Although I have missed a few races of IRL because I have been out of town, I was able to catch up for this Sunday’s race in Kansas. The Road Runner Turbo 300 had all the excitement and drama of a great race. Starting at pole position was point’s leader Scott Dixon, and teammate Dan Wheldon started second. The Target Ganassi team is on fire this season, having great cars and speed on the track, their experience and expertise make a dynamite combination. Even Penske team of Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe, who usually give Ganassi and Andretti a run for their money, have not had much luck so far this year. In third position starting the race was Danica Patrick, coming off a win in Japan last week; she recently made history being the first female to win an IRL race. Another team that has improved much from last year and is looking strong in the beginning of this new season is A.J. Foyt IV and Ed Carpenter of Vision Racing. Anthony started in fifth position and his teammate Carpenter started right behind him in sixth.

The race got off to an immediate caution within the first lap, as several rookies, mainly from the Champ Car series who have merged into IRL this season, are not yet accustomed to track races, let alone an oval race. Better on street races, the young nineteen and talented racer Graham Rahal, showed up the veterans in IRL becoming the youngest driver to win an IRL race. He beat out the once promising and much talked about Marco Andretti by a few months to take that sought after title. Marco, who started fourteenth, did not have much luck last season, ending several races with crashes, and so far this season, he has not done much better. Now with Graham hot on his heels on the track, the just turned twenty-one year old will have to show that he is much more than just a name. He has the skill, he has already proven that, but much like Danica, who finally won a race, he needs to impress, and take some chances, and excel where others fail to succeed.

A nice surprise was seeing Tomas Scheckter back in IRL, Scheckter who raced last year for Vision Racing alongside Carpenter and Foyt IV, will next be seen at the infamous Indy 500 next month in May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The event that is a month long, with several activities throughout May, starts qualifying mid month. Tomas was having a great day at first, starting in fourth position, it looked like he might even have a chance of winning until EJ Viso took him out. Unfortunately for Tomas, he has never really had much luck in IRL, although he is a very talented racecar driver.

But talent is not all you need to succeed let alone win a race. Timing, skill, and speed are also key elements to any team’s strategy. Knowing when to pit, how much fuel is left, having great spotters, and most importantly a good and fast pit crew make up the key essentials to a winning team, and a spin in victory lane. If the pit crew is slow, if you spin your tires, if you do not accelerate at the precise moment, you could lose a race by a mere few hundreds of a second. Those are always the best races.

Several cautions and some high speed crashes were just a few highlights of today’s race. Marty Roth hit a pit crew member with his racecar coming in too fast into the pits and was black flagged, while EJ Viso not only ended Scheckter’s day earlier, but came into another racers pit box instead of his own, slowing down that racers exit from pit row. Patrick had a problem with her tire and the pit crew could not get it on which ended her day. Will Power had a huge crash into the wall, but the most action was at the front of the track, where teammates Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon battled most of the race for lead position.

Dixon who was able to hold off Wheldon till the last twenty laps when everyone came into pit, lost the lead coming out of pit row, ended up in the back of the drivers who were on the lead lap, and Wheldon took over the lead. In first position, holding off Tony Kanaan, Dan Wheldon took the checkered flag in Kansas, taking home his first victory of the new season. A long awaited victory, the newly married Wheldon flashed his new set of pearly white teeth at the cameras. Kanaan his former teammate came in second, and Dixon came in third, as both racers congratulated Wheldon on his victory.

A.J. Foyt IV, who started fifth, had a wonderful day and ended up eighth. Anytime Anthony finishes in the top ten is a good day for him. Both he and his teammate Carpenter are becoming strong driving forces in the IRL this season; their strength will only increase within each race. With impressive starts and finishes this year, it will not be long before either gets pole position, and lands in victory lane. Anthony who is also a proud Texan, attends many Texas Longhorns college football games, one of my favorite teams, and spends most of his time on his boat when he is not racing on the track. Marco made up for his unimpressive day, and finished with a solid fourth position.

As the month of April comes to a close, next month in May provides a month long racers dream from qualifying, to hot parties, and black tie events, no one will want to miss out on all the action and especially the fun as the Indy 500 takes center stage as the main event of the IRL season. The title will be up for grabs this year, and it is anyone’s guess as to who might take the prestigious checkered flag. From point’s leader Dixon to today’s happy winner Dan Wheldon, it is within every racers reach. From surprise entries to past winners, not one racer so far has stepped out into the limelight. Every race seems to have a different winner, so who knows this year, A.J. Foyt IV, Marco Andretti, even Graham Rahal has a chance of speeding into victory circle and making a name for themselves to forever be remembered and solidified in racing history.    

Davin Colten’s highly successful debut novel, Lie With The Devil, a suspenseful romance set in 1940’s Europe during WWII, was just published. Pursued by a spy and hunted by Germans, romance and peril flourish between an unlikely pair of allies in this incredible drama. A love affair transformed by war, Lie With The Devil is available from Amazon.com, Borders.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon CA, DE, FR, JP, and several other online bookstores in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, Japan, all over the globe.

Buy Davin’s new novel here Lie With The Devil