Champ Cars Down Under

I can't believe I didn't bore you to tears yesterday with a lap-by-lap account of the Champ Car race on Sunday! I must have been suffering from a brain fart!!! It was the penultimate race of the season and took place at Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. It's a dream of mine to win the lottery and attend this race. I could probably afford it if I gave up all my other races of the year, but I'm just not willing to give up five races for one.

One more race and then we're done with Spike TV and their set schedule of Sundays at 4:00 p.m. Sure, it's nice, in a way, always to know when the race will be on, but it sucks not getting it live! And I'm sorry, but if the bloody thing is tape-delayed, is there a reason they had to go to a commercial when they knew a yellow flag was coming out? So, as usual, we get back from commercial and the cars are circling slowly behind the pace car while the announce team babbled about God knows what. They certainly didn't feel the need to tell us why the freaking yellow was out! Come on, kids, I know you're doing full coverage for the HDNet lucky fuckers, and they probably knew why the yellow came out since they don't go to commercials, but the majority of your fans are stuck watching it tape-delayed on Spike. Tell us what happened while we were busily being force-fed those fucking annoying Bridgestone commercials (the wheel goes round – Dear God, I'd rather suffer through the Goodyear commercials, not that I remember their jingle, but it can't possibly be as annoying).

The race itself was interesting. I didn't know until the very end who was going to win, which is always nice. Well the end meaning when the yellow flag came out with five laps left because the Forsythe team thought it would be okay to leave a loose front wing on Patrick Carpentier's car and it came off on the straightaway (as they are wont to do) and went flying into the air while his car slammed into the outside wall and slide along to the run-off area and came to a rest right in front of the Safety Team after hitting the inside wall. We do have the best Safety Team in the business, so I wasn't as worried as I could have been. Turns out that Patrick was unconscious for fifteen seconds and spent the night in the hospital for "observation." But he's fine and should be cleared to race the last race in Mexico City on November 7. I so hope he doesn't go to the IRL. He's a good ambassador for the sport – always smiling and friendly with the fans.

Gerry Forsythe – Do what you need to do, but KEEP PATRICK in Champ Car! He does not belong in the IRL!!!!!! Spend a little money. Sell an alpaca or two, if you need to, but keep Patrick!!!!! Please?

Oh yeah, back to the race. The Championship is down to the two Newman/Haas teammates, Sebastian Bourdais, affectionately known as Sea Bass, and Bruno Junqueira, somewhat affectionately known as Junky. Pretty much all Sea Bass has to do is keep his nose clean and he will win the Championship in Mexico City. This past weekend though all he had to do was gain seven points on Bruno and he would have wrapped it up at Surfer's Paradise.

I was torn. I want Sebastian to win the Championship, but I also love it when the Championship isn't decided until the last race (you know, unlike Formula 1 where Michael Schumacher had it wrapped up months ago). Bruno ended up winning with Sebastian in 2nd So, now it goes down to November 7 in Mexico and unless Sebastian suffers from a severe brain cramp, he's the Champ Car World Series Champion for 2004. And that's something I can get behind!

GO SEBASTIAN!!!!