99th Indianapolis 500 Wrap-Up: Losers

IndyCar Series Race Officials: So, it’s the biggest day on the IndyCar calendar, you have many millions watching on TV and hundreds of thousands in the grandstands, the cars are lined up in the traditional eleven rows of three, and what happens? The flagman allows Scott Dixon to streak ahead of the field, absolutely destroying the formation start, and what is a signature moment in the sport.

Such a ragged start should’ve been waved off. Or, better yet, the drivers should be strictly ordered in the pre-race meeting to keep formation. The onus is on both parties, but, at the end of the day, it’s race control, via the starter who drops the flag, who can make the call to defer the start if the formation isn’t kept. Sunday’s start looked ugly, and all the drama was sucked out of that first turn.

Helio Castroneves: Going for a record-equalling fourth Indianapolis 500, the affable Brazilian was never really in the hunt, finishing what felt to me like a pretty distant seven, and proceeded, post-race, to blame other drivers for not finishing as highly as we all thought he might. Everyone chops and blocks, Helio – but not everyone whinges on television afterwards, and that’s how it came off: sour grapes.

Scott Dixon: Lead a race-high 84 laps and looked like the guy to beat heading into the last fifteen laps, but he faded and was fourth, by the end, fading to the point that even his young teammate Charlie Kimball overtook him. A day that promised so much for Dixon ended up rather disappointingly.

Simon Pagenaud: See above. The first half of the race looked to be a one-on-one between Pagenaud and Dixon, but those two were swamped when things reached boiling point, and the Frenchman, who’d qualified third, faded. When it mattered most, Pagenaud just didn’t have the car speed that he needed.

Takuma Sato: The old saying goes that you can’t win an Indianapolis 500 in turn one of lap one, but you can certainly lose one, and Takuma made sure that he lost whatever slender hope he had of winning the 500 for A.J. Foyt by attempting what could only be called an incredibly optimistic move on the outside through turn two.

Not only did Sato bring out the yellow (which precipitated de Silvestro running into Montoya under caution), he took out Ganassi’s youngster, Sage Karam, a guy who many believed had a car good enough to win, and caused some Australian friendly fire, when Ryan Briscoe and James Davison were caught up in the accident, making contact with one another. It wasn't Sato’s finest moment, and if Karam’s tweets are anything to go by, Takuma would be well-served avoiding Sage for the next few events.

Dale Coyne Racing: The three Coyne cars were involved in a scary incident during a late-race pit stop, and ended up sending two of his crewmen to the infield care centre. One sustained a pretty sickening broken ankle, and Coyne has to pay a fine and will also lose championship points. Australia’s James Davison was dismissed from his pit box into the oncoming car of Pippa Man, who ploughed into crew members working on Tristan Vautier’s car. The pit road guys are incredibly brave to do what they do, and seeing them get skittled is always horrific.

Chip Ganassi: The guy who brought Juan Pablo Montoya back from Formula One was also the guy who JPM drove for over the course of seven NASCAR Sprint Cup Series seasons befoire Ganassi replaced him at the end of 2013. Instead of bringing Montoya back to his IndyCar squad – as Ganasso did after IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti’s NASCAR experiment was a failure – Chip let the Colombian go over to Roger Penske’s squad, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Nancy Hulman George: the daughter of Mari Hulman George, chairperson of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, tried to hijack her mother’s command for drivers to start their engines, and it was by far the most awkward moment of the day. Probably best to leave the command solely to your mother, Nancy. It’s long been tradition that the chairperson is the one to call for a firing of the engines.

99th Indianapolis 500 Wrap-Up: Winners

 

The IndyCar Series: The best TV ratings for the Indianapolis 500 in years came on the back of a completely pulsating last fifteen laps, with Juan Pablo Montoya, Will Power, Scott Dixon and Charlie Kimball – two Penske cars versus two Ganassi cars, just as we’d expected and hoped it would eventuate – dicing back and forth for the victory. I’ve often said that the IndyCar Series is the best open-wheel racing on the planet, and on Sunday millions tuning in for, in most cases, their one glimpse of IndyCar racing a year, saw a brilliant display. It was the perfect promotion for the series. Hopefully it made some new fans!

Juan Pablo Montoya: JPM is a gun, not just because he won, but because he was forced down to thirtieth place after the first caution flag, when Simona de Silvestro inexplicably ran into him under yellow, necessitating a trip to the pits and a restart deep in the field. Many other drivers might’ve thrown in the towel. Not Montoya. He took it as a personal affront, and carved his way back to the front, and into Victory Lane. What a drive!

Charlie Kimball: The forgotten man on the Ganassi squad these days, lingering in the shadow of Indianapolis 500 champions Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan and the rising Sage Karam, but when the dust settled on Sunday, Kimball, a young American who battles diabetes, was third, the highest finishing Ganassi driver. The kid has talent, and it’s guys like him who’re going to be the future of IndyCar Series racing. If so, that future’s in good hands.

Will Power: The highest-finishing Australian in the history of the Indianapolis 500, and he’s in pretty good company. Admitted it “sucked” finishing second, but Will drove like a champion, not throwing away his chance, and although second hurts, he bagged a nice parcel of championship points. Now, to win next year, at the 100^th Indianapolis 500!
 

Graham Rahal: Not for the first time this year, Rahal was the fastest Honda runner – and there was a sizeable gap all month between Chevrolet and Honda – and drove a sterling race from deep on the pack. After a few years in the wilderness, Rahal is back in town, recording three top five finishes in the last three races. He’s going to win a race this season, I’m sure of it!

J.R. Hildebrand: J.R. was the guy who crashed off the final corner of the final lap in 2011, handing a win to the late Dan Wheldon, but he’s always been fast at Indianapolis, even in a one-off deal as was the case this year. Quietly, the Californian finished in eighth, one spot ahead of his more fancied teammate, Josef Newgarden.

Ryan Briscoe: The Australian subbed for the injured James Hinchcliffe, and barely had a few hours of practice on and just before Carb Day before strapping in for the race. It was a quiet but strong drive from the Sydneysider, who improved from thirty-first to twelfth.

Marco Andretti: Diced with Rahal for fifth, and another guy driving an underpowered Honda to sixth. The grandson of Mario Andretti is always a threat at Indy, and surely will win one before he’s done.

Roger Penske: The Captain, as he is universally known, won his sixteenth Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. His is a record that almost certainly won’t be broken. Despite his team’s well-publicised V8 Supercar hiccups, it’s been a pretty solid year for Penske. His NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver, Joey Logano, won the Daytona 500 in February and remains at or near the top of the points table there and is considered a real threat as far as Penske might yet score another IndyCar Series championship this year, too. The guy is unparalleled in racing circles.

Opinion: Juan Pablo Montoya’s 2015 Indianapolis 500 Win Caps A Remarkable Racing Comeback

The old saying goes that a year is a long time in racing. If that’s the case, then fifteen years must seem like an eternity to Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, who won his second Indianapolis 500 on Sunday afternoon, fifteen years after winning his first.

So much has changed for Montoya. In 2000, he drove to victory in an Indianapolis 500 that was then the centrepiece of the Tony George-led Indy Racing League as a full-time competitor in the rival CART World Series, and did so in spectacular fashion for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, leading 167 of the 200 laps, wiping the floor with the IRL regulars who, in every way possible, were dominated.

