THE LINE

August 10, 2011

(Chris Jones/IndyCar)
Scott Dixon (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Dallara/Honda/Firestone) passed teammate Dario Franchitti on a Lap 61 restart and went on to win the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio last Sunday. He basically had 'em all covered. It was Dixon's first victory of the season as the two-time IZOD INDYCAR Series champion started from the pole and led the most laps in the 85-lap race. With bonus points earned Dixon closed to within 29 points of Team Penske's Will Power for third place in the series championship standings. "It was helluva effort by Team Target; they didn't put a foot wrong," Dixon said."The car was superb this weekend. Sorry to make it so boring toward the end of the race, but I didn't mind..." Dixon won by more than 6 seconds.

(Michael Levitt - LAT Photo)
Dario Franchitti (No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Racing D/H/F) leads third-place finisher Ryan Hunter-Reay (No. 28 Team DHL/Circle K/Sun Drop Soda D/H/F) and Takuma Sato (No. 5 KV Racing Technology - Lotus D/H/F), who finished a season-high fourth. Hunter-Reay pressed Dario all the way to the finish.

(Dan Helrigel/IndyCar)
Will Power, who started fourth in his No. 12 Team Penske Verizon D/H/F, gets pit service from his Team Penske crew. He finished 14th. Franchitti leads Power by 62 points heading into the MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 at the 1-mile New Hampshire Motor Speedway on August 14th. The race will be televised live at 3:30 p.m. (ET) by ABC and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network.

(Chris Jones/IndyCar)
Dario and Scott talk after the race. It was Dixon's 26th career IndyCar win and his third victory in five races under INDYCAR sanction at the 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

(Chris Jones/IndyCar)
Scott Dixon celebrates his Mid-Ohio IZOD INDYCAR series victory with his wife and parents.

(Brian Simpson/IndyCar)
Pole sitter Esteban Guerrieri (No. 7 Lucas Oil/Sam Schmidt Motorsports) lead the Firestone Indy Lights Grand Prix of Trois-Rivieres flag to flag, clinching his third victory of the season after holding off a series of late challenges. "It was a very tough race," Guerrieri said. "When it started to rain it got a bit crazy, then the red flag came out and it was a whole new race." The race was red-flagged on Lap 44 because of a downpour and the crews were allowed a six-minute pit stop to switch to rain tires.  The green flag came back out after three laps under yellow with Guerrieri in the lead, followed by Conor Daly (No. 77 Mazda Road to Indy/SSM) and Peter Dempsey. On the restart, Daly made a move to the inside to pass his Sam Schmidt Motorsports teammate but spun and backed into the retaining wall, ending his day. Guerrieri also recorded the fastest race lap of 58.5076 seconds, which is an open-wheel track record on the street circuit.

(Michael Levitt - LAT Photo)
Monday (August 8) marked the dawn of a new era for Indy car racing as the 2012 IZOD INDYCAR Series car made its debut on the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for its initial test session. Reigning Indianapolis 500 champion Dan Wheldon (above), as is his custom, patted the black and red-striped Dallara Automobili-built chassis with the road/street course prototype body kit three times before climbing into the cockpit for the first of 12 scheduled days of itemized evaluation on three road courses and three ovals. The test car is powered by the 2.2-liter turbocharged Honda V-6 engine that will be among the three new engines (from Honda, Chevrolet and Lotus) coming for the 2012 season. "It's a great day," said project manager Tony Cotman, "to see the work of many individuals in a very short amount of time out on the racetrack. It's the start of a new era for IndyCar." Dallara's rolling chassis is dubbed the INDYCAR Safety Cell and comes complete except for tires, the steering wheel and driver seat, and with different body configurations for ovals and road/street courses. It will replace the chassis that came on line in 2003 and was built for oval racing (the first INDYCAR road/street course race was in 2005 at St. Petersburg, Fla.). "It's a lighter car, it has more horsepower and it has a lot less drag than the current car, so naturally on the right day it will go quicker and that's something that the fans have to look forward to," Cotman added. "I think it also will provide a different type of racing with different engine manufacturers, too. It will be interesting, it will be exciting and it will  be a bit of a change." Systems confirmation will continue through the end of September, with the next test on the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway oval. Engine manufacturers - each of whom have ordered a next-generation chassis - will commence testing in early October with their respective aligned teams. So far, Chip Ganassi Racing, A.J. Foyt Racing and Sam Schmidt Motorsports have signed on with Honda. Team Penske is the anchor team for Chevrolet. Teams are scheduled to receive their first chassis in mid-December.
(Michael Levitt - LAT Photo)

