Indycar Series

SONOMA, Calif. -- Danica Patrick is known more for her prowess on high-speed oval tracks than on twisty road courses, but she was all smiles Sunday at Infineon Raceway. Patrick started ninth and finished fifth in the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma County, her best finish on a road course this year in the IndyCar Series. "I am very proud of my Motorola team," said Patrick, 26, after her fourth start at Infineon. "We started in the ninth position, and to get a top-five finish at a course that is very difficult to pass at is great," said Patrick, driver of the No. 7 car for Andretti Green Racing.

With Danica Patrick scheduled to kick off her NASCAR Sprint Cup season at the Daytona 500 later this month, there's been a lot of talk about whether the 29-year-old racer can make an impact among the good 'ol boys. Patrick's seven-year stint in the IndyCar Series was more about hype than actual results. Sure, her 2008 victory at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan was perhaps one of the more memorable moments in U.S.-based open wheel racing in the past decade, but other than some impressive top-end finishes at the Indianapolis 500, Patrick's on-track promise hasn't lived up to her commercial appeal.

Mike Hull knows exactly why Chip Ganassi wins championships and big races like the Indianapolis 500. "A long time ago, when Chip did everything he could to get me to come to work for him -- and I was kind of young and dumb then -- he said, 'I will get you what you need to win. You work on the other part,' " said Hull, now Target Chip Ganassi Racing's managing director. The team owner has never gone back on his word, and Hull has found ways to get his cars to Victory Lane with an uncanny consistency.

As he raced toward Infineon Raceway's second turn, Helio Castroneves felt the front suspension of his red-and-white No. 3 race car snap. Suddenly, he was careening off the pavement and into the dirt around the track, coming to a stop in swirls of dust. His race over, Castroneves then waited for emergency crews to pick him up. It was an unfulfilling end Sunday compared with a year ago, when Castroneves basked in the glory of winning the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma at Infineon, with the flag of his native Brazil draped over him in Victory Lane.

The first act of what is expected to be a real drama in the 1994 Indy-car PPG Cup series will be played out March 20 in Australia--half a world away from most of its fans. Englishman Nigel Mansell, who brought his 1992 Formula one championship with him last season as he took the American-based Indy-car series by storm, winning five races and the title as a rookie, will again be the favorite.

Randy Bernard stepped down as the Izod IndyCar Series' chief executive Sunday after three seasons of trying to revitalize the struggling sport that includes the legendary Indianapolis 500. Bernard's departure came after a special meeting of directors of Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corp., the series' parent that is led by the Hulman-George family, which said both sides agreed "the timing was right to pursue separate paths. " Jeff Belskus, chief executive of Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corp., was named interim chief executive of IndyCar, whose 15-race season this year was capped by a return to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana in September.

Formula One and the Izod IndyCar Series kick off their seasons Sunday, with Formula One opening with the Australian Grand Prix and IndyCar taking to the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. The Formula One race at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne was supposed to be the second race on the calendar, but the opener in Bahrain scheduled for March 13 was canceled due to unrest in the Persian Gulf nation. Reigning title holder Sebastian Vettel, who last year became the youngest champion in Formula One history at 23, returns with the Red Bull team along with driver Mark Webber.

It's all anyone in Indy car racing can talk about, and arguably just what the sport needs to help boost its popularity. "Double-file restarts" were implemented this season in the Izod IndyCar Series, a change that has sparked some hair-raising moments in the season's first two races and probably will again Sunday in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. "Every restart now the fans are [saying], 'Oooh, what's going to happen here?' " said reigning IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti . "It's definitely created more opportunity for passing, more drama.

The night race marking the return of IndyCar-style racing to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana next year will be a 400-mile event with ticket prices starting at $30, track and IndyCar officials said Tuesday. After a seven-year absence of major open-wheel racing at the sprawling two-mile oval 50 miles east of Los Angeles, the speedway said it would hold the Izod IndyCar Series race on an as yet unspecified date in the fall of 2012. Randy Bernard, the series' chief executive, told reporters on a conference call that "we think a night race there will be very exciting" and that the series wanted to add the track to its schedule because it's in "one of the largest markets in the United States.

Two months after the nation was stunned by a 15-car crash that killed driver Dan Wheldon, the Izod IndyCar Series is trying to reestablish momentum heading into next season. But after announcing last week that no one factor caused Wheldon's death in the fiery wreck Oct. 16 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, IndyCar and its chief executive, Randy Bernard, now must overcome several issues still weighing on their effort to boost the sport's popularity. Among them: The series is rolling out a new race car whose ultimate performance is yet unknown.