Sept. 19 newsstand: Schedule & more

Lots o' schedule stories today, plus a few other things.

First, the schedule redux from ...
Indianapolis Star
Miami Herald
Detroit Free Press
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (Dave Kallman's blog)
Kallman says the pressure is on for The Milwaukee Mile to put on a show to retain its traditional date, thanks to Eddie Gossage's ramblings.

Notable about the Homestead event, from the Miami Herald story: Last year's race conflicted with the PGA Tour event at Doral. That has been fixed this year.
Says Curtis Gray, the president of Homestead Speedway: ''That's indicative of South Florida hosting events of this type and we're excited to kick off the IndyCar season. The speeds and the sparks flying, the color, everything, the drama - the Indy cars at night are just fabulous. At night, everything just seems magnified.''

Looking ahead
Eternal optimist Mike King (and the best motorsports play-by-play announcer in the country) sees the glass as three-quarters full looking toward 2008 on IndyCar.com.
Says the man with the golden pipes: "At least two, and possibly three, existing IndyCar Series operations could be expanding next year, and there is talk that we might see two brand new teams in the paddock. ... Helio Castroneves, Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Buddy Rice and Tomas Scheckter could all be in the running for their first IndyCar Series championship next September. Tony Kanaan might finally get the respect and attention he is owed as, not just a champion, but as one of the world's finest drivers. He might also win his second IndyCar Series title."

While you're at IndyCar.com, check out the photo of Tony Kanaan with newborn son Leonardo.

Uh, haven't we read this before?
The Jacksonville Times-Union piles on with the OW-to-fenders story.
Says Jacques Villeneuve about oval stock-car racing: "It's really hard to explain for the European fans, because in their mind, it's only two corners, and it looks like it's easy driving and flat out, and that's it. What they don't realize is there is a lot of fine-tuning to do on the car to gain that extra stability in the car. And also driving in traffic, and all that happens during a race, it happens on the track - a lot more than in open-wheel racing like in Europe, where a lot of it happens in the start, and that's about it." Finally, something I agree with in this story -- both me and JV agree that street/road racing is rather unwatchable and oval racing is more intricate than meets the eye. Of course, there is an OW option for oval racers, Jacques ...

IRL drivers running elsewhere
Ryan Hunter-Reay wins Grand Am race
Dario Franchitti running Petit Le Mans

Other news
IRL names John Lewis VP of Marketing & League Development
Lewis is an in-house promotion, responsible for brand development of the IRL.

No, not another street parade
An organizer for the non-starter San Antonio GP is now considering a parade for Corpus Christi, Texas on a 1.2 mile street course. Then again, the story cites the success of making it a grand prix success story along the lines of Long Beach, Denver and Vancouver. I always want to aspire to be as good as races that got canceled from a dying series' schedule. The promoter is looking at bringing Mexican OW series in (my first question ... what Mexican OW series?) and running back-to-back weekends.