All the public hyperbole from George and others about how IRL drivers were better than their CART counterparts was proven to be a load of steaming rubbish by the end. Deep into the long IRL-CART civil war that put American open wheel racing on life support, and very nearly destroyed the tradition and pageantry of the Indianapolis 500 itself – it’s unthinkable how close it came to that – the CART guys were laughing, and the IRL guys were seething.

Tensions at the Speedway were so high as Montoya streaked away with arguably the easiest 500 win in history, with this CART guy coming in and destroying George’s competition, that the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway track announcer Tom Carnegie refused to call Montoya’s name for about the last ten laps.

To further rub salt into the wounds of George and the IRL, Montoya famously quipped in victory lane that the G-Force Oldsmobile was so easy to drive, that his grandmother could do it and win. Well, you could’ve just about heard a pin drop at the track when that went down.

That was the brash and daring Montoya that CART fans knew and loved, and the one that Formula One fans would soon know, a guy who revelled in rocking the boat, in taking the establishment and turning it on it’s head. Montoya had success in Formula One with Williams, doing so in an era well and truly dominated by Michael Schumacher and Ferrari, and truly surprised many – and saddened many more open wheel fans – when he vacated Grand Prix racing for a mostly unsuccessful seven-year stint in NASCAR.

I must admit, when he was let go by Ganassi’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series squad after 2013 and quickly announced a return to the IndyCar Series, this time with Ganassi’s great rival, Roger Penske (he of, as of Sunday, sixteen Indianapolis 500 wins), I wasn’t sure what sort of an impact JPM could have. I mean, he hadn’t exactly excelled in NASCAR, winning two road course races, and nothing else, though Ganassi’s team there isn’t anywhere near the force that it is in IndyCar Series racing.

The other elephant in the room seemed to be his age: and he was 38 when he returned to IndyCar Series racing in 2014. And he had a truckload of money, more than enough to life ultra-comfortably for the rest of his life. Would the fire be there to battle in dangerous open wheel cars with guys half his age – hungry guys – at over 200mph? The question was asked in many quarters: would Juan Pablo have a meaningful impact on American open wheel racing again? Or was this just a farewell tour? I must admit, I was leaning to the latter.

Well, I’m happy to admit I was wrong – and I don’t think I’m alone in that, either. Turns out, we should’ve trusted Roger Penske after all! A shaky start to 2014 saw Montoya getting up to speed and reacclimatising to open wheel racing, but a win at Pocono and a solid end to the season (that his teammate, Australian Will Power won) paved the way to a remarkable return to top notch form in 2015. Montoya won on the streets of St Petersburg to open the 2015 IndyCar Series season, won at Indianapolis and holds a nice advantage on the field as far as the points championship goes.

A more rounded Montoya, a family man and a wise veteran of good times and bad on the racetrack, you could tell that he took more out of his second Indianapolis win. When you’re young and with the world at your feet, you tend to take one victory and move on to the next. Perhaps Montoya figured he had bigger fish to fry.

Although the wins came in Formula One, the World Championship never did, and not much happened to him in NASCAR racing, and all of that contributed to a far more humble and grateful JPM in victory lane on Sunday, when all he really wanted was to find his wife for a congratulatory kiss.

It was a well-deserved congratulatory kiss, too. Watching Montoya dice with Power, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan and others on Sunday was like the old days when he drove for Ganassi in the CART World Series, and that memorable victory at Indy fifteen years ago.

The fire is there, no doubt. He drove like a man possessed, scything through the field after being run into by Simona de Silvestro during the race’s first caution, forcing a pit stop to replace bodywork. It was a drive of incredible power, and perhaps something of a message to Ganassi, the man he won Indy for in 2000, and the man who fired him from his NASCAR team. If so, it was definitely a resoundingly-delivered message.

For a while there, the clock was wound back at Indianapolis. Montoya was that same brash guy behind the wheel, part of perhaps the best three-way fight Indianapolis has seen in a good few decades, or maybe ever at all. It was scintillating stuff, and Montoya was a deserved winner.

The way he’s going, Montoya is odds-on favourite to win the 2015 IndyCar Series championship, and if Sunday’s performance is anything to go by, there’s every chance he’ll win two or three more 500 crowns before he’s done, too.

The 99th Indianapolis 500 By The Numbers

It’s May, and once more, the eyes of the motorsport world turn to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for the Indianapolis 500. It’s the centrepiece of the IndyCar Series, a part of the fabled triple crown of motorsport – standing alongside the Monaco Grand Prix and the 24 Hours of Le Mans – and whilst it’s mainstream popularity has undoubtedly taken a hit in recent years, the race is still the biggest single-day sporting event (in terms of attendance) globally.

The ninety-ninth running of the Indianapolis 500 takes place early Monday morning 25 May (Australian time). Green flag is at 2:00am AEST. Racing is so often a numbers game, so here are all the numbers you need to know ahead of the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

1: the number of qualifying days washed out.

3: There are three Australians running in 2015. Defending IndyCar Series champion Will Power will start from the inside of the first row in his Team Penske Chevrolet, and will be joined on the grid by youngster James Davison, driving for Dale Coyne Racing, and Ryan Briscoe, subbing for James Hinchcliffe (see below).

4: Four drivers – defending pole-sitter Ed Carpenter, Josef Newgarden, three-time winner Helio Castroneves and James Hinchcliffe – have had huge accidents this month, flipping over and over in some cases, at over 340kmh. All but Hinchcliffe will take the green flag on Sunday.

5: The lengendary Texan A.J. Foyt has scored five wins as an owner/driver, the most in Indianapolis 500 history.

6: Since the opening of the Indianapolis 500, there have been just six years where no 500-mile race has been run on Memorial Day weekend. 1917-18 and 1942-45, due to the First and Second World Wars respectively.

7: Seven drivers have won on their first attempt: Jules Goux (1913), Rene Thomas (1914), Frank Lockhart (1926), George Souders (1927), Graham Hill (1966), Juan Pablo Montoya (2000) and Helio Castroneves (2001).

8: British-born drivers have recorded eight Indianapolis 500 wins, the most by any country other than the United States. New Zealand’s lone winner was Scott Dixon in 2008. Australia remains winless.

9: 2015 Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter Scott Dixon drives the No. 9 car for Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

11: the number of rows on the Indianapolis 500 grid

15: 2000 Indianapolis 500 champion, Juan Pablo Montoya will start from fifteenth starting position. Coincidentally, fifteen is also the number of victories his team owner, Roger Penske, has at Indy.

17: As well as fifteen wins, Roger Penske’s drivers have amassed seventeen pole positions.

27: Offenhauser holds the record for the most Indianapolis 500 manufacturer wins.

28: The lowest starting position from which a driver has won the Indianapolis 500. It happened twice: Louis Meyer in 1936 and Ray Harroun in 1911.

33: Indy tradition sees thirty-three drivers contest each year’s race.

34: the number of drivers attempting to qualify in 2015. One driver – 1996 champion, Buddy Lazier – was bumped out of the field.

37.905 the fastest lap, in seconds, ever around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a record set by Arie Luyendyk in 1996, driving a Reynard/Ford Cosworth XB.

42: In ninety-eight previous Indianapolis 500-mile races, forty two winners have started on the front row.

200: The Indianapolis 500 is run over two hundred laps of the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

226.790: Dixon’s average speed in miles per hour when clocking pole last weekend.

805: the 500-mile race in kilometre distance.

