Opinion: IndyCar Fans Need To Bring The Hate

Twitter is a fabulous distraction when you're bored - or, alternately, during the commercial breaks of football games on Sunday. It's especially fun to peruse through your follower list and see the strange bedfellows that are made during some matchups, none of them strangers than some of my blogging colleagues (and Indianapolis natives) rooting for the New England Patriots during their matchup with the Chicago Bears yesterday.

Now, being a Boston native, I found this hilarious. The Patriots and the Colts, despite the odd geographic combination, comprise one of the best rivalries in all of sports right now, up there with Yankees-Red Sox, Steelers-Ravens, LeBron James and Brett Favre-the world, and so on. These are intensely polarizing matchups; each side's fans paint their team as a group of heroes, while the other side is rendered as villains worse than Kim Jong Il.

Seeing some of these diehards jump ship for a day, if only to root against a team they somehow hate even more, is humorous and interesting at the same time. Sports psychologists could probably write a book on it.

But it brought me to an important realization: we don't really have a "bad guy" in the IZOD IndyCar Series.

NASCAR has Kyle Busch, the mercurial wunderkind who carries himself with all the grace of a raging alcoholic. Busch has a checkers-or-wreckers attitude that frequently gets him into hot water with his competitors; it's hard to walk through the NASCAR garage and see somebody who hasn't been pissed off by a Rowdy Busch outburst or daring move in the final laps of some race.

That hatred sells, though. Because of that strong contingent that loves Busch, me included, his souvenir sales are among the tops in the business. He's handsomely paid, or at least paid well enough to have started his own Truck Series team. And because of all the boos he garners week in and week out, he's a constant media presence, one of the few drivers in the sport that is always in the middle of a story.

It's not the nicest thing to say in the world, but let's face facts. We sports fans love to hate. Colts fans hate the Patriots. Celtics fans hate the Lakers. As a lifelong Boston Bruins fan, I despise the Montreal Canadiens organization with all my heart for their dirty play and tendency to employ thugs. Pick a sports team, any sports team, and ask one of their fans about a hated enemy, and see if you hear anything different. Hatred - and the necessity of subjective analysis - are the two things that separate sports from the other major news subjects of the world. (That would explain why so many sports blogs exist.)

But what do we have in IndyCar for a true rivalry? The closest thing that's come up as of late is Danica Patrick-Tony Kanaan, and that's got too many issues with it. Open wheel lifers love Kanaan; he's been a full-timer since 1998, has won championships, and is a friendly (if intense) guy. Patrick brought in an entire new fanbase to the sport, and while she may draw the ire of more fans in this rivalry, she can't be the villain per se because of how much marketing money is spent on her. It just doesn't make marketing sense to paint your most popular driver as the bad one, does it?

The closest thing that we have right now to hatred is our dislike for the dominance of Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing. Many bloggers refer to them, somewhat derisively, as the "Red Cars" or the "Death Star." It's a start, I suppose. But of the five drivers on those two teams, there's nobody with a really abrasive personality. Helio Castroneves is one of the sport's most popular drivers, rarely caught without a smile on his face. Dario Franchitti and Ryan Briscoe are generally personable. IndyCar fans are still getting used to Will Power. Scott Dixon is comically neutral, at least if you read the old Silent Pagoda posts on him.

It's the wrong kind of hatred. We can't just have everybody rooting against the concept of domination, because it happens in every form of racing. But what else do IndyCar fans really have to hate? ESPN, particularly Marty Reid and/or Nicole Briscoe? The International Speedway Corporation? Danica's threat to jump ship to NASCAR - even though some of us want her gone?

Maybe I'm focusing on the wrong thing here. It is pretty cool that a newcomer can step into the sport, pick just about any driver as their favorite, and share a mutual respect for the rest of the field after watching a race or two. Maybe that's part of what makes us unique. But I'm not so sure.

Somebody's gotta step up and become that universal villain, much like Kyle Busch in NASCAR, to take us to the next level. They need to be just as talented on the track as they are abrasive off of it, they need to get under people's skin, and most importantly, they need to win races, or challenge for the championship.

Could it be a reinvented J.R. Hildebrand, as a hotshot rookie with Panther Racing? Could Marco Andretti live up to his family name? Could it be Alex Tagliani, Mario Moraes, or Paul Tracy? Hell, could it even be Danica? There are plenty of possibilities.

But until somebody steps up, I guess we have to focus our disgust on corporate entities. That'll totally get us somewhere.

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.

IndyCar History: Chevrolet

In celebration of today's announcement that Chevrolet will return to the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2012, a look back at Chevrolet's open-wheel history:

The name Chevrolet has been present at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since the earliest gestations of the Indianapolis 500. French-American brothers Louis, Gaston, and Arthur Chevrolet all took starts in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Arthur was the first to compete, in 1911; Louis debuted in 1916, while Gaston made the first of his two starts in 1919. Gaston was, by far, the most successful behind the wheel, taking the win in 1920 behind the wheel of a Frontenac, the race car company owned by the Chevrolet brothers.

The Chevrolet Motor Car Company itself had been founded in 1911, but founding brother Louis sold his share in it in 1915. As such, Chevrolet the brand was less associated with the speedway than its namesake. As Miller, Offenhauser, Ford, and Cosworth engines began to dominate the sport and the Indianapolis 500, there seemed like less and less of a place available for the famed bowtie at the speedway, besides appearances as the pace car.

When CART was established in 1979, Cosworth engines continued to dominate the day, but Chevrolet took the first non-Cosworth win in the series when Mike Mosley won at the Milwaukee Mile in 1981 in Dan Gurney's Pepsi Challenger. It would mark the only non-Cosworth win in the series until 1987.

Roger Penske, then a five-time Indianapolis 500-winning car owner, began fielding a Chevrolet in selected events in 1986 for Al Unser, the defending series champion. Unser's lone finish in five starts came in the season finale at Miami, where he placed 15th.

