Danica Patrick Signs Multi-Year Deal To Stick With IRL

Danica Patrick's getting an assumed three-year deal with Andretti Racing to stay in IRL. Thank God. Now we don't have to hear annoying rumors about her considering a move to NASCAR or F1 during every off-season contract negotiation. More »

Bikini-Clad Danica Patrick Shot For SHAPE Magazine

Danica Patrick is no stranger to the front cover of magazines, having spent some time with Sports Illustrated photographers. However, this time it's for SHAPE Magazine. Semi-work safe Danica+bikini+pool photo shoot within. More »

Danica Patrick Sides with Brad Pitt, Chooses Angelina Jolie Over Jennifer Aniston

When asked who she would prefer to play her in film ocassionaly clothed Indy driver Danica Patrick responded she'd prefer Angelina Jolie over Jennifer Aniston. The reason? Aniston is too old. More »

IndyCar Series To Drop Cylinders, Add Turbos For 2011

The current naturally-aspirated 3.5-liter V8 Honda engines used in Indy cars will be long gone come 2011. In their place will be either six- or four-cylinder mills boosted by one or two turbochargers. The changes will be discussed in a meeting next month at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but for now there's some debate as to which type of engine should be used. More »

NY Times Calls Hillary-Endorsing Sarah Fisher IRL's "Top Woman"

In a long article about the Indiana Democratic Primary, there's a picture of Hillary Clinton getting the endorsement of IRL racer and team-owner Sarah Fisher, with the caption "Hillary Rodham Clinton paid an election-day visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Tuesday to appear with race car driver Sarah Fisher, a top woman on the Indy car circuit, who endorsed her this week." This is true in the same way that Hillary Clinton is the top performer in the Democratic race for the White House in that "top" here means "supreme but for those other people with superior records." Technicalities. More »

Wife Busts Tony Kanaan's Balls After Qualifying Behind Danica Patrick

She's everywhere these days - Danica Patrick is the Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova of open wheel racing and everyone wants a piece of the moment. Well, maybe except teammate Tony Kanaan and his wife. A quick item at Automobile relays a phone call from Kanaan's pregnant wife after he qualified third and behind Patrick at the last Mid-Ohio IRL race. When she heard about the result, she had a question for him: More »

CBS' Doyel Rules IRL Isn't Real Racing, Danica Is "Junior Varsity"

We all know what Pedro de la Rosa thinks about women in motorsport. Now, we've got CBS Sports' Gregg Doyel weighing in on Danica Patrick's win, proclaiming the Indy Racing League to be an inferior racing series. Most people will agree the IRL isn't the highest pinnacle of motorsports, but Doyel thinks

"the IRL is not real racing. Not real good racing, anyway. It's not the best car circuit in this country — that would be NASCAR ... what is the IRL? It's a training ground for decent drivers who hope to be good enough to race somewhere important some day ... Winning in the IRL isn't a matter of talent..."

" Wait, what? He thinks NASCAR takes more skill? Hmm. Certainly there are some very skilled NASCAR drivers, and sure, there is competition, but it seems to us like Doyel is just shooting his mouth off. Suggesting the IRL isn't real racing, given the timing, comes across like Gregg is trying to deny Danica's skills. Which he then proceeds to do: More »

IndyCar League Makes Play for Relevance With F1-Style Qualification

Indy Racing League plans on rolling out a new gridification system during the upcoming St. Petersberg race and it will look a lot like the street racing version of things done over at Formula 1. Instead of being a one man one track run against the clock, cars will be slotted on the grid by way of elimination rounds. The cars will be split into even fields and race for twenty minutes, the leaders go on and the trailers fill up position thirteen and back. The top twelve will run in another heat lasting fifteen minutes from which the bottom six will be slotted in spot twelve through seven. More »

IRL Racer, Dancing With The Stars Champ Ditches Wife for Dance Partner

Here's just one of the reasons why we'd never make it as a professional racer: Helio Castroneves wins back-to-back Indy 500's and stays with his hottish young wife fiance. Helio Castroneves wins Dancing With The Stars and leaves young wife fiance for even younger 19-year-old dance instructor. This according to the fine folks at With Leather. There's just something unbalanced about that. It would somehow be better if he left his wife fiance for his pit crew chief. More »

Helio Castroneves Shimmies FTW On Dancing With The Stars, Shows Off New-Look IRL Uniform?