257, 325: the estimated capacity of all grandstand seating at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

400,000: the estimated total capacity at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Join The Roar for live coverage of the 99th Indianapolis 500 from 1:30am AEST Monday morning!

NASCAR 2015: Week Twelve (Charlotte) Australian Foxtel TV Guide

The final installment on the biggest weekend of global motorsport - following on from 99th Indianapolis 500 and the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix before that - comes from the 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway, where the cars and stars of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series set off on a 600-mile journey, the longest and toughest of the season. 

It's one of the sport's biggest races, and will be run before something close to a capacity crowd in a city that's the centre of the sport these days, home to race teams and officials. It's a "home game" for crews and drivers, and the late-afternoon start transitioning into night time the day before the Memorial Day holiday is always a highlight. It's a big weekend at Charlotte, with the young guns of the Xfinity Series in their own 300-mile race the day before.

All times AEST.

Sunday 24 May

LIVE Xfinity Series Hisense 300 (4:00am; FOX Sports 5)

Monday 25 May

LIVE FOX Pre-Race Show (7:30am; FOX Sports 5)
LIVE Sprint Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 Green Flag (approx. 8:15am; FOX Sports 5)

Tuesday 26 May

REPLAY Sprint Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 (12:00am; FOX Sports 5)

2015 Indianapolis 500 Australian Foxtel TV Guide

For the ninety-ninth time, thirty three drivers will take the green flag on the front straight of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and set off on a 500-mile test of skill and endurance for the right to have their likeness etched on the world-famous Borg Warner Trophy. 

Australia's Will Power, winner of the Grand Prix of Indianapolis road course race two weeks ago, has qualified in second, behind Target Chip Ganassi Racing's Scott Dixon, the Queensland-born New Zealander. Power's fellow Australians, Ryan Briscoe (Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports) and James Davison (Dale Coyne Racing) start from the back row. There's never been an Australian in victory lane at the Indianapolis 500, and it's hard to remember a time when an Aussie has had a better shot at a win than Power does this year. Fingers crossed!

All the action is live on FOX Motorsport, in spectacular high definition, with the pre-race show immediately following post-race coverage from the Monaco Grand Prix. It's a pretty awesome double-header of racing, which turns into a triple header (and 1200+ miles of racing) if you include NASCAR's prestigious Coke 600 for the Sprint Cup Series cars. Best racing weekend of the year? Just about!

All times AEST

Saturday 23 May

DELAYED Carb Day Final Practice / Freedom 100 Indy Lights race (10:00am; FOX Sports 5)

Monday 25 May

LIVE Indianapolis 50 pre-race show (1:10am; FOX Sports 5)
LIVE 99th Indianapolis 500 mile race Green Flag (2:00am; FOX Sports 5)
REPLAY 99th Indianapolis 500 mile race (7:00pm; FOX Sports 5)

Opinion: Can Mike Babcock Save the Toronto Maple Leafs?

That’s the question on the lips of the global hockey community now that we know the Stanley Cup-winning coach is leaving the security of his job in Detroit to try and become the first coach to deliver Lord Stanley to Toronto since 1967. He’d want to give it a pretty good shake, too, considering the Leafs are paying him a reported $50 million over eight years, with a get-out clause after five.

Make no mistake, there is an incredible amount on the line here, both for Toronto and for Babcock, but particularly for a coach who obviously believes that he can be the guy for the Leafs. Millions of fans clad in blue-and-white are doubtless hoping the same thing. He’s had success everywhere, first in Anaheim, getting the Ducks to the Stanley Cup Final, then in Detroit where he won a Stanley Cup, and with Team Canada at the Olympics, where he’s two for two: two tournaments, two gold medals. He’s a winner.

Maybe, Babcock is also an egotist. Is it egotism or just a supreme confidence in his abilities that makes the new Leafs coach think he is definitely the coach who can reverse Toronto’s fortunes? After all, many high-profile names have come into town – the centre of the hockey universe – and have known nothing but failure.

Toronto is as hard and unforgiving a city as there is in the game, perhaps superseded in that regard only by the Montreal Canadiens. Winning is expected in Toronto, and every year that the team goes without major success, the fan base, not to mention the press corps, gets more and more restless. Toronto’s is the longest current Stanley Cup drought. Maple Leafs fans feel every single one of those forty-eight years of silverware-free campaigns. Losers get drummed out of town.

One look at the current roster tells you that Babcock is in for the fight of his life. Has he bitten off more than he can chew? Time will tell, and Leafs fans, understandably buoyant today, must surely understand that this isn’t going to be an easy or quick process. The Leafs have basically bottomed out since losing a playoff series to Boston in 2013. Toronto had qualified for their first playoffs since 2004, and were up 3-1 in the series against their hated rivals from Massachusetts, eventually losing game seven in overtime.

From there, the Leafs have imploded. They’ve signed some guys to stupefyingly dumb contracts, traded others away – remember the Kessel for Tyler Seguin trade? – and continued to suffer thjrough inept front office leadership. It took Brendan Shanahan to come in as president to start righting the ship.

Aside from snaring Babcock, the former Stanley Cup winner (with Babcock in Detroit), has taken a cleaner through the joint, axing coach Randy Carlyle, General Manager Dave Nonis, interim head coach Peter Horachek and a bunch of other assistants and coaches.

There aren’t many great players left in Toronto. Probably only two genuine stars: Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf. Both players seemed on their way out of the Leafs organisation, but you wonder if Babcock won’t convince them to stay. He may also attract a few good free agent players who would otherwise have never even considered moving to Toronto, but there’s still a hell of a lot of work to do with the roster. It’s got more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

Babcock leaves a Detroit team who’ve made the playoffs year in, year out for the best part of two decades, and their roster has an admittedly-aging core of great players – Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall – and some promising youngsters coming through, as well. They also have a spectacularly successful general manager in Ken Holland, who’s helped make Detroit the blueprint North American franchise of the last twenty years. Look at what Steve Yzerman is doing in Tampa at the moment. He spent years learning from Holland.

It seems crazy that Babcock would leave all of that for an under performing franchise with no general manager and a sketchy roster. Yeah, the $50 million over eight years was probably a pretty nice incentive. He’s getting paid almost twice as much per season as any other coach in the NHL.

I suppose the chance to be known as the guy who brought the Maple Leafs back to prominence was another nice carrot that Shanahan dangled in front of the man he wanted on his bench. Winning Toronto’s first Cup since ‘67 would be the icing on Babcock’s cake. His reputation would be cemented – if it already isn’t – as arguably the greatest coach of the modern era.

The flip side, though, is what if it all goes up in flames? What if Babcock finds it all too hard. He’ll be pilloried by the press and fans, that’s for sure, but does it reflect badly on Babcock? This is the test. He’s proven he can have sustained success in Anaheim, Detroit and at Olympic level. The key things to note there are that he was had good players and solid front office leadership. There’s little doubt that Toronto’s roster is mostly devoid of good players, and whether Shanahan is the next coming of Yzerman or Holland or even Stan Bowman in Chicago. Remember, this is Shanahan’s first go.

Babcock thinks he can pull Toronto out of the morass. Honestly, if anyone’s capable it’s him, but I still have my doubts, given the dysfunctionality of the group he’s joining. Is he about to tarnish his legacy? Will Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment drive him crazy in the process? Time will tell. What a fascinating experiment this will be!

99th Indianapolis 500 Preview

 Join The Roar for live coverage of the 99th Indianapolis 500 from 1:30am AEST on Monday morning.

