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.

Silly Season Roundup: November 18, 2010

A muddy IZOD IndyCar Series silly season picture for 2011 has begun to clear up, as big names begin to sign contracts, or at least line them up, with major teams.

Since the future appears bright, with Chevrolet and Lotus joining the fray in 2012, it's easy to forget that IndyCar has another season of spec racing ahead of it, and plenty of driver contracts to be signed along the way. But just this week, we saw the confirmation of two drivers returning to their teams from 2010, and another setting up a ride with an old friend for 2011.

Justin Wilson announced his return to the No. 22 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Dallara-Honda for 2011 last Thursday, turning down offers from a handful of other teams. He'll continue a relationship that yielded an 11th-place points finish in 2010 and shone on the road and street courses all year.

Meanwhile, E.J. Viso confirmed to Yahoo! Sports Argentina that he will remain in IndyCar next season, likely returning to KV Racing Technology as the team's relationship with Lotus expands. Previously, team owner Jimmy Vasser had suggested to SpeedTV.com that the team's driver lineup would remain the same in 2011 as in 2010, although this year was a hellish season for the team that saw a plethora of wrecks.

For those who like to speculate, the article also mentioned Takuma Sato as a KVRT driver, but not Mario Moraes. Lotus has also confirmed full-time sponsorship commitment of only two cars for next year.

Meanwhile, Tony Kanaan and Gil de Ferran are a few steps closer to working together next season. Kanaan recently spent time in a de Ferran Dragon Racing car, with the intent on critiquing the team's engineering progress thus far. But de Ferran's previous driver, Raphael Matos, just finished the second of a two-year deal, and the ever-popular Kanaan is heading to Brazil, his and de Ferran's home country, to seek out sponsors. The 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner is adamant that he will employ the 2004 IndyCar champion next season.

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.

Kanaan Officially Out at Andretti

Tony Kanaan and Andretti Autosport announced today that they have agreed to conclude an eight-year relationship in the IZOD IndyCar Series.

In 131 starts with the Andretti team, Kanaan scored 14 IndyCar victories, the most recent coming at Iowa this year. Over that eight year span, Kanaan and Andretti never finished worse than sixth in the season standings, owing to by 102 top 10 finishes and only 18 DNFs.

Their best year together came in 2004, as the pairing won the title. That year, Kanaan won three of the 16 races on the schedule, and scored top five finishes in all but one of the other events (the season opening Homestead race, where he finished eighth).

2007 was another high watermark year in Kanaan's tenure with Andretti, as the pairing scored five victories, more than any other team in the series. Kanaan finished third in the championship standings that year, behind teammate Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon.

Kanaan remained loyal to Andretti and sponsor 7-Eleven in late 2008, when he spurned Chip Ganassi Racing to remain the driver of the No. 11 for Michael Andretti. Instead, Franchitti, returning from a rough time in NASCAR, took over the second Ganassi car and has won the past two championships.

Meanwhile, things had been rocky at Andretti the past two years, especially for Kanaan. He has had difficulty working with teammates Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti, with issues dating back to 2008. Team owner Michael Andretti has often compared running his team to babysitting feuding children.

This year, Kanaan and Patrick did not get along so well, with the climax coming in a heated battle for second place in the closing laps of this year's finale at Homestead. Patrick won the battle, and then the war - 7-Eleven announced they would be scaling back their IndyCar commitment and moving to Patrick's car as a major associate sponsor, leaving Kanaan without a ride.

Fans have made motions to help, and Kanaan worked to promote for the Mars candy corporation as he drove a Pretzel M&M's-sponsored two-seater at Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this month, but no sponsors stepped up.

Thus, the second longest-tenured driver and team combo in the sport, behind only Helio Castroneves and Team Penske, has decided to call it quits.

Kanaan's options are plentiful, however. Few drivers are able to win consistently in IndyCar, and Kanaan is one of them. He's one of the most coveted free agent drivers in years, so he's been rumored to join just about every team in the garage that could use a veteran driver to take them to the next level.

KV Racing Technology is looking for a driver that won't tear up equipment; de Ferran Dragon Racing, led by Kanaan's countryman Gil de Ferran, is looking for somebody to mentor Raphael Matos and take him to the next level; Dreyer & Reinbold Racing may be looking to replace Justin Wilson if he departs. All are strong possibilities for Kanaan in 2011 and beyond.

