Chicagoland Saturday Notebook

Qualifying has begun for the IndyCars but the weather has changed. The wind has picked up and the temperature has dropped. The cars are already fully trimmed out and easy flat, so the cooler temperatures probably won't change things much. Will Power told us that they were easy flat on the very first lap out of the pits this morning and they have completely trimmed the car out and they are still easy flat. Then why is the car slower than the top teams? Because of all the aero changes the IRL has allowed teams to do and with AGR, Penske and Ganassi having the money to do a lot of wind tunnel testing during the off-season when no track testing is allowed, it means the deepest pockets in IndyCar continue to dominate. Our question is why does the IRL allow these expensive modifications? It certainly does not help the show and it only makes it harder for the less financed teams to be competitive…….The next engine manufacturers meeting is scheduled for September 16th and we hear all the OEM manufacturers (i.e. factory teams) who attended the first meeting will attend the 2nd meeting……….We ran into ex-Penske driver Andre Ribeiro again and this time stopped to chat. He said he is still running Penske's dealerships in Brazil and has no intention of driving again………Did you know that the backstraight here at Chicagoland is slightly curved? Indeed because ISC thought they would someday build grandstands all the way around the track and the curved backstraight would give the fans better sight lines. Does not matter now, attendance is shrinking and will have trouble filling the 75,000 seats they have here now…….Dario Franchitti is here and making the rounds. He spent 30 minutes answering questions from the media. He said it took less than 30 minutes for he and Ganassi to agree to his return to IndyCars in 2009. What else was he to do, collect unemployment? It was his best opportunity. Over the Detroit weekend, Chip (Ganassi) said to me, ‘So do you wan t to do this or what?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ The deal was done in a half an hour. It wasn’t a long drawn out negotiation. He (Chip Ganassi) broached the subject a couple of months ago. He said that when the #40 (Sprint) Cup car shut down, ‘This guy can drive anywhere he wants in my organization.’ People kind of thought, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever, Chip.’ But he was serious about it."……Derrick Walker tells us he has zero intention of buying Penske's ALMS Porsches. Mark C. reporting from Chicagoland