Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesHelio Castroneves is his usual happy self at most times, but he's been more unhappy lately.

INDIANAPOLIS -- In the immediate aftermath of the recent IZOD IndyCar Series race in Japan, Helio Castroneves was his usual happy-go-lucky self.

He'd overcome an off-road excursion at the first turn and drove through the field to a seventh-place finish. When I talked to him in the Twin Ring Motegi pit lane for his driver column that appears here on ESPN.com, he was smiling, happy to have salvaged a top-10 finish from a tough day.

Helio wasn't quite as sunny when my colleague Bruce Martin caught up with him on the way to Narita Airport a little while later. Castroneves had just been informed he was dropped to 22nd place in the final order after being judged guilty of passing in a local caution zone.

When Martin asked for a quote, Castroneves exploded with an unflattering portrayal of INDYCAR race director Brian Barnhart. He didn't hold back in a series of Twitter posts, saying: "It is sad to see one person being responsible for bringing down an entire series. Brian Banhart is inconsistent and even changes the rule book when is convenient for him, and his own personal interests. Making the famous @paultracy's words mine: Brian Barnhart is a circus clown! Very disappointed for finishing 7th and being put to 22nd. This is just ABSURD !!! Just expressing my feelings right now!"

INDYCAR announced Tuesday that expressing his feelings cost Castroneves a $30,000 fine. But I wonder if Helio might have handled the situation a bit more calmly if he had been able to express his feelings in the first place.

When we were working on his last ESPN.com column, Castroneves told me he wanted to send a message to INDYCAR about his frustration over Barnhart's on-track management of the series. He said he wanted it to be constructive criticism with a positive message.

Castroneves was delighted with the copy I sent him. "I love it, this is exactly what they need to hear me out!!!" was his e-mailed response.

But the columns go through an approval process with Penske Racing PR, and Helio wasn't pleased with the version that was posted.

"Man, what happened to our story?" was how he greeted me at Motegi.

Penske Racing president Tim Cindric said the decision to soften Castroneves' ESPN column was his call. "You can blame me," he said. "It doesn't do any of us any good to trash INDYCAR."

Castroneves' offense occurred on the last lap of the Japanese race when he passed JR Hildebrand for seventh place. Drivers had been warned about the local yellow by radio.

Castroneves did not dispute making the pass in the restricted zone. His ire stemmed from being dropped to the last finisher on the lead lap rather than just being placed eighth behind Hildebrand.

Frustration about Barnhart's seemingly selective enforcement of a vague rulebook has been simmering within all of the drivers for quite some time and over the last three years Castroneves has been involved in several controversial decisions.

With his future at Team Penske in question for the first time in more than a decade, Castroneves is also under pressure to perform. He and Ryan Briscoe have both been consistently out-performed by Will Power over the last two years and the team may cut back to two cars in 2012.

His long history with the Penske organization and three Indianapolis 500 wins would make Castroneves the strong favorite to remain alongside Power. But many drivers begin to lose their skills in their late 30s, and Helio will turn 37 next May; Briscoe and Power are both 30.

His last win came exactly a year ago on the Twin Ring Motegi oval. This year he's notched a pair of second-place finishes -- both behind Power -- but only three other results of seventh place or better.

Castroneves obviously has a lot on his mind these days. He just needs to find a way to express it without getting edited, penalized or fined.

John Oreovicz/ESPN.comJR Hildebrand said he had no idea a matching-numbers 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle SS was awaiting him at the Panther Racing shop on Wednesday.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Seven weeks later, JR Hildebrand is still dealing with the aftermath of the Indianapolis 500.

But things are looking a lot better.

The 500 was, of course, a good news/bad news situation for the 23-year-old Izod IndyCar Series rookie. Hildebrand finished second in the race, but until the final corner of the final lap, he looked destined to become only the ninth rookie winner of the Memorial Day classic.

Funny thing is that when most people now think about Hildebrand, they don't dwell on the infamous Turn 4 accident that allowed Dan Wheldon to sneak past for his second Indianapolis win. They remember the way Hildebrand handled the moment.

Panther Racing remembers the kid's grace under fire, too. That's why team principal John Barnes presented his driver with a mint 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle SS on Wednesday in an impromptu ceremony at the Panther shop on the west side of Indianapolis.

"We're so blessed to have him here -- he's an incredible young man." Barnes said. "Tony Stewart was talking about the crash, and he said, 'Good things happen to good people.' JR's had an incredible amount of class in handling adversity. He epitomizes what we stand for.

