My Dan Wheldon Tribute story...

While I’m sure that everybody has a Dan Wheldon story, especially with the over pouring sentiments towards ‘Ol Dannyboy... While I found the tribute piece aired by ABC during last Sunday’s St Pete Pre-race to be most excellent and hence, wanted to publish my take before it faded away, since I just haven’t been able to focus upon it since last October...

Wheldon standing by car - in 2011. (PbC)

So naturally I had already booked my Aeroplane ticket to The Valley of the Sun - for Monday Oct 17 one month prior to the ‘los wages HOOZE YOUR DADDY SWEEPSTAKES CATASTROPHY... And hence, your Humble Scribe was literally burned out from starin’ at ze Confuzer screen way too long poondin’ out stories - before having spent the Sunday evening’s later hours listening to a very moving and thought provoking Speed Freaks 2hr retrospective on the lives of Dan Wheldon and Rick Huseman.

And as typical in the travails of my Blogging history, when everybody was tunin’ into the No Fenders ‘BLOB in search of information upon the late DannyBoy ‘SPIKE Wheldon - and my traffic count was going thru the roof, your humble scribe instead had a ‘Canned story about another fallen Hero, The Godfather of Hydroplanes, aka Bill Muncey posted instead during his week’s sojourn...

HYDROS: The Day the Sports King met his Maker

And I’ll admit that at first I didn’t even know of Wheldon and then didn’t become aware of the cocky Englishman until 2005 when he won the Indianapolis 500 for the first time, despite being overshadowed by somebody named Danica; Hmm? How ironic that the only two years Mrs. Hospenthal led laps at the Speedway Messer Wheldon was victorious, eh?

And originally I thought of him as nothing more then a bit over the top, as I already said he was cocky, albeit I guess I should have liked him since after all he came from Across-thee-Pond, trying to cut his teeth upon the Formula 1 ladder - having squared off against the likes of ‘JENSE, (Jenson Button) ‘ANT (Anthony Davidson) and Gary Paffet who’ve had differing degrees of success in F1. Along with butting heads with Dashley LePew (Dario) and younger brother Marino Franchitti in Go Karts, etc; yet nevertheless, he’d escaped my radar screen since I don’t typically follow the feeder series abroad...

Having won his title and 500 with Andretti Greeen Racing as part of the Four Musketeers, nee Dario “REO Speedwagon” Franchitti, ‘TK “Follow-your-Schnoz” Kanaan and Bryan “High Speed Hurdles” Herta, I began having fun joining in on the joking about his shoe collection and his teeth, although I finally got a glimpse of his quick witted humour when he wore that insanely humourous button of his then boss ‘Cheep Ganassi on a Wind Tunnel interview that ‘Ol R (robin Miller) had lent him...

Unfortunately, Dan then fell afoul of my disgust towards anybody Shilling for the National Guard car - as I wholeheartedly believe that the Military should NOT be allowed to sponsor Motorsports... Which leaves me in a pickle, since I like J.R. Hildebrand and he was kind enough to grant me an interview before moving up to the ‘BigCarz...

An Interview with J.R. Hildebrand

Yet I suppose age is a fickle Mistress? As I know exactly the moment I crossed over to being a HUGE Fan ‘O wheldon’s, which should have never happened in the first place, after Dan split from John Barnes & Panther Racing somewhat acrimoniously. (As hopefully they paid Wheldon his disputed salary that Wheldon had filed a lawsuit against the team for prior to his death...)

It was during his Versus TV booth guest Colour Commenting gig that I became a ‘Mega Wheldon supporter, as he  was a natural fit and really livened it up quite a bit - before things really began to pickup for the BLOODY BRIT, with his ride for Indy, his Dallara testing job and ultimately his re-joining Mikey Andretti’s race team.

Thus, I feel quite fortunate that I was in attendance at the Speedway last May in what sadly would become Wheldon’s final career victory, as not only was the race’s ending a thriller, but the victory lap was even sweeter, albeit I got a bit tired  of Dan proclaiming he’d be wearing his WillyWrap’s jeans the next evening at the victory banquet...

