Opinion: 7 Thoughts from the 2015 IndyCar Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

The opening race of the 2015 IndyCar Series season is in the books, and it was an exciting way to kick-off a new year. Here are my seven biggest takeaways from another successful season opener in Florida, which was taken out by Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya.

1. Based on this weekend’s form, Team Penske will be tough to beat all year. Australia’s Will Power led a Penske 1-2-3-4 in qualifying on Saturday and Juan Pablo Montoya led home the reigning series champion on Sunday for a 1-2 team finish. Surely there are alarm bells going off throughout the rest of the IndyCar paddock now? Penske cars were by far and away the pacesetters this weekend, and it it’s an omen of things to come – other teams will be hoping it isn’t – it’s going to be a long season

2. Honda are way behind in their engine development. Chevrolet will be gleefully aware that they scooped the top six finishing positions at the Grand Prix of St Petersburg, with the top Honda runner, Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay a distant seventh.  These aren’t good signs for the Japanese manufacturer, especially not on top of whispers out of the paddock that Chevrolet teams have worked harder and for longer developing their aero kit package. Obviously it’s still early days, but the team at Honda Performance Development will doubtless be working hard before the next event in New Orleans.

3. The aero kits look great. Yes, they appear to be rather flimsy – debris seemed to be flying thick and fast, and often – but it’s really nice to turn on an IndyCar race and see genuine difference between the Chevrolet and Honda cars. A lot of people don’t like the DW12 chassis, and, sure, it’s not like we’re seeing the awesome Lola and Reynard chassis that dominated the last 1990s and early 2000s, but the cars look good. The aero kit introduction seems to have swung most people’s opinion right around.

4. The new aero kits might not actually be the death of good IndyCar racing. If you read social media, you’ll realise that the doomsayers are predicting the end of the spectacular on-track product as we know it – based on one afternoon’s racing.

I’m willing to adopt a wait-and-see-approach. Maybe this being the first race of the year and the first race with the new aero kits was an aberration caused by excited drivers with new bodywork on their car that they’ve never raced before. Of course, St Pete has something of a history of being wild, especially into the first turn – we’ve had cars upside down there in years past – so for those on social media screaming that it’s the end of the world as we know it, maybe let’s wait and see what happens by the time we get to the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and then make a judgement.

5. Inconsistent rulings from Race Control are already causing controversy. When race director Beaux Barfield – you know, the guy who presided over IndyCar racing in a mostly uncontroversial manner these past few years – left for the Tudor United Sport Car Series, IndyCar fans were dismayed to learn that Barfield’s spot was being taken by Brian Barnhart, an old IRL crony of Tony George’s, and a guy who was basically fired for inconsistent and sometimes insane rulings. I mean, this was the man who green-flagged an oval race restart in the rain!

Aided by a team of other experts, Barnhart is back and hopefully on a very short leash. Even so, it hasn’t been a good start for the new regime in Race Control. Graham Rahal was penalised for contact with Charlie Kimball, but Kimball and Simon Pagenuad coming together a handful of seconds before wasn't given a second glance? They were about as bad as each other. That maddening inconsistency is going to make for a very long season if Barnhart and co keep it up.

6. Team Penske’s pit-road mistake on Will Power’s final stop is incredibly rare. If there’s one thing you can normally bet the farm on, it’s the professionalism of the Team Penske crew. Roger Penske demands nothing less.

To see them release Will Power fractionally late from his final pit stop of the afternoon was, frankly, shocking. These guys just rattle off exception stop after exception stop. It’s in the team’s DNA. I can’t even remember the last time a Roger Penske crew made a mistake on pit road, much less one that cost one of their drivers a race. Mark it in the books, people. We probably won’t see another for many races to come!

7. The Grand Prix of St Petersburg is fast becoming a classic event. Originally part of the now-defunct ChampCar World Series, the St Pete race has everything you need to ensure a good event: a racy track, wonderful setting, great crows and a title sponsor. It’s a fun track to watch an IndyCar buzz around, especially the last third of a lap down the shoreline and onto the airport runways, which remind me of the Cleveland airport race of old.

I know St Petersburg wasn't supposed to be the first race of the season – the recently-cancelled Brazil race was meant to have that honour, and IndyCar are looking at overseas races to start the year in the near future – but the series could do worse than beginning each year down in Florida. Hard to believe the race, in it’s current incarnation, has been around since 2004.

Opinion: 5 Thoughts from the 2015 V8 Supercar Tasmania SuperSprint

After the street festival that the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide has become, the V8 Supercar Series swapped the concrete canyons for the tight, fast Symmons Plains racetrack in Tasmania for the second championship event of the year.

1. Will Davison and James Courtney won’t be exchanging Easter eggs this year. The most contentious incident of the weekend came in the first race on Saturday. No matter what the HRT pilot might want to contend, the vision of him getting into Davison’s Erebus AMG racer is clear-cut.  Courtney was at fault. As is the want of drivers, he’s constructed a slightly different version of the events – involving getting run into by Chaz Mostert – but, as Davison observed in a heated post-race interview, that happened after Courtney had already done his work on Davison.

