June 4, 2008

Ryan Briscoe, Team Penske. Young Australian Ryan Briscoe (No. 6 Team Penske Dallara/Honda/Firestone) withstood the pressure of Indy 500 Champion Scott Dixon (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing D/H/F) and then barely avoided a wreck at the end of the race to earn his first career victory in the IndyCar Series at the famed Milwaukee Mile. It was also the 300th victory in motorsports for team owner Roger Penske, and the 30th anniversary of Rick Mears' fisrt win for the team. Briscoe took the checkered in the ABC Supply Co. - A.J. Foyt 225 under caution after pole sitter Marco Andretti and Ed Carpenter made contact on Lap 223 in an accident that also sent Indy 500 runner-up Vitor Meira flying. "It feels so good to win, my first IndyCar (Series) win, and it feels so good to do it here in Milwaukee," said Briscoe. "I'm really happy. Ever since Indianapolis, we had that get-together in pit lane, and it was really unfortunate. I was having a really good race and looking at a top-five (finish). We just had to put it behind us and move on to this race. It's a long championship, and it's just great. We were focused on this race. We knew we had a good car off of last year's results of Helio (Castroneves) and Sam (Hornish Jr.). Just stayed focused in the race. It's great to win my first race for Team Penske." "Really, it shows the amount of work that has been done by so many people on the team, so many good drivers, so many good pit crews, all the way back," Penske said. "When we think about winning the first Trans-Am and Indianapolis, and you just go on and think of the drivers that have been with us. It's pretty exciting. And to see Ryan be able to race clean with the 9 car with Dixon, it's a great day." Dixon, who led 147 laps, finished second, while two-time defending race winner Tony Kanaan (No. 11 Andretti Green Racing Team 7-Eleven D/H/F) was third, Dan Wheldon (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing D/H/F) was fourth, and Helio Castroneves (No. 3 Team Penske D/H/F) fifth. Dixon now leads the IndyCar Series with 234 points. Castroneves is next with 206 as the series heads to Texas Motor Speedway for the June 7 Bombardier Learjet 550k. The race will be telecast live in High Definition at 10 p.m. (EDT) by ESPN2.


(Dan Helrigel/IRL)
Ryan Briscoe gets congratulations from Roger Penske (left) and Tim Cindric (right) after winning the ABC Supply Co. - A.J. Foyt 225 at The Milwaukee Mile last Sunday. It was Briscoe's first win in IndyCar racing and Roger Penske's 300th career win in motorsports. See a gallery of images from Milwaukee here, with photos by Jim Haines, Dan Helrigel, Steve Snoddy and Shawn Payne and courtesy of the Indy Racing League.

(Shawn Payne/IRL)
Bobby Wilson (No. 17 Team E Patriot Bank), a native of nearby Oconomowoc, Wis., led 88 of 100 laps to win the Milwaukee 100 Firestone Indy Lights race. Wilson became the third driver to win in three seasons at the Milwaukee Mile. "Coming to The Milwaukee Mile as a kid, it was always a dream for me to race here one day," Wilson said. "To win here is even better. Hats off to the guys; it's their first win. Team E Racing and owner Neil Enerson put together a great program and gave us the tools we needed to be here." It was the first victory for the team, and it was Wilson's third career victory in Firestone Indy Lights and his first win on an oval. His previous wins came at Watkins Glen in 2006 and the Indianapolis road course in 2007. Jeff Simmons (No 2. TMR-Xtreme Coil Drilling) finished second, and Raphael Matos (No. 27 Automatic Fire Sprinklers, Inc.) finished third. Richard Antinucci remains the series points leader 193-192 over Dillon Battistini after the two finished 16th and 14th, respectively.

(Autostock)
Greg Biffle (No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing 3M Ford) leads Carl Edwards (No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Office Depot Ford) in the Best Buy 400-mile NASCAR race at Dover International Speedway last Sunday, as they chased eventual winner Kyle Busch (No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Combos Toyota). Edwards came home second, and Biffle was third, but Busch flat dominated the race just as he's dominated just about everything else this season. It was his fourth win in the last five Sprint Cup races, which makes for ten total wins in NASCAR this year (Busch has two wins in the Craftsman Truck Series and four in the Nationwide Series). Busch now leads the Sprint Cup points battle by 142 points over Jeff Burton. Matt Kenseth (No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing DeWalt Tools Ford) was fourth and Jeff Gordon (Hendrick Motorsports DuPont Chevrolet) finished in fifth. 

(Richard Prince/GM Racing)
Last Sunday was Test Day for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the teams encountered mostly rainy conditions with only brief opportunities to run in the dry. Corvette Racing is back to capture the GT1 class title that eluded them last year with the No. 63 Corvette C6R driven by Johnny O'Connell, Jan Magnussen, and Ron Fellows, and the No. 64 C6R driven by Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta, and Max Papis. “We did run through some wet, intermediate and slick tires that Michelin supplied to us, so it's good to get that experience," Gavin said. "I’m delighted to be back at Le Mans, exorcising some of the demons that we had last year when we had that driveshaft failure. It's nice to be back out there, doing laps and getting back into it. It’s a wonderful circuit, and Max, Olivier and I love driving here. We’re focused and really want to get on with things.” Fellows had this to say: “The track conditions were changing rapidly, but we got some good data on the rain tires. Michelin has brought several combinations and it was quite useful. At the end of the morning session the wind picked up and the track was drying quickly and I made the wrong call for the tires – it was time for slicks. In the race condition we certainly would have gone that direction, but we were being a little conservative.” And finally, Jan Magnussen summed things up: “In the few laps that I got in when there was a dry line, the feeling in the car was very good. Our lap time would have dropped immensely when the track came to us, and I don't think we would have had much difficulty running quicker times. Straight out of the box, the car is the best it's ever been.” The 76th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans runs from 9 a.m. ET (3 p.m. local time) June 14 to 9 a.m. ET June 15 from the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. Forty-one drivers will be representing the American Le Mans Series, whose teams have captured seven overall victories and 22 class championships since 1999. SPEED will televise the event live, and Radio Le Mans will have flag-to-flag coverage of the race as well as practice and qualifying on June 11 and 12.

(Regis Lefebure photo, courtesy ALMS)
The Gulf-sponsored Aston Martin DBR9 set the pace in GT1 on the official Le Mans Test Day serving notice to Corvette Racing that it's on. The 2007 GT1-winning No. 009 of Brabham/Garcia/Turner posted a quick time of 3:53.531 around the famous French circuit.

Max Mosley, the FIA.  Max Mosley somehow survives a vote of confidence by the FIA General Assembly, but everyone remains stunned that he's still allowed to hold office. It's an embarrassment that the FIA seems powerless to deal with this ugly situation, which is beyond unconscionable at his point. Maybe Max is employing Kwame's legal team?