Wheldon Struts his Stuff on “Red Carpet” - Night after 2011 I500. (PbC)

And thus, by just plain, shear luck (OH CRAP! I forgot to buy my Mega Millions lottery ticket) MR. CARPETS was kind enough to take me Downtown to the J.W. Marriott to take a look-see and see if we could spot any of the drivers entering the Banquet? Of which led us to walking up to the entry door and getting to witness several drivers arrival, albeit I couldn’t see anybody from behind our very small privileged vantage point of the few Paparazzi allowed to stand up close to the entryway... Although this action did garner me a ‘Quickie with Danica; Hya! Hmm? There we go again, with DannaCar trying to steal ‘SPIKE’s limelight!

Yet what so thoroughly impressed me during that short time we were allowed to stand there was that not only was Wheldon the only driver to come outside ‘N mingle multiple times... He was actually willing to talk to us! As he was the only driver that evening to interact with the crowd. As another person standing there in our little grouping jovially asked Dan: “Where’s your Levi’s?” to which Dan immediately cracked back: “Oh NO, you mean my William Rast’s...” As Dapper Dan had gone GQ for the evening!

And while I’m not claiming that the other drivers don’t interact with Fans equally as well as Wheldon did; as I was quite happy to see every single driver stop and sign the young girl’s cap... It’s just the memory I cherish the most of Wheldon, as he appeared to be the only one willing to mingle with  us little people on the Post-evening of his second victory at the Speedway and seemed the only one willing to go out of his way to do so...

Lionheart: The Career of Dan Wheldon in Photos

(PbC: Photos Courtesy of No Fenders ‘Offical Photographer ‘CARPETS)

Tucker Brothers in trouble with The Law

Stumbled upon this in a newspaper I usually don’t read these days - due to its demise to a shell of its former self with its Internetz only version now... Thus I was surprised to read the headline: FTC investigation targets racecar driver; Hmm? Hey I know that name, as Scott Tucker is the driver in question, along with his brother... As apparently the Tucker’s Payday Loans company which has over 7,000 complaints filed against it, has allegedly ciphered some $40-million into its Level 5 Motorsports race team the old fashioned way, as in coercion - forcing unsuspecting customers to pay back triple their loan amounts... Hey, isn’t that the company I useda see ‘Ol what’s his name; Err, was it Arsenio Hall pimping for them recently? As I haven’t seen the commercial lately...

Level 5 Motorsports currently competes in the ALMS LMP2 category and perhaps the WEC - reportedly racing a Honda ARX-01G chassis...

FTC targets alleged payday scam, race car driver

Street Party in Bahrain continues

It seems like it should come as little surprise that guess what? The political unease in the Kingdom of Bahrain hasn’t been completely wallpapered over just yet, despite the cluck-cluck-clucking sounds of Uncle Bernaughty and his minions, as another civilian has just been killed by the police. Oh wait a minute; it’s just a bunch of Street thug’s right, Bernie?

Trouble on the ground in Bahrain

Shearin’ duh Barber: The Sights ‘N Sounds of Alabaman Home Cookin’ - from Afar...

So once again your humble No Fenders scribe was momentarily dumbfounded by the new & improved Indycar.com website; NOT! As it all began with Kevin Lee’s tease upon Trackside that we could tune into Friday practice sessions on the web; and hence, I ARSE-sumed this to mean via the IMS Radio Network Broadcast...

Thus imagine my surprise; NOT! When my IMS Radio Networks bookmark page immediately boldly displayed thee international “YOU’RE SCREWED” 404 page NOT found ERROR message... Oh crap, here we go again I groaned. I tried ‘Goggling it to NO avail and then for humour I tried searching vainly for it upon the series website before promptly giving up, albeit I did send off a communiqué to a few Blogger Comrades seeking help upon this matter...

Eureka - Sorta...

I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing ‘bout my CRAPY eyesight - yet, I grow increasingly tired of the never ending changes upon the Internetz, as last year you could actually click upon an IMS Radio Network tab from the Media section listed on the Homepage which has of course disappeared...  And so why would I think to click upon the LIVE Timing & Scoring text which I only found after hunting round ‘N round the website - solely due to Meesh’s reply, which in turn led me to click upon the radio link in the upper right-hand corner per her instructions... Which the funniest part ‘bout this - is that I had to get the info from a Hoser Up North Eh!  Who thanxs to TSN is NOT able to get the IndyCar races live on TV!

