hurt. Replays. Just went ass around all by himself.

Peak Danica ad number 18 here.

One to go until start. Marco gained five spots on the first start.

Green. Moraes is just exiting the pit as they go green. He'll be inhaled to go a lap down. Wonder what that was about? Had to come in or bad pit strategy call.

Lap 10 -- Marco and Mutoh together with Mutoh in front. Mutoh is not pulling over for Marco. Mutoh may not understand AGR camaraderie after all.

Lap 17 -- Tony working on Ed. Dario leads by .7 seconds.

Arute with Lazier --We all know the conditions wouldn't be ideal. Car loose. Into one and snapped around.

Lap 25 -- Dario, Dixon, Briscoe, Helio, Matos, Rahal, Viso, Mutoh, Andretti, Conway.

Lap 27 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Dario was about to start lapping people. Ryan Briscoe is into the wall. WTF? Briscoe hurls track safety workers away from his car to prove toughness. (Kidding.) He's uninjured. Just lost the back end just like Lazier.

Lap 30 -- Festival of pitting. Mutoh and Danica stay out. Kanaan gets fuel only so he moves from P13 to P8 in the pits. (Insert me having a bad feeling about this one here.)

Lap 36 -- Going green. We're --- YELLOW. No start. We're all professionals here. 

Lap 37 -- Now we're green. Floyd is now interviewing random Target crew members. Right rear changer or something. Kind of bizarre. 

Dario inhales Danica on the restart. He's back to P2. Marco and EJ. Marco high --- NO. Replay of Marco and Rahal touching tires and then Marco holding onto a tanks slapper.

Lap 44 -- Danica under pressure from Dixon. LindyCar says Marco's crew is watching the left rear after the touching event with Graham. Carpenter may have passed Wheldon on the track here. Checking the lap chart. No. I'm mistaken. Wheldon is passing some people back in P16, though.

Dario looks like he is closing on Mutoh one minute, and then looks like he is saving fuel behind him another. Arute with Briscoe -- just lost the rear in exit of two. Caught him by surprise. Battling understeer all race. Taking it easy, saving fuel, then it snapped.

Insert festival of lock step here. Danica Peak ad number 182 here.

Lap 67 -- Dario is .2 seconds behind Mutoh. Mutoh is about to lap Moraes, but then stalls about two car lengths behind him or about 30 laps.

Lap 71 -- Floyd says Dario is conserving fuel AND tires.

Lap 77 -- Tony's place in this lock stepathon is P7.

Lap 80 -- Welcome to the Festival of Fuel Saving. Curt Cavin tweets from the track that Helio is saving fuel! Just want the customers (fans) pay to see.

Lap 89 -- Dario still .4 seconds in back of Mutoh.

Mike Andretti and Kim Green both get air.

Everyone is now going 148 mph. Seriously. It says so on my timing and scoring. I wish I was making it up. That's about 10 mph slower than the best times of the night so far. 148. I think my 2001 Flamin' Ford Focus could go 148. Davey Hamilton eyes the Two Seater and considers getting into this race.

Now we're all going 147 mph. Seriously. I'm looking right at Timing and Scoring. That's about the speed of smell.

Lap 97 -- Arute says Moraes is wearing one silver driving glove in tribute to Michael Jackson.

Lap 102 -- Mutoh's crew setting out tires. Will be in shortly.

Lap 105 -- Mutoh pits. LindyCar says no adjustments. 8.5 seconds. This routine stop qualifies as excitement for this race.

Lap 107 -- Moraes goes WAAAAAAY high and then saves it.

Dario jumps up to 152 mph after Mutoh pits. Danica is P2, will have to pit as well.

Lap 112 -- Danica pits. LindyCar says she'll get some wing. 8.4 seconds. Out.

Lap 120 -- Dario backs down to 148 mph. The whole field follows suit. Fuel saving! Worth the price of admission.

Jack interviews a pit stop sign.

Danica looking under Tony ... clear. But not for position. Danica is a lap down after her pit stop.

Lap 130 -- Green flag pit stops coming (unless someone walls it). Arute gives us another Dr. Feel Good tire reference. Leaders still out.

Lap 138 -- Just as Rahal enters the pits -- yellow yellow yellow. Conway in the wall. Got high, marbles, just a passenger.

Lap 139 -- pits are still closed but Dario has to pit for a splash. About to run out of gas. He's back out in P2 behind Dixon.

Conway came up on Carpenter (who I think was coming out of the pits) too quick and had to go high. Too high.

Lap 141 -- pits are open. Dario and Dixon pit, as does Rahal. Mutoh is now P4, Danica P5. The green/yellow pit sequence leaves the field lapped up to P7. There has been no cars lapped on the track that I can recall.

