Jalopnik: indy racing

Detroit's 2008 Belle Isle Grand Prix: IRL Race Result Tainted By Controversy, Prickish Fans

Ben Wojdyla — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:00:00 EDT

Last weekend saw the second iteration of the reborn Belle Isle Grand Prix and we were right there, enjoying the spectacle played out in weather so perfect Roger Penske couldn't have paid for better. Aside from a couple spin outs, Sunday's Indy Racing League run was largely unremarkable until lap 72, when things got very interesting. Helio Castroneves had been leading Justin Wilson and Tony Kanaan for the bulk of the race, but officials ordered Castroneves to yield to Wilson after aggressive blocking across the entire track. Helio gave way and Wilson eventually pulled away, opening up a lead and taking the checkered flag. Normally this would be a non-issue, as Helio was clearly blocking, but that he was issued no warning first, as is customary, has many of his fans rubbed the wrong way — as you can tell from the video.

Indeed, on the victory lap, Wilson decided he'd do a victory donut right in front of the Corvette Racing chalet, but humorously stalled it. We missed the stall, but we caught tail end of the resulting drunken tirade from a nameless Castroneves fan as Wilson was pushed to the corner for a start. We have no idea why she was screaming about transvestites and McDonalds — she's probably got a problem with their refusal to discriminate against them, but whatever.

In any case, the sentiment was shared as there were strong boos on the awards stand from the crowd in one of the saddest displays of fan assholery we've seen in a long time. We're fine with the sentiment that it was a questionable call, but Helio had 17 laps to get ahead of Wilson and couldn't manage. Too bad, that's racing. Booing the winner is just bad form.

In any case, here are the full results, and we'd like you to chime in on this controversy: Tell us what you think about the blocking, the penalty, and the fans' reaction.

[IndyCar] Partial photo credit to Alex Conley

Penske Indy Racing Sees Spares Go Up In Race Car Flambe

Ben Wojdyla — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:23:00 EDT

In a terrible blow for the Penske Racing team, two of their cars and loads of equipment were lost in a freak trailer fire in transit between race venues. The trailer is believed to have caught fire as a result of a wheel bearing failure and gotten out of control after the drivers where unable to put the blaze out with extinguishers. They already had a couple of cars at Sears Point for the upcoming race, but Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe will have to make sure not to put 'em into the wall during practice. [GrandPrix.com]

Pictures of Entire 1952 Indianapolis 500 Starting Grid Found

Ben Wojdyla — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:40:00 EDT

As much as we like open wheel racing and modern car designs, there's something far more awesome about vintage racing cars. This is undoubtedly the opinion of one Jim Rogacki, an engineer from Buffalo, who, while digging around for vintage car parts, managed to run into an amateur Indianapolis 500 historian. After shooting the breeze for a while, Jim convinced the man to let him scan his fantastic collection of photos for all 33 cars in the 1952 starting grid. We swiped a couple, but go take a look at the very neat complete collection and the story behind it over at Jalopy Journal.