Rolex 24 Viewer's Guide for the IndyCar Fan

The Rolex 24 at Daytona is one of the most prestigious sports car endurance races in the world. Held on the road course inside the famed Daytona International Speedway, the race was established as a three-hour event in 1962 before eventually expanding to 2000 kilometers in 1964 and taking its current form in 1966.

Most sports car events are much shorter than the Rolex 24, especially within the Rolex Sports Car Series that has contested the event since 2000, and only require two or three drivers. But the days of a two-man team competing in a 24-hour event are long gone; teams now look to four or five drivers to contest these lengthier events.

Some of the added drivers come from within sports car racing, drivers who don't have a full-time job but provide safe options for teams looking to fill out their rosters. NASCAR drivers have also joined the field in recent years, especially since Grand-Am took over the event in 2000; Grand-Am founder Jim France is the son of NASCAR founder Bill France, and the two sanctioning bodies have merged their communication resources for the past few years.

But IndyCar drivers past and present may be some of the most popular additions to driver lineups, primarily in the top-tier Daytona Prototypes, for this prestigious event. For each of the past five years, and seven times in the past decade, a driver with significant IndyCar, CART, or Champ Car experience has taken the overall victory as part of a team. In fact, 2006's winning team was composed solely of Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon, and Casey Mears, the former two full-time IndyCar drivers and the third an ex-CART and current NASCAR competitor.

This year is no different, as over two dozen drivers with open-wheel chops will appear at Daytona once again. Need help keeping up with who's where? Look no further:

Open-Wheeler Super Teams: It's no surprise that Chip Ganassi would employ five current or former open-wheel drivers between his two Daytona Prototypes. Ex-CART driver Scott Pruett has been his lead driver for years now, in the No. 01 car, and will drive with Graham Rahal. Ganassi's second car is traditionally reserved for his NASCAR and IndyCar drivers, and this year is no different; Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, and CART champion-turned-NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya will wheel that vehicle.

Michael Shank Racing will follow the same strategy as Ganassi did in 2006 with their No. 6 entry, pairing current IndyCar competitor Justin Wilson with two open-wheel-turned-NASCAR drivers: 2006 Champ Car third-place finisher A.J. Allmendinger, and 2004 Star Mazda champion and ex-Champ Car driver Michael McDowell.

Current IndyCar Drivers: Rahal, Franchitti, Dixon, and Wilson aren't the only current IZOD IndyCar Series competitors to land a drive. Ryan Briscoe will work with Wayne Taylor Racing, which has a history of fielding Team Penske drivers in the event. Meanwhile, Ryan Hunter-Reay will return to Level 5 Motorsports, with whom he competed in a handful of American Le Mans Series events last year. Joining him there will be Raphael Matos, whose 2010 Rolex 24 drive at Brumos Racing no longer exists as a Daytona Prototype.

CART, IRL, and Champ Car Alumni: Many open-wheel drivers migrate to sports car racing when their careers at Indianapolis end. Often times they become sports car champions as well. Action Express Racing, which has in effect taken over the Brumos Daytona Prototype operation as that team shifts to GT, has hired three drivers who have followed this career path: 2004 Indianapolis 500 and 2009 Rolex 24 winner Buddy Rice in the No. 5, and 2002 Rolex 24 winner Max Papis and 2004 winner Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 9.

But they aren't the only ones. Ex-PacWest driver (and now IndyCar driver Mike Conway's agent) Mark Blundell will drive in the No. 23 for United Autosports, which is running in partnership with Michael Shank. Shank will also have Michael Valiante, once a budding open-wheel talent but now a seasoned Grand-Am vet, in his primary car, the No. 60. Meanwhile, Starworks Motorsport will employ Jan Heylen and Ryan Dalziel, two competitors in Champ Car's final season, in their No. 7 and No. 8 cars, respectively. Ex-IRL driver Tomas Enge will join Dalziel, who won last year's Rolex 24, in the No. 8.

Finally, Pruett and Montoya aren't the only former CART drivers appearing in the event to somehow be affiliated with Chip Ganassi. Nicolas Minassian, who drove the team's No. 12 car briefly in their 2001 rebuilding year, has competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the past few years and step into Krohn Racing's No. 76 for this year's event. But unlike years past, the 1996 CART champion for Ganassi, Jimmy Vasser, will not step into the No. 99 for Bob Stallings Racing.

GT Class: Four Atlantic Championship alumni will compete in GT cars in this year's event. 2004 fifth-place finisher and ex-Champ Car driver Ronnie Bremer will drive in Stevenson Motorsports' Chevrolet Camaro, while 1998 third-place finisher and former CART supersub Memo Gidley will step down from the Daytona Prototype of Doran Racing to a Mazda RX-8 with Team Sahlen.

The other two drivers will run Mazda RX-8s with SpeedSource. 1999 Atlantic title winner and longtime Grand-Am competitor Anthony Lazzaro will drive the No. 69. Jonathan Bomarito, the 2008 series runner-up, had been on the fast track to Champ Car until the series folded; now, he's found a home in SpeedSource's Castrol-backed No. 70, in which he finished fourth in last year's points.

A list of all open-wheel affiliated drivers, sorted by car number:

• Scott Pruett (#01 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Graham Rahal (#01 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Dario Franchitti (#02 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Scott Dixon (#02 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Juan Pablo Montoya (#02 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Buddy Rice (#5 Daytona Prototype, Action Express Racing)
• A.J. Allmendinger (#6 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Michael McDowell (#6 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Justin Wilson (#6 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Jan Heylen (#7 Daytona Prototype, Starworks Motorsport)
• Ryan Dalziel (#8 Daytona Prototype, Starworks Motorsport)
• Tomas Enge (#8 Daytona Prototype, Starworks Motorsport)
• Christian Fittipaldi (#9 Daytona Prototype, Action Express Racing)
• Max Papis (#9 Daytona Prototype, Action Express Racing)
• Ryan Briscoe (#10 Daytona Prototype, Wayne Taylor Racing)
• Mark Blundell (#23 Daytona Prototype, United Autosports)
• Memo Gidley (#42 Mazda RX-8, Team Sahlen)
• Ronnie Bremer (#57 Chevrolet Camaro, Stevenson Motorsports)
• Michael Valiante (#60 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Anthony Lazzaro (#69 Mazda RX-8, SpeedSource)
• Jonathan Bomarito (#70 Mazda RX-8, SpeedSource)
• Nicolas Minassian (#76 Daytona Prototype, Krohn Racing)
• Ryan Hunter-Reay (#95 Daytona Prototype, Level 5 Motorsports)
• Raphael Matos (#95 Daytona Prototype, Level 5 Motorsports)

Opinion: IZOD and Penske a Good Fit?

There's no question that IZOD is the biggest marketing power the IndyCar Series has ever seen. Since taking over title sponsorship of American open-wheel racing's top category in 2010, IZOD has done more to raise awareness of the sport than any other sponsor ever has, from driver meet-and-greets in big cities to the primary sponsorship of Ryan Hunter-Reay's ride at Andretti Autosport.

Today, however, we've seen a major, surprising shift in their strategy. IZOD will leave Hunter-Reay, their lead spokesman for the sport since 2008, and Andretti behind for a new, multi-year deal with Team Penske and driver Ryan Briscoe. The deal will involve primary sponsorship in a handful of races, including the Indianapolis 500, and is the second major IndyCar deal for Penske this week, following Shell's commitment to Helio Castroneves.

Now, it's no question that any alliance with Roger Penske is a significant upgrade in the ownership department. I'm simply concerned with two things: whether or not Briscoe is going to be an upgrade from Hunter-Reay, and how healthy it is for the sport when sponsors abandon the smaller teams for the big ones.

For the past two years, Hunter-Reay has been the undisputed face of IZOD in IndyCar. The series' best American driver (a key selling point) has done more than his share to promote the brand, looking just as good in commercials (including last year's "Race to the Party" campaign) as he has on the track (winning last year's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach). He developed as strong of a brand association as pairs like Tony Kanaan and 7-Eleven, Scott Dixon and Target, and Danica Patrick and GoDaddy.com, in a fraction of the time. He was undoubtedly one of the catalysts that got Philips Van Heusen marketing head Mike Kelly interested in primary sponsorship of the series in the first place.

Now, IZOD will put their money behind Briscoe, an Australian driver who's developed a bit of a reputation for choking since blowing the points lead at Motegi in 2009. Last year, he threw away what could have been easy wins at Sao Paulo and Indianapolis by overdriving the car into the wall, and there were even rumors that his seat was in question for 2011. Some sources suggest that Hunter-Reay would have been headed to Penske as part of the deal if Andretti hadn't exercised an option on his contract, but that's a moot point now.

The other issue is sponsorship consolidation. Undoubtedly, the companies that are interested in marketing through motorsports want to be with the best teams, usually utilizing a lesser team to get their feet wet before jumping up the ladder. They're completely within their rights to do so under a free market.

But how good is it for the sport when your top teams are simply poaching sponsors from the lesser ones, forcing them to be the ones to attract new money? This is the second ex-Andretti Autosport backer, Meijer being the first, to defect to the Captain's organization this year. That leaves Michael Andretti in a massive sponsorship hole, even though he has the third best team in the sport.

