I’m at Road America… for NASCAR?!?

I’ve never seen an episode of The Surreal Life, but I feel like I’m living it in just one day at the track.

NASCAR, yes, NASCAR (!) is at Road America. And suddenly, this soon-to-be 21-year-old walks around the media center here a veteran of the circuit but a rookie to covering the Nationwide Series, while all the NASCAR crew are making their first appearances at this great track.

There have been plenty of odd couples throughout history but NASCAR and Road America is about as bizarre as it gets in racing terms. The only thing on par would be Formula One at Bristol.

This is strange. Four years here seeing Champ Car, ALMS, and the SCCA Runoffs, and now these lumbering beasts are pounding the surface. Beaching it in gravel. Braking early (waaay early).

You have greats like Jacques Villeneuve, Ron Fellows, Patrick Long and others in the field – a ton of young hotshoes (yes, as this is a non-joint weekend with Sprint Cup there are a BEVY of young stock car standouts), and those that fill out the field. At least one-third of the 43 cars are pure black or white blank canvasses that are likely to compete but a handful of laps because they “start-and-park.”

In other words, the teams don’t have the money for tires and crews, so they have skeleton efforts and retire due to “handling” or “rear end” issues. (Oddly, these are some of the issues people note about Milka Duno in IndyCar. Small world.)

The NASCAR mantra is also in full effect. ALMS embraces the open paddock, Champ Car certainly showcased its assets to fans here (cool cars, cool people), but at NASCAR? No way. This is OUR house and OUR rules.

The transporters are fenced off along the wall, preventing access to anyone without a pass even in a cold garage, and not only do you need credentials but a separate photo ID to get in. I hate to say I’ve become a “hard card snob,” but the unlimited access and small portability of the hard card versus a bigger, clunky, flipping and choking lanyard is night and day.

As for the race? There will be MANY cautions. When these cars go into the gravel, it takes at least 10 minutes between a crew arriving to dig them out and send them on their way.

The cars are slow. Sorry, but they are. Ten seconds slower than Trans-Am. Twelve than an ALMS GT2 BMW, Porsche, Corvette or Ferrari. Thirty-five (35!) slower than the overall lap record set by Dario Franchitti in a CART race. Yes, there’s more straight line speed, but getting these things slowed down is a Leviathan task. Michael McDowell, who’s won here in Star Mazda, said he needs a Sharpie to “draw in 6, 7, 8, 9 signs” for the earliest braking points.

Now that said, I think this will be a great EVENT. Certainly the Road America staff – despite their “Yellow shirt” tendencies on allowing access to certain points on the track (anybody who’s been to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway should get that reference) – know what makes a great show. The NASCAR media people I met today seem quite nice and hospitable from their overall PR person (I think), to Justin Allgaier’s at Penske (granted, that’s a Penske PR person), to the ESPN crew of Dr. Jerry Punch, Mike Massaro, and the lovely Jamie Little.

Paraded as heroes, the drivers here will take a lap before the green. The ratings will probably be higher on ESPN2 for this race than any IndyCar event non-Indy 500. And I’m almost certain there will be a green-white-checkered finish, which at this track is another 8 MILES. Try stretching the fuel that long.

There’s no threat of rain – though severe storms and natural family concerns prompted me to instead book a hotel for the night rather than make trips to and from Milwaukee at the last minute (better to be lucky than good I guess as there was quite a nice room, close to the track, still available).

The initial reaction on day one is that I’m glad to have seen the way NASCAR operates from a media member perspective, but I can’t imagine covering this series full-time, with 36 races plus non-points events and a far less enjoyable atmosphere. As much as I love traveling (I’m almost as bad as George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, but not quite), I can’t fathom doing this much.

Maybe that’s just me. That’s the uncensored version.

On the bright side, here’s my thoughts on Friday at the track. Out for now, cheers.

Le Mans reflections

Last week was all Le Mans, all the time – even if I wasn’t actually there. It's a lot different covering from home as opposed to at the circuit.

