NASCAR Canadian Tire Series qualifying was sensational, with teammates Andrew Ranger, defending series champion, and rookie Alex Tagliani starting together on the front row! Last year Ranger led a phenomenal race until the last lap, having driven the tires off his Ford. Like Ranger, Tagliani has done well at this track in much faster machinery, but the twisty rhythm sections demand absolute finesse in a heavy stock car.
Jonathan Bomarito won a competitive first race of the Atlantic Championship double-header. Bomarito trailed polesitter James Hinchcliffe for most of the race, followed closely by Markus Niemela and Star Mazda champion Dane Cameron. Bomarito pressured Hinch into making a mistake and overtook, Niemela following into second place. All the Canadians - Hinchcliffe, Daniel Morad and Walker Racing's Kevin Lacroix - ended in the top 10. Greg and Leo Mansell are Lacroix's teammates and are completely pants.
Indycar qualifying was outstanding. Paul Tracy would have made it into the fast 6 of his group if he'd had one more lap - as it was he kept going after the chequered flew, and the announcers thought he made it to the next round for a moment. The crowd went wild and then groaned as it was announced he hadn't beat the clock. Knockout qualifying is a blast, except if you're in Marty Roth's group. Roth held up almost every car at one point.
Merchandise selection here is piss-poor. Last year Champ Car had tons of shirts, hats, visors, bags, flags, you name it. Crew shirts that were going for $150 sold out. There was driver-specific merchandise for Bourdais, Rahal, Wilson, Legge, Tagliani, Doornbos, Neel Jani for god's sake. Here? Danica and Helio. That's it. It's pathetic. On track things are better, but there are some presentation pointers the IRL folks could stand to listen to.
The Grid for this evening's race:
Fast Six By Firestone
1. Ryan Briscoe (6) 1:00.7311
2. Helio Castroneves (3) 1:00.8360
3. Oriol Servia (5) 1:00.8584
4. Scott Dixon (9) 1:00.8585
5. Will Power (8) 1:01.0154
6. Justin Wilson (02) -0.0001
7. Bruno Junqueira (18) 1:01.2991
8. Graham Rahal (06) 1:01.4573
9. Dan Wheldon (10) 1:01.6656
10. Mario Moraes (19) 1:01.7552
11. Enrique Bernoldi (36) 1:02.0227
12. Marco Andretti (26) 1:02.2991
13. Ryan Hunter-Reay (17) 1:02.1039
14. Danica Patrick (7) 1:02.4171
15. Paul Tracy (22) 1:02.2387
16. Vitor Meira (4) 1:02.4907
17. A.J. Foyt IV (2) 1:03.1346
18. Darren Manning (14) 1:02.6644
19. Mario Dominguez (96) 1:03.1359
20. E.J. Viso (33) 1:02.9242
21. Hideki Mutoh (27) 1:03.8100
22. Buddy Rice (15) 1:03.4276
23. Ed Carpenter (20) 1:03.8825
24. Townsend Bell (23) 1:03.6396
25. Marty Roth (25) 1:09.0498
26. Jaime Camara (34) 1:03.8572
27. Tony Kanaan (11) -0.0001
So Kanaan starts from the back and Paul Tracy misjudged his final qualifying run. Oh well, we'll just have to watch them charge into the top 10, that's a shame. Unfortunately there is little room for error here and the chances of the races being truncated, ruined or delivering an unlikely winner are very high. On saying that it is a wonderful track and it's making me miss Cleveland even more this season.
Enjoy the race.
- The Commish
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