NEWTON, Iowa — IndyCar officials confirmed 11 engine manufacturers will send representatives to Indianapolis to participate in the Manufacturer’s Roundtable at Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning June 27.
These representatives will have a chance to discuss their ideas on a potential engine package and rules for the next generation of engines and cars that will participate in IndyCar racing.
Another four engine companies are unable to send representatives to this week’s meeting, but have expressed interest in meeting with IndyCar Series officials in the future.
Both domestic and international auto companies will attend the roundtable, as well as private engine builders such as Ilmor and Cosworth.
“These meetings will be informational and give the engine companies a chance to tell us what they would like to see in future engine programs,” said John Griffin, vice president of public relations for the Indy Racing League. “It gives us a chance to hear their ideas before we move forward to the next step with the new car and engine.”
The IndyCar Series is expected to have a new car/engine package for the 2011 season.

• IndyCar officials are also looking at the possibility of ensuring all races finish under green, but are not interested in adding laps to the end of the race beyond its scheduled distance, the way NASCAR has with its green-white-checkered-flag rule. They are considering the possibility of red-flagging a race if there are enough laps left to ensure a green-flag run to the checkered flag.

• Danica Patrick was the meat in a sandwich during a restart on lap 227 when Scott Dixon went high and Marco Andretti went low to both pass her and leave her car in their ethanol fumes. She finished sixth, but drew criticism from at least two drivers in the race.
“She’s lucky that’s all she got, man. She’s a menace,” Dixon said.

• Scott Dixon was able to battle back from a poor-handling race car to finish fourth and increase his point lead to 48 over Helio Castroneves, who finished 13th after pitting because of a cut tire late in the race.
“It was a tough day for us,” Dixon said. “We have to work a little bit on the setup here, and later in the day, I got to work on the high line and that was good. This was definitely good for points. It was good to see Dan (Wheldon) win, too. He’s had a bloody rough season so far. It was good to see something go his way. You have to take it when you can.
“A lot of my problem was I tried to run on the bottom.”
Dixon admitted that it’s days like Sunday that can help him win a title, when he is able to take a car that isn’t the fastest and still get a top-five finish.
“You are going to have a day where your car is bad and you can still come away with points,” Dixon said. “It was good to see Dan take some points away from some of the other guys and that Helio had some problems and lost some points.”

• Sinden Racing Service, the company that manages the IndyCar Series’ Indy Fan Zone, is offering a $2,500 reward for information leading to the return of several IndyCar Series driver helmets that were stolen from the Indy Fan Zone while parked outside the company’s headquarters in Indianapolis in the early morning of June 16.
Helmets belonging to Danica Patrick, Helio Castroneves, Dan Wheldon, Sarah Fisher, Ed Carpenter and Ryan Hunter-Reay were a few of the many items that thieves were able to get away with.
The six helmets include Fisher’s fan-autographed helmet wishing her luck in her return to the IndyCar Series at Kentucky in 2006, Wheldon’s helmet that he wore in winning the 2007 season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Castroneves’s helmet from his first Indy 500 victory.
In addition to the helmets, other items stolen included DVD players, laptop computers, Xbox 360 gaming units, microphones and watches. Additionally, damage was done to a number of the display cases.

• Marty Roth and Bruno Junqueira missed Sunday’s race after they were involved in separate crashes in Saturday morning’s practice session.
Both cars suffered parts failures prior, which led to the cars spinning into the SAFER Barrier in turn two. Junqueira’s crash also involved Dan Wheldon, who had to compete in his back-up car.
“It’s a major disappointment,” Roth said. “We worked so hard to get a good race car, and I think we made a really good one. It was a struggle at first, but I think we had a really good race car. We had a rear pushrod break going into corner one, and it was all over at that point. The damage is pretty extensive. We can’t fix it for the race. We’ll be looking for Richmond now, and we’ll have our eyes on John Andretti for the weekend.”
Junqueira also spoke of his disappointment.
“I was running full tanks and new tires, and I was trying to run behind people,” Junqueira said. “The car had some understeer and got loose on the bumps. We had some steering rack problems in the run before and had someone vibration that made it step out. I’m OK. Unfortunately, the car’s not OK. It’s very damaged. The left rear wishbone broke, which is what made me spin. Hopefully we can get everything together for Richmond.”