The week was all about our blog coverage to the MAX. Writing/editing blog posts, photo teasers and galleries, tweets, and other odds and ends. And then after a whole week of preparation, came the race.

Oh the race.

I stayed up all 24 hours, but had max technical issues, first my laptop crashing (the battery was the culprit, I found out a couple days later), the video stream cutting in and out since Time Warner Cable basic in Wisconsin doesn't include SPEED, Twitter crashing, and then my backup desktop computer locking up every hour on the hour with too many processes running. As it was, nobody saw the tech. issues I had because the blog looked great.

I don’t think anybody saw the Pugs having their issues either. Well-deserved win for Audi, Pug kinda shot themselves in the foot with their right bank engine issues. Davidson did likewise with the whole aggressive Corvette pass. Major props to Radio Le Mans and John Hindhaugh for their coverage.

My laptop now has its battery being sent back for repairs. I’ll be on the go the next six weekends in succession – Elkhart Lake this one for the Nationwide race, then seeing family in Phoenix and San Diego through July 6, back to Milwaukee for a day, leave for Salt Lake City (next ALMS round) on the 8th, there for a weekend, Milwaukee again, then Lime Rock for the following ALMS weekend.

Holy cow. This summer is intense. Out for now, cheers.

What a freaking joke.

Rare is the time that merits a Saturday night near-midnight blog post, but this has to be said. I have no other words to describe the complete ineptitude of the "Holmatro Safety Team" in response to Simona de Silvestro during the night's IZOD IndyCar Series race at Texas Motor Speedway other than the title of this post.

De Silvestro crashed from turn 2 and was in a fireball from where she hit the wall and came to rest on the inside of turn 4 on the oval.

The first truck rolled up and the guys looked like the three stooges, trying to roll out a fire hose (fire extinguishers, anybody?) and then just standing around asking themselves what to do.

All this while Simona is trying to get out and is in the middle of a burning crapwagon. Yes, I said it (full disclosure, since I don't cover the series full-time, I'm just saying it. PT might agree.) It was more than 30 seconds from when the car rested to get her out and nearly a minute from the time of the accident. In racing terms, that's an ETERNITY.

Thank goodness for the one guy who went in to help extract her from the car, but even that was more chaotic than it needed to be since he didn't get the fire out but instead pulled her out sideways.

Her grace and class in the face of a horribly bungled rescue attempt by a patchwork crew who have given themselves the same name as the completely different and actually legitimate crew that existed in Champ Car is a testament to her character and her resolve. If it's me, or likely anyone else in that situation, we're holding back f-bombs, and rightfully so because we're wondering why you screwed up so bad.

Not only that, but the usually on-the-ball Versus telecast neglected to show replays of the accident or talk to crewmembers in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Her excellent engineer Michael Cannon was visibly frustrated.

I realize I'm less than three weeks from turning 21 so can be considered "young," but I've watched IndyCar racing for 15 years and covered it for five. And that has to be the weakest exhibition I've EVER seen by a safety team. If that batch of characters was the crew on site for Alex Zanardi's near death accident in Germany in 2001, he would not have survived. Alex Tagliani might not have either.

This is not the same group that made their mark as the most renowned crew on the CART/Champ Car side with Drs. Steve Olvey and Terry Trammell. Randy Bernard's been open to many suggestions so far and one this renegade young scribe will suggest is pink slips to all bar the one member of this team who epically failed in this situation.

Thank God for Simona's sake (or anyone else who might have been in such an unfortunate position) it wasn't worse.

***

The race itself had more passing and genuine interest with Danica and Marco threatening the leaders and for another week running, the best car and driver won with Ryan Briscoe keeping the "Big Two" firmly entrenched in P1. The only addendum I'll add is that Danica should have received a black flag for an egregious blocking maneuver on her teammate Tony Kanaan. TK was rightly frustrated and if "what goes around, comes around," then by all means do so.