"He's still got a lot to learn as a driver, but we have a lot to learn from him as far as being an adult in terms of adversity and controversy."

Hildebrand admitted that he felt slightly "punked" after being lured to the Panther shop under the guise of a meeting with Barnes and engineer David Cripps to discuss the recent Toronto race, where Hildebrand finished eighth.

But he was clearly stunned by the Chevelle, which he said has long been his dream car. Panther team owner Gary Pedigo, a longtime Indianapolis car dealer, located the numbers-matching car in Colorado.

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John Oreovicz for ESPN.comThe 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle SS given to JR Hildebrand was found in Colorado by team owner and car dealer Gary Pedigo.

"I don't have any idea how this all happened," Hildebrand said. "This is the car I always dreamed of having. I feel like I need to wake up from a dream right now. This is incredible.

"I grew up around muscle cars -- I don't need no Benz, Bentley or Ferrari!" he continued. "My dad had a '68 Camaro Trans Am race car but I like the Chevelles because they fly a little bit under the radar. Muscle cars have always been my thing. It's about being loud and obnoxious and going fast in a straight line."

If the way Hildebrand dealt with the crushing disappointment of crashing on the last lap at Indianapolis provided life lessons to Barnes and the Panther team, obviously it made an impression on JR himself.

"I feel like it's a little bit silly that's gotten so much response," he said. "No matter where we finished the race, that's what I was going to say. That's really how I felt about what was going on and being a part of this National Guard program. We see these guys coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan and there's a lot going on out there that is a bigger deal than what we're doing at the racetrack. I'm glad it ended up being such a positive thing for the team and the Guard.

"I think people are excited to see us try to avenge the battle scar. We had a really good run at Iowa [a fourth-place finish] that was encouraging for us, but I can't wait to get back to Indy next year because that's where I think we're really going to feel it."

People often decry the lack of American stars in Indy car racing, but Panther has long tried to reverse that perception. The team plucked Sam Hornish Jr. from obscurity and turned him into a multiple-time IndyCar Series champion who went on to drive for Roger Penske. Young, intelligent and articulate -- not to mention fast -- Hildebrand is in a peer group that includes Marco Andretti and Graham Rahal as the next generation of American open-wheel stars.

Panther hasn't won a race since 2005, but Hildebrand believes the team still has the capability to beat the likes of Penske and Ganassi.

And a shiny red '66 Chevelle is proof that Barnes and Panther believe in Hildebrand.

"There's a lot of stuff that goes on in racing," Hildebrand said. "You get put in tough situations a lot of the time and stuff like this really shows what kind of a guy John Barnes is, just that he thought to do something like this.

"He's obviously just an awesome guy to work for."

INDIANAPOLIS -- California Speedway. Really?

That was my first reaction upon learning the Izod IndyCar Series will return to Fontana, Calif., in 2012 for a 400-mile night race.

Actually, it's officially called Auto Club Speedway these days. But it's the same 2-mile oval about an hour east of Los Angeles that staged Indy car races under CART and Indy Racing League sanction for a steadily decreasing audience from 1997 to 2005.

I was there for most of them and witnessed the place packed to capacity for the debut CART race in 1997, when PacWest Racing's Mauricio Gugelmin set a closed-course qualifying record of 240.942 mph and went even faster -- 242.333 mph, to be precise -- in practice. His teammate Mark Blundell won the race.

I was there three years later when Gil de Ferran upped the one-lap record to 241.426 mph and again in 2003 when Sam Hornish Jr. averaged 207.151 mph over 400 miles to win the flat-out fastest race in the history of Indy car racing.

But I was also there on Halloween 1999 when Greg Moore lost his life in a Turn 2 accident. And again in 2001, 45 days after the 9/11 attacks, when the track's over-the-top security measures made California Speedway a very unpleasant place to go to work.

So despite a relatively brief nine-year run, Fontana has plenty of Indy car history -- good and bad. What it hasn't had since the first couple of races is an audience. But a pair of optimists -- INDYCAR CEO Randy Bernard and Auto Club Speedway president Gillian Zucker -- believe there is an audience that can be brought back.

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Gavin Lawrence/Getty ImagesTight racing and unheard of speeds were hallmarks of Auto Club Speedway the last time Indy car racing was there.

And without the benefit of tens of thousands of corporate tickets bought and distributed by sponsors such as Philip Morris back in the days when the CART race was known as the Marlboro 500.

"As most people know, this racetrack was built by the Penskes, built with open-wheel racing in mind," Zucker said in a conference call with media. "In our minds, this is the most competitive place to see open-wheel racing in the country. We hold the world speed record for the fastest lap of 241 miles an hour. We know that the finishes here have been unlike any other.

