TBK-Light.com

all open access do is rent transponder space to you, if the "reading between the lines" is correct, Richard Garvie paid for the Nascar rights and transponder time this year (or he was the middle man between a car manufacturer and Nascar - depending what you believe), Speedworx would probably know more as he's buddies with Richard.

There are also some questions over whether Open Access will be around this time next month too, their option for Nascar in 2011 expired last week and, well, nothing has been said and I think if they were intending to renew the coverage, we'd have heard something.

So forget OA tbh.

marco and rahal on the same team would be nice but idk what has happened to AR these last couple season they have really been sub par compared to penske and ganassi they deff need to do something soon to step it up. (aka ditch danica lol)

Danica is slowly transitioning to a certain series involving taxicabs with outdated technology while ESPN circlejerks around every time they get the chance (which is plenty).

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Ducks Angels Sounders Spurs

The way Sky were talking during the broadcast, they'll be back next year. They would never have spent as much time on the 2011 schedule, running down the tracks etc, if they had no plans to come back.

I'm one of the few people that it goes to Terrestrial. I think it's pathetic that I can't just buy Sky Sports 3&4, as all I watch is Motorsports and Wrestling, and £18 a month to be forced to buy 1 and 2 is stupid. Especially as I can watch it on indycar.com and get almost the same coverage except for Indy.

5 won't pick it up, as they dropped most of their sports programming, in a bid to become less "American". I've a funny feeling Dave may pick it up (No idea why, but they could get away showing it live at 1AM instead of their thousand buzzcock repeats), or heck. BBC have Moto GP, F1 and ITV BTCC etc, I'd be happy with it on the Red Button!

Oh, and in other news, is it me, or does Dario look slightly too happy to have the Championship Trophy.... (From Indycar.com's last Email)



And finally, if TK leaves Andretti, how much would people like to see a three car Ganassi team next year????

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"Every day on Memorial weekend, comes the chance to cross these bricks, and live forever. No votes, no politics, no thanks to the Academy. Nothing. Just driver, machine, and pursuit of immortality"

I'd be bloody happy to win the championship too, no matter how bloody awful the trophy might be.

Dario's success might help Sky keep the coverage.

Franchitti is already a proven open wheel master and should be given a chance in F1 (though he's already a bit old), but my vote for driver of the year goes to Will Power.

And about the 7-11 sponsorship, I'm not surprised at all, I even think they were more patient than I expected. Great part of their withdrawal idea is lack of performance from Andretti team in the last 2 or 3 years and they saw that not even an experienced driver like Kanaan could solve the performance problems. So there's no reason to keep burning money on a team that at the moment cannot provide the full guarantees that they will be competitive again in 2011. For both Kanaan and Andretti there's only one way to go: work, work and....work, it means build a new image project that can be able to attract a new great sponsorship willing to risk. In the case of Andretti team, I don't think this is difficult. Kanaan deserves a top sponsor and a top performance car to perform all of his natural skills, not all drivers have his experience, provision, dedication and curriculum.

My brief 2010 overview:

Driver of the Year: Will Power. Yup, I picked Dario to win it in the end based on his vast experience, but Will dominated the road/street courses like nobody over the last decade. Penske suffered a few surprising mishaps though and Ganassi has worked the pitwall magic to sheer perfection. The Chicagoland call for Dario to skip the tires effectively won them the title more then anything else in the final oval stretch.

Biggest Disappointement: Ryan Briscoe. From a near 2009 champion (all lost at Motegi and nobody else to blame) put on the back foot even among the Penske trio let alone the big picture. Never in contention for the title ever since he threw away a potential win in Sao Paulo. Texas win avoided him being the first winless driver for Penske since the dreadful 1999 CART season IIRC.

Public Menace: EJ Viso. His on-track crapshoot is not even funny anymore. That's purely disgusting. But for the Hugo Chavez petrol money, he'd be long gone from here. Even Moraes doesn't cause so much havoc out there anymore (Sao Paulo divebomb being the only exception IMO).

