Saturday, December 1, 2007

Nov. 30 newsstand: More on the week's stories

First, the Silly Season's most bizarre story ... the suit/countersuit between Scott Sharp & RLR

Sharp's point of view: RLR isn't committed to IndyCar racing anymore because it canned Ray Leto and several other key people, and used Patron/No. 8 money to fix the No. 17 car last year (which got wadded up more than its share of times).
Says Scott's lawyer: "The contract requires them to give their best effort, and gutting the team and not doing anything in terms of testing or development isn't staying with the best teams. We're far behind giving the best effort."

Meanwhile, Ryan Hunter-Reay is testing RLR's No. 17 Ethanol car next week. RHR might become RLR's only driver if this all shakes out.

DWTS fallout
According to the Indy Star, the IRL is ready to go market its new dancing megastar
Says the two-time Indy champ: "I don't think I'll be doing a TV show; I don't want to let go of my racing career. I'm still pursuing Indy, you know."

Helio is giving the IRL a crossover boost, at least according to the IRL.
Says Helio: "It's a win-win for everybody. When people see the name or hear the name, 'Oh, that's the guy. Let's see how he is doing.' If it's 20 million people, then hopefully 500,000 of those people watch (the races)."

Meanwhile, Dale Earnhardt Jr. would like to learn to dance, but not necessarily do what Helio did.

Congrats
To AGR, which will celebrate its fifth anniversary Monday. In those five years, AGR has won two Indy 500s (Dan Wheldon-2005 & Dario Franchitti-2007) and three IndyCar titles (Tony Kanaan-2004, Dan Wheldon-2005 & Dario Franchitti-2007). An AGR car has been in the top three at Indy every year it as run the race. AGR drivers have 32 wins in 80 races.

More on Howard
Eurosport finally gets around to the Jay Howard-to-Roth story

You have to scroll down
But Adrian Fernandez doesn't sound bullish on the IRL or Champ Car
We might want to scratch Fernandez Racing from the "possible future entries" list of the next Silly Season Update.

On the other side
David Phillips tries oh so hard to tell us how rosy things are in CC-world, even with 16 cars on the "grid" next year.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Great words gmartin -- I think most of us had a knee jerk reaction to Coach handbags
Meyer's annoucement. Not so much the school and football program but then reality set in and thoughts of Bob Stoops being our head Coach Wristlet
came into my head.. that is when it hit me... Coach Ergo
Meyer is leaving... to be our head Coach Gallery
no more.