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El Presidente Congratulates Milka Duno

El Presidente Chavez says he is happy Venezuelan driver Milka Duno and Citgo will run the Indy 500, even though no gasoline will be involved. The surprise is that Al Gore or any other American politician didn't beat El Presidente to this aggrandizement political punch, considering Indy cars have been running on alternative fuel of the alcohol kind since the '60s. This year the traditional methanol has been replaced by a home-brewed ethanol special corn blend. Milk will still be served to the winner on Sunday, who El Presidente says will be Milka. – Mike Bumbeck More »

Never Say Die: Alex Zanardi Hops Back Into an F1 Car

We have to say, we can't not back Alex Zanardi, who lost his legs five years ago in a CART wreck with fellow Alex — and fellow vowel-ending-surnamed racing driver — Tagliani. For the first time since his stint with Williams in '99, Zanardi got back into a Formula One car, trading his normal size-9 prosthetic feet for a pair of 4 1/2s (how rad is being able to change your shoe size on a whim?) and whipped four laps around the Valencia circuit. That guy must have more chest hair than Donkey Kong. R k. [Thanks to Scott for the tip.] – Davey G. Johnson More »

Oh, Look! Danica's Making More Money!

The domain-name registrars at Go Daddy have signed on to help fund Danica's Motorola-marqueed Andretti-Green car for next season. They find her "edgy, innovative and fun!" according to some guy named Bob who helms the company. H sker D was edgy, innovative and fun. Danica is not H sker D . Meanwhile, in more interesting news, Bumbeck began the initial stages of a Jet-Valvectomy on his Starion up at the place we like to refer to as "Robin Masters' Compound East." Boss pic, non? Danica? Potential. Starion? SUPER POTENTIAL! [Thanks to Haller for the tip.] More »

Out of Step, With the IRL!

The man only known by the moniker of MyNameIsIRL steps up and makes a compelling argument as to why the IRL and Champ Car shouldn't merge. He posits that a merger would tilt the series in favor of Cosworth (which Champ Car maven Kevin Kalkhoven controls), that Champ Car fans won't watch oval races anyway, (which is likely true, besides the Indy 500), and that Americans prefer watching three-wide oval action. More »

WaPo Co. Slipping? Recruiting Subpar Writers? Danica in Newsweek

Awesome! Newsweek wants to compile a list of 20 women leading their fields. The downside? Well, we picked up an issue of the magazine the other day and it felt a bit light. Has the diluted ad revenue that seems to be endemic across the print-publishing board these days inspired the elimination of the copy desk? Or having interviewees whose finest skills may not be at the keyboard write their own stories? Case in point: Danica Patrick's profile in the September 25th issue of the august newsweekly. What do we get? Subpar writing coupled with the misspelling of "go-kart" as "go-cart," followed by "nerve-racking" instead of "nerve-wracking." We'd at least expect Danica to be able to correctly spell the types of cars she's driven. More »

It's Black, It's Sort of Sleek, It Looks Fast: Danica Shows off New Car

AP /Julio Cortez More »

Wheldon Wins Race, Hornish Takes IRL Title: Chicagoland

Dan Wheldon, Scott Dixon and Sam Hornish, Jr. A podium finish for Hornish — our man Wert's fast-driving doppelg nger — not to mention a championship for the Indianapolis 500-mile champ and his boss Roger Penske. Congrats to Sam and Roger, not to mention more incentive for Ray to walk around the Detroit Metro area in a Marlboro-emblazoned firesuit. Oh, also, Michael Schumacher announced his end-of-season retirement today, but we figured you probably already knew that. More »

