Overheard at Watkins Glen

Good morning from a very cool and windy Watkins Glen in the beautiful Finger Lakes region in upstate New York. The sun is shining and we should have a good day of racing ahead of us…..Watkins Glen, once the host of the USGP, also played host to 600,000 people back in 1973 for the Summer Jam concert featuring The Allman Brothers Band, and the Grateful Dead…….Indy Lights practice is currently underway…….Dario Franchitti is running Polaroid livery this weekend, Milka Duno is back with CITGO, Rafael Matos is carrying the US Marines colors……Newman/Haas/Lanigan has two cars in McDonald's livery this weekend…….Hearing rumors that NASCAR wants to buy the ALMS series and as we previously rumored, has expressed interest in buying the IRL from the Hulman George family. Word is that Don Panoz is getting tired spending money on the ALMS and his Elan car building business is not doing well, making them prime for an acquisition……..We have heard whispers that not all is well in the AGR camp with Tony Kanaan supposedly having words with Michael Andretti at Richmond and now we hear Andretti and Kim Green may not be seeing eye-to-eye on some things……Spotted Davey Hamilton walking around the paddock with his kids. We hear he is trying to put together a deal for some more oval races……Most team owners we spoke to are all wondering what is going to happen to the IRL now that Tony George is no longer able to funnel money over from IMS to help the series. No one knows whether Tony's sisters will give any money to continue support of the series or will insist the IRL stand on its own…..One team owner did tell us that Jeff Belskus is a real solid businessman and thinks he will be good for the series……We hear there is not much promotion going on in Toronto for next weekend's IndyCar race……Mark C. reporting from Watkins Glen