I’ve been fortunate to be part of the ChampCar World Series since 2001. Since then, I have attended pretty much every race. I’ve seen the good one’s and I have seen the not so good one’s and I have seen the crazy one’s. Yesterday was CRAZY! I can’t honestly look back at this race and figure anything out. First off, Bourdais is fine. That’s the good news. But let me tell you, he is ticked off at Tracy. I saw him momentarily after the race, he was back in the paddock signing some autographs. I asked how he was and he immediately went into a rant about Tracy. I can understand his beef this time because this incident took him to the hospital. For the first time in his career in ChampCar, he was taken out on a stretcher, given a CT scan and finished 18th. I recall Vivian Tracy telling me a few years back that a driver becomes who they are after they’ve been through “the big one”. We have seen many examples in the world of motorsports where a driver just isn’t the same after being part of a big accident. Yesterday’s accident was a big accident, make no mistake about it. It may not have the hard impact of hitting a wall at 200mph, but when you have a champcar on your head at those speeds, it’s a big one! We shall see how he bounces back from this one. But he was mad as heck. Had it happened with any other driver other than PT, he wouldn’t have been nearly as mad. Yesterday he was beyond mad. A week off will give him a chance to cool off and gather perspective. Because I bet you anything he felt like quitting last night.

Dan Clarke. When he turned the corner after passing Mario Dominguez on the final lap, I thought he was carrying too much momentum. Remember, he was on the power to pass as much as he could be. He was experiencing that turn with 50 extra horses, something he hadn’t done all weekend. I really thought it was a racing incident where he had too much momentum and unfortunately he spun the wrong way and hit Mario, eliminating both of them from the podium. Now, after the race I saw Hinch and Leo (stay tuned for the very first This or That 2006 featuring these two among others). And after Hinch and Leo were done making out with their girlfriends, I asked them what they thought of the incident. They firmly believe that Clarke pinched Dominguez. There was absolutely no doubt in their minds. It was too far after turn one, both were on a straight line and Clarke just didn’t want to give up that spot so he tried to pinch Dominguez. It’s a good point on their part. I still think it might have been momentum, but who am I to argue with a couple of Atlantic drivers who just ran a doubleheader that weekend?

It was a real shame with Justin Wilson. That team had a great opportunity. Let’s face it, how often is Seabass going to finish 18th, especially right off the bat? It was an ill-timed and rare car malfunction on that team’s part. Nobody went home more upset than those guys.

Nobody went home happier than AJ’s team, that’s for sure. Like AJ said, he didn’t know what was going to happen until the very end. Nobody did. It was just an absolutely crazy race. He is on quite a swing. Read my blog from Saturday. I think you’ll recall a certain Track announcer predicting that the next three races (including Cleveland) are his. I’m not right very often, so I am playing this one up! By the way, did you know AJ is moving to Toronto? I figured his fiancée would move down to the States with him, but it appears to be the other way around. Soon we’ll have a new Canadian on our hands!

I want to mention that last night I had dinner with some new friends of mine. Some good Cleveland folks that I met last year. Joe, Scott and Lisa were kind enough to invite me to their home for dinner. We talked racing all evening and I had a blast. Scott, all of 14, knows more about the sport than anybody I have ever met, except maybe he father Joe. Good friends, good food, good racing conversation!

I’ll write more about Cleveland, the event, the Atlantic race and of course, this supposed agreement with the IRL that ChampCar apparently came too, this week. Now I have to catch a flight back to Toronto for some good old R&R.