Chip Ganassi Racing (IndyCar Series)

Scott Dixon made the Indy Japan 300 look easy early this morning in claiming his second win of the season.

Dixon led 62 of the 63 laps in the race.  The only lap he didn't lead was early in the race on the first pit stop sequence, when he pitted and Will Power stayed out and led a lap.  Power came to pit lane on the next lap and Dixon regained the lead and never looked back.

This was the second time this season Dixon started and won from the pole.  The other was in Mid-Ohio in early August.

It was also Dixon's 10th career road course win and 27th career win in the series.  That ties Johnny Rutherford for 11th all-time.

He was the only Ganassi driver who can say they had a great day.

All four qualified in the top 10 and were running in the top seven until a restart on lap 26, when Dario Franchitti made a bonehead move to try and pass Ryan Briscoe in turn one and took out not only himself and Briscoe, but his teammate Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball.

All four ended up continuing on, but all had to pit due to some form of damage on their machines.  Even team owner Chip Ganassi was furious that Franchitti took out three of his cars.

Instead of all of them finishing in the top ten, it left Franchitti as the only driver to finish there.  Franchitti ended up a controversial ninth, Rahal finished 13th and Kimball was 22nd.  Briscoe ended up finishing 21st in the race as well.

The wreck caused a huge stir of controversy, though.

All season Brain Barnhart has penalized a driver for making unavoidable contact.  They penalty was to go to the back of the field and do a drive through penalty on the restart.  This time he only gave Franchitti a penalty of going to the back of the line and no drive though.  The problem was he already was at the back of the field.

The reason it's a penalty is because after you're drive through you will be a good 30 seconds behind the field.  Dario was able to start with the field and work his way back up to ninth.  He lost the points lead to Will Power, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Will Power finished 3.5 seconds behind Dixon in second and passed Dario for the points lead.  Power now leads Franchitti by 13 points heading into the race in Kentucky in two weeks.

Power also took home a little bit of hardware as well. 

He won the Mario Andretti trophy for the Road Course Championship for the second consecutive year.  Japan was the last race on the schedule that's a road course.

Power beat Dario Franchitti by 32 points to claim the title.

The other bit of controversy for Brian Barnhart was his call not to penalize Sebastien Bourdais for his wreck of Ryan Hunter-Reay, which caused a caution with six laps to go.

Again, it was avoidable contact on the situation that sent Hunter-Reay into the sand trap.

The weird coincidence is the two that have been penalized the most this season for avoidable contact—Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay—both were victims and the guys that got into them weren't penalized.

Outside of those controversies, the race was pretty tame.

There were only three yellows on the day.

The next race is October 2nd at Kentucky Speedway.  You can view it live at 2 P.M. on Versus.

Finishing Order:

1. 9 Scott Dixon

2. 12 Will Power

3. 26 Marco Andretti

4. 77 Alex Tagliani

5. 2 Oriol Servia

6. 19 Sebastien Bourdais

7. 3 Helio Castroneves

8. 4 J.R. Hildebrand R

9. 10 Dario Franchitti

10. 27 Mike Conway

11. 5 Takuma Sato

12. 7 Danica Patrick

13. 38 Graham Rahal

14. 18 James Jakes R

15. 78 Simona de Silvestro

16. 06 James Hinchcliffe R

17. 22 Simon Pagenaud

18. 82 Tony Kanaan

19. 17 Hideki Mutoh

20. 24 Ana Beatriz

21. 6 Ryan Briscoe

22. 83 Charlie Kimball R

23. 59 E.J. Viso

24. 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay-1 lap

25. 14 Vitor Meira OUT

26. 34 Joao Paulo De Oliveira R OUT

Scott Dixon earned his second Peak Performance Pole Award of the season at Japan early this morning for tomorrow's Indy Japan 300.

Dixon turned a lap of 109.143 mph in the No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Honda.

It was Dixon's 17th career pole in the Izod IndyCar Series, which ties him with Emerson Fittipaldi for 18th all-time.

Dixon has three things on his side with the pole for tomorrow's race.

First, he was the pole sitter of this race on the oval track in 2009 and won. Second, his only win this season came from the pole at Mid-Ohio. Finally, three of the last four race winners of the season came from the pole position.

Dixon's teammates had a great qualifying session as well. 

Graham Rahal qualified third with a lap of 108.919 mph in the No. 38 Service Central Chip Ganassi Honda.  Rookie Charlie Kimball qualified a season-best seventh with a lap of 108.702 mph in the No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Honda.

