Franchittigate

First off, I whole-heartedly support freezing track positions on a yellow. It's utterly essential for safety and good sportsmanship, laying rest to the preposterous practice of "racin' back to the line".

Here's the way the rule should work. Upon a yellow, a "snapshot" of all field positions is taken, just it has for the past 5 seasons. If a car has committed to a pit stop at this point (i.e. slowed down out of the race line, yielded positions, etc.), the driver has three choices:

* Drive through without stopping and rejoin the field in their "snapshot" position.

* If they are critical on fuel, they may stop for a splash of ethanol, but must then rejoin the field according to the blend line and no better than their "snapshot" position. If there's a problem in the pits or the crew is greedy with the fuel, they could loose positions as they cross the blend line, but never gain a position.

* Stay out on the track.

Dario & Team didn't break any rules today, but it was groaner for everyone else to see him get a "free" pit stop.

Indycar Heading to Baltimore's Streets?

It ain't the Streets of Manhattan, but it's probably as close as the Indycar series is going to get: a blogger at The Baltimore Sun is reporting that Indycar may be heading to the streets of the Momument City.

Will it happen? Eh, probably not, but we can add it to the list of events to talk about.