After two weeks of blaming and finger-pointing for all the ‘done me wrong(s)’ in the Toronto race…including accusations leveled at Race Control for a glaring lack of consistency in penalties for avoidable contact…one had to wonder what was going to happen in Edmonton.  Much speculation had taken place about the severity of anger that lingered between title rivals Power and Franchitti after run-ins on-track, and pointed accusations afterward by Power.

    The two had not spoken face-to-face since, and there were a few non-conciliatory Tweets exchanged after Toronto.  (This only addresses two of the protagonists that were more than a bit unhappy after the Toronto race.)  Was Dario getting in Will’s head?  Perhaps.  With Franchitti now ahead in points by a substantial margin heading into Edmonton, Power was looking for a solid performance and also a bit of vindication.

     Friday practice was completely washed out due to heavy rain and standing water on the track. With Saturday’s practice and qualifying, another mark of the overdue parity that is slowly working its way into the series was seen.  At the end of the ‘knockout qualifying’, culminating with the Firestone Fast-Six, none other than Takuma Sato of KV Racing was on pole, his second of the year (the first being on the oval in Iowa).

    The KV team has shown significant improvement since unification of the two series (IRL and Champ Car) in 2008.  In that first year they performed well with Oriol Servia bringing his steady professionalism to the team.  In 2009 and 2010 they languished, as the team wrestled with running new-to-IndyCar driver Sato (in 2010) along with their two young (and still very ‘green’) drivers, E.J. Viso and Mario Moraes.  Though notably fast at times, the trio proved to be inconsistent at best and hell-bent-for-destruction at worst.  This year, with veteran Tony Kanaan in the third car and Michael Cannon’s superlative engineering, the trickle-down of reliably fast cars has permeated the team.  Gone is Moraes, and while Sato, an F1 veteran, at times seems to struggle with self-control in race situations, he’s generally displayed an increased maturity in his performances this season.  Viso, on the other hand, is still involved in some manner of incident at almost every race, and one must wonder how long Jimmy Vasser will continue to be tolerant.

   Overall, the KV squad, like Newman-Haas Racing, is showing itself to be one of the teams to deal with near the front of the field.  To those who paid attention in the Champ Car era, this is no surprise.

    Alongside Sato in the front row would be Power in the Verizon Penske #12.  Sato’s second career pole ended a streak of eight-straight poles on road and street courses for Power, who was complimentary of the performance by Takuma.  Competitors seemed genuinely happy for Sato, who received sincere congratulations from both Power and Scott Dixon.  Dixon qualified third, just ahead of teammate and points leader Franchitti.  Viso also qualified somewhat surprisingly well in fifth (remember that ‘trickle down’ comment), though Kanaan missed the fast six.  Sixth after the final round of qualifying was Ryan Briscoe, in the Penske Truck Rental #6.  Missing the last round were Ryan Hunter-Reay, Servia, Castroneves, James Hinchcliffe, Kanaan, and Sebastian Bourdais.

    Servia missed the fast six after, as he put it, “we got greedy” with the setup for qualifying.  He was on the receiving end of Ryan Hunter-Reay’s rant at the end of the second session of qualifying.  Hunter-Reay brake-checked Servia during the last lap of the session after Servia let him past.  While RHR’s complaint may have been valid (Servia had struggled in his attempt to break into the fast six and was immediately in front of RHR), the all-too-familiar complaint by the Andretti Autosport driver fell mostly on deaf ears.  Servia stated his case, Ryan continued to complain, and life went on.  They would start the race on Sunday side-by-side in the fourth row.

    Sunday’s race in Edmonton on a revised 13-turn circuit that shared only a small portion of the original course turned out to be a race to remember.  What was notably different about the track was the inclusion of three sharp, slow, left hand corners, (turns one, five, and thirteen) at the end of significantly long straights.  The purpose, to provide passing zones, created all that and more.

    On the initial start, amid much breath-holding, everyone made it through turn one nicely.  Sato led as Dixon made a clean pass inside of Power for second, with Dario behind Power.  It seemed for a fleeting moment that the guys and girls had finally figured out how to respect each other and race cleanly.  By turn five, some had reverted to their former ways, as Alex Tagliani optimistically took a big run along the inside edge of the track to pass several cars, which he did.

     What he didn’t do was judge his braking well, as he speared Graham Rahal’s left rear with his right front wing.  Rahal limped on attempting to get back to the pits, but the rear of the car got away from him at the right hand turn six, where the left side of the car dropped into the water-saturated infield.  The car pirouetted back onto the track into the hapless Paul Tracy, ending both of their races.  Rahal gave a wide-armed questioning “Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot” gesture to Tagliani who, other than the skewed (but replaceable) front wing/nose assembly, got away relatively unscathed.  Tagliani was rightly penalized however for avoidable contact, which required him to make a drive-through of the pits.  He started shotgun on the field after his stop to replace the nose, then had to do the drive-through when the field was restarted.  Good job by Race Control to restore its credibility after the debacle at Toronto.  Tagliani eventually finished the race in 17^th.

