The Golden Bowling Ball: Long Beach

On second thought, I’m going to keep The Golden Bowling Ball on the shelf for an unprecedented three-race trifecta.

It was originally intended for at least one of the next-generation drivers who brought out the caution on Lap 22.

First, Graham Rahal’s ham-fisted post-crash interview after coming together with Marco Andretti didn’t help his case. Watching the incident when it happened live, and again with the few replays shown during the broadcast, the reason for crash looked plain and simple.

Rushing down the hill towards the braking zone at Turn 8, Rahal is seen on camera looking in his right side mirror as Andretti makes himself known. Rahal’s at least a car width to the right of teammate Scott Dixon and has clear road ahead of him.

The video then shows Rahal starting to move to the right—a blocking maneuver—by approximately one to two feet. Contact takes place at an angle between Rahal and Andretti, who started to duck out from behind Rahal to make a pass on the right, allowing Andretti’s left front tire to lightly strike Rahal’s rear wheel guard as it headed for the unprotected right rear Firestone sidewall on the Ganassi car. Andretti then took flight, crashed, harsh words were exchanged in independent interviews and Rahal was placed on probation.

In simple terms, Rahal saw Andretti, figured Andretti would try to make a pass down the inside, and Rahal turned right to block him. All of those things are true, despite Rahal’s differing opinion on how the situation went down.

But upon further review—after pressing my face up to a widescreen HD television and watching the replay about 15 times in slow-mo —what took place wasn’t as plain, nor was it as simple as I’d originally thought.

Rahal, without a doubt, was guilty of blocking according to Rule 9.3.2.:

A Driver must not alter his/her racing line based on the actions of pursuing Drivers or use an abnormal racing line to inhibit or prevent passing. Blocking will result in a minimum of a black flag “drive through” penalty.

Andretti pursued, Rahal altered. That part of his probation penalty is fair.

The other rule he ran afoul of, 9.3.3. Avoidable Contact, is the one I take issue with.

It states: A Competitor must not initiate or attempt to initiate avoidable contact that results in the interruption of another Competitor’s lap time or Track position.

Again, on my first few looks, Rahal was guilty as sin. After 15 additional replays, I’m absolutely convinced that Andretti was going to hit Rahal no matter what the Ganassi driver did. Whether it was from having too much momentum or not turning the steering wheel hard enough to the right, Andretti’s trajectory was going to lead him into Rahal’s car.

By turning right and moving over a foot or two, Rahal changed where the contact took place—both on the race course and on his race car—but Andretti, like it or not, misjudged the closing rate and distance to the car he was trying to overtake.

Had Rahal held his steering wheel straight, Andretti would have bashed into Rahal’s sidepod, or possibly driven into the vertical fin on Rahal’s floor that sits behind the right front wheel. It’s a weird distinction to make, but Rahal’s guilty of blocking and the avoidable contact rests on Andretti.

Even if Rahal was oblivious to Andretti’s whereabouts and never altered his line, Andretti was still going to unintentionally hit Rahal.

It might be splitting hairs, but there wasn’t enough unintentional comedy or blatant negligence by either party to deserve The Golden Bowling Ball award at Long Beach. If anything, it was just kind of lame—a double instance of poor decisions being made.

And as for the whole Marco Andretti/Graham Rahal rivalry thing, let’s go ahead and drop that fantasy altogether. Rahal’s a smart kid without a care in the world, while Andretti broods most of the time like he’s starring in his own private Versace commercial. Despite their different demeanors, the two are more alike than dissimilar, and don’t have the temperament to wage a career-long feud.

As much as the series would like to see it happen, these aren’t the second coming of Ali/Frazier or Senna/Prost. Ain’t happenin’.

Random Thoughts, Notes And Observations

• No matter how many times I look at the post-Long Beach points standings, it’s still hard to fathom how Dario Franchitti manages to sit in 14th right now. His opening three race results in 2011 went 1st, 3rd, 3rd. In 2012? Try 13th, 10th, 15th, and he’s already a staggering 75 points behind Power. Franchitti won the last two championships over Power by a combined total of 23 points…

• Mike Conway suffered a smoky end to his race, but Honda told me the A.J. Foyt driver suffered a small fire similar to what Justin Wilson experienced at Barber, and not an engine failure.

