LEEDS, Ala. -- Team Penske, not surprisingly, set the pace in the Izod IndyCar Series' sole road-racing open test of the 2011 season.

Will Power led the first of two days of testing at Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham, then ran a close second to teammate and defending Barber race winner Helio Castroneves on Day 2. The two Penske entries were separated by just two hundredths of a second, with Ryan Briscoe claiming fourth place for the team.

Scott Dixon was third quickest for Target Chip Ganassi Racing, while Newman/Haas Racing turned in perhaps the most surprising performance of the test by claiming fifth (Oriol Servia) and seventh (rookie James Hinchcliffe) positions. Servia revealed that he will contest the full 2011 season for the Chicago-based team, while Indy Lights graduate Hinchcliffe admitted that his race to find funding to compete in the IndyCar Series this year will go right down to the wire.

The top 12 drivers lapped within a second of Castroneves' 1 minute, 11.9434-second benchmark.

"The field is so competitive and we have some new teams up at the top giving us a hard time," observed Castroneves. "My teammates Ryan and Will are also pushing each other, but I'm glad we were able to put the No. 3 up at the top at the end of the day."

With IndyCar's spec Dallara-Honda package now entering its ninth season of use, most of the top teams have extracted every bit of potential from the 2003 design. But teams with less experience with the car are still making big gains.

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Nick Laham/Getty ImagesDario Franchitti, left, didn't like what he saw at Barber, but Scott Dixon was fairly pleased.

"The car has been decent, remaining in the top three both days," Dixon said. "But we're just going through the motions and making necessary adjustments before we start the season in St. Pete."

The rest of Chip Ganassi's four entries weren't so close to the top of the times, with two-time defending series champion Dario Franchitti clocking in 11th fastest. Graham Rahal and rookie Charlie Kimball were 14th and 20th, respectively.

"I think we struggled from the moment we got here," said Franchitti, who crashed in practice during the 2010 Barber race meeting. "Scott has been fine, but we need to work on our setup. It's up to myself and the engineers on the Target team to get this figured out."

Servia drove for Newman/Haas in 2005, finishing second in the Champ Car World Series for Carl Haas' team. But the native of Catalonia hasn't been able to land a full-time ride in the unified IndyCar Series until now.

"I'm very happy with the team and myself," Servia said. "When you are a year out of the car, of course you still think you can drive but it is just so great knowing it is true. There is still a lot to come from myself and from the car. We progressed big stages to get where we are and there is still more.

"Everybody is super motivated," he added. "James was super helpful all day yesterday and today with him knowing the track and I really hope we can be teammates."

Second-year Indy car driver Takuma Sato rounded out the top six for KV Racing Technology, while Marco Andretti (eighth) was the top runner for the reconstituted Andretti Autosport team. Danica Patrick was 12th overall while the team's new recruit Mike Conway crashed on the second day.

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Nick Laham/Getty ImagesSebastien Bourdais is looking for a deal to run the road and street races on the IndyCar Series circuit.

With the exception of Hinchcliffe, IndyCar's 2011 rookie class struggled on the tricky Barber road course, with five of the six first-year drivers on hand bringing up the rear of the 24 entries. JR Hildebrand damaged his Panther Racing entry late on Day 1 and was not able to take part in the second day of testing.

Four-time Champ Car series champion Sebastien Bourdais, running for Dale Coyne Racing, was 18th fastest. The Frenchman said he is close to an agreement to run the road racing portion of the championship for Coyne.

"We started, really, from nowhere. The car was really bad and we had a bit of a tough time," Bourdais said. "But towards the end, we started to get a little closer. We still have a lot of work to do, but it's encouraging because we made some progress."

Tipped as a championship favorite, Power said he's not surprised by the closeness of the IndyCar field in testing.

"I think this will be the toughest season in history -- it's already shaping up to be that way," the Australian said. "There are a lot of good drivers in good cars and maybe some good drivers in not-so-good cars. It's great to see a whole field of good drivers and there's not one person that shouldn't be out there."

The opening race of the 2011 IndyCar Series from St. Petersburg, Fla., will be broadcast on ABC on March 27.

Darrell Ingham/Allsport/Getty ImagesLas Vegas Motor Speedway will host the IndyCar Series' championship finale Oct. 16.

INDIANAPOLIS -- INDYCAR finally confirmed on Tuesday that its 2011 season finale will be contested Oct. 16 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Of course, Las Vegas is known for (among other things) its quickie marriages, and Indy car racing has had its share of brief affairs in Sin City. The question is whether open-wheel racing's latest spin of the Vegas roulette wheel will result in a lasting, mutually profitable relationship.