It's similar to the issues plaguing the NASCAR Nationwide Series, where sponsors almost invariably head to JR Motorsports after a year or two in order to work with Dale Earnhardt Jr., the sport's most popular driver. It's not important that Earnhardt Jr. only drives in one or two races for that given sponsor per season. The point is that these sponsors get to say they're endorsed by Earnhardt Jr., and it's the same way with Penske's new sponsorship coups.

Of course, at least we're not talking about a team like Dale Coyne Racing losing its sponsor. Were it a smaller team than Andretti, we might have seen one fewer car on the grid in 2011; at least we had already known for a while that Hunter-Reay was going to be back with Andretti, and the IZOD primary sponsorship deal on that car was going away. Their commitment had gone above and beyond the previous stated goal of six to eight races anyway, expanding all the way to 15 events. That won't have to happen at Penske, who can certainly bankroll all three of his cars for the full season if he so chooses.

It's a shame, though, that it will have to come at the cost of the brand's relationship with Hunter-Reay, who had the two most important characteristics necessary for marketing success in American racing: be American, and be able to win. One wonders what RHR would have been able to do in Penske equipment. One also wonders if the brand's campaign will be as successful with Briscoe in the driver's seat.

Only one thing is for certain: IZOD wants to be the best and classiest in motorsports sponsorship. And there may be no better way to do it than to ally with the one of the best and classiest teams in motorsports.

Opinion: Andretti Going Out on a Limb for 2011 and Beyond

Ryan Hunter-Reay chose to break the news on Twitter.

"Thanks to all of you! Very happy to continue with a great team. Lots of work to do now, we're up for it," Hunter-Reay tweeted to his nearly 10,000 followers, after signing a two-year deal to remain in the IZOD IndyCar Series with Andretti Autosport, the team that picked him up at the beginning of this season.

Hunter-Reay will look to improve on a 2010 season that saw a victory in the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and a career-best seventh place points finish. To that end, he will spend time testing at Barber Motorsports Park for the next couple of days. "Testing in October is a first for me," he joked, referring to his longtime career path of signing one-year contracts just before the season's start.

But as Andretti retains one of its top two drivers from the previous season, the other one says farewell. After eight years spent driving the No. 11 7-Eleven Dallara-Honda, Tony Kanaan will say goodbye to the team. Kanaan leaves behind a record of 14 wins, over 100 top-10s, and the 2004 IndyCar championship.

Kanaan was, for the past few years, the undisputed leader of the four-car Andretti brigade, at least as far as seniority was concerned. His help with car setups proved immensely valuable to his teammates, and he is perhaps the best mid-pack starter in the sport, frequently passing half a dozen cars on the first lap after subpar qualifying runs.

This year, however, was an unpleasant one to say the least for the Andretti brigade. After a winless 2009 season, an offseason restructuring was designed to strengthen Andretti's racing operations. The team scored two wins, but as had happened for the past few years, driver infighting threatened to tear the team apart.

The Andretti dream team of 2005 they were not. Kanaan, Marco Andretti, and Danica Patrick once again proved that they were an unstable combination prone to feuding on the track and off. Kanaan's frustrations with Patrick - and vice versa - were well-documented all season. Only Hunter-Reay really managed to keep out of the mess and go about his business while maintaining solid relationships with all of his teammates.

That's why he's back for 2011 and beyond. Unfortunately for Kanaan, he became a victim of the money in racing. Despite being the bottom two performers on the Andretti team, Patrick and Andretti have two of the biggest sponsorship contracts in the sport tied to them.

Hunter-Reay, like Kanaan, went into the offseason with no sponsorship, with both of their 2010 primary backers shifting their marketing dollars to Patrick's car, allowing them greater exposure at a lower price. But at a similar level of performance and assumedly a much lower price, Hunter-Reay was easier to retain.

Therefore, it was easy to figure out whose $3 million contract was going to be terminated.

Now Kanaan becomes the most coveted open-wheel free agent in years. Just about every mid-level team in the sport is looking at him with designs on how he can take him to the next level. Kanaan is a warrior that knows how to set up a racecar, weave through traffic, and take a car to the end. Plenty of teams would love to have him to mentor their young drivers.

He'll be in IndyCar in 2011, undoubtedly. KV Racing Technology has two fully-sponsored seats open for next year, carrying the Lotus backing, and after this season's crashfest, owner Jimmy Vasser would certainly love to have a driver that doesn't tear up equipment in one of his cars. Brazilian countryman and Kanaan's former CART rival Gil de Ferran, who leads de Ferran Dragon Motorsports, would love to have Kanaan to mentor another young Brazilian, Raphael Matos, who could really use a teammate. The possibilities go on and on.

The real question is, what will Andretti do without a bona fide lead driver?

Let me rephrase. Performance-wise, Hunter-Reay is lead driver-caliber. He's a proven race winner and will be a championship contender for years to come. But he doesn't quite fit the leader role the way that Kanaan does, in that he's not at the stage of his career where other Andretti drivers are going to look up to him as their mentor. He's been at Andretti the shortest amount of time, for one, and he's also only been in IndyCar about as long as his teammates.

But Andretti doesn't look likely to find a replacement for Kanaan in the fourth car. There is no setup driver anymore. There's one championship-caliber race car driver and two decent drivers that have less than stellar reputations with the IndyCar faithful. Marco still gets criticized from time to time about his level of commitment to the sport. Danica gets it no matter where she turns, especially with her NASCAR experimentation.

Simply put, team owner Michael Andretti has a lot of guts going with the team he has right now for 2011 and beyond.

Perhaps it won't matter. Perhaps with less infighting, the entire team will take its performance up a notch. Kanaan was a different breed of driver than Patrick and Andretti. He was undoubtedly the best driver, statistically speaking, on the team. But he had different expectations and needs than everybody else. Not that those needs were any better or worse intrinsically than those of his teammates, they just didn't mesh.

And perhaps, as the undisputed leader on another team, Kanaan will take somebody else to the upper echelons of the sport, or at least a top-10 spot in the final standings. Maybe Raphael Matos, Mike Conway, or some other up-and-comer will benefit far more from Kanaan's advice and leadership. Maybe they'll be more patient and easier to work with than Patrick and Andretti were.

It's always sad when any sort of long-term relationship ends. But maybe, just this once, things will work out better for both sides. Maybe the current Andretti trio will mesh beautifully. Maybe Kanaan will be more appreciated elsewhere.

And maybe, we'll see one of the best rivalries that IndyCar has had in a long time next year.

IndyCar Season Review: Ryan Hunter-Reay

Once again, despite uncertain circumstances, Ryan Hunter-Reay managed to put together a solid performance in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season.

Last season, he put together some surprising finishes for Vision Racing before finding a ride at A.J. Foyt Enterprises as an injury replacement for Vitor Meira. This year, carrying the banner for series title sponsor IZOD at Andretti Autosport, he took the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and finished a career-best seventh in points.

Originally, Hunter-Reay landed a limited deal with the reorganized Andretti team on the strength of his personal services contract with IZOD. Much like his 2009 season started, he would have enough money to run through the Indianapolis 500, but anything beyond that would require additional funding. Some strong finishes would be required to keep Hunter-Reay in the car for the full slate.

Immediately Hunter-Reay established himself as a force to be reckoned with, leading 20 laps of the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 before Will Power eventually made the winning pass. Hunter-Reay settled for second place, but fans and competitors alike began to expect more out of the Andretti stable, which had failed to win a race for the first time in 2009.

Finishes at St. Petersburg and Alabama were not quite as strong, but Long Beach proved a beacon of hope for the No. 37 team in their sponsorship hunt. Hunter-Reay managed to beat Power at his own game, if only for a day, leading 64 of 85 laps to take a decisive victory. Hunter-Reay went into the first oval segment of the year third in points, only one back of second-place Helio Castroneves.

Unfortunately, the sponsorship well actually began to dry up after the Long Beach race, as a couple of potential deals fell through. A fifth place run at Kansas, combined with the improved fortunes of the entire Andretti team, helped matters a little; Sprint's two prepaid mobile brands, Boost and Virgin, joined the team once again, and Virgin adorned the engine cover of Hunter-Reay's Indianapolis 500 car.

Indianapolis ended in spectacular disappointment, however, when Hunter-Reay's vehicle suddenly slowed on the track and Mike Conway's car torpedoed over it at full speed. The resulting crash made highlight reels across the nation, ending Conway's season; after the race, Hunter-Reay apologized for not stopping for fuel and causing the accident.

Hunter-Reay's season could have ended right there, but the team sent him to Texas, where he came home a solid seventh after setting the race's fastest lap. For Iowa, Hunter-Reay's former sponsor, the American Coalition for Ethanol, stepped up to back him in one of the nation's largest corn-growing markets.

The team put the icing on the sponsorship cake at Watkins Glen, when it was announced that a team of Hunter-Reay and Andretti sponsors would be teaming up to back the team for the rest of the season. These same groups also established Racing for Cancer, a charity initiative to benefit the Michael Fux foundation. The cause was personal for Hunter-Reay, as he had lost his mother to cancer in 2009.

His season secured, Hunter-Reay became a consistent top-10 finisher week in and week out. His third and final podium of the season came at Toronto, followed by a top-five run at Edmonton and two more decent runs at Mid-Ohio and Sonoma. For his efforts, Hunter-Reay placed fourth in the series' road course championship.