The way James Courtney behaved after the race was far from the sort of look the series needs. He seemed like a petulant child, and the irony of him telling Davison to have a cry was not lost on many. He kept telling Davison to go take a look at the vision of the incident, and I can’t help but wonder why JC didn’t do that first. He argued and made a fool of himself from a position of inferiority, given the video was conclusive. Not cool, JC.

Social media is always an interesting place after such events, and the general consensus was that Courtney was in the wrong. It’s pretty damning when you see comments from Holden fans saying that their guy is at fault. Why Jason Bargwanna, the driving standards observer for the series, didn’t issue Courtney a penalty is beyond me. We’ve seen less clear-cut incidents flagged for drive-throughs or whatever else in the past. Inconsistent rulings is what disenfranchises fans. Just look at the NRL and what they’re going through at the moment, if you don’t believe me. When races or games aren’t officiated correctly and evenly, fans turn off and the V8 Supercar Series can’t afford that.

2. Craig Lowndes can win the 2015 series. Based, at least on the speed he showed across the weekend, the universal fan favourite – I love the guy, but my manufacturer allegiance is to Ford – is plenty capable of beating Whincup, Courtney, Van Gisbergen and whoever else might find their way to the pointy end of the championship race.

We saw the speed he had all weekend, and were reminded of just how good he is behind the wheel when he scythed back through the field on Sunday afte3r avoidable contact with David Reynolds. How good would it be for the series if CL were to win it? Maybe a Lowndes title run is just what the sport really needs to get over the lethargy that seems to have overtaken during Whincup’s dominant run.

3. Qualifying is more important at Symmons Plains than anywhere. Increasingly, qualifying is becoming key at every racetrack the V8 Supercars visit. Marcos Ambrose noted the key difference between the series he left and the one he returned to was a lack of passing on the track, which means what you do in qualifying can set up an entire weekend. And Ambrose would know, given that it was a disastrous qualifying run at the Australian Grand Prix that

With the tight nature of the racetrack in Tasmania, you’re pretty much consigned to a mid-pack battle if you don’t nail qualifying. Mark Skaife made that observation on FOX on Saturday, and it reinforced what I was thinking. We saw what happened with Craig Lowndes. Two poles and two race wins on Saturday. Clear racetrack is a wonderful thing. In contrast, Jamie Whincup qualified badly for the first race, and was mired in the pack. Sunday, he qualified well, took advantage of Lowndes’ penalty, and won. Chalk and cheese difference.

The fast and narrow layout of Symmons Plains isn’t conducive to passing. It’s probably the most constrictive track the series visits. It doesn’t seem right to basically have your race (or, in some cases, weekend) decided by qualifying, but that’s fast becoming the reality of V8 Supercar racing in 2015. Yes, Craig Lowndes made a mockery of that assertion on Sunday, but that was a supreme drive and, for mine, more the exception than the rule, especially in Tasmania.

4. HRT need wins to really rubber-stamp their return to the top. We’ve heard so much about the revival of the once-dominant Holden Racing Team. Yes, James Courtney is currently trailing Jamie Whincup by a narrow margin, but most people don’t care about consistency in podiums and top-5 finishes, even though that’s not a bad way to win a championship. They want to see wins, and taking the checkers first is the way to really show the world that they are back at the top. Until Garth Tander or Courtney is standing regularly on the top step of the podium, myself (and others) will remain sceptical.

5. Scheduling a race against the World Cup final wasn’t a great move. Memo, V8 Supercar schedule makers: check your global sports calendars, please! First, it was the test day conflicting with the Bathurst 12 Hour – a PR nightmare for the series – and now the second round of the season conflicts with the Cricket World Cup Final.

With an event this weekend, the series is basically asking fans to choose between seeing an annual event (without Tasmania’s own Marcos Ambrose, too) against a giant event that comes around once every four years, hasn’t been seen in Australia for two decades, and is the culmination of our national sport’s biggest tournament. Plus, the chances were always good that Australia would feature in the final. Given we’re a month away from the next round (Perth, 1-3 May) surely the series could’ve scheduled the Tasmania event the weekend after Easter rather than before?

NASCAR 2015: Week Six (Martinsville) Australian Foxtel TV Guide

After a few weeks off, the Camping World Truck Series returns to action at the classic 0.5-mile, paperclip-shaped Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. It's one of NASCAR's oldest and most historic tracks. We'll see close-quarter short-track racing (which usually provides it's fair share of angst amongst the drivers) and the weekend winners receive a grandfather clock, one of the best trophies in NASCAR. Good news: both races are live on FOX Sports this weekend.

All times AEDT

Sunday 29 March

LIVE Camping World Truck Series Kroger 250 (5:30am; FOX Sports 5)

Monday 30 March

LIVE Martinsville Pre-race Show (3:30am; FOX Sports 4)
LIVE STP 500 Green Flag (4:10am; FOX Sports 4)
Replay STP 500 (4:00pm; FOX Sports 5)

Opinion: 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Early Season Villains

We’ve seen five races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for 2015, and there’ve been storylines galore, some positive and some negative. A lot of drivers have started off the season brilliantly…and then there are those who’re off the pace and need improvement as we heard for Martinsville this weekend.

