The Argentian Rally will probably be remembered more for its strange start than it’s eventual result. The plan to hold a special stadium stage 700kms from rally headquarters on the Thursday night had already been questioned by many competitors. When weather caused flight cancellations and delays after the stage which resulted in many teams being unable to make the official start of the rally on Friday, several stages were scrapped. As a result the rally didn’t really start in earnest until Saturday when World Champion Sebastian Loeb (below) quickly took charge.

After a short battle with Petter Solberg, Marcus Gronholm secured second place, but could do nothing to catch Loeb. Mikko Hirvonen, winner of the controversial Thursday night stadium stage dropped back when the rally took to the open road, but eventually finished third after benefiting from Petter Solberg’s engine failure.

By the end of April, 94 drivers from Formula One, NASCAR, World Rally, NHRA Drag Racing, IndyCar and the ChampCar World Series had qualified for inclusion in the Speed Blog Driver Rankings calculations.

The Top 10 ranked drivers at the end of April are:

1. Jeff Gordon (NASCAR)
2. Jimmie Johnson (NASCAR)
3. Jeff Burton (NASCAR)
4. Matt Kenseth (NASCAR)
5. Scott Dixon (IRL)
6. Dan Wheldon (IRL)
7. Ron Capps (NHRA)
8. Tony Stewart (NASCAR)
9. Kimi Raikonnen (F1)
10. Kyle Busch (NASCAR)

For the first in an occasional series of posts highlighting some of the best in in car camera footage.
A lap of Le Mans in 1956 with Mike Hawthron in the D-Type Jaguar. Amazing footage as they strap two camera’s on Hawthron’s Jaguar and a microphone to his chest and send him out while the roads of Le Mans are still open to the public.

Dan Wheldon firmly displayed his determination to reclaim his IndyCar title with a dominant perfomance at Kansas. Andretti-Green Racing’s Tony Kanaan, fresh of his win in Japan, started on pole, but his lead only lasted 8 laps before Wheldon blasted past.

Wheldon’s only real challenge came from his Ganassi team mate Scott Dixon, who was hampered by a drive through penalty for entering the pit-lane too late and too agressively. Kanaan’s day was ruined by a pit-line collision between himself and team-mate Danica Patrick, the direct result of an inattentive crew member who waved Patrick out into the path of the oncoming Kanaan. 

Such was the strength of Wheldon’s dominance that he lapped everyone upto the 4th place car of Dixon.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1.  Dan Wheldon (Ganassi)
2.  Dario Franchitti (Andretti-Green)
3.  Helio Castroneves (Penske)
4.  Scott Dixon (Ganassi)
5.  Tomas Scheckter (Vision)
6.  Sam Hornish Jr.  (Penske)
7.  Danica Patrick (Andretti-Green)
8.  Vitor Meira (Panther)
9.  AJ Foyt IV  (Vision)

10.  Jeff Simmons (Rahal-Letterman)   

Jeff Gordon added to his tally of victories by following up from last week’s win in Phoenix with another example of why he is topping the NASCAR Nextel Cup standings on the Talladega super-speedway over the weekend.

Gordon started from pole and lead most laps of the 499 mile race that was on the whole free of incident. There were several caution periods and yellow flag laps, but the closest it came to the feared “big one” was a multi-car wreck two laps from the end as the field attempted a green, white, checkers finish following an earlier caution.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1.  Jeff Gordon  (Chevrolet)
2.  Jimmie Johnson  (Chevrolet)
3.  Kurt Busch (Dodge)
4.  Kevin Harvick  (Chevrolet)
5.  Jamie McMurray (Ford)
6.  Ryan Newman (Dodge)
7.  David Gilliland (Ford)
8.  Dale Earnhardt Jr.  (Chevrolet)
9.  David Stremme (Dodge)
10.  Martin Truex Jr.  (Chevrolet)