Kudos Meesh!

Qualie Show

Of course I only discovered when Qualifying was on after listening to Kurty Cavin’s Saturday morning IndyStar piece first thingy that morning; (per my vision impairment I can listen to newspapers over the telephone via the NFB Newsline service...) OH CRAP! 10:40AM Alabama = New York/Indy/ET, which means CRIKEYS! It’s on now at 7:40AM Pacific/West Coast/Seattle-time as I shuffled off to the Office to warm up the Confuzer and hunt ‘N peck around Indycar.com to try finding I-T!

And Eureka, it worked on the BLOODY first try, as I was instantly greeted by the soothing tomes of Mike “Yippee -Aye-Eh” King and Mark “Graveley” James, albeit they were pretty somber this morning... And even more amazing was the fact that they’ve almost fixed the problem of Pitlane interview sound 100% - as you could actually hear every driver’s reply’s for the first time with the exception of Mike “Ice-Ice, Baby” Conway’s chill being a little too cool for the mike to pickup initially...

As I managed to tune-in halfway thru the last session preceding the Fast Six qualifying - I was pretty surprised to hear that Will Power wouldn’t be advancing due to ‘BullyRay’s (Hunter-Reay) greediness to exert 110% maximum velocity out of his ‘Chebbie and instead got the grass and just blew-it, causing the yellow flag to come out and end the session.

Thus there really wasn’t any reason for me to tune into Versus; Err Peacock Lite’s Qualie-show, which I did anyway’s, albeit some 15+ ‘My-nutes late. As at least I got to see Power be interviewed, along with Dashley LePew (Dario Franchitti) who was pretty muted over his overly uncharacteristic P18 qualifying result!

Schedule-Smedzule

For humour, after watching a ‘Wee bit of NBCSN’s qualifying show, which seemed almost as exciting as the preceding ABC broadcast, I decided to hunt ‘N peck about the Indycar.com website a little bit more, as it’d sure be nice if there was a radio broadcast schedule somewhere; NOPE! Isn’t gonna happen, move along Y’all... As I did find the schedule link for the Alabama weekend itself, after clicking upon the Schedule tab didn’t get me anywhere. And poof! What a bag ‘O doggie surprises the overly obnoxious colour coded Adobe spread sheet was, as if you’ve never used a Screen reader before, Y’all should try IT! And see how many seconds it takes before you go BONKERS!

Thus instead of being able to get the live stream plus the corresponding broadcast times all in ONE place, looks like I’m gonna haveda poach the schedule from Trackside Online (hey, I’m a paying subscriber...) at the start of the weekend, scribble it all down, subtract 3hrs and hopefully remember to tune-in at the right moment!

IndyCar Central Pre-race Show

Although I wasn’t gonna watch this originally, I decided what the HE-Double Hockey Sticks, especially since I’d intended to check out the new IndyCar 36 half hour show preceding it. And I was happy to read Meesh’s comments ‘bout how it wasn’t anything new; as I felt as I watched it, hey! I’ve seen this somewhere before... Didn’t they try doing it with a blonde named Michelle(?) before Mrs. TAG (Bronte Tagliani) took over? Hmm? Another CART, nee Champ Car idea makes the IndyCar fold; Oh Never Mind!

On to the Pre-race show which started with a somber looking Bob Jenkins eyeballin’ meeze... As for humour I decided to take notes - which although I didn’t do for ABC, I did watch their entire first Indy Car race so ditto for NBC Sports Network; so here’s my cryptic shorthand notes:

00-08; Opening segment (+ 2mins Commercial Break) 10; 15-18; 23-28; 34-37; 47. Indy Car Central ended at 11:34AM (Pacific) and race started promptly at 11:45AM as announced. Minutes above = commercial breaks, i.e.; approx. one-third of first 47mins interrupted by commercials; as they managed to go a whopping 10mins before TAG granted them their first race commercial break 2mins after starting...

