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IndyCar Team Experiences Role Reversal on Centennial Tour

Strange things happen when you pluck American civilians out of our convenience-filled and technology-saturated everyday life and fling them into a war zone thousands of miles away. Things like ...

• The supermodel gets inspired by the beauty of women whose morning routine focuses on boots and body armor rather than hair and makeup.

• The master of the quip finds himself choked by emotion.

• A 70-year-old living legend eagerly attends to a 20-year-old lance corporal.

Richard Petty NASCAR Team is Eyeballing Danica Patrick

Danica Patrick moves the needle. She rings the cash register. She's at the front of a restrictor-plate-car-train of CASH.

Richard Petty Motorsports gets that memo. They're allegedly on firm financial ground now, with The King in charge of racing (a figurehead no more). One of Petty's partners, Financier Andrew Murstein, said Wednesday:

"We now have a woman CEO of the company [RPM CEO Lisa Brown]. Medallion [Financial] has financed hundreds of women-owned companies. That's all we did for a while –just women- and minority-owned companies – so I think she'd (Danica) be a real interesting fit for us. She's somebody that could change the sport."

Making this even more interesting is this is all a story that was put out by the NASCAR News Service, basically the in-house people who write for NASCAR. So NASCAR wants the world to know Petty may be after Danica. Read the whole story HERE. Hmmmm. The story includes quotes from Danica's current boss, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

The 10,000-word State of NASCAR Transcript

Below, thanks to NASCAR PR, is a transcript of a media event held by NASCAR CEO Brian France and others late yesterday.

It's 10,000 words of fendered glory. Among the highlights:

The racing is declared GREAT, there's an extended discussion of the new points system, Daytona ticket sales are up 30% compared to this time last year, Danica gets a mention, the latest Drive for Diversity class is introduced and there are some shout outs for the NASCAR media relations effort, including its media site, nascarmedia.com, which I gotta say is seriously killer.

Enjoy.

The Right-Sexy Wee Bastard (Dario) Rocks Canada

Props to Steph over at MoreFrontWing.com for deploying herself to the Canadian Motorsports Expo last weekend to listen to what Dario Franchitti had to say and post a well done report on it, including a recording of the conference. Check it out HERE.

Among many gems you'll find from Dario is this re: double-wide restarts:

"But when it was explained that the fans wanted it, it was like, okay. You guys are the customers, and we try and improve the show. So, when it was explained that way, it was ‘right, let’s make it work.’"

Dario said .... "you guys are the customers." Insert me falling to my knees and weeping here. If Dario starts talking that way, there may be hope yet.

Rush over and reward Steph's effort with some traffic NOW.

Tomas Scheckter Busts Off on Milka -- But Not How You Think

Tomas Scheckter posted a blog on Trackforum. Why on Trackforum, I don't know. But according to his Tweets @tomasscheckter, it's legit.

Most notable (to me, at least) about his posting is that Tomas gives PROPS to Milka Duno. Just a foretaste: "one thing you can’t ignore about Milka is how she never gives up."

At times Milka strikes me as the unpopular/uncool kid at school. All the other kids find it easy to make fun of her -- you're not really cool until you make fun of the uncool, after all. So an ugly "Let's all make fun of the flawed person and laugh with each other about how funny we are!" thing sets in. 

It takes real character to speak up for the uncool kids, which is what Tomas does in his post. Rush over and read it. You don't have to be a member of Trackforum to read it (but you do to comment). No membership required to comment on the pdog, though, so always feel free.

History Heads, Start ... Your ... Frothing. Vote for the "Greatest 33."

One of the thermonuclear strengths of the Indy 500 is its decades of history, tradition and LORE.

Now those of you who imbibe in that can drink deeply by plunging into a debate over the Greatest 33 ever to race at Indy.

Long story short, you can go to www.thegreatest33.com and, at some point, vote for your personal 33-person all-star driver team from THROUGHOUT TIME (insert echo effect here).

News release on prizes, etc. below.

Simona gets Entergized -- The Transcript

Simona De Silvestro and HVM announced Monday a three-year deal with Entergy Nuclear. Insert IndyCar tech inspectors checking for a little something extra under Simona's car's engine cowling here.

In Kansas last year, I asked Simona's engineer, Michael Cannon, if going faster in IndyCar was entirely about cash. He said "yes." Mike said you need cash to do R&D, cash to hire the best, most imaginative people, cash to buy the latest hardware. Without cash, you run into a speed limit pretty quickly, no matter who is driving.

That's not to say well applied cash minus a talented driver works either. It takes BOTH to go fast in IndyCar. With this announcement, Simona's fans hope there's a union of dollars and driver that will turn Simona into a Swiss knife, carving through the field.

Tons and tons of upside for Simona. She's talented, her personality is friendly and super media and fan-friendly, she's handled her rapidly growing fame well, she humble, being "Swiss" carries a bit of intriguing exotic-ness to it here in the colonies, she has a pedigree full of trophies. And she's a Woman of pressdog™. Stage is set ... go Simona go.

Read all about it below.

Addison Brown, Honorary Woman of pressdog™

Addison Brown will lead the field on a parade lap thanks to her winning bid for a Chevy Camaro. Insert bag breathing here. That kind of cash-enabled schwerve gets Addison the honorary Woman of pressdog™ stamp. BA.

IndyCar PR news release below ...

Randy Bernard on The Big Joe Show

A little mp3 action of Randy Bernard from 1/20/11 on the Big Joe Show on 1070thefan.com below. Randy talks about drivers coming around to the double file restart after hearing an outpouring of support for it from fans. He also talks about his idea number of races (22), The Merger, The LA office and more.

Interesting part about double-file restarts ... when it first came out drivers we heard from where cool at best toward it. (Danica Patrick, to her credit, said "if the fans want it, let's try it.") Tony Kanaan was on Trackside saying "tell me a good reason for it. I haven't heard a good reason." The good reason for it was the best reason for anything ... the masses of paying customers wanted something to break up the Festival of Predictable Racing. 

So then The Fans spoke up ... in numbers ... to support the change and SHAZAM, the drivers aren't so against it any more.

Moral of that story ... speak up. You're the customer here. Start making some noise about what wins your business and your TV attention. With Twitter, email, Web sites, blogs -- all the avenues to make yourself heard -- there's no excuse for not letting businesses (and racing is a business) know what will get and keep your business/TV attention. All you have to do is speak for yourself, personally. What will keep YOUR business.

Moreover, smart businesses GREATLY DESIRE such customer input. So you're doing the league a favor by letting 'em know. (League contact info here.)

Mp3 of Bernard on the Big Joe Show HERE.

@Plowey Gets His Centennial Tour Blog Schwerve On

It's come to my attention via Andy in the comments section that FIL driver Martin Plowman (aka @Plowey on Twitter) also has a most excellent blog from the Indy 500 Centennial Tour.

You'll want to check it HERE. Plowey went to the extra step of getting his head SHAVED with assistance from Jack Arute.