Sports highlights: "green" auto racing!

4 of the races I watched during the past 2 weekends all came down to the drivers who were able to save fuel! First, at Indy 500 we saw all those pre-race favourites ran out of fuel and had to pit. Too bad the rookie JR Hildebrand, who was leading and still had fuel left, was not able to pull off a victory because he crashed on the last corner of the very last lap. Unfortunately, his name will be in the history book forever for one of the biggest choke job ever (Another one was French golfer Jean Van de Velde squandering his 3 shot lead on the last hole at the British Open in 1999.) The race actually started out seeming to be yet another boring race in which Dario Franchitti wins again by taking advantage of Will Power's mistake (who drove off the pit road when one wheel was still not completely on yet.) Power ended up finished higher than Franchitti at Indy and actually improved his lead in the overall season standing. Later on that day we had the NASCAR race, the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte, also decided by fuel strategy. The late race caution never came (everybody was planning to refuel then) Dale Earnhardt Jr almost won it except he ran out of fuel on the last lap and finished 7th. Who could have predicted the next NASCAR race at Kansas also has to do with Dale Jr and fuel? Again, the leaders had to pit and refuel which allowed Brad Keselowski and Dale Jr to come to the front and they finished 1-2. The Nationwide race on the same weekend at Chicagoland was ended similarly except the front runner Carl Edwards ran out of fuel on the last lap and was thus caught up by Justin Allgaier, who also ran out of the fuel later but coasted across the finish line with a victory. I have been rooting for Allgaier this season. He went through some tough times when he lost his ride because his sponsor Verizon was forced out of NASCAR. Of course, the media's focus was Danica Patrick's brief return to NASCAR (this is just one race in between her IndyCar "breaks") BTW, even though I am a fan of hers, the coverage of her leading Indy 500 for a few laps because her team decided to pit last in the cycle was a bit too much.