On Sunday at midday local time, the ninety-ninth running of the famed Indianapolis 500-mile race on the 2.5-mile superspeedway built on the grounds of an old brickyard, will take the green flag, with eleven rows of three drivers – the traditional thirty-three entries – setting off into the daunting first turn, out of which grandstands seem to rise to the heavens, the opening salvo of a 200-lap race for the right to have their likeness etched on the Borg Warner Trophy.

Regardless of the diminished importance of the IndyCar Series, of which the Indianapolis 500 is the centrepiece, the fact remains that the eyes of the racing world turn to the circuit on the corner of 16th and Georgetown in the aptly-named Speedway, Indiana, to witness what is still the biggest single-day sporting event in the world, with somewhere around 400,000 race fans packing grandstands and infield viewing areas around the track.

This race, held the day before the Memorial Day public holiday, is as American as Babe Ruth or Bruce Springsteen. It’s tradition – folks who don’t watch IndyCar Series racing all year tune in for the 500, as they and their parents and their parents’ parents have done for nearly a century of races, spread over more than a hundred years when you take into account six years (1917-18 and 1942-45) where the race wasn't run due to American participation in two world wars.

When you win Indianapolis, you become a racing legend. Two hundred laps at average speeds of more than two hundred miles an hour, what used to be a test of endurance and a proving ground for radical technology is now a five hundred mile sprint, with some of the world’s best drivers duelling at high speeds in their Chevrolet- and Honda-powered Dallara chassis for the chance to be spoken about in the same breath as racing legends like A.J. Foyt, Graham Hill, Mario Andretti, Al Unser and Rick Mears. It’s an exclusive club, those who have conquered the Greatest Spectacle in Racing, but one where the membership is a lifetime one. Win at Indy, and be a part of the annals of motorsport history.

2015 promises to be another epic. New Zealander Scott Dixon captured pole last weekend, placing his Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet fractionally ahead of Australia’s Will Power, the defending IndyCar Series champion who drives for 15-time Indianapolis 500 winner, Roger Penske. Two weeks ago, Power won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis on the infield road course. He’s already won an IndyCar Series championship. The only thing remaining on his IndyCar Bucket List is a victory in the 500. It may well come this weekend.

Throughout the modern era of IndyCar competition, the battle for wins and championships has so often been a Penske vs. Ganassi affair, a battle of racing heavyweights. Penske’s Helio Castroneves has three wins at Indy, and seeks to join a very exclusive group of drivers with four victories. His teammate Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya won as a rookie in 2000, leading more than three quarters of the race. Their other teammates, Power and Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, have both won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis, and are seeking greater glory at the speedway in 2015. Pagenaud starts from third.

Dixon, known as the Ice Man, is as good as they come, and speaheads a powerful Ganassi squad. 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner Tonky Kanaan, starts fourth, next to Castroneves and Justin Wilson, the lanky Brit who leads the charge for Andretti Autosport. Marco Andretti starts in eighth, alongside Josef Newgarden, the rising American star who won at Barber Motorsports Park.

Five more Americans sit inside the top twenty – J.R. Hildebrand, Ed Carpenter, Charlie Kimball, 2014 winner Ryan Hunter-Reay and Graham Rahal, whose father/team owner, Bobby, won the 500 back in the eighties. Two other home-grown stars, Sage Karam from twenty-third and Conor Daly from twenty-fifth aren’t without a shot, either, if things fall their way. Make no mistake: another American-born winner, particularly a second-generation racer like Rahal or Andretti, would mean huge exposure for IndyCar, something it often lacks.

Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais starts from seventh, and has shown speed all month during practice. He’s as solid a dark horse pick as you can get. Montoya qualified poorly in fifteenth, but the race is long enough, and JPM is good enough, to find the front. Watching him scythe through the pack will be very interesting. You can never and should never count out a Penske car at Indy.

This year, there are two Australians, starting at opposite ends of the field. Power could well have the lead by the back straight on the first lap, but youngster James Davison will start from the rear of the field after his Dale Coyne Racing machine was qualified by another driver last weekend whilst Davison raced sports cars in Europe. Surviving the opening laps is imperative for a guy who’s shown good practice speed.

In picking a winner, it’s hard to look past the front row. Power seems on a mission this month, Dixon has won at Indy before, and Pagenaud is a star. All three are capable. I’m putting Kanaan, Castoneves and – despite a lowly starting spot – Montoya in the same category. They know how to win at Indy, and want to do so again. Marco Andretti seems to grow in confidence at Indy, and has come close before. A win would break the fabled Andretti Curse at Indy. It would be monumental.

Seeing Josef Newgarden win would probably be the best story of the month, outside of Indianapolis-born Ed Carpenter taking the checkers first.  Everyone loves those guys. Keep an eye on Wilson, too. He’s driving a part-time entry for Andretti, but has qualified well. If Power or Davison can’t win, I’d love to see Graham Rahal get there. He’s been the best Honda runner most of the year, racing far better than he qualifies, and, after a few years in the wilderness, Graham has his confidence back.

Whatever eventuates, the ninety-ninth edition of the Indianapolis 500 promises to be an epic race.

Join The Roar for live coverage of the 99th Indianapolis 500 from 1:30am AEST on Monday morning.

Breaking Down the V8SC Winton SuperSprint Television Ratings

With the new era of V8 Supercar television (and online streaming) upon us, there is some confusion as to how the final ratings numbers are arrived at.

After my previous article regarding Perth ratings, I am now included on the V8SC mailing list for ratings information, receiving an e-mail with a key metrics comparison breakdown after each round of the championship.

There’s been plenty of speculation on social media about ratings numbers and how they are totalled. Singular race numbers don’t look great, but they are only one part of the total ratings number, which is not always indicated. To that end, I thought I would pass the details as they were presented to me, in an effort to spread awareness of both the figures and how they are split into particular categories.

Cumulative Total Average Ratings – Year To Date

This number includes all races, practice, qualifying, highlights, and other V8SC programs, both live and replays, and including magazine-type shows like the Ten Network’s RPM, and FOX Sports shows Inside Supercars and Supercars Life. Although it is not specifically stated in the report I have seen, I am assuming this number also includes digital streaming via FOX Sports Go and Play.

To the week ending 17 May 2015, the cumulative total average ratings are as follows

2014: 14.195 million
2015: 13.453 million

At first glance, there is a large gap between this season and last year (in fact, like for like, the 2015 number is down 5% as compared to a year ago) but you must take into account that by this point in 2014 we had completed five championship events as compared to just four this year. If you factor that, as the V8SC folks have done, then the cumulative total average ratings are actually up 16%.

Cumulative Average Ratings – Weekly (11-17 May 2015)

This figure includes any and all V8SC-branded programs appearing during the week: live races on FOX Sports (including Go and Play streaming figures), FOX Sports race replays, live on-track sessions (measured as a weekend total), replayed on-track sessions, the much-discussed highlights packages on Channel Ten or One and the three magazine shows.

Individual figures for each broadcast are:

FOX Sports live races (including Go and Play): 257,000
FOX Sports race replays: 19,000
FOX Sports live other (all weekend sessions): 743,000
FOX Sports other replays (all weekend sessions): 20,000
Channel Ten/One Highlights Packages: 485,000
Magazine shows: 96,000

[Note: numbers sourced by OzTam and Regional TAM]

Cumulative Average Ratings – Race Weekend (Live and Replay)

These numbers include all races and highlights.