Hunter-Reay's final top five finish of the season came at Chicago, where he led two laps and finished fourth. The final three races were a bit of a struggle; mechanical failure at Kentucky relegated him to 21st, Motegi yielded only a ninth place finish, and he could only muster 11th place with a subpar car at Homestead.

Combined with teammate (and closest points competitor) Tony Kanaan's third-place run, this bumped Hunter-Reay down to seventh in the series' final standings. But the team scored a greater victory that weekend, as Hunter-Reay and Racing for Cancer scored a $10,000 donation from founding partner Inland Industrial Services by building Hunter-Reay's Twitter base up to 10,000 followers.

Regardless of a late dropoff, Hunter-Reay and the team have established a solid base with which to work in 2011, provided the team can find sponsorship to keep him in the car. Andretti officials have suggested that at least one company within their sponsorship family has submitted a sponsorship proposal for next year, giving the team hope for the future.

2011 IndyCar Driver Lineup Very Much Up in the Air

Other than existing contracts at the series' top three teams, the driver lineup for the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season is still highly uncertain with a single race left to go in 2010.

Unlike in other major professional forms of motorsport, where most future driver contracts are signed before the current season is even finished, IndyCar often does not set its driver lineup until the first tests of the new season in February, and for some teams even later.

Right now, all that we know (or can reasonably expect to happen) are that Helio Castroneves and Will Power will return to Team Penske, Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti will stick with Chip Ganassi Racing, Alex Tagliani has a long-term deal with FAZZT Race Team, and Danica Patrick, Tony Kanaan, and Marco Andretti are under contract with Andretti Autosport. Other than that, everything is up in the air.

The biggest speculation centers around the No. 6 Team Penske car. Speculation has risen that Ryan Briscoe, for the past three years that car's driver, will be out after a disappointing (by Roger Penske's standards) season. Briscoe had three wins and eight runner-up finishes last year, but a series of high-profile mistakes (his pit road miscue at Motegi last year, his crash in the lead while at Sao Paulo, and pushing his car too hard on cold tires at Indianapolis when in position to take a strategic victory) may cost him his job.

Some have suggested that an American driver will take over that ride once again, following in the footsteps of Sam Hornish Jr., who vacated it in 2007. The top two available drivers from the States are Graham Rahal, who has driven for just about anybody willing to put him in a car this season, and Andretti Autosport's Ryan Hunter-Reay, who has been the best driver all season not to run for Penske or Chip Ganassi. Michael Andretti is working hard to keep Hunter-Reay, but no definite prospects have worked out as of yet.

If Rahal doesn't wind up with Penske, his prospects elsewhere also appear strong. Ganassi has expressed interest in running a third car for Rahal, and may be able to offer a reunion with McDonald's, which sponsors Ganassi's Daytona 500-winning stock car with Jamie McMurray. Some have also whispered that Rahal has already signed a contract to drive the No. 4 National Guard car for Panther Racing, replacing Dan Wheldon. If none of these deals work out, Rahal's father, ex-Indianapolis 500 and CART champion Bobby Rahal, will try once again to secure the sponsorship to return his Rahal Letterman Racing team to full-time status.

Whether or not Rahal fills the No. 4, it appears to be the end for Wheldon and Panther, after Wheldon announced he was looking for a job in 2011 in his post-race interview at Kentucky. Wheldon may yet return to Panther, as the National Guard loves his tireless promotion of the organization, but both sides have often been frustrated with one another over the past two seasons. Other drivers in contention for the ride include J.R. Hildebrand and Ed Carpenter.

Despite his close ties with Honda, Wheldon could be headed for the Lotus-backed KV Racing Technology outfit, which appears to be on the verge of wholesale driver changes for 2011. KVRT cars have failed to finish 20 races, mainly due to drivers Takuma Sato, E.J. Viso, and Mario Moraes getting in accidents, and Paul Tracy failed to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in a fourth car. In fact, the carnage has been so bad this year that Moraes' crash at Motegi was rumored to be caused by an old, failing part that KV had no choice but to run. Despite Sato's Honda connections getting him into the series, Viso's lucrative personal sponsorship deals, and Moraes' strong runs for the team in the past, all three may be gone in 2011.

Whether the team expanded from one car to three too quickly, the drivers simply weren't talented enough, or any other reason, KV appears a lock to downsize by at least one car for next year, especially if their bank account can no longer handle the wreckage. Owners Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser will look to bring in the best available drivers for next year, particularly those who don't tear up a lot of equipment.

Heading further down the line, things are even less certain than the up-in-the-air status of KVRT. Simona de Silvestro is a lock to return to the series in 2010, despite Formula 1 rumblings and an underfunded HVM Racing team. She and the team work well together, and both would like to reunite for next season, but her strong performances in what may be the oldest and heaviest Dallara chassis in the series may have larger teams knocking on her door for next season.

Raphael Matos signed a multi-year contract with de Ferran Dragon Racing before the 2009 season, but how many years that contract lasts is unknown. If Matos doesn't return to dFDR, the team may rely on its connections with series power players to find a replacement. They may be able to rely on co-owner Gil de Ferran's connections with Honda to pick up a manufacturer-supported driver, or on co-owner Jay Penske to convince father Roger to farm out Briscoe to the team once again. (Briscoe ran well for the team in the 2007 Indianapolis 500, placing fifth.)

de Ferran has also been interested in bringing Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, who drove alongside Power in the 2007 Champ Car World Series for Walker Racing, back into open-wheel. Pagenaud drove alongside de Ferran in the American Le Mans Series after that series shut down, but moved to Highcroft Racing after de Ferran went back to IndyCars. Highcroft may enter the Indianapolis 500 next year with Pagenaud, who has stated that he wants to get to Indy by 2012. They most recently attempted the race with Scott Sharp last year, in a partnership with Panther.

Speaking of Walker, that team plans to make a comeback of sorts next year, partnering with the owners of the former Team 3G. Richard Antinucci was the rumored 3G driver this year, while Dan Clarke and Jonathan Summerton drove for Walker in Firestone Indy Lights this season; all three are the most sensible candidates.

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing look to return both Justin Wilson and Mike Conway from this season's lineup. Conway will be fully recovered from his back and leg injuries suffered at Indianapolis in May. Wilson may bolt to another team if a better offer arises, though few have been suggested at this point. Whether Wilson stays or goes, Ana Beatriz may join the team full-time; DRR have liked what they've seen from her in limited outings this year, and she is working diligently to secure the sponsorship to put her on the grid for all 17 races.

A handful of programs have been confirmed, but with few details known. Team Redline Xtreme, sponsored by an energy drink, is looking to run an Indy-only program with an existing team. Junior Strous will supposedly take his Shell sponsorship to the series in 2011, and a show car has already made the rounds in Europe. AFS Racing, which partners with Andretti Autosport in Indy Lights, plans on stepping up to IndyCar with Adam Carroll, though sponsorship remains uncertain.

This leaves a handful of teams out of the silly season loop, most of them ex-Champ Car competitors: Newman/Haas Racing, A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Dale Coyne Racing, and Conquest Racing. Newman/Haas and Foyt seem likely to retain the services of Hideki Mutoh and Vitor Meira, respectively; Mutoh brings valuable sponsorship, while A.J. Foyt likes what he gets with Meira. Coyne and Conquest seem destined to take on at least one pay-driver apiece, though Conquest owner Eric Bachelart will likely fight to keep his Belgian countryman, the rapidly improving Bertrand Baguette, in a car.

The most interesting and wildly speculative rumors center around who will attempt to run the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 on the same day next year, provided that the start time to the 500 is returned to its traditional earlier place. Bruton Smith, CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc. (owners of the Charlotte Motor Speedway, where the 600 takes place, and host to as many as five IndyCar races next year), has talked about an idea of a $20 million prize to any driver who can win both events, which was conceptualized by IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard early in his tenure.

While Dario Franchitti is the only IndyCar driver who may attempt both events, a handful of NASCAR drivers may try to do the double. Richard Petty Motorsports has campaigned IndyCars the past two years for John Andretti, and may attempt to run ex-Champ Car stalwart A.J. Allmendinger in both races. Robby Gordon frequently used to attempt the double before the races' start times were moved, and may be interested in doing it again; he had tried to hook up with Derrick Walker for this year's race. However, Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya, perhaps the biggest names in NASCAR that have run the 500 before, are not interested.

Opinion: Something's Gotta Give at Andretti

It's been a story all year, but things may finally be coming to a boiling point between the four full-time IZOD IndyCar Series drivers at Andretti Autosport.

Kentucky seemed to bring out the worst in the team, when their three lead drivers - Danica Patrick, Tony Kanaan, and Marco Andretti - all began to race each other like rivals and not teammates. In fact, while Kanaan gave a hearty congratulations to third-place finisher Dan Wheldon after the race, he had nothing for his AA teammates.

It's a far cry from 2005, when the dream team of Kanaan, Wheldon, Dario Franchitti, and Bryan Herta swept the top four spots at St. Petersburg, won the Indianapolis 500 with Wheldon, and otherwise destroyed all competition.

Last year was AA's first winless season in IndyCar. Patrick may have finished a career-best fifth in points, but she couldn't find victory lane as she had in Motegi two years ago. This led to a massive restructuring of the business formerly known as Andretti Green Racing, with the "Green" (Kim Green and Kevin Savoree) taking over the race promotion aspect of the business and team owner/namesake Michael Andretti continuing to operate the race team.