Tony Stewart: For a guy who has won two Cup championships to admit that making the top ten this past weekend at Fontana, you know it’s been a rough start. In fact, it’s been such a shocking opening to Smoke’s season that he’s scarcely featured in race broadcasts, except when he’s being lapped, and languishing in thirty-second place in points. Strange that Stewart’s car is so bad and his teammates, Harvick and Busch, are showing such speed.

Roush Fenway Racing: One the powerhouse Ford team in the Sprint Cup Series – they won two championships and were regulars in victory lane in the early 2000s – Jack Roush’s squad are seriously on the decline, having lost veteran drivers Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards in the last few seasons. You can’t replace that experience, and the squad had suffered as a result. Greg Biffle is the elder statesman now, with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne rounding out the 3-car team. Basically, they haven’t been fast anywhere. Biffle is the best of the bunch, twenty-first, with the squad’s only top ten finish of the season. It’s sad to see a front-running team struggle so much.

Kyle Busch: Not really his fault, but Busch’s hard impact with the wall in the Daytona Xfinity Series race has seen the driver of the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota sidelined indefinitely after surgery on his foot, highlighting issues with walls at racetracks where the SAFER barrier doesn’t exist. It’ll be midseason before the controversial driver is back behind the wheel, and the sport is a lesser place because of it.

NASCAR: Their handling of the Kurt Busch situation wasn't great. Yes, I know what happened with NFL star Ray Rice, and I know that there’s now a serious spotlight being shone on domestic violence, but the difference between Rice and Kurt Busch is that there was video evidence of Rice’s actions, and there wasn't any for Busch’s – and the entire fight between Busch and his ex-girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll, was as contentious as they come.

The fact is, NASCAR suspended Busch indefinitely on the back of a supposition from a judge granting Driscoll a protective order, but, crucially, no criminal conviction. When the Delaware district attorney deemed that there wasn't enough evidence to charge Busch, NASCAR had a fair amount of egg on it’s face and had to basically rescind their suspension, allowing Busch to return for the Sprint Cup Series’ fourth event in Phoenix. Sloppily handled, for mine.

Danica Patrick: The hype on Patrick – the first full-time female competitor in the Sprint Cup Series – is not justified by her on-track ability. It’s been another slow start for Patrick, who languishes outside the top twenty in points, and is yet to record a top 5 or a top 10 finish, yet garners a lot of air time, and we listen to Darrell Waltrip gush over what a great run she’s having.

I’m not against females in racing, far from it, in fact, but broadcasters seem to want to lavish huge praise on her, praise that often matches whoever is actually running at the pointy end. Yes, it was great watching Patrick lead the Indianapolis 500, but there are other female drivers out there, like Simona de Silvestro in IndyCar, who are faster but get far less media exposure.

Track Safety: This is becoming a huge talking point in the Sprint Cup Series paddock. We saw it with Kyle Busch’s horrific accident at Daytona, slamming into an unprotected wall, and it could’ve actually been much worse than it was. The next week, Jeff Gordon hit a stretch of unprotected wall at Atlanta, and, given the current climate, the fact that Atlanta hadn’t made changes in the wake of Busch’s accident a week before is beyond me. NASCAR should mandate SAFER barrier installation everywhere at every track, or we’re going to end up losing a driver, and no one wants that.

Opinion: 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Early Season Heroes

We’ve seen five races in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for 2015, and there’ve been storylines galore, some positive and some negative. Here are my winners from the early races of the season as the teams head back from the three-week road swing and get set for a return to the sport’s traditional roots: short track racing in Martinsville, Virginia this weekend.

Kevin Harvick: It’s very early to name a favourite for the 2015 championship, but even so, the form of Harvick in the #4 Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing is ominous. He won twice out west – Phoenix and Las Vegas – and finished second yesterday in Fontana, a race he could easily have won, were it not for late-race restart drama. Harvick stretched his record of eight races finishing either first or second, dating back to last year. The Closer, as he’s known, has great chemistry with crew chief Rodney Childers and is seeking back-to-back championships. He’s looking good, but, of course, it’s early days.

Martin Truex Jr: Truex and his entire #78 Furniture Row Racing team endured a horrible 2014 season, but have bounced back incredibly well early in 2015 to be safely ensconced within the top five in points. Truex is a good driver, and Furniture Row Racing, albeit a one-car operation, certainly know how to fight with the big dogs in Sprint Cup Series racing. They put Kurt Busch into the Chase two years ago, and with what we’ve seen so far from Truex and his Denver-based team, they might do it again this year.

Carl Edwards: Saw the writing on the wall at Roush Fenway Racing and switched to Joe Gibbs Racing, where he’s driving Toyota alongside former long-time Roush teammate, Matt Kenneth. Yes, Edwards hasn’t scored a Top-5 or Top-10 finish this year, but he’s shown speed at times and will likely win a race – barring a crazy plate race-type finish – before anyone from his former squad does.

