Helio Castroneves is used to close shaves. He's Brazilian. Despite having won the Indy 500 a couple of times, he's probably more famous for another career victory which doesn't figure on his racing CV - winning the US version of Dancing With The Stars, which means that even Seppos who wouldn't know an Indycar from Indiana Jones (note: one is wrinklier) know who he is. Helio had a shit weekend last week, flying halfway around the world to finish a lap down and approximately nowhere in the first Gold Coast Indy to actually feature 'Indy' cars for about thirteen years, while his teammate won the thing. Helio will probably have a lot more shit weekends to come, however, given that the Feds have indicted him on multimillion dollar tax evasion charges. His trademark 'Spiderman' victory celebration is unlikely to translate well to his probable new digs, given that the fences he's accustomed to climbing aren't usually electrified and topped with razor wire.
However, while Helio had a shit weekend, his was not the shittest weekend of all at the Indy. That went to ludicrously named local lad Will Power, who for the third Gold Coast event in succession, put the thing on pole; and for the third Gold Coast event in succession, proceeded to fuck his shit right up, inexplicably finding a wall to munt his 'Team Australia' (urrgh) car into while leading the field on lap 16. Will Power is not terribly bright. Will Power is from Toowoomba. Instead, the honour of being the first Australian ever to win the Gold Coast Indy went to Ryan Briscoe of Penske, who held off 2008 series champion and Indy 500 winner, Kiwi Scott Dixon (who the American commentators were unwisely describing as 'Australian-born Scott Dixon' - which, while factual, would get 'em a lynchin' in the Shakies). Briscoe has had a fairly shit career - dumped from the Toyota F1 test team, seriously injured in a car-splitting fireball endo in his first season in Indycars, left to try and rebuild his career in sportscars with Penske's Porsche team. Even earlier this year there were questions raised about how long it'd be before Penske fired him from the Indycar team, but a couple of wins sorted that - in the end, he outscored his mate from Internal Revenue by three wins to one, and if Dixon hadn't spun under yellow like a hammer-thumbed arsewit and taken them both out at Watkins Glen, it could well have been four.
The main benefactor of an Aussie finally winning at the Gold Coast, other than the Aussie in question, is the event itself. Following the shotgun reunification of the Indycar and Champcar series, this year's race was a non-championship event (the late-September Chicago oval event has series-concluding status written into its contract), about which serious doubts were cast re participation of the marquee teams. In the end all came, all saw and one conquered. The problem re continuing participation of the Indys in the Indy isn't about the season-ending issue any more though - it's about the Indy peeps wanting to buddy the race up with the Japan event, and the Queenslanders (whose strings are being pulled by the V8 supremos) objecting to most of the alternative dates as they clashed with AFL finals and whatnot. As usual, it's V8 boss Cockhead Cochrane who's making the biggest arse of himself over this, slagging off the Indycar people, the proposed replacement series A1GP (which to be fair, is losing money faster than your average high-exposure investment fund) and coming out with the diabolically daft suggestion that the Qld government seek to sign the German DTM touring car series as a replacement, seeing as though they won't buy into his vision of the event becoming V8s only. Cockhead is power-mad and delusional, particularly after the NSW gummint finally bent over re his long standing wish to see multicoloured taxis lapping the Olympic precinct, but the delusion clearly doesn't extend to taking into consideration the following facts:
(a) the Indy absolutely has to have a high-end open-wheel racing series as its centrepoint, if only for the glamour stakes, otherwise it's no more than the Clipsal 500 Mark Two; German taxis alternating with Australian taxis ain't cutting it, and
(b) despite Cockhead's cockiness, the DTM boys will make his show look very fucking ordinary. They are proper race cars, with proper race drivers. No sign of anyone called Winterbottom in here.
Anyway, that was dull, I know, but we'll try harder next time.
The Doctor is OUT.
No comments:
Post a Comment