The results have been better this year - Kanaan won at Iowa, while new driver/IZOD darling Ryan Hunter-Reay took the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Hunter-Reay, Kanaan, and Andretti rank sixth, seventh, and eighth in points, respectively - the best drivers in the series not to be employed by Chip Ganassi or Roger Penske.

But Patrick's been woefully off the pace, regularly finishing towards the back in road and street course events and not giving strong oval performances consistently enough to put her in the top 10 in points. It's been a trying year for the all-world media personality anyway, with her well-documented stock car struggles adding to the problem, but a six-position drop in the standings after last year's consistent run is a huge problem.

The worst part for Andretti is that all three of these feuding drivers are locked into their contracts for the foreseeable future, while the team's other drivers are looking for the right sponsorship combinations.

Patrick's contract runs through next year and contains an option for 2012, though you wonder if she'll attempt to jump to NASCAR full-time if the money is right. Andretti has a long-term deal that is basically guaranteed by nature of his father owning the team. Kanaan and the 7-Eleven team have been together since 2003, making them one of the longest-tenured driver and team combinations in the sport.

Meanwhile, Hunter-Reay's future remains uncertain for the umpteenth consecutive year due to sponsor concerns. Andretti also has under contract an Irish driver by the name of Adam Carroll, whose prowess in A1GP should have landed him a ride in Formula 1 this year. Andretti, which operated the American team in the nationality-based racing series, became familiar with the driver as he won the series' final championship. Current Andretti Firestone Indy Lights driver Charlie Kimball raced for the team in A1GP, and they have always been high on his talent; he sits third in points in that series with four runner-up finishes in 12 starts this year.

Put simply, all three of those feuding drivers could be replaced, and the team would probably be much better off.

Hunter-Reay is nothing less than a ray of sunshine on AA. He's shown a willingness, nevermind the ability, to work with every driver on the squad, and perhaps it is that good karma that has rendered him the team's best driver this year. He's also IZOD's golden boy, having held a personal services contract with the brand for a while now, and is without contest the best American open-wheel driver in the world right now.

Meanwhile, the feuding between his three teammates all year has been a cancer that must be eating away at owner Michael Andretti's patience. Earlier this year, Andretti compared his job to that of a "kindergarten teacher" in an interview with Versus' Jack Arute. Again, it's a far cry from 2005's dream team.

RIght now, all AA can do is tough out the next two races while attempting to figure out what to do about next season. Without all of the stupid infighting that has plagued the team all season, they may have had somebody challenging for the championship. Somebody may need to leave the team before this can happen.

Obviously, the two weak links are Marco, who hasn't won a race since 2006 and occasionally seems disinterested on-track, and Danica, who is showing once and for all this year that she isn't the driver the media has hyped her up to be. But of course, these are the two drivers with the most ironclad contracts of all, being family and a megastar, respectively.

But you have to wonder if the team would take the financial hit to buy Danica out of her contract and let her try NASCAR full-time. Remember that the announcer at the ESPY Awards called her "NASCAR's Danica Patrick," not "IndyCar's Danica Patrick." NASCAR, which is already experienced at hyping up popular drivers during their on-track struggles (see Earnhardt Jr., Dale), is probably doing more with the Danica brand than IndyCar right now. On one hand, that's a problem for IndyCar, which could use all the publicity it can get; on the other, she's already established herself in IndyCar and is far less of a novelty in the open-wheel cars these days than she is as a transitioning rookie stock car driver.

Provided that the sponsors are willing to stick with the team, this opens up a spot for either Carroll, Kimball, or even Wheldon (now a free agent) to return to AA. Wheldon's "gone home" before, per se, as the current Panther Racing driver actually made his IndyCar debut in 2002 with Panther before replacing the retiring Michael Andretti in 2003.

It becomes far stickier to try and buy out your own son's contract, especially when Venom Energy stepped in to save that marginally funded team last year. Meanwhile, Kanaan has shown he's still got it as the second-best driver on that team, and it would be a mistake to let him go - especially because Penske would likely snap him up as a replacement for Ryan Briscoe, who has been rumored to be on the hot seat for a few weeks now.

Watching Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing, you can see a certain chemistry between the drivers. Penske's trio of Briscoe, Helio Castroneves, and Will Power have done interviews and appeared on TV together, and the team is (barring Edmonton) often all smiles. Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti get down to business for Ganassi and stay out of each other's way, showing a great respect for one another at all times.

It's become clear that the current driver ensemble at Andretti is never going to find said chemistry. Somebody has to go. None of the team's current drivers are irreplaceable, like Sam Hornish was for Panther and Sebastien Bourdais was for Newman/Haas. Nobody currently on the team has taken Andretti to heights that it will never see again without them - in fact, they've mostly taken the team to new lows that can be done without.

The Andretti drivers need to understand that they can be replaced. The series' closest thing to an all-American team could do worse than taking a gamble and doing just that.

IndyCar Race Review: Honda Indy Toronto

Will Power capitalized on a poor restart by Justin Wilson, opened up a big lead on defending race winner Dario Franchitti, and cruised to victory in today's Honda Indy Toronto. It was the fourth win of the season (all of them coming on road or street courses) for the Team Penske driver, who now holds a 42-point lead over Franchitti in the overall standings.

It was perhaps the luckiest of Power's four wins this season, however, as Wilson clearly had the car to beat all weekend. During an early practice session, Wilson had a .7-second advantage on the next best car; from there, he won the pole, and led in the early stages of the event. He only relinquished the lead during pit stops under the first caution, which came after KV Racing teammates Takuma Sato and Mario Moraes got together.

Hometown hero Paul Tracy inherited the lead on lap 18 by staying out, with Vitor Meira also choosing not to pit. Two more cautions over eight of the following 12 laps kept him there until he pit on lap 31. From there, another caution trapped Tracy in 17th, and another pit stop and a miscue while trying to pass Simona de Silvestro later in the race put him back in 13th at the finish, the first car one lap down.

Cautions were a big story of the event, especially involving KV Racing cars, which have now been involved in 20 accidents over 10 race this year. Moraes later punted Mario Romancini out of the race, leading to a drive-thru penalty from race control. And E.J. Viso ran into a spun Raphael Matos with 19 laps to go, totaling the de Ferran Dragon Racing vehicle and putting Viso three laps down in 19th at the finish.

Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon were two of the bigger names to fall out of the event. Castroneves was a victim of early braking by Meira in the third turn after the first restart, and he went hard head-on into a tire barrier in the runoff area. Dixon touched wheels with Ryan Hunter-Reay about the same place where Castroneves and Tracy had an incident last year, and a damaged left front suspension ended his day. Both drivers were unhurt.

But as Castroneves and Dixon sat on the sidelines, they watched a good show by their teammates, Power and Franchitti. The Scotsman inherited the lead from Tracy on lap 32 and held it until a green-flag pit stop on lap 53. Power and Wilson pit the next lap, with the Dreyer & Reinbold team somehow managing to beat the renowned Penske crew out of the pits. Despite being held up by lapped traffic in that extra lap, oth managed to make up enough time on track to get ahead of Franchitti coming out of the pits, and they ran 1-2-3 as pit stops cycled through. Wilson began to open up a huge lead on Power, with the help of lapped traffic and the alternate red tires, before the fifth caution of the day.

But on the restart after the Matos-Viso incident, everything went awry for Wilson. Power pressured him on the restart, making quick work of passing his former Champ Car competitor, and Franchitti was soon in hot pursuit. Going into turn eight, Wilson came in too hot and spun the car around, allowing most of the field to get by him. Wilson would rebound for seventh at the end of the race.

In the same handful of laps, Dixon had his incident, and Tomas Scheckter and Canadian favorite Alex Tagliani drove into the tires in turn one, setting up the final restart of the day.

But Power would not yield, as he beat Franchitti to the line by 1.27 seconds. Hunter-Reay, who had been struggling with his car all day, took third, followed by Tony Kanaan and Graham Rahal, who scored his best finish of the year in his return to Newman/Haas Racing.

Andretti Autosport, at a track where team owner Michael Andretti took seven victories as a driver, had the best day of any team, with their other two cars of Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti taking sixth and eighth, respectively. Meanwhile, Simona de Silvestro and Dan Wheldon rounded out the top ten, marking de Silvestro's best finish of the year and Wheldon's fourth top-10 finish on a road or street course this season.

IndyCar Race Preview: Honda Indy Toronto

The IZOD IndyCar Series makes it first foray into the Great White North of the season with this weekend's Honda Indy Toronto, an event won by Dario Franchitti last year.

Each of the past eight races held on the 1.755-mile Exhibition Place street circuit have been won by different drivers; the last driver to successfully defend his victory was Michael Andretti in 2001. Andretti is the all-time wins leader at the circuit with seven victories, a factor in his decision to purchase the race's assets in mid-2008 and rescue it after that year's running was cancelled due to the demise of Champ Car.

This weekend's event, as well as the Edmonton airport race two weeks from now, are widely celebrated by the Canadian fans, and are especially welcomed by the Canadian members of the circuit. Alex Tagliani and Paul Tracy, the two active Canadian IndyCar drivers, will each be running special paint schemes in the race - Tagliani a new Hot Wheels-backed livery, Tracy an equally impressive car backed by the Canadian arm of the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Toronto Blue Jays.