The next year, Chevrolet powerplants found their way inside the cars of some of the sport's top teams and drivers. Mario Andretti took a season-opening win at Long Beach for Newman/Haas Racing with the motor, as Penske and Pat Patrick also opted to outfit all of their cars with the new powerplant. The brand took four wins that year, with former Formula 1 champions Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi each scoring two.

Unfortunately, the new engine was still no match for the established Cosworths. Chevrolet could muster no better than fifth in the CART championship that year, with Rick Mears, as the brand's top drivers - Andretti, Mears, Fittipaldi, Danny Sullivan, and Kevin Cogan - were plagued by mechanical problems. Adding insult to injury, Unser's Indianapolis 500 win for Penske that year came in a March-Cosworth that had previously been used as a showcar.

1988 was the first year that the Chevrolet brand truly began to shine in CART. Taking the first six wins that season, 12 of 15 overall, and its first Indianapolis 500, Chevrolet scored its first championship with Sullivan in a Penske-Chevrolet. Sullivan scored an incredible 11 top five finishes and led laps in all but two events that season. Meanwhile, Mears won his third of four career Indianapolis 500s, pacing the field once dominant teammate Sullivan crashed out after 101 laps.

1989 through 1993 represented a remarkable five-year stretch for the brand, which won the Indianapolis 500 in each of those seasons and the CART championship in the first four. Chevrolet-powered cars won 66 of the 80 CART-sanctioned races over the course of those five years, sweeping the 1990 and 1991 seasons and winning 41 events in a row from September 1989 to June 1992.

But 1992 represented the first challenge to Chevrolet's established open wheel authority, as defending champions Michael Andretti and Newman-Haas Racing switched to new Ford Cosworth power. Andretti mounted a series challenge for the title, losing to Bobby Rahal by only four points. But the IndyCar wars were now at full strength, as Andretti took five wins with the new powerplant.

Andretti left CART for an ill-fated Formula 1 experiment in 1993, but his replacement was no slouch either. Defending F1 champion Nigel Mansell slid into Andretti's seat after a falling out with Williams F1 and won his debut event in Queensland. At the top of his game, the Brit won a season-high five races and the title despite missing the second race of the year at Phoenix due to injuries suffered in a practice crash. Chevrolet, Penske, and Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi were defeated by eight points.

At this point, Chevrolet decided that enough was enough. On September 14, 1993, the manufacturer decided to end its relationship with the sport and with engine manufacturer Ilmor, citing the rising costs of going to war with Ford.

2002 marked the brand's return to open-wheel racing. General Motors had been the premier engine supplier in the Indy Racing League since 1997, running engines badged with its Oldsmobile Aurora brand. But as Oldsmobile was being phased out at GM, the powers that be decided to replace the badging with that of Chevrolet. Few were surprised by the brand's dominance that year, winning 14 of 15 races and easily taking the top nine spots in IRL points.

Unfortunately, that dominance was short-lived. Honda and Toyota decided to abandon CART for chances at Indianapolis 500 glory, bringing most of the sport's top teams with them. Chevrolet quickly fell to third in a three-horse race, even after replacing their original engine with a new Cosworth-built motor. Of the 18 races that Chevrolet won in IndyCar between 2002 and 2005, only four came in those last three years; all were with Panther Racing.

The brand pulled out of the sport once again in 2005, as did Toyota, with both focusing their American racing programs on NASCAR first and foremost. But with the new engine formula adopted by the IZOD IndyCar Series for 2012 and beyond, and the brand seeking a new opportunity, a deal for Chevrolet to return to the sport with Penske and Ilmor appears imminent.

Chevrolet-IndyCar Announcement Imminent

IndyCar has scheduled an announcement at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Friday at 10:00 AM Eastern time regarding manufacturer competition in the IZOD IndyCar Series for 2012 and beyond.

This announcement will be a confirmation of Chevrolet's re-entry into the sport, a rumor buzzing around the sport's blogosphere since last week. The famed engine manufacturer exited the series in 2005 after a four-year run that yielded 18 victories and the 2002 championship with Sam Hornish Jr.

The rumors also suggest that, during the 15-minute announcement, Chevrolet will announce alliances with Roger Penske and Ilmor Engineering for 2012 and beyond. Ilmor will produce the 2.2-liter V6 engines for Chevrolet, and Penske will be the brand's top owner, after rumors of an alliance with Chip Ganassi were shot down.

Team Penske was a champion of Chevrolet power in CART in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the Chevy Indy V8 won every Indianapolis 500 from 1988 to 1993. When the brand left the sport after 1993, engine builder Ilmor continued to build the engines with a Mercedes-Benz nameplate.

Ilmor eventually evolved into Mercedes' high-performance engine division, but founder Mario Ilien and Penske re-established part of the company in 2005 to build engines for Honda. But Honda Performance Development appears likely to build their own IndyCar engines under the new formula, which calls for nothing larger than a turbocharged 2.4-liter V6.

IndyCar Season Review: Ryan Briscoe

The championship-run hangover hit Ryan Briscoe hard.

Of the five IZOD IndyCar Series cars campaigned by iconic owners Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske, Briscoe brought up the rear of the field for the second time in three years. It was a far cry from 2009, when Briscoe scored over 600 points and had a solid spectacular lead with as few as two races to go.

In 2010, Briscoe scored over 100 fewer points to finish a distant fifth in the standings, 120 back of eventual champion Dario Franchitti.

This season started off with a Briscoe brain fade, much like the Motegi pit error in 2009 that eventually cost him the championship. In Sao Paulo, Briscoe held the lead before failing to negotiate a corner and stuffing the car into a barrier. From there, he began to recover in the standings, inching up to seventh in points before the Indianapolis 500.

