Texas preview

A decade or so ago, I was a budding racing fan that had been pulled the direction of the dark side -- watching cars with fenders bang off of each other most weekends.

It was largely because I bought into the mantra that NASCAR was a "down-home 'Murican racing series whar da people arr nahs and not snawbs lak dem furrin pointy-car drahvers," rather than the monopolistic behemoth it was on the way to becoming.

Then, I sat down with a friend and watched the IRL's June Texas race.

It was 1999. All I remember is about 30 laps of a side-by-side battle for the lead between Scott Goodyear and Greg Ray, breathtaking three-wide passes where the leaders would split lapped cars and that kind of action all over the track. Goodyear ended up winning, barely.

Once I picked my jaw up off the floor, I realized something. This is everything NASCAR claims to be. Only this is the real thing. And it's a whole helluva lot better.

Growing up 6 miles north of the Indianapolis Motor SpeedwBlogger: IndyCar newsstand - Create Postay helped make an Indianapolis 500 follower. Watching Texas made me an IndyCar follower.

Texas Motor Speedway calls itself the second home of the Indy Racing League. It once ran two races a year there, both in front of huge crowds. It routinely draws the best non-Indy crowd of the year. And once you see what happens on the track, it's easy to understand why.

Some drivers love it -- Tomas Scheckter, for one. Many drivers hate it because of the bare-knuckle racing that takes place. The high speeds, high banks and tight turns make it likely to be the most dangerous track the IndyCar Series runs on.

Texas is the home of the second and third-closest 1-2-3 finishes in IndyCar history, a championship decided at the line and six of its races have been decided by less than a tenth of a second, and 13 have been decided by less than a second, including last year's duel between Sam Hornish Jr. and Tony Kanaan. Two races have featured 30+ lead changes.

It's also the site of the widest margin of victory in series history (Mark Dismore's only win came when he lapped the field at TMS in 1999). It's also the home of one of the worst accidents in series history -- Kenny Brack's flight into the fence, which he survived, at the 2003 finale.

The best moments at Texas:
*-9/15/2002. Sam Hornish Jr. and Helio Castroneves are battling for the IndyCar title, and the race win. Whoever wins the race wins the championship. In a long side-by-side shootout, Hornish nudges out Helio to give himself (and Panther Racing) a second straight championship in a side-by-side finish. It was the third-closest finish in series history -- .0096 of a second.

The next year, five different drivers are in the championship hunt in the Texas II finale, but Scott Dixon clinches the title by virtue of a second-place finish. Brack's accident red-flags the race.

*-6/8/2002. Jeff Ward, Al Unser Jr. and Airton Dare take the final lap three-wide. Ward noses out Little Al on the high side and wins by 1 hundredth of a second. The three are separated by .0595 of a second. Helio Castroneves and Felipe Giaffone were on their tails. That wasn't the closest 1-2-3 finish at the track, however. Sam Hornish Jr.'s title-clinching win in 2001 over Scott Sharp and Robbie Buhl saw the three separated by .0468 of a second (Hornish's MOV over Sharp was .0188).

It's also been the site of some not-so-great moments:
*-6/7/1997. The first race at Texas. Billy Boat is convinced he's won the race. He is celebrating in victory lane with A.J. Foyt and his team. Suddenly, Arie Luyendyk comes into Victory Lane claiming that he is the legitimate winner and gets a legendary slap-down from A.J. -- probably the best-remembered moment of the early IRL. The next day, USAC admits a scoring error and Luyendyk is declared the winner. The IRL essentially fires USAC and decides to officiate and sanction its own races after the gaffe. A.J. never returns the trophy (a duplicate was made for Luyendyk) and the great legend of the early IRL is born. Eddie Gossage was none too pleased, but the IRL stayed at the track (and even ran two races there for a time) and the event grew. What was a huge gaffe has become a folk tale.

