Observations from Homestead

Ernesto Viso was the only former Champ Car driver to hit the wall, and he covered 183 of the 200 laps before a tire deflated, which caused him to spin. Will Power banged into Justin Wilson on an early restart, but they didn’t cause a yellow flag. Otherwise, the ex-Champ Car drivers had a clean night on a high-banked oval in unfamiliar cars. The only Champ Car driver to crash was Graham Rahal and he crashed in testing before the race weekend. In fact it was the IRL regulars who looked bad with Jay Howard and Dan Wheldon crashing on their qualifying runs and Milka Duno crashing out during the race and taking out Ryan Briscoe. So all-in-all the Champ Car drivers may not have been super fast because the cars they used do not have the millions of dollars of aerodynamic upgrades that the top IRL cars have, but at least they did not crash as much as the IRL regulars and this wasn't their forte – road course.

All the IRL staff, drivers and team members had nothing but kind words to say about the transition drivers so they appear to be doing their best to make the newcomers feel welcome.

It was encouraging to see a decent crowd (around 25,000) at the start of the race, but then about 1/3 of the people left the grandstands during the race, we assume because the noise was hard on their ears (let's hope the new car in 2010 or 2011 is turbocharged).

We predict you will see bumping in 2009 as we anticipate the number of full-time regular cars to grow to around 30. Don't be surprised if you see more of the Champ Car teams who did not make it into the IRL now, put together deals for 2009 because they will have the Indy 500 to sell to sponsors.

Hats off to the IRL media staff as they run a first-class operation, the best we have seen in racing to date. Mark C. reporting from Miami