Hornish May Run Busch Series Next Year

IRL racer Sam Hornish, Jr. claims he's not hanging up his Indy machine yet, but he has been talking to his boss, Roger Penske, about possibly running a limited Busch Series schedule next fall. For Hornish, it's primarily about curiosity: "If you're competitive with what you're running in right now, you want to be competitive in something else. I can't tell you if I'll be good or not.'' We like the multidisciplinary drivers — Gurney, Andretti, Boris Said; guys is who can seemingly get in anything and go fast. We'll see if Hornish is one of those guys. More »

A PR Flack Drops His Guard Regarding the IRL

We're not exactly sure why IRL racer Jeff Simmons' PR guy Karl berbacher had to go list his three favorite records as Fun House by the Stooges, Sabbath's Master of Reality and then poison an until-then fantastic list with Gene Simmons' "I Am Indy" single. But then again, that's why we're broke-dick bloggers who jet-set around the world as Denton permits and Karl jet-sets around the country getting into near bar-brawls and apparently boffing twins while promoting clients. Oh, and there's good Danica dirt, too. Click through, because CJ over at So. Damn. Indy. got Karl to ladle the gossip on the side of racing the sponsors don't want to know about. More »

Danica 'Burning Bridges' With Rahal-Letterman

CJ over at SO. DAMN. INDY. had readers send in questions for Rahal-Letterman driver Jeff Simmons, who shed light on the organization's chassis situation, race-day activities, and of course, women. Simmons mentions that he thinks the potential for open-wheel returnee Sarah Fisher at Kentucky tomorrow is high, considering she'd taken a pole there, but of course, the burning question on everyone's mind is Danica Patrick's situation with Rahal-Letterman's organization after the announcement of her departure to Andretti Green for next year's IRL season. Click through for Simmons' comments. More »

No NASCAR for Danica: She's With Andretti, Leather

Amusingly-monikered blog My Name is IRL adds to what So Damn Indy broke earlier today. Danica is indeed leaving Rahal-Letterman, but she's not, as has been rumored, headed to NASCAR. Rather, she's apparently off to the land of Andretti-Green, where she'll be paired with the series other Golden Child, Mario's grandson. We'll likely be seeing Mario in a little over a week, so see if we can't ply him for some info then, unless of course, Michael keeps him out of the loop on this stuff. More »

Danica Inching Toward NASCAR?

"My biggest thing in everything is that I want to win, and I don't care who it's with," says everyone's favorite Twinkie-package star. With every article we read, it seems as if Danica Patrick is thinking more and more about rubbing up against Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart in the France Family Circus. Just don't get any of Junior's Drakkar on you, Danica. More »

Is Menstruation the Key to Danica's On-Track Success?

According to IRL racer Ed Carpenter, Danica Patrick would do just fine in NASCAR, commenting "I mean, you know especially if you catch her at the right time of the month, she might be trading plenty of paint out there." Danica, for your career's sake, here's hoping a hysterectomy isn't in your immediate future. [Thanks to Kelly for the tip.] More »

Danica Moving to NASCAR?

Danica Patrick's contract with Rahal-Letterman is up at the end of this year, and while it's purely speculation at this point, rumors are starting to float that she may abandon the IRL for some paint-tradin' stock-car-type action. Apparently, Patrick's father, T.J., has been in exploratory conversations with several NASCAR teams, and attended Sunday's race in Chicago as a guest of Roush Racing. Roush's people claim it was merely a courtesy extended to Danica's family and that there have been no discussions as to whether Danica could be doing seat time in a Ford Fusion stocker. First Montoya and now this? It's only a matter of time before the France family's "persuaders" recruit Jenna and Barbara Bush to drive. [Thanks to Daniel for the tip.] More »