Another sad story for Andretti Autosport is that this is probably Ryan Hunter-Reay's last race for that team, and that's the epitome of unjust. He's currently sixth in points (first in the non-Penske/Ganassi class) with a win and several top fives - not to mention IZOD's poster boy. It's criminal he, Graham Rahal and so many others are on the sidelines. Hopefully there's something that sees his season continue but it would be an 11th-hour deal at this point, I think.

Out for now, and off to bed. Cheers.

Indy 500 post-mortem

Oops. Guess I was off the ball on every aspect of picking. But, hey, as a responsible member of the media, that's probably karma for picking anyway.

Congrats to Dario. Only him or TK should have been standing in Victory Lane after the race. And when TK said the best car and driver won today, that confirmed it. One front wing change proved the turn of mastery that launched Franchitti into another stratosphere on Sunday, leading 155 of 200 laps.

After that it was a bit of an odd finishing order. Thanks to the unsurprisingly abysmal ABC coverage, we didn't see much of Dan Wheldon, Alex Lloyd, and others who eventually wound up in the top 15.

So how far off were my picks? Briscoe - my pick to win - crashed out. Dixon - my backup choice - lost a wheel on the pit stops. Rookie-of-the-year pick Ana Beatriz lost a few laps early and the same befell "3B" (thanks, Marshall Pruett) Bertrand Baguette when he lost a mirror. And naturally, Mario Romancini not only wasn't first out, but he was first rookie to the finish in 13th.

As much as I like Simona de Silvestro and feel her winning the month's ROY award is deserved, Mario should have got a share of it for being the fastest qualifier and top finisher driving for Conquest Racing. Either way, good show by both of those two.

For now it's time for Le Mans prep, and although I won't be there this year, there will still be plenty of work involved. And should be at Road America in a couple weeks to see NASCAR's Nationwide Series. Goodness me, do those words hurt to type.

Out for now, cheers.

Indy 500 pre-race observations

Greetings and salutations from Speedway, In., the last night before the 94th running of the Indianapolis 500. It's been a whirlwind two weeks after just being in Monterey, Calif. last weekend for the ALMS race, which was just televised on CBS after being put together by an outside production firm, and now coming back to IMS for the first time since 2008.

I'll get the shameless plugs out of the way early. I'm helping Motorsport.com out for the week and articles so far have covered Community Day, the three women not named Danica, the mix of practice, pit stops and booze on Carb Day, and the highest profile driver not to qualify, Paul Tracy.

Some thoughts on the week. This is my second Indy 500, and I have to say a completely different experience from my first. My first was about taking it all in - much like the rookies - and maximizing the time and all the different events. This is shorter but still provides the great networking opportunities, and for me, particularly, the bloggers who really are the new face of journalism at the Speedway.

Between Paul and Steph (a.k.a. Fieldof33 and 99forever on Twitter) of Planet-IRL, Chris Estrada of IndyRacingRevolution and FOXSports.com, the My Name is IRL and Pressdog crowd, among others, are the fresh blood to get the next generation of fans interested in growing this series. They were part of an open forum this morning with IndyCar PR Amy Konrath and a couple IMS reps to discuss how to better integrate the new media that the bloggers have the handle on with traditional outlets and individuals.

It's completely different for me, too. At 20, I'm one of, if not the youngest person in the IMS pressroom. Yet this new batch of bright-eyed, intelligent, passionate group of individuals add a depth and commitment to growth of the IZOD IndyCar Series.

The other notables I've met include Randy Bernard and Paul Page. Bernard is the first person I've seen in 15 years of watching this series that I can tell just "gets it." Curt Cavin of the Indy Star - and Carb Night Burger Bash emcee - had a great and far more in-depth article on the Indy Racing League, IndyCar Series sanctioning body, CEO than I will have had.

His openness to hear both good and bad, positive and negative, and literally absorb anything and everything like a sponge can only be a benefit to getting this series back on track. Even the veteran Gordon Kirby, a senior member of the media, hinted Bernard was the right person to get IndyCar back on track. Oh, lame puns.