Richard Childress Racing: Shocking year for a once-powerful squad in 2014 seems to be on the mend, at least over the first five weeks. Quietly, Ryan Newman sits sixth in points and even more quietly, Paul Menard is in ninth. You rarely hear about those two over the course of the race. They’re just doing a quiet, consistent job.

Kurt Busch: Part of the biggest and most contentious scandal NASCAR has seen in many a year. No longer known as the Outlaw after a suspension that was lifted after a court ruled that Busch had not, in fact, assaulted his ex-girlfriend, Patricia Driscoll, the older Busch brother got into the car in Phoenix after missing three races, and immediately went to the top of the sheet. He’s scarcely been outside of the top five in any session over the last two weekends, and was unlucky not to win in Fontana yesterday. Like his teammate Harvick, Busch’s form.

Penske Racing: Joe Logano won the season-opening Daytona 500 and Brad Keselowski “stole one” (his own admission in victory lane) at Fontana to put both of Roger Penske’s cars into the Chase. The Logano-Keselowski tandem might not be the most popular amongst the fans, but they’re getting giant results where it counts: on the racetrack. The Captain will doubtless be happy with Logano in second and Keselowski in fifth in the pointsn race.

Hendrick Motorsports: Only one win for the powerhouse Chevrolet squad – Jimmie Johnson in Atlanta – but as far as team’s go, Hendrick are headed in the right direction. They’ve got three drivers in the top ten in points: Dale Earnhardt Jr. in fourth, Johnson in seventh and Kasey Kahne in eighth.

Opinion: The USC/Reggie Bush Scandal Was Handled Horribly By The NCAA

One of the darkest periods in the history of University of Southern California football (and basketball) history is back in the spotlight, and it’s not good news for the NCAA and their crumbling ability – at least, crumbling in the eyes of most external observers – when it comes to making even and sensible judgements on NCAA infractions.

By now, I’m sure you know the story of the improper benefits obtained by USC football star Reggie Bush and USC basketball star OJ Mayo? Bush lost his Heisman trophy, the Trojan football squad was stripped of wins and national championships, hit with a two-year postseason Bowl ban and hit with scholarship restrictions that have hurt the team’s depth, and continue to do so even now.

Todd McNair was the USC running backs coach, and he was found to have had knowledge of Bush’s impermissible benefits. He was found guilty of same by the NCAA and lost his job at USC. Furthermore, he was slapped with a one-year ‘show cause’ notice from the NCAA, which required any school wanting to hire him during that period to explain why they should be allowed to do so, and await a final judgement from the NCAA. Ultimately, McNair wasn't hired by another school during that period. In fact, he hasn’t worked in college football since.

Which brings us to McNair’s lawsuit against the NCAA, launched in 2011, and gathering momentum now after the Los Angeles Times obtained a series of e-mails sent between various members of the NCAA infractions committee after the newspaper, along with the New York Times, waged a long battle to get them unsealed.

It doesn’t make good reading for the NCAA, but will doubtless please McNair’s legal team, who are suing for lost earnings after having his name dragged through the mud. He claimed that the investigation was one-sided. Based on the documents that I’ve read, the NCAA committee were far from being the unbiased organisation they should be. So far, it’s not even funny.

Amongst inflammatory other comments, USC were criticised in these e-mails for hiring Lane Kiffin to be their head coach, and actually wondered if they could use the hiring of the now-former Trojan head coach as another way to demonstrate that the school displayed a lack of institutional control, which is a program’s death-knell in the eyes of the NCAA.

Most worryingly of all are the twin faux pas’ from committee member Rodney Uphoff, who, in an undated memo, declared that USC needed “a wake-up call” and then compared the ethical conduct case against McNair to circumstances surrounding the Oklahoma City Bombing, claiming that their evidence against the Trojan coach was stronger than that in the case against Terry Nichols, who was convicted as Timothy McVeigh’s accomplice. The fact that the committee is even of a mind to connect the two is absolutely shocking.

Another committee member, Shep Cooper, called McNair “a lying, morally bankrupt criminal, in my view, and a hypocrite of the highest order”. That’s legal dynamite. How can a committee preside honourably and fairly and in an unbiased manner when their thoughts are thus? What Cooper said about McNair is bordering on slander, if not actually crossing that precarious line.

It’s flabbergasting reading. McNair’s lawyers, and USC’s, will likely have a field day with this sort of thing. The notion that the NCAA had a pre-conceived result where the Trojans were concerned is as clear as the day from these documents. They acted with malice, and it’s there for all to see. At least now we know why the NCAA fought so hard for so long to try and ensure this explosive evidence remained sealed!

McNair will barely need to turn up to court daily with this stuff out on the table. The NCAA, aside from being corrupt in this matter, have been damn stupid, too. They’ve left a traceable e-mail trail for the world to now view, and have made McNair’s case as a result. Corrupt and foolish, what a combination. And these are the people running college football? Not very encouraging.

The very fact that the NCAA infraction committee seem to be taking it upon themselves to teach the Trojans a lesson is worrying. The entire NCAA organisation is supposed to be unbiased. They are to examine the facts as they are presented, and make rulings based on those facts, not on the personal thoughts and feelings of the committee. Impartiality is the key, and there was little of that, apparently, on the minds of the NCAA team as they torched the USC program.