The surprise of the Ganassi team was that points leader Dario Franchitti was the slowest of the four. Franchitti turned a disappointing lap of 108.611 mph in the No. 10 Target Chip Ganassi Honda. 

This is the first time this season that the foursome all qualified in the top ten.  It was also the first time this season Franchitti was the slowest of the four.

Franchitti will have to make a bunch of moves to get to the front to hold onto the points lead, because the man chasing him, Will Power, joins Scott Dixon on the front row.

Power turned a lap of 109.113 mph in the No. 12 Verizon Wireless Honda for Team Penske. 

Power won the past two races in Sonoma and Baltimore and has closed the gap between Franchitti and himself to five points.

Power's Penske teammates had good qualifying efforts as well.  All three will start in the top six and make it difficult for Franchitti to move past them and catch Power.

Ryan Briscoe will start fourth in the No. 6 Penske Honda.  Briscoe turned a lap of 108.793 mph. Power and Briscoe's teammate Helio Castroneves will roll off sixth tomorrow with a speed of 108.501 mph.

Sandwiching the Penske- and Ganassi-dominated top six is rookie James Hinchcliffe.  Hinchcliffe will start fifth in the No. 06 Sprott Newman/Haas Honda. 

Hinchcliffe needs a good finish this weekend, as he comes in just a few points behind fellow rookie J.R. Hildebrand for the Rookie of the Year battle. Hildebrand will start 19th tomorrow

Rounding out the top ten are another driver making his best career start, rookie James Jakes (eighth), and Andretti Autosport's Marco Andretti (tenth).

The Indy Japan 300 will be shown live on Versus at midnight tonight.

Starting Lineup

1. 9 Scott Dixon

2. 12 Will Power

3. 38 Graham Rahal

4. 6 Ryan Briscoe

5. 06 James Hinchcliffe R

6. 3 Helio Castroneves

7. 83 Charlie Kimball R

8. 18 James Jakes R

9. 10 Dario Franchitti

10. 26 Marco Andretti

11. 5 Takuma Sato

12. 34 Joao Paulo De Oliveira R

13. 59 E.J. Viso

14. 19 Sebastien Bourdais

15. 77 Alex Tagliani

16. 2 Oriol Servia

17. 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay

18. 22 Giorgio Pantano

19. 4 J.R. Hildebrand R

20. 27 Mike Conway

21. 24 Ana Beatriz

22. 17 Hideki Mutoh

23. 7 Danica Patrick

24. 14 Vitor Maira

25. 82 Tony Kanaan

26. 78 Simona de Silvestro

With the schedule set to be announced for the 2012 Izod IndyCar Series in the coming weeks, I took a long, hard look at the rumored schedule.

If the schedule is accurate, there will be 11 road/street courses and only seven ovals.  That's pretty similar to this year in that there is 10 road/street courses and seven ovals.

There are also only seven American drivers racing full-time right now. With the announcement of Danica Patrick's departure, that makes just six for next season (unless more sign).

My question for all current and former IndyCar officials, teams, drivers and execs is why did you even split in 1995? 

Tony George made the ignorant move to split to his own series starting in 1996 and formed what was then called the IRL.  That left two major open-wheel series' in America.

Fans were outraged and felt a strong hate for IndyCar racing due to this.  They didn't like what George did, but wanted to follow the Indy 500 which he obviously took with him.  CART didn't have the 500, but they had the superior drivers and teams. 

Fans were confused by the two series, so they bailed to a more attractive up-and-coming popular series in NASCAR.

George split his own series for three reasons.  One was the domination of Penske and Ganassi, and he saw that they had too much control.  The second reason being there were too many road courses, and the third being there weren't enough American drivers competing.

The schedule in 1995 had 11 road/street courses and six ovals.  It also had 11 full-time American drivers on the series schedule.

Lets fast forward to the 2011 season.  I stated above that there's 10 road/street courses, seven ovals and seven full-time American drivers.  The dominance of Penske and Ganassi is greater than ever before.

What's the difference with this season and 1995's season? 

The only one I can see is the millions of fans who came to the races to watch IndyCar racing live or tuned in on TV are gone.

1995 opened the door for NASCAR's success and closed the door for many of those who bolted to IndyCar. 

With next week’s hearing to discuss the outcome of the top three finishing positions for last Sunday’s Move That Block 225 that should be enough to fire Brian Barnhart.

Why in the world would he let Ganassi and Newman/Hass dispute that they should have their drivers Oriol Servia for Newman/Hass and Scott Dixon for Ganassi finish first and second respectively?

