THE LINE #452

July 2, 2008

Publisher's Note: John Thawley, the photographer extraordinaire who usually graces us with his terrific digital images from the American Le Mans Series, attended the SVRA's Vintage Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio last weekend and took in the sights and captured some beautiful shots for us. Click here for a gallery of John's excellent work. - PMD


(Copyright © 2008, John Thawley ~ Creative Communications Group All rights reserved.)

Tony Kanaan, Andretti Green Racing, Honda. It was a short-track crash-fest, but Tony Kanaan (No. 11 AGR Team 7-Eleven Dallara/Honda/Firestone) prevailed to capture his first victory of the 2008 IndyCar Series season, winning the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway by 4.7691 seconds over Helio Castroneves (No. 3 Team Penske D/H/F). Kanaan, started from the pole and led 166 of the 300 laps to claim his 13th career victory and his first since Belle Isle in September 2007. “It was tough race at first but once we got going, I knew we could do it with the car," Kanaan said. "The problem was we had a lot of yellows and people making mistakes. Traffic was really good; everybody did a good job trying to keep away from the leaders. It was a great race apart from all of the yellows.” Castroneves stormed through the field 16 positions to record his fourth second-place finish of the season. Scott Dixon (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing D/H/F) finished third and remains atop the IndyCar Series championship point standings, with a 43-point advantage over Castroneves. The race had a beyond-tedious nine cautions, with 102 laps run under yellow, the second-most in IndyCar Series history. The final 72 laps were run under green at least. Next up (thankfully) is the Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen July 6 at Watkins Glen International. The race will be telecast live in High Definition at 3:30 p.m. (EDT) by ABC. The 2008 Firestone Indy Lights season continues with the Corning Duels same-day doubleheader on July 5 at Watkins Glen International. The Firestone Indy lights races will be telecast at 2 p.m. (EDT) July 10 on ESPN2 and live on www.indycar.com.


(Shawn Payne/IRL)

NASCAR. Don't think the NASCAR slide is for real? Chip Ganassi has pulled the plug on his No. 40 NASCAR team because of lack of sponsorship, leaving Dario Franchitti, the 2007 Indy 500 winner and IRL Series champion, out of a ride. “If I keep going I run the risk of dragging the other two teams down. I don’t want to do that,” Ganassi told the Associated Press. “There’s no money. It makes no sense to be running this out of my pocket. I had to put a stop to it.” In other words, a steaming bowl of Not Good.