A few quick notes, all of which are well overdue:

ChampCar has their own Earl Hickey. It is my firm belief that the racing gods decided that if the series officials didn't have the guts to park Paul Tracy for the final race of the year after his idiotic shenanigans in pitlane at Surfer's, they would do it themselves. Or maybe he's just a moron. It could go either way. I'd also like to take this opportunity to throw out there that Paulie Walnuts's only championship was won against the perpetually snakebitten Bruno Junquiera, Michel freaking Jourdain (underrated, but not really a top-five guy), then-rookie Sebastien Bourdais, then-teammate Patrick Carpentier (always wildly inconsistent), Jimmy Vasser in vastly inferior equipment and on a brand-new team, and an absolute pu-pu platter of guys who have never run up front on a week-to-week basis. And since then, Bourdais has won the last three championships and roughly 437 races. Can we put an asterisk next to 2003 now?

I am not shocked that Allmendinger has made the jump to NASCAR. How do you turn down $3 million a year to race, when your best option in ChampCar is only offering you $1 million? Poster-boy or not, I can't blame him for taking the cash. Now, I'd just say that it would be nice if Jerry Forsythe signs Buddy Rice for next year, so that we can actually have a few Americans in the series with Graham Rahal making the jump to the big cars and Alex Figge driving for the new PCM effort. Not that I think that either one can beat Bourdais next year, but it's nice to have 15% American drivers in a series where 60% of the races take place in the U.S.

That's all for now. Everybody enjoy the last non-NASCAR race of the year. Looks like Bourdais vs. a one-handed Justin Wilson, by the looks of qualifying, but it should be fun anyway.