But the drivers aren't the only ones returning to their home country this weekend. In fact, two of the engineers on the de Ferran Dragon Racing team, lead engineer Eric Zeto and performance engineer Scott Raymond, call the province of Ontario home. The team hopes to build on their momentum from Watkins Glen, where driver Rafa Matos finished an impressive 4th despite losing his in-car telemetry in the middle of the race. Matos finished 10th at Toronto last year.

Matos has certainly shown the speed this weekend, with his best lap in the second practice, a 62.3984-second run, good for fifth in that session. But 13 cars - half of the field - were within a second of that session's leader, Ryan Hunter-Reay, who turned a 62.1433-second lap.

Within those 13 cars, seven different teams are represented - Andretti Autosport, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, Team Penske, de Ferran Dragon Racing, FAZZT Race Team, KV Racing Technology, and Chip Ganassi Racing. This suggests not only a close battle for pole position, but also a mammoth struggle just to make the Firestone Fast Six.

In the race itself, don't be surprised if Will Power and Justin Wilson challenge for victory. They are two of only four former Toronto winners in the field (the others being Tracy, who won it in 1993 and 2003, and Franchitti, who won in 1999 as well as last year). Power and Wilson were right on Franchitti's tail last year, finishing third and fifth, respectively, after starting second and fourth.

Television coverage of the Honda Indy Toronto begins on Sunday at 12:30 PM EST. The race will be shown on ABC.

Opinion: The Plight of the American Open-Wheel Racer, Pt. 2

Last month, the American open-wheel racer was an endangered species.

Other than Marco Andretti, the futures of most American drivers in the IZOD IndyCar Series were shaky at best. Ryan Hunter-Reay was on a race-by-race deal; Graham Rahal and Ed Carpenter were on the sidelines after Indy; J.R. Hildebrand and Jonathan Summerton never had rookie-of-the-year campaigns materialize; Danica Patrick was still testing the NASCAR waters in order to potentially make the jump.

What a difference a month makes - Hunter-Reay has a deal to keep him at Andretti Autosport for the balance of the year, Hildebrand will make his IndyCar debut for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing next month, and Patrick's generally unsuccessful NASCAR runs make you wonder if she'll reconsider.

Hunter-Reay is the biggest feel-good story of the year in IndyCar. On a limited schedule with Andretti, he won the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, only to have a couple potential sponsorship deals fall through after that victory. The former series Rookie of the Year and IZOD spokesman been one of the most consistent drivers in the series all season, but even having everything going for him couldn't keep him in the car beyond Watkins Glen. The signing of Adam Carroll, a talented Irish driver with the chops for Formula 1, also seemed to hurt Hunter-Reay's case.

Then, good karma came back to repay Hunter-Reay. Andretti's existing sponsors, including IZOD, Snapple, Ethanol USA, Inland Industrial Services Group, and the Michael Fux Foundation, announced just before Watkins Glen that they had stepped up funding to keep Hunter-Reay in the car for the rest of the season. Not only that, they created the charitable initiative Racing for Cancer, dedicated to Hunter-Reay's mother, who passed away in the offseason.

Of course, Hildebrand is a bit of a feel-good story himself. The man they call "Captain America" won last year's Firestone Indy Lights title for Andretti, but besides some time testing Marco Andretti's car this year, he'd been generally out of open-wheel, instead competing in the American Le Mans Series. But with Mike Conway still on the sidelines at DRR, and two tracks coming up that Hildebrand performed well at in Lights last year, he became the perfect fit for the No. 24 team.

Mid-Ohio yielded a third-place finish last year for the young American driver, while Infineon Raceway, his self-proclaimed home track, was the site of his fourth and final victory of the year. There is also the outside shot that he may run at Edmonton for the team, the final race before Conway's return that does not yet have a driver under contract. Hildebrand won at that track in Lights last year as well.

But while these instances are progress, the sport still does not have many American drivers under long-term contracts. Patrick and Marco Andretti over at Andretti Autosport are the only drivers with guaranteed futures at the moment. The team will certainly try to bring Hunter-Reay back, but it all depends on sponsorship. Hildebrand's deal, for the moment, is for two races only.

Rahal is still looking for a bit of certainty after having driven three different cars over the course of this season, with some spotty results. Carpenter and Vision Racing, the team owner by ex-IRL czar Tony George, have not been heard from since the end of May. Townsend Bell runs Indianapolis only these days, Davey Hamilton's bid to run races after Indianapolis was dashed by de Ferran Dragon Racing's totaled racecars, and Sarah Fisher still has a long way to go sponsorship-wise to bring her team to full-time status.

Worse, while the trend of open-wheel stars jumping to stock cars may continue with Patrick, few NASCAR competitors seem willing to go to at least Indianapolis and compete for the proposed $20 million prize that would come with winning the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day.

Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, two of NASCAR's finest that grew up with 500-mile dreams in the state of Indiana, have passed on the idea. Juan Montoya, perhaps the driver with the best shot, doesn't seem too keen on it, either. Robby Gordon hasn't been able to make something happen, and ex-F1 pilot Scott Speed and Team Red Bull, despite potentially making a great fit, have not commented on the possibility. Meanwhile, at the press conference introducing the New Hampshire IndyCar race for next year, Dario Franchitti downplayed the possibility of making such a run.

The series also has to bring in more American equipment in order to maintain relevance in the United States. Yes, Firestone is an Akron-based tire company with a storied history at Indianapolis. But Dallara is an Italian chassis manufacturer, and Honda is a Japanese engine builder. As many Americans as there are who drive Hondas, it doesn't hurt to have an American brand promoting the sport, something that disappeared in open-wheel once Ford pulled out of Champ Car at the end of 2006.

The new-for-2012 engine regulations, providing for (as a maximum) a 2.4 liter turbocharged V6, should open up that category to more American brands. But if the series sticks to a single chassis manufacturer for 2012, the only American company with widespread fan support that is in the running is Swift, which also provides chassis for the Japanese Formula Nippon Series.

Part of the reason why NASCAR flourished and American open-wheel racing declined was the preservation of American values in one niche as the other moved towards becoming a minor-league F1. NASCAR remains to this day dominated by Americans. The sad reality is that, in order to firmly entrench a sport in a country's consciousness, you have to embrace some of that country's core values - Americanness, if you will - even when they may bring the product down a little bit.

Part of the reason why IndyCar is great stems from the fact that these are some of the "fastest drivers in the world," representing every inhabitable continent and over a dozen countries. But American fans need more American drivers to back. The series also visits Canada, which has Paul Tracy and Alex Tagliani; Japan, besides all the engines in the series, can get behind Hideki Mutoh and Takuma Sato; although Australia is now off the schedule, fans down under can embrace two-thirds of Team Penske; Brazilian fans have about a third of the series to get behind.

American fans don't really have those drivers or that equipment to strongly identify behind in IndyCar right now; they just have the races on their own soil. Danica is too polarizing a figure at this point, when plenty will bash her for her lack of on-track production, instead of just appreciating the strides she's helped make for women in motorsports. Marco hasn't won in nearly a presidential term, and Hunter-Reay needs a long-term deal to keep him in the sport. We can't even bring up Rahal until somebody signs him to a solid deal, either. The quick fix of NASCAR drivers in the 500 seems unlikely.

Has the series made progress over the past month? Yes. The American open-wheel driver is now a "protected" endangered species, with every intent on rebuilding its population over the next few years. But wholesale changes may still need to come before the sport can once again rival NASCAR in popularity - and that means a little more red, white, and blue on the track.

Penske 1-2-3 in Glen Qualifying

It’s Roger Penske’s world, and we’re all just living in it – at least if qualifying results for Sunday’s IZOD IndyCar Series Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen are to be believed.

His drivers, Will Power, Helio Castroneves, and Ryan Briscoe, will start 1-2-3 for the 60-lap event after besting Dario Franchitti, Takuma Sato, and defending race winner Justin Wilson in Firestone Fast Six qualifying. It marks Team Penske’s eighth consecutive open-wheel pole, a new record, as the team has won every Glen pole six years running.

Power capitalized on an extra set of alternate-compound Firestone tires in the final qualifying session, allowing him to post the fastest lap of the day. Castroneves pushed a little too hard, sliding into the turn eight gravel, but was allowed to keep his fast two laps because he only brought out a local yellow. IndyCar rules stipulate that any driver who causes a full-course caution during a qualifying session will have their two best laps voided.

Such was the case for Ryan Hunter-Reay in the first round of qualifying. Despite turning some very competitive laps in the second group, he lost control of his car and required the assistance of emergency vehicles to remove him from the gravel. To make matters worse, Hunter-Reay, having to push especially hard to make up the loss of his two hot laps, had his run compromised by the slow car of Milka Duno at the end of the session, and did not advance to round two.

Hunter-Reay immediately made his way over to Duno’s pit at the end of the session and expressed his feelings. “There are 14, 15 corners here, and she’s the 15th or 16th corner,” Hunter-Reay said after the session, affirming the same comments that many drivers have made over the past couple of years.

Dale Coyne, Duno’s owner, was quick to point out that Duno was not the driver who caused a full-course yellow. Coyne won here last year with Wilson; this year, in a reversal of fortune, his two cars will start 22nd and 24th.