I mean come on, it’s not Ryan Hunter-Reay’s fault the track was way too wet to go back to green and he couldn’t accelerate without wrecking his car. By him not being able to have grip Oriol Servia and Scott Dixon passed him. 

That’s all fine and dandy, but Barnhart decided to be fair to all drivers and revert the field back to the running order prior to the restart. How can you revert to the running order before the restart, but change the finishing order of the top three? That makes about as much sense as do I say throwing the green flag out on a wet race track. Oh wait that genius already did that.

Calls like that make me believe that it’s time for a new competition leader in IndyCar. Not only is this getting all confusing, but also his calls are getting more and more dangerous.

Let’s rewind back to May at the end of the Indianapolis 500. J.R. Hildebrand was winning the race and well on his way to win.  The IndyStar, a local newspaper in Indianapolis, published a report of the speed trap zone for Hildebrand and rookie Charlie Kimball on the last two laps of the race.  Kimball was the lapped driver Hildebrand was attempting to pass in turn 4 on the last lap of the 500.

The report showed Kimball should have been black flagged on lap 198 due to not running at a fast enough speed to keep up with competition. Kimball was almost 100 mph slower than the leaders speed. If Barnhart wanted to at least let him finish the race then he could have ordered him to race in the warm-up lanes between turns one and two and then in turns three and four, and run on the inside lane of the front and back straights.  He obviously didn’t do that.  On lap 199 the last lap Kimball was over 120 mph slower than Hildebrand’s (the leaders) speed.  Hildrbrand caught Kimball as he was going less than 100 mph in the North Chute. That’s entirely dangerous!  Hildrbrand had no time to react and got in the marbles and the rest is history.

I know Kimball was running out of gas and the last lap ran out of gas, but come on Mr. No Brain Barnhart. We all knew that he was slow either black flag him or order him to the warm-up lane that way drivers don’t catch him in the one groove turns.

Another notable mistake he made was black flagging Helio at the end of last year’s race at Edmonton for blocking.  Are you serious you’re going to black flag a guy for moving over one lane on an airport track wide enough to race jets on while he was leading on a restart? 

Let fast forward back to last Sunday's race in New Hampshire.  When he made the call to go back to green with nine laps to go, he should have been fired on the spot.

When all 18 drivers running at the time unanimously said they don't have grip the track's too wet to go back to green, he should have listened. It was embarrassing seeing those cars look like they were on ice and wrecking.  That's millions of dollars of racing equipment ruined off of a bad decision.

Now they're having a hearing next week about the top three in the finishing order.  What good can come from that but more confusion. You can't change the finishing order when you revert back to the running order before the green flag. Last I checked you can't advance your on track position under yellow unless the car in front is stalled.

All these bad decisions came within a one year span. It's time for a change. It's getting dangerous and IndyCar needs all the help they can get with getting back to what they were.  Confusion doesn't help.

On Saturday, Scott Dixon won his first pole award of the season. Today, he followed that up with his first win of 2011.

Dixon clearly had the best car all weekend, as he started on the pole and led 50 of the 85 laps in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. His teammate Dario Franchitti was eight seconds behind, giving Target/Chip Ganassi racing another one-two finish on the year.

Ryan Hunter-Reay got a podium finish, coming across in third place, while KV Racing teammates Takuma Sato and Tony Kanaan rounded out the top five.

It was a rough day for Team Penske, especially Will Power, who came home in 14th position. All three of the team cars were running up front for most of the race, but they had an unlucky break during a caution when they tried to pit. They went to the back, and couldn't get around all of the traffic.

Power has finished 14th or worse in three of the past four races. He now trails Dario Franchitti by 38 points heading into next weekend's race at New Hampshire. Dixon trails by 106 points.

It was also a frustrating day for hometown kid Graham Rahal. Graham had trouble on his first pit stop, then made contact with Danica Patrick, sending him spinning off the course.

Scott Dixon has now won three of the five IndyCar races here at Mid-Ohio.

With more oval races coming up on the schedule, it looks like the championship could be Dario's to lose. Power is slightly better on the road and street courses, while Dario is a bit better on the ovals.

Next Sunday's MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 from Loudon, New Hampshire is set for 3:30 pm EST, and can be seen on ABC.

Target Chip Ganassi Racing had a great day today in the qualifying session at Mid-Ohio.  All four of Ganassi's cars will start in the top 10 in tomorrow's Honda Indy 200, including having the pole position.