Sydney.com SuperTest: 197,000 viewers (debut broadcast; no available comparison to previous years).

Clipsal 500: 2,335,553 (Up 12% year-on-year event, up 21% year-on-year cumulative).

Australian Grand Prix: 1,170,000 (Up 10% year-on-year event, up 17% year-on-year cumulative).

Tasmania SuperSprint: 791,300 (Down 23% year-on-year event, up 8% year-on-year cumulative).

Perth SuperSprint: 679,000 (Down 30% year-on-year event, up 1% year-on-year cumulative).

Winton SuperSprint: 719,000 (Down 27% year-on-year event, down 3% year-on-year cumulative).

[Note: numbers sourced by OzTam and Regional TAM]

April 2015 Capsule

Reading – The Burning Blue by James Holland

The Burning Blue is party a love story and partly a frighteningly real account of Royal Air Force fighter pilots during World War Two, and particularly during the desperate months where the German Luftwaffe were pressing hard against British targets.

Holland’s narrative actually begins a few years after the Battle of Britain, and finds the main character, Joss Lambert, a fighter pilot with the RAF, injured in a Cairo hospital after sustaining a nasty wound supporting British infantry in the fight against Rommel’s Afrika Corps. The story switches back and forth from Cairo to during and before the Battle of Britain.

Joss is something of a loner. His mother lives in London after divorcing her second husband, and Joss’ father is also dead. Furthermore, he’s burdened by a secret that is becoming increasingly difficult to carry about: his father was not only German, but also a German deserter from the First World War.

Joss has long been friends with Guy Liddell, whose family owns the idyllic Alvesdon farm, which has become a sanctuary for Joss. Guy is amongst a very select few who know the truth about Joss’s father. Guy’s twin sister and his parents are closer to family than Joss’s own. His relationship with his mother is a difficult one.

War is brewing, and it seems inevitable that the Germans will once again need to be stopped. Joss and Guy leave for university, but that experience is soon put on hold due to the outbreak of war, and when Guy returns to run the farm after the unexpected death of his father, Joss heads in a different direction: he joins the RAF and trains to become a fighter pilot as the British army reels from one disaster after another. The aerial dogfight scenes are excellent.

During visits back to Alvesdon, Joss falls in love with Stella, Guy’s sister, and it isn’t long before the feeling is mutual. That lengthens the divide between Joss and Guy and leads to conflict. Holland handles this well explaining some of Guy’s guilt over working his father’s farm whilst his friends are fighting and dying.

Just when you think that the final chapters are leading to a disappointing conclusion, there’s a stunning revelation…and then the book just ends. You don’t find out what happened to Joss or Stella, and Guy’s backstory leads nicely into the Jack Tanner books. It was kind of a letdown to reach the end and find it wasn't really the end. Here’s hoping the open-ended finish means a sequel!

Listening – Into The Wild Life by Halestorm

Halestorm’s third studio album, Into the Wild Life iis the much-anticipated follow up to the band’s hit The Strange Case Of… [which featured the Grammy Award-winning single ‘Love Bites (And So Do I)’] and despite fears that, because Halestorm had moved to Nashville and toured with Eric Church last year, the new release would be a country album, the familiar Halestorm sound is there.

Lzzy Hale has to be one of the best vocalists in rock music today, and her signature voice is the undisputed driving force behind what is a really terrific album, full of the same chunky riffs, heavy drums, searing solos and soon-to-be rock anthems that Halestorm fans new and old have come to expect. Rumours of their demise or shift to country music have been greatly exaggerated.

Mixed in with the heavy rock anthems – for example ‘Mayhem’ and ‘Apocalyptic’ (the first and second singles released) are both tracks that grab you by the scruff of the neck and don’t let go – are more introspective songs, like ‘Dear Daughter’, ‘The Reckoning’ and ‘What Sober Couldn’t Say’ and Hale’s voice is adept in both situations.

Vocally, there’s little that Lzzy Hale can’t do. Actually, ‘Mayhem’ but be Hale’s personal anthem. ‘Apologetic’ might be another, come to think of it. She does things her way, and doesn’t seem to care what outsiders think. No wonder she got on so well with Eric Church!

My personal favourite, after a few listens, is ‘I Like It Heavy’ an ode to some of the great heavy rock bands and songs of the past, and to the band’s love of rock. It’s kinda like something KISS might’ve done back in the day, just with upgraded vocals. The riff-friendly song name-checks Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, amongst others and Hale likens going to a giant rock show to worshiping at a church, and that’s exactly how I feel! Lzzy Hale’s vocal performance is as good on this song as on any other.

I’ll be honest, there isn’t a bad song on this album, although some could have done with a little less production from Jay Joyce – some rough edges are good, from time to time – and, ultimately, that’s what sees this album fall short of a perfect ten. Take it from me: Halestorm is the future of arena rock.

Watching – Deadline Gallipoli

Yes, I know, it was very much a case of Gallipoli overload in the weeks and months leading up to the centenary of the Anzac landings on the Turkish coast, and ratings for Channel Nine’s Gallipoli miniseries weren’t great, but what I loved about Deadline Gallipoli was the new slant it put on old events.

Focusing on four men – Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, Charles Bean, Keith Murdoch and Phillip Schuler – who were reporters or photographers rather than soldiers and their time spent covering the campaign, each in their own fashion, Deadline Gallipoli sheds more light than ever before on the machinations of Murdoch, ostensibly on the peninsula as an unofficial spy for the Australian government, and the charismatic Ashmead-Bartlett, who combine to bring about the end of the Gallipoli campaign by placing great political pressure on the likes of General Sir Ian Hamilton. In many ways, this was the beginning of the media holding military commanders accountable for their actions.

Directed by Sam Worthington (who also players Schuler), the show is obviously a labour of love. The script benefitted from Foxtel’s ability to attach a big budget to such an important program. It shows, particularly in the scenes on the battlefield. This is a lavish production, telling an important story.

Yes, some of it is the same as what we’ve seen in previous shows about the fateful campaign, but it’s interesting nonetheless – especially Schuler, the most unknown of the group. Newcomer Joel Jackson impresses as Charles Bean as does Charles Dance as Sir Ian Hamilton. The great shame is that it didn’t draw huge numbers on Foxtel and didn’t get a look-in on free-to-air, either. This show deserved better.

Book Review: SEAL Team Six - Hunt the Fox by Don Mann

 

The gripping fifth instalment in the series written by former United States Navy SEAL Don Mann (with assistance from author Ralph Pezzullo) finds Chief Warrant Officer Tom Crocker and his team of highly-trained SEALs on a dangerous mission inside Syria to retrieve canisters of Sarin gas that has been earmarked for terrorist use. The problem is that Syria is being ripped apart by civil war, with various different factions engaged in bloody conflict.

In the midst of the vicious fighting, Crocker and his squad – including returning favourites Mancini and Akil – must infiltrate a Syrian Air Force Base to snatch up the canisters, and get them back across the border and into Turkey. It isn’t an easy mission, with a war taking place in and around them, not to mention the arrival of a heavily pregnant girl, the partner of one of the locals helping Crocker’s squad out with intelligence. Crocker, in his guise as a Canadian medic volunteering in the troubled country, also has a run in with a very influential ISIS leader codenamed The Fox.

