The Official Blog of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Don't Hassel The Hoff

Television ratings and attendance for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series continue to drop, and the series heads this weekend to one of its few flops as a new race market, Los Angeles. Then again, Tinseltown is the worst pro sports market in America, so is anyone surprised?

But never fear, a solution to NASCAR’s woes is here, courtesy of Auto Club Speedway: THE HOFF.

David Hasselhoff, famous from “Knight Rider” and “Baywatch,” being booted after the first round of “Dancing With The Stars” and one of the most legendary videos ever on YouTube, is singing the national anthem before the Nationwide Series race Saturday at the track.

BOOM goes the dynamite! NASCAR’s problems are solved thanks to The Hoff. Remember, he’s huge in Germany.

The Nationwide race at California also will be significant because it will the first of six consecutive Nationwide races for Danica Patrick, with no IZOD IndyCar Series race commitments. The stretch will mark her first back-to-back races in the series since February and March.

Aftershocks from the off-track soap operas so far during the Chase still will be felt this weekend in Southern California. Jim Pedley of RacinToday.com thinks the affair over Clint Bowyer’s car and NASCAR’s subsequent double-denial of Richard Childress Racing’s appeal have put a damper on the Chase.

Gentleman Jim has a point: Is anyone talking about the racing during this Chase? Well, maybe if the racing involves wrecking.

The racing Richter scale continues to chatter over the Carmageddon bump-and-runs between Chaser Kyle Busch and non-Chaser David Reutimann last weekend at Kansas. Rootie is unrepentant, and Kyle’s brother, Kurt Busch, has entered the fray by saying non-Chasers should keep their heads when racing around drivers participating in NASCAR’s postseason.

That’s fine, Kurt. But Chasers also should treat non-Chasers as more than speed bumps or bumper car crash-test dummies. Your little bro Rowdy never has received that message and probably never will.

Meanwhile, that Bearded Man of Mystery is back in the points lead heading to his home track, a place where he normally puts the boot into the behind of his rivals. Then again, if Jimmie wins this weekend at California and extends his points lead, fans will yelp that the Chase is boring, needs changing and is responsible for their shrinking 401K despite eight of the 12 Chase drivers being within 85 points of the lead entering this weekend.

NASCAR can’t win. Yet the racing has been pretty good.

It usually takes awhile for Silly Season to crank up in the IZOD IndyCar Series. But this year is different. Announcements and rumors — good and bad — are flying like Justin Bieber dolls will off shelves this Christmas shopping season.

First, the good. Simona De Silvestro may not have won the Rookie of Year title this year — Alex Lloyd did — but she easily was the most pleasant and talented surprise in the series in 2010. She’ll stay at HVM Racing for the 2011 season.

KV Racing Technology is helping a new team, SH Racing, field a one-car entry for the 2011 Indianapolis 500. No driver has been named, but a sponsor, REDLINE Extreme energy drink, is lined up.

Is it just me, or are energy drinks the new dot.com’s of the racing sponsorship world? Let’s hope the long-term viability of those fizzy, yellow drinks to pay the bills is better than the Internet firms that sprouted and disappeared like crabgrass about 10 years ago.

Two-time American Le Mans Series champions Highcroft Racing aim to run a limited IZOD IndyCar Series schedule in 2011, with an eye on a full-season ride for 2012. Highcroft and team owner Duncan Dayton are the real deal, so this team looks like a solid prospect for IndyCar in the future.

Now for the bad news, and it continues to swirl around one team – Andretti Autosport.

Just a few days after AA announced Tony Kanaan was free to look for a ride with another team because primary sponsor 7-Eleven wasn’t returning in 2011, Michael Andretti’s team announced it needs a primary sponsor for Ryan Hunter-Reay. Series sponsor IZOD picked up RHR’s tab in 2010. AA officials have indicated one company already has made an offer as a primary sponsor, so that’s a proverbial silver lining.

It should be one of the more active Silly Seasons in recent IndyCar memory. VERSUS IndyCar announcer Jack Arute offers his opinions on what might happen.