Opening segment Driver interviews: (But of Course!) First up ‘Ol Twinkle-toes, nee ‘HULIO, aka Castroneves followed by ‘Dixie. (Scott Dixon) And is it just Mwah, or does it seems like Heliosity is practisn’ BIG time for his move onto ‘RASSCAR - as he’s become quite the sponsor Pitchman, eh?

2^nd segment Drivers: Will Power followed by Dario with Professor B (Jon Bekhuis) segment about Franchitti’s insistence to continue his right foot braking - requiring custom pedals fabricated by Dallara; as ironically ‘Rubino, nee rubens Barrichello has switched over after 19-years of right foot braking in F1 - leaving Dario as the only right foot ‘breaker on the grid...

And the Kevin Lee Fan Villa interview with HULIO seemed like ‘Somme-thun outta a circus show, a pathetic attempt at superbowl villa or March Madness? As I had to MUTE Twinkle-toes, who honestly (“Trust ME!”) Just happened to stop on

Dan Wheldon Way

next to his sign by accident during his victory dance... Whilst “Suit ‘N Tie Guy” Kevin mused something ‘bout Michael Jackson’s Ferris wheel being part of the three ringed carnival act at Alabama...

Race Notes

While Bart Starr may be a legend, his overly longish preamble prior to actually giving the command to start engines made me instantly think he’s a legend in his own mind; CRIKEYS!

And we went a whole two minutes into the race before  TAG’s Lotus pulled a Start & Park with a 1^st lap yellow flag for the Lotus-by-Judd Lucas ‘lectrics apparently triggering a cold-start shutdown to prevent a full engine  meltdown - as reputedly Lotus is running short upon ‘lumps after they’ve Done Blown UP!

And I think it was just a case of first race jitters? As Bob Jenkins seemed to be quite tongue-tied, with ‘Ol R’s (Robin Miller) first two segments completely out of kilter time wise, as apparently the director got behind script wise? (Although I wouldn’t even attempt this job - nor speaking live on TV...) Along with the never ending continuous prattling on by everyone - not to mention that Townsend Bell sounded like a dead ringer of Robbie ‘Purple Floyd to Mwah, as I know Townsend’s from the Bay, but he sounded Texan to me - I ended up feeling quite A.D.D.ed!

And I won’t try recapping the race, which certainly was way better then St Petersburg, and there  was certainly way more passing then I or probably anybody else expected! As I let out a boisterous YAHOO WILL! After having listened to my neighbor repeatedly loudly open ‘N close the sliding door and roller skating around on the deck - you guessed IT! Directly overhead le Telescreen...

Although I did come away with the thoughts that isn’t it scary how much the powers to be, including Mr. CandyMann (Randy Bernard) have transformed IndyCar into a somewhat thinly disguised Open Wheel version of GULP! RASSCAR! As the Boyz - particularly Marky-Marc (Andretti) took to beatin ‘N bangin; Err Racin’ is Rubbin’ Yuhs hear? In those new age CanAm cars... And there’s ‘dem double-wide starts - as all I think we’re missin’ now is the ‘Rucky Dawg rule; Hya! As at least Joseph Newgarden managed to become the first to knock off a front wing! While I’m growing increasingly BORED over the continuous attempts to make some contrived contro-versy outta the new blockin’ rules... Just one more sign how desperate Indy Car is?

Although once again I was most impressed with “Symone Pagenoe” (Simon Pagenaud) who went head-to-head with his ex-teamate Power when splitting EJ “what, Me Worry?” Viso, whilst I still don’t get Cathy Griffin’s joke ‘bout thy Leggy ‘Juan stuck in the kitty litter... Whilst le ‘Hamburgular (Sebastain Bourdais) put in a monster drive to P9 and “suitcase” Servia passed the most cars overall, while once again I was left wunderin’ where did Justin ‘BIG UNIT Wilson wind-up?

And on a side note - does anybody see any resemblance to Dario’s struggles with the new car to Felipe Massa’s current plight with the recalcitrant Ferrari F2012? Which I’m not comparing the drivers per sei; just find it interesting - which I’ll try expounding upon further shortly.

