Good News: The IRL season kicks off this weekend! (FYI, please set your browser to My Name Is IRL for all things Indy car related.)
Best News Of All: The Captain, having administered a beatdown to various ailments engaged in futile attemps to keep him down, will be on scene at the IRL race bringing the knowledge!
A Step Back From The Best News Of All But Still Better News Than Good News Although Not Nearly As Good News As The Good News: There’s racing at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend!
Not-So Good News: The IRL isn’t at Texas. It’s running a street course in St. Petersburg. NASCAR is at Texas. Hey, it can’t all be good news.
Anyway, this weekend while the truckers take a nap the Cupsters and claims jumpers tackle Texas. Texas was modeled after the design of Lowe’s Motor Speedway, which most people think is in Charlotte but is located in nearby Concord. Most drivers who’ve raced at Texas believe the track was actually modeled after the design of someone or someones who had too much fermented Concord grape juice prior to drawing up the blueprints, now even bluer to match the language on assorted team radios after a few laps.
Texas is a cookie cutter; i.e. a mile and a hald long mostly flat wide track which allows plenty of room for the racing that takes place whenever the IRL comes to call. NASCAR, not so much. There’s still plenty of room, but its primary use is for everyone to run as far from each other’s bumpers as possible. Get out front, stay out front. Thrillsville.
Such tracks have been the House of Roush the past few years with guest appearances by the Hendrick Fab Four and Gibbs Goofballs. There’s exactly zero reason to believe this coming weekend will be anything other than more of the same. Stanton Barrett stands a better chance of winning at St. Pete this coming Sunday than anyone not affiliated with the Big Three does of firing off the six-shooters provided them in Victory Lane and taking the cowboy boot trophy home as a memento of the occasion.
Jeff Gordon has been talking confidence going into the weekend, which considering how Texas has been most unkind to him over the years should throw a scare into everyone not affiliated with the #24. The track could prove to be the perfect tonic for Carl Edwards’ thus far disappointing year, and the Earnhardt Nation is hopeful the site of their man’s first Cup victory will also be the location of his next.
Enjoy the weekend, everyone.