"We feel like this is going to provide a really excellent opportunity to provide world-class racing for our fans and diversify our schedule."

Zucker said she thinks several factors will play into making IndyCar's return to Fontana a success. She cited the unification of open-wheel racing and believes the night race format will be a hit. The early announcement of the IndyCar event means it will be included in Auto Club Speedway's 2012 season-ticket package.

Zucker also revealed sensible ticket prices, including a $30 general admission option that includes grandstand seating. Reserved seats are $50 to $60.

"There isn't a day that goes by that we don't have fans asking for the return of open-wheel racing," Zucker said. "When the split happened with open-wheel racing, there were fans that were disappointed about what was going on in the industry. Some of them showed that disappointment by not attending events. Now that the series is so cohesive, has so much momentum behind it, with all the changes that Randy made in the past year, the excitement he's bringing to the sport, I think the timing is just absolutely right.

"We're prepared to aggressively promote it with more than a year to be able to do that."

Those words are music to Bernard's ears. Auto Club Speedway is the first track owned by International Speedway Corp. -- controlled by NASCAR's France family -- to return to the IndyCar Series schedule after spending a year on the sidelines due to the widespread belief (shared by Bernard) that ISC didn't promote its Indy car races as effectively or aggressively as it could.

Bernard said he has been in contact with several other ISC tracks and didn't rule out another "one to three" making the cut for what he hopes is an expanded 20-race 2012 schedule.

One of IndyCar's challenges is to develop a full slate of oval races to maintain a 50/50 balance with road and street courses. The series might not return to the Milwaukee Mile, which was very poorly attended for its comeback Indy car race after a year's absence.

"I have been talking to other presidents of tracks that want to be very aggressive and are laying out plans on how they can promote our series," Bernard said. "That's what's important to me.

"Last year because of timing and because of availability at tracks, the moving of some NASCAR races, it didn't work that there were any ISC tracks on our schedule. But we've continued to communicate all the time. It's just a matter of time before you see one or two or three ISC tracks on our schedule, like [Auto Club Speedway]."

Auto Club Speedway was designed as an improved Michigan International Speedway, and it's 2-mile format is ideal for Indy cars. From a competition standpoint, returning to Fontana definitely has merit.

Whether it's a smart commercial proposition remains to be seen.

NEWTON, Iowa -- Lost in the excitement of Marco Andretti's thrilling victory Saturday night in the Iowa Corn Indy 250 was the intrigue of the IndyCar Series championship battle between Dario Franchitti and Will Power.

Those same protagonists who took the 2010 IndyCar championship chase down to the wire arrived in Iowa deadlocked with 271 points.

And while Franchitti could rightfully be disappointed by finishing fifth after leading 172 of the 250 laps, his night was still better than Power's.

The Team Penske driver was delayed by a pit-lane incident, and he later crashed heavily in Turn 2, sustaining a minor concussion.

The upshot is that Franchitti heads into the midseason break prior to the July 10 Honda Indy Toronto with a 20-point championship lead. Meanwhile, Power must nurse an aching head.

"To get the points lead is good, but I didn't want to get it by Will crashing," Franchitti said. "I was happy to see Will get out of the car, because like myself, he's had some issues with his back and it looked like a fairly sore hit.

"We'll continue our battle in Toronto together."

The Australian's troubles started when he was waved out of his first pit stop into the path of rookie Charlie Kimball. Power stayed on the lead lap despite a series of pit stops to repair the damage from the pit-lane collision, but ran near the back before crashing on Lap 90.

The heavy impact appeared to daze Power but he walked to the ambulance and gave an interview to Versus pit reporter Kevin Lee after he was released from the infield care center.

"Rung my bell a bit then -- that hurt," Power said. "Probably shouldn't have been out there with a damaged car, I think.

"S---, man, that's not good."

Power again deviated from the Penske playbook when he pointed the finger at his No. 12 crew.

"They just sent me out and [Kimball] came across my bow," Power said. "That was that. It bent the steering and broke the front wing. I guess that's what caused the accident. I had to put so much lock in to turn the car, then it caught me out.

"Once again we screwed ourselves in the pits like we always do. We've just got to stop that."

Franchitti also had trouble in the pits, but it wasn't nearly as costly. He lost the lead to Andretti on a Lap 184 pit stop when crewman Steve Namisnak encountered trouble at the left front corner of the car.

The Scotsman led 172 of the first 184 laps in his Suave-liveried car but he said his car wasn't comfortable anywhere but out front.