Arute with Conway -- Ed came out of the pits. I went to go around him. Too hard. Into the marbles. Just a passenger at that point. (YES ... Conway channels Scott Goodyear!)

This is the longest yellow ever. 16 laps. Why? Because they have the sweepers out to help keep people off the wall and get a second groove. Good luck with that. Sweepers may be traveling faster than the actual cars travel under green in this race.

Lap 154 -- Green. Mutoh is working on Moraes. Woe nelly -- Moraes has a big wiggle. He celebrates by chopping Danica. Beekhuis tells us Moraes got a penalty in Iowa for chopping Danica.

Dixon and Dario are now running 157 and 158 mph. Street Oval!

Lap 166 -- Dixon is +.9 on Dario. Dude, stick a fork in this race. Dixon and Dario are going to fight it out for the win, barring some insane street-like yellow thing. A Richmond sanitation truck pulls up to the track and the driver says, "Dude, we had reports of a really rancid odor coming from this area."

Lap 170 -- P7, Matos, is last on the lead lap. LindyCar says Danica says car feels good (presumably because of the new Dr. Feel Goods. Jack, you've got more?).

Helio is plucky in P6 and still on the lead lap. Dixon is working on lapping Matos in P7.

Lap 185 -- Dixon going 151 mph, same as Dario. Festival of fuel conservation and lock stepathon. I think I see people in the crowd playing cards at this point. Talking amongst themselves.Thinking of all the other stuff they could do with that $50(ish) they spent to watch this parade.

Lap 199 -- Both guys are now discussing quantum physics or something. I kind of tuned out. Waiting for the sock puppets to come out.

Floyd interviews the pregnant Emma Davies-Dixon. It's her last race until the baby is born in about three weeks. Going to Indy to have the baby. Something about an injection to slow the pro-cess down. Emma's womb is about six times more interesting than this race.

Lap 208 -- Even the IZOD commercial is a welcome distraction.

Lap 213 -- Mutoh pits. 9.4-seconds. Long one. Dixon and Dario are now going 148 mph either to conserve fuel or because Matos is going 148 and you cannot pass. 

Arute says Dixon is making fuel. Could get wild and woolly in the last 25. Keep wishing upon that star, Jack. Have Floyd go talk to Emma Dixon some more. Give us something.

Lap 224 -- Danica in. 8.2. It's possible that Danica and Mutoh could cycle back to the lead when the leaders pit. Possible. Someone winning by going off sequence and catching the lucky yellows is all this race is missing, actually.

@FuriousWedge tweets from the track that people are leaving with 100 laps to go. More satisfied customers who are very likely to bring you lucrative, repeat business. The fans who are still there continue to look for the Hearst (or, possibly, "hearse", see comments below) at the end of this processional.

Lap 236 -- EJ Viso still running. Replay of him dirt tracking up the track and missing the wall by about 3 inches.

Lap 239 -- Helio pits. More pitting. Dario and Dixon are going 147 mph. Fuel saving mode.

Lap 248 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Helio is in the wall. Merry Christmas Dario and Dixon. Replays. Not sure why Helio gets high and into the wall. I'm sure the dreaded marbles have something to do with it. (Note to VERSUS/ABC -- since the Marbles are the star of the show, sweep up a few after practice or something and show them to us on camera, preferably instead of showing us the lock stepathon.)

Arute, doggedly trying to inject some kind of interest into this snorefest, says maybe it will be hard for drivers to go the pit speed limit of 60 mph. Someone might screw up. Beekhuis reminds jack that they have pit speed limiters that regulate your pit speed. Nice try, though. I think we're reduced to theorizing that there may be snipers in the stands or snakes in the cockpits.

Dixon and Dario pit. Dixon beats Dario out. Game over. Replay of pit stops. Drama. Dixon needed less fuel to get to the end so he had a lightning fast stop. And, since you can go about 139 and nobody can pass you, you can save fuel all you want.

A tiny ServiceMaster truck pulls up and 18 clowns wearing Hazmat suits jump out and start hosing the track down with deodorant and disinfectant.

Something here about the last time both Penske cars failed to finish. 2007? Didn't quite catch it. I'm too busy lamenting not going to Knoxville or to a friends house for smoked chicken wings tonight so I could stay home and watch this putrid race. What a schmuck I am.

Lap 260 -- Not sure why we have to run these last 40, but here goes. Green. Wild bum rush from the stands toward the parking lot. 

Lap 261 -- Dixon, Dario, Rahal, Mutoh, Danica, Kanaan, Marco, Matos, Doornbos, Wheldon.

Lap 263 -- Both Dario and Dixon turn their fastest laps of the night, a couple of 162 mph laps, that's 15 mph faster than the 147 mph pig pace earlier in the race.

