A chaotic and crazy pair of Verizon IndyCar Series races in Toronto – both on Sunday – makes for interesting analysis as always from our NBCSN IndyCar analyst Townsend Bell, who offers the latest edition of “Ten with Townsend” on MotorSportsTalk (archive).
Since Toronto, Bell raced in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (finished fourth in his GT Daytona class AIM Autosport Ferrari 458 Italia GT3) and called the Red Bull Global Rallycross event at Charlotte. As always, we thank him for his time and insights:
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-First of all, how challenging is it to fill air time during a rain delay when you don’t know how long it will be and whether or not the race will get going?
It gets a little tough when we head down the road of discussing the caloric value of beer!
-How bad do you think the conditions were Saturday?
It’s easy for all of us armchair quarterbacks to say, but I would have liked to see them attempt.
-Was it kind of a case of damned if they did, damned if they didn’t for racing then?
Possibly. Outside of that, I think a little civil engineering on Shoreline should be a priority before next year. Some minimum circuit standards should be a requirement at every venue we visit. That should start months before the event. Don’t get me started on catch fencing.
-On-track, was it refreshing to see your Indy teammate Sebastien Bourdais (at KV Racing Technology) get back into victory lane?
He drove a perfect race. Always nice to see any of the smaller teams win.
-Thoughts on Mike Conway’s second win?
He got there on strategy but when the green dropped he showed why ECR hired him. He flat drove away from the field. If they can sort out their qualifying issues, then there’s no reason why we can’t see more of that at Mid-Ohio and Sonoma.
-Are you liking what you saw out of Tony Kanaan this weekend given he hasn’t had such a good weekend on street courses in a long time?
He seems very strong, and the more I wonder what Dario Franchitti does on a race weekend, the more I realize how valuable he is as a coach to TK. I’m sure (Scott) Dixon is peering over their shoulders regularly now.
-Even though Helio Castroneves and Will Power have 69 points on the rest of the field, we can’t rule out Ryan Hunter-Reay and Simon Pagenaud right?
No, clearly anything can happen like we saw at Toronto. I can’t wait to see what surprises are in store for us at Mid-Ohio.
-How do you think Helio and Will will hold up mentally? They’ve both been in this situation before of being in title contention late, but unable to close it out.
I think they’re both strong now. They’re battle tested in previous seasons and focused on learning from so many lessons. Nobody has more experience now battling down the stretch than those two. But cracks have been known to form… could this be the year where all goes right down the stretch for Penske? It has that feeling….
-Who really needs to prove themselves in these final four races as we head towards the end of the season?
Right now Sato, Rahal, Briscoe, Andretti, all seem to come to mind.
-More fun – riding shotgun with PT on the streets of Toronto? Or watching Toronto Mayor Rob Ford ride shotgun with PT?
I think we should have had PT room with Mayor Ford for the weekend. They seemed like fast friends and I would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall with the rest of the viewers. Who knows what could’ve happened.