Scott Dixon set the quickest lap in the Firestone Fast Six with a speed of 119.405 mph and will start first in the No. 9 Target Honda. This is Dixon's first Peak Performance Pole Award of the season and the 16th of his career.

Dixon's Ganassi teammate and current Izod IndyCar Series Points leader Dario Franchitti will start inside of Row 2 with a lap of 118.839 mph.

The other two drivers in the Ganassi stable, Graham Rahal and rookie Charlie Kimball, will start sixth and 10th, respectively.  For rookie Kimball, it will be his best career start in the Izod IndyCar Series.

Joining Dixon on the front row tomorrow is Penske Racing's Ryan Briscoe. Briscoe turned a lap of 118.954 mph in the Firestone Fast Six.

Fellow Penske teammate Will Power will join rival Dario Franchitti in Row 2 with a speed of 118.805 mph in the No. 12 Verizon Wireless Honda. Row 2 is the same front row in last year's race with Dario ending up in victory lane and Power finishing second.

Americans Ryan Hunter-Reay (fifth) and Graham Rahal (sixth) will share Row 3.

Rounding out the top 10 are rookie James Hinchcliffe, Alex Tagliani, Takuma Sato and rookie Charlie Kimball in spots 7-10, respectively.

Fan favorites Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick both struggled in qualifying for the Honda Indy 200 today. Kanaan will start 16th and Danica 23rd in the 27-car field.

Simon Pagenaud qualified Justin WIlson's car today in the qualifying session. Wilson was taken to an area hospital due to a practice wreck this morning. There's no word on whether Pagenaud will race tomorrow or if Wilson will be cleared to drive.

It will be an interesting start of the race with rivals staring next to each other up front. Dario and Power have had some bad blood brewing all season, and both are battling for a close championship.

The row behind them, Hunter-Reay and Rahal, have been feuding since Hunter-Reay spun Rahal in Toronto two races ago. Don't look for either driver to give each other much room at the start.

Be sure to tune in to Versus at 2:00 p.m. for the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio tomorrow.

Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Starting Lineup:

1. (9) Scott Dixon

2. (6) Ryan Briscoe

3. (10) Dario Franchitti

4. (12) Will Power

5. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay

6. (38) Graham Rahal

7. (06) James Hinchcliffe (R)

8. (77) Alex Tagliani

9. (5) Takuma Sato

10. (83) Charlie Kimball (R)

11. (19) Sebastien Bourdais

12. (59) E.J. Viso

13. (4) J.R. Hildebrand (R)

14. (78) Simona de Silvestro

15. (3) Helio Castroneves

16. (82) Tony Kanaan

17. (27) Mike Conway

18. (22) Simon Pagenaud (R)

19. (26) Marco Andretti

20. (2) Oriol Servia

21. (14) Vitor Meira

22. (34) Sebastian Saveedra (R)

23. (7) Danica Patrick

24. (18) James Jakes (R)

25. (24) Ana Beatriz

26. (17) Martin Plowman (R)

27. (67) Ed Carpenter

Twenty-Seven Drivers turned 606 laps today around the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and local driver Graham Rahal was quickest.

Rahal turned 20 laps today in his No. 38 Service Central Ganassi Honda, and it was his 20th and final lap that was the quickest of the day. Rahal turned a lap at 116.788 mph in the first and only practice session of the day.

E.J. Viso was second in the session with a lap of 116.706 mph. The Venezuelan, like Rahal, turned his fastest lap in his last lap of the session.

Points leader Dario Franchitti was third quickest with a lap of 116.636 mph. Franchitti is sporting a new paint scheme on his No. 10 Honda.

Fourth quickest was Franchitt's main rival Will Power. Power turned a lap at 116.592 mph in his No. 12 Verizon Wireless Honda.

Rounding out the top five today was Dreyer & Reinbold's Justin Wilson. Wilson turned a lap of 116.473 mph in a new black and yellow paint scheme.

Andretti Autosport continued its bad season with only Ryan Hunter-Reay landing in the top 15 on the speed charts. Hunter-Reay turned a lap of 116.042 mph, which was good enough for eighth. The other three Andretti drivers Mike Conway, Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti were 20th, 22nd and 26th, respectively, on the speed charts.

Practice resumes tomorrow for the Izod IndyCar Series from 8:30-10:30 a.m., and qualifying will be from 12:55-2:15 p.m.

Another 2012 Engine announcement was made today. Sam Schmidt Motorsports was announced as the third team to have Honda's backing for next season. Schmidt will join Ganassi and Foyt as teams that will be using Honda engines next year.