Andretti, meanwhile, will likely let the No. 11 fade away unless a talented pay driver shows up with major sponsorship money. Graham Rahal, one of the few drivers that fits that bill right now, looks poised to join Ganassi in a third car, and few other options have been suggested. It's more likely that Andretti will shrink to a three-car stable, with Patrick, Marco Andretti, and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

IndyCar Season Review: Tony Kanaan

Somehow, despite all of the difficult moments of his 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season, Tony Kanaan still managed to be "best of the rest."

Even an abysmal 13.2 average start, infighting with teammate Danica Patrick, and nearly missing the Indianapolis 500 couldn't hold Kanaan back, as the driver took one win and seven top five finishes on the way to a sixth place finish in points in his eighth season driving for Andretti Autosport.

The season began steadily, with 10th place finishes in Sao Paulo and St. Petersburg, an eighth at Barber, and a fifth at Long Beach, positioning him comfortably in the top 10 in points. At Kansas, Kanaan managed to pass 12 cars to finish third, giving the team some momentum heading into Indianapolis.

Kanaan, like his team owner Michael Andretti, has a history of bad luck in the Indianapolis 500, and this year was no different. But instead of the usual in-race failure - he had crashed in the previous two runnings of the event - his biggest issues came before the race even started.

Crashes on both days of qualifying meant the team barely had enough time to prepare a car to make a run. Eventually, Kanaan put a car on the last row of the grid, starting last after the team went to a different chassis for the race. Despite the team's moribund outlook for the race, Kanaan managed to salvage an 11th-place finish.

After a sixth place run at Texas, the series headed to Iowa Speedway. For the fourth race in a row, Kanaan qualified outside of the top 10, starting the event in 15th. But a strong car allowed him to pass other cars easily, and Kanaan led his first 62 laps of the season on the way to his first victory since Richmond in 2008.

The road courses were less successful for Kanaan than the ovals, and mid-pack finishes at Edmonton and Mid-Ohio (again, attributed to poor qualifying runs) contributed to his falling back in the standings. Kanaan finished a lap off the pace at Edmonton, the only lap he failed to complete all season.

The ovals, once again, were strong for Kanaan, as he took three top five finishes in the final four events of the season, with no runs worse than a seventh at Motegi. These runs allowed him to pass teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay for sixth in points, where he eventually ended the season. His best finish during the stretch came at Homestead, where he lost a heated battle with Patrick for second place.

Kanaan's oval runs were good for fourth in the series' oval championship. He only came six points short of Scott Dixon for third in that competition. But his so-so road course results put him a distant eighth in that subcategory, almost 30 points behind seventh place.

The clear weakness of Kanaan's team during 2010 was qualifying. His only front-row start of the year came at St. Petersburg; in the 11-race stretch from Kansas to Kentucky, Kanaan qualified no better than eighth and was 20th or worse four times. His intra-squad squabbles with Patrick also didn't help his case; the two traded chop blocks on many of the series' ovals, much to the frustration of team management.

To add insult to injury, days after the season finale at Homestead, longtime sponsor 7-Eleven announced that they would be abandoning an eight-year relationship with Kanaan to support Patrick in a reduced role, leaving his plans for the 2011 season uncertain at this point. While both driver and team appear to be interested in maintaining their relationship, the best IndyCar driver not to wear a Penske or Ganassi firesuit in 2010 may have a lot of suitors for next season.

IndyCar Race Review: Cafes do Brazil Indy 300

The final race of this year's IZOD IndyCar Series season ended in triumph for Chip Ganassi and heartbreak for Roger Penske.

Ganassi driver Scott Dixon took the checkers in the Cafes do Brazil Indy 300, the final IndyCar race to be held at Homestead-Miami Speedway, while an eighth-place finish was more than enough for teammate Dario Franchitti to clinch his third championship in four years.

Meanwhile, championship leader Will Power, Team Penske's best driver this year, felt the agony of defeat after brushing the wall with only 65 laps to go. Trying to get by lapped traffic, he brushed the outside wall and damaged his right rear suspension. Power finished a disappointing 25th, completing a 17-point swing in favor of Franchitti this weekend that gave the Scot this year's championship by five points.

Franchitti, however, did not escape drama himself; after falling in the field toward the end of the race, Milka Duno wrecked in front of him very late in the race, which would have caused him to finish either 23rd or 24th and lose the title by under 10 points.