USAC, CART, IRL and Champ Car all staged races in Vegas over the years. Bobby Unser won a one-off USAC tilt at the defunct Stardust Raceway in 1968, but Indy car racing disappeared from the scene until CART picked up the crumbs left behind by Formula One in 1984 to stage a one-and-done event in the parking lot of Caesar's Palace won by Mario Andretti.

Las Vegas Motor Speedway was one of the Indy Racing League's original ovals in 1996, but like many venues new to open-wheel racing during the CART/IRL war, it failed to attract a large enough audience to maintain staying power. Switching from a fall to a spring date failed to improve the commercial viability of the event, which was dropped from the IRL schedule after the 2000 season.

Four years later, Champ Car stepped into the void for a self-promoted September date at LVMS added to the NASCAR Truck Series weekend. Oval races were a rarity for Champ Car, but that still didn't bring many unique fans to the gate and the Trucks were generally considered the event's headliners.

Champ Car took one more bite of the Vegas apple in 2007 when it held its season opener on a new street circuit in the old downtown area. There was plenty of controversy about shutting down city streets, and again local interest was minimal. While the street course was praised as one of the best of its kind, poor attendance contributed heavily to the event's lack of staying power.

So why could returning to Las Vegas be a smart thing for INDYCAR? Obviously, it's one of the most prestigious markets in America, and NASCAR and LVMS have proved that racing events can be successful there.

Another positive is the fact that Las Vegas will host the Izod IndyCar Series championship finale, which has gone right down to the wire the past five years. Unless recent form is upset, fans are going to get a tension-filled event with significant championship implications.

The announcement of a $5 million prize for any non-IndyCar driver who manages to win the Las Vegas race could spur interest, though it may be difficult to find "name" drivers able to participate and teams in championship contention are unlikely to want to be distracted from their primary effort by running an extra car. Formula One is set to race in Korea that weekend, but the NASCAR Sprint Cup's race at Charlotte Motor Speedway will be the night before the IndyCar finale, theoretically opening the door for Cup driver participation.

Finally, given their strengthening relationship with INDYCAR, it's reasonable to expect that track owners Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports Inc. will put a massive promotional effort into the event.

The Truck series race has done reasonably well on its own as a stand- alone event. And with a much greater level of promotion than in the past, it's not a stretch to conclude that Indy cars will enjoy a far larger audience than they have ever seen before in Las Vegas.

For the future, INDYCAR CEO Randy Bernard has shared his dream of ending the season with a double-header weekend featuring a race at the LVMS oval and a street race, ideally on or near the Las Vegas Strip. That would allow INDYCAR to crown both road racing and oval champions, as well as an overall champion, at the season finale.

A street race on The Strip may be a pipe dream, but Bernard enjoyed a very strong relationship with Las Vegas city officials during his tenure as head of the Professional Bull Riders circuit and that could play strongly in INDYCAR's favor.

Given Bernard's successful track record during his year on the job with INDYCAR, anything is possible.

Courtesy of PacWest RacingJohn Anderson, left, talked engineer Allen McDonald into working for him, something McDonald didn't expect to happen when he got the call.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Not many people involved in auto racing don't have at least one enemy. But John Anderson bucked that trend.

Anderson, who died in Indianapolis on Thursday at age 65, was one of racing's good guys, a larger than life character who made everyone he came in contact with smile or laugh.

The native of Australia came to America in 1981 to work for VDS Racing and held management roles for several U.S.-based teams, including A.J Foyt Racing, Team Green/Andretti Green Racing and De Ferran Motorsports. But he was best known as the heart and soul of Bruce McCaw's PacWest Racing Group, the team he built and led from 1993-2000.

Anderson was one of PacWest's first employees, and he helped grow the team into a powerhouse in the CART-sanctioned Indy car series within a few years. PacWest's most successful season came in 1997, when the team won four races with drivers Mauricio Gugelmin and Mark Blundell.

After leaving PacWest in 2000, Anderson joined Team Green, where he was part of championship and Indy 500 winning seasons with drivers Dan Wheldon (2005) and Dario Franchitti (2007).

After leading Gil de Ferran's successful startup team in the ALMS sports car series, "Ando" eventually moved to North Carolina and was set to manage the still-born USF1 Formula One team before the effort folded.

But Anderson's heart was always in Indy cars, and it was almost impossible to find anyone he worked with over the years who had a bad thing to say about him.

"Ando was an incredibly solid part of the team," said PacWest owner McCaw. "He had good focus and good discipline and I think he was a very good judge of talent. He really understood the chemistry part of the dynamics between individuals, so I think he was a very solid leader and he was obviously likeable and fun. I give Ando a huge amount of credit for a lot of our success."

Gugelmin also has positive recollections about his time working with Anderson.

"John was always a great guy, a great personality to work with," said the Brazilian. "He was a real racer and an emotional guy who was down to earth and probably had the biggest heart I've seen in racing. He kept a lot of the fires under control at PacWest. As a person, he was one of the key team members."