There, Briscoe had a great chance to win his first Indianapolis 500 and redeem himself from two years of poor finishes with Team Penske. An alternate pit strategy put him in position to steal the win from Franchitti. Another brain fade - pushing the car too hard on cold tires - saw him in the wall with his second DNF in three years.

From the season's biggest lowlight came its greatest highlight - a victory at Texas over de facto rival Danica Patrick. It led to a run of five races with finishes of fourth or better, and saw him climb to as high as fourth in the season point standings after the Sonoma race. Granted, it wasn't 2009, when Briscoe finished second or better 10 times in the final 13 races, and the rumors that Briscoe would lose his job at Penske after the season began to fly.

Despite leading the most laps at Chicago, luck was not on Briscoe's side, as he could only muster an 11th place finish. A DNF at Kentucky allowed teammate Helio Castroneves to pass him for fourth in points and let Ryan Hunter-Reay close the gap on fifth place to 14 points with two races left in the season.

Not wanting to be the only Penske driver to fall outside of the top five, Briscoe stepped up his game in the final two races, becoming one of only two drivers other than Castroneves to lead any of the Motegi race and making things as difficult for Franchitti as possible at Homestead, in hopes that teammate Will Power could come away with the title. In both of those races, he placed fourth, cementing a his top five position in the standings.

2010 wasn't as difficult as Briscoe's debut season at Penske; he only had two DNFs, fewer than most drivers in the series and as many as Scott Dixon and Castroneves, the two men directly ahead of him in the standings. But brain fades on track and Twitter wars off it generated the perception that Briscoe was in danger of losing his ride. The team says he is safe for 2011, but with an employer as used to winning as Roger Penske, strong results next season will be crucial for the Aussie.

IndyCar Season Review: Helio Castroneves

Point for point, 2010 was one of Helio Castroneves' best IZOD IndyCar Series seasons of all time.

Scoring 531 points in the series' 17 races, Castroneves took three victories to finish fourth in the series championship. It was the fourth top five in the standings that Castroneves has taken in the past five years, and it came without missing the season opener as he did last year. He also reduced his DNF count from four in 2009 to two this season, while matching his two poles from last season as well.

The season started off strong for Castroneves, as he took top-10 finishes in all four road and street course races to open the season. After teammate Will Power won in Sao Paulo and St. Petersburg, Castroneves kept up Team Penske's momentum when he scored the victory in the inaugural Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. Though he was 42 points out of the lead heading into the first oval stretch, Castroneves maintained second in points at that time.

From there, things got a little less consistent. Castroneves' highlights of the second quarter of the season were his fourth career Indianapolis 500 pole and a runner-up finish at Iowa, but a DNF at Texas in a wreck with Mario Moraes didn't help his cause.

A finish on the edge of the top 10 in Watkins Glen and an accident with Vitor Meira in Toronto dropped him all the way to sixth in points heading into Edmonton, a race in which he had finished second the previous two years. Castroneves was poised to improve on that personal best until a blocking penalty dropped him to tenth in the order. A heated Castroneves lost his cool, grabbing IndyCar officials post-race in his frustration.

From there, Castroneves began to regain his stride, though it was too little too late.

115 points out of the lead with six races to go, he would have needed to finish in the top four in each of the final six races while all of his rivals struggled tremendously. A refocused Castroneves did his part, finishing no worse than sixth in the final six races, but it would not even be close to enough.

The highlights of Castroneves' late season run included consecutive wins at Kentucky and Motegi. The Kentucky win came to the surprise of most, as Ed Carpenter had been dominating the race; Castroneves used an alternate fuel strategy and low throttle levels in the race's closing laps to coast to the win as everybody else pitted. In Japan, he led 153 of the race's 200 laps, including a stretch from lap 118 to the finish.

Coming into Homestead, Castroneves had a shot at securing third place in the standings, but a fifth place finish was not enough to maintain the spot, as Scott Dixon passed him for the spot with his victory.

2010 wasn't Castroneves' finest season of all time, especially compared to his DNF-free tear in 2008, but worked out to be one of his most consistent seasons since road courses were added to the series. Though only the second-best Penske driver this year, Castroneves proved that he remains one of the series' top drivers, even after over a decade in the sport.

IndyCar Season Review: Will Power

Will Power nearly had it in the bag.

Clearly the class of the field for Team Penske in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season, Power saw a 59 point lead with four races to go - and thus the series championship - slip through his hands, as oval struggles prevented Power from taking his first IndyCar title.

The fact that Power was even competing at all in 2010 was a bit of a miracle. The winner of the final Champ Car race, held at Long Beach in 2008, Power was signed by Penske in 2009 as a replacement for Helio Castroneves during his tax evasion trial. But Castroneves only missed a single race, and Power was thus shifted to a limited schedule in a third car. He won at Edmonton, but suffered two fractured vertebrae and a concussion in a Sonoma practice accident, injuries that caused him to contemplate retirement.

It was thus a bit of a shock when Roger Penske announced that he would shut down his sports car team, giving him three IndyCars for the first time since 1994, and shift the Verizon Wireless sponsorship to a driver coming off of a career threatening injury.

But Power came through immediately, winning the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 with a daring pass of Ryan Hunter-Reay, and following up with another victory at St. Petersburg. With a worst finish of fourth and a whopping 42 point lead after the first four races of the season, the title looked like Power's to lose.

Unfortunately, ovals proved to be Power's Achilles' heel just as much as they had in previous seasons. Power had only two top five finishes on ovals prior to the 2010 season, and had never stood on the podium at the end of an oval race. Even with Penske equipment under him, Power was going to need to work hard on his oval program.

The results were so-so. With only two top-10s in the first four oval races, with a best finish of fifth at Iowa, Power was incredibly lucky to enter the next road course segment of the season with the points lead. Even then, he needed some help - Dario Franchitti had assumed the lead at Texas, but issues at Iowa gave the lead back to the Aussie.