CART and IRL To Kiss, Possibly Make Up

AutoWeek is reporting that the Indy Racing League and CART (aka Champ Cars, the old Indy Cars, and Who Are All These Forgein Drivers?) might finally merge to form a single open-wheel racing series. IRL honcho Tony George and CART captain Kevin Kalkhoven agreed that the two of them will share ownership of one series. At this point it doesn't go beyond that, other than both men being committed to working out the differences and calling in a third-party mediator if necessary. Both series have yet to announce their 2007 schedules, so there's an outside chance that a few of next year's races will feature cars from both series. But it looks like this isn't being paraded as "merger of equals" since IRL has the Indy 500, more sponsorship, and, in general, more attendance. We're going to go ahead and break it to you right now — if and when this happens, the resulting cars will look a lot more like today's Indy cars than today's CART cars. More »

Flossing a Dead Horse: The Boringness of Racing Drivers

Go ahead. Call Richard Petty a relic. Call him back-asswards on women's issues. Fair game, of course. But never let it be said that the man doesn't have personality. The kids over at thefirehouse.biz, Chrysler's media-only blog, posted a podcast featuring some short interviews with NASCAR drivers past and present, and while Petty was diplomatic, at least he was instructive and human, explaining the post-Second-War origins of motorsports in general. On the other hand, Kurt Busch, Jeremy Mayfield and Casey Kahne were roughly as fascinating as potting soil blended with bleached flour, and honestly, recently-retired Rusty Wallace wasn't much more interesting. More »

Sam Hornish Claims Texas, We're All, 'Wha?'

Having lived in the Lone Star State and having fallen in love with at least two too many women from it, we still don't quite claim Texas. Sure, we've got a bit of Tejas cred, and we love the place. We're anxiously looking forward to our forward-til-death Route 66 roadtrip out there in two months which will be co-liveblogged for tha Jalop with notorious rock writer Tim Stegall (we're kicking it off with a Buzzcocks show). But when Sam Hornish, Jr., no doubt still slightly addled by his understandably brain-melting win at Indy, says of the Foyt-Rutherford trophy, "I used to say that between us, we had seven Indy 500s," Hornish said, referring to the Texas racing legends for which that trophy is named. 'Now, we have eight,'" we kind of wanna rock a Lloyd Bentsen and say, "Sam. We know Texas. Texans are friends of ours. And you, our dear Ohioan, are no Texan." More »

10% Ethanol Blend Hits Indy, Would Eric Carr Be Stoked?

This has been in the works for a year or so, but this weekend's 500-mile race in the Polis of Indiana will be the first Indy Five-Hunnert in history where the cars run a 10% ethanol blend, ahead of a full-bore switch from methanol to ethanol next season. Partially veganated! More »

Michael Andretti Enters Mad Cars at Indy

Scion of the Mighty Mario, Michael Andretti, has entered 10 cars in the Indy qualifying derby, including two cars for himself, and two each for his son Marco, Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti and Bryan Herta. That's a grip of open-wheel racers, yo. Andretti's not run at the Brickyard since retiring in '03, but he'll be back on the track for Marco's rookie 500, carrying on the Foyt-and-Unser-stomping Andretti legacy of Mario, John and Jeff (although, to be fair, the Foyts and Unsers have more Indy wins, just less cannon-fodder). More »

Paul Dana's Teammates Speak

We were somewhat surprised, though not shocked, when Rahal-Letterman decided to pull Buddy Rice and Danica Patrick out of the race at Homestead last weekend after the death of their teammate. Their words were fairly boilerplate, but they did make one point that we thought was worth noting — in defending Dana's right to be on the track. More »

Soldier's Requiem: AutoWeek Remembers Paul Dana

The AutoWeeks take a look back at Paul Dana's time with them as an intern, noting that he turned down a position as their motorsports editor when his internship ended to go racing. The tone of the piece is a bit odd — the 'Week guys all seem a little weirded out that he chose racing over them. Frankly, though, we can't say we blame the guy. And y'know, when you exit this world doing something you love, to bite some Naked Raygun, there is no shame in dying. More »

