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One for the Racers: Justin Wilson wins at Watkins Glen; gives Dale Coyne his First Win in Indy Style Racing"

It only took 25 years as an owner and driver--but Chicago area businessman Dale Coyne finally tasted the champagne as a winner--when Justin Wilson won the Camping World Grand Prix at Watkins Glen International in a car owned by Coyne. Wilson started second, and used a red-black-red tire strategy to hold off Ryan Briscoe (pole sitter) and the new series point leader, Scott Dixon from Target Chip Ganassi Racing who finished third. The red-black-red describes the option-primary-option Firestone Firehawk tires the crew decided to mount on his Z-Line Dallara Honda. This is Wilson's second IndyCar series win; he has four others in the CART/Champ Car World Series.

There were eight lead changes among Wilson, Dixon, Briscoe, Helio Castroneves (finished 4th) and Marco Andretti (5th). Average speed was double the double nickel--111.915 miles an hour. Four cautions flew.

Dario Franchitti spun into the kitty litter in Turn Five, and finished one lap down--but is second in points, with 294. Briscoe also has 294 for Team Penske--but Franchitti gets the nod for tie breakers. Helio is 4th and going into Toronto next weekend, Danica Patrick is in fifth place.

The Coyne team opted to do some heavy road course testing at places like Sebring early in 2009, followed a couple weeks ago by a long test here on the real 3.377 mile 11 turn classic Glen circuit. The results derived paid off. Coyne had to step up his investment this season when Wilson became available as a driver and some other crew and engineering people became available. Wilson almost won at St. Pete, and if not for a bad bit of pit stops, would have been a contender in Long Beach. The next two consecutive circuits are temporary circuits (Toronto and Edmonton), which may play to the new found strength of the Coyne camp.

We get a weekend off the road and rejoin you with American LeMans road racing style blogging and Tweeting in a couple of weeks--if stuff blows up--or we get more interesting e-mails--we'll break in. Yes, I will bring my camera for a TwitPic and blog picture of three.