And speaking of silly, ’tis the season for a good highlight reel of IZOD IndyCar Series bloopers.

MotoGP continues its Asian tour this weekend with the Grand Prix of Malaysia. 2010 Red Bull Indianapolis GP winner Dani Pedrosa will miss his second consecutive race with a broken collarbone suffered last weekend in practice at Motegi, so Jorge Lorenzo only needs to finish ninth or better to clinch his first World Championship.

Put the mortgage on it. Jorge’s worst finish this season is fourth, twice. He’s been on the podium at every other race.

One of those fourth-place finishes for Lorenzo came after an epic battle with Fiat Yamaha teammate Valentino Rossi last weekend at Motegi. The Doctor and Jorge aren’t on each others’ Christmas card lists, and Rossi has no regrets about racing Lorenzo hammer and tongs over the final laps.

And why should he? Rossi may be a happy-go-lucky guy off the bike, but he’s an assassin on it. Plus that battle sent a clear message to Lorenzo: You don’t own me, kid.

Beating Lorenzo must have done wonders for Rossi’s ailing shoulder, as he’s leaning toward finishing the entire season with Yamaha instead of skipping the last two rounds, at Estoril, Portugal and Valencia, Spain, for shoulder surgery.

Then again, Rossi is a master of mind games. Maybe he’s just trying to butter up Yamaha to let him test his new Ducati ride for 2011 the day after the season finale at Valencia.

Rossi’s replacement for 2011 at Yamaha, American rookie phenom Ben Spies, did an interesting video interview with OnTheThrottle. Check it out in two parts here.

Formula One and its raging championship battle are back in action this weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, one of the world’s greatest tracks. But all eyes in F1 remain on Japan’s neighbor to the west, Korea, where the inaugural Korean Grand Prix remains in doubt for Oct. 22-24.

The final layer of asphalt is being paved for the race, and the FIA’s Charlie Whiting is supposed to inspect the circuit Monday. But even if the track passes muster, this race is a disaster in waiting. Come on: Just two weeks for the asphalt to cure?

Yet despite this joke of a race, F1 continues to look east to banana republics as proper spots for races while ignoring places with history, tradition and completed infrastructure like Imola, Magny-Cours and … Indianapolis. Thailand is the next target. At this rate, more than half of the races in the World Championship will take place in the Middle East or Asia, where dictators, despots and oil barons are more than willing to play Bernie Ecclestone’s financial parlor games.

Syracuse, N.Y., is a far distance from Thailand or Suzuka, and the Syracuse Mile doesn’t have the infrastructure of any of Bernie’s speed palaces. It doesn’t have a pavement problem, either, because there is no pavement.

But the Moody Mile is playing host again to one of the most balls-out racing events anywhere on Earth, Super DIRT Week. The SEF Small Engine Fuels 200 this Sunday is the showcase event, the Super Bowl for dirt modifieds. Much like the Knoxville Nationals for sprint cars, it’s roots racing at its hardest, purest and finest.

Sorry for the late-evening version of Splash And Go, but I had to wait for the first practice results from Motegi. They’re in, and Will Power is on top of the time chart. His closest pursuer in the points, Dario Franchitti, was sixth.

It’s a strong statement of intent by Power, but it’s not like the guy has looked shabby at recent oval races at Chicagoland and Kentucky. Still, John Oreovicz of ESPN.com makes a really good point about Will: He’s never raced on the asphalt egg at Twin Ring Motegi.

Still, I think it’s only a matter of time until he earns his first oval victory in the IZOD IndyCar Series for Team Penske. Dario just hopes that time is next year.

I was stunned when I first saw the time sheet and noticed Takuma Sato was at the bottom, even beneath Milka Duno. Say it ain’t so at your home motor dojo, Taku-san. But then I read where Taku crashed after an oil line failure splurted oil on the tires, causing Sato to spin.