"We had a problem in the last pit stop and Marco got ahead," Franchitti said. "Then TK [Tony Kanaan] had a better restart and got around me.

"All night it had been getting more oversteery," he added. "They asked if I wanted a change at the last stop and I said 'No, just leave it' because I thought I could hang on. But once I got in traffic, I couldn't and I was really struggling at the end."

Dario nearly crashed while running third behind Andretti and Kanaan and he lost an additional position to JR Hildebrand to finish fifth.

"We led a lot of laps tonight but as a team we didn't get the job done," Franchitti said. "Marco did a hell of a job and deserved that, and Scott Dixon coming from last to third was really impressive.

"We didn't do the job, but we still finished fifth after we tried to knock down the Turn 4 wall a couple of times. Not where we wanted to finish but it was a hell of a race tonight. One of those things. Not a bad points night."

Franchitti won the season opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and since then, he and Power have swapped the championship lead four times.

Power built a 21-point lead after he won the second race of the Texas Motor Speedway doubleheader. But Franchitti bounced back to tie his rival at the top after winning at Milwaukee, and there has been a 41-point swing in his favor in the last two races.

"Points, points, points & everybody is getting excited about points," Franchitti said in a post-race interview at Iowa with Versus. "Each point is important, but I'm not thinking about points.

"I'm trying to take it one race at a time."

NEWTON, Iowa -- The front row for the 2011 Iowa Corn 250 startled and surprised race fans from Joliet to Japan.

Tokyo native Takuma Sato became the first Japanese driver to qualify on pole position for an Indy car race. Of greater interest to mainstream America, Danica Patrick turned in her best qualifying performance since August 2007 and will line up on the outside of the front row.

But as the old saying goes, qualifying is one thing and the race is another thing completely. In that regard, both front-row occupants have their work cut out for them in Saturday night's 250-lap race.

Since the start of the 2008 season, 29 of 33 Izod IndyCar Series races staged on oval tracks have been won by drivers affiliated with Ganassi Racing or Penske Racing. Patrick was one of the anomalies, crossing the line first at Twin Ring Motegi in 2008 in a car fielded by the team now known as Andretti Autosport.

AA is responsible for three of the four non-Penske/Ganassi wins, with Tony Kanaan taking the other two. Kanaan now drives for KV Racing Technology as a teammate to Sato. Kanaan qualified third at Iowa, demonstrating that the team owned by Jimmy Vasser and Kevin Kalkhoven has its cars nicely dialed in for the Iowa oval.

Dan Wheldon's triumph last month at the Indianapolis 500 is the only other oval victory since 2008 from outside Indy car racing's two dominant teams.

So while the front-row pairing of Sato and Patrick makes for an interesting story, the odds are overwhelmingly against either one of them winning the race on Saturday night.

Sato's pole is the biggest surprise of the pair. The Japanese ex-Formula One driver had never competed on an oval track until last year, and his best career Indy car finishes to date are a pair of fifths, including two weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway.

"It's a fantastic achievement," Sato said. "I knew we were going to be competitive because of last year [when he qualified seventh at Iowa but crashed in the race], and this morning I was truly comfortable in the car. I'm very pleased with today's result."

Patrick started from the pole three times in her rookie Indy car campaign in 2005, but she had the advantage of being one of a handful of drivers with a Honda engine. Since 2006, when every driver has been powered by Honda, her qualifying performances have not been as competitive.

With a front-row start at Iowa in the bag, this race may represent her last, best chance to win another Indy car race before her expected move to NASCAR in 2012.

"It feels really good to be in position to be able to start up front and have the opportunity for a solid race day," Patrick said. "I haven't started on the front row in a long time, so it's a good feeling.

"On short tracks like this it's nice to start near the front because you can gain ground more quickly," she added. "If you start near the back of the field you could be a lap behind very quickly."

The dominant Penske and Ganassi teams didn't have their best day in Iowa qualifying. IndyCar Series championship co-leaders Will Power and Dario Franchitti will start from the third row, and Penske's Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves qualified 10th and 13th, respectively.

Ganassi's Scott Dixon said he nearly crashed on his warm-up lap and his first qualifying lap and ranked 23rd in the 24-car field.

Yet many observers would contend that despite his qualifying travails, Dixon -- the 2008 winner at Iowa -- has a better chance of winning the race from the back row than Sato or Patrick do from the front row.

"That was a poor run, and I'm surprised we're not starting last, but this is a place where you can win from just about anywhere," Dixon said, citing Kanaan's victory from 15th on the grid in 2010.