• The Ganassi team was rather vocal about INDYCAR’s decision to leave the stalled car of Scott Dixon trackside, rather than tow it in. I heard reference of a rule saying cars would be towed in up to the last 10 laps of a race, but could not find that rule in the rulebook. Dixon, whose car would not re-fire, was left in place, which allowed the race to return to green faster than expected.

• St. Pete and Barber didn’t show it in the final results, but JR Hildebrand and engineer David Cripps made good on the form they’ve shown in practice this season, taking fifth at the checkered flag at Long Beach. The team seems like it’s ready to deliver a lot more finishes like that on road and street courses.

• I’m a pretty light-hearted guy, but I just don’t see the humor in this from the top series official. Hard to imagine NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or NBA commissioner David Stern crossing this line.

• Returning back to Franchitti, he must have had the worst day in the office since joining Ganassi. His matter-of-fact assessment of how things went down Sunday, including repeated “instant penalties” from the spec McLaren ECU that controls his Honda engine for having too much turbo boost on restarts, was rather concise: “We had four over-boost penalties on one restart, and Briscoe came across and damaged the front wing. After that we lost time making a wing change and to top it all had a mechanical failure.”

• Saving fuel and accurate measuring of how much fuel some drivers had to work with was a major sub-plot at Long Beach. More than a few drivers made extra pit stops to take on a few additional gallons to get to the finish, with Dale Coyne Racing’s Justin Wilson serving as the most unfortunate driver to lose out on a quality finish due to the need for an extra dose of E85 ethanol.

• Charlie Kimball, for those who didn’t get to see it live, caught the red mist and made the most of starting inside the top 10, catching and passing teammate Graham Rahal before the first round of pit stops. I hope to see more performances like that from Chuck.

• Townsend Bell was spectacular on the NBC SN broadcast. Irreverent, insightful and opinionated. Great stuff.

• RACER magazine held its 20th anniversary party Saturday night adjacent to the track at the Sky Room. Glad to see that Paul Pfanner, along with a passionate new/old ownership group, has taken back the magazine and kept its talented staff in place to usher in the next decade of material.

• On Thursday, Bobby Rahal and the Road Racing Driver’s Club held its fourth annual dinner, which honored racing pioneer Jim Hall. Having grown up in a household where Hall’s name was mentioned more than The Lord’s, listening to the great driver, engineer and inventor share tales from his illustrious career was the perfect way to kick off the Long Beach event.

• It took a few races to happen, but I think we’ve reached the point where Danica Patrick’s name and former influence on the IndyCar Series has been put to bed. That’s not a negative statement about her—I just don’t think most people expected IndyCar to move on minus DP so quickly.

• Great to see Davey Hamilton’s first experience as an IndyCar team owner pay off right from the get-go. Without Hamilton’s Hewlett-Packard connections, Sam Schmidt’s team might not have answered the bell.

• Long Beach was the first event where Sebastien Bourdais did not have the added engineering expertise of Newman/Haas’ Craig Hampson to bolster his efforts. Coincidence the team struggled all weekend?

• By the end of Long Beach last year, Oriol Servia had three top 10s, including two top 6s to his credit. Right now, he has a 13th and a pair of 16ths... With all the improvements his Dreyer & Reinbold team made during the off-season, it’s hard to watch those efforts go largely unrewarded.

• Takuma Sato and his new Rahal Letterman Lanigan engineer Gerry Hughes seem to be hitting their stride after leading 16 laps.

• Thumbs up to Beaux Barfield who has kept the pace going so far this season by significantly reducing the time lost during routine caution periods.

• In his ongoing quest to prove how wrong I was in my pre-season preview, James Hinchcliffe has had the audacity to finish inside the top 6 at every race this season, and ranks fifth—the highest among the three Andretti cars—in the standings.

• I grew up listening to Bruce Flanders over the Long Beach PA system, and he’s more than served the racing community over the years, but for the first time in recent memory, his loose delivery felt beyond dated and his poor grasp of the cars, drivers and all that’s going on in the IndyCar Series really stood out in a bad way last weekend.

• Chevy’s Judy Kouba Dominick has quickly become a staple in the media center, making life incredibly easy for all those in need of content or information involving her manufacturer.

• Panther Racing won the “cool freebie” award at Long Beach, handing out comic book-style stickers of JR Hildebrand.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett on Twitter.