Lock step. EJ may actually finish this race.

Lap 276 -- Right now I think of the little bow-tied boxing referee who would step in and stop a defenseless fighter from being pummeled to death. 

Lap 282 -- Beekhuis says at some point Dixon will have to take a chance. Insert me spewing beer all over the HD wonder here. Jon apparently just started watching this race 18 seconds ago. I'm in second to my teammate on a track where there has been maybe ONE pass all night. I'm going to go down on the apron or up in the marbles to pass him .... why?

Lap 284 -- Emma gets more air.

Lap 286 -- Jon comes to his senses and says "maybe not" on the "Dario will have to go for it" theory.

Lap 288 -- Damage control time -- Jon reminds us that the league is going to try some new stuff to get rid of this rancid racing soon, maybe by Kentucky. So tune back in! IndyCar loves the customers. Really! That's why they have been constantly working to improve racing for several years now. Oh, wait ...

Lap 290 -- Running order: (See Lap 261)

Lap 291 -- Arute voice over -- Helio has left the track already (along with a solid half the audience). Said checked up on Scheckter and got high and walled it. Thanks for caring enough to stick around for an on-camera, Helio.

Lap 293 through 298. Festival of Sameness.

Dixon wins. Another victory for the plucky underdog. Dario P2. Dixon pulls into victory lane and then has to sit in his car for about five minutes during commercials. Gets out. Says something. Emma comes over. They talk about her having a twinge during the stress of the last pit stop.

Dario has the decency to apologize to the fans for "dreadful racing out there tonight."

Glad I didn't pay to see it. Graham is P3. Talking to him. I lost interest long ago. Not sure how driving in an ARCA race anywhere would be less appealing for Danica than participating in this mess. I'm out of here.

Update: Dario and Dixon apologize for the stench.

Comments

[redd]

good things: D&R drivers get airtime, Rahal finishes well, um...

okay--bad things: that manboob commercial is disgusting and worse, not funny. and it's getting real difficult convincing friends that this type of racing has any merit.

[AZZO45]

Come on! Creepy stalker-types with man boobs are a JOY to watch 30 seconds at a time!!! :) :) :)

[Amy]

Does Conway get Target & McDonalds gift cards for timing his crash impeccably?

[Jenna]

"Jack interviews a pit stop sign." LOL. Now that pretty much sums up the entire race! The best part was watching Viso finally finish a race this season.

[Ronnie Larsen]

RACER are giving a good kicking now, too...
http://www.racer.com/2009/06/indycars-racing-must-improve-immediately/
I love your commentaries, and I agree the Versus people are... well, they're just weird. But to be fair, look at the crap they're having to work with at the moment...

[Andy Banfield]

Have to agree with Jenna. When the most exciting thing is to see if E.J. stuffs it in the face of triskadekaphobiacs everywhere, it's time for something to be done. I can only say "At least we still have Open Wheel Racing here in the U.S. so many more times."

[John S]

"Oh no, it's one of those black-and-white Arute interrogating someone packages" You failed to mention that this was titled: TK in color.

P-Dog: I have a very very busy day planned. I just dont have time to think WWDT 43 times! Can I get a waiver and do it only 7 times? Thanks

[ramblinman]

No passing on the track, fuel knobs in the cars, weepers on the track (as in Helio) and now the man boobs. My God, will it never end?

Best thing to come out of this funeral procession has to be the pressdog recap. The worst (in IndyCar) seems to bring out the best (in pressdog). Great humor (much coffee spewed) and insight on a miserable season.

Onto the street/road courses. Gimme a break.

[Roy Hobbson]

My "jamming" techniques did in fact fail, and as a consequence, I failed you all. I pray that your resultant blindness & strokes were only minimally burdensome. My sincerest apologies.

[mmack]

"The fans who are still there continue to look for the Hearst at the end of this processional."

'Dog, would they be looking for William Randolph or Patty?

(I think you meant hearse. C'mon, I gotta keep you honest! :^P )

[My Name Is IRL]

Everyone is now going 148 mph. Seriously. It says so on my timing and scoring. I wish I was making it up. That's about 10 mph slower than the best times of the night so far. 148. I think my 2001 Flamin' Ford Focus could go 148. Davey Hamilton eyes the Two Seater and considers getting into this race.

Did you think this was "racing". No silly, it's the SunTrust Indy 300 Miles of Fuel Conservation contest. Clearly they changed the focus (no pun intended) of the series once they started courting ethanol sponsorships.

[chiropractic conway]

Nice topics,I know Arkansas Spinal Care Conway, AR is their commitment to their patients has led their to using the DRX spinal decompression equipment for low back pain.