In fact, Dixon scored his first (admittedly strategy-driven) Indy car victory after starting 23rd in a CART-sanctioned race at Nazareth Speedway in 2001.

The numbers don't lie, and it will be interesting to see if Sato, Patrick or anyone else in the field can break the Penske/Ganassi dominance on Saturday night.

There was plenty of good and bad on display at the Milwaukee Mile over the weekend.

The best part was the Izod IndyCar Series' on-track product. Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves waged an entertaining three-man battle that was finally resolved in Franchitti's favor when Kanaan crashed and Castroneves was forced to make an unscheduled stop to replace a tire punctured by the subsequent debris.

The dark side was the sparse attendance, estimated at no more than 15,000 in the 38,000-capacity grandstands. The weak crowd was added proof that even in historically strong markets for Indy car racing, the sport continues to struggle to gain traction (and regain its fan base) three years into the unified era.

I was especially sad to see the ambivalence at Milwaukee, which was one of the first Indy car races outside of Indianapolis that I traveled to back in my fan days more than 20 years ago. My friend Dave Everhart and I would annually load the cooler and the grill, park in the infield and toss around a Frisbee or a football between rounds of beers and brats. We weren't alone; the infield was usually jam-packed, to the point where access was often cut off by 10 o'clock in the morning on race day prior to the 1 p.m. start.

There's no better oval track in terms of getting close to the cars, but this year, there were broad expanses of empty grass in the Milwaukee infield, caused by a number of factors. Missing a year (there was no Milwaukee race in 2010 due to lack of a promoter) was obviously the main culprit, but it appeared that newly installed AB Promotions underestimated the task of rebuilding the event. There was no title sponsor and many of the trackside billboards were blank.

In addition, the promoters incurred wrath by charging for parking and restricting the ability to bring in coolers. Grandstand seats were reasonably priced at $25 and up, but paddock access should have been included, not an additional $40 (!) charge.

It was apparent that attendance was going to be bad when the promoter began offering 2-for-1 ticket deals the week of the race, but even that desperate tactic failed to draw a respectable number of fans.

INDYCAR CEO Randy Bernard was rightfully disappointed with the draw and said that the chances of Milwaukee returning to the 2012 IndyCar Series schedule are 50-50. Milwaukee's chance of maintaining a place on the schedule could also be affected by INDYCAR's discussions for future events with Road America (an hour north of Milwaukee in Elkhart Lake, Wis.) and Chicagoland Speedway.

For many years, Milwaukee ran an Indy car race the weekend immediately after the Indianapolis 500 and counted on a boost from having the cars and the stars of the 500 on hand while Indy was fresh in everyone's memory. But Texas Motor Speedway has negotiated the right to stage the race following Indianapolis, and this year there was a week's gap between Indy and Texas.

In fact, Milwaukee used to host two Indy car races every year (through 1982 and again from 2004-06, with one CART- and one IRL-sanctioned event) and returning to the traditional August "second" date in conjunction with the Wisconsin State Fair might give the event the boost it needs. But clearly something needs to be done.

The Milwaukee Mile is obviously a venue beloved by the IndyCar drivers and longtime fans of the sport. But the famous track has a battle on its hands to attract enough spectators to remain relevant (not to mention profitable) in the modern era.

There was plenty of hot air blowing Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway, and it wasn't all atmospheric pressure.

Most of it was coming from the direction of Target Chip Ganassi Racing. After winning the first of the night's twin 275-kilometer races, Dario Franchitti, who is rarely known for making controversial public statements, was not shy about expressing his displeasure over the bad luck of drawing the 28th (out of 30) starting position for the nightcap.

Scott Dixon wasn't much happier after pulling the 18th grid spot, and you have to wonder whether the Ganassi drivers would have sung a different tune had their chief IndyCar Series championship rival Will Power not chosen the No. 3 starting spot.

Team boss Ganassi's grapes weren't any less sour as he called any driver who had the nerve to have drawn a starting spot ahead of Franchitti a "backmarker."

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Todd Warshaw/Getty ImagesWill Power was elated after drawing the third starting position for Race No. 2 of the Firestone Twins 275s at Texas Motor Speedway.

After Power ran strongly on the way to third place in Race 1, the second sprint was clearly his race to lose. And he didn't, claiming a relatively easy victory over Dixon -- who charged from 18th to second after he got done complaining about his draw.