Most of the cars to advance to the second round of qualifying came from the sport’s four top teams: Team Penske (all three), Chip Ganassi Racing (two), Andretti Autosport (two), and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (two). Raphael Matos and de Ferran Dragon Racing made the tenth car, and KV Racing rebounded from E.J. Viso’s crash in practice to put their other two cars, driven by Sato and Mario Moraes, in the top 12 as well.

Meanwhile, Hunter-Reay, Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon, Alex Tagliani, Vitor Meira, and most prominently, Danica Patrick were among the names not to advance.

Bumping in and out of the top six in the second round of qualifying took place almost every lap. Eventually, Scott Dixon, who won this event in each of its first three years, found himself in seventh, on the outside looking in. Both Andretti cars that had advanced, driven by Marco Andretti and Adam Carroll, found themselves in the same position. Carroll was, in fact, a surprise to make the second round, as he had struggled in morning practice. Matos, Moraes, and Paul Tracy were the other three not to move on.

But the focus of the day remains on Power, who has now won an impressive fifth pole in nine starts thus far this year. Briscoe won two of the other three consecutive Penske poles, while Castroneves led the field to green at Indianapolis. Power is also the series’ only multiple winner thus far, taking the checkers at Sao Paulo and Barber, while Castroneves and Briscoe have a victory apiece.

In Firestone Indy Lights, James Hinchcliffe of Team Moore Racing won the pole for tomorrow’s Corning 100, which will directly precede the IZOD IndyCar Series race at 1:30 PM.

The Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen will begin at 3:30 PM. It will be broadcast live on ABC.

IndyCar Race Preview: Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen

The Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen may not be the marquee road course event on the IZOD IndyCar Series schedule, but it is one of the more prestigious events in the championship. The cars race on a layout and circuit that formerly hosted Formula 1 events, and the race is one of the handful of events to remain on ABC after the series announced its broadcast partnership with Versus last year.

Speaking of Formula 1, IndyCar will receive a second injection of F1-caliber driving talent this season as Adam Carroll makes his series debut for Andretti Autosport. Carroll, the final A1GP champion driving for his home country of Ireland, will wheel a fifth car for the team, carrying No. 27 and Boost Mobile sponsorship.

While the establishment of the fifth squad secures Ryan Hunter-Reay’s job, at least for the weekend, plenty of questions remain for the Andretti squad. Will AA maintain the momentum that they established on the series’ first oval races, even with the addition of yet another car to its stable? Will Hunter-Reay, the race’s 2008 winner but unsettled on sponsorship for the rest of the season, pull out another victory, or overdrive and kill the momentum he’s built up all season long? Finally, how will Carroll perform in his IndyCar debut?

This year’s event will see at least one new face in the winner’s circle, as Justin Wilson and Dale Coyne Racing split up after the season. Coyne’s team has struggled with Milka Duno behind the wheel of one of its vehicles, but Alex Lloyd’s team begun to find its stride with solid placements at Indianapolis and Texas.

Meanwhile, Wilson has brought Dreyer & Reinbold Racing to new heights on road courses this season, challenging for multiple victories and doing well in the points. Paul Tracy will drive a second car for DRR this weekend, and though the Thrill from West Hill is making his season debut after failing to qualify at Indianapolis, he is still recognized as one of the sport’s best road racers. Unfortunately, Graham Rahal will not be manning a third car for the team this season after a solid finish at Iowa, as had been rumored.

The two top teams in the sport, Penske Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing, will certainly challenge for the victory this weekend. On the Penske side, points leader Will Power is currently the series’ best road course driver, although he did not compete at Watkins Glen last year. Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe have won all five poles at Watkins Glen IndyCar events, with Castroneves scoring the first three and Briscoe the last two.

On the Ganassi side of the fence, Dario Franchitti lost his lead the IndyCar points standings after mechanical failure at Iowa. Last weekend, he performed demonstration laps on the oval at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to help promote that track’s new IndyCar date for next season. Scott Dixon, meanwhile, has not scored a road course victory thus far this season, but normally contends at the Glen, winning each race from 2005 to 2007.

One team that could surprise this weekend is Alex Tagliani and FAZZT Race Team. The new entity purchased Marty Roth’s old equipment before the season, and little was expected out of the new outfit at first. But after signing some key personnel, Tagliani has consistently run up front all season, with only a couple of poor races due to circumstances not entirely in his control. The No. 77 team has been towards the front in every road course race and will most likely continue to run up front this weekend.

KV Racing Technology is also primed for a breakout run, and the Glen could provide that opportunity. Engineer Bill Pappas won last year’s event with Dale Coyne Racing and Justin Wilson, and lead driver E.J. Viso scored his best career finish with a third place at Iowa two weeks ago. Meanwhile, Takuma Sato’s Formula 1 experience often translates to being quick on the road courses, and Mario Moraes has shown that when he and his team come together, they can impress.

The Road to Indy also goes through Watkins Glen, as the Firestone Indy Lights Series competes this weekend, directly before the IndyCar race as per usual. Last year’s event was won by J.R. Hildebrand, who will not return to defend his victory. The revived US Formula 2000 championship will also compete, as will the World Challenge touring car championship.

The Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen will take place on Sunday, July 4.

Hunter-Reay Returns To Glen

Ryan Hunter-Reay has confirmed on his Twitter account that he will be competing for Andretti Autosport in the Camping World Grand Prix of the Glen on July 4:

Also thrilled to get the news I'll be racing at the Glen! Not many details yet, at least I know I'll be driving.Thx Michael! @FollowAndretti

Hunter-Reay's first IZOD IndyCar Series win came at Watkins Glen in 2008, when he held off Darren Manning for the victory. Hunter-Reay currently sits seventh in series points, with one win, coming at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Hunter-Reay's car carried sponsorship from IZOD in the first handful of races this season. The American ethanol industry, Hunter-Reay's sponsor at the Glen when he won two years ago, backed the team at Iowa. Other companies to appear on the car thus far this year include IES, Snapple, and Virgin Mobile.

The announcement also confirms that Adam Carroll will be a teammate of, and not a replacement for, Hunter-Reay in an Andretti Autosport car. Carroll will drive the No. 27 Boost Mobile Dallara-Honda in a limited schedule from Watkins Glen onward.

IndyCar Race Preview: Iowa Corn Indy 250

First of all, a huge thank you to George Phillips over at Oil Pressure for the shout-out in his preview of this weekend's race. George's blog is one of the best and most insightful IndyCar blogs out there, and one of my personal favorites. Check out "Are Engine Failures Always a Bad Thing?" for an example of the high quality posts on the site.

Getting to the event at hand this weekend, the Iowa Corn Indy 250 will mark the fourth IZOD IndyCar Series event at the 7/8 mile Iowa Speedway. Chip Ganassi Racing's No. 10 Dallara-Honda has won the past two events, with Dan Wheldon taking the checkers in 2008 and Dario Franchitti last year. Points leader Franchitti, who also won the event in 2007, can use the weekend to open up a gap in points over second-place Will Power, whose only Iowa experience yielded a ninth-place finish. Meanwhile, teammate Scott Dixon has a solid average finish of 6.3 at the track with two top five finishes.

But Iowa has the potential to produce a surprise winner, even if it hasn't happened yet in the race's three-year history. In two races at the track, Hideki Mutoh has finishes of second and third place, respectively. His prowess at the track could lead to a bump for his Newman/Haas Racing team, as they are mired at 18th in points. But a strong finish for Mutoh, combined with some bad luck for his immediate leaders in points, could mathematically elevate him to as high as 12th.

While Ganassi usually takes the checkers, Andretti Autosport also knows its way around Iowa. Andretti cars finished 1-2 in 2007, had three drivers in the top six in 2008, and a best finish of third last year with Mutoh. Tony Kanaan led 48 laps last year before a crash took him out of the event, and Marco Andretti has challenged for the win at Iowa multiple times in the past. An Andretti car could feasibly end Ganassi's streak of wins at the track come Sunday.

It will also be interesting to see how a handful of drivers will approach the Iowa event this weekend. What will Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal do with their one-week reprieves to get back in the series? Hunter-Reay has sponsorship from the American ethanol industry once again, a partnership that paid dividends in the past, and Rahal will replace the injured Mike Conway at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Both drivers will want solid finishes to secure rides as early as possible for Watkins Glen.

How will Simona de Silvestro handle her first race after the Texas wreck? This has nothing to do with the fact that de Silvestro was cleared to drive just a couple of days after the incident. A bad crash like that can alter a driver's psyche, and make them less willing to engage in daring maneuvers on the track. If de Silvestro begins to fear another fiery wreck - as most of us would - she might be slow on this, one of the trickier tracks in the IZOD IndyCar Series. It will be interesting to see how she runs this weekend.

Finally, will there be a breakout rookie at Iowa? Mutoh sure was in 2008, finishing second, but more often than not, rookies populate the bottom of the results. Iowa's unconventional length and layout prove tricky for the series' less experienced drivers and veterans alike, but the added caveat of Iowa being the only short track on the schedule could cause plenty of headaches for inexperienced drivers who haven't handled the Dallaras on smaller tracks. Expect about half of this year's rookie class to tear up some equipment.

