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Left standing alone without a ride when the silly season music stopped, Dan Wheldon must be given credit for retooling, refocusing and quite simply, throwing a huge roll of the dice in signing with Bryan Herta Autosport for the 2011 Indy 500.

After all, Herta's underfunded outfit had barely qualified for the last and final spot on the grid in 2010. But that trust and feeling of confidence with Herta was repaid in both directions in what was certainly one of the most fantastic finishes in the century of history at the Brickyard (cues NFL Films marching music.)

Through it all, the 2005 IndyCar series champion and now two-time Indy 500 winner has stood by both his instinct and conviction. And when the nine-time winner on a 1.5 mile oval says he has a chance to win the GoDaddy Challenge, you are simply compelled to believe him.

I caught up with the eminently quotable 33-year old native of Emberton, UK via phone from Los Angeles Tuesday afternoon, where he was on a media blitz for the IZOD IndyCar World Championships. 

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I recently had the chance to take a few minutes to pick the brain of IZOD IndyCar Series CEO Randy Bernard. Rather than single out just a few bits and bobs for a story, I think that in this case the replies are the whole story. Bernard is quite insightful and candid in his replies as he details the trials and tribulations of rebuilding the IndyCar brand. 

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The return of the IZOD IndyCar series to New Hampshire Motor Speedway Sunday afternoon certainly filled up the highlight reel tape. 

Heck, they might even have to devote an extra DVD to it in the IndyCar post-season collection. And use a couple of those black censor bars to make it viewer-friendly.

Thrills, spills, separate crashes by the two championship leaders (one of which did not officially happen), controversial retroactive officiating and an obscene gesture each would have been worthy by themselves. When the rain steadied in pace, and the red mist dissipated, Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport was left  parked at the front of the remaining field on pit lane with an unconventional but deserving first victory of the season.

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Another session was completed Saturday morning at New Hampshire Motor Spreedway, and the Top-5 of the practice was strangely devoid of Penske Racing's three cars. Granted, Will Power and Ryan Briscoe were still in the Top 10, but with Helio Castronevesmired in 20^thplace, the feeling was that there was an odd tilt to the Death Star universe without one of the prime contributors to global IndyCar domination and standings destruction.

Penske Racing had lost that je ne sais quois on the the left-hand only tracks. And don't think for a minute that the drivers haven't noticed. Are the days of Penske oval domination over for the season? Are poles on ovals, once a staple in Roger Penske's diet, now a thing of the past?

“Good question. We don't know. We've been putting so much effort (in engineering), like in the past, and some how other teams have developed another way and (improved),” said Castroneves after qualifying ninth (168.886 mph) Saturday for the Movethatblock.com 225. “This business is about working constantly. Certainly this weekend is a wakeup call for us.”

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A rare  on-site, off-track day in the IndyCar schedule Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon found a relaxed atmosphere for drivers and crew in the garage area. But with a full day of open testing just completed, rave reviews were already coming in from IndyCar drivers for the progressively-banked 1.025 mile oval. As the third and final short oval on the 17-race calendar, the Movethatblock.com 225 in Loudon seems familiar, yet brings a unique set of challenges.

“I like it, it’s a cool little track. It’s similar to MIlwaukee in that it’s flat and a little bit bumpy, but I think it’s going to be good fun in the race,” said Andretti Autosports Mike Conway, who was 13th in the combined practice results Thursday.

Tony Stewart completed the previous chapter in the NHMS’ open wheel legend with a win in the  IndyCar race in 1998. The track history book itself is a Who’s Who of 1990s open wheel talent,  with the roster of IndyCar and CART race winners boasting names like Stewart, Robbie Buhl, Scott Sharp, Al Unser Jr., Nigel Mansell and Bobby Rahal, while IndyLights victors included the late Greg Moore (twice, in 1994 and 1995) and Adrian Fernandez. Jacques Villeneuve won the pole for the Toyota Atlantics race at the track in 1993, while Dario Franchitti’s race engineer Chris Simmons won twice in the USAC Formula Ford 2000 series.

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Wade Cunningham in the cockpit of the #99 Creatherm Dallara for Sam Schmidt Motorsports (Photo: IndyCar)

One could hardly blame Wade Cunningham if he had decided to move over to the Perrier & Brie set and race exotic sports cars with unpronounceable sponsors, or return to his native land and herd sheep with a modded go kart.

Or even if he had utilized his off-beat sense of humor and gone to work as the new assistant for Murray Hewitt at the New Zealand consulate.

It's been a long, strange trip from Auckland to the top rung of the American open wheel racing ladder.