Good thing Taku is OK. It’s pretty safe to say that normal order will be restored, with Milka in the caboose. But you have to feel for Sato in front of his home crowd. And do you think KV Racing Technology has gold card credit status with Dallara for chassis repair yet this season?

While practice is underway at Motegi, it’s not too late to check out this humorous preview of the race at Pop Off Valve.

She's still an elite race driver, ladies and gents

Tony Johns of Pop Off Valve also takes on the white elephant in the room with the IZOD IndyCar Series, the future racing intent of 5-2, 100-pound Danica Patrick. Tony thinks IndyCar doesn’t need Danica anymore.

Sorry, Tony, but I beg to differ. Danica is the most popular driver in the series, has attracted countless fans of both genders to IndyCar and is a magnet for attention, good and bad. No one can force her to stay in the series if she wants to run NASCAR full time after her contract expires with Andretti Autosport, but to say the series doesn’t need her? That’s a big step off a very narrow ledge.

Johns brings up Danica’s relative lack of success — one victory in nearly six full seasons of IZOD IndyCar Series racing — and says her results don’t match her hype. Well, the stats don’t match the buzz for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in NASCAR Sprint Cup, either, but he remains the most popular driver in that series by about six ZIP codes.

Sports is a personality-driven entertainment business now. People follow personalities more than results. But results are still a factor, and Danica gets it done at the biggest race in the world, the Indianapolis 500. Five top-eight finishes in six career starts at the Brickyard. ‘Nuff said. She’s a plus for the series. Period.

On a final IndyCar note, it’s really heartening to see that Mike Conway is almost ready to climb back into the cockpit. This boggles my mind considering the ferocity of Mike’s wreck at Indy, but he’s trying to beat the clock to return to his Dreyer & Reinbold seat for the season finale Oct. 2 at Homestead. Dude’s a racer – what else can you say?

Hey, did you know the Chase starts this Sunday? THE CHASE! THE CHASE! I’m starting to sound like Herve Villechaize calling for the plane on “Fantasy Island.”

The always excellent Dustin Long analyzes what each of the 12 Chase drivers needs to do to hoist the big silver mug at Homestead. Mike Mulhern also takes a really interesting look at how a strong, candid relationship between drivers and crew chiefs, especially when the driver is a bubbling young volcano like Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, is vital during the Chase.

Mike Hembree at SPEEDtv.com wrote an interesting piece stating that sleepy, small Loudon is an odd place to conduct the first race of NASCAR’s postseason.

New England is a stronger racing bastion than one might think, and Nor’easter fans go especially nuts for the superb NASCAR Modified Tour, the most exciting division in NASCAR, in my opinion. But New England also is a pro stick-and-ball haven, with the Patriots, Celtics and Red Sox Nation inhaling most of the available media oxygen.

Still, that’s not stopping track president Jerry Gappens from beating the drum. Jerry is an Indiana native, so racing is in his veins. He also worked for the legendary promoter Humpy Wheeler at Charlotte Motor Speedway, so the guy clearly knows how to sell and connect with fans.

The new Grand Prix of Aragon is underway in MotoGP, and the Motorland Aragon is one trippy racetrack, as this photo feature at motomatters.com shows. There are so many blind entrances to corners that I think Ray Charles and Jose Feliciano designed the circuit.

Dani Pedrosa was quickest overall as MotoGP returned to two Friday practice sessions. Pedrosa has been en fuego since Indianapolis and was rewarded with a new two-year deal with Honda. It will be very interesting to see how the notoriously fickle Pedrosa and his attack-dog manager, Alberto Puig, get along with Australian hard-ass and sometimes chronic complainer Casey Stoner next season in the Repsol Honda garage. Expect little love lost between the two.

James Toseland: Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, baby

Speaking of unloved men in motorcycle racing, it seems like James Toseland has alienated another teammate. American Colin Edwards couldn’t stand Toseland after Toseland orchestrated a swap of his crew chief with Edwards’ before the start of the 2009 MotoGP season. The Texas Tornado got the last laugh, as he clicked better with his new crew chief, Guy Coulon, and kicked Toseland’s ass so thoroughly that the Brit lost his ride and dropped back to World Superbike.