From there, Power simply did what he did best - win on road and street courses. In the final five twisty races, he took three wins and two second place finishes, locking up the Mario Andretti Road Course Trophy before the final road race of the year at Sonoma. Fittingly, he won that race in dominant fashion, leading 73 of a possible 75 laps. The other wins came at Watkins Glen and on the streets of Toronto.

Suddenly, the wheels began to fall off.

At Chicago, Power started third and led 17 laps, marking the 13th time in the past 14 races that he had spent time up front. But he ran out of fuel in the race's closing laps, losing a lap and finishing 16th. Kentucky produced a so-so eighth place run and marked the last time that Power would lead in 2010. While teammate Castroneves dominated Motegi, Power scored a third place finish, his first podium run on an oval.

But the bad news was that Franchitti had outplaced him in each of those three races. His win at Chicago was a huge factor in the championship - it allowed him to cut Power's points lead from 59 to 23. The lead sat at only 12 heading into the season finale at Homestead, meaning Power could only guarantee the title by winning the race. If Franchitti won from pole and led the most laps, even a second place finish would take the title from Power by a single point.

Power qualified a respectable third, but Franchitti set a blistering pole speed to cut the points lead to 11. By lap 124 of the 200 lap event, he had already secured two more bonus points by leading the most laps in the race. It was clear that Power was going to have to win the race to win the title.

Then, all hope was lost - while trying to negotiate past Hunter-Reay in a turn, Power brushed the outside wall. He brought the car back to the pits, where it was discovered that the damage to his right rear suspension was terminal. Power finished 25th and lost the championship by five points, the closest margin since 2006's tie by Sam Hornish Jr. and Dan Wheldon.

Regardless of the bad luck to finish the season, Power set some performance standards that even Franchitti would be hard-pressed to top. Only once did Power fail to qualify in the top five all season; he started seventh at Kansas. His eight poles are a new IndyCar record for most in a season. And his 412 of a possible 477 points on road courses are a marker which may never again be approached - unless Power is even better in 2011.

IndyCar Teams Prepare For Homestead

No less than 11 IZOD IndyCar Series teams decided to utilize a Monday testing session at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in preparation for Saturday night's Cafes do Brazil Indy 300.

The top five drivers in IndyCar points - Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti of Chip Ganassi Racing, as well as Ryan Briscoe, Helio Castroneves, and series leader Will Power of Team Penske - all took advantage of the open test session. Ganassi will look to win its third consecutive championship as a team, while its drivers will look to continue a stranglehold on the championship that began with Franchitti's 2007 title as a member of Andretti Green Racing. Meanwhile, Power will look to deliver owner Roger Penske his first IndyCar title since Sam Hornish accomplished the feat in 2006.

IndyCar mainstays A.J. Foyt Enterprises and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing each brought their full-time programs to the track as well, with Vitor Meira and Justin Wilson lapping for the two teams, respectively. DRR also provided Ana Beatriz with a car for the test session, as she will replace the still-recovering Mike Conway in that team's second car for the finale.

Beatriz wasn't the only limited-program driver to take advantage of the session, however. Sarah Fisher took her team to the track, carrying a bright pink paint scheme on the No. 67 Dollar General Dallara-Honda in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Meanwhile, Ed Carpenter made laps on behalf of Vision Racing and their allies at Panther Racing. Finally, Sebastian Saavedra made his debut for Conquest Racing, driving a No. 36 Dallara-Honda sponsored by many of Saavedra's personal backers.

27 cars are on the entry list for Homestead, an exceptionally healthy number considering some of the smaller car counts of last season. Provided that everybody shows up, this year's season finale will feature four more cars than last year's event did, though rumors persist that the marginally funded HVM Racing have been locked out of their Indianapolis shop and may not make the event with driver Simona de Silvestro.

IndyCar Race Review: Indy Japan 300

Helio Castroneves led 153 out of 200 laps from the pole to take the victory in the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Motegi on Sunday.

It was Castroneves' third IZOD IndyCar Series win of the 2010 season, coming in the series' penultimate race. It was also Castroneves' second consecutive win, after taking the honors at Kentucky. The Brazilian Team Penske driver also won at Barber Motorsports Park earlier this year.

Castroneves won his 25th major American open-wheel race in dominant fashion, handily beating his Chip Ganassi Racing rival Dario Franchitti and Penske teammate Will Power. Ryan Briscoe and 2008 winner Danica Patrick rounded out the top five, with defending race winner Scott Dixon directly behind in sixth.

Franchitti, who clinched the A.J. Foyt Oval Championship in this race by 16 points over Franchitti, positioned himself to make a run for his second consecutive IndyCar title at Homestead in two weeks. Franchitti now trails Power by a mere 12 points in the overall standings with only the Homestead-Miami Speedway race to go.

The race was hindered in the final stages by a 19-lap caution to clean up debris spread by a major crash in turn two. Alex Lloyd dragged parts down the backstretch before finally coming to rest a long way from where he initially hit the wall. It was Lloyd's second caution of the day, after an early race caution had already cost him 16 laps in repairs.

Lloyd was not the only driver to make friends with the wall in Japan on the weekend of Friendship Day. Bertrand Baguette received terminal damage on the second lap of the race, while Mario Moraes only completed a third of the distance before hitting the wall. Moraes was removed from his car and put on a stretcher as he complained of back pain.

Three Japanese drivers took part in the race: Takuma Sato, Hideki Mutoh, and American-born Roger Yasukawa. All three completed the race; Sato finished 12th, Mutoh came home 14th, and Yasukawa placed 20th, five laps down. It was Sato's first IndyCar race in front of his home fans, Mutoh's first race in front of his father, and Yasukawa's first race of the season after previously spotting for Sato during oval races.

