IRL preview: Dario an investment in the future

What’s so special about the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season?

Will Power.

The third driver in the Penske stable should help the Captain, Roger Penske, win a championship.

The key word is should.

Extra technical information should be an advantage to Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe, and there are times when Power will wedge himself between a Penske car and one owned by Chip Ganassi.

But if you’re projecting to early October, the championship comes down to Castroneves, Briscoe and Power vs. Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon.

Franchitti won the title last season. He also won in 2007 while driving for Michael Andretti’s team. In between was his foray into NASCAR, which didn’t go very well. In fact, it went pretty badly, and reflected more poorly on open wheel racers than it should have.

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Nothing fabricated about IndyCar’s championship

In a racing world where playoffs were created to ensure a close championship battle and maintain consumer interest, isn’t it ironic that the IndyCar Series may have the best championship of all?

Going into today’s final race of 2009 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Scott Dixon has the championship lead, teammate Dario Franchitti is five points off the pace, and Ryan Briscoe is eight points back. The series has averaged a new championship leader every other race this season.

There is nothing contrived about this battle for open wheel supremecy, nothing fabricated by artificial means or points. It will be decided in a 200-lap shootout on a 1.5-mile oval under the lights. One of those three men is going to win it, and he will earn it in the process.

Based on the whole season, not just a portion of it.

IRL: Sex sells, but with luck, Fisher sails

Most Americans with a rooting interest in the Indianapolis 500 later today will be pulling for the wrong girl.

Instead of hoping that Danica Patrick wins the 500, folks should be pulling for Sarah Fisher. Not that she has any chance of winning. She doesn’t, unlike Patrick, who drives for one of the best teams in the IRL IndyCar Series and does a pretty good job of getting around the iconic 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Yet Fisher is starting her eighth Indy race, more than any other woman. She has never driven for a team as good as the Andretti Green Racing squad that squeezes Patrick into and out of a firesuit, nor the Rahal-Letterman outfit that helped Patrick to a fourth-place finish in 2005 that catapulted her to stardom. For those of you who may have forgotten, Patrick finished fourth in spite of herself; she caused a couple of accidents that took out a handful of competitors.

But Fisher — who was the league’s perennial most popular driver until Patrick arrived on the scene — may be the sentimental choice among other drivers. Helio Castroneves said that if he or teammate Ryan Briscoe didn’t win the race, he was hopeful it would be Fisher. Don’t bet that he is alone.

IRL: A step behind, but Americans stepping up

St. Louis may be the gateway to the west, but Kansas Speedway is the gateway to the Indianapolis 500. It might also have been the first step toward a legitimate resurgence among American open wheel drivers.

Two weeks ago, Scott Dixon finally got off the schneid, Helio Castroneves showed he’s in midseason form, and Tony Kanaan proved once again he is as reliable as ever. But perhaps the most notable thing to emerge from the heavy skies outside Kansas City in the IndyCar Series Road Runner Turbo Indy 300 is what took place behind them.

Danica Patrick, 27, Marco Andretti, 22, and Graham Rahal, 20 — three Americans — finished 5-6-7 in the running order. That’s about as good as can be expected as they catch up to the aforementioned, as well as Dario Franchitti. That Franchitti was the only sure thing to not finish the race, it turned out to be a banner day for the red, white and blue.

That’s right, Americans.

IRL preview: Castroneves is right on target

The Indy Racing League may have opened two weeks ago in St. Petersburg, but the series’ arrival in Long Beach makes the season official. Not to dismiss Ryan Briscoe’s victory, but Spring Brake has been around three times longer than the IRL. If there is one marquee event on the schedule that’s not named the Indianapolis 500, this is it.

And so it’s with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach that we find a few moments to offer up a preview of the 2009 season, completely dismissing what transpired two weeks ago.

Ganassi vs. Penske.

Is that simple enough?