Making matters worse is Crocker’s home life: it’s unravelling, and he faces the end of another marriage because of the stress his job put on relationships. Being a former SEAL himself, Mann has first-hand knowledge of this sort of thing, and it makes me wonder how much of what he writes about Crocker’s former missions and personal life troubles is closer to non-fiction than fiction. Reading these fast-paced novels by a guy who’s been there and done that makes it even more realistic.

The mission into Syria takes up most of the book, but it’s only after Crocker and his men get the sarin gas canisters back into friendly hands – but not for very long. There is a double cross, one of the SEALs is badly injured, and suddenly the threat is real again. Terrorists have managed to reclaim the gas and overrun a Disney cruise ship, threatening to unleash the gas on the thousands of passengers if their demands are not met by the White House.

Not surprisingly, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue isn’t keen to bargain with the terrorists, so Crocker’s team, down a man and looking for redemption, go in. Mann doesn’t waste much time with convoluted storylines or plot development. Like his previous novels, Hunt the Fox moves at a rapid pace, and really clicks into gear in the last thirty pages, as the overall scope of the story broadens to include a lot of families at risk on the cruise ship.

The SEAL incursion onto the cruise ship is hold-your-breath stuff, even though you know pretty much how it’s going to end. Crocker saves the day, the bad guys all die, and most of the good guys get to live on and hopefully prosper. Job done, Crocker heads home to smooth out his troublesome home life, the team not seeking any credit for what they have achieved.

In a literary universe where there are dozens of similar characters, Tom Crocker stands out, and a lot of that is to do with the continual struggle he has between his professional life and what’s going on at home. Rather than being a bland action hero, James Bond-style, he’s a guy with real world issues who does a very difficult and dangerous job. He gets more and more interesting with every book, and the supporting cast, particularly his constant offsiders Akil and Mancini, are also great. The back-and-forth banter between the trio is hilarious at times.

I devoured this book. Mann’s storytelling skill increases with each new instalment, and is always very relevant, this time dealing with ISIS and the troubles in Syria. These are fictional stories ripped from real-world headlines.

I’m already excited for the next Tom Crocker adventure. Here’s hoping it isn’t a long wait!

Opinion: 6 Thoughts from the 2015 V8SC Winton SuperSprint

 

Another of the oft-maligned SuperSprint weekends has been run and won, under clear skies in rural Victoria. Here are my six biggest takeaways from a very interesting event in terms of the overall championship picture:

Right now, Prodrive Racing Australia are the team to beat: Imagine if Chaz Mostert hadn’t backed his PRA Falcon into the tyre bundles halfway through Sunday’s race? The Pepsi Max Crew might’ve had yet one more 1-2 finish, to really send a warning signal to the rest of the field. Still, there’s enough of a body of evidence so far to label Mark Winterbottom and Mostert, to a lesser extent) as serious championship contenders.

As things stand, even the most one-eyed Holden fan must surely be able to admit that those blue Falcons are the class of the field, and if things continue the way they’re going, this might finally be the year for PRA to clinch a championship. The new FGX Falcon looks the goods. It’s been strong everywhere, even if results haven’t always reflected that.

Yes, I know there’s still a long way to run in this championship, but it’s hard to argue with the sort of weekend domination we saw in Winton. I get the feeling that the next two events, Darwin and Townsville, are going to tell us a lot about how the points table is going to look at the end of the season.

If Winterbottom can avoid his seemingly annual championship fade-out that seems to arrive during the dog days of winter, when the series heads up north, and if Mostert can avoid rookie mistakes like Sunday’s effort, then, with Red Bull Racing Australia not quite on the pace, it’s going to be very hard to beat those Prodrive Falcons.

The sprint races need to go, immediately: Did anyone see the crowd – or lack thereof? – at Winton on Saturday? You could just about count them on one hand. Put aside the exorbitant entry prices and arguments that fans won’t go to a live race because they can’t see most of the season on television for a second, and focus on the racing. These sprint races are enough to put me to sleep, and I’m fairly sure I’m not the only one who feels the yawns coming on during these sixty-kilometre sprints.

The real reason Winton was basically empty on Saturday was because it’s so damn hard to justify paying so much money to enter the track to basically see the race decided during qualifying. The pattern with these events is that unless you seriously bog down on the start, the pole man or his compatriot on the front row is going to win.

When you take strategy out, the race becomes a 1999-type event, and back then, when the cars weren’t so completely even, the idea had some merit, but now, with passing at a premium – particularly at Winton – you end up watching a procession, pretty much like what we see in Formula One these days. It’s scarcely worth watching at the moment, either on track or at home.

I generally tend to agree with Mark Skaife’s comments last week about how messing with a format mid-season is a controversial thing to do, these are extenuating circumstances, and we’re crying out for change. Something has to be done in time for Darwin, or there’ll be more marshals than fans on Saturdays at these SuperSprint races. Sunday’s two hundred kilometre event showed just what varying fuel and tyre strategies can do. It was great racing!

Cameron Waters is a definite star of the future: The Prodrive Dunlop Series driver completed an ominous clean sweep of the weekend (his second of the young season), and helped the Prodrive squad become the first team in V8SC history to sweep the entire weekend, with their drivers taking top position in every single V8 Supercar qualifying and race, across both the main series and the Dunlop Series – a staggering achievement. For the record, Waters leads his championship by more than a hundred points. Can’t wait to see him driving at Sandown, Bathurst and the Gold Coast.

Sponsorship is important, but event naming rights are getting crazy: The ‘NP300 Navara Winton SuperSprint’ is the biggest motorsports mouthful I can remember since the horribly-named ‘Bridgestone Presents the ChampCar World Series Powered by Ford’ last decade. Talk about a tongue twister! It’s great that Nissan stepped up to become a title sponsor at Winton, but surely organisers could’ve shortened it a little? The NP300 Navara SuperSprint would’ve been fine. When even Neil Crompton is getting tongue-tied, you know you have a problem!

It was great to see Scott Pye up at the business end of the field: Maybe, just maybe, the DJR Team Penske group are starting to figure things out? Rising star Pye managed an eighth place finish in Sunday’s race, the best to date for the Roger Penske-owned squad. You need to look at how things happened for Pye: he started ninth and had made it up to fifth before the first round of stops. That means he was obviously fast, and had a handle on what’s been a tricky car to make sense of so far this year. Hopefully this is the beginning of greater success for DJR Team Penske.

A month between race meetings is far too long: For a sport that’s already finding it more difficult to maintain a large presence on the Australian sporting landscape, a gap of a little more than a month between Winton and Hidden Valley is crazy. If the sport wasn't already lagging behind the two football codes, it sure will be by the time June rolls around, given that the series goes into virtual hibernation until then, whilst AFL and NRL (and even rugby, for that matter) really get into the meat of their schedule.

Task number one for the off-season should be the complete overhaul of the calendar as it stands. Ideally, we should be seeing races every two (or three, at most) between mid-March and mid-November.

Concert Review: Mötley Crüe – The Final Tour (Sydney; 16 May, 2015)

There’s plenty of ambivalence in the world these days when a band announces their farewell tour. Why? Because, it rarely actually happens. KISS are a perfect example – they announced a big farewell jaunt in 1996, sold out arenas and stadiums around the world, and nearly two decades later, they’re still going.

For people to shell out big bucks to go to rock shows these days, they need a hook, and Mötley Crüe’s somewhat surprising announcement that they were calling it quits after the best part of three and a half decades of making rock music came with a legal cessation of touring document, signed by all four band members and ratified by the lawyers. Come New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles, the Crüe will sign off for one last time, and they won’t be back on stage as a foursome (save a potential one-off reunion at any Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, you’d suggest).