Franchitti drove a masterful race, too, passing 21 "backmarkers" on the way to seventh place and minimizing the damage to his championship hopes. When the Texas twins were over and done with, Dario lost only five points to Power in the championship chase, probably far fewer than the Ganassi team's mismanagement of the final 40 laps of the Indianapolis 500 cost him.

But his image took a hit by what many fans perceived as excessive moaning. The blind draw for the second race may not have created a level playing field, but the rules were the same for everyone. And the estimated 50,000 fans present at TMS seemed to enjoy the halftime spectacle every bit as much as they did the 550 kilometers of clean, fast Indy car action.

On Monday, while at a joint appearance in Boston that named MoveThatBlock.com as the title sponsor for the upcoming IndyCar Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Franchitti and IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard had a chance to discuss the controversial Texas format. Bernard indicated that changes are already being considered.

"I took a lot of heat for my comments, but people don't understand, in my opinion, the big picture," Franchitti said. "Had they inverted [the Race 1 finishing order] I would have started worse, but it would have been fair for everyone. I would have started last, Scott would have started second-last and Will [Power] would have started 28th. It would have been some performance parameter, and that's all I was asking for."

"We have to evaluate everything we do this year and make sure that we are providing the best competition, entertainment and value to give that great fan experience," Bernard responded. "It was a little bit gimmicky, and I take the blame for it. I think it's important to make sure we sustain credibility, and I'm not convinced that what we did Saturday night does that. A draw takes away from that, especially if somebody loses the championship by five points to a draw."

It's fair to say that the Texas twin races created every bit as much controversy as TMS president Eddie Gossage could have hoped for. With that in mind, here's who emerged as winners and losers after the smoke cleared ...

• Winner -- Will Power. Not only did the Team Penske driver claim his first oval track victory and increase his championship lead to 21 points over Franchitti, he gained positive PR points for basically agreeing that the Ganassi drivers got screwed by the gimmick format. He also was extremely lucky to get away with bumping his left front wing endplate on Takuma Sato's rear tire without damage to either car.

• Winner/sore loser -- Dario Franchitti. The Scotsman dominated Race 1 for an easy victory but could uncharacteristically barely contain his anger after being left with the 28th starting spot in the reverse order blind draw for Race 2. He was right to say that simply inverting the field for Race 2 would have been much more fair -- as well as potentially more exciting for the fans. But he probably could have expressed his feelings more diplomatically.

• Winner -- Scott Dixon. Dixon drove beautifully all night and finished second in both races. He also came up with perhaps the best solution to the Race 2 starting order quandary: award bonus points for the number of cars passed. Maybe next year?

• Winners -- Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves. Power's Team Penske colleagues both kept their cool and notched solid finishes at Texas -- sixth and third for Briscoe, 10th and fourth for Castroneves. Helio in particular needed a decent result to stabilize his season and put himself back in the frame of mind needed to again challenge for race wins after a horrible start to his 2011 campaign.

• Winner -- Marco Andretti. By finishing sixth in the second race, Andretti matched Franchitti as the biggest position gainer of the night with 21 cars passed. He was Andretti Autosport's top finisher in both races, albeit a lowly 13th place in Race 1.

• Winner -- KV Racing Technology. Before the races, almost no one would have guessed that KVRT would pack up after the Texas twin bill with three intact race cars. But not only did the cars emerge unscathed, Takuma Sato matched a career best with a fifth-place finish in Race 1 and improved 13 places to 12th in Race 2, making him seventh on aggregate for the night. Crash-prone EJ Viso notched a pair of top-10s, and team leader Tony Kanaan claimed finishes of 11th and fifth, helping him maintain fifth place in the IndyCar Series standings.

• Loser -- Oriol Servia. Servia dropped from third to fourth in the points chase after a best finish of 15th place on Saturday night. Servia and Newman/Haas Racing weren't terribly confident about their Texas setup, and the Spaniard was called out by Franchitti for dangerous driving during the first race.

• Loser -- Danica Patrick. On a track where she normally runs well, Danica was not remotely competitive on Saturday night, and eighth place in the second race was a result that flattered to deceive. She also got into a war of words with rookie Jay Howard. Wonder how she'll like TMS in a stock car next year?

• Loser -- Justin Wilson. One of the best road racers in the IndyCar Series had a bad night on the Texas oval, as he was lapped in both races on the way to 17th and 21st places.

• Loser -- Graham Rahal. He suffered the only mechanical gremlin of the night when his Service Central/Ganassi entry had fuel feed problems. Given what happened in qualifying and the race at Indianapolis, did the Ganassi guys simply fail to put enough fuel in the car?

• Losers -- Wade Cunningham and Charlie Kimball. The rookies caused the only full-course caution of the night with their crash late in the first race.