Franchitti, Penske driver Ryan Briscoe, and Andretti Autosport Tony Kanaan dominated the early part of the race, but Dixon, who started second, began to lead laps as the race wore on. While Franchitti led a majority of laps, with 128 out of the 200 spent pacing the field, Dixon took the lead for good with 27 to go and extended a nearly three second lead over second place.

That second step on the podium was occupied by none other than Danica Patrick, who is more than happy to finish a tough 2010 season. Patrick's strong run, combined with a 21st-place finish by Justin Wilson, allowed her to barely sneak into 10th place in points despite a slew of problems and poor finishes this season.

Kanaan managed to take third, with Briscoe fourth and Helio Castroneves fifth.

The top ten in the final championship standings were Franchitti, Power, Dixon, Castroneves, Briscoe, Kanaan, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti, Dan Wheldon, and Patrick.

IndyCar Race Preview: Cafes do Brazil Indy 300

The IZOD IndyCar Series will take the green flag one last time at the Homestead-Miami Speedway tonight for the Cafes do Brazil Indy 300. Besides being the final race of the IndyCar season, it will be the final race of the near future at Homestead, after the longtime open-wheel hosts and the sanctioning body could not come to an agreement for a 2011 event.

As such, expect tonight to be a show of great magnitude, with both sides looking to go out with a bang.

The biggest storyline remains the championship battle between leader Will Power and second place Dario Franchitti, the defending series champ. Franchitti will start on pole alongside his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Scott Dixon. Meanwhile, Power's Team Penske machine will roll off the grid third.

The pole comes with a bonus point, one of three available per weekend. Franchitti came into the race weekend 12 points behind Power, meaning a win after leading the most laps in the race would seal the championship for him no matter what Power does; since first place pays 10 more points than second, even a 1-2 between the two contenders would mean Power would lose the title by a single point.

But neither Power nor his Team Penske teammates are willing to concede the first IndyCar title for owner Roger Penske since 2006 so easily. Teammate Ryan Briscoe paced final practice after qualifying fourth, while Helio Castroneves will attempt to back up wins in the series' past two races with a march to the front from 10th on the grid. Castroneves and Andretti Autosport's Tony Kanaan will actually serve as co-grand marshals of the event, giving the command to start engines from the cockpits of their cars.

Homestead marks the final opportunity of the year for a handful of winless drivers to grab one checkered flag before the season ends. The top seven in points have all won a race, but eighth place Dan Wheldon, ninth place Marco Andretti, 10th place Justin Wilson, and 11th place Danica Patrick are just some of the big names that have not seen victory lane this year. Of them, Wheldon stands the best shot; the three-time Homestead winner (2005-07) and Panther Racing have been achingly close to victory in the past few domestic oval races.

The race will also inevitably mark the final event for a handful of driver-team combinations, as plenty of teams will be looking to move up in the ranks for 2011. The question right now is who will stay and who will go. As recently as last week, Panther and Wheldon were considered the most likely to separate, after two years of mutual frustration and a lawsuit filed for $2.5 million in back wages by Wheldon's management. Now that the suit has been settled, however, Panther owner John Barnes is discussing bringing Wheldon back.

Justin Wilson and his Z-Line Designs sponsorship are a hot commodity, as are the talents of Simona de Silvestro and Graham Rahal. Meanwhile, a handful of Firestone Indy Lights graduates appear ready for the big time in 2011, with Ana Beatriz, James Hinchcliffe, and Sebastian Saavedra likely to attract at least some interest from team owners.

Meanwhile, in the Lights race, Pippa Mann will roll off the grid first. Charlie Kimball will join her on the front row, while series champion Jean-Karl Vernay will start 12th and clinch this year's championship upon taking the green flag.

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.

This Week in IndyCar: September 1, 2010

A collection of news clippings from around the IZOD IndyCar Series over the past few days:

- Graham Rahal and Paul Tracy, viewed by many as the best available IndyCar drivers without full-time rides, have both landed rides for this weekend's Kentucky Indy 300.

Rahal will return to Sarah Fisher Racing and pilot the No. 66 Service Central Dallara-Honda, while Tracy will drive the No. 24 Motegi Wheels Dallara-Honda for Dreyer & Reinbold Racing. They replace a pair of British drivers in Jay Howard (who has struggled all season for SFR) and Mike Conway (who is still recovering from injuries sustained in an Indianapolis 500 crash).