I won't say too much about the drivers other than a couple who have impressed. Simona and Bia are obvious. But one that's caught my eye is Conquest's Bertrand Baguette, the Belgian rookie. Baguette sounds like he understands the limit and challenges of this place. He's come out of nowhere, even despite winning the ultra competitive World Series by Renault last season, and qualified on the first day. He needs a good nickname, though. Him testing a Renault F1 car last year was near perfect, and if he was French, that would be good as well.

Okay, so predictions. I said back in March Ryan Briscoe would win this race, but despite driving for Team Penske, he isn't even in his teammates' same zip code. Hard to be anonymous when starting fourth, but that's the case.

I'm not going to be one of those people who reneges on a pick, so I'll bite it and take the lumps if he doesn't win. But Briscoe is still the pick for me for two reasons.

One, he needs a race for a coming-out party. You don't want to say he's fallen out of favor with Penske, but his countryman Will Power stole the show on the road and street courses earlier this year and Helio has been in another stratosphere this month. Briscoe is still sharp and last year proved he was a demon on the ovals - this could be his time. He's still close enough to the front, starting fourth.

Second, Helio's string of success here needs a break. This track is only good to you so often, and I can't help but think there will be at least one bad pit stop or something to take Helio out of contention. Selfishly, I can't say as I'm thrilled at the prospect of him becoming a four-time winner. It's completely different eras between Foyt, Unser, Mears and now. Not to mention some might say this would only be his third...

If it's not either of those two, Dixon wins, hands down. He's not my official pick but if I was betting on the race, I would bet on him. The six IndyCar races I have done for Motorsport.com since 2008 (Milwaukee twice, Indy, Edmonton, Chicagoland '08 and Mid-Ohio last year), "Dixie" has won four and finished second the other two. Look out, field. I'm here and Dixon is still here, and he hasn't forgotten how to win. Plus, he or Dario would give Chip both major 500 trophies in the same year.

I feel confident in saying Raphael Matos is my dark horse. Matos is very much under the radar, quick in race trim, ran top-5 here before his accident last year, and now has the benefit of working with a veteran teammate in Davey Hamilton and invaluable sage co-owner in Gil de Ferran.

First crash will be Mario Romancini, and the highest finishing female will be... Ana Beatriz. Beatriz has more miles at Indy than Simona and better cars than Danica or Sarah. Either her or Baguette will win Rookie-of-the-Year honors, but I'll take Beatriz.

Check back late Sunday night to see how far off the mark these predictions were. It's out for now, and cheers.

Push to pass... junior year gone

Hopefully, my racing friends will appreciate the title analogy. You see, this school year just completed was a lot like an extra power burst executed by IndyCar drivers for a short time period. The extra horsepower, in theory, gives them enough power to complete a pass, and is over in a blink of an eye.

As it relates to the school year, I needed several short power bursts to make it through what was unquestionably the toughest year at Marquette yet. It was also the fastest – I feel like I don’t even remember enough of it to properly recall things. Just a blur. But, the tough moments made it incredible.

You take a big step as an upperclassman, moving up from the ranks of residence halls and Sodexo-provided cafeteria food. You move into apartments, away from house parties into bars (okay, I haven’t got that far yet… next month), and into another level of responsibility and independence without the RAs there to watch your every move.

For me, I had yet another transition – no shock to anyone who knows me – to go from one roommate to three in a room in Humphrey. And first semester, living with Gags, Swee, and Mark was epic. Can’t relate how awesome it was. Swee went abroad spring semester to Madrid and Pat came back from Ireland, bringing his own story and style. It was different, but still mostly good times.

Academically, it was a challenging year coupling my commitments with the Marquette Tribune and Phonathon with classes. Fall I reported for the Tribune on a new beat, the consumer beat, which I highly enjoyed, and then moved into a leadership role as an assistant editor in the spring. I still consider it a fairly meteoric rise from the ranks of rookie reporter to helping the next group of prodigious talents with their work. I had a lot of fun and really got to appreciate the work of the seniors in their editorial roles.

