IndyCar excitement at Watkin's Glen.

After watching an epic F1 race this morning, it was the Indy Car boys and girls' turn to put on a show at Watkin's Glen this afternoon. This race did not need rain, all it had were a few incidents, close racing, good passing, a great circuit and a first time winner, a recipe for an entertaining afternoon. There was plenty to talk about with some controversial incidents, and not just involving the usual gang of idiots at the back as usual, this time some big names made big mistakes, as well as the cock ups by the incompetent backmarkers. The former champ car drivers and teams were hoping to get some valuable points and it looked promising in qualifying with Justin Wilson lining up second and Oriol Servia fifth on the grid. Penske's Ryan Briscoe was fast all weekend and duly took pole from Wilson, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Championship leader Scott Dixon, and Servia. The start was particularly exciting with Justin Wilson making a poor getaway and Dixon getting a good one, passing bot Hunter-Reay and Wilson to be second and right on Briscoes rear wing, a place he would stay most of the afternoon. Further back poor old Dan Wheldon had all sorts of trouble, being hit by Darren Manning and breaking his suspension, Wheldon would pit for lengthy repairs and emerge for a sunday drive 18 laps down to collect some points before getting bored and retiring. Second place man in the championship Helio Castroneves had the weekend from hell and it continued in the race. He started 26th and last after breaking down in qualifying and was working his way through the riff-raff when he had an electronic glitch and had to try to limp back to the pits, he almost made it when his car stopped at the pitlane entrance and he had to be pushed back to his pit to get a new steering wheel and to be restarted. This process became a comedy of errors of sorts and a furious Castroneves had to wait for first an attempt to borrow pit crew guys from Roth racing, who had nothing to do as Marty Roth had a stroke of genius and decided not to start. So poor Helio was in the Roth pit with the dollar store pit mechanics from Roth racing trying frantically to do something, which they could not do and Helio was frantically waving his arms for someone competent to come and help him. By the time this happened the hapless Helio was two laps down and had to spend his afternoon racing drivers he was not used to racing, hoping one of them would not screw up and take him out, a legitimate concern. Helio's dramatics unnecessarily brought out the Safety Car and it appeared to make little difference, but for the fact that the AJ Foyt team and their driver Darren Manning pitted and put themselves out of sequence. When the race restarted Briscoe and Dixon rocketed away once again and ran nose to tail for a while. After some green flag stops the order remained Briscoe, Dixon, Hunter-Reay, and Tony Kanaan with Manning doing a good job to stay out of trouble, more on him soon. On lap 39 the Dunce caps started to come out. The first incident causing a Safety Car occured when EJ Viso and the horrendously unlucky Vitor Meira collided, an accident that was decidedly Viso's fault. While Meira ended up in the wall furious Viso continued and was the recipient of some harsh words back in the pits by the livid Meira. This caused the Safety Car to come out (the only legitimate caution in the race) and everyone pitted, except for Darren Manning who had gambled on fuel. He had pitted on lap 30 and the Safety car came out just in time for him to try to save fuel and go to the end while the Ganassi pit got Dixon out ahead of Hunter-Reay and Briscoe, who found himself down in fourth. Meanwhile in the pits Danica Patrick looked decidedly amateurish by spinning in the pits and nearly taking out some of Dixon's mechanics. She lost her front wing and had to pit again, and to add insult to injury she was dinged with a drive-through penalty for hitting pit equipment, a forgettable day for Danica. At the restart there was trouble at the back when Enrique Bernoldi, being up to the same old tricks he got up to in F1, crashed on his own at the first turn. He was well out of the way and there was no need for a safety car but lo and behold it came out again and kept the field slow, with Manning leading from Dixon, Briscoe, Hunter-Reay and Kanaan. This safety car period was when the real action began. It first started down in the boot on the lap that we were supposed to go back to green when at the back the horrendously incompetend Milka Duno decided to ignore her mirrors and swerved and slowed right in front of the only slightly more talented AJ Foyt IV, taking both drivers out. Foyt was furious, Duno ran and hid, and we were stuck with a few more laps behind the Safety car to clean up this mess. We were still under caution two laps later when there was more drama, this time at the front where Dixon had a major brain fart and spun while heating up his tyres and collecting the luckless Briscoe who broke his front wing. Both men were able to continue but had to go to the back of the pack. A sheepish Dixon was man enough to take the blame and apologize to Briscoe after the race while a disappointed Briscoe nobly took the "shit happens" approach to the incident and went about his business, noble sportsmanship. All these shenanigans resulted in more sleep inducing caution laps as the order was now Manning, Hunter-Reay, Kanaan, Buddy Rice, and Marco Andretti who for a change managed to stay out of trouble. The race restarted with 10 laps to go and speaking of sleep, Manning must have dozed off during the protracted safety car period and was jumped by Hunter-Reay who just blew by him and built up a 1.8 second lead after just one lap while Manning had to fend off Kanaan. The green flag running lasted all of one lap before rookie Jaime Camara fucked up and crashed in the boot. He probably could have been moved without a safety car, but this being the trigger happy IRL the caution flew once more. It was only for two laps before the safety car peeled off and Hunter-Reay peeled off in the lead leaving Manning in his dust. Hunter-Reay duly cruised to victory from Manning, who had to deal with a mirror full of Tony Kanaan, an impressive Buddy Rice, and Marco Andretti, who tried desperately to get by Rice in the final laps. Ryan Hunter-Reay duly won his first race in the IRL (although he had two wins in Champ Car in 2003 and 2004) and Rahal-Letterman's first win since Buddy Rice won at Michigan back in 2004. Darren Manning recorded his best ever IRl finish with a second place and the only driver from the big three to get to the podium was Tony Kannan with a third place. It was an exciting race with some great battles and a great turnout ensured that Indycar racing is slowly making a comeback. Hunter-Reay has had a great season and the marketable American driver is just what the series needs to help publicity, it's just too bad that he isn't a woman in that regard.