Two delicate situations relating to activity in the Izod Indycar Series happened on the weekend. One received little attention, one receiving a lot.  If you’ve ever been an official at a sporting event of any kind you’ll know it means the one of little attention was done well, and the one of great attention, means you’re probably getting abused from the sideline.

Situation (a), revolves around the Indycar Series decision to place Milka Duno on probation regarding her conduct as a driver.

Last time the officials had a situation like this, was when Marty Roth was driving in the series.  Marty just disappeared during the offseason, in a way that makes me wonder whether he should consider his own David Copperfield style TV specials.

Nobody really knows what happened there, but we suspect that maybe he was told there would be no licence renewal forthcoming.  Marty would probably suggest that there was no warning, and no options to resolve this issue.

Having learned from that experience, the officials came up with a different tack to approach the Duno situation.  That approach, was transparency.

If Milka Duno’s licence application for 2010 is rejected, there is little doubt why, as officials made it clear in a media statement on Thursday: “Duno’s probation requires immediate and substantial improvement to her driving during the remaining events on the 2010 schedule.

“Substantial improvement is defined as consistently meeting the performance standards set by the league on a particular circuit. On road and street courses this is measured in terms of time (107 percent of lead car), and on ovals it is measured in terms of speed (10 mph of the lead car). In addition to time and speed, other requirements include car control/placement and interaction with other cars on track.”

By putting Duno on probation, with set criteria, the situation is clear.  There can be no arguments; there can be no media posturing by the team. It is what it is.

Situation (b) where Helio Castroneves was penalised with a black flag for blocking on the final restart, is an interesting comparison.

A clear instruction was given in the drivers briefing to the drivers (in this video posted on Youtube). Do not defend your line, if you do so, and you’re in the inside half of the track while not attempting a pass, you will be black-flagged.

Now I know a lot of you don’t like that rule, but there’s no doubt the drivers were told that’s the rule. The video of the driver’s briefing proves this.

The drivers in the briefing had a clear opportunity to question or give feedback on the rule. That is the purpose of the briefing; to bring it to the attention of the drivers, and/or to take feedback. Otherwise you’d just print it in the rulebook.

Here unfortunately, is where the league failed.  When the green flag dropped on Sunday, it appears that only the 30-odd people in that room, the drivers, the league officials, and camera operator knew what the rule was.

I certainly didn’t.  The IMS radio network commentators, including Davey Hamilton didn’t know.  The Versus commentators including Professor B, and one Indycar team owner appeared not to know either.

If that driver’s briefing instruction was printed in a supplementary bulletin, and distributed to the media, then the reality is, we wouldn’t be talking about this today. Because regardless of your opinions on the rule itself, it’s pretty clear, according to the instructions given in the driver’s briefing, the interpretation was 100 percent correct.

Unfortunately for the Indycar Series, what resulted was a post-race media scramble to try and explain to fans why the penalty was applied the way it was. Unfortunately, at this point, the horse had bolted. Helio Castroneves’ antics had already an hour ago won the hearts and minds of fans worldwide.

The unfortunate part for officials was they had all the evidence at their disposal to extinguish this fire before it took hold. They videotaped the briefing, had got the understanding of most series drivers that this was the interpretation of the rule.  They just forgot to tell anybody else.

A situation where that video, or a note about the passing rules, was distributed to the media leads to a very different scenario.  The video that Versus produced post-race showing Castroneves breaking the rules by driving inside the superimposed “half way line” appears on the screen before the post-race interviews, and Castroneves ends up looking the villain, rather than Barnhart.

The Indycar Series now faces a lot of negative feedback.  But the negative feedback you’re reading in the media this week, about the call, about the rule, masks the true issue.  In both instances it was not the rules, or how you interpret them that mattered.  It was transparency of outcome that mattered.

Transparency has made the uncomfortable Duno situation a lot more palatable. But transparency was not a consideration when the driver’s briefing information about blocking was not made public, and that allowed Castroneves to capture the hearts and minds of Indycar Series fans when he had no right to.

Hopefully, the lesson has been learned.

So to give you all an idea of the most popular drivers, I’ve done a search for the phrase of the drivers name on Google Australia (with the “pages from Australia” checkbox on, so it only returns domestic page). I’ve put the top 15 Australian ranked drivers in the Castrol Driver Rankings as my test.

Without further ado:

Mark Webber (Formula 1): 124,000 pages
Craig Lowndes (V8 Supercar): 81,100
Jamie Whincup (V8 Supercar): 70,300
James Courtney (V8 Supercar): 52,400
Garth Tander (V8 Supercar): 46,600
Mark Winterbottom (V8 Supercar): 46,300
Steven Johnson (V8 Supercar): 38,500
Rick Kelly (V8 Supercar): 31,800
Marcos Ambrose (NASCAR): 26,000
Will Davison (V8 Supercar): 18,200
Will Power (Indycar): 16,200+
Ryan Briscoe (Indycar): 11,300
Daniel Ricciardo (Formula Renault 3.5): 6,470
John Martin (Superleague): 3,390+
David Brabham (Sports cars): 2,800

+ added word “racing” to filter search results to correct level.

This in my view, is about correct in terms of how I think the drivers are known here.  Certainly any of the overseas drivers who don’t race here at all, have no profile, but Webber’s profile as a possible World Champion blitzes any other V8 Supercar driver on the popularity front.

Marcos Ambrose’s position on the list is more about his former career in V8 Supercar, than the impact of NASCAR in Australia. NASCAR the series itself is only marginally higher in profile than Indycar. Before Ambrose left Australia he would have been top 5 on this list, and would certainly have a level of recognition, although that’s tapered off slightly now he hasn’t raced in Australia in a long period.