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Maybe the old girl still had some tricks up her sleeve after all.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway may have undergone more facelifts and repaving than an aging Hollywood starlet, but still produces a remarkable and consistent ability to turn the script on its ear and rewrite the expected ending in dramatic fashion.

Dan Wheldon provided the punctuation to an action-packed Centennial edition of the Indy 500 by snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, as race leader J.R. Hildebrand clouted the Turn 4 wall within sight of the checkered flag.  Wheldon shot the gap between Hildebrand's sliding, destroyed car and the historic yard of bricks marking the finish line to claim a 2.1 second victory in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

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Continuing the tradition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, my colleague Paul Dalbey from MoreFrontWing.com and I have come up with a brilliant idea - betting on the Indy 500. Super Bowl-style, no-holds-barred sports betting. 

We've devised a list of 33 Sports Wagers related to the Indy 500. Hey, if the Super Bowl can have it (can I type Super Bowl without someone suing?), why can't we....it's the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, let's also make it the Greatest Spectacle in Race Betting.

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If the Friday warmup for Sunday's Centennial Indy 500 is any indication, the race itself is going to be a barnburner.

With liberal doses of thrills, spills, crushed aluminum cans and carbon fiber destined for the recycling bin, Carb Day delivered action in abundance. And I'm not talking about people dropping third-full cans of beer off the top of the grandstands on unsuspecting passers-by.

Despite threatening skies and chilly 50-something degree temperatures, the final IndyCar practice session and Firestone Indy Lights Freedom 100 race went off without a hitch. The bands played and many, many, many cans of carbonated beverages were drunk. Okay, so it's not that kind of "carb" but a relevant and often overlooked part of the tradition nonetheless. Part race day cram exam, part post-finals frat party, Carb Day had it all.

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While you are waking up and enjoying that first bit of morning coffee and Hobbsian wisdom from the Spanish F1 broadcast, take a moment to feel sorry for someone.

Yes, I'm talking about that junior mechanic from Andretti Autosport, who probably spent the night jacked up on Red Bull - err, Venom Energy - and the threat of a layoff through no fault of his own.

"Team Chaos," as some in the paddock refer to AA, was not the only team to struggle during the first day of Indy 500 qualifying, but was perhaps the most surprising. After all, who would have thought the only one of Michael Andretti's five cars in the field would be erstwhile cousin John Andretti (224.981 mph). who stuck his aqua and red Window World car into the field just before the rain interrupted qualifying?

When the fast nine qualifying shootout ended just after 6:00 p.m., there were 24 cars locked into the provisional field, and four of the them were not the full-time AA entries of Danica Patrick, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti and Mike Conway.

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St. Petersburg, FL (March 27) - Two-time defending IZOD IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti served notice that his own hunger for another championship would continue in the 2011 season, as he stamped out a dominant victory in a crash-filled season opener at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg Sunday afternoon.

Franchitti easily withstood the challenge from runner-up Will Power of Penske Racing, while a reinvigorated Tony Kanaan nabbed the final podium spot in his debut for KV-Lotus Racing after a spirited multi-lap battle with second-year driver Simona De Silvestro that had the strong crowd roaring in approval.

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When Dario Franchitti knocked off his rear wing in the Saturday morning practice session for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg with a rare unforced driver error, the collective sigh of relief from his rivals was almost audible over the track noise. Perhaps it was a sign that the racer's luck was starting to turn for the two-time defending IZOD IndyCar Series champion.

Or maybe not.

Penske Racing's Will Power edged out Franchitti in the Firestone Fast Six Qualifying, but as it was at the end of last season, the contenders knows the road to the 2011 championship will run through Franchitti's front door. And the Scotsman knows that gives him a psychological edge over his rivals, however slight.

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ST PETERSBURG, Fla. (March 25) - While the signing of Tony Kanaan signaled a new commitment to putting a car in victory lane in the upcoming season, It seems as though KV-Lotus Racing is equally serious about mounting a challenge its own unofficial IndyCar series record for crashes in a single season. EJ Viso's car is already a perfect three-for-three with contact in each practice session thus far.

"Hiring (Tony Kanaan) won't matter if they keep tearing up equipment," noted one veteran crew member. "Can't get to the front if you are always thrashing to put cars together, it puts you behind in preparation."

KV Racing spent most of last season shuttling equipment from the parts truck. Viso's practice crashes, while not serious, does raise concerns about when a single driver's performance can drag a whole team down with the tow truck. Veteran IndyCar fans recall the 2005 season, in which Chip Ganassi threatened to fire the next driver to wreck a car after a dismal showing on the Milwaukee Mile. Lucky for Chip, Scott Dixon did not put it in the wall at that time. 