Well, it appears that Toseland’s WSBK teammate, fellow Brit Cal Crutchlow, also doesn’t have Toseland on his Christmas card list this year, either. Crutchlow was asked if he sought Toseland’s advice on MotoGP in advance of jumping to MotoGP in 2011 with Toseland’s old team, Monster Yamaha Tech 3. Crutchlow dropped a hammer on Toseland with his answer!

I sure hope Edwards remains at Monster Yamaha Tech 3 next season. The verbal volleys coming from that garage will look like Volkswagen Beetle-sized shells being fired from the USS Missouri.

In a very classy move Thursday, Moto2 points leader Toni Elias suggested in the pre-event press conference at Aragon that the Michel Metraux Trophy, presented to the best privateer rider of the season in the Moto2 class, should be presented to Shoya Tomizawa, who was killed in a Moto2 racing crash Sept. 5 at Misano.

The trophy is awarded based on a vote of the Moto2 riders, and they unanimously agreed to posthumously award the Metraux Trophy to Tomi.  A very proper gesture from a solid, tight community of racers.

Formula One is off this weekend, but the news and rumors never stop in the “pinnacle of motorsport,” as Nigel Mansell used to call it.

Joe Saward writes that it makes little sense for Renault to dance with Kimi Raikkonen despite reports that the Kimster and the French team are courting for 2011. Joe also throws cold water on the rumors that Lotus will switch to Toyota engines, instead writing that the shadow of the once-colossus fronted by Colin Chapman and Jim Clark will switch to Renault engines in 2011.

Sorry, but if a Cosworth DFV isn’t in the back, it’s not a real Lotus regardless of the paint job or team name.

Finally, Michael Schumacher is excited about the first night race of his career at Singapore on Sept. 26. Be careful what you wish for, Weltmeister: The spotlights of Singapore only will more brightly illuminate both the decline of your career and a possibly ham-fisted, lethal attempt by you to stuff a faster driver into the numerous concrete barriers of the street circuit.

Donald Davidson

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Historian Donald Davidson has been the expert on the history of the Racing Capital of the World since he arrived in Central Indiana in the mid-1960s. Now 2010 Auto Racing Hall of Fame inductee Davidson is answering your questions periodically in this blog!

Q: I would like to know what was the official Pace Car for the 1930 Indianapolis 500 – if there was any Pace Car.
—Bernard Boucher

A: Indeed there was a Pace Car in 1930, just as there has been for every “500″ since the inaugural in 1911. In fact, while the concept may have been employed previously at minor motorized events – a holdover from bicycle racing – it is believed that the 1911 “500″ was the first major event anywhere in the world at which a passenger car was used to lead the field around to the flagman for a mass rolling start. The 1930 Pace Car was a beautiful L-29 Cord, driven by Wade Morton, a former driver (he shared Phil Shafer’s third-placed Duesenberg in the 1925 “500″) who had an association with Cord.

Q: What was the last year that Ray Harroun came to the race?
—David J. Blythe

A: We believe the iconic 1911 winner was coming virtually until the end of his life, although his last few visits were mostly without fanfare. Passing away on Jan. 19, 1968, exactly one week after his 89th birthday, he lived his final years in a trailer court on the south side of Anderson, Ind. On the morning of the 1961 race, at the age of 82, he marked the 50th anniversary of his legendary win by driving a ceremonial lap of honor in the very Marmon “Wasp” which had carried him to victory. Typically, his wife would drive him down from Anderson, usually on the first day of qualifications, and they would park in the infield as close to the fence as they could get. He remained an engineer and innovator to the end. We wonder how many of the neighboring revelers realized the identity of the elderly, professor-like gentleman who was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, marveling as Parnelli Jones qualified the turbine.

Click here to ask your questions to Donald about the people and races that have formed a century of rich history at IMS. Include your complete name and city and state/country of residence.