Rahal drove three races earlier this year for SFR in the No. 67 Dollar General Dallara-Honda, with a top-ten finish at St. Petersburg, before running the Indianapolis 500 for his father's Rahal Letterman Racing team and returning to 2009 employer Newman/Haas Racing for the latter part of this season. Kentucky was the only race he was due to miss for the rest of the year. Rahal has responded by scoring more points thus far than full-timers Takuma Sato, Bertrand Baguette, and Milka Duno.

Meanwhile, Tracy ran one race earlier this year for DRR at Watkins Glen, finishing 14th, before posting solid runs at Toronto and Edmonton for KV Racing Technology. Tracy hasn't run on an oval in an open-wheel car since Champ Car ran at Las Vegas in 2005, but he led 107 of the first 128 laps in that event before an accident eliminated him from contention. Tracy will also drive for the team at Motegi, Japan in a couple of weeks and is a candidate to return to the car at Homestead.

- New Hampshire Motor Speedway saw the teams of Tony Kanaan and Scott Dixon appear at the track this week, testing Firestone tires in preparation for the track's August 14 race date next year.

Kanaan tweeted earlier today that he had already done the full race distance before lunchtime and called the tires "great."

The teams used an aerodynamic package similar to the one run at the Milwaukee Mile, which did not make the schedule of any sanctioning body in 2010 due to concerns about outstanding promoters' fees owed to many parties. Milwaukee and New Hampshire are both flat ovals a hair over a mile in distance, making them ideal for IndyCar events. New Hampshire also allows the series to better establish itself in the northeastern market, serving New England, eastern Canada, and New York reasonably well.

IndyCar Race Review: Iowa Corn Indy 250

Tony Kanaan ended a 34-race winless drought and Michael Andretti won his second race of the season after a winless 2009 as the IZOD IndyCar Series finished its first oval segment of the 2010 season with today's Iowa Corn Indy 250.

It was the 15th career open-wheel win for Kanaan, his first since Richmond in 2008, and the first time that the Brazilian did not suffer a race-ending accident in an Iowa event. He led 62 laps, holding the point for the first time since Chicago last year.

It also marked the second race win at Iowa for Andretti Autosport, and their first since the inaugural event in 2007 with Dario Franchitti. However, neither Franchitti nor the other Andretti cars had quite the same amount of success as Kanaan; Franchitti's transmission gave out late in the race, dropping him to 18th, while the other three Andretti cars of Ryan Hunter-Reay (8th), Danica Patrick (10th), and Marco Andretti (15th) fell off the lead lap.

Helio Castroneves held the lead with as few as a dozen laps to go, but Kanaan positioned himself perfectly for the victory, conserving 11 of his 24 allotted overtake assists for the final 11 laps. Castroneves had nine assists remaining, but they were not enough; with each assist lasting about halfway around the 7/8 mile track, Kanaan could run with extra horsepower for about the entire final segment of the race.

Castroneves had encountered issues with Kanaan earlier in the race, coming very close to his countryman on pit road early in the race. Castroneves was stuck between Kanaan and Scott Dixon racing out of the pits, overcorrected to avoid Kanaan's left rear and careened into Dixon, giving both cars a little air. Kanaan also had a pit incident with Hunter-Reay as the American pulled into his pit.

E.J. Viso finished third, salvaging one solid finish for KV Racing Technology. Mario Moraes became a victim of Justin Wilson's turn three spin at the beginning of the event, eliminating one of the three KV cars before anybody could even get into a rhythm. Takuma Sato, in the lead Lotus-sponsored KV car, had a fantastic run going before trailing Alex Lloyd too closely into the turns on lap 177, losing the air off his car, and sliding up into the wall.

Iowa also featured support races that went all the way down the Road to Indy ladder. In Firestone Indy Lights, former Andretti driver Sebastien Saavedra held off his replacement, Martin Plowman, for the victory. Conor Daly led all 100 laps of the Star Mazda race for his fourth consecutive victory in that series, and Sage Karam (also driving for Andretti) won his third US Formula 2000 event of the season.

Bad Luck, Drama Lead To Enthralling Indy Qualifying Weekend

The 33-car field for this year's Indianapolis 500 has been set, and both Pole Day and Bump Day provided the fans with plenty of drama. One former open-wheel champion missed the field, while another barely made it.