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Lost within the hubbub and silly season questions of who will drive what for whom and where, battle lines are being drawn for what promises to be the first of many skirmishes between the now-monolithic sports broadcasting hub of ESPN/ABC and the upstart and (soon to be re-badged) Versus Network.

And it appears as if the Indy 500, and INDYCAR series itself, will be ground zero.

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When Dario Franchitti rolled over the yard of bricks, doused himself with milk and picked up his second Indy 500 victory in May of 2010, there was possibly no one happier and more directly relieved than his chief engineer and pit box computer jockey, Chris Simmons.

So it came as no surprise Friday evening, when, with an IZOD IndyCar Series championship hanging in the balance, Franchitti made sure to first thank his Simmons and his crew on his IMS Radio Network interview after getting out of the car with the fastest speed on the big board, and a Peak Performance Pole Award and $10,000 bonus check to collect.

"I don't know what (crew chief) Chris Simmons did to the Target car between practice and now, but that thing was beautifully balanced," Franchitti said. "(The first timed lap) felt like a good lap, and I looked down and saw 213 and said: 'Oh, nice. Let's see if we can not screw up the second lap.' I felt it; I was able to take the line I wanted. Now I can relax a little."

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As Paul Tracy prepares for his fourth IZOD IndyCar series start of the season at Kentucky Speedway, the transformation from brash racing superstar to grizzled veteran qualifies as a makeover worthy of  Dr. Phil's couch.

Gone, it seems, is the gruff exterior and the win-or-leave-a-pile-of-shredded-carbon-fiber mentality.

Now Tracy heads a personal marketing team that pulls together sponsorship packages to create racing opportunities and values the idea of finishing races as much as starting them.

Somewhere, Gerry Forsythe is chuckling at the irony, along with a bevy of former engineers and crew chiefs.

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A quick spin through the post-race comments from IZOD IndyCar team PR releases seemed to indicate that the Honda Indy Toronto was all unicorns, rainbows, baby seals and sponsor mentions, mixed with an occasional allusion to a "learning experience."

Very scarce were direct references to what Versus Tour de France commentator Phil Liggett would call the "argy bargy" of the carbon-shredding, wheel-banging, tire-barrier-stuffing 85 lap race. Drivers Ryan Briscoe, Graham Rahal, Tomas Scheckter, Dan Wheldon, Takuma Sato, Mario Moraes and Alex Tagliani, among others, all had their share of paint trading during the course of the race.

But to read the official post-race quotes, everything was more mellow than a lazy afternoon spent listening to James Taylor and Carol King while sipping Chardonnay.

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Don't Believe A Word

'Don't believe me if I tell you

Not a word of this is true

Don't believe me if I tell you

Especially if I tell you that we've got plenty of fuel' 

- Paraphrase of the great Irish poet and band leader,

Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy

When Andretti Autosport's Tony Kanaan rolled into the pits at Watkins Glen for a splash and go fuel stop on lap 59 of the 60-lap Camping World GP at The Glen, the intense Brazilian was running in eighth place and just six laps removed from his fastest lap of the race.

The stop, which lasted less than 10 seconds in the pit box, totally derailed all hope of a Top-10 finish for Kanaan and may just have hung a "Closed" sign on his IndyCar championship hopes. He returned from the sojourn in 21st place, the last car on the lead lap, and posted his worst finish in almost a full year.

The result represented a total breakdown in the Andretti team's fuel strategy - three stops proved to be catastrophic without the usual predicted late caution and only two short yellow flag periods in the race. But if Kanaan's race strategist Tom Anderson had been polled by the crack crew of pit reporters (as Roger Penske was interviewed in the closing laps), he would have sworn up and down that Kanaan had plenty of fuel-grade ethanol in the tank for a flat-out, fun-tastic finish.

In the world of race day fuel strategy, disinformation is the name of the game. Subterfuge and counterespionage are both accepted facts of life.

And the lies often last well past the end of the race.

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If there has ever been a more polarizing concept car design than the Delta Wing IndyCar, it certainly has not been in the modern era of IndyCar racing.

Or for that matter, any form of auto racing.

Part stealth fighter, part Jetsons factory car, (and some might argue, part lawn dart or tricycle), the Delta Wing is not simply a boring update like NASCAR's "Car of Tomorrow" (which looked pretty much the same as the car of last week) nor an evolution of an existing open wheel design like competing entries from Swift, Dallara, Lola and BAT.

It is a revolution in terms of both design and materials. Lighter, faster, sleeker than the present car yet less complex and expensive, the Delta Wing model on display in front of the Pagoda at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a neck-snapping, traffic stopper of both the drunk and sober alike.

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