TRACK: There sure were a lot of changes, but one wonders about the wisdom of so much concrete walls at a high speed road circuit. I think it's time to explore foam blocks in front of them. Other than that, it's still the most beautiful track in America.

RACE: I never pictured the Road America event as an attrition race, but there seemed to be a lot of cars dropping out. However, this race never lacked excitement.

FRANCHITTI: Just when you thought Dario was becoming the next Bryan Herta, he puts together an excellent run. Now you better watch out. He could put together a string of these.

FITTIPALDI: I have to give credit where credit is due. A solid podium run.

KANAAN: He's looking real good for the Rookie-of-the-Year title.

ZANARDI: Where the hell does this guy hide his rabbit's foot?!

ANDRETTI: And Mikey wants to steal it!

UNSER: You know ... I'm not going to be too quick blaming this incident on Zanardi. It almost seemed to me that Unser checked up a bit too much for the type of incident unfolding. More so than any driver behind him would have expected. Zanardi has to take some blame, but I think Unser shares some as well.

DE FERRAN: This isn't the first time Gil misjudged his braking on the first lap.

HERTA: Maybe my wife is right. Bryan needs to go back to the Skip Barber Racing School.

BARRON: NO MORE EXCUSES. Whomever over drove this yellow should be suspended. Either it was Alex, or someone who forced him off. This is completely unacceptable. Three CART workers and Herta could have been killed in this incident.

MOORE: His title chances have been squandered away.

SALLES: Oh where, oh where has Vitolo gone? His original sponsorship agreement was for 15 races. He will now fall far short of that. More importantly, who's been making this wise decision? The only thing is, Salles has not done as well as he usually does in the last two races he has filled in.

PRUETT: Has Scott lost his mind?! Leaving Patrick for the Arciero-Wells team? Even if he had to leave, couldn't he wait to see what happened with Team Rahal and Team Ganassi? Unless there is something behind the scenes that we don't know about, this will go down as the all time dumbest switch surpassing Scott Goodyear's move from the Walker team to Bernstein Racing some years ago.

NEWMAN-HAAS: I'll be hard pressed to believe they will be running with Goodyear's next year.

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: To David Letterman because it is oh so true, "The best part of racing is you just never know. The worse part of racing is you just never know."

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND RUNNERUP: To Dario Franchitti, "After the last stop, I saw 'plus-10' on the pit board, and that kind of worried me, because that's exactly what it said in Toronto before I went off."

ESPN: So who was the director who thought it was smart to listen in to Michael Andretti just after he went off? What did they think Andretti was going to say after his tire blew at 190 mph, smacked the concrete wall and tire wall, and lost second place on the last lap, "Golly gee, the tire went. Oh well."?

SCHEDULE: Another three week break, but at this time of the season, it is probably much needed for the teams. Then on to a brand new circuit in Vancouver, but I'm not holding my breath it will be any better than the previous Vancouver circuit...

Deep Throttle

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