sunday

Way to go Marty Roth! Danica suffers mechanical problems, leaves the race and she still finishes ahead of you! Good job!

So by now we all know the storylines that happened today and that we will be following intently in the next couple of weeks. First and foremost is, of course Tag-Tracy. I was shocked when I saw it happen; jaw dropped and was held speechless for a moment, which as an announcer is not the way to go. Luckily my broadcast partners were there fore it! The whole incident is really simple to break down; it was Tracy’s fault for the on-track incident and Tag for the off-track. My question is where the hell was champ Car officials or any type of security?? Tagliani walks out of his pit box, helmet on, but everything else (gloves, Hans) off. He furiously walks in one direction. At one point Tracy is about 40 feet away walking towards him. Doesn’t anybody notice anything??? My main man Joe had to stop the fight. It’s not Joe’s job to do so, but he’s a firefighter from Jersey, so he’s been through his share of trouble. Tracy wanted nothing to do with Tag, but Tag wouldn’t let up. Naturally it went too far, but you know what? It had been a while since we had seen one of those and its sure going to make my job easier for a while! And as for NBC cutting away from it, that’s a tough call. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Having said that, it didn’t take a genius to see that at most, they would only wrestle for a bit until they were separated or, as happened, one would fall and then be separated. Tag knows he can’t beat Tracy physically and Tracy knew that Tag had a helmet, so couldn’t really do much. Still, it’s hard to put blame on the director of the broadcast and his decision making skills. But yes, fights equal ratings and national exposure and that’s certainly not going to hurt the series!!

The other big ontrack incident involved poor Andrew Ranger versus Katherine Legge. As if the action around wasn’t heated enough, you had Ranger yelling at Katherine as she went by. I don’t blame him one bit. He truly could do nothing of the incident. It was a clean ‘pass’ on a driver several laps down and he should be ticked off. I was ticked off calling it. Katherine is nice and all that, but being driving several laps down is totally different than on the lead lap. I’m happy for Ranger’s teammate Charles Swolsman finishing in the top ten and battling Bourdais. This is the kind of experience that a rookie needs to get under his belt. He held him off nicely for a while. Tough not to feel heartbroken for Dan Clarke though. Really is. However, you have to be impressed with Will Power. That avoidable contact penalty was a crapshoot. A call that could have gone either way. He bounced back nicely and I continue to be impressed with this Australian and hope that he is around for a few years in order to develop.

Oh, and if anybody doubts AJ, its the reason they went one yellow lap longer, Tony Cotman wanted to make sure he made the right call because he understood the severity of the penalty. The data and the recordings prove that Tony made the right decision. Of course, AJ’s reaction when he came in also speaks volume. He was overheard on the radio saying “why didn’t anybody else come in”. That is accidental omission of guilt right there. A rare mistake on AJ’s part. After what he has done with Forsythe thus far, he’s allowed one or two more.

I’ll write later about Bourdais’ super drive and Raphael Matos answering the critics. But I am tired (just from all of today’s action) and need to get some rest.