Paul Tracy's Unusal Formula a Winner

Paul Tracy utilized an admittedly unusual formula for taking home the victory at the Cleveland Grand Prix Sunday. Goes something like this: Crash + Replace front wing + Splash of fuel + Crash again + Replace front wing again + Another splash of fuel + resume race on lead lap at back with full tank = WIN.

Odd - yes but sometimes you just win in spite of yourself!

Then there's second, Doornbos was sent to to pit lane for a drive through an wound up second.

All of this makes me think that the others missed out on the perks of crashing and penalties. Perhaps Jani, who took third, could have won if he would have bolcked or something.

Still in all it was a good race filled with enough action that being correct on any early race predictions was going to be unlikely.

The start was super, I'm really liking this standing start thingy.

The crowd looked good from what I could see on TV.

Coverage was not up to my liking, in one case just as they came back from commercial I'm sure I saw a spin at the rear and never heard anything about it.

With Bourdais a DNF the points lead is tightened up, a sign of things to come????

Bring on the Mt.

Portland Good Portland Bad - Portland Gone?

Starting with the good, the standing start was awesome. Everyone got away, no one stalled and and turn one was clean. I say bring on the standing starts!!!!

Newman Hass (L) won their 100th race after a dismal weekend that saw Sebastian struggle in both practice and qualifying then go on to win.

No yellows the entire race but then Portland in known for a dearth of yellows, still it was nice to see everyone except Legge finished without fuss!

Rookie Doornbos on the podium again.

The ESPN/ABC coverage was really pretty good, at least an improvement over what we have seen in the recent past.

And the bad, how did Wilson give up such a big lead to lose this race........unbelievable.

Why did Kat spin and stall on the next to last lap?

Oh and the weather - yuk. Race day was without rain but the Saturday rain and Sunday rain prediction might have just scared off the race day crowd.

So how big was the crowd, I would be surprised if there were 20k for the race. Mucho empty seats!

Will the poor showing scare off any future promoters, have we seen the beginning of the end of CCWS at portland?