Anderson kept in touch with racing people in his homeland and was responsible for bringing Scott Dixon to PacWest, initially to race in Indy Lights (where he won the championship in 2000) and eventually to the CART series.

When Dixon won the 2001 CART race at Nazareth Speedway at age 20, he was the youngest ever winner of an Indy car race. That mark was since eclipsed by Marco Andretti and later Graham Rahal.

"Ando was a huge influence on me," Dixon said. "He was one of the great people at PacWest because he was such a straight shooter and he didn't beat around the bush. He was a huge part of that team and things kind of turned to junk after he left."

Throughout Anderson's tenure at PacWest, office manager Colleen Howerton was his go-to person, in charge of many of the behind-the-scenes administrative aspects of the team including payroll and travel.

"I have a lot of respect for Ando -- always did, always will," she said. "He was a tremendous leader and all around person. He was smart and had more passion in him than a lot of people I ever worked with or worked for. I can't say anything bad about him because I don't think there is much bad you can say about John Anderson. If you had the worst day in the world, he would come in and say 'Hey mate!' and lift your spirits."

Russell Cameron succeeded Anderson as the leader of PacWest's racing operations, but was sad to see his former boss go.

"Ando is the true definition of a mentor, in my opinion," Cameron said. "He wasn't the kind of guy who would selfishly hold on to something he created. He tried to make sure that there were people raised up through the organization. PacWest was really built by John Anderson. He had everybody's full respect, and that is one of the most important things. He was part of the group, one of the guys."

Though he ultimately achieved his greatest success elsewhere, Ando used to look back with extreme fondness on his seven years with PacWest.

"We jumped in at the deep end, obviously," he told me in 2005. "There was nothing in that workshop when we got in there but some very willing people. It was like working in a phone box; you could touch one end of the shop and the other without moving your feet. The satisfying thing was not only to see it grow, but the people themselves and the commitment they had."

When Anderson joined Team Green, he was soon followed by PacWest engineering director Allen McDonald. The pair teamed up to lead Franchitti's 2007 championship-winning campaign.

"I had worked in Formula One for 12 years and was with Arrows in 1996 when this strange Australian bloke rang me up," McDonald recalled. "To be honest, when I went out there, I really didn't have any great intention of doing it. I couldn't see uprooting my family and the whole bit on almost like a whim. But John was such a great bloke and PacWest just seemed like such a nice organization with such nice people. I thought it had a decent chance of success, so I ended up saying, 'Ok, I'll do it.' "

"I don't think I'll ever again feel the kind of attachment I felt toward that team," he added. "Maybe this was one of its faults, but it was very much a family. Everybody loved working there, and that was all down to John Anderson."

Anderson was such an ingrained part of PacWest lore that the team created a dictionary of "Ando-speak" to help newbies decipher his colorful Australian colloquialisms.

He often referred to people as "shag," "slug," or "slick."

"As long as he didn't call you a ferret, you were OK!" laughed Howerton. "If you were a ferret, you were on the down-hill slide!

"Ando was simply one of the best people in racing."

Updates on a couple of talking points in the Izod IndyCar Series:

Team owner revolt?

A pair of stories on SpeedTV.com made it sound like the IndyCar Series was on the brink of a team owner revolt potentially as cataclysmic as the splits that rocked Indy car racing in 1978 and 1996.

Reports of an owners-only meeting at Infineon Raceway in which much displeasure about the way the series was handling the introduction of the Dallara-built 2012 chassis were accurate. But following another owners' meeting at Chicagoland Speedway a week later in which IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard and new car project manager Tony Cotman were present, everyone presented a unified front.

The owners are rightfully concerned about making multimillion-dollar outlays for new equipment at a time when open-wheel racing is suffering significant economic woes. Although costs for the new car (and the new formula turbo engine) will be reduced by about 40 percent from current prices, buying even discounted new equipment is more expensive than soldiering on with the old.

Bernard said he expected some backlash from the design-by-committee process that resulted in Dallara being awarded the basic chassis contract.

"My job as CEO of IndyCar is to appease [the team owners] as much as anyone else," said Bernard. "I hope they know they can come to me, and sometimes I'm going to get some butt-chewings, no doubt. This is one of those times when they had some concerns. They called a meeting, brought me in, asked me where I stood on it, and we walked away like we should have -- together.

"Every one of these team owners has millions and millions of dollars invested. If I made one mistake in this entire process, before we announced the car, I should have had a project manager named right there. I should have named Tony Cotman right there."

Dennis Reinbold of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing spoke for the team owners' group and played down the notion of a revolt by owners.

"It's highly exaggerated and greatly inaccurate and that's why we wanted to have this discussion -- to clarify that," Reinbold said. "The other misnomer is that you can't get team owners and officials to agree on certain things. But that's what we ended up doing. We sat in a room with about 30 guys and had a good conversation that went very well. And we all agreed on things."