The list correctly shows the strength of V8 Supercar over other motor sport categories domestically.

Will Power’s scores behind ahead of Briscoe’s is a symptom of both his name (that’s my name: You stay outta this, moustache), but also of his exposure in Australia from the Champcar days, and as a competitor in Australian championships. Briscoe, having less than 5 motor races in Australia total, has a far lower score for this reason.

10 The wonderful hospitality of American Indycar fans. You know who you are. Thank you.

9 My Christmas Cards, and watching everybody laugh when they got them!

8 Helping the CAMS Victorian State Council to get change in Australian club motor sport.

7 Talking my way into the shops of Luczo Dragon/Dreyer and Reinbold.

6 Seeing a racing car turn a corner 350kph for the first time.

5 In the water on a West Coast beach with Holly.

4 Chatting to Ashley Judd in a burger joint in Milwaukee.

3 Hanging with Curt Cavin. Whether it was talking on the radio, or talking over a burger.

2 Watching Holly’s face as she got her 21st birthday present

1 Hearing 320,000 people sing “Back home again in Indiana” in person.

Apologies to Accidentally blowing off Lauren Bohlander, Seeing the Shaq in person, meeting Donald Davidson, fun with the J-Train, and buying myself a new computer for the first time in 14 years.

To my wonderful friends, from Western Australia to West Des Monies: Happy, prosperous and safe new year everybody.

On my way home from work on Tuesday or Wednesday, is when it first appeared.

However, by Friday night, it appears like the CRT managed to summon enough power to communicate one more message for the benefit of the general populus before he leaves this world.

That’s right you 21 Inch, HD Widescreen, Automatic Power save, multiple input LCD: You suck!

Props to the people responsible, you’ve outdone the person that authored this in a toilet block at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the graffiti of the year title.

Yes it’s been a while, I know. Here’s my take on the past few weeks of Indycar Racing at MyNameIsIRL.com, where I’m guest blogging.

This article amused me, in which Mark Webber is quoted as saying:

“Yeah, yeh, yeh.” he screeched aloud. “Oh yes. You beauty! Yes.”

I think Reuters might have missed a word.  Between “You” and “beauty”.  I’ll let you figure that out.

I think they also cut off the radio transmission because following the quote above, he said “We’re going to get…”

Which is a shame, because Mark was obviously going to say something like:

“We’re going to get my Dad, and Ann, and then we’re going to have a nice warm cup of tea, mine is white with two sugars, have it ready after the press conference.”

But for some reason they cut that off…

Don’t know why.

Not quite yet.

I’m sitting at 40 West Coffee Cafe in Indianapolis, chilling out with Pressdog’s race summary before I fly home. Gentlemen start your jet engines at 5:30pm.

To give people an idea of the trip:
Indianapolis to Memphis (On Northwest), Memphis to LAX (On Northwest), LAX to Sydney (on V Australia), then Sydney to Melbourne.  Arriving at Melbourne at 10:30 on Thursday.  Only 29 hours this time with a reduced LAX layover.  Sleep should be nicer too, as I’m in Australian nighttime on the plane, so I will try and sleep.

Wednesday is, well, there is no Wednesday.

I was going to post a thank you post, but if I do that, I’m going to leave somebody’s name out.  I’ll do something once I get back to Melbourne and have time to write something coherent.

Just wanted to say thanks to everybody who helped in making this little vacation the most awesome thing I’ve done in a long, long time.  Whether you were a media person, a team member, an IMS/IRL staff member, a blogger, an Indianapolis 500 historian, a member of the track staff, a hot dog vendor, or a fan I ran into at the track or an airport, or a person I met at a bar while having a feed: Thank you.  It’s been truly a pleasure.

I do intend on coming back. When will depend on when the IRL introduce the new car, whether I can get a job over here, how the credit card is travelling, and/or whether anybody is stupid enough to offer their services as a wife, Will and Grace style (US gov, only kidding about the last bit).

So for now, I’ll see ya in Melbourne.

I have been invited to be a guest on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network during the Indy Lights practice session 2 tomorrow:

When: Saturday 4 July: 8:45AM Eastern, 10:45PM AEST, 8:45PM AWT (others check local guides – always wanted to say that)
Where: On indycar.com’s Media Center (click here). Click the “Indy Live” menu item, you then might have to click the “Indy lights practice session 2 link”

Ten Reasons Why #IndyCar Should Hire @shagers (no particular order):

1. Babe magnet. Looks like a driver, sounds like one, too. A boost to the female demographics for the league.
2. He is custodian of the Briscoe Consolation Vegemite and can ably expand to handle a case of the stuff for Will Power.
3. He’s an accomplished hot dog taster and can help the league’s concessionaires improve their offerings.
4. Who else can set up and administer a network, then i’view/photo drivers, observe races and provide content over that network?
5. He’s a rising radio star.
6. He’s a team player, devoting his energy to getting Hideki Mutoh a date instead of keeping the hot young ladies for himself.
7. In a rare moment of consensus, media members AND bloggers love him.
8. He’s always thinking of ideas for improving the product and how it is received by the fans.
9. Dedication – up at any hour of the day or night to witness a race live or via broadcast. Your racing organization needs him.
10. He’s plug n play, with a wide range of knowledge: technical, strategic, marketing, PR and the business of racing.

Nice work Bash.  I need to figure out how to get that in my resume!

Jeff, Brian, Terry, you have my email address.

Sprintcar driving and setup for Dummies

1. If it’s tight (understeering) in, then left rear down (shocks) or left front
2. If it’s loose (oversteering) in, then open left rear
3. tight in center of corner: compress right rear and lock left front.
4. Loose in center of corner: open right rear and left front.
5. Loose and tight on exit of corner: same as above