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Have a Schwervey New Year

Happy New Year. Go see Tron: Legacy. Buy the Daft Punk soundtrack. See if you agree with Chris Estrada that "Derezzed" from the soundtrack is a no-brainer for the IndyCar 2011 theme. I do.

If ever there was an image of the Woman of pressdog® schwerve, Quorra (above) is it. May the schwerve be with you in 2011.

Randy Bernard Gets Radical with Plans to Invest in FAN Entertainment

Wait a second ... maybe it IS all about the customer (fan).

Ya think? Focus maniacally the people who create the mass audience that attract sponsors and the crowds that make it profitable for tracks? What AMAZING BREAKTHROUGH thinking.

Postal Service Unveils Special IMS Centenial Stamp

The U.S. Postal Service has unveiled its design for a stamp honoring the centenial of the Indy 500 (above). The good news is it's a "forever" stamp, so race fans can (theoretically) buy thousands of them and use them forever without fearing rate hike.

Story from IMS PR, not to be confused with IndyCar PR, HERE.

Shannon McIntosh Gets Candid

An interesting entry from Shannon McIntosh on her drivery diary blog here.

I can relate to Shannon's dislike/uncomfortableness with small talk. She also talks about the fine line between being driven and being preceived as self-centered/arrogant etc.

But those are my words, not Shannon's, so check out her words HERE.

Tony Cotman Defends The Fuel Knob

Fuel knobs will be back in 2012, much to the lament of me and others. Tony Cotman is out today with a blog talking about why the knob is doming back. Read it here.

Unless I read it wrong (and for sure read it for yourself here), Tony's argument is 1) IndyCar-style racing almost always involves saving fuel at some point or some fashion, 2) so what difference does it make if it's the knob or forcing drivers to do it using their right (accelerator) foot? Tony also says you "could argue" that knob may increase safety by letting drivers save fuel without the potentially herky-jerky changes in speeds caused by lifting.

My argument remains: Yes, fuel conservation is always going to be part of racing. Nobody disputes that. The central quesiton is, will we used technology to make that easier, or will we leave saving fuel up to driver skill as he or she manually deals with the accelerator pedal? I vote for forcing the driver to do it manually. Because it adds more elements of human talent to racing. I don't hear a lot of people calling for making the cars easier to drive (relatively speaking, to be sure). 

"You could argue it's actually safer to have an on-board switch, particularly on speedways," Cotman said. Yes, you could, but in the last year of no knob, I wasn't aware of a safety concern. What's the risk not having the knob? One crash in 1000 races? More? Less? I can't see the risk being worth the knob absent anything more compelling than "you could argue."

At minium, embrace an idea from Scott Dixon -- keep the knob, but make the differences from one setting to another much greater than they are now. So, instead of having knob stops at, say (this is a completely made up example), 100%, 98%, 96% and 94% (with 2% difference between settings), have stops at 100%, 95%, 90%, and 85%. (5% difference between settings.) That way you'd have to do some major strategizing to determine if slapping it in fuel position 2 (95%) was worth running 5% leaner than people in position 1 (100%).

 

Tony Kaanan Joins de Ferran Dragon Racing, The Transcript

Kill the fatted calf. Tony Kanaan and Gil de Ferran made it official today. Transcript below ..

Bia Figueiredo (Ana Beatriz) Wins All-Star Charity Karting Event

IndyCar driver Ana Beatriz Figueiredo (aka Ana Beatriz, aka Bia), inhaled F1 veteran Rubens Barrichello late in the race Sunday to win the second of a two-day celebrity go-kart double header in Brazil.

The annual charity event called The Star International Challenge is organized by F1 driver Felipe Massa and held in Arena Sapiens in Florianópolis on Saturday and Sunday. F1 driver Lucas di Grassi won the first race and the overall championship based on points from both races.

The event included F1 drivers Massa, Barrichello, di Grassi, Bruno Senna, and Jaime Alguersuari. Brazilian IndyCar drivers Tony Kanaan, Hélio Castroneves and Vítor Meira were also in the field. Other entrants came from GP2, Brazilian stock cars and trucks among other series. Check out the last few laps below. Bia is reasonably excited about it:

Read more about Bia's win HERE.

Rahal, Kimball Join Ganassi Satellite Team, The Transcript

Chip Ganassi Racing Teams Announcement Transcript Thursday Dec 16, 2010 provided by IndyCar PR:

THE MODERATOR: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Economaki Press Conference Center in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for what we believe is a very, very exciting announcement. An exciting announcement about the expansion of the Chip Ganassi Racing teams, an exciting announcement for fans of the IZOD IndyCar Series.

Maryeve Dufault Grabs Full-Time ARCA Ride for 2011

The intriguing Maryeve Dufault has started testing in preparation to run the full 19-race ARCA season in 2011 with Tony Marks Racing.

Maryeve originally came to IndyCar fan attention in mid-January as a proposed part of the Road to Indy program with FAZZT Racing (original news release here). That effort never seemed to actually happen and Maryeve disappeared for a while.

I did a Q&A with her (here) in which Maryeve spoke frankly about using her ability to make money as a model of swimsuits and other apparel to finance going fast.

She next popped up in two NASCAR Canadian Tire Series races in August. Now she's doing some ARCA testing in December and January in prep for the 2011 season. Interesting. Maryeve's website is HERE. See news release below.

IndyCar Advocate Extends the Blogger Line at the Free track Media Center Buffet

Make room in the media center, the blog IndyCar Advocate (HERE) is up and running. Operated by Zachary Houghton who is ...

"an Indianapolis native who currently resides in the Indy suburbs. He has a wonderful wife and three kids, including an oldest daughter who's his 'racing buddy'.

He believes Donald Davidson is the most interesting person who ever lived, and that in heaven, Eddie Sachs is on the Borg-Warner. He came back to the sport after serving abroad in the military, putting down roots back in Indy and rediscovering his love of the Indy 500 and IndyCar."

So there ya go. Check it out HERE.