Reinbold claimed the owners are satisfied that they will have a significant voice in the development of the new car.

"We're at an infancy stage of determining what this new chassis is going to be and what it's going to look like and that sort of thing," he said. "So this is a critical time, which is why we wanted to talk to Tony about the product development so he could have our input. It's still got some questions surrounding it, and we had concerns. Randy and Tony listened to those and handled that very well. We will work with Dallara to try to put some things into the new chassis that we would like to see and that they would like to see.

"Next weekend we're planning to reconvene with Tony because he will have more information to share. I think he has a lot of us who can help him. We have a lot of questions; he doesn't have all the answers right now, but we'll develop those answers together."

End for Chicago and Indy?

There is no question that Chicagoland Speedway has produced some of the most memorable races in IndyCar Series history.

Saturday night was no exception, with a photo finish and pack racing reminiscent of a NASCAR restrictor-plate event at Daytona or Talledega.

That kind of racing is not popular among NASCAR drivers, and 30 mph faster and with exposed wheels, it's even more dangerous and stressful for Indy car drivers.

"It puts on a great show," said race winner Dario Franchitti. "The fans, I think, really love it. I'd just like a bit more control, I guess, to be in the drivers' hands. It's just an unfortunate fact of life. These cars are maybe too quick and the tracks weren't designed with our cars in mind.

"The trouble with this style of racing is sometimes it's either how brave or how stupid you want to be. Sometimes it's not what you do or the person next to you, it's the person three up or something, or the backmarkers. I'm just glad everybody got out of here in one piece tonight."

It sounds like Franchitti and the other drivers won't have to worry about returning to Chicagoland. With less than a third of Chicagoland's 75,000 seats filled Saturday night, it appears that Indy car racing's 10-year stint in Joliet is done.

Whether that's the result of a lack of interested Indy car fans in the region or a lack of promotional effort on the part of the track (and its owner, the NASCAR-affiliated International Speedway Corp.) will never be known.

The underlying theme is that IndyCar's business relationship with ISC is finished. ISC tracks host four IndyCar events, including the 2010 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and all are notable for poor attendance.

Chicagoland Speedway president Craig Rust indicated that the track and the series are far away from agreeing on a sanctioning fee, and Bernard seems much more interested in reviving an event at the Milwaukee Mile.

"I want that event bad," Bernard said.

"Chicagoland and ISC have their primary own objectives, and IndyCar has their primary objectives. I'm not sure we're all on the same page right now. But we still have a great relationship with ISC."

Simona De Silvestro is best known as the unwitting victim of a shocking display of incompetence by the IndyCar Safety Team at Texas Motor Speedway.

But she's rapidly making a name for herself as the fastest and best female driver in the IZOD IndyCar Series.

The evidence isn't necessarily there so far in terms of results; De Silvestro's eighth-place run Sunday in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course was the best finish of her rookie IndyCar season.

But stand trackside at a road course and watch the 21-year-old native of Switzerland in action and you'll soon be convinced.

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Robert Laberge/Getty ImagesSimona De Silvestro is showing she can run with the big dogs on road courses.

The "Swiss Miss" hustles her car in a way that the more famous (or infamous) female racers in the IndyCar Series can only dream of. The sight of the low budget No. 78 HVM Racing entry giving top stars like Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe of the mighty Ganassi and Penske teams all they could handle at Mid-Ohio was highly refreshing in an era in which style matters more than substance and T-shirt sales trump talent.

Comparing apples to apples, De Silvestro has out-qualified (i.e. driven faster than) Danica Patrick in seven of 12 IndyCar races this season, including 6-2 on road courses, on which driver skill is a much bigger factor than on oval tracks. Patrick has a 3-1 qualifying advantage over De Silvestro on ovals, but the one track where SDS ran quicker than DP was Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where once again, the driver counts more than the car.

Those are amazing accomplishments for several reasons:

1. De Silvestro is 12 races into her Indy car career, and until May, had never raced on an oval. Patrick is in her sixth year in the series.

2. Simona and the HVM/Team Stargate Worlds team have maybe 10 percent of the budget and engineering resources of Patrick and Andretti Autosport.

3. HVM's best car was destroyed in the Texas oil fire that generated so much attention and heaped scorn upon the almost comically inept attempt to rescue De Silvestro from her burning car. Since then, Simona has been driving one of the heavier, original Dallara chassis built way back in 2003.

De Silvestro was a five-time race winner -- four of those coming last season -- who should have claimed the Atlantic Championship title in 2009, but was crashed out of the season finale. She's looked better with every race as she gained experience in her rookie IndyCar season.

