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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 »
danica patrick
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 »
danica patrick
McLaren's Pedro de la Rosa Thinks Women Are Too Weak To Race In F1
With all the buzz over Danica Patrick wiping the floor at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan last weekend, it's easy to forget there's other talented females engaged in various forms of motorsport across the world. Just look at Michèle Mouton's rally career — multiple wins in her Audi Quattro and finishing a close second place in the 1982 WRC championship. So you know that the girls can go just as fast as the boys — and as we saw this past weekend, sometimes faster. So this ultimately leads to the question, "Can a women be successful in Formula One?" Well, veteran McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa seems to think women might just not be strong enough to deal with the rigors of the track. More »
racing news
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 »
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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
celebrities
We're fairly certain the gold lamé race track suit-inspired uni Helio Castroneves was wearing in his little freestyle dance the night before last wasn't made of Proban or Nomex. And thank goodness — if it was, we feel we might have had to endure an entire IRL season of the Brazilian donning the suit for every race in honor of last night's big win overthe forces of evil Spice Girl Melanie Brown to take home his other championship — the one for Dancing with the Stars. In case you missed Helio's little racing-inspired ballroom romping — and we don't blame you if you did — we've included the clip from the night before last. We're going to go and gouge our eyes out now. [via Freep]
Helio Castroneves Shimmies FTW On Dancing With The Stars, Shows Off New-Look IRL Uniform?
We're fairly certain the gold lamé race track suit-inspired uni Helio Castroneves was wearing in his little freestyle dance the night before last wasn't made of Proban or Nomex. And thank goodness — if it was, we feel we might have had to endure an entire IRL season of the Brazilian donning the suit for every race in honor of last night's big win over
blowhard 500
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
news: racing
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.] More »
news: racing
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
racing
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 »
news: racing
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 »
news: racing
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 »
news: racing
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 »
news: racing
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 »
news: racing
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 »
news: racing
