Robert Doornbos apparently has had enough of Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing, and the feeling seems to be mutual. Bobby-D exercised his options to leave after the 12th race with the NHL team, and his teammate didn’t shed a single tear, saying to Tim May of the Columbus Dispatch, “I don’t know what his deal is, but I’ve got to be brutally honest, I just don’t care.” Doornbos returned to his old team, HVM, to join forces with EJ Viso. Its now know that this is not just a one-off ride, as he’s signed with HVM not only for the remainder of the season, but also as a full-time driver for the 2010 season. Well, good luck Robert. …you’re gonna need it. Your opinion may differ, and if so I invite you to share it in the comments below, but Doornbos has not shown any amount of strong talent. He’s a competent driver, but not much of a teammate nor is he able to contribute significantly to the development of the car. I expect that his tenure at HVM will provide him with no more top finishes than his time at NHL, less in fact.
If you’ve been reading any of the many IndyCar blogs and forums around the net, you’d get the impression that the Mid-Ohio race was a real snoozer, but I beg to differ. I thought the race was fantastic, filled with lots of good racing action. …at least for the first half of the race. The pass that Wilson made on Briscoe after he gets loose going into the Carousel was impressive enough, but to then gap the rest of the field by several seconds was amazing! Through the rest of the field, there was also a lot of good racing action. Among the top five, there were some nice battles to watch, even though no one actually succeeded in improving their position. It was still great to watch the drivers jockey for position. Paul Tracy gave the young EJ Viso a driving lesson when he executed a textbook-perfect pass by outbraking Viso at the end of the back stretch heading into Turn 4. Everyone watching could see the pass coming for a couple of laps. We all knew that the pass would happen, and where it would happen. It really was a thing of beauty to see the vetran set-up, and school the younger driver. Unfortunately, Mr. Conway wasn’t as skillful in his attempt to overtake Danica in the same turn. He ended up locking his brakes, skidding into Danica punting her into the gravel. Don’t get me wrong, this kid can be fast. We know he can be fast. We’ve seen it in previous races, and he’s no stranger to series championships and race wins, but he simply has not figured out the Dallara. This year he’s DNF’ed more often than not. Time is running out for the young man, and if he doesn’t improve soon, then he may not have a ride for next year.
Speaking of someone who has just not figured things out, Milka Duno was embarrasingly slow! It seemed that every time she went by, she was in someone’s way. The worst was when Wilson and Dixon were flying down the back stretch and were hung up behind her all through the esses. …at least Wilson was. I’m not going to say that this incident cost Wilson the race, but I will say that it was a contributing factor. Even her engineer, Larry Curry, was annoyed with her disregard of his mandate to “Let them go, just let them go.” After the race, Milka blamed her poor pace on a gearbox issue. Quite frankly, if it was a gearbox issue, then she should have parked the car. There’s no point running at the tail end of the pack with a broken car that can only get in the way of others. Either she’s lying about the gearbox and was just slow, for which she’s being disrespectful to the fans, the league, and her fellow drivers, or she continued to run a car that she knew was dangerously slow and had mechanical issues, for which she’s being disrespectful to the fans, the league, and her fellow drivers. I know that D&R enjoy the Citgo money, but enough is enough.