Best Race of the Year: Chicagoland-Kentucky double-header (yeah, some might call it artificial racing but unless MIS comes back, that's the best we'll get from ICS) followed by Toronto (good 'ol street race brawl)

Worst Race of The Year: Sonoma (Yawnfest, Wheldon's flip at the start not withstanding, bring back Road America ) followed by Motegi (probably the toughest oval for passing anywhere in the world).

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07.04.1968 - Flower of Scotland when will we see your like again?
01.05.1994 - We'll never forget...

I'd have to argue that Andretti HAVE been quite competitive this year, and if we were talking F1 terms, are "Best of the rest"

Furthermore, thinking about TK alone, how amazing his drive was at Indy this year (And had circumstances have been oh so slightly different, could have got a podium), Iowa when he won, a top 6 finish at all but one oval, and 6th place in the championshp after Ganassi and Penske. In my eyes, thats GOOD.

At the same time however, they may redirect that sponorship to something more long term with Red Bull Racing.

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"Every day on Memorial weekend, comes the chance to cross these bricks, and live forever. No votes, no politics, no thanks to the Academy. Nothing. Just driver, machine, and pursuit of immortality"

Gonna be hard not seeing TK in the 7-Eleven colors anymore.

KV Racing should hire TK for their second Lotus Car and get Simona for their own car.

EDIT: BTW IZOD is not returning to AA, too. Now that's a huge hit for this team. 2 major sponsors out.

Well At least GoDaddy.com are still here......

... And yeah, TK and the 7-Eleven car are about as synonymous with the IRL as the IRL it'self...

EDIT. Sorry, IndyCar

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"Every day on Memorial weekend, comes the chance to cross these bricks, and live forever. No votes, no politics, no thanks to the Academy. Nothing. Just driver, machine, and pursuit of immortality"

[youtube]L82yJJ3oPos&hd=1[/youtube]

Name, Hometown, Team

TK is great

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The UK may be dropping the law which bans Street Racing... (source)

Now. I may be a fantasist, but Mr Bernard in Europe, and this, you never know, we may yet see a race in London/Birmingham (More likely, if we remember the SuperPrix), one day....

And TBH, when you look at the crowds in America at the moment (Pitiful), and then the crowd at Motegi (Packed), and also consider the fact that Dario, Wheldon, Lloyd, Wilson are all from the UK, it could be a good move if they did. Most brits still laugh at the thought of oval racing (Until I show them things like Castroneves having sparks flying in his face while cornering at 205MPH), and Rockingham is a shithole, however, a street race could well work, especially as Indycars actually overtake once in a while (Unlike Fomula One)

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"Every day on Memorial weekend, comes the chance to cross these bricks, and live forever. No votes, no politics, no thanks to the Academy. Nothing. Just driver, machine, and pursuit of immortality"

There's no crowds here because the series is fucking terrible.

A Danica comic book
http://www.racer.com/danica-the-comic-b ... ACER_DAILY


Also while 7-11 will be withdrawing as primary sponsor for TK, They will be staying at AA as an associate sponsor on Danica's car:
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/ ... ithdrawal/

The fact the viewing figures are as pitiful as the the crowds indicates that IndyCar is the problem, not America. It isn't surprising that Motegi gets filled (and with a 65,000 capacity that isn't hard) considering that it is the only Japanese round in a series with lots of Japanese involvement.



How many Brits have even heard of Dario, Wheldon, Lloyd and Wilson? Public consciousness of IndyCar in the UK is much lower than it once was, and conditions were infinitely more favourable when CART tried to break Europe than they are today.

A lot of people don't even know what Indycar is, let alone be able to name one of the drivers.

I usually get a lot of "why are you not watching the Grand Prix?" type questions on a Sunday afternoon, when I reply I'd rather watch an Indycar race at Milwaukee than a GP people's eyes tend to gloss over after the word Indycar...

Guess that means Stargate Worlds remain as the main sponsor. Simona was already hinting at 2011 return with HVM in her Speed TV blogs in Toronto and Mid-Ohio earlier this year

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07.04.1968 - Flower of Scotland when will we see your like again?
01.05.1994 - We'll never forget...