• Winners -- IndyCar Series fans. Whether they were at the track or home watching on TV, they got a heck of a show. A pair of them, in fact.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A few random thoughts about current happenings in the Izod IndyCar Series …

• Despite a lot of prerace complaints and predictions of doom from the drivers, double-wide restarts were a rousing success in the Indianapolis 500. The action was frantic and only one accident could really be blamed on the new procedure.

• I thought the crowd and the atmosphere were the best at the Indy 500 since 1995, the last year before the open-wheel split. Ten years ago, the 500 had fallen to number three status at IMS behind the Brickyard 400 and the F1 US Grand Prix; now the 500 is back to being the Speedway's unquestioned No. 1 event.

• This is the first Indy 500 in memory that still has people buzzing a week later. J.R. Hildebrand handled his loss with class and it will be interesting to see if a full-time ride develops for 500 winner Dan Wheldon -- or at least something for some of the remaining ovals on the schedule.

• What a heartbreaker for the National Guard to see both Hildebrand and Dale Earnhardt Jr. lose races in the last corner of the last lap on the same day.

• Anyone else out there think that the Indy 500 Victory Banquet is must-see TV? Entertaining for all the wrong reasons.

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Donald Miralle/Getty ImagesDrivers are usually tense enough over running one race at super-fast Texas Motor Speedway. What will they think about two in one night?

• Speaking of TV, it was nice to see the Nielsen rating for the Indy 500 actually increase for a change, from a 3.6 in 2010 to a 4.0.

• Gotta say I'm looking forward to this weekend's twin 275-kilometer races at Texas Motor Speedway. But I'm sure the drivers really aren't. The stress of one race a year at TMS is more than enough.

• Would Wheldon rather be in a race car instead of the TV booth at Texas on Saturday night? Would his answer be the same if he was hooked up to a polygraph?

• We've heard for a couple of months that the oval track surface at Twin Ring Motegi was damaged by the Japanese earthquake, so I think INDYCAR's decision to race on the TRM road course Sept. 18 is a good compromise. Meanwhile, Moto GP riders are lobbying to have the Oct. 9 Japanese Grand Prix canceled because they are concerned about radiation levels.

• Who's happiest that the crucial Japanese round of the IndyCar Series championship has been switched from an oval to a road course? Will Power, for sure. The 2011 IndyCar schedule now includes 10 road races and only seven ovals, and Power has dominated the series in road racing for the last year and a half.

• The Motegi event will mark the last appearance for the eight-year old Dallara IC03 chassis in road racing trim. I bet souvenir hunters will find some interesting stuff being scrapped after the Japanese round by teams that don't want to drag it all back home.

• Back at home, construction has finally started on the Dallara factory in Speedway, Indiana, that will assemble the 2012 Indy car. The first cars for testing this fall will be produced in Italy, and Indianapolis 500 winning team Bryan Herta Autosport has landed the contract to handle the initial development of the "Indy car of Tomorrow."

INDIANAPOLIS -- For the 33 drivers in the Indianapolis 500 field, Carb Day 2011 lacked drama.

And that's just the way they like it.

In ideal cool, cloudy conditions, the field completed an incident-free hour of practice. Now everyone gets to recalibrate for race day, when temperatures are expected to approach 90 degrees for the second year in a row.

Last year, a hot race played into the hands of Target Ganassi Racing -- specifically Dario Franchitti, who dominated the 500 on the way to victory.

The Target team certainly looked good this year on Carb Day, as Scott Dixon and Franchitti ran first and third.

"I love Carb Day," Franchitti said. "You can have the best car all month, then show up on Carb Day and the thing is just terrible. I've had one smooth Carb Day in however many years I've done this race, and that was last year, when I parked the thing and went to my bus happy.

"We were 1-2 on Carb Day and the race was hot too, and it just put our cars in the sweet spot," he added. "Had it been the same temperature as before, we might not have had the same advantage or any advantage at all. We may have had to change the setup completely. That's one of the tough things about Indy -- you practice, practice, practice at the same temperature, and if it changes for the race you have to start over again. That's where the experience comes in, from the team or from the driver."

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Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesAlex Tagliani starts from the pole on Sunday, and he was second in Friday's Carb Day practice.

Dixon has been a tick quicker than Franchitti all week and that trend continued on Carb Day. The 2008 Indy winner's quick lap of 225.474 mph was a full 0.7 mph faster than pole qualifier Alex Tagliani and Franchitti.

