Bourdais Wins Montreal

Sebastian Bourdais held on to win the Montreal race this morning. Tracy was second sandwiched between the two Frenchmen, Bourdais and Philippe who finished third.

It seems ironical that Tracy's fate in the race would be manipulated by the two Frenchmen after the weekend of interaction between Tracy and the mostly French crowd. Tracy commented at the post race press conference that chiding was all in good fun and taken as such.






WickerBill Sez;

Bourdais' points lead is nearly insurmountable.
The attendance was 110,000 for three days up nearly 10% from last year, - Tracy's doings? Too bad this was the last Champ Car event scheduled for this track!

KK at Infineon

Quoted from Speed:

Kevin Kalkhoven made in impromptu appearance at Infinion on Sunday morning to talk with Tony George about the possibility of staging doubleheaders in 2007.

"Mario (Andretti) invited me to come to talk with Tony but it wasn't about unification," said Kalkhoven, the co-owner of Champ Car who lives 30 minutes away outside of San Jose.

"We discussed the possibility of running a couple events together but I'm not real optimistic at this point."

IRL founder George had no comment on the meeting, which also included Honda's Robert Clarke, who refused to talk about it.Andretti and Clarke both tried to mend the open wheel split during the past year and the 1969 Indy 500 winner would only say: "I can't really talk about it but I think we're making progress.

"It's believed the events being considered are Long Beach ( Champ Car), St. Petersburg (IRL) and another road race at mid-season.


WickerBill Sez;

As I have said all along a phased deal is a must, could this be the first phase?

Methanol vs Ethanol

With the IRL going to Ethanol next year they have opted to go back to the 3.5 L engine to make up for some of the power lost by switching from methanol to ethanol fuel.

Something called “latent heat of vaporization” is what is responsible for alcohols better than gasoline performance in racing engines. This is in spite of the fact that alcohol has less power per unit volume than gasoline. The Latent heat of vaporization is also what gives methanol the edge over ethanol even though ethanol has more power per unit volume than methanol.

So why the change to Ethanol? Obviously has nothing to do with performance, likely just a PR move!

For a good read on alcohol fuels: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_manual/manual1-2.html

Young Driver has Clear View of Chasm

By J.R. Hildebrand

http://www.speedtv.com/commentary/31139/

WickerBill Sez;

J.R. is wise beyond his years!

Allmendinger Makes it Four in Denver

AJ A collected his fourth win of the season at Denver, besting the field in a wild a woolly event. AJ's crew out strategized (sic) the Bourdais crew putting AJ out on the last stint with the Bridgestone blacks allowing AJ to pull away from Bourdais who had worn out his Reds long before his last stop.

Although Tracy, who had no P to P left, was well ahead of Bourdais on the final stint when Bourdais and his new Blacks came storming back catching and passing Tracy wide at the entrance to the last turn of the race. Anyone that knows Tracy knew he wouldn't let that go unchallenged and when he saw the inside open he blasted into it lost grip and knocked Bourdais and himself out of the race finish.

An angry Bourdais ran across the track and pointed a finger at Tracy and gave him a shove, ala Tag two weeks ago.

All of this allowed Junqueria and Dan Clark to get podium finishes,

WickerBill sez;

Tires: What are the REDS for qualifying????
Will Bourdais finally draw a real penalty for shoving Tracy and not just a slap on the wrist?
First turn report: No carnage.........well not at the turn - Tag spun Tracy and busted the front suspension. Hey CCWS, still waiting for a clean First lap race!

daMatta Continuing to Improve

8/7/06

Earlier today, Champ Car Medical Director Dr. Chris Pinderski, who has been very involved in da Matta’s care and recovery process, flew to Wisconsin to monitor the condition of da Matta. He visited da Matta and spoke with da Matta's family and attending physician, Dr. Randall R. Johnson.

The following statement is an update on da Matta’s medical status.

"Cristiano continues to make slow but steady progress while in the Intensive Care Unit at Theda Clark Medical Center. At this point in his recovery, Dr. Johnson has begun to decrease Cristiano's sedation. The care Cristiano has been receiving has been excellent and he'll remain in the Intensive Care Unit while his condition and progress are being monitored.”

WickerBill sez;

For further upates go to Rusport website http://www.rusport.com/content/cristiano

daMatta in Recovery Phase

It has been reported that da Matta in now in the recovery phase as he remains heavly sedated in the ICU. This following report was written by Robin Miller and posted on Speed:

http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/champcar/30414/



WickerBill says;

C'mon......... Shorty