monday post RA

well my boy did it. Don't worry, I'm not going to turn this blog entry into a Bourdais lovefest. Even though I could. you know I could. my favorite part is how many articles and he himself talked about "finally" winning at Road America, even though it was just is 4th time on the track. Ask Paul Tracy how he feels hopes to "finally" win at Portland. Or the Cubs for that matter. :)
All in all though, the NHL weekend was incredible, keeping in mind that young Rahal topped some practice sessions and finished in 3rd. As Power and Doornbos said after qualifying on Saturday, we may have another points battle on our hands, a battle for second place that is.

It's funny, one of my duties at work is to interview the top 3 drivers after every session and obviously after the race its always a fun thing to do, as everybody is excited and things are hectic. The drivers are usually tired but obviously responsive. For some reason yesterday, both NHL drivers gave me ridiculously short answers to the questions. It was very abnormal. they were both happy naturally, but I guess because for Seabass it was pretty uneventful and for Graham, maybe he was secretly disappointed by not getting 2nd place, I'm not sure. But it got to the point where I asked Graham if he was tired, to which he answered "no, not at all" on-camera. I'm guessing Seabass has just run out of things to say and Graham, normally very talkative, also didn't have much to say other than to thank his sponsors and the team. Now Dan Clarke on the other hand, we couldn't get him to shut up! The general rule is to basically just ask the drivers about their race and let them answer, to which they talk a little about it, thank the sponsors, yada yada yada, its a nice little dance between reporter and driver. With DC (and I love him for it, don't get me wrong) he'll basically give you a lap by lap analysis of what happened on the track. Its fantastic and very genuine. Yesterday he mentioned that on his third stint he needed his team manager (Vince Kremer) to keep him awake on the radio. Funny stuff. And the kid drove the wheels off that car, no question.

But I would love to be a fly on the wall in that meeting between Doornbos, Clarke and Wiggins. No question its the worse case scenario for an owner. Your driver in contention for the championship is out of the race as a result of a hit with his teammate AND that teammate goes on to finish a career high 2nd. Wiggins was ticked when Beisner talked to him during the race. really ticked. I was in the press room with my fellow employees when the incident happened. Immediately the room blames Dan Clarke. Overwhelmingly. Then, because our monitor was a few seconds ahead of ABC's, I watch the incident and hear Jan Beekhuis blame DC on his braking. I couldn't believe the Doornbos-bandwagon-lovin' that I was hearing. DC didn't do anything wrong in that incident. he hit the brakes to take the turn and Doornbos ran into him. So, from this day on, as a result of my lifelong determination to go against the grain and go up when everybody goes down and go left when everybody goes right, I am hereby renouncing... well I don't know exactly what it is I am renouncing, but I am not going to jump on the "Doornbos can do no wrong because he's fast and personable" bandwagon. :)