"It felt good, but we'll see what the weather brings," Dixon said. "It's always more difficult in the race. If you're in traffic it's a lot more difficult to stay close to the car, because you get less grip from the tires and less grip from the wings."

AJ Foyt Racing enjoyed a productive Carb Day, placing Vitor Meira fourth and controversial addition Ryan Hunter-Reay seventh. Meanwhile Team Penske's fastest representative was three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves in ninth. Will Power was 12th fastest and Ryan Briscoe was 15th, all in the 223 mph bracket.

Dixon tabbed Tagliani as the dark horse to watch on Sunday.

"Obviously Tag has done a hell of a job this month and it's good to see their team [Sam Schmidt Motorsports] working so well," Dixon said. "You never know until you get to the race, but he's a good friend and I'm glad to see what he's achieved. He's put together a team that can mix it up with the big boys."

The unquestioned feel-good story of the month, Tagliani vowed to create a happy ending.

"It's been an amazing week," Tagliani said. "Fortunately we rolled the car out of the trailer fast and every day we were strong. It's a pleasure to drive a very competitive car.

"Seems to me it's just unreal. It's too good to be true, but I'd like to think we deserve it. Maybe we did everything better than everything else and hopefully it will continue."

The history of the Indianapolis 500 includes countless episodes of David triumphing over Goliath. Can Tagliani add to that legacy on the 100th anniversary of the great race?

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Two rounds into the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season, the jury has delivered a split verdict on INDYCAR's newly implemented double-file restarts.

Fans seem to have enjoyed the wheel-banging action, rising to their feet for every restart in the season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and tuning in on television for INDYCAR's best TV rating for a race other than the Indianapolis 500 in more than three years.

On the other hand, even after modifications for last weekend's event at Barber Motorsport Park, some competitors have grumbled about the restart procedures and team owners can't be especially happy about the bills they are paying for wrecked cars.

But looking back at St. Petersburg and Barber, the double-wide restarts have been mostly positive for the series. Both races featured first-lap accidents, but they occurred on the actual start of the events, not a restart. Some drivers have taken advantage, while others have fallen asleep at the wheel and fallen victim.

INDYCAR chief steward Brian Barnhart convened a driver's meeting at Barber that, in a series first, was opened up to the media. In the meeting, Barnhart revealed that the drivers would be allowed to start accelerating earlier when approaching a restart (325 yards instead of 200 at St. Pete) and that the restart speed would be increased.

Reaction to the changes from the drivers was generally upbeat.

"We probably got a better exchange of ideas and information, and a better understanding of what the needs are from both points of view than we ever have," said 2008 IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon, who was crashed out during the chaotic race start at St. Petersburg. "But the drivers need to actually listen to the changes.

"The problem is, when the green flag drops, we all get a bit stupid."

"It's a learning process for everyone involved," Barnhart said. "We've made a pretty radical change from how things have been done for over a decade. They're going to have to adapt and improvise."

Both races were marred by a series of full-course cautions following accidents on restarts, lending credibility to the old adage "cautions breed cautions." But some drivers were keeping all four wheels on their cars and made considerable progress through the field as a result of their aggression and the misfortune of others.

At Barber, Tony Kanaan gained 10 places on the race start and the first restart after a poor qualifying performance left the Brazilian starting from the back of the 26-car field.

"We stayed out of trouble, and especially nowadays with the double-file restarts, that's what you've got to do," Kanaan said. "For the fans and the racing, the restarts looked more exciting.

"I still believe we need to try to take care of each other a little more. I mean, every restart had a crash, so it's not a coincidence. But every one had a lot of passing too, so it's a trade there. It's 50-50 right now."

Championship leader Will Power has run at the front of the field in both races, leading at Barber from start to finish. He was therefore not involved in the fracas breaking out behind him, but he's still not a fan of the new restarts.

"Talking to the majority of the drivers, we don't like it because of the encounters it causes, but at the end of the day we can make it work by giving each other respect and room," Power said. "Maybe if we go a little earlier it will spread things out. The more you spread them out, the safer it is."

One thing everyone is in agreement about: double-file restarts could produce mass destruction at this weekend's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, thanks to the long Shoreline Drive straight leading into a very tight first-gear first corner.

Rumors persist that INDYCAR officials will shelve the two-wide restarts this weekend because of the layout of the first turn on the Long Beach street course.

"The restarts are my biggest worry at that track, into Turn 1," Power said. "It's going to be worse than St. Pete."

"I agree with that," added Dixon. "I think the style of the Barber track lends itself to a cleaner style. I think Long Beach is going to be a different story."