Only three drivers managed to lead laps during the event: Castroneves, Briscoe, and Raphael Matos, who inherited the lead by not pitting during the Moraes caution. However, an alternate pit strategy early did Matos no good later on, as he fell to 18th, the last car on the lead lap. Most drivers ended up finishing close to their starting positions, with Patrick (12th to 5th), Graham Rahal (16th to 8th), and Alex Tagliani (23rd to 13th) the three biggest gainers on the day.

The IZOD IndyCar Series will close out its 17-race schedule with the October 2 season finale at Homestead, the Cafes do Brazil 300. Franchitti took this race and the season championship with it last year.

IndyCar Race Preview: Indy Japan 300

With only two races remaining in the IZOD IndyCar Series season, a good starting position is key to establishing yourself out front for the duration of each event.

Team Penske took this philosophy to heart in qualifying for the Indy Japan 300, placing drivers Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe, and Will Power in the first three starting positions.

Power, the championship leader will share the second row with Dario Franchitti, his closest championship rival. The two drivers are separated by a mere 17 points going into the final two races, by no means an insurmountable deficit.

Behind them, Andretti Autosport's top three drivers, Marco Andretti, Tony Kanaan, and Ryan Hunter-Reay, took the fifth through seventh starting spots. The KV Racing Technology cars of E.J. Viso and Japanese favorite Takuma Sato took eighth and 10th, respectively, with only Panther Racing's Dan Wheldon between them. Sato's recovery was a fine run considering he had suffered a practice incident earlier in the day.

Posting somewhat disappointing qualifying runs were Scott Dixon, who will line up 11th, and 2008 race winner Danica Patrick, who will start this year's running in 12th. But the field was competitive - 23 of the 25 drivers in the event qualified within one second of polesitter Castroneves, with the lone exceptions Simona de Silvestro and Milka Duno.

Time zones always make the logistics of the race interesting for the American fans at home. Qualifying took place at 3:40 PM local time, which translates to 2:40 AM Eastern time. Meanwhile, the race broadcast on Versus begins at 11:00 PM on Saturday night. Many fans, especially those on the east coast, will either have to DVR the event or alter their sleeping schedules to enjoy the race.

Verizon to Expand IndyCar Commitment?

Sirius Speedway, the weekday afternoon radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio's NASCAR channel, is reporting that Verizon Wireless will leave Team Penske's NASCAR Nationwide Series team and driver Justin Allgaier in order to shift marketing funds to the IZOD IndyCar Series.

The New Jersey-based company recently signed a deal to become an official IndyCar sponsor, with the figures rumored at $1 million per year. The deal also includes branding on IndyCar's mobile website, hosted at mobile.indycar.com, and a new IndyCar application that can be downloaded to Verizon Wireless phones.

It appears that the extra money that used to go to Penske's NASCAR program will head to their IndyCar program, which currently comprises Helio Castroneves, Ryan Briscoe, and Will Power. Power's car carries Verizon primary sponsorship, while Castroneves and Briscoe carry the Verizon logo as a major associate sponsor.

Verizon's NASCAR commitment also included an unbranded sponsorship of Brad Keselowski's Sprint Cup car, inherited when the company bought out Alltel. Sprint Cup rules do not allow for other wireless companies to change logos on their car to reflect mergers and buyouts, so Verizon honored the existing contract with a basic paint scheme and the Penske logo on the car.

Verizon eventually became frustrated with their inability to activate their NASCAR sponsorship. They cannot market at Cup races using Cup drivers, which is why Keselowski's Nationwide car is not the Verizon car. Power and Allgaier were featured in a handful of commercials, but the focus after the skits has recently shifted to the IndyCar Mobile app.

With their NASCAR sponsorship contracts running out this year, they are looking to better promote the brand in the world of motorsports, and Penske's IndyCar team may be the proper outlet. Castroneves and Briscoe have driven without primary sponsorship this year, after a handful of years of unbranded Marlboro sponsorship. Similar to Verizon's NASCAR deal, Marlboro was not allowed to place their logos on the cars, and a few years of skirting the regulations by renaming the team Marlboro Team Penske came to an end. Parent company Philip Morris ended their 19-year association with Penske after last season.

Verizon sponsorship of Castroneves and Briscoe for next season would secure the sponsorship of each of the series' current top five cars, and eight of the top nine. The lone exception would be Ryan Hunter-Reay, who has done wonders as the pitchman for series sponsor IZOD but has never been covered by them for a full year, and Andretti Autosport, who already have three other fully-funded cars for next season.

IndyCar Race Review: Kentucky Indy 300

Once again, the Kentucky Indy 300 gave thousands of fans hope at an upset victory. And once again, a Roger Penske-employed driver thwarted any designs that a little guy had at victory.

Panther Racing - former IZOD IndyCar Series champions, but now restricted to an underdog role in the series as ex-CART powers have taken over - qualified first and third for the race with Ed Carpenter and Dan Wheldon, respectively. They combined to lead 104 laps of the race, including 49 of the final 53 circuits.

Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, Carpenter had the victory stolen from him by Team Penske. This year, Helio Castroneves did the honors, conserving enough fuel in an extended green flag run to coast to the win, and even turn a couple victory laps afterwards.

Last year, Carpenter was beaten to the line by Penske driver Ryan Briscoe in a memorable finish. This year, Briscoe wasn't around to challenge for the win, having crashed out in a three-car wreck before the halfway point, but Carpenter was a contender for much of the night. He even worked his way back through the pack after getting shuffled back early.

But late race, splash-and-go pit stops for all of the leaders shuffled the order, and the victory went to the driver who used the underdog strategy: hang out towards the back and run slow laps to ensure the ability to make it to the end.

It was the second consecutive strong run for Carpenter, whose team is actually a collaboration between Panther and Vision Racing, as well as Wheldon, Panther's lead driver. Last week at Chicagoland, fuel issues knocked Carpenter out of contention, while Wheldon finished second in that event. This weekend, Wheldon led more laps than anybody (93) and made a strong case to remain in the series next year, even as he and Panther will part ways at the end of the season.