A Bit More on the Paul Dana Incident

We've seen some pretty horrific wrecks in our time. We've borne witness to road accidents that left vehicles flaming. We've had bodies carried past us with sheets over them by emergency crews. We've had a drift car smack into the K-rail not ten feet from where we were standing. We've watched dragsters explode. But the Paul Dana wreck yesterday really shook us. It was like watching a kamikaze attack where the pilot really didn't want to die. Dana was exactly our age, and something about that crash really got under our skin and into our soul. That said, the man died doing what he loved. Meanwhile, we're waiting for our Macintosh to suddenly go kiloton on us. More »

Video Of The Horrific Paul Dana IndyCar Crash

It didn't take long for someone to get the video of todays' horrific crash at Homestead-Miami Speedway up on YouTube. Although this is just a camcorder tape of the crash via CNN Headline News, we wanted to get it up for now until we get something better from the Interwebs. If you're the least bit squeamish...then don't watch. It's a pretty terrifying thing seeing an IndyCar slam into another at 216 mph: (UPDATE: The video's updated with a properly-recorded version.) More »

Dana Paul Is Not Paul Dana

Open letter to those looking for information on the tragic Paul Dana crash at Homestead-Miami today. Jazz vocalist Dana Paul is a completely different person from late Indy racer, Paul Dana:

"Dana [Paul] is not only the singer's singer - he's the musician's singer. His vocal wizardry and interpretations of the Great American Songbook have made him one of the most talked about performers anywhere."

He also appears to be quite the amateur astronomer.

IRL Driver Paul Dana Killed in Crash During Warmup

Paul Dana, 30-year-old racing journalist turned Indy driver, was killed in a crash this morning in a warmup at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Dana's car hit that of Ed Carpenter, who had spun out and hit the wall. Carpenter was injured. Homestead was to have been Dana's inaugural race for the Rahal-Letterman team. [UPDATE: Video on ESPN.com] [UPDATE 2: We've got video here.] More »

Six Rahal-Letterman Cars Entered at Indy, Six Degrees of Separation

One afternoon, nearly six years ago, at a backyard barbecue in Benicia, we got involved in a game of six-degrees one-upmanship. A girl was winding her way through some convoluted explanation of something or other when our friend simply says, "Well, we know Joe Strummer, and he knows Letterman, and Letterman knows everyone." Which, we suppose puts us three degrees from Danica Patrick, Buddy Rice and rookie Paul Dana, all of whom have two cars each entered in the Indy 500 under the aegis of Rahal-Letterman racing. More »

Riley Technologies Bailing on Indy

Riley Technologies, based just outside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is headed south to Mooresville, SC in a bid to gain more NASCAR business. The company, who've built open-wheel racers, sports prototypes and USAC cars and won the Grand Am championship last year, sees fewer and fewer opportunities in Indy and greener pastures in stock car racing. Admittedly, we'd rather live in the South than the Midwest, but somehow, this really bums us out. More »

Gene Simmons Hearts the IRL

The Man of Tongue and Thunder pops 'round for an interview with Racing-Live.com vis a vis his relationship to the IRL and denies that it's solely about money: "The God's honest truth is KISS is going to Japan - Mount Fuji; I'll make more in one night than the entire year here." He goes on his experience at a race at the Texas Motor Speedway, saying, "I saw some real cornball things that I think are missing from America," and you know, The Artist Formerly Known As Chaim Witz is nothing if not about the cornball. More »

Wiedervereinigung? IRL and Champ Car May Finally Merge

Punkey tossed a heads-up on this one, and well, since we're listening to Minor Threat at the moment, we figured now would be an appropriate time to post it. Apparently, open-wheel mucky-mucks Tony George and Kevin Kalkhoven have been spending a bit of time together lately, talking about how much a deal could work. Salient points? Panoz chassis, Honda and Cosworth 2.5 turbo mills, Bridgestone/Firestone tires. We've come to regard Kalkhoven as a pretty savvy operator, and both men are obviously worried about what was once America's premier motorsport. Here's to hoping it happens. But please, keep Gene Simmons out of it. More »