Neither of those two, however, were three-time race winner Helio Castroneves. He took the provisional pole on Saturday, dueling with Team Penske teammate Will Power for the top starting spot. Dario Franchitti of Chip Ganassi Racing will start third, completing the first row. All five Penske and Ganassi cars, of course, made the nine-car pole shootout at the end of Pole Day.

The other four to fill out the shootout field, though, were a bit surprising. Alex Tagliani continued his fantastic streak of qualifying for FAZZT Race Team, placing fifth. He'll start in the middle of the second row, between fourth place Ryan Briscoe and sixth place Scott Dixon. The third row contains three shockers, as Graham Rahal, Ed Carpenter, and Hideki Mutoh all turned flying four-lap runs to make it in. Rahal and Carpenter do not have secure futures past next weekend's race, as they are Indy-only programs for Rahal Letterman Racing and Panther Racing, respectively.

The fourth row will be comprised of Townsend Bell, making his season debut; Justin Wilson, who led the four Dreyer & Reinbold Racing cars, all of which qualified on Saturday; and Raphael Matos, who had an outside shot at Indy glory next year. Matos' de Ferran Dragon Motorsports teammate, Davey Hamilton, will start in the middle of the fifth row, between Mario Moraes and Mike Conway. Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay, and Dan Wheldon, all current or former Andretti Autosport drivers, make up the sixth row.

E.J. Viso bounced back from a crash earlier in the week to qualify 19th, in front of Dreyer & Reinbold teammates Tomas Scheckter and Ana Beatriz. Ranking 21st, Beatriz is the highest-starting rookie in the race, as well as the top female. In the latter category, however, Simona de Silvestro and Danica Patrick both qualified immediately behind her. Bertrand Baguette completed the eighth row as the last driver to qualify for the race.

Patrick was widely booed and criticized after her Saturday qualifying run for calling her No. 7 Dallara-Honda "the worst car (she's) ever had." Patrick currently sits 16th in IZOD IndyCar Series points, after five subpar runs to start the season and three poor stock car starts. She's fallen a long way after a fifth-place run in the championship last year that was buoyed by only one DNF.

Among the crashes on Saturday were Takuma Sato in the morning practice session, and Tony Kanaan during his qualifying run. Paul Tracy, Sarah Fisher, and Vitor Meira were among the other big names not to qualify on Pole Day.

Kanaan's weekend had some excess drama on Sunday morning, as he crashed another car in early morning practice. The final nine starting spots were filled early in the day, with Bruno Junqueira, Tagliani's FAZZT teammate, turning a run that would have put him in Saturday's pole shootout. Jay Howard bumped out Sato to hold 31st for much of the day, putting Sebastien Saavedra on the bubble. At 4:00, Kanaan, Sato, Milka Duno, and Jaques Lazier were the four drivers out of the field.

Lazier, to his credit, did a remarkable job for a driver that did not know he would be driving until Sunday morning; A.J. Foyt IV left his grandfather's team after comments critical of the car, and the longtime IndyCar competitor was called down to take over. He turned a 225 mile per hour lap earlier in the day, but aborted his first qualifying run after falling way off Saavedra's pace.

Meanwhile, Kanaan had been desperately seeking stability in his car all weekend. Both accidents during qualifying weekend came after the car snapped around exiting turn one, and during post-qualifying practice he nearly snapped the car around again. Kanaan knew Sunday night that he would not start in the top 10 for the first time since 2002; for much of Sunday, he did not know if he would start at all.

Kanaan received a break when Saavedra crashed in practice just before 5:00, but his laps before that accident weren't even close to Saavedra's four lap average. He and Sato put their cars in the field, while Mario Romancini moved up to 27th by the end of the day.

Paul Tracy and Jay Howard were the unfortunate victims of the two larger teams putting their marquee drivers in the field; both withdrew and attempted to re-qualify, leaving Saavedra on the bubble when he would have been ou of the race. Howard's run at the 6 pm gun, however, was too slow, and Tracy, the 2003 Champ Car champion and 2002 race runner-up, was left waiting in line. Duno and Lazier were also unable to turn qualifying runs fast enough to make the event.

The 33 drivers will now embark on a whirlwind media tour before Sunday's 500-mile race.

Indy 500 Practice Underway

The past two days have seen IZOD IndyCar Series competitors take to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway in early preparations for the 2010 Indianapolis 500. The 94th running of the famed race is set for May 30.