Mötley Crüe are doing farewells the right way. Walking into Allphones Arena on Saturday night, I knew two things were certain: that we wouldn’t be seeing Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil on stage together again, and that we were in for one hell of a show.

I wasn't disappointed. After Alice Cooper’s trademark pantomime rock show had whipped the crowd into a frenzy – featuring Coop’s epic vocals, Nita Strauss’ epic guitar solos and all the things you expect when you roll into an Alice Cooper show: snakes, rapiers, giant balloons, monsters and beheadings, and the man himself as the ringleader – Mötley Crüe took the stage after the intro, featuring a snippet from, of all things, The Sound of Music, and launched into a hard-as-nails version of ‘Saints of Los Angeles’.

Right from the outset, you knew it was going to be as good as advertised. All four members were on point, and the show benefitted from an opening salvo of ‘Wild Side’ and ‘Primal Scream’ after the opener. That made it three of my favourite Crüe songs back-to-back-to-back, and even the most blasé concert goer would’ve been impressed – surely! – with the tunes and the backing pyrotechnic display, which was as full-on as any show I’ve ever seen, three KISS shows included.

The guttural sound generated by a ferocious rhythm section that pairs Lee, perhaps the best rock drummer of his era, and the stalking figure of Nikki Sixx, has to be heard to be properly believed. It's the sort of sound that'll make your ears bleed...but in the best way possible!

Lee’s extra-curricular activities – mention TL to most people, and the first thing that comes to mind is that video tape with Pamela Anderson – often overshadow his work on stage. He’s as good as there is, and anyone who tells you different is crazy. When he takes to his Crucecifly, a ridiculous roller-coaster that lifts Lee and his kit from the stage, transporting him across the roof of the arena and down into the centre of the pit, drumming as the platform he’s on around and around whilst shooting out confetti, your jaw drops. It’s the most incredible thing I think I’ve ever seen at a concert. A little egotistical? Sure, but also pretty bad ass. It was a solo to remember, fitting of this final tour.

Sixx plays his bass like it’s a rhythm guitar, when he’s not utilising the flamethrower occasionally attached to one of his instruments to set his microphone on fire and spray flame towards the ceiling, and their heavy, cranking sound puts some bands with two guitarists searching for that same sound to shame. He’s responsible for founding the band, and has co-writing credits on just about every big Mötley Crüe song, and he’s a huge presence on stage.

On top of that, the absolute wizardry of Mick Mars. The man who looks positively deathly on stage certainly has fingers that are alive and well. His command of the fret board is unparalleled, and a huge thanks to the people shooting footage for the big screens at Allphones for so many close-up shots of Mick Mars doing what he does best. His solo, following on from Tommy Lee’s spin in the Cruceifly, was another highlight.

Vince Neil, often maligned and once-replaced in Mötley Crüe, can’t hit all of the high notes he used to – the pleasant-to-look-at backing singers, who also appear in various costumes at various times; the nurse outfit for ‘Dr Feelgood’ was a favourite – but he’s as good this tour as he’s been in recent memory. He was roundly booed, in the best sort of way, when announcing that this was the final show.

The set list, which hasn’t changed much since this tour began about a year ago, perfectly samples all of the Crüe’s biggest original composition smash hits – the afore-mentioned ‘Dr Feelgood’, ‘Shout at the Devil’, ‘Kickstart My Heart’, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, and ‘Same ‘Ol Situation’ – as well as two covers that they’ve made their own over the years: ‘Smokin’ In The Boys Room’ and ‘Anarchy in the UK’. It’s a powerful collection of songs representing the hair/glam metal era that Mötley rose in, and perfected above all others: all killer, and absolutely zero filler.

Unfortunately, the two hours of The Final Tour fly by like two minutes, and the final song, ‘Home Sweet Home’ is sung from a b-stage in the middle of the pit that rises slowly towards the roof was fitting. The montage of Mötley through the years reminded us of how far they’ve come, and how many bad haircuts the band sported during the heady days of the eighties.

It was a fitting end, singing one of their biggest hits in the middle of a packed arena. To paraphrase the song, years have gone by, and I’d say you kicked some ass. They’re still around when so many others who came up at the same time are long gone.

Towards the end of the show, Vince Neil implored us to “always remember, we’re Mötley fucking Crüe” and based on last night, I’m not sure that we’re likely to forget! It was all kinds of epic.

RIP Mötley Crüe, gone too soon!

Photo Gallery: Motley Crue - Sydney 2013

Motley Crue are back in Sydney for the last time. In honour of the The Final Tour ramping up at Allphones Arena tonight, here are some of the best photos I took two years ago, the last time the Sunset Strip rockers were in town. What a show!

Can't wait for tonight!!

Opinion: 2015 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Eastern Conference Final Preview

It’s the business end of the year, with a place in the Stanley Cup Final on the line for the victor in a New York Rangers/Tampa Bay Lightning series that sees many links between the two squads. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt, so this should be a good one!

If you’re one of those people – like I am – who believe that a team starts one series the way the ended the previous one, then momentum should be with the Rangers, who battled their way out of a 1-3 series hole to beat Washington in extraordinary fashion in Game Seven, which required overtime to settle.

Tampa, on the other hand, started on fire against the Montreal Canadiens, but lost two quick games to force a sixth contest, which they ended up winning. A series before, the Lightning required seven games to beat Detroit, who could very well have won that series themselves. Tampa haven’t exactly been consistent throughout these playoffs, so trying to work out which Lightning team are going to turn up on any given night.

One thing you can be certain of, it the good version of the team spearheaded by Steven Stamkos takes the ice, then the Rangers are going to have their work cut out for them. In some respects, the young Tampa squad might still be a season or so away from reaching their full potential. As they stand now, though, the Lightning are certainly capable of ousting New York and reaching the Stanley Cup Final.

Stamkos is their leader, but he is far from the only offensive catalyst. Just as impressive these playoffs has been the line of Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat, all three of whom have scored timely goals for the Lightning. Veteran Valtteri Filppula centred the top line, with Stamkos on one side and the ever-improving Alex Killorn on the other. This is a trio that the Rangers will have to pay close attention to. Another former Ranger, Brian Boyle, is a key cog in the Tampa machine.

One question mark offensively for the Lightning is former New York captain Ryan Callahan, who underwent an emergency appendectomy earlier this week. Whether or not he plays to his usual ability could be a huge deciding factor in this series.

As will the goalie duel, and Tampa have a good one between the pipes in Ben Bishop. He’s registered 1.81 goals against average and a .931 save percentage in thirteen games this season. His 31-save shutout of Detroit in the final game of the quarter final series was arguably his best game of the playoffs. Against the Canadiens, he was mostly on his game, aside from below-par effort in the fourth game, a blow-out win for Montreal, when Tampa could have closed out the series.

In front of Bishop are some defensive names that the Rangers know well: Anton Stralman (who wore Rangers blue this time last year) is one half of Tampa’s top defensive duo along with Victor Hedman. These two Swedes complement each other nicely, and Hedman is underrated as an offensive defenceman.

Trade deadline acquisition Braydon Coburn adds a nice touch of experience further down the depth chart, and actually scored the game-winner in the seventh game against Detroit.