In the end, Carpenter finished second at Kentucky for the second year in a row, and Wheldon placed third.

Meanwhile, Castroneves took his second race victory of the season (though, referring to an incident at Edmonton, jokingly called it his third) by running laps almost 10 miles per hour slower than the leaders in the very late stages of the event. As such, when Tony Kanaan pit with less than 10 to go to begin the cycle of splash-and-go fuel stops, Castroneves had conserved enough to stay out on track.

Kanaan, who had qualified miserably off the pace to start in 26th, passed 10 cars on the first lap of the event and eventually wound up fourth, in front of Dario Franchitti. Franchitti further closed the gap on point leader Will Power, who wound up eighth. Power led 83 laps of the 200-lap event, nearly garnering him an important two-point bonus for leading the most laps, until Wheldon topped him late in the event. Power's shrinking points lead is now down to 17 with only two races to go.

Bertrand Baguette had a career-best 10th place finish, which also propelled him past the perpetually unlucky Takuma Sato in the points. After taking out teammate E.J. Viso last week at Chicagoland, Sato failed to even complete one lap at Kentucky, as his car broke loose from him in turns three and four and he slammed into the wall. It was the latest in a long line of incidents for KV Racing Technology this season, where the crash count now tops two dozen.

IndyCar Race Preview: Peak Antifreeze Indy 300

This weekend, the IZOD IndyCar Series enters the fourth and final quarter of the season, another oval run that begins with the Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 at the Chicagoland Speedway. Last year's race, won by Ryan Briscoe by about six inches over Scott Dixon, was yet another example of how exciting IndyCar racing can be when the series heads to the Illinois speedway, and nobody expects any different this year.

In the lone practice session preceding qualifying, Briscoe once again paced Dixon, though the gap was much larger. Briscoe's 217.874 mph best lap was a full mile per hour better than Dixon's best. Will Power, the series points leader despite only ranking eighth in the oval championship, had the third best lap, with the four Andretti Autosport drivers - Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Tony Kanaan - ranking fourth through seventh.

In qualifying, Briscoe took the pole over Dario Franchitti, teammates Power and Helio Castroneves, and Andretti. Dixon could only muster a 15th place qualifying run.

Patrick, in particular, has to be excited to return to the ovals, after ranking a dismal 15th in the final road course standings. She was the only Andretti driver to place outside the top 10. Meanwhile, she ranks sixth in the oval standings, with a runner-up finish at Texas her best run of the season.

The field at Chicagoland, a whopping 29 cars, will be the largest field of the season (excluding Indianapolis) and the largest in a non-500 field since 28 showed up for this race in 2008. Entries for Graham Rahal, Ed Carpenter, Davey Hamilton, Jay Howard, and Sarah Fisher have expanded the field from the 24 full-season entries.

Four times out of nine, the winner has come from the pole position, a feat Briscoe achieved last year, after Castroneves won from the last starting spot the year before. Penske drivers have won the past two events at Chicagoland, while perennial series power Chip Ganassi Racing has only one win at the track, by Dan Wheldon in 2006.

IndyCar Race Review: Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma

Just like last year, a single driver dominated yesterday's Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, the road course finale for the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season. What made this particular win special for that driver, however, were the circumstances surrounding it.

Will Power's fifth win of the season (all on road courses) came on a track where his career was put into serious jeopardy, after a freak accident in practice severely injured his back and prematurely ended his 2009 season. The win served as a victory parade for this year's winner of the Mario Andretti Road Course Trophy, an honor he clinched two weeks ago at Mid-Ohio.

Unlike Dario Franchitti last year, Power did not lead all 75 laps of the event; Scott Dixon, who finished second, led two laps in the middle stages of the event. But nobody really had anything for Power, who had won the pole and stretched some huge leads early on in the race.

While a top five completely populated by Team Penske and Chip Ganassi Racing cars doesn't suggest the most unpredictable or exciting of races, some of the action a little deeper in the field was more than exciting enough to keep the most jaded of fans interested.

Dan Wheldon's race ended before it began, with accidental contact from Bertrand Baguette at the start sending the No. 4 Panther Racing Dallara-Honda upside down in a wreck that almost looked like it came out of a video game. It was Wheldon's first DNF since St. Petersburg earlier this year, as well as his first finish outside the top 20.

Simona de Silvestro had an interesting day as well. First, contact with Alex Tagliani cut the Canadian's tire down, and then she nearly sent Raphael Matos upside down as well with an aggressive move early in the race. Finally, E.J. Viso ran into her not long after, spinning her out. De Silvestro continued on, eventually winding up 13th.

Hometown hero J.R. Hildebrand and 2006 race winner Marco Andretti got together on lap 37, ending Hildebrand's day. Not too long after, Andretti got into Mario Moraes in the same corner, eliciting a reaction from fans aware of the drivers' history with one another.

The final caution of the day came when Baguette, Matos, and Viso got together with under ten laps to go. Viso's KV Racing Technology car was able to continue on, marking only the fourth race all season where each of that team's cars finished the event. Baguette and Matos, however, were done for.

Dixon put the pressure on at the final restart, the drivers matching presses of the Push to Pass button, but the Australian managed to extend his lead once again. Francesco Dracone stalled in the final corner on the final lap, leading to a local yellow that brought down Power's margin of victory considerably, but the rule against passing during a local yellow, combined with the proximity to the start-finish line, ensured that Dixon would not have a chance to go by.

Franchitti was third, with Power's teammates Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves rounding out the top five.

IndyCar Race Preview: Honda Indy 200

Team Penske will once again be the team to beat this weekend at Mid-Ohio, as Will Power tied a series record by scoring his seventh pole of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season for tomorrow's Honda Indy 200.