Over the past two days, two Rookie Orientation practices have been held, as well as daily practices for the rest of the field. Among the drivers participating in refresher runs with the rookies on Saturday were Tomas Scheckter, Graham Rahal, and Townsend Bell, who finished 1-2-3 in their practice session and did not have to participate again on Sunday. Series veterans participating on Sunday in the rookie session included A.J. Foyt IV and Davey Hamilton. All five drivers' best laps broke the 41-second mark. The fastest lap of an actual race rookie was turned by Jay Howard on Sunday; his time was 40.397.

Yesterday's full field practice saw 23 drivers in 27 cars, with the best lap of 39.717 seconds set by Helio Castroneves. Castroneves, Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon, and Dan Wheldon are the only drivers to break the 40-second barrier thus far this year at the speedway. All four drivers' best laps were faster than last year's pole speed.

Andretti Autosport driver Tony Kanaan, undoubtedly desperate at this point in his career to finally win at Indy after so many unlucky runs, turned laps in all five of his team's cars. His best lap actually came in the No. 43 Dallara-Honda of John Andretti, a lap good enough for fifth overall. His own No. 11 car turned the sixth best lap. His hot laps in the No. 26, No. 7, and No. 37 were 15th, 16th, and 25th, respectively, all slower than their regular drivers. Marco Andretti placed his No. 26 in eighth, Danica Patrick's best lap in the No. 7 was good for 14th, and Ryan Hunter-Reay's hot lap was good for 22nd.

Among the slowest teams out of the gate were Dale Coyne Racing (Milka Duno 21st, Alex Lloyd 24th) and Dreyer & Reinbold Racing (Mike Conway 23rd, Justin Wilson 26th). For DRR, Scheckter's lap in rookie practice was actually faster than the bests of either of their full-time drivers. Paul Tracy, in his first IndyCar run of the season, brought up the rear of the field, but in a testament to how close the racing will be this year, was less than a second away from the top five. In fact, fifth place through 20th place all had fastest laps within half a second of one another.

Though Pole Day doesn't come until next weekend, when the weather may be drastically different and some teams may have found an extra edge, the first practice sessions suggest that getting into this year's Indy 500 may be the toughest field to crack in years. We should know more about who's going to be in safely and who's going to need an extra push on bump day with further practices this weekend.

IndyCar Race Review: Road Runner Turbo Indy 300

Last year, Chip Ganassi Racing won two of the first three races of the IZOD IndyCar Series season, on its way to dominance of the series' oval races and a second consecutive championship. This year, however, Ganassi came out of the gate slowly, failing to win any of the four road course races in the first quarter of the season. Meanwhile, key rival Team Penske won three of four.

Today at Kansas, however, Ganassi began to return to form.

Scott Dixon, who would have won the series' oval championship had it been awarded last year, took his first victory of the season in the Road Runner Turbo Indy 300. Teammate Dario Franchitti contributed to a 1-2 sweep for sponsor Target and owner Chip Ganassi. Tony Kanaan passed Penske's Helio Castroneves for third.

Penske driver Ryan Briscoe won the pole and led 31 laps, but fell to sixth at the checkered flag, the last driver on the lead lap. Dixon dominated the majority of the race, leading 167 laps after starting alongside Briscoe on Row 1. Franchitti, the only other driver to lead in the 200-lap event, led the remaining two laps.

Ryan Hunter-Reay, the winner at Long Beach and looking to sponsorship to help him complete the season, made yet another strong case for continued employment. He finished 5th after starting all the way back in 22nd.

Among the drivers with surprising top-ten runs are seventh place Mario Moraes, eighth place Alex Tagliani, and ninth place John Andretti. Moraes, picking up where he left off last season, passed Tagliani on the last lap. Andretti ran his first open-wheel race other than the Indianapolis 500 in nearly two decades, and improved eight spots from his qualifying position.

IndyCar Race Preview: Sao Paulo Indy 300

The first IZOD IndyCar Series race of the season takes place south of the border - way, way south - on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the first annual Sao Paulo Indy 300. It will be the first American open-wheel race in Brazil since CART ran on the Emerson Fittipaldi Speedway from 1996 to 2000. It will also be the first street course race for IndyCar outside of North America since the non-points event in Surfers Paradise, Australia, at the end of 2008.