Send us your questions, and keep your eyes on this blog for answers to selected questions from Donald!

Despite having 25 races in the books this season, much of the talk surrounding the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series remains focused on nearly everything but racing. Voices in the media, blogosphere and fan universe continue to debate, bleat and wring hands about the perceived “problems” of the sport, which still remains the most popular form of motorsport in America.

One of the topics of discussion has been the stagnant TV ratings for the Sprint Cup Series. Two interesting solutions have been floated by bloggers this week. Bob Margolis at Sledgehammer proposes NFL-style blackouts in local markets where races aren’t sold out, while Patrick Reynolds at All Left Turns thinks weeknight races — similar to “Monday Night Football” or “Thursday Night Football” — can revive ratings.

I’m not sold on the blackout concept. TV coverage fueled NASCAR’s explosive growth in the 90s and 00s. Races were sold out coast-to-coast seven or eight years ago despite network coverage. And fans have to come to expect wall-to-wall TV coverage of every Sprint Cup race, so I don’t think taking from the customer would be a positive.

Home-market blackouts have been a fact of life in the NFL for a long time, well before saturation coverage became the norm on TV. But it’s different with NASCAR. I think it would go over like flatulence at Mass.

Weeknight races? Another mixed bag. One, it would be tough to attract fans to a weeknight show, especially those who must work the next day. Many fans travel hundreds of miles to attend a Cup show, and it would be tough to ask them to drive home all night to ensure they clock in on time for work the next morning.

Plus there’s also the issue of race lengths. If a weeknight show started at 8 p.m. Eastern time, it probably wouldn’t end until close to midnight. That would cut into “SportsCenter” if the race was on ESPN or local news — which generates beaucoup advertising bucks for local affiliates — if the race was on FOX.

Maybe it would work if Sprint Cup races were shorter, which I think is long overdue. But it’s a tricky proposition.

Another NASCAR issue that has spurred plenty of conversation this year is the sanctioning body’s edict of “Boys, have at it” in regards to aggressive, full-contact racing. Some drivers who are active users of social media, such as Denny Hamlin, also interpreted that maxim to apply to Twitter. And that belief bit Hamlin in the posterior earlier this season when he was fined for posting comments on his Twitter feed that NASCAR didn’t like.

Blogger Bill Daly believes that decision by NASCAR has placed a veil of silence on Twitter among drivers. I can see both sides of this issue. Drivers are independent contractors working for race teams and feel like they should be able to speak their minds. But NASCAR also is the sanctioning body that provides the sandbox in which they play every week, so it also should have some control.

A tricky situation. Wasn’t life simpler when all we had were newspapers, TV, radio and static websites? You know, the old days of five years ago?

That Rowdy Busch kid

Bruce Martin at SI.com also has a panacea for what supposedly ails NASCAR, and it isn’t a clever TV scheduling tactic or a social media policy. It actually deals with a live human being named Kyle Busch. Bruce thinks NASCAR would get a huge shot in the arm if Rowdy won the Sprint Cup this season.

I agree. Love him or hate him, Shrub evokes emotion unlike any other Cup driver. And emotion is what fuels all of our passions.

And the Gluckometer shows that no one in NASCAR stirred more passion during driver introductions last Sunday night in Atlanta than young Kyle Busch, even if it was 89.3 decibels of boos.

By the way, do you really think Jeff Gluck carries a decibel meter to Cup shows? Man, that’s dedication. Or is there an iPhone app for that?

Emotion continues to fill the MotoGP paddock after the deaths of Peter Lenz and Shoya Tomizawa on consecutive weekends. And few riders are dealing with more emotion now than Moto2 rookie standout Scott Redding, who was involved in the fatal accident with Tomizawa. Redding is trying to cope with the loss of Tomi before remounting his bike for the Grand Prix of Aragon on Sept. 19.

Not an easy task. Best wishes to both Redding and Alex De Angelis, the other rider involved in the accident.