In her past three starts, she finished ninth at Toronto, qualified an excellent seventh at Edmonton, and put together her best overall weekend at Mid-Ohio, where she consistently ran with the series' top guns.

"It's pretty cool," she told reporters after the Mid-Ohio race. "We had a problem with the clutch in qualifying and maybe could have started more up front than 10th. In the middle of the race, I made a mistake on one restart and Dixon got by me. But I can live with my mistake and I think we can be really happy with P8 [eighth-place finish] because the car was running strong and we were keeping up with the big boys.

"We've been pretty quick everywhere, but the results weren't showing," she added. "Now they are finally here, so I'm really happy about that. If I polish myself out there and not make the little mistakes I do, we should be all right."

Because she's not American and she's unlikely to be tabbed for the "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit edition anytime soon, De Silvestro is never going to achieve the level of popularity and pop culture cache that Patrick has cultivated.

But she's already demonstrated more potential on the track and earned far greater respect from her peers. And in racing, that's ultimately what really matters.

Helio Castroneves' critics sometimes blast him for being a phony, but there was nothing fake or scripted about his response to the controversial blocking penalty that cost him a victory in the Honda Edmonton Indy a couple of weeks ago.

The 35-year-old Brazilian driver pretty much went berserk, launching into an expletive-laden tirade while grabbing burly IndyCar Series security chief Charles Burns by the collar. Burns, a former state trooper whose body appears to have been chiseled from granite, burst into laughter when the slender Castroneves looked like he was picking a fight he surely couldn't win.

Now 10 days later and a $60,000 fine lighter, Castroneves talked about the controversial call and his very real reaction to it for the first time while in California promoting the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, set for Aug. 22 at Infineon Raceway.

"First of all, the rules are very subjective and there have been inconsistent calls over many years," Castroneves told reporters. "I was penalized in 2008, and since then it's been very inconsistent. That's one of the reasons that it's becoming hard and that's why I don't agree [with the Edmonton penalty] because it happened during the race, the same thing, and the calls were not made the same way.

"I know it's a tough job, but certainly I do feel this is a great opportunity to change the rules and be clear to everybody else," he continued. "That's why I don't agree, but again, I have no excuse to react the way I did. I'm an emotional person and, unfortunately, I let my emotions take over. I want to be clear: People might not understand, but I wasn't confronting any officials; I basically was asking them to call [IndyCar Series chief steward] Brian Barnhart and ask him why he made that call. It's no excuse to have acted like I acted. I apologize again and I'm ready to move on and go to mid-Ohio."

Castroneves is still convinced that he did not contravene any regulations in Edmonton, even the unwritten rule drawing an imaginary line down the center of the track to create a passing/no blocking zone that Barnhart discussed in the pre-race driver's meeting. While many IndyCar drivers applauded Barnhart's call, the vast majority of fans remain convinced that Castroneves did not change his line to intentionally block his pursuing teammate, Will Power, and that the defensive line he took into the corner was a clean racing move.

"I never intended to give [Power] an easy way, let's put it that way," Castroneves said. "I gave plenty of room for him on the inside and outside. I don't think I moved the lane, but again the call is already made, the punishment has been made, and it is what it is. I'm ready to move on. I am disappointed, but there's nothing I can do right now."

Edmonton was the second time that Castroneves lost a race due to an official's judgment that he was blocking. At the 2008 Detroit Grand Prix, on a much narrower street course, Castroneves made a much more blatant swerve that did not allow Justin Wilson's clearly faster car past.

"He came over, then he came over more until the point where I had to just back out," Wilson said of Castroneves' Detroit chop after the race. "I even braked. It was pretty severe, and I guess they figured it deserved a penalty."

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Jonathan Ferrey/Getty ImagesHelio Castroneves insists he won't change the way he drives in the wake of a penalty at Edmonton that cost him the victory.

The difference is, on that occasion, 16 laps remained in the race and the call went out to Castroneves to cede the position to Wilson or risk being black flagged. He did that within a couple of laps, and finished second in the race to Wilson. At Edmonton, the disputed call came with less than three laps to go, giving Castroneves and Team Penske barely 120 seconds to decide whether to respond to the black flag that the No. 3 car was duly shown.

Castroneves crossed the line first, but the checkered flag was held and waved at Scott Dixon, who appeared to the crowd and the television audience to have finished second. It was a scenario similar to the 1995 Indianapolis 500, when Scott Goodyear refused to heed the black flag after he was judged to have passed the pace car on a restart with 10 laps to go.

In that race, USAC officials simply stopped scoring Goodyear's car after he failed to pit for a drive-through penalty and he was classified 14th with 195 of 200 laps completed, even though he appeared to have won the race on the track.

In his discussion with reporters about the Edmonton incident, Castroneves claimed the penalty and the loss of the victory won't cause him to change the way he drives -- which is bad news, because Castroneves has long been known as the most blatant blocker in the IndyCar Series.