Penske cars have been towards the top of the charts in every practice session, with Dario Franchitti also consistently posting solid runs. Franchitti qualified alongside Power on the front row, followed by strong runs for Takuma Sato and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Row 3 consists of Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves, involved in controversy over the finish at Edmonton two weeks ago, when a hotly contested blocking penalty on Castroneves handed the win to Dixon. Castroneves was previously the lone record holder for most poles in an IndyCar season until this weekend.

The 27-car field is one of the healthiest in IndyCar all season, and by far trumps the meager 21-car field that the series mustered last year. Besides the increase in full-time cars from last year to this year, part-time entries for Graham Rahal, Adam Carroll, and Jay Howard have inflated the field. Carroll qualified 17th, Rahal 25th, and Howard 26th.

This race will mark the IndyCar debuts for two drivers: J.R. Hildebrand, filling in for Mike Conway at Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, and Francesco Dracone, replacing Mario Romancini at Conquest Racing. They qualified 18th and 23rd, respectively. Hildebrand was the 2009 Indy Lights champion, while Dracone spent the majority of his professional racing career in Europe, primarily competing in the Formula 3000 Euroseries.

The race will be shown live on Versus at 2:30 PM EST on Sunday.

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 Review: Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen

This weekend, Team Penske had the Power – Will Power, that is.

Power led over two-thirds of the race from the first starting spot as Penske claimed its first victory in the Camping World Grand Prix at the Glen after winning every pole six years running.

Teammate Ryan Briscoe made it a Penske 1-2 after passing Chip Ganassi Racing rival Dario Franchitti in the later laps of the race. Raphael Matos and Mario Moraes rounded out the top five.

Dan Wheldon rebounded from an early-race incident in the track’s boot to finish sixth. Alex Lloyd punted Wheldon’s Panther Racing Dallara-Honda and Wheldon stalled, The Holmatro Safety Team got him refired before he lost a lap, however, and he utilized an alternate pit strategy to help get him up front.

Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves were also among those to use different pit strategies, although not by choice; Dixon got into the back of his Team Penske rival early on in the race, forcing both to pit for repairs. Neither lost a lap, however, and were able to stay out after the Wheldon caution. They finished eighth and ninth, respectively.

E.J. Viso and Alex Tagliani also had encountered early-race issues that put them towards the front in the middle of the race. Viso came home 11th, and Tagliani 17th.

Tony Kanaan, on the other hand, had his problem on the penultimate lap, running out of fuel during a solid top-10 run. The necessity of the splash and go dropped him all the way back to 21st.

Kanaan’s finish was emblematic of a difficult day for most of the members of Andretti Autosport. Coming off the announcement that he would be running the rest of the season for the team, Ryan Hunter-Reay led the team with a seventh place finish, but other than that, there wasn’t much to celebrate about in the AA garage.

Marco Andretti’s streak of three consecutive top five finishes at the Glen was broken with a 13th place run, Adam Carroll’s first race of any kind in over a year yielded a 16th place result, and Danica Patrick continued to struggle on the road courses with a 20th place showing.

As for last year’s race winners, Justin Wilson snuck into the top 10 for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. Meanwhile, it was a difficult day for Dale Coyne Racing, which saw Milka Duno finish 23rd and off the lead lap. Lloyd, meanwhile, was the first driver to retire, shortly after the Wheldon incident.

Power now maintains a lead of 32 points over Franchitti in the series point standings as the series heads to Toronto. His lead in the road course standings is now a whopping 70 over Ryan Hunter-Reay - theoretically, Power could take the next two events off and still win that title.

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.

Opinion: Putting the "Open" Back in "Open Wheel"

I don't think that I'm the only person to be excited about the ICONIC committee's decision to bring turbocharged 2.4 liter V6 engines to the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2012. The new engine will be a lot smaller and lighter than the current Honda powerplant, will maintain up to 700 horsepower, and will return turbos to major American open-wheel racing for the first time since Champ Car's demise. It should also allow other engine manufacturers, potentially including one of the Volkswagen Group's brands and a Lotus-Cosworth collaboration, to join the party. All of this is excellent news.

Now the ICONIC committee turns to chassis selection, where five industry leaders are currently fighting for the single contract to produce IndyCar chassis. Three of the companies - Dallara, Lola, and Swift - have built chassis before. BAT Engineering is comprised of three men who dominated the sport in the 1980s. Delta Wing is the pet project of some of the series' biggest owners.

The problem here is that three or fourth worthy chassis designers are going to go home, while one secures a contract, keeping IndyCar in its spec-design age. But why?

When CART reached its latest peak in the mid-to-late 1990s, when entry lists were full, big names were all around, and the IRL hadn't yet lured the top teams back to Indianapolis, there were three chassis manufacturers (and Roger Penske's in-house design) battling for supremacy, as there were four engine manufacturers competing to build the best engines. The competition may have driven up costs a bit, but that's what added to the prestige of the series - you had to beat everybody else on the track, not in the bidding.

Opening up chassis production to at least two manufacturers would increase competition, and hearken back to better days in the sport, before the nasty political split had scorched much of the open-wheel earth. The series could set a cost cap on chassis development and production in order to protect its owners from the potential of escalating costs, and perhaps adjust that cap on a yearly basis, as stick-and-ball sports do with player salary caps. If nothing else, multiple chassis would make the races far more visually interesting, in a way that multiple engine companies cannot.

Allowing multiple chassis contracts will also help bring the sport's biggest and best track back to the prominence and prestige it once held. Indianapolis used to be a proving ground for new road technologies, and a breeding ground for open-wheel innovation. Think of some of the cars used in the past 40 years, and how much change has occurred, both in aerodynamics and underneath the engine cowling. The changes have been massive, and part of it came from the less restrictive rules at Indianapolis.

Remember that during the CART era of the 1980s and 90s, the Indianapolis 500 was a USAC-sanctioned race in which CART decided to award points to its teams. Because the race was not run under CART sanctioning, and thus under Indianapolis 500-specific rules, teams had the ability to experiment a little more freely with their cars. Some of the most dominating performances in all of motorsport have come due to this provision.