The Rangers enter their third Eastern Conference Final in the last four years, and are seeking to become the first time since the 2009-09 Pittsburgh Penguins to win two straight conference titles. They are also the first team in NHL to win two playoff series from 1-3 down in back-to-back years, and head into the Tampa match-up with two players who were a part of the Lightning’s only Stanley Cup championship in 2004: forward Martin St. Louis and defenceman Dan Boyle.

New York’s ability to win starts and ends with Henrik Lundqvist in goals. Their fortunes rise and fall with the man known in New York as ‘The King’ and the Swede is a proven game-winner in these big-time situations. He’s the Rangers’ undoubted MVP, keeping them in games, or at least keeping games close, when the rest of the team are performing below par. Solving Lundqvist hasn’t been easy – ask Washington and Pittsburgh.

On their day, New York has probably the best top six defencemen remaining in the playoffs – captain Ryan McDonagh, Marc Staal, Dan Girardi, Kevin Klein, Dan Boyle and Keith Yandle. They will all need to be on point against a potent Lightning group. That’s a handy group to have in front of Lundqvist. No wonder he has a 1.60 goals allowed average to go with a .944 save percentage. Those are the best numbers for any goalie who advanced past the first round.

Offensive production has been a problem for the Rangers in these playoffs. They’ve been stuck in low-scoring, one-goal contests pretty much ever since the postseason began. They showed some signs of improvement on the power play – long a problem – late in the Caps series, and at least saw star forward Rick Nash score a goal. Sure, he hasn’t exactly had a giant playoff run, but at least he’s getting chances on net, rather than going missing completely. His playoff stats thus far are two goals and a team-high forty-five shots.

Realistically, Chris Kreider and Derrick Brassard have just about been New York’s two most consistent forwards, and Derek Stepan has had his moments, too: most notably the overtime winner that clinched the Washington series. Don’t forget the youngster Kevin Hayes, who has matured dramatically during these playoffs, and scored the vital tying power play goal against Washington in Game Seven.

In the regular season, Tampa and the Rangers played three times in less than a month, and the Lightning dominated all three, winning by a combined score of 15-8. As Henrik Lundqvist noted, the playoffs are a different story.

Prediction: I’m a hopeful Rangers fan – is there any other kind? – and I believe this team has what it takes to go all the way. It won’t be easy against a good Lightning squad. I’m expecting seven games, and a raucous Madison Square Garden to watch the Rangers qualify for the Stanley Cup Final.

Opinion: 2015 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Western Conference Final Preview

Two are left standing in the Western Conference, and the battle between Anaheim and Chicago has the feel of being an absolutely epic seven-game series with speed to burn on both sides. The winner, of course, goes through to the Stanley Cup Final, and will be just four wins away from hoisting one of the most recognisable trophies in all of sport.

At least in terms of how these two teams enter this series, the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks are polar opposites. The Ducks advanced by defeating Winnipeg and Calgary, two teams who basically had to fight, scratch and claw right up to the very end of the regular season to claim a playoff spot.

On the other hand, Chicago beat a very good Nashville squad rather convincingly in the end, and swept a Minnesota Wild squad who had surprised many in beating the highly-fancied St Louis Blues. Yes, the ‘Hawks swept the Wild, but it was a closer series than it looked on paper. The same can’t truly be said for the Ducks win over the Flames.

The one thing that always sticks in my mind is Anaheim’s penchant for being great in the regular season and not delivering when it comes to the business end of things. Their coach Bruce Boudreau knows a lot about this: he led a bunch of very good Washington squads from regular season glory into the playoffs and, more often than not, it ended in disaster, with first- and second-round exits the norm.

This is Boudreau’s first Western Conference Final. Yes, the Ducks have a good core of young players, but they rely heavily on the scoring talents of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, two guys who are survivors from Anaheim’s maiden Stanley Cup championship in 2007. They were key cogs in that team, but there wasn't as much of a reliance on them back then as there is today. With the likes of Teemu Selanne and Scott Neidermayer on that squad, it was far more balanced than this current crop of Ducks.

In contrast, Chicago are as battle-tested as any squad in the West, and they are finding ominous form at the right time. The return of Patrick Kane has been a catalyst, and if there is a better guy for scoring clutch goals right when his team needs them the most, please let me know who it is. In many ways, Kane was the difference in Chicago’s four-game series win over the Wild.

Winners of two Stanley Cup championships since 2010, the ‘Hawks know what they are doing, and have managed to keep the core of the team that also lifted Lord Stanley in 2012 together. That’s a massive tip of the cap not just to the front office of the Blackhawks, who managed to even turn Patrick Kane’s clavicle injury into a good thing – he went onto injured reserve, freeing up money to bring in veteran guys like Kimmo Timonen and Antoine Vermette – as it is to the culture that coach Joel Quenneville has built over the years.

Looking down Chicago’s roster, it’s hard to pinpoint a major weakness. On the back end, you have experienced, talented defenceman like Duncan Keith and Brett Seabrook (as good a defensive pairing as there is remaining in the West) with Niklas Hjalmarsson not far behind, and a Stanley Cup-winning goalie in Corey Crawford (, who seems to have left his shaky play behind in the first round, and a tonne of offensive talent up front.

Chicago media likes to paint Kane and forward partner Jonathan Toews as polar opposites off the ice – and there’s no doubt that they are – but when it comes to that innate sense of where the other might be at any given time, the two most recognisable players on the Blackhawks roster are fully and completely on the same page.

If Toews and Kane don’t get you, it’s likely that Marian Hossa will. Or maybe Patrick Sharp, maligned in Chicago during the season, but a proven playoff performer. The other thing that’s always impressed me about the Blackhawks is the ability to get scoring from their bottom two lines when the top guys have a quiet night. Andrew Shaw, a noted agitator, has netted some pretty big ones over the years.

The real challenge for a mostly-young Ducks squad who mostly don’t have the same amount of big-game experience. There are guys on the Blackhawks team who’ve seen all that the NHL has to throw at them, and even Olympic overtime play. Anaheim’s defencemen are going to have to have the series’ of their lives, particularly when Kane is on the ice. He’s shown time and time again these playoffs that he barely needs any room to make something special happen. They can’t give him an inch.

Anaheim are also going to need to have secondary scoring because Chicago’s defence will almost certainly lock down – or try to – on Perry and Getzlaf. Ryan Kesler, a veteran who saw plenty of playoff action with Vancouver, looms as being a huge figure in this series. Not only can he score, but he has a knack for getting in under the skin of opponents, and the Ducks power play can capitalise. Kesler has nine points in as many games these playoffs, and he knows what he’s doing at this end of the year.

Frederik Andersen has looked good in net for the Ducks – 1.96 goals allowed average and a .925 save percentage – but an argument can be made that he hasn’t truly been tested, like Crawford has. Anaheim’s defence has allowed more than thirty shots on Andersen’s goal just once so far in the playoffs. Whether they can keep that up against Chicago’s offensive firepower is another question. The Ducks do have 2007 Stanley Cup winner Francois Beauchemin, a steadying influence on the youngster, Hampus Lindholm. Maturing guys like Cam Fowler are going to be seriously tested. As is Andersen.

Prediction: This is going to be an absolute war, and I’ve a feeling we’ll see seven games and a few with at least one overtime session. Despite the Ducks having home-ice advantage, I’ve got a feeling that Chicago’s big-game experience will – just – get them across the line. Whatever happens, it promises to be a thrilling series.