"I have to understand the probation a little bit more," he hedged. "I'm not sure if it's because of the actions off the track or because of the black flag. So, I've got to be more clear. Again, sometimes the communication doesn't come very clear to me, I guess.

"I'm going to drive the same way I was driving in Edmonton -- to win," he added. "I just hope that we have more common sense and consistent calls, to be honest. The biggest challenge and frustration is the inconsistent calls, and the rules need to be clarified. Unfortunately, the rules aren't very clear, and it makes all the drivers not know what's going to happen.

"Hopefully we have a little more understanding on that, but I'm going to continue driving like I always did."

In a week when IndyCar Series management came under fire for what has been perceived as an excessive or unfair ruling against Helio Castroneves, the fact perennial backmarker Milka Duno once again escaped serious sanction from the league was basically ignored.

Prior to the Honda Edmonton Indy weekend, the Indy Racing League announced that Duno has been placed on probation until Dec. 31 for "not consistently meeting minimal performance standards."

AP Photo/AJ MastMilka Duno has yet to crack the top 20 through 10 IndyCar Series races in 2010.

A news release from the IRL stated that Duno "requires immediate and substantial improvement to her driving during the remaining events on the 2010 schedule," adding "if the improvements are not met, the league may impose other penalties at its discretion."

Duno has been consistently the slowest driver at every IndyCar Series road race, usually by a comically large margin. In fact, Duno is often slower in a 650-horsepower Indy car than most of the field for the Indy Lights training series, which features cars with only 425 horsepower.

At Edmonton, for example, Duno was 6.3 seconds slower than the fastest practice lap turned by Castroneves. More significantly, she was 4.6 seconds slower than the next slowest entry, the A.J. Foyt Racing machine driven by Vitor Meira. Comparing apples to apples, she was 5 seconds a lap slower than her Dale Coyne Racing teammate Alex Lloyd.

"I don't pay attention to what others say," Duno told reporters at Edmonton. "It's a very competitive championship and it is very tough, especially for the people like me that was not there before on many tracks."

Thanks to multimillion-dollar support from Venezuelan oil giant Citgo, Duno is tackling the full IndyCar Series schedule for the first time. She has made a total of 37 IndyCar starts in her career.

Team owner Dale Coyne is in a tough position because he needs the substantial sponsorship funds that Duno brings from Citgo to keep his team afloat and run Lloyd's more competitive car. So perhaps it wasn't surprising that he defended his latest rent-a-racer.

"She hasn't done street circuits, so we knew the challenge was bigger on street tracks," Coyne told SI.com at Edmonton. "In racing there will be somebody in the front and somebody in the back. But the thing with Milka is she is the fourth-most popular driver, she has made 3 billion impressions, her lines are long at the autograph stand, and she is always smiling and cordial with the fans. She is a great spokesperson for women and she is the only driver that touches the Hispanic market -- she has done a lot of that in the United States."

That's all fine and well, but when a driver is so much slower than the rest of the field, he or she represents a hazard to other drivers -- especially given Duno's apparent inability to use the rearview mirrors mounted on her car to see rapidly approaching traffic from behind.

She's gotten in the way of every other driver in the IndyCar Series field, and the true professionals in the series are getting tired of her constantly affecting the natural course of the race. She's been involved in heavily publicized incidents with Danica Patrick and Ryan Hunter-Reay, and after more than three years of driving Indy cars, she shows no sign of either getting faster on the track or learning to allow quicker cars past.

"She may not be a moron; she just doesn't know how to drive race cars," snapped Hunter-Reay, after he was severely blocked by Duno in qualifying at Watkins Glen International.

"You don't want to see that car and sponsor go away, because then a lot of guys are out of work," observed two-time series champion Dario Franchitti. "But there's a certain level of competency that's not there, unfortunately."

What is even more frustrating to Duno's competitors is that she doesn't seem to believe that she is slow or in the way. And even if she did realize that she's a rolling roadblock, she wouldn't care or do anything about it.

I had a memorable exchange with Duno in February 2009, when I tactfully suggested that perhaps she didn't deserve the opportunity to test a car for Newman/Haas Racing and questioned her ability to be successful, even driving for one of American open-wheel racing's legendary top teams.

"Yes, well, there's only two peoples ... [journalists] Robin Miller and Curt Cavin," she stammered. "I'm not thinking about what they say. They really don't understand about racing and it's not interesting for me what is the opinion that they have."

New IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard is a pretty savvy guy, and he has not only noticed Duno's lack of speed on the track, he is aware that allowing Duno to compete in Indy cars damages his series' worldwide reputation.

"It's very, very important for the credibility of the series that fans know our drivers are the best in the world," Bernard said during a media availability at Watkins Glen. "If someone can't maintain and compete, I really think that's what we have the ladder system for."