In 1994, Team Penske, with drivers Al Unser Jr., Paul Tracy, and Emerson Fittipaldi, had one of the most dominating combinations in open-wheel history: the Penske PC-23 chassis and Ilmor-Mercedes Indy V8 engine. This combination allowed Penske to rip off a seven-race winning streak at one points in the 16-race season, and allowed the team to take 12 victories overall. Everybody knew that coming into Indy that year, the team to beat was going to be Team Penske, especially coming off of their win the previous year with Fittipaldi.

But Penske outdid themselves at Indy, bringing along a secretly-built 209 cid pushrod Mercedes engine, the 500I. Penske utilized rules provisions that allowed pushrod engines like John Menard's Buick V6 an extra 650 cubic centimeters and 4.9 psi of boost. For those of us who aren't engineers, it meant that the engine could produce 1000 horsepower, significantly more than Penske's competitors. The team went on to dominate the race.

Randy Bernard, CEO of IndyCar, has said that he wants to bring innovation back to the series. Bernard has also proven himself willing to make some huge decisions - awarding split oval and road course championships, attempting to implement bonuses next year of $10 million for series champions and $20 million for winning both Indy and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, and so on.

What about opening up the field at Indianapolis to innovation once again?

In its heyday long ago, the Indianapolis 500 was so highly regarded that it counted in Formula 1 world championship points. That won't happen again, but the race can still go a long way towards attracting racing powerhouses from across the globe by opening up its engine formula and allowing multiple chassis manufacturers to build Indy racers.

In other words, by encouraging innovation and the competition of technologies, with the assumed goal of bringing what's learned on the racetrack back to the streets, Indianapolis can recapture the prestige it used to have, years and years ago. Because let's be honest: Indianapolis still matters, but it just isn't the same.

The key difference in racing nowadays, compared to years ago, is that what's running on the track nowadays has little or no correlation to the cars that we drive on the streets. Sure, IndyCar does a lot with ethanol, but how many of us currently have ethanol-based cars? And what does an eight-year-old Dallara chassis have to do with the aerodynamics of the vehicles that any of us drive?

The reason why sports car racing flourishes in its niche is because the developments made at Le Mans have street relevance. When Peugeot and Audi battle at Circuit de la Sarthe, they're not just racing for glory. They're in it because what they learn at the track will make their performance vehicles on the road that much better. The American Le Mans Series does a fantastic job, with its embrace of multiple fuels and the Michelin Green Challenge, which awards a championship to the most efficient team over the course of the year.

By loosening restrictions on competitors in the Indianapolis 500, the sport's most prestigious race, IndyCar can push its own "green" initiative even further, by encouraging participants to develop the fastest and most efficient cars they possibly can. Only cars that meet certain standards for efficiency can attempt to qualify; as usual, the fastest 33 race. Exclusive supplier contracts be damned - let them apply to every other race of the season but Indy, because years of spec 500s is beginning to grow old.

If Chip Ganassi and Bobby Rahal want to bring the BMW motors they run in sports car racing to Indy, by all means let them. See if Duncan Dayton's Highcroft Racing can run as well with Honda at Indianapolis as they do at Sebring and Laguna Seca. Manufacturers currently on the outside looking in would have a reason to care about Indy again, and so would fair-weather motorsports fans.

It'd be the biggest and best race in the world, if only we opened it up.

IndyCar Race Review: Firestone 550k

In Ryan Briscoe's first Texas race for Team Penske, in 2008, he started and finished third. In his second, last year, he started and finished second.

Briscoe continued his positive Texas trend in last night's Firestone 550k, leading 102 laps and opening up a big gap on a hard-charging Danica Patrick in the later stages for his first win of the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season. His victory helped make up for Penske's disappointing Indianapolis 500 last weekend, when Briscoe crashed and finished 24th, and teammates Will Power and Helio Castroneves barely cracked the top ten.

But that's not to say that the night was a complete success for Penske; Castroneves was taken out of the race just past halfway when Mario Moraes squeezed him into the wall. Power, who had been running third in the late stages of the race, had to give up his position to pit for fuel with four laps to go, falling to 14th, one lap down.

Instead, the top team overall in the Texas tilt was Andretti Autosport. Besides Patrick's second-place finish, Marco Andretti placed third for the second week in a row, and Tony Kanaan wound up sixth. Ryan Hunter-Reay, in his first race since having thumb surgery and potentially his last race for Andretti due to sponsorship reasons, placed seventh.

In between the Andretti cars were the two Chip Ganassi Racing teams of Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti, respectively. Franchitti managed to lead 86 laps of the 228-lap race, but after losing his clean air was never quite the same.

Alex Tagliani and the FAZZT Race Team continued to show promise, but were once again bitten by bad luck. Tagliani led 33 laps, third most in the field, but a lap 167 pit stop in which fueler Phil McRobert did not remove the fuel hose before Tagliani put the car in gear altered the entire course of his race. Adding insult to injury, the team fell seven laps short on fuel and had to pit before the end of the race, falling three laps down and finishing 18th.

Texas was not generally kind to the series' six rookies. While Alex Lloyd and Dale Coyne Racing carried on their momentum from a fourth-place finish at Indy, crossing the line eighth, Lloyd was the only rookie driver to finish on the lead lap. Meanwhile, Mario Romancini was the only other rookie driver to finish, two laps down in 17th.

Three rookies - Bertrand Baguette, Simona de Silvestro, and Takuma Sato - were involved in crashes that prematurely ended their nights. De Silvestro had a particularly fiery crash in which safety crews struggled to remove her from her burning car. The last rookie, Jay Howard, experienced mechanical failure after 37 laps to finish last.

The next IZOD IndyCar Series race will be the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway in two weeks. Franchitti won last year.