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley)
Round Five of the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón ended with a deluge at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course last Saturday afternoon. With the torrential rain causing a red flag and eventually the checker, the Muscle Milk Aston Martin Racing Lola Coupe B08 62 driven by Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf claimed its third win of the season. "I'm 100 percent behind race control that they stopped the race," commented Luhr. "It was dreadful. You see guys in GT - the best of the best in the GT class - and they were spinning off everywhere. It looked like amateurs but there was nothing you could have done." Muscle Milk also scored its fourth straight MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge (MGXC) win. In GT after the usual suspects - BMW Team RLL, Corvette Racing, Risi Competizione Ferrari and Flying Lizard Porsche - battled it out, Wolf Henzler passed Patrick Long in Turn 1 when the rain was heaviest, putting the Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR in position for its very first ALMS win. "The team really made the right call," Henzler said of the quick switch to rain tires. "The tire was so good in even these conditions. Everyone was going on the inside and it was so slippery they were having a difficult time but I was not really. I went on the outside so much quicker and that`s how I could pass everyone. I don`t know how many cars I passed; I passed so many. I saw nothing going down the back straight and there was so much water, I could only just guess where they were, see the line a bit. All I knew was Patrick was the leader at the time I passed him." The win was also a first for Henzler`s co-driver, Centerville, Ohio native Bryan Sellers. The No. 4 Corvette won the MGXC in the GT category for the second straight race. Intersport Racing won its first LMPC trophy with drivers Kyle Marcelli and Tomy Drissi, and Spencer Pumpelly and Duncan Ende scored their second GTC win in a row and third straight for TRG. Next up for the series is Round Six in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, for the Time Warner Cable Road Race Showcase at Road America, Aug. 20. The race will air on ABC, Aug. 21 at 4:30 p.m (ET) and be carried live on ESPN3.com in the U.S. or americanlemans.com outside the U.S. For more visit americanlemans.com/tv. Check out yet another gallery of superb images from ace lens man John Thawley from Mid-Ohio here. The gallery contains both ALMS and World Challenge photos.

(Image © 2011 - John Thawley)
Johnny O’Connell (No. 3 Cadillac Racing Cadillac CTS-V Coupe), of Flowery Branch, Ga., took advantage of a last-lap incident between the lead two cars to earn Cadillac its first Pirelli World Challenge win since 2007 on Sunday at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Paul Brown, from Covina, Calif., and Toronto’s Aaron Povoledo earned the GTS and Touring Car class wins, respectively at Sunday’s Pirelli World Challenge Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio Presented by StopTech, Round Eight of the championship. (Round 7 took place on Saturday.) O’Connell started seventh in the No. 3 Cadillac Racing Cadillac CTS-V Coupe and eventually settled into third position, but last lap contact between polesitter and Saturday winner Alex Figge – who had led the opening 29 laps of the race in the No. 9 K-Pax Racing Volvo S60 – and Mike Skeen’s No. 2 CRP/Cragar Wheels Chevrolet Corvette sent Skeen spinning and Figge off the pace, opening the door for O’Connell. The win was the first for Cadillac Racing in World Challenge since Andy Pilgrim won at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in 2007. O’Connell averaged 79.349 mph over the 30-lap, 67.74-mile race that was slowed twice for nine laps by caution flags on his way to a 1.005-second win. Figge limped to the finish line in fifth place, with Skeen scored in 13th. With a fourth-place finish in the No. 45 Privacy Star/TruSpeed Porsche 911 GT3, Patrick Long extended his GT Championship lead to 44 points over James Sofronas, 840-796. Skeen (755), O’Connell (753), and Andy Pilgrim (606) complete the top five. Cadillac closed the gap to Porsche in the Manufacturers’ Championship, 56-30, with Volvo (18 points) and Nissan (1 point) behind.

Editor-in-Chief's Note: If you really must keep up on all of the latest F1 developments and the potential U.S. GP in Austin, Texas, go here. - PMD

Editor-in-Chief's Note: Check out Michelin's racing website - "Michelin Alley" - and get in on all of the behind-the-scenes buzz. Go here. - PMD

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