Under the terms of her probation, Duno is expected to lap within 107 percent of the leader's speed. At Edmonton, that calculates to a 66-second lap compared to Castroneves' pace-setting 61.66-second effort. Duno's best time was 67.93 seconds.

For the upcoming race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Duno will be expected to lap within 4.5 seconds of the expected pole time. Last year, she was almost 8 seconds off the pace, and visibly 30 to 40 mph slower through Mid-Ohio's daunting Turn 1.

Due to the sponsorship she brings and her reputed popularity, IndyCar officials have been slow to respond to driver complaints requesting that Duno be banned from the series. Now that guidelines have been publicly put in place that she will surely be unable to attain, it appears Milka Duno's Indy car career is finally near the end -- and not a moment too soon.

Let's hope that her erratic and uncompetitive driving doesn't land someone in a hospital before the end of the season.

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- This year's Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen celebrated 50 years of top-level formula car competition at one of America's most famous road-racing venues, with a reasonably exciting Izod IndyCar Series race and a solid Fourth of July weekend camping crowd.

Yet Watkins Glen International is one of several IndyCar race venues believed to be "on the bubble," mainly because of a perceived lack of attention and promotion from track owner International Speedway Corp. Add in a new regime of Indy Racing League management that is taking a cold, hard, look at the bottom line, and it's easy to conclude that IndyCar racing could soon be extinct at WGI.

That's a sad prospect for anyone who loves road racing and proper natural-terrain road courses. In the United States, only Road America in Wisconsin rivals Watkins Glen as a test of road-racing bravery. They're both fast and fearsome tracks that should annually host America's top road-racing formula.

The Glen is probably in less danger of being dropped from the IndyCar schedule than ISC-owned ovals in Kansas City, Kan., and Homestead, Fla. If the decision rested solely with WGI President Michael Printup, the IRL would be back.

"We haven't even sat down and talked about it yet," Printup said. "These guys and girls race the hell out of this track, so I'm personally pushing very hard. The date is fine; I know we had some question about the date last year, but I'm ready to have this come back. It's just a business component of sitting down with the IRL."

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AP Photo/David DupreyWill Power's victory at Watkins Glen may be the last one by an IndyCar Series driver for a while.

Recently installed IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard was impressed with what he saw on his first visit to Watkins Glen. He hopes to make a decision about returning to the historic and popular venue within six weeks.

"This is a beautiful track," Bernard said. "The weather's perfect, and there's quite a lot of fans out there -- a lot of campers. I'd really like to find a way to continue to race here. But I'm held accountable for my bottom line, and I want to make sure each facility is held accountable with plenty of butts in the seats. I don't want to go anywhere where we don't have the full support of making the event successful.

"The key to me is to get 18 promoters behind us who really want to make the series grow to reignite open-wheel racing. That's one of my primary goals."

These decisions rarely rest with the participants, but none of the drivers in the IndyCar field would be happy to see Watkins Glen dropped from the schedule.

"We need tracks like this on the schedule," race winner Will Power said. "This is the nicest track we race on. You can pass here, and it's just a nice, flowing track with fast, banked corners. It's a real dream to drive, especially when the car is working.

"I'd be really disappointed if we don't come back here. It's such a great racetrack -- fantastic. It's got a lot of history as well."

Indeed, international road-racing competitions have taken place in greater Watkins Glen since 1948, with the first iteration of the current permanent circuit coming on board in 1961. Formula One lasted until 1980, but plans to have Indy car racing take over as the track's flagship event fell through, and Indy cars were absent from The Glen from 1982 to 2003.

Into the void stepped NASCAR, which staged its inaugural Bud at The Glen stock car road race in 1986. Like so many other communities in America, the village of Watkins Glen is now a NASCAR town.

And despite a fervent formula car following, it appears that Watkins Glen International could turn to being almost exclusively a NASCAR track.

Again.

The verdict from a jury of fans, participants and pundits says that last weekend's Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway was one of the best Izod IndyCar Series races in years.

Although Tony Kanaan ultimately won by more than four seconds, the Iowa race featured 16 lead changes among seven drivers -- the last when Kanaan nipped past longtime rival Helio Castroneves with 10 laps to go -- not to mention numerous prolonged wheel-to-wheel battles.

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AP Photo/Conrad SchmidtTony Kanaan ended a two-year victory drought Sunday in the Iowa Corn Indy 250.

"We need more short ovals, because this is the way to race," declared Kanaan. "You guys saw it and we proved that. I think the fans enjoyed it, and I think they're going to keep coming back if we keep racing like this."