In IZOD IndyCar land, the announcement of the 2011 schedule Friday in Milwaukee continues to be the main topic of conversation. More Front Wing takes its best guess at the 2011 schedule in a post that also includes its latest podcast. The podcast is a solid listen, if a touch long at 68 minutes. I’m a firm believer that no podcast without guests should be more than 45 minutes, but probably that’s just me. Good work, as always, from Paul and Steph.

Nearly all of this blog, like seemingly more and more of the news from the racing world these days, deals with business and off-track incidents and episodes. So it’s time to finish up today’s “Splash And Go” with a reminder of why we love racing, why we still have the FEE-VAH.

Motor Sport Magazine recently ran two pieces about two iconic European circuits, Monza and Donington Park. Rob Widdows’ blog about Monza describes why it’s a must-visit for any racing fan, like Indianapolis one of the true temples of worldwide motorsport. And Andrew Frankel wrote about how Donington — one of my favorite tracks in the world – is being resurrected after it was emasculated in the intent of staging the British Grand Prix before Bernie Ecclestone pulled the race back to Silverstone.

Both circuits have a soul, a petrol-fueled pulse, that no Tilkedrome can replicate. If you’ve been at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on a quiet day around sunset, you know what I mean. You look at the Turn 1 grandstands in the shadows of twilight, and you can just feel and hear the ghosts.

It’s a goosebump-bulging feeling from a spine-tingling place.

The GT Vodka Chevrolet driven by Greg Sacks earlier this month in the Nationwide Series race at Daytona.

In the early 1980s, Greg Sacks was the terror of the East Coast open wheel modified circuit.

In 1982, his team entered 38 races and won 28, including two stretches of 11 in a row. And they were big shows, not local bullrings.

Sacks had an eye on the Indianapolis 500. He visited the track on Pole Day in 1989.

“I went as a guest of UNO, said Sacks, 57, from his Port Orange, Fla., offices. “Through Al Unser, I got the opportunity to drive the Pace Car for a lap, which was very, very cool. I also had the opportunity to be down on pit road with Davy Jones when he qualified. It was such an overwhelming experience, even as a racer.”

He had a nibble, but the timing and circumstances just weren’t right.

“A friend of mine at U.S. Tobacco put me in touch with a guy who worked for Pat Patrick,” Sacks said. “I was looking for a sponsor for a Winston Cup team, and he called back and asked if I’d like to compete in the ‘500’ in one of Pat Patrick’s cars. There wasn’t an actual offer, so I don’t know, but we had made a family investment in the stock car series and I decided to pursue the higher levels of NASCAR.

“As I look back, I’d loved to drive one of those cars.”

It turned out that he made Indy a different way, one of the drivers who made the field for the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994. He finished 18^th that day after starting 13^th and competed in the Brickyard 400 three other times.

“I was driving for D.K. Ulrich in the Jasper Motorsports USA Ford #77,” he said. “I was lucky enough to do the tire tests that year. During those tests, we had telemetry on the cars and that helped me get around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The most important thing I had to learn was not to focus on the highest speed I reached but the lowest speed going through the turns. It was a huge factor getting the turn speed up.

“It’s such a technical track. It’s different than many of the tracks I had driven. You had to hit your marks with such precision. Everything is dictated by the move prior to it.”

Race Day had him in awe.

“It was a little surreal,” he said. “You feel like you’re walking 3 feet off the ground. The admiration of the fans puts you on a different level. You feel so lucky to be part of something so special. The photos with Mrs. Hulman on the Yard of Bricks. I led a couple laps that day and still have those checks.”

Today, he is in a different business. Sacks’ company unveiled Grand Touring Vodka at Daytona earlier this month, will sponsor the Nationwide car driven by Aric Almirola this weekend and in six weeks, figures to be in 26 states.

“We’re the official vodka at both Daytona and Homestead,” he said. “It gives me the opportunity to stay involved in motorsports.

“And I wouldn’t rule out a ride at the Brickyard.”