Boat and Foyt would be in Victory Lane the next year, too. That time, they'd get to keep the win. That race is as memorable for Tom Sneva on color commentary and making a mess of the broadcast with hideous puns ("Stewart needs a little bit more of that Glidden to catch up"), and, IIRC, newly-minted Indy winner Eddie Cheever joining the broadcast after wrecking on Lap 4 and doing a great job.

*-4/29/2001. CART's revenge. If the low point of split politics was the 1996 U.S. 500, this was probably No. 2. And, much like the U.S. 500, this started with CART attempting to upstage the IRL and ended with CART embarrassing itself.

In 2001, CART decided to go after the IRL by staging a race at its second-biggest track, which was TMS. If they could show the folks in Texas what real open-wheel racing looked like (after all, they were the real stars with the real cars, or so they said), that could drive a real stake into the IRL's heart. So, despite multiple warnings from Eddie Gossage about finding a way to lower speeds, CART brought in higher-horsepower cars and guys running 230+ mph around the track, with dizzying results. The G-forces were way too high, drivers' brains couldn't process what was going on, and a really unsafe event was about to unfold -- especially after Mauricio Gugelmin had a harrowing accident in practice. The race was cancelled shortly before it was supposed to start. Kenny Brack won the pole that day. A few current IRL regulars were in the field -- Oriol Servia qualified third, Tony Kanaan 14th, Dario Franchitti 16th, Helio Castroneves 19th, Scott Dixon 20th and Bruno Junqueira 21st.

What was the result? The race dropped off CART's calendar, and within a year and a half, most of CART's teams would migrate to the IRL. Two years later, CART would also be gone. Meanwhile, the race remained an IndyCar staple.

*-Last year, ESPN ran the race on a tape-delay, but spoiled the result by noting that Sam Hornish won the race on the bottom-screen ticker while he was still battling with Tony Kanaan on the track.

It will be the great IndyCar race outside of Indy again this weekend. Sit down, cover up the ticker on the bottom of your screen (it's on a slight delay again this year) and enjoy.

Who to pick?
The king of TMS is Sam Hornish Jr., who has won three races at the track, but he's racing tintops now. He also has led more laps than anyone else in the history of the track.

Guys who have been strong at TMS:
Helio Castroneves (winner, 2004 October, 2006). Two wins and a runner-up, plus a pole. He's also led 216 laps at the track, fourth-most among active drivers. The Penske team has won four of the last six races at TMS.
Tony Kanaan (winner 2004 June). A win, three runner-up runs and a third-place run in his history at TMS. He has AGR's only victory at the track, and his 266 laps led are third-most among active drivers. Horsepower is important at Texas, and AGR always seems to find some.
Tomas Scheckter (winner 2005). Always a hot shoe, Scheckter is really fast around Texas. His 371 laps led are most among active drivers and second-most to Hornish all-time. He's a part-timer this year, but was really impressive at Indy until his car gave out.
Scott Dixon. OK, he's never won here. But he's come close, finishing second twice. And he's going to be strong, because the two Target cars (especially the 9 car) is the fastest in the series. Ganassi has one win at TMS, Jeff Ward's victory by a nose in 2002. He probably would've won in 2006 if not for some bad luck late in the race.
Dan Wheldon. Again, never won here. Lost one to Castroneves in the pits in 2006 and stormed off at the end of the race. He's been third three times, including that 2006 run. He's led more laps (266) than any active driver except Scheckter (most of those were in the 2006 race, which he dominated).

Best of the rest
Ed Carpenter, Darren Manning, A.J. Foyt IV, Vitor Meira and Danica Patrick all have Top 10 finishes at Texas. Danica had a podium finish last year, if Texas had a podium. Vitor was third in 2002's June race. Oriol Servia is the most experienced of the ex-CC guys on ovals, and he did qualify third here in that ill-fated CART race seven years ago. Expect Carpenter and Meira to be strong, because they're oval drivers who have managed to find some speed recently.