McNair and USC stand to make a lot of money here, given that the way the NCAA handled their case was far from impartial. They’ve broken a swathe of NCAA bylaws, and the observation that the committee hated the University of Southern California is given credence by both these damning documents and by the light penalties handed to schools like Miami-FL and Ohio State, whose various infractions were far more widespread than USC’s.

At Southern Cal, Reggie Bush was the only guy on the football team taking impermissible benefits. At Ohio State, a group of guys were busted for selling memorabilia illegally, and at Miami-FL, there’s a trail of infractions over a long period of time. Yet, somehow, the Trojans copped the worst of it. Even Penn State’s sanctions for the Sandusky nightmare were lessened almost immediately. If there’d been true impartiality, I can’t imagine the penalties would’ve been anywhere near as stiff.

Don’t get me wrong: Bush and McNair did the wrong thing. That’s not the issue here. The issue is the way the NCAA handled it: violating it’s own bylaws, changing evidence to suit it’s own purpose, communications clearly showing the malice the committee had for the school. That absolute contempt is now out there for all to see. Hopefully, it will be a catalyst for change because the NCAA system is clearly old, tired and, probably, broken beyond repair.

Although, unfortunately, it’s a little late for USC football.

2015 IndyCar Series Preview

Finally, the monkey is off Australian Will Power’s back. Coming into the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series season, Power is the man to beat, not just because he is the defending champion, but because, in pre-season testing at Barber Motorsports Park, he was the fastest.

It must be a good feeling for Power, a perennial championship runner-up who could never quite close the deal, to be racing with the #1 plate on his Team Penske Chevrolet, and now that the major focus is off him shaking the bridesmaid tag, Power will doubtless be looking ahead to the fabled month of May, and the Indianapolis 500.

As per usual, there has been plenty of uncertainty away from the racetrack since we closed the 2014 season at Auto Club Speedway. IndyCar was supposed to open it’s season in Brazil, but the race there was cancelled recently, which means that the Grand Prix of St Petersburg (a temporary street/airport runway circuit) reverts to it’s oft-held position as the opening race of the new season. The street circuit race in Houston has also been cancelled for 2015.

It’s a shame that IndyCar isn’t more widely-known, because the on-track product over the last few years with the DW12 chassis has probably been the best open-wheel racing in the world. Although Formula One is s seen as the pinnacle of global motorsport, it’s on-track product doesn’t hold a candle to IndyCar’s. Right now, two or three cars can win any given F1 race, but there are about a dozen possible winners at any given IndyCar event. The variety is fantastic!

To bolster the racing product comes the introduction of manufacturer specific body kits, so that the Chevrolets will look different from the Hondas, giving us a little variety in terms of car appearance despite the series persisting with a one-make chassis, the dependable Dallara.

Others disagree on the spec chassis’ appearance, but the new body kits – or, at least what we’ve seen sparingly during testing – seem to be striking a cord with the IndyCar fan base, leading to a nice chunk of positive momentum entering the season. That’s not always the case in IndyCar land, so there’s reason for plenty of positivity.

Schedule-wise, despite the cancellation of Brazil, the 2015 IndyCar Series remains arguably the toughest test of a driver in the world. To be crowned champion, a driver must excel on temporary street circuits, permanent road courses, short ovals, intermediate speedways and superspeedways like Indianapolis and Auto Club Speedway. What other series tests it’s drivers so diversely?

All the fan favourites return, including the classic street circuit race, the Grand Prix of Long Beach. It’s America’s answer to F1’s Monaco, and is the most prestigious event outside of the Indy 500.

The series visits Toronto, for the popular street circuit race around Exhibition Place, and Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, which has provided some great racing in recent years, features early in the year.

Short tracks at Iowa and the legendary Milwaukee Mile are part of a three-event stretch of oval races (along with Auto Club Speedway) and Texas Motor Speedway’s Saturday night race, long a big event on the IndyCar Series schedule, returns in 2015.

A Triple Crown of super-speedway races will feature again in 2015. The 99th Indianapolis 500 (a double points race) is the jewel in the entire IndyCar crown, and there will be 500-mile events at Auto Club Speedway and Pocono. The season-ending Grand Prix of Sonoma will also feature double-points hauls.

The Grand Prix of Indianapolis will be run on the revised infield road course at the Indy two weeks before the 500, and a new event, at NOLA Motorsports Park near New Orleans, means that there are four permanent road course events in 2015, including the popular Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

So, who comes out on top? Based on pre-season testing, Power will be tough to beat. There will be stiff competition from with Team Penske, a especially new recruit Simon Pagenaud. The Frenchman is ridiculously talented, and I can’t wait to see what he can do with Penske equipment. Also, watch out for the two wily veterans, Helio Castroneves and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan can never be discounted, so the long-running Ganassi vs Penske battle should be on once again. Talented rookie Sage Karam will be running at least a partial schedule, and figures to be fast. Fellow American Charlie Kimball rounds out Ganassi’s 4-car assault.

Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay will spearhead the flagship Honda squad, which welcomes Simona de Silverstro for St Pete, after losing the services of the very popular Canadian, James Hinchcliffe. The ‘Mayor of Hinch Town’ takes Pagenaud’s spot at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. At AJ Foyt Enterprises, Takuma Sato gets a teammate in Jack Hawksworth, which should allow for further development.

Sarah Fisher Racing and Ed Carpenter Racing have merged and the team, now known as CFH Racing, will run one car split between Carpenter (ovals) and Luca Fillipi (road courses) and a full-schedule ride for American youngster Josef Newgarden. Don’t count out Sebastien Bourdais at KV Racing or Graham Rahal at Rahal Letterman Racing. Bryan Herta Autosport are running Indy Lights champion Gaby Chaves this year. Even perennial backmarkers Dale Coyne Racing return with two cars.

Overall, the field is as even as it’s been in years. I see five drivers who have a realistic chance at the championship – Power, Pagenaud, Dixon, Kanaan and Hunter-Reay – and you can expect the likes of Bourdais, Hinchliffe, Newgarden and Carpenter to challenge for wins at various times. Hopefully, the same will be true of one of my favourites, Graham Rahal.

Two fearless predictions to end:

Indianapolis 500 winner: Will Power – finally, with the championship done, he gets his face etched on the Borg Warner Trophy.

IndyCar champion: Simon Pagenaud – the Frenchman has everything he needs to win a title, and I think he claims it in his first season with Team Penske.

Book Review: Star Spangled Hockey by Kevin Allen

Published: 2011

Genre: History, Hockey

Kitch’s Rating: 8/10

Noted hockey journalist Kevin Allen – his co-authoring of autobiographies by Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick, who writes the foreword here, deserves a lot of credit – has gone deep into the annals of time to chart the existence of the world-leading organisation known today as USA Hockey. 

It’s a fascinating read for those of us who are unashamed hockey nerds. Allen does a wonderful job of profiling the big moments and the important names of Americans who have done their country proud at both international competitions and in the National Hockey League, which hasn’t always been a place stacked with American talent.

If you’ve read Chelios’ and Roenick’s books (as I have), you’re going to find some repetition, for Allen goes through major events like the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake, with help from those two players and from others. It’s a rare look at some big moments, not just in USA Hockey history, but in the development and history of the international game itself.

The famed exploits of the so-called Golden Generation of USA Hockey in the 1990s and early 2000s – think the likes of Mike Modano, Doug Weight, Brett Hull and Joe Mullen, as well as Chelios and Roenick and so many more – takes up plenty of pages as does the obvious, the 1980 Miracle on Ice. Buoyed on by that triumph in Lake Placid, these were the years that America became a legitimate threat to win tournaments, rather than needing a miracle (if you’ll pardon the pun!) to get amongst the medals.

Allen has charted every Olympic campaign (including the other successful gold medal run on American soil, in Lake Placid in 1960, and the silver-winning squads from 1972, 2002 and 2010), organised hockey in America in it’s earliest incarnation, the career of Hobey Baker, some of the great players to win the Hobey Baker Award over the years, the wealth of talent coming from the relatively small, hockey-mad town of Eveleth, Minnesota and Chicago’s Yankees of the 1930s, the best American-born coaches, the 1998 World Championship qualifying tournament that featured retired players like Mark Johnson, college hockey, the rise of female hockey, success at the World Junior Championships, and, of course, some of the best American hockey families.

If you love the history of American hockey, from it’s humble beginnings to current day successes, Star Spangled Hockey is for you.

Opinion: Australian Racers Are Doing Great Things Internationally, Yet We Rarely Get To Read About It

Australia's Ryan Briscoe is a class winner at Sebring

Most Australian motorsports scribes have got it all wrong. Instead of talking about drivers who actually aren’t behind the wheel – hello, Marcos Ambrose – or races that were more like parades at speed – hello, the Australian Formula One Grand Prix – they should be shining a light on the Australians who are leading our charge on the global motorsport stage.

The last calendar year has been very good to Australians overseas, and, if early season form is anything to go by, that trend looks set to continue in 2015. At the moment, there’s no hotter tin top driver in the world than Ryan Briscoe. The Sydney native has raced twice with the factory Corvette Racing squad in America, and has picked up two GT-E class victories, one at the famed 24 Hours of Daytona and, this weekend, at the similarly-prestigious 12 Hours of Sebring.

Not only did the Corvette squad outlast a fleet of Porsches, they did it in sweltering heat on a track that is notoriously murderous on driver and car. It’s bumpy, fast, unforgiving, and you need to be very good to survive twelve hours of racing there, let alone to stand on the top step of the podium.

To most sports car fans, the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring are right up in the top five as far as endurance classics are concerned, sitting comfortably alongside the 24 Hours of Spa and the most famous of them all, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Briscoe, driving for a powerhouse squad whose professionalism has seen them atop North American and international sports car racing for more than a decade, has silverware from arguably the two of the most important North American racing events that will be run this year – the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500 are the only others that draw such worldwide interest – yet Briscoe’s feats have largely gone unnoticed, because column inches are filled with political entanglements in Formula One or rumours about a driver who may or may not make a return to V8 Supercar racing.