     Sato led as the field took the green again on lap 5.  Power made a clean pass of Dixon for second going into turn one on the next lap.  The top four ran as they had qualified until Sato miscued in the twisty (remnant from the original) section of the track on lap 19, which allowed Power to pounce as they braked for turn thirteen.  Sato braked deep into the turn with front wheels locked.  Power was inside and past but had also run deep, locking his left front as the car unloaded the inside wheels for the tight left-hander.

     Dixon saw the opportunity presented him, moved inside of Sato and Power, and nearly took both spots.  Power recovered from his mistake, however, and his launch off of the corner allowed him to ‘pull’ Dixon down the long front straight.  Power led as they headed into turn one with Dixon and Sato in tow.  Franchitti seized the moment as well, with Sato having struggled to get off the hairpin in thirteen well, Dario got a run that allowed him to pass cleanly as they braked for turn one.  The cars were now shuffled with the two points-leaders running first and third with a hungry Scott Dixon separating them.  Sato continued in fourth, followed by Ryan Briscoe and E.J. Viso.

    Meanwhile, Kanaan, Justin Wilson, Danica Patrick, Bourdais and J.R. Hildebrand were moving forward from their respective starting positions. Some attrition contributed to the advancement of Patrick and Hildebrand, but credit is not to be withheld from these two as they drove strong, heady races to make passes all day long, producing good finishes for both.

    There were other incidents that ended with penalties as the race progressed.  Oriol Servia was punted into the tires in the twisty (old) section of the track by Mike Conway in an impossible move to pass after Servia had made his first pitstop of the race.  Tires were cold and he wasn’t up to speed, but the mistake by Conway was obvious, and had he waited for another 8 seconds he would have passed the Newman-Haas driver cleanly.  Conway was rightly penalized.

     After the cleanup and restart, E.J. Viso returned to his wicked ways on the entry to turn five.  Viso, if you recall, was running near the front of the field.  He made a similar dive-bomb pass attempt of Scott Dixon going into five, and speared the #9 Target car in the left sidepod.  Dixon limped toward the pits, and was heard on the radio saying “my butt’s on fire”.  Graham Rahal, now in the TV broadcast booth, clarified the statement to mean that the radiator had been punctured and there was hot water in the seat of the car. This was in fact the case, and the Ganassi team took the Target car behind the wall to change radiators and get the car back in the race, though obviously not in contention for the win.  During the prolonged stop Dixon was heard to say he wanted to get back out there to take Viso out.  Cooler heads prevailed though, and there was no on-track retaliation.  Viso was not penalized due to a loss of two laps while he waited for a restart on the track during the ensuing yellow.  Franchitti, who was just behind the incident, had to stop on track to wait for the path to clear to resume and fell to tenth.  Several cars advanced, including Sato and the #28 of Ryan Hunter-Reay.

     On lap 39, Ryan Hunter-Reay made an ill-advised attempt to pass Sato (now running in second) going into turn five as well.  It appeared that RHR thought about it, reconsidered, and then decided to go ahead with it.  One veteran observer speculated that he moved to the inside the second time to avoid ramming the back of the #5 KV car, but the result was the same either way.  It spun Sato, the car stalled, and his race was ruined.  RHR continued but was also penalized with a drive through after the incident.  It dropped him from near the top of the order (he was fourth after the contact) to thirteenth.  He recovered well to finish seventh.  Sato went laps down waiting for a restart of the car and finished 21^st.

     As the race wound on, Helio Castroneves advanced with steady fast laps and the fallout of the others in front of him.  As the race was winding down, he was running second, ahead of Franchitti (recovering from his patient wait for the Viso/Dixon kerfuffle) and Briscoe.   Helio appeared to have the faster car at one point, was clearly better under braking, and got uncomfortably close (for Power) entering the tight turns where all the passing was occurring.  Power had better straightline speed, though, and a serious attempt was never made by his teammate to pass.  That showed admirable restraint on Helio’s part, since it’s been a long drought for the 3-time Indy winner. (Let’s not forget that he was in position to win this event last year prior to a controversial call from Race Control that penalized him for blocking the same teammate on a late-race restart  That penalty cost him the win.)  Power won by .8 seconds ahead of Helio.

      Franchitti, meanwhile, patiently drove to third.  Briscoe ran fourth until the last lap, when an un-Penske-like fuel calculation error caught the Aussie one lap short of Ethanol.  This advanced Tony Kanaan to fourth, followed by Justin Wilson, Bourdais, RHR, Conway, and Patrick, with Briscoe rounding out the top-ten.

     Power and Franchitti were afterward seen in Victory Lane being cordial, talking and smiling.  The hatchet appears to have been buried.  The championship battle has tightened slightly.  Race Control was consistent and on target with its penalties.  As teams head to Mid-Ohio for the next round on August 7^th, the series continues to grow in both competitiveness and stature, and is very nearly again the great series it was prior to the split.  With the new car scheduled to make its first shakedown run soon in the hands of Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon, things are shaping up all around.  Three engine manufacturers, the return of turbochargers…Ahhhh.  It all sounds pretty good to this writer.

Welcome back, IndyCar.  Good to see you doing so well.