Hunter-Reay, Rahal Set For Iowa

Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal, two of the top American drivers in the IZOD IndyCar Series, were unsure two weeks ago of their respective statuses for this weekend's Iowa Corn Indy 250 at the Iowa Speedway.

Rahal competed in three races for Sarah Fisher Racing to start the season, and the Indianapolis 500 for his father's team, Rahal Letterman Racing, but neither he nor his father Bobby had the funding to go on afterwards. This was a far cry from last season's run with the former Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, where the young Rahal finished seventh in points with the lucrative (but since dissolved) McDonald's sponsorship. This year, he ranks 23rd after missing the events at Sao Paulo, Kansas, and Texas.

Hunter-Reay, meanwhile, was on his own after exhausting the funding allotted to him by his personal sponsor (and primary series backer) IZOD and Andretti Autosport. IZOD made the difficult decision to funnel the majority of its $10 million commitment into the IndyCar Series as a whole instead of a single driver, and the partnership has already begun to pay off. Unfortunately, it meant that Hunter-Reay would have to earn his way to stay in the series past the June 6 Firestone 550k; he put himself sixth in points and won the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Their perseverance has paid off in both cases, as both drivers will be racing this weekend, at the very least. Rahal takes over the No. 24 Dad's Root Beer Dallara-Honda for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, while Hunter-Reay continues in the No. 37 Andretti Autosport Dallara-Honda with sponsorship from the United States ethanol industry.

Rahal benefits from the back and leg injuries to Mike Conway, sustained in a wreck with Hunter-Reay in the Indianapolis 500. Conway will miss three months due to the incident, which tore away parts of the catch fence and sprayed the track with debris. His Iowa paint scheme was custom designed by Hot Wheels, the official IndyCar die-cast manufacturer, and includes flames down the sides.

Hunter-Reay will continue a relationship with the Ethanol brand that he maintained from mid-2007 to 2008. He only competed in six events in the No. 17 Ethanol Dallara-Honda in 2007 for Rahal Letterman Racing, but his finishes were good enough to secure him series Rookie of the Year anyway. In 2008, he finished eighth in points, with his first career win at Watkins Glen the biggest highlight. It was this year, in fact, that Hunter-Reay signed his personal services contract with Izod.

After the 2008 season, however, IndyCar switched to Brazilian ethanol in a partnership with ApexBrasil. As such, the American ethanol sponsorship dollars dried up, and Hunter-Reay has been on a constant search for full-time backing ever since.

Hunter-Reay and Rahal then have two weeks to figure out their plans for the Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen. The race, broadcast on ABC, is one of the series' biggest television draws, and both drivers (especially Hunter-Reay, as a former winner only two years removed) will be looking to parlay strong finishes at Iowa into Glen deals.

Opinion: The Plight of the American Open-Wheel Racer

Saturday night's Firestone 550k was one of the best races for Andretti Autosport in recent memory. Andretti cars finished 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 7th, one of their best performances as a team since the 1-2-3-4 sweep at St. Petersburg in 2005. Even better for Andretti, Danica Patrick, the all-world marketing superstar who has been struggling for much of the year, was the lead driver in that pack, and even briefly made the racing difficult for eventual winner Ryan Briscoe.

But Texas may prove to be bittersweet for Andretti, as it may be the final race for fourth driver Ryan Hunter-Reay. For the second consecutive year, Hunter-Reay's status as "the IZOD driver" will only take him about a third of the way through the IZOD IndyCar Series season, before he has to find another ride on his own. Andretti's already got another driver, Adam Carroll, lined up to drive for them in a few events.

Hunter-Reay has two weeks before the next race at Iowa to figure things out. He could get lucky and, for the second year in a row, become a replacement for a driver injured in the Indianapolis 500. Last year, he replaced Vitor Meira in A.J. Foyt's famed No. 14 car; this year, he could take over for Mike Conway at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, depending on whether or not the team feels strongly about retaining the services of Tomas Scheckter... or if DRR officials feel like he was at fault for the Conway wreck, in which his car was used as the launching pad for the No. 24's trip into the wall.

Regardless, Hunter-Reay's continued plight - even with the commercial weight of the series' title sponsor behind him - says a lot about the state of American drivers in open wheel racing. Here's a driver who just won the biggest street race in the country, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. He was thisclose to winning the inauagural Sao Paulo Indy 300. Until being involved in the Conway incident, he had a solid Indy run going. He currently sits sixth in points and, with 11 races to make up 45 points, can make a solid run at this year's championship.

In other words, he's done almost everything right on track this year. So why does team owner Michael Andretti say that multiple sponsorship deals fell through for the budding star, even immediately after the Long Beach victory? Why does the Sprint Prepaid Group, through its Boost and Virgin Mobile brands, decide to throw most of its weight behind the already well-sponsored Patrick and the newcomer Carroll, only kicking a little support at Indy to their best bet to actually win a race?

If I'm Hunter-Reay, I'm starting to feel a little like Rodney Dangerfield right about now. My first thought when I wake up in the morning has to be, "I don't get no respect!"

Worse, he's not the only one. So many quality American drivers currently sit on the sidelines as their foreign counterparts trash racecars, all because they don't have the same kind of sponsorship. Ed Carpenter and Townsend Bell sit on the sidelines after strong Indy runs but mid-pack finishes. Buddy Rice - that's 2004 Indianapolis 500 champion Buddy Rice to you - and last year's Indy Lights champion, J.R. Hildebrand, have taken their talents to sports car racing. Meanwhile, four current IndyCar drivers have three or more DNFs in the seven races this season, and almost all of them are ride buyers of some sort. I won't name names, but you can probably figure it out easily enough.

Let's also call Paul Tracy an adopted American now that he lives in Vegas, and wonder aloud why the winningest active driver doesn't get a shot in more races, while his KV Racing teammates get involved in incidents like it's what they're paid to do.

I won't even bring up Graham Rahal with the list, though - he passed on the Boy Scouts ride with Dale Coyne Racing, and Alex Lloyd has been working wonders with it the past couple of races. Sure, Bill Pappas is no longer the engineer at DCR, which gave him some reservations about the quality of the cars, but surely Graham could have done just as much with that equipment as Lloyd. Newman/Haas Racing may have strung him along, but the rides were there, and he was a little too picky.

It's hard to make this argument without tapping into good old-fashioned American jingoism, but wasn't the Indy Racing League originally founded to give more American drivers a chance?

Hunter-Reay is a prime example of a driver that the old IRL would have served well, a Tony Stewart-type in that he has plenty of talent but no ride in which to show it off. Ever since losing the Ethanol sponsorship, his career has been unsteady, with plenty of uncertainty from week to week about where he'll be racing, who he'll be racing for, if he'll be racing at all.

The old IRL would have protected a driver like that. Now, not even race wins, a challenge for the championship, or, worst of all, the backing of the series' title sponsor can secure him a full-season contract. He's got two weeks to figure out how to get behind the wheel of a race car at Iowa, and I don't think anybody can come up with a reasonable explanation as to why.

I guess it all comes down to no respect.

Attention readers: The previous version of the column contained a poorly worded, easily misinterpreted remark about Mike Conway. That comment has since been removed, and I sincerely apologize to anybody who took it the wrong way. We all wish Mike Conway well, and look forward to him rejoining the series upon his recovery.

Conway Out Three Months

Mike Conway has made a career in the IZOD IndyCar Series out of being daring. A checkers-or-wreckers kind of driver, he has mixed flashes of brilliance with a legion of destroyed Dallara chassis. Regardless, his lack of fear makes him one of the most entertaining racers on the circuit.

His latest daring maneuver, however, will see him missing the majority of the season.

On the white flag lap of the Indianapolis 500, Conway slid into the car of Ryan Hunter-Reay, launching him into the turn three catchfence. His car disintegrated as he slid down the short chute, his once familiar No. 24 Dallara-Honda now nothing more than a tub and thousands of shards of carbon fiber.

Conway suffered a broken bone and soft tissue injury in his lower left leg, as well as a compression fracture of one of his thoracic vertebrae. The former are less serious injuries, but the latter will require him to wear a back brace for three months.

Any racing hopes he might have had over the next eight races or so are shot.

Were Conway to be ready immediately on September 1, three months after the wreck at Indy, he would only be able to compete at Kentucky, Motegi, and Homestead. It is altogether possible that like Vitor Meira last year, he may miss the rest of the season.

This leaves Dreyer & Reinbold scrambling for a replacement driver for Conway over the next eight races. Two drivers, Tomas Scheckter and Ana Beatriz, raced for DRR during the Indy 500 but are seeking other employment opportunities. They look to be the first choices.

But plenty of other worthy drivers are available. Former DRR racers that don't currently have a ride include Townsend Bell, Buddy Lazier, Darren Manning, Buddy Rice, and Roger Yasukawa. And among former race winners that don't currently have full-time rides, DRR can pick from Bruno Junqueira, Oriol Servia, Paul Tracy, and Graham Rahal, who has somehow been piecing together deals all year. Rahal especially makes an interesting fit because he has worked with Justin Wilson, DRR's lead driver, in the past; they were teammates in 2008 at Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing.

More Sponsors Sign On For Indy

The Indianapolis 500 frequently brings new sponsors into the IZOD IndyCar Series. While some of them may not stick around for long, the occasional relationship may extend through the rest of the season and/or beyond.