Even Will Power, Australia’s first ever IndyCar Series champion, barely rates a mention after topping the timesheets at the pre-season test for the IndyCar teams at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. It’s the best possible way for Power, who has been fast for years and only needed to get the monkey off his back to win a championship, to begin his pursuit for two series championships in a row, not to mention a tilt at the Indianapolis 500 in May, with the winningest team in the history of the Memorial Day Classic.

After May, of course, comes June, and Briscoe will again be behind the wheel of a Corvette, this time at Circuit de la Sarthe, for the 2015 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Judging by the way things have been going, you wouldn’t want to bet on that seemingly-bulletproof yellow C7.R, which is shared amongst Briscoe, Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia, taking the checkers after a day’s worth of racing in France.

Across in Europe, the World Endurance Championship opens in less than three weeks, with the now-tradition opener, the 6 Hours of Silverstone. Australian Mark Webber, who impressed at Le Mans and was involved in a horrific accident at the last race of 2014 in Sao Paolo, Brazil, returns as lead driver for the factory Porsche 919 Hybrid prototype, and with one year of development under their belt, the German squad has high hopes of challenging Toyota and Audi for the championship. With a new Nissan prototype set to debut at Le Mans, the WEC has never been stronger.

Then there’s Jack Miller, who will make his debut on a MotoGP bike this year.  Us Aussies are used to success in the premier motorcycling category in the world, from Wayne Gardner through Michael Doohan and on to Casey Stoner, so seeing Jack up towards the pointy end of the field would be great.

Former World Superbike champion Troy Bayliss is temporarily back on pit lane, riding a Ducati again, filling in for injured rider David Giugliano, is another story that barely rates a mention. Had the Superbike series not had it’s season opener in Australia, we might never have heard about Bayliss, a guy old enough to be the father of most of his competitors, returning for spot duty.

So, come on motor racing journalists, let’s see less stories from unnamed sources analysing Marcos Ambrose’s state of mind or whether Red Bull will pull out of Formula One – I doubt they will, it’s all sabre rattling, something not uncommon in the F1 paddock – and more about our best and brightest overseas doing us proud. There’s plenty of good news to fill column inches! We should be shouting news of Aussie winners at the world’s biggest races from the rooftops!

Opinion: Proposed Changes to NHL Overtime Will Mean More Overtime Winners & Less Shootouts

There’s always some interesting debate, discussion or rule change to come out of the NHL General Managers meeting that recently wrapped up in Boca Raton, Florida, and 2015 is no different.

On the table now, and subject to approval, is a plan for three-on-three overtime, be it for the entirety of the five-minute period or perhaps for an additional two minuted at the end of the normal five of four-on-four. There’s more hesitance amongst team owners to tack on an extra two minutes, and I agree. That’s a hell of a lot of work for the guys out there, after playing giant regulation minutes beforehand. Five minutes is perfect. Five minutes of three skaters on three, well, that’s better than perfect.

Show me twenty hockey fans and, generally, more than three quarters of that number will curse the idea of the shootout. The shootout concept was debuted after the 2004-05 lockout and has been a polarising one ever since. From my point of view, it’s a glorified skills contest that, whilst providing us with some ridiculous highlight reel moves every now and again, is more of a one-on-one competition to end what is a team game. It doesn’t make any sense.

Three-on-three for five minutes of overtime frees up a heck of a lot of ice space, even on NHL rinks that are smaller than those outside of North America, and more space to make offensive moves on the ice is never a bad thing. Some of the best offensive talent in the league – think Crosby, Kane, Datsyuk, Stamkos and Nash – are going to thrive with more space and we’re more likely to see games ending with a goal, and, probably, some awesome moves like we see in shootout, although the crazy spin-a-rama will likely be retired, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it always seemed to gimmicky for me. This is great for the fans. I mean, there are few things that can get a hockey fan’s blood pumping than an overtime winner.

Let’s be honest, with the increased ability of goalies in the last decade or so, we’re seeing less goals scored than ever. Look at the save percentages or goals allowed averages from a decade and two decades ago, and compare them with today, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The cream of the NHL crop – think Lundqvist, Rinne, Crawford and Price – are committing grand larceny on a regular basis.

Obviously, fans want to see goals. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a 1-0 goalie duel every now and again, but I like seeing the puck in the back of the net, too, and we’re seeing less high-scoring, free-flowing games than ever before. Changing the overtime laws won’t help general play, but less shootouts and more goals in the extra frame is at least a start.

There’ll be some great strategy to consider in three-on-three overtime. Generally now we see two forwards and two defenders on ice during overtime, but what will coaches do when they can only send out three skaters? Do you send out two forwards and one guy on the blue line in an attempt to win the game quickly? That will be fun to see.

General Managers are pushing this idea, too, but for a different reason. The less pucks their goalie faces the happier they are going to be. The other goalie-related issue put on the table is a coaches’ challenge – like what is seen in college and pro football – that can be used when the bench boss believes that his net minder has been interfered with thus allowing a goal to be scored.

