Race Report: Briscoe sends Aussies home happy

It just had to happen, an Aussie winning the Australian Indy Car race, and it was Penske's Ryan Briscoe who did it, this with a little help from fellow Aussie Will Power who screwed things up spectacularly. In a bit of a surprise the race did not feature rain, something which is normally seen at Surfers and also in a little bit of a surprise most of the drivers were fairly well behaved on the track, with one notable exception, more on that later......

At the green flag there was some jostling and down at the back there was a spot of bother at the back when Mario Moraes and Vitor Meira tangled, pitching Meira into a spin and doing some cosmetic damage to Moraes's car. A few laps later this slight damage would turn into bigger damage as the suspension broke, pitching Mario into a wall and bringing out the caution flag. Will Power led from the start, looking very comfortable with a stable 3 second lead over countryman Briscoe before the yellow and after the caution he pulled out a lead again. This lead came to a horribly embarassing end for the polesitter when on lap 17 he screwed it up royally at turn five, clipping the wall. He limped down to turn 6 and pulled off course, handing the lead to Briscoe. A sheepish Power was apologetic when he talked to the cameras, taking full responsibility for his error which is refreshing, as excuses and finger pointing seem to be the norm in most forms of racing as opposed to manning up and taking the blame. From then on it was pretty much all Briscoe, relinquishing the lead briefly during the pitstop shuffles but led until the end. Meanwhile down in the field there was trouble here and there. At one point Danica Patrick got on television for all the wrong reasons by running into the back of Helio Castroneves. Her broken front wing and Helio's punctured rear tyre said it all about who was to blame for the incident as she went for repairs. The biggest and most notable incident came on lap 22 when there was trouble in the midfield as Road-Course slowpoke Ed Carpenter and the excitable young Graham Rahal came together, pitching Ed into a spin. This blocked the track and both AJ Foyt IV and Danica Patrick came around, got flustered, and stalled their engines. A frantic Danica was seen on TV waving her arms to get restarted, but it was lesson two from the Danica Patrick school of how not to run an automobile race. This whole mess brought out the safety car (a legitimite Safety Car for a change) and the resulting pitstops screwed a few people's races, most notably Dario Franchitti. What happened was that most drivers pitted just before the caution came out, shuffling Dario to the lead. Unfortunately for Dario the pits are closed after the Safety Car comes out and so he had to let everyone bunch up behind him before making his stop, dropping himself down the pack. He tried to charge hard to return to the front but dropped the ball on lap 29 and spun, bringing out the third and final caution period. When the race restarted the order was Briscoe, Scott Dixon, Alex Tagliani, and Ryan Hunter Reay, the last two having very good races. There wasn't a whole lot of action at the front, but there was one incident between Tagliani and Hunter-Reay in the pits where Tags slowed more than Hunter-Reay was expecting and Hunter-Reay made light contact with the rear of Tagliani's car. Nothing serious but the pitstops did allow RHR to leapfrog Tags. The real action was over fifth, sixth and seventh between Oriol Servia, the accident-prone EJ Viso, and Helio Castroneves, who recovered nicely from the assault by Danica. There was plenty of passing, EJ Viso got himself in hot water first for blocking (being forced to cede a place to Servia) and then for cutting the chicane, which earned EJ only a warning. In the end he held of Castroneves, but there were some hairy moments (as there often is when people get close to Viso) but rather surprisingly there was no contact at all. In the closing laps Briscoe had a two second lead over Dixon but had it erased via a third display of terrible driving from Ms Danica Patrick, who was being lapped and did not seem to realize that she had mirrors and spent the better part of a lap holding up Briscoe. Whether she takes driving tips from Andrea De Cesaris or she was exacting revenge on Briscoe for their contact during the Indy 500 we will never know, but suffice to say the Penske people were none to amused with her and walked down to the AGR pit to ask some questions. This was definitely a day to forget for Danica Patrick and only adds fuel to the fire of the detractors. This allowed Scott Dixon to close up on Briscoe and the two raced hard until the end of the race, with Briscoe holding out. The final notable incident was on the last lap when Ed Carpenter, another driver not having the best of days, stuffed his Vision car into a tyre barrier. Ryan Hunter-Reay finished third, another good road course result for him. After his little love-tap on Tagliani in the pits (not the first time this kind of incident happened between those two) he managed to pull away to grab the podium place while Tagliani held on to fourth, coming under pressure from Servia in the closing laps. This was a very good race for Tagliani, scoring a much needed result for Conquest, Enrique Bernoldi who? Fifth went to Servia, who saved face for KV racing after Power's horrendous boob, followed home by the always exciting Viso, Castroneves, Hideki Mutoh, Graham Rahal, and Dan Wheldon. 13 drivers were on the lead lap and there were only five retirements. Moraes after his crash, Townsend Bell for "contact" although due to TV issues I don't know who or what he hit, Tony Kanaan with a Mechanical failure, Will Power with a brain failure, and Ed Carpenter with a case of crashitis.

The three stars of the race are
1st Star: Ryan Briscoe,
2nd Star: Alex Tagliani
3rd Star: Ryan Hunter-Reay

Three Boobs of the race
1st Boob: Will Power
2nd Boob: Danica Patrick
3rd Boob: Ed Carpenter

Now a word about television coverage. I am very unhappy with how race coverage was made available. Firstly the race was only on ESPN classic in the United States, not exactly a common channel, and secondly it was not on television at all here in Canada. OK, this kind of thing happens with a non-championship race but I can let it slide. The big problem was that race coverage was not available on the IndyCar website as it usually is. It was on ESPN360, a service only available in the United States and only available through certain Internet Providers. Those not blessed with these conditions were stuck listening to the radio and the live timing service, with the exception of the more resourceful of us who managed to find some semi-legit video streaming elsewhere. This is a downright stupid way to try to market a sport and encourage potential sponsors as one of the basic ideas of marketing is to get your message out to as many people as you can for the least amount of money. I do not know how much the IRL pays ESPN to put their coverage on the IndyCar website, but I can't imagine it not to be worth it. The IRL only served to alienate and piss off it's most loyal fans, which is something the league can't afford to do in such delicate economic times. Way to go IRL.