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Live from Kansas Speedway -- Day 1 -- 7:71 p.m.

15 minutes of surreality. After qualifying I did a 15 minute interview with Danica Patrick and Danica's PR Queen, Haley Moore, in the Danistar trailer.

Dude. Seriously. Inside Danica's Lair. It was surreal. Danica unplugged. I even used the term "lightsabre" and got THE LOOK from Danica. Formidable. I felt heat of The Look penetrating my chest region. It was a clash of the titans, to be sure. RELEASE THE KRAKEN.

Gonna take me a while to produce something from it, because I'm still bleeding internally, I think. I told Danica in return for her fun candor, I would EXTORT everyone to take the Take the COPD screener and vote for @danicapatrick at http://bit.ly/5uttiP Danica is in P2 in the race and WE CANNOT HAVE THAT. (Insert The Look here.)

Live from Kansas Speedway -- Day 1 -- 5:02 p.m.

Randy Bernard says NASCAR is not the evil empire. In fact, he's not real concerned with NASCAR at the moment, because his priorities are elsewhere.

"I look at any form of entertainment as competition," Bernard said during a stop in the media center at Kansas Speedway Friday. "Whether going to the moves on the weekend or whatever. People only have a limited amount of entertainment budget, especially in an economy like this. If they don’t leave here with a great impression and feel like they had a great experience and they don’t feel they had value for an entertainment dollar, they won’t be back. What I’m more concerned about right now is making sure that we give them what they expect."

Building the audience is job one, Bernard said. "We have to deliver better ratings. Better ratings will deliver more sponsorship, and more sponsorship will deliver better competition for more prize money."

As for the perceived tension between NASCAR-owned International Speedway Corporation tracks and IndyCar, both Bernard and ISC VP of Business Operations Joie Chitwood said, again, business is business.

Bernard said he wanted to build IndyCar races into a hot property, then talk to all interested tracks, including ISC tracks, and maintain a 50-50 oval/non-oval mix. Chitwood said it's in his company's interest to have many thriving forms of racing, because ISC has 13 tracks that they need to hold events at. 

"I see a lot of energy (from Bernard)," Chitwood said. "He's involved. I see a lot of interesting things. At the end of the day, (ISC) is a company that owns race tracks. We want successful races. I hope it's IRL. I hope it's NASCAR. I hope it's Grand Am. I hope it's ARCA. Whatever else is out there, I hope we can run them and people show up and like it. I think the things I see from Randy are really positive and really good so I hope that as an effect."

Bernard said he is planning to meet over dinner with several track presidents who are at Kansas Speedway today. Chitwood said he has already met with Bernard several times.

Live from Kansas Speedway -- Day 1 -- 4:22 p.m.

We're live at Kansas where the first practice session has just ended. Dixon topped the speed sheet with 212.694 mph, then Ryan Briscoe, Dan Wheldon, Mario Moraes, Will Power, Dario Frachitti.

I talked to Andy O'Gara at noon about a few things, one of which is how the little guys keep their chin up when going against The Empire (Penske/Ganassi).

O'Gara Talks about the Allegedly Cracked Tub

Team boss Andy O'Gara of Sarah Fisher Racing said Friday the tub for the car driven by Graham Rahal at Long Beach wasn't cracked, just extremely flexible.

"I don’t think it was cracked. It is significantly softer," O'Gara said. "It flexes a lot more than the other three chassis that we own besides that one. And therefore it reacts differently to change. It takes more aggressive changes than any other car we own and it doesn’t react as well. There are certain courses that those attributes may be a good thing, but on street courses it wasn’t a good thing; it wasn’t what we were looking for."

O'Gara said the flexibility comes down to the natural variation in personalities from car to car, not really a design flaw or crack. "I think it’s just the way it is," said O'Gara. "You’re working with composites and resins (in the construction of cars) and everything else and the repeatability isn't exact. Dallara builds a great race car, but every now and then you get one that’s just out there a little bit. It might night have anything to with Dallara, at all. It's just how that car is."