There seems to be good momentum for this change, which will be deliberated on at the competition committee’s meeting in Las Vegas this June, but with GM’s making moves to increase offensive output on the ice, hopefully we will see these new overtime rules come into effect for the 2015-16 season. The on-ice product will be the beneficiary.

NASCAR 2015: Week Five (Fontana) Australian Foxtel TV Guide

The final weekend of NASCAR's annual western pilgrimage takes us to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, and Foxtel will be showing both the Xfinity and Sprint Cup Series events live, which is a very pleasant surprise.

Seeing as how we're technically in the Los Angeles suburbs, you can bet that FOX will play heavily on the fact that the Sprint Cup Series is in the same neck of the woods as Hollywood. Well, kinda. Fontana is a long way from Hollywood, but watch the references fly thick and fast nonetheless on the last weekend out west.

All times AEDT

Sunday 22 March

LIVE Xfinity Series Drive4Clots.com 300 (6:30am; FOX Sports 2)

Monday 23 March

LIVE FOX NASCAR Sunday Pre-race show (6:00am; FOX Sports 5)
LIVE Auto Club 400 (6:45am; FOX Sports 5)

Spirit of the Anzacs (Official Video)

Lee Kernaghan has done a brilliant job here. The title track for his just-released Spirit of the Anzacs album, which features 15 other tracks, all of which have been created from the wealth of diaries, letters and memoirs stored at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

This song, featuring the talents of Guy Sebastian, Shannon Noll, Jessica Mauboy, Jon Stevens and members of Sheppard, is the perfect soundtrack to the images that you see below. No wonder the Australian War Memorial threw open the doors to it's archives for this project.

Album Review: Lee Kernaghan - Spirit of the Anzacs

In this centenary year of the Gallipoli landings, we’ve seen plenty of Anzac-related content on television (Channel Nine’s excellent but poorly-rating Gallipoli and the upcoming Foxtel presentation, Deadline Gallipoli), on the big screen (Russell Crowe’s excellent The Water Diviner) and in books (Peter Fitzsimons’ Gallipoli), so it’s no surprise that the country’s musicians are getting in on the act.

After attending the Australian War Memorial a few years back, country artist and former Australian of the Year Lee Kernaghan was significantly moved by what he saw and read in Canberra that he set about creating a tribute album to Australia’s rich and varied military history.

Working alongside long-time collaborators Garth Porter and Colin Buchanan, Spirit of the Anzacs is the end result of Kernaghan’s moving visit to the War Memorial: a vivid and far-reaching musical history of the Anzac from April 25, 1915 through to today, where, as is often forgotten by most of us in the course of our lives, Australians are still in harm’s way in the Middle East.

Whilst Kernaghan is most notable for his country music leanings, anyone who considers shunning this album because they think it’ll be straight-up country music would be doing the work a great disservice. Kernaghan is as varied here as he’s ever been. Yes, there’s the occasional country-driven tune, but they are few and far between. There’s something for everyone here, particularly the stirring, anthemic title track which features, amongst others, Shannon Noll, Guy Sebastian, members of Sheppard, Jessica Mauboy and Noiseworks front-man Jon Stevens.

What sets this album apart is the content. Each one of the songs has been crafted either by drawing experiences from letters and diaries from servicemen and women. Kernaghan and his team were given extraordinarily and unparalleled access to the vast archives at the Australian War Memorial, using so much source material to create some brilliant songs that will take you on what is at times a stirring journey (and, at other times, a bleak and stark one) through our country’s military history.

Every conflict that Australia has ever been involved in is represented here. From the fateful Gallipoli campaign (“To the Top of the Hill”), the light horse campaign in the Middle East (“We’ll Take Beersheba”), the Western Front (“Oh, Passchendaele”) to the Pacific theatre in World War Two (“Kokoda – Only the Brave Ones”), the attack on Australian soil in Darwin (“When The First Bombs Fell”), the Korean War (“We Heard a Bugle Play”) and on to the bitter fighting in modern-day Afghanistan (“The Dust of Uruzgan”) Kernaghan charts the Anzac legacy, and features a guest vocal appearance by Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith.

This is epic song-writing, some of it theatrical at times, especially ‘We’ll Take Beersheba’ which features samples of jingling chain, men shouting orders, horses whinnying. A far cry, for certain, from Kernaghan’s usual musical surroundings. Each song is a journey through some of the foreign fields of battle that have come to best define the Australian spirit. Not all of the songs have a happy ending, but they should – and probably will – stay with you a long time after the final track has faded to silence.

One thing that I don’t usually bother with is a physical CD, but Spirit of the Anzacs has a great booklet that briefly mentions the origins of each song, often with photos of the men and women whose hopes and fears Kernaghan and his team have turned into these emotional songs.

With the 100 year anniversary of the Gallipoli landings fast approaching, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of Spirit of the Anzacs. It’s a powerful testament to a century’s worth of Australian valour, courage, commitment and sacrifice on the battlefield. It’s brilliant.