The new track has posed problems for the whole field, with the narrow concrete frontstretch causing most cars to fishtail and a handful of drivers slapping the wall elsewhere on the track. Scott Dixon led the field in final practice, with Ryan Briscoe and Tony Kanaan not far behind. The biggest surprise of the session was Alex Tagliani, with a brand new team, in fifth. Drivers that had problems on the track included Briscoe, Bia Figuereido, Hideki Mutoh, and Danica Patrick.

Qualifying was eventually postponed until the morning of the race at 7:25 AM EST, replaced on Saturday by another practice session as teams and the series tried to figure out what to do about the concrete surface.

Adding to the challenge, the forecast calls for potential rain on race day. Add up all these variables on a new track, and nobody knows quite what to expect for this year's season opener.

The field contains seven Brazilians, almost all of whom are racing IndyCars in their native country for the first time. Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves had three starts at Fittipaldi apiece; Kanaan's best finish was fifth in 1999, while Castroneves never finished better than 23rd in his native country.

Dixon has been fast in every practice session, pacing the field in the intended final practice session and leading inthe early stages of the extra session. Kanaan, too, has been quick, despite trashing the quality of the track to the Brazilian media. These two should lead the fight for victory come Sunday.

As for a dark horse, street course ace Alex Tagliani has shown great speed in practice despite coming to the track with the startup FAZZT Race Team. Keep in mind that Tagliani almost won last year's race on the streets of Toronto, leading 21 of 85 laps. The new team also features some experienced personnel, including longtime Walker Racing team manager Rob Edwards.

IndyCar Season Preview: Andretti Autosport

Last year, Andretti Green Racing suffered through its worst season since joining the IZOD IndyCar Series, at least as far as the victory column goes. No Andretti driver won a race for the first time in the team's IndyCar history.

It wasn't all doom and gloom in the Andretti pit, however, as Danica Patrick had her best career season to date, finishing 5th in points (best of the non-Ganassi or Penske drivers) with only one DNF at the start of the season. Patrick thus enters this year with the longest running at the finish streak of anybody on the circuit.

Marco Andretti also had a solid year, finishing eighth in points while only failing to finish two races, exhibiting a consistency he had not shown since his 2006 rookie year. The son of team owner Michael Andretti scored two top fives and 11 top-10s, scoring 380 points, a career best.

All told, the four Andretti cars scored five podium finishes (all third places), 16 top fives, and 39 top-10s over the course of the season.

But that wasn't good enough for Andretti Green, which also promoted the races in St. Petersburg and Toronto. Offseason shuffling saw Andretti take over the race team, while former partners Kim Green and Kevin Savoree split from the team to take over the race promotion side of the business. Both sides hope that the result will be greater success in 2010.

Unfortunately, the Andretti cars weren't too fast in the season-opening test sessions. No Andretti car fared better than eighth, which Andretti did in the first and third sessions and Tony Kanaan accomplished in the second. Patrick lagged toward the rear of the field in all three, perhaps still adjusting from her recent stock-car tribulations. New teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay improved in every session, but only had a 14th-place car in the third session to show for his efforts.

While this suggests that a lot of other teams may be faster than the Andretti cars, it is important to note that Andretti cars are normally stronger on the ovals. The last time an Andretti car won a road course race was when Kanaan took the checkers at Detroit in late 2007. Before that, Marco scored his only career victory thus far at Sonoma in late 2006.

Andretti looks to maintain its status as "best of the rest" in 2010, but if the team doesn't step up and start winning some races this year, we may see Patrick bolt to stock cars for good. They have the potential to run well, but have been underachieving greatly the past couple of years, a far cry from their heyday in the mid-2000s.

IndyCar Programming Begins on Versus

Versus, the lead television partner of the IZOD IndyCar Series, begins its programming rush for the 2010 season today with two programs. The first, "Danica's Decade," begins at 2PM EST, followed by "Inside the 2010 IndyCar Series" at 3PM.

"Danica's Decade" spotlights the first five full-time seasons of Danica Patrick in IndyCar, detailing the ups and downs of a career spanning 81 races. From her pit road incidents, to her dust-ups with other drivers from Dan Wheldon to Milka Duno, to her lone career victory in Japan, the program helps prime fans for the American's 2010 season.

"Inside the 2010 IndyCar Season" contains features on Patrick, Andretti Autosport teammate Tony Kanaan, 2009 Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, and defending series champion Dario Franchitti. It helps prepare fans for the start of the season in Brazil next weekend. Versus pit reporter Lindy Thackston hosts.