Dario Franchitti cruised to his 29th career IndyCar victory at the Milwaukee Mile.

Franchitti started on the pole and led for most of the first half of the day. 

Tony Kanaan got by Franchitti just past halfway and cruised out to the lead in his No. 82 Geico Honda.  It was shaping up to look like a three way battle for the win between Franchitti, Kanaan and Helio Castroneves. The three ran up front for almost the whole race.

On lap 195 though running in the second position and charging hard on leader Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan lost control of his Honda exiting turn four and slammed into the outside safer barrier. It was a disappointing end for Kanaan who had a legit shot at getting KV Racing into victory lane for the first time in their career.

Five laps later on lap 200 under caution, leader Helio Castroneves had to pit due to a flat left front tire. Helio had no idea it had went flat, but the team caught it and made sure to pit before disaster would have happened.

Dario Franchitti regained the lead and never looked back to a win in the Milwaukee 225 on Father's Day. He led a race-high 161 laps.

Look for the Ganassi and Penske team rivalry to heighten in the next week with Franchitti taking a shot at Helio Castroneves in his victory lane interview. He said the battles with Tony Kanaan all day were fabulous and they gave each other plenty of room and it was a lot of fun, but Helio needs to learn how to drive and not block people. He doesn't think he will ever learn.

Fellow Ganassi teammate Graham Rahal finished second, Newman/Hass Racing's Oriol Servia finished third, Will Power who started a season worst 17th finished fourth, and American Danica Patrick rounded out the top five.

KV Racing was the biggest loser on the day with all three cars starting fourth, fifth, and sixth. E.J. Viso,  Takuma Sato and Kanaan ran up front all day, but left with two wounded race cars. Viso was having a solid top ten and maybe even a top-five run before he lost control coming off of turn four in the closing stages of the race. 

Kanaan, as stated earlier, also lost control in turn four in the closing laps. Sato had some problems in the first pit stop stint that forced contact with a pit crew member and forced him and Dixon to have slow stops. He regained composure and got a top-10 finish for the team, but disappointing in the fact that all three could have been in the top 10.

Other incidents on the day happened on lap 1 when Ryan Hunter-Reay lost control in turn two of his Go Daddy Honda and slammed the outside retaining wall. Another incident later on in the race happened on lap 79 when Alex Lloyd and Sebastian Saveedra's incident in turn two.

Rookie J.R. Hildebrand made contact with the wall as well on lap 120 when he got too high exiting turn four and slamming into the outside wall. All the drivers got out under their own power with no injuries.

Simona de Silvestro only lasted 11 laps in an ill handling race car. The team stayed late to rebuild the car after it was damaged in a qualifying wreck on Saturday that forced de Silvestro to be hospitalized. The car wasn't fully built the way it should have been to compete and she called it a day early.

The only other car to not finish was Foyt Racing's Vitor Meira. Mechanical problems forced Vitor out of contentions on lap 69 and left him with a 24th place finish.

Dario's win and Power's fourth place finished forced a tie for the Championship Points Lead between the two heading into Saturday night's race in Iowa. Oriol Servia's third place finish moved him past Scott Dixon into third in the standings.

Finishing Order

1. 10 Dario Franchitt- 225 laps

2. 38 Graham Rahal- 225 laps

3.  2  Oriol Servia- 225 laps

4. 12 Will Power- 225 laps

5.  7  Danica Patrick- 225 laps

6. 06 James Hinchcliffe (R)- 225 laps

7.  9  Scott Dixon- 225 laps

8.  5  Takuma Sato- 225 laps

9.  3  Helio Castroneves- 225 laps

10. 22 Justin Wilson- 225 laps

11.  6  Ryan Briscoe- 225 laps

12. 27 Mike Conway- 225 laps

13. 26 Marco Andretti- 225 laps

14. 83 Charlie Kimball (R)- 224 laps

15. 18 James Jakes (R)- 223 laps

16. 67 Ed Carpenter- 223 laps

17. 24 Ana Beatriz- 222 laps

18. 77 Alex Tagliani- 196 laps

19. 82 Tony Kanaan- 194 laps

20. 59 E.J. Viso- 163 laps

21.  4 J.R. Hildebrand (R)- 120 laps

22. 19 Alex Lloyd- 79 laps

23. 34 Sebastian Saveedra- 78 laps

24. 14 Vitor Meira-69 laps

25. 78 Simona de Silvestro- 11 laps

26. 28 Ryan Hunter-Reay- 0 laps