…Where there was a lot of broken cars and pointed fingers, a Scotsman that started this season the same way he ended last season, and a female racer that wowed the fans — and it wasn’t You Know Who.

Photo credit: Chris Jones/IZOD IndyCar Series.

It goes without saying that we’ve seen cleaner starts to seasons past than Sunday’s Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. As expected, the new restart rules played a critical role in the form of two crashes on restarts during the first 13 laps. And there was plenty of frustration amongst the drivers afterwards.

But once the chaos settled, the familiar took hold as back-to-back IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti sailed away from the crash-depleted field and notched his 27th career open-wheel victory, tying him for 10th on the all-time list with Johnny Rutherford.

Meanwhile, as Franchitti was showing that he was still the clear-cut favorite in this year’s championship, an interesting battle unfolded between Tony Kanaan and Simona de Silvestro. Both drivers had dealt with their fair share of adversity going into St. Petersburg. But in their fight for the final spot on the podium, which went to Kanaan after an extended and entertaining duel, they showed why they’re rock-solid racers.

And with that, it’s time to turn on the Bean Machine — which now runs completely on the solar energy of New Mexico sunshine and thus, has become just like its creator.

Cheap.

—–

Happy days for Dario Franchitti

He wins the season-opening race over his main nemesis in convincing fashion and his wife Ashley Judd’s beloved Kentucky Wildcats made the NCAA Final Four. Of course, most of you likely don’t care about the latter. I suspect that’s because of one of two things: You believe her movies aren’t that good or you’ve strapped yourself on the Butler bandwagon-turned-rocketship. PLUS 10.

A rough start to the season

I think we were all hoping for something a bit more clean. Instead, we had a six-car pileup on Lap 1 (see photo above) that put Marco Andretti on his head again and affected several other big names like Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon. Then Danica Patrick and Ryan Briscoe promptly lost their front wings, followed by another restart incident that turned around Sebastian Saavedra and sent Ryan Hunter-Reay to pit road for suspension damage