Danica Mania

As everyone talks about how great of a driver Danica is, shes also great and attracting new fans. Ever since the Cart- IRL ( the two major indy car series's in the country) spit in 1996, the ratings for the Indy 500 have steadily decreased, but this year was differnt as the whole world caught the "Mania." It hosted a 6.5 rating which was up 59% from 2004. The 6.5 was the highest since 1996. From 3 o'clock central time until about 3:15, ratings sky rocketed. Why? Well that was about the time of the final 15 laps when Dan Wheldon outdualed Danica for the win. The ratings for those 15 minutes was 8.6. The pre-race segment was up 61% of last year. This year the start time of the Indy 500 was pushed back an hour to draw more fans in the West Coast, ABC brought in Brent Musburger to do the pre race, and of course a gorgeous women going 225 mph is also going to help ratings!
http://www.indyracing.com/news/story.php?story_id=4764

Flying Under Radar

It seems all month long at Indianapolis we heard about Danica Patrick, Tony Kanaan or Dan Wheldon. Well that didnt change on race day, with Tony Kanaan winning the pole, Danica leading 19 laps, and of course Dan Wheldon winning the race. But a name that most people have forgotten is Buddy Lazier. Lazier, who won the Indy 500 in 1996, has been without a full time ride since the end of the 2002 season. Buddy won the Indy Car series points championship in 2000 and has 7 career wins, and has finished twice two times at Indy. This year, driving for Panther Racing in the #95 Jiffy Lube, ESPN Radio 980 Jonathon Byrd's Cafeteria Chevy, Buddy qualified 9th, which was the fastest Chevy and the fastest out of the 3 Panther Racing drivers. Buddy crashed his car in practice about 48 hours before the start of the 500 on Carb. Day. His crew worked threw the night to get his car back to racing conditions. The #95 Chevy stayed near the front of the field for most of the day, avoided crashes and pit problems, and sailed to Panthers best finish in the Indy 500, with a 5th place finish. Great effort. I’ve got to hand it to John Barnes, all the team owners here. Panther Racing, there’s five of them (and) all great guys. Andy Brown, my engineer … I knew when I had him as my race engineer and Seth (Fleming) and all the engineers from the other teams. We all worked together, and when I looked at that engineering I knew that we would have a chance to win this race. If you take a look at my front wings, I had contact with Sharp in the last 10 (laps), so I broke the left front wing. We didn’t come in, we didn’t want to lose track position, and then we had contact again with another car blocking me. So without the contacts, I think I would have been able to make a better run of it at the end. Top-five finish, that’s really good. I’m happy with that.” (Chevrolet, you knew they’d want to end here strong. What kind of engine did they give you?): “Well, take a look at those wings, and if we wouldn’t have had those wings like that we would’ve – you can’t say if you’re ever going to win or not – but we would have had a lot better shot of it. I think we would have really charged at the end and had a chance to win, so my hats off to Chevy. They gave me a motor that would have won today.” (After what happened on Friday (accident in Miller Lite Carb Day practice), you have to feel extremely proud of this result): “It’s a testament to my team, Panther Racing, a testament to my race engineer, Andy Brown, testament to Seth, the guys on this race car. All these guys worked together all night for two nights to that car back together.” (This is obviously a partnership that works – you and Panther Racing. Is this the end of it?): “We keep working on it. Certainly my agenda is to be back full-time IndyCar racing, and hopefully this will help. I don’t know. We’ll just keep working at it.” Lazier said after the race.
http://www.pantherracing.com/content/blogcategory/28/80/