Many cars had settled their sponsorship deals before qualifying, but upon making the race (or upon some cars missing the event), a handful of new deals have been signed, if only for this race. Running down the field, in order:

13th-place Mario Moraes of KV Racing Technology will carry Geico logos on the side of his No. 32 Dallara-Honda. Moraes has run the unsponsored KVRT car in every race since St. Petersburg. Moraes carried Banco Panamerica sponsorship in Sao Paulo. Geico, looking to remain in the race, made the natural switch from one KV car to the other when Paul Tracy failed to qualify for the event.

17th-place Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport will receive associate support from Virgin on his No. 37 Dallara-Honda. Richard Branson's mega-conglomerate jumped into Formula 1 racing last year with Brawn GP, the eventual constructors' champion, and 1-2 points finishers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. This year, Virgin took over the fledgling Manor GP outfit with drivers Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi, renaming it Virgin GP, and creating the first F1 car constructed completely without wind-tunnel testing.

22nd-place Simona de Silvestro will carry the majority of last year's major Atlantic Championship supporters on her No. 78 HVM Racing Dallara-Honda for the race. TDS Telecommunications has signed on to back the car, alongside full-season backer Stargate Worlds and Nuclear Clean Air Energy/Entergy. Nuclear Clean Air Energy and Entergy were sponsors of Newman Wachs Racing in Atlantic last year, as their drivers John Edwards and Jonathan Summerton finished 1-2 in the championship. De Silvestro, their closest competitor, finished third. Each driver took four of the 12 wins on the series schedule.

23rd-place Danica Patrick of Andretti Autosport will welcome Boost Mobile back to her No. 7 Dallara-Honda. Boost sponsored Patrick from last year's 500 to the end of last season, when she signed a lucrative deal with GoDaddy.com. This year, however, Boost will return as a secondary sponsor for the remainder of the schedule. Patrick filmed a commercial for Boost last year that should be familiar to most IndyCar fans, in which her pit crew serviced her car in drag. According to a Sprint news release, Boost will sponsor Adam Carroll in his IndyCar debut for Andretti later this year.

24th-place Bertrand Baguette of Conquest Racing will be funded by Angie's List. His No. 36 Dallara-Honda was the final car to qualify on Pole Day. Angie's List, a site where users can post reviews of doctors and contractors, has dipped into open-wheel sponsorship before, sponsoring Oriol Servia and KVRT in the 2008 IndyCar season finale at Chicagoland.

25th-place Bruno Junqueira will, like his FAZZT Race Team compatriot Alex Tagliani, carry the logos of Bowers & Wilkins on the side of his No. 33 Dallara-Honda. B&W originally planned to sponsor Tagliani only in the season opener at Sao Paulo, but has since expanded their program on the base of very strong results for the team all year.

29th-place Sarah Fisher will add the logos of Service Central to her self-owned No. 67 Dallara-Honda after teammate Jay Howard failed to qualify for the race in a dramatic last-second run.

Other new sponsors to the sport that signed on before qualifying for the race was completed include Quick Trim (Graham Rahal) and Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka (Ed Carpenter). Sponsors returning to the sport for this year's 500 that had their deals in place long ago include Herbalife (Townsend Bell), Mona Vie (Tomas Scheckter), Ipiranga (Ana Beatriz), Window World (John Andretti), and William Rast (Sebastien Saavedra).

Carroll Joins Andretti, But In What Car?

Former A1GP champion Adam Carroll will join esteemed IZOD IndyCar Series team Andretti Autosport for a limited schedule of races in the second half of the 2010 season.

Carroll's name had come up in the rumor mill earlier this season as a potential IndyCar driver after talks with two Formula 1 teams fell through. He had not been linked to any potential teams.

In 2005 and 2006, Carroll ran full-time schedules in the GP2 Series, the Formula 1 equivalent to Firestone Indy Lights. He finished 5th and 8th in points, respectively. In 2007, he missed the first few rounds of the season, but still managed to finish 7th in points, winning twice. Overall, Carroll scored five wins in GP2 Series competition.

He moved to A1GP for the 2008-09 season, racing for his native country of Ireland. Despite a disastrous opening round at the Netherlands, Carroll rebounded by scoring points in all but one race over the rest of the year. He won five races, including a sweep of the sprint and feature races at Brands Hatch, to secure the championship.

While Andretti has not announced sponsorship or a car assignment yet, Carroll may take over the No. 37 car when Ryan Hunter-Reay's sponsorship runs out. Hunter-Reay will race through Texas, and then return for the Toronto event and the season finale at Homestead. If Hunter-Reay finds sponsorship, however, Carroll will likely take over the No. 43 car that John Andretti is driving this month.

The Cooldown Lap: Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

A collection of thoughts sparked by Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach:

GOOD TO SEE: Ryan Hunter-Reay score a victory and bring Andretti Autosport back to the top step of the podium. Everybody deserves a little job security - the ability to run the full season - and maybe this win will either A) bring in the necessary corporate sponsorship, or B) convince team owner Michael Andretti to fund RHR out of pocket.

DISAPPOINTED NOT TO SEE: More passing. I love Long Beach. It's one of my favorite tracks on the IndyCar schedule. But for Will Power to basically give the win away because he hit the pit road speed limiter was kind of sour.

BIGGEST SURPRISE: Mario Moraes finishing sixth and picking up where he left off at the end of last year. I predicted that he'd have a breakout season this year... and so far I've been wrong until now.

LEAST SHOCKING: Jimmy Vasser, Moraes' team owner, winning the Pro/Celebrity Race. I mean, come on, the dude's actually won the open-wheel race before, he knows what he's doing.

THE ESTROGEN REPORT: Long Beach was not a good weekend for the ladies of IndyCar; Danica Patrick finished an abysmal 16th, racing Simona de Silvestro for the last two spots on the lead lap. Sarah Fisher lost a car to an accident. And let's be brutally honest, Milka Duno hasn't done anything all season to merit her inclusion in the series. They had all better hope for a better race at Kansas.

UNDER THE RADAR: Raphael Matos is ninth in points. He's less than 20 points off of the lowest Team Penske car, beating two Andretti Autosport drivers, and is ahead of former series champions Dan Wheldon and Panther Racing. But because Matos' de Ferran Luczo Dragon Motorsports team is one of the series' smaller outfits, we hear very little about Rafa. So here's a shout out to the little team that could... though it certainly helps that a former Indy 500 winner (Gil de Ferran) and Roger Penske's son (Jay) are involved.

IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS: I'd have run Paul Tracy at Long Beach. Hey, four wins and a second place (and an Indy Lights win in 1990) seem to suggest that he knows the place better than, oh, I don't know, Milka.

NEXT YEAR'S RACE: ...will be just as beautiful, highly attended, and obsessed over by the fantastic Long Beach crowds. But I'd like to see less than a five second gap for the win next time.An

IndyCar Race Review: Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

Four races was all it took for the partnership between Ryan Hunter-Reay and Andretti Autosport to pay dividends.

After a near-miss at the season opener in Brazil, in which they finished second, the all-American team took victory at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on Sunday, for Hunter-Reay's first win since Watkins Glen in 2008. It was also the first win for team owner Michael Andretti since 2008 at Richmond, and the first for the team since an offseason restructuring transformed the former Andretti Green Racing team.

Hunter-Reay started the race in second, behind only Will Power, already twice a winner this year and the champion of this race two years ago. Power entered the race with a daunting 32-point lead over teammate Helio Castroneves, and added a bonus point for his third pole of the season. Justin Wilson took third in qualifying, setting up a battle between three ex-Champ Car stalwarts for the victory.

Power took an early lead in the race, followed by Hunter-Reay and Wilson, and at the start it appeared likely that he could win his third race of the season. But on lap 17, coming out of the hairpin, Power made an uncharacteristic mistake. He hit the pit road speed limiter inside the cockpit, and because the car was going under 50 miles per hour in one of the slowest zones on the track, the limiter engaged and slowed him down. By the time he was able to bring the car back up to full speed, Hunter-Reay and Wilson had gotten by. They ran in that order for much of the rest of the event.

All told, Hunter-Reay led 64 of the race's 85 laps, while Power paced the field for 19. Scott Dixon led the other two.

The only caution of the day came when Graham Rahal and Mario Romancini got into a tire barrier after completing 58 laps. Three other cars retired due to mechanical failures. 17 of the 25 cars finished on the lead lap, with Danica Patrick and Simona de Silvestro, the last two, separated by less than a second.

Power, despite throwing away Sunday's race win, still sits pretty atop the points standings, having expanded his lead over Castroneves to 42 points. In fact, Power would have to finish last at Kansas, while Castroneves would have to win from the pole and lead the most laps, for the points lead to change hands. Even then, that margin would be a single point. Power looks to assemble a dominating campaign on par with those of Sebastien Bourdais in the later days of the Champ Car World Series. He is the only driver to score top five finishes in all four races thus far this year.

In Firestone Indy Lights, James Hinchcliffe made the most of his second pole of the year, winning an accident-filled race for his first victory in the division. It was Team Moore Racing's second Lights victory, and their first since 2008. Also of note, 1996 Long Beach race winner and current IndyCar team owner Jimmy Vasser took the checkers in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, beating Brian Austin Green to the finish line. Vasser's top driver on Sunday was Mario Moraes, who overcame a 15th place start to finish sixth.