TK's wish has been granted, because the Indy Racing League is set to announce that it will add New Hampshire Motor Speedway to the 2011 IndyCar Series schedule. What's more, the announcement is expected to be made at NHMS this Sunday, just a couple hours prior to the green flag for NASCAR's Lenox 301 Sprint Cup race.

The time and place of the announcement is intriguing, because with the addition of New Hampshire and a new street race in Baltimore, one or more existing events are likely to be dropped from the IndyCar calendar. By teaming up for the announcement during a NASCAR race weekend, the IRL and NHMS owner Speedway Motorsports Inc. are demonstrating they can be powerful allies -- especially with Indy car racing's relationship with International Speedway Corp. under heavy scrutiny by new IRL CEO Randy Bernard.

Contracts for four ISC-owned tracks that host the IndyCar Series are set to expire and three -- Watkins Glen International, Kansas Speedway and Homestead-Miami Speedway -- are believed to be on the bubble for 2011. Chicagoland Speedway president Craig Rust recently told me that he hopes to have the IndyCar Series back in 2011 and beyond, but it was dependent upon agreeing on a sanction fee.

With the addition of New Hampshire, the IndyCar Series will race at four SMI tracks in 2011 (the others being Texas Motor Speedway, Infineon Raceway and Kentucky Speedway) and the IRL is in serious discussions about racing at SMI's Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the first time since 2000.

Bernard also has hinted at the possibility that the IRL will consider self-promoting an IndyCar race at the Milwaukee Mile, which has a history of Indy-style racing dating to 1909. The IRL staged events at the Mile from 2004 to 2009, but a series of failed promoters ended major racing activity at the famous venue this year.

New Hampshire hosted the CART-sanctioned Indy car series from 1992 to 1995. Then-NHMS owner Bob Bahre sided with the IRL in the open-wheel split of 1996 and it resulted in a reduction in attendance from around 50,000 in the CART years to less than 10,000. The IRL was dropped from the NHMS schedule after two years when the track also landed a second NASCAR Cup weekend.

Several of the New Hampshire Indy car races stand out, particularly 1993, which was one of the finest auto races I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. On his 40th birthday, Nigel Mansell passed the Penske cars of Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy in the last 20 laps for the most memorable win of his CART championship campaign. Andre Ribeiro's triumph in the 1995 edition of the New Hampshire race marked Honda's first victory as an Indy car engine supplier.

Unless Tracy lands a ride for 2011, none of the current Indy car drivers ever raced at NHMS. Dario Franchitti is scheduled to turn a few demonstration laps Sunday morning in his Target Ganassi Racing Indy car.

"I enjoy the challenge of short ovals and unfortunately we have only one this year," Franchitti said before the Iowa race. "Milwaukee, I'd like to go back to Richmond ... Loudon [New Hampshire], Phoenix ... bring 'em all on."

"Definitely I miss Milwaukee and I miss Richmond," added Franchitti teammate Scott Dixon. "Hopefully they add Milwaukee back to the schedule, and if we can get more short ones it would be great. I think we've won on all of them just as they've got rid of them. We won the last races at Nashville, Richmond and Milwaukee, so I think as a team we'd like to see them back on the schedule, and I hope that's the way it goes."

In most IZOD IndyCar Series race markets, Danica Patrick kicks off the event weekend with a media availability. It's an opportunity for a new group of local reporters to ask pretty much the same questions Patrick faces every week.

The Iowa Corn Indy 250 was no exception, and the focus was on Patrick's busy upcoming schedule, including her next NASCAR Nationwide Series appearance at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this Saturday.

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AP Photo/Conrad SchmidtDanica Patrick said her car faded on her as the race went on, but she did manage to finish 10th.

But Danica dashed local hopes by confirming that she won't be in JR Motorsports' No. 7 Nationwide car when the series visits Iowa Speedway on July 31, even though it is an off weekend for the IndyCar Series.

The Iowa race on Sunday was the last of four consecutive oval events for the IndyCar Series and marked the conclusion of the first half of the season. Patrick wasn't pleased with the balance of her Andretti Autosport car in practice, running just 22nd fastest. However, she made a big improvement in qualifying to grid ninth in the 25-car field.

"I'm happy with the way qualifying went," she said. "I was flat out the last two laps of the run, and I haven't been able to get flat all day."

The Andretti team's 2010 resurgence continued on race day. Marco Andretti qualified third and led laps early before fading with handling problems, and Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tony Kanaan were very strong on race day. Hunter-Reay worked up to third but lost a lap through a pit penalty and finished eighth. Meanwhile, Kanaan was the fastest man on the track, blazing through the field from 15th on the grid to claim his first race win in more than two years.

Patrick drove a steady race, but she fell a lap down to the leaders on Lap 172 and finished 10th.

"I wish we had a better day, but we'll take a top-10 finish," Patrick said. "It was a challenging race. We had a good car, but the longer the race went on, the more difficult the car got, handlingwise."