New Zealander wins minor U.S. race

If you were as absorbed as us in Sunday’s Monaco GP, then you might have missed the result of some smallsville hick race in Indianapolis on the same weekend.

Scott Dixon, pictured above with his huge winner’s trophy (looks a bit like an upside-down Dalek, no?), took the chequered flag, thereby making good on his pole position, which he secured more than one week ago - being Yanks, they stretch out the race weekend to almost one month.

British IndyCar star has American ivories, and then some

Here’s Dan Wheldon (left), celebrating with team-mate Scott Dixon after the latter secured pole position for this Sunday’s Indy 500.

Wheldon was born in Sutton Coldfield. How many people from Sutton Coldfield do you know with teeth like that? They’re fricking ridiculous, at least two sizes too big for his head; they look more like dentures than real teeth. His dentist must like practical jokes. Dixon, a New Zealander, has a fine set of teeth too, but he can’t compete with the scary white tombstones jumping out of Wheldon’s mouth.

Compare Dan’s silly new teeth with his old set:

Indy 500 plagued by Democrats, bad weather and loads of crashes

We got a bad feeling – the sort of feeling Mr T might have before not gettin’ on a plane - about this Sunday’s Indy 500, at least based on the series of unfortunate events that have marked the endless build-up to this Sunday’s big race. It’s enough to make us think that ex-First Lady Hillary Clinton has cursed the event - the Democrat loser-in-waiting turned up at the Indianapolis Speedway a couple of weeks ago, whilst campaigning for the Indiana primary.

Don’t play chicken with a racing car

Yeah, you might want to watch out for that… too late. We’re not sure if this was the fault of Danica Patrick or Chuck Buckman, the excellently named mechanic who she nailed (he suffered concussion and remains in hospital). However, we do know that lovely Danica cried like a girl after the incident, because Tony Kanaan, her team-mate at Andretti Green, said so:

“When I came in, she had tears in her eyes, so I hugged her and she cried a little more, so maybe that was a bad move on my behalf.”

Lesson learned: never hug a female racing driver.

More wet weather could hamper IndyCar’s showpiece

Wednesday’s practice session for this weekend’s Indy 500 was wiped out after heavy showers turned the track into a slippery oval of death. With more rain forecast for the next few days, teams are understandably concerned that a lack of track time will affect their chances in Sunday’s race.

Helio Castroneves, twice a winner in the big one at Indianapolis, admits that the situation sucks: “With only one day of track time under our belts, we’re not quite where we want to be with the car,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll get some clear weather before Pole Day (Saturday) so we can fine-tune the qualifying trim. We had a productive day yesterday, but we certainly still have some work to do before qualifying.”

Motorsport without crashes, like pencil without lead… pointless

It’s the Indianapolis 500 this weekend, one of the biggest sporting events in the States. What better way to look ahead to the race than by enjoying this compilation of some of its biggest crashes.

Democratic bad smell shows up at Indy 500

Spreading insincerity everywhere she goes, Mrs C turned up at the Indianapolis Speedway on Tuesday, as part of her campaign to win the primary in Indiana (she did win, just, but everyone still wants her to give up). Here she is, boring the overalls off talking to Mexican driver Mario Dominguez. Note huge security guy in background, just in case Mario tries to cop a feel.

The stories that qualified on pole today

Ferrari has decided not to debut its innovative new “nose with the hole” (pictured above) at the Turkish GP this weekend. Istanbul is a low-downforce track, so despite the nose’s success in testing at the Circuit de Catalunya last month, we’ll have to wait to see how it fares in a real race. [Autosport]

Marco Andretti fastest in first practice session for this weekend’s Indy 500 – in an Indiana Jones-themed car. Indytastic. [IndyCar]