Campus as a whole was really rocked by three things this year – the death of freshman Andrew Siebenaler, the retirement announcement of University President the Rev. Robert A. Wild, and the ongoing saga that has been the Arts & Sciences dean rescinding.

As a reporter, I had a role in all three stories even if I wasn’t the lead writer on any of them, but that is neither here nor there. What I saw with those events was, for the first few times in my Marquette career, the uniting of the student body in a combined group for a common cause – support for a victim’s grieving family, a president who has still given back immeasurably to this university, and rallying around whether something was done for the right or just reasons.

It was in those moments more than others this year that I saw myself as part of the “We are Marquette” mantra and mission statement, and felt better about the work I personally was doing to accomplish that.

And this is where I have to give thanks for everything I’ve done being able to help me take the next step. Without the Phonathon leadership position, I don’t think I would have been able to become an editor with the Tribune. Without the Tribune, I don’t think I could have landed the role I have helping Michelin in racing. And without all of those, I don’t think I would have an internship to look forward to for the fall with The Business Journal.

Looking back, I think I will feel more nostalgic about junior year as time passes, because so much of it was a whirlwind of getting things done without enough time to enjoy or appreciate everything I really accomplished. That’s probably the best description of the year just passed. Not the most eloquent piece of writing ever, but there you go. Cheers.

A true April Fool's entry

No joke, I'm actually submitting a blog entry on this day when so much of the news out there is a hoax!

Today was one of the strangest days I can remember. As a college student involved in several different aspects of work, as a full-time student with 18 credits, working as one of the editors on the school paper, a student manager at the Phonathon, and a blogger for Michelin during the American Le Mans Series season, usually I am consumed by one of those, if not several over the course of the day.



Although today was April Fool's Day, it was no joke that today I had none of that to worry about! I rarely get the time to update this blog - largely by my own choice and becoming more concerned about what can be said in a public forum - but sometimes I just need to take a minute and breathe and reflect on all that currently encompasses my life.

In the next couple days I will be registering for classes for my senior year of college at Marquette. It takes a minute to let that sink in. So much of this year has been a blur with my various activities, that I don't know how much of it I've actually taken the time to enjoy. Between late nights, early mornings, and everything in-between that makes up the day, there's no time to reflect. It's just going through the motions, and keep going. Don't stop.

Marquette means so much to me and I know I realize it, but it takes something like this break to embrace it more so. First off, my last break, I didn't really get the chance to have a "break" per se as I made my first appearance to Sebring for the ALMS season opener. I can't express thanks enough to everyone I worked with for their welcoming me into the "team," and I know I worked as hard as I did that week on our blog, MichelinAlley.com, to reward their trust in me. Anyway, the week involved a lot of 14-18 hour days and actually going to bed and waking up at civilized hours (trust me, 10:30 lights out and 6:30 a.m. wakeup call took some getting used to, again!). If you don't love racing, it's very hard to do well at given the hours. But needless to say, I didn't have much time to relax!

So, back on campus for the last week and a half and its back to living the student life. The classes. The tests. The papers. The newspaper. The Phonathon. My boss at the Phonathon jokes, as I have lost both my Sunday night shifts the last two weeks because of the break and thus have only a handful of hours on my paycheck, "Hey, maybe you should work more!" Maybe I would if I could... hence why I am evaluating my options for senior year.

When you take on the life of both a student and a student worker, you take on the persona of both. You embrace everything you get involved in, make it operate the best for both you and your co-workers, and keep on going.

I got home to Greendale (my Wisconsin hometown, although Arizona is still my roots) and had to make a pit stop with my mom for a work appointment of her's at MATC's Oak Creek campus. It's nice, but tucked away, has a lot of commuters and is just one large building. It felt like an office complex with classrooms instead of cubicles. No sense of it being a university like MU.

All told, it will be nice to calm down for this Easter break and reflect on everything I have been fortunate to be involved in, and where I'm looking to go next. Out for now, and cheers.

P.S. Physically, that next place is Long Beach in two weeks for the next ALMS race!