Newsstand 8/8

Today's IRL Indy Car Series-related stories ...

USA Today: Road to IRL Title is winding
One would think this story would be about TK (-81) jumping into the Dario-Scott points race, but it's not .

It's about the ICS's changing nature from the all-oval series Scott Dixon won in 2003 to the fact that two of the final four races in the championship stretch feature left and right turns.

A couple of quotes:
"It's certainly added a new dimension to the formula," says team owner Chip Ganassi. "Winning a championship now takes a well-rounded driver as opposed to an oval-track or road-track specialist."

Dario said the CART refugees had an advantage at first, but the IRL holdovers have "caught on pretty quickly." Then, he called for even more roadies.

Some actual points chase news
Eurosport/Yahoo: Wheldon hits all-time low
Dan says he's still in the race, but "I'll help Dixy try and close the gap in, but I need to be up there at the front to do that. So there's even more reason for me to dig deep in order to run up-front."

Back to "The Crash"
Autosport: Dario grateful to Dallara. "It's because of that car that I'm sitting here with just a bruise on my nose."

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FUTURE EVENTS
While Michigan is being lost, Belle Isle's Labor Day weekend ticket sales are going well (read down to the bottom), according to this Detroit News article.

Kentucky is this weekend, but TK discusses the difficulty of racing at Infineon in the Vallejo Times Herald, looking ahead to the Aug. 26 race.

In this excerpt, he discusses what the difference is between Infineon and the last track the ICS ran on. "Kanaan said drivers may shift 40 times, each lap, in Sonoma, long known as a difficult trip for racers with its elevation changes and blind corners. Michigan isn't without its merits, though, as Kanaan compared the wide-open, wheel-to-wheel racing to driving on a foggy road, where the mind is tested more than the body."

Meanwhile, while TK was in Northern California, he showed off his cooking skill.

Drivers love roadies. They're (ostensibly) safer and certainly challenging. But much like hockey and soccer, the intricacies of the event don't translate well to TV, or the crowd. We like passing, and at the last two road-course races, the only real passing took place in the pits. At Michigan, there were some pretty incredible moves being made almost every lap. Officials might be wise to listen to these folks from the Detroit Free Press. They said they'll go to Belle Isle, but big superspeedways are made for racing. Uhh, yeah. Oval-track racing plays in America, especially on television.

Speaking of losing Michigan, check out the math done by the Jackson Citizen-Patriot. The last five races at MIS have been decided by a TOTAL of 1.811 seconds. And the IRL and ISC can't figure out a way to find a mutually-agreeable date? (and ISC isn't going to promote THAT? ... then again, it might show some people that something is more entertaining than NASCAR).

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ABC/ESPN's Jack Arute and Scott Goodyear offer their views on crashes & repairing them in the wake of "the big one" at MIS on IndyCar.com. Goodyear wonders why big wrecks happen when cars are going straight.

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NON-IRL news

Former Indy 500 starter J.J. Yeley is likely out of his Cup ride (although he's been linked with the Wood Brothers car).

Would somebody tell Bernie Ecclestone to stop opening his yip?