And there Yuh have it, I didn’t say the B-word; as in Barber is Beautiful! Although I do hear that Mr. Barber’s exquisite museum is an absolute Beaut! As I’d gladly have paid Geo. Phillips for a cheeseburger Tuesday to have been at a permanent road course with turbo-cars Sunday! Although I hear they ain’t exactly the siren song of the Cosworth XB’s...

KV Racing to run Fourth chassis at Indy...

As Y’all may have noticed, KV Racing Technology’s “Third wheel,” nee EJ “What, Me Worry?” Viso is running this year’s Indy Car Series season with the primary sponsorship of CITGO, which is part of the Venezuelan country’s Oil portfolio.

Yet, what was previously unknown publicly ‘bout the dealio - is the fact that in CITGO’s return to the Open Wheel Racing ranks, it wishes to run a Venezuelan “Super Team” at the Speedway this month of May... Whale Otay, EJ Viso is hardly the sort of person you’d think of when hearing the word Super Team, right? And you’re probably saying get to the point, who’s this mysterious fourth driver gonna be?

Whale, on the heels of sources who’ve spoken on the condition of animosity - due to the deal having not been officaly announced; this Venezuelan Tag Team will feature EJ Viso and his original sponsor counterpart... Yep, that’s right, you guessed I-T! The one, the only Wanderin’ Milka; Err Milkalicious, aka Milka Duno...

As Milka says, if Pippa Mann and ‘BIA can attempt running “One-off” races at Indianapolis, then so can I, and I even think I can qualify faster then Simona de Silvestro and Katherine Legge, as after all the Chevrolet showed its dominance at St Pete last weekend by claiming four of the top-5 finishing positions.

Duno continued by saying “HELL! I should even be able to outqualify that Brazilian ex-F1 driver on our squad everybody’s so smitten over - after all, he’ll be a rookie at Indy where I’ve qualified many times before...”

No word on what number the fourth member of KVRT will sport at the Brickyard, although I believe the No. 00 is still available, which would tie-in nicely with Duno’s leftover hand towels, Uze know the ‘Juans she used to slap Danica with...

Bahrain and F1 - Black Tar is The Colour of Money

If you’re a frequent reader of this ‘lil ‘BLOB thingy, then Y’all know I am less than impressed with Formula 1’s desires to return to the Kingdom of Bahrain during its current Political climate, and thus, whilst I’m not one bit surprised, nevertheless I find it sickening that Uncle Bernaughty has enticed the F1 Teams into returning this April, not to mention now having my first beef with Master ‘Zebb (Sebastian Vettel) who’s apparently drunken some of  Mr. E’s Moonshine along with his elder Statesman - by publicly stating that he thinks F1 should race in Bahrain; Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?

As all I can say is I sincerely hope that Uncle Bernaughty will borrow some of the cash from the $1-billion “loan” he just brokered for his CVC Bosses and dole it out upon all twelve teams as Casualty Pay - along with paying everyone’s Insurance premiums - I mean C’mon Bernie, they cannot be that expensive. After all it’s just a bunch ‘O Kids causing trouble, right?

Bahrain and F1

Houston returns to IndyCar fold...

Interestingly, whilst Formula 1 seeks the riches of Black Tar gold in the sands of Bahrain and elsewhere... Randy Bernard and IndyCar have managed to broker a deal with Royal Dutch Shell which sees Shell and Pennzoil as the primary sponsors of the Houston Grand Prix, which will return to the bumpy confines of Reliant Stadium’s parking lot beginning in October, 2013; Hmm? Now all we need is to entice Budweiser and G.I. Joes into sponsoring a return to Portland, right?

OOPS! That’s right Budweiser is out of racing ‘cept for  ‘RASSCAR and Joes pulled the G.I. off of its name and I haven’t heard Jay “BuzzCut” Buhner pitching any stores in quite awhile... So perhaps The Captain can put in a call to his good friends who own Freightliner, who also once sponsored the race - as I believe Mercedes Benz parent company Daimler AG still owns Freightliner; as Ilmor previously built Indy Car and Formula 1 engines for Mercedes before they bought out this portion of the company...

2013 IndyCar Schedule set to expand