Trackside With Cavin & Kevin

Tonight on the show Cavin & Kevin will speak with posssible 2009 Conqust driver Alex Tagliani, Rahal Letterman Racing’s Ryan Hunter-Reay, and the IRL VP of Development and Marketing John Lewis.  The Show will have a new air time for the rest of the season, with a start time of 8pm est., but will still go the full 2 hours.  The show can be heard in Central Indiana on 1070 AM or through out the world on 1070thefan.com. They will also be excepting E-mail qustions (kevin@1070thefan.com) or phone calls (317-239-1070).

OOOOOPS

Not a lot to report on today, So check out this hilarious video.

(Gotta have the sound on)

Home Sweet Home

Power will start on Pole for the Nikon Indy 300 slated to air at 10:30 ET Saturday night on ESPN classic.  The rest of the starting field will line up like this:

1. Power
2. Dixon
3. Briscoe
4. Franchitti
5. Hunter-Reay
6. Castroneves
7. Tagliani
8. Kanaan
9. Wilson
10. Viso
11. Meira
12. Moraes
13. Rahal
14. Andretti
15. Servia
16. Mutoh
17. Junqueira
18. Wheldon
19. Carpenter
20. Camara
21. Bell
22. Rice
23. Patrick
24. Foyt IV

Surfers Practice

(Photo by: Indycar Series Media)

Check out Wheldon in the background.

–> Will Power comments on the day <–

Audio courtesy of Bam Media

The run down of Sufers Practice Day 1:

        1st Session          

1. Will Power                (1st 2nd session)
2. Justin Wilson            (6th 2nd session)
3. Dario Franchitti        (3rd 2nd session)
4. Scott Dixon              (7th 2nd session)
5. Alex Tagliani            (13th 2nd session)
6. Tony Kanaan             (10th 2nd session)
7. Bruno Junqueira        (11th 2nd session)
8. Oriol Servia               (4th 2nd session)
9. Ryan Briscoe             (9th 2nd session)
10. Graham Rahal           (5th 2nd session)
11. Helio Castroneves    (2nd 2nd session)
12. EJ Viso                      (15th 2nd session)
13. Mario Moraes            (12th 2nd session)
14. Ryan Hunter-Reay     (8th 2nd session)
15. Hideki Mutoh            (14th 2nd session)
16. Vitor Meira                (17th 2nd session)
17. AJ Foyt IV                  (16th 2nd session)
18. Marco Andretti          (19th 2nd session
19. Buddy Rice                (22nd 2nd session
20. Dan Wheldon            (18th 2nd session)
21. Danica Patrick          (20th 2nd session)
22. Townsend Bell          (24th 2nd session)
23. Jaime Camara           (21st 2nd session)
24. Ed Carpenter            (23rd 2nd session)

Places 1-24 are seperated by 6.6692 seconds on there best laps.

Bourdais Back To America?

An article up by Speed Tv, leaves the possability of Sebastian Bourdais returning to the U.S.

• The German magazine also reports that Bourdais is only prepared to wait until the end of this month for Toro Rosso chiefs to sign him up for 2009. Should he not find a job in F1 for next year, he is lining up options to return to the American scene.

  “For sure, there are some options but for now the target is to stay here,” Bourdais confirmed.

Although there is a chance of Bourdais returning, I just dont see it happening, atleast not to the IRL, especially after this quote from a few years ago:

• “As soon as you start travelling between walls at 300kph plus and you’re going to have an impact that you’re pretty sure is going to break your back then that is something that is just too daunting,” says Bourdais.“I did it in Indy and I felt like a survivor after the race, especially since my team-mate [Junqueira] broke his back, and yeah it’s obviously something you double think.

  “I talked about it with Claire [Sébastien's wife] and we didn’t feel like it was smart thing, when you’re expecting a baby and everything, to finish in a wheel-chair at best if it goes wrong: that’s not something I’m really too keen on. Obviously Formula One is very dangerous as well, but you don’t need to push it to the extreme and take unnecessary chances.”

 

While Danica and Marco were hanging out by the pool, several other drivers spent the days before the Nikon Indy 300 hanging out in other ways.
Ryan Hunter-Reay, Ed Carpenter and A.J. Foyt IV were joined by off-road racer Beccy Gordon (sister of Robby) for the day, as they went off-road racing.

E.J. Viso, Mario Moras, and a few other IRL drivers played a little beach volleyball along side the Miss Indy finalist and several V8 Supercar drivers.

After the, “I’m sure very competitive” game of volleyball, Moras joined Vitor Meira as they took a trip to Kids Under Cover, an official charity of the Nikon Indy 300.

(Photos courtesy of Bam Media)

Servia Joins Power

Oriol Servia will join teammate and Australian native Will Power with Aussie Vineyards sponsorship on the sidepods of there Dallara’s for the upcoming Nikon Indy 300.

Roth’s Run Is Over

Word out of Canada is that the IRL has ended Marty Roth’s Career (at least in Indycar).  Although there has been no change to his website, the article has many quotes from Marty that give the article a lot of creditability.  He may not be the fastest out there but he rarely wrecks anybody out and has been there when the IRL needed him, ala the 04′ Indy 500.

Jetting Off To Australia

Not a lot of news today in the Indycar series, Although I did spot a Newman Haas Lanigan hauler heading west on 16th street on my way to class this morning, presumably on there way to the airport, where all of the IRL teams packed up there equipment to jet off to Australia for the upcoming Nikon Indy 300.

Barrichello To Indycar??

Over the past 4 or 5 months there has been many rumors including Rubens implementing his talents into the Indycar Series.  One of the rumored possibilities included a driver swap between he and Marco Andretti, although it never gained traction.  The latest rumor out is by Speedtv, it has Barrichello jumping into the 3 car for 09′, with the Helio situation up in the air it makes a little sense.  At this point, I see it as VERY doubtful, but crazier things have happend.

UPDATE: In Curt Cavin’s latest addition of his Q&A he reports that the story about Barrichello testing with Penske is completely FALSE, and I tend to trust Curt over Speedtv.