Live from Kansas Speedway -- Day 1 -- 11:50 a.m.

Word, kids, from Kansas Speedway. The sun is out, mostly, and the track dryers are all over it. I guess it HAILED here this morning. That was before I got here. I meet my homey IndyCar VP of PR Amy Konrath in the media center and told her not to worry, the pdog will hold back the rain.

Got here too late to make the groundbreaking for the Hollywood Casino in Turn 2. More's the pitty. Did run into (not literally) Alex Tagliani in the can, though, so I got that going for me. I also talked to Danica Patrick's handler Haley Moore, who is wearing some stylish "wellies" and clearing a path for Danistar already today.

Very first person I saw when entering the track -- Sarah Fisher. Boo yeah. Good start to the weekend.

I'll try to update with something other than random "aren't I so wired?" posts later. The twitter stream will be flowing, most likely, so follow me @pressdog.

No Anti-IndyCar Bias within ISC, Track Presidents Say

Presidents of IndyCar race hosts Chicagoland and Kansas Speedways said this week that even though their tacks are ultimately owned NASCAR, business is still business.

The bottom line still speaks loudest, said Craig Rust, president of Chicagoland Speedway, one of four tracks on the IndyCar schedule owned by International Speedway Corporation (ISC), which is owned by NASCAR. Besides Chicagoland and Kansas, IndyCar races at ISC tracks Watkins Glenn and Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Leilani Münter Featured on Discovery's Planet Green Network

Will someone PLEASE get this woman in a car ... that actually races?

Driver and environmental activist Leilani Münter is featured in the new TV series "Fast Forward" on Discovery's Planet Green Network. The series tells the stories of thirteen unique visionaries in their quest to build a greener and healthier future for our planet.

Video for this segment was shot during Leilani's attempt to run at Homestead during the 2009 FIL finale. I savor the irony that the Firestone Indy Lights will get massive air from Leilani's effort -- even though The FIL eventually told Leilani and others not to run in the race for fear of screwing up the battle for second in the points championship.

WTF?

For full details on what this is about and how you can see the segment, go HERE.

Sister Track Presidents Say "Cookie Cutter" Label Doesn't Cut It

The president of Kansas Speedway said he's heard the “cookie cutter” pejorative used to describe his track from various people and groups occasionally, but very rarely from one key constituency.

Bernard Keeps Saying the F Word (Fans)

This just in from the chronically pissed Indy Star Columnist Bob Kravitz, who has managed to find something that doesn't enrage him: Randy Bernard.

Kravitz is too harsh on Tony George, but he does give mad props to Bernard for bringing the viewpoint of an outsider who just wants to have a good time at the races, not debate the best wing angle and weep about the beauty of the Offy.

Kravitz quotes Bernard:

"Three things," Bernard said. "How do we drive more TV ratings, more attendance and more sponsorship? We have to do it with more story lines and more major events. We need to create fan affinity."

Geez? Really. TV RATINGS, MORE FANS and more sponsorship. Seriously? You mean it IS about TV ratings? It IS about increasing fan numbers? It's not about kissing team owners' ass and making sure hospitality tents are fully stocked? Imagine my shock. Sounds like a crazy-ass idea a blogger would have. Oh, wait.

Welcome to the party, pal. Will everyone who was FREAKED OUT that Bernard hadn't ever seen a race before becoming the boss, please confess?

An outsider who can think like a busy suburban person with a decent income and plenty of other things competing for his or her attention is EXACTLY what IndyCar needs. It's. About. The. Fans. Read Angry Kravitz's column HERE.

Delta Wing Discovery Video

Delta Wing designer Ben Bowlby gets massive air! Check out a segment shot by the Discovery Channel on the Delta Wing wind tunnel test HERE. In it, Ben says "if the Delta Wing is not chosen by the Indy Racing League as the direction for the chassis, I'm still convinced it will be raced. I'm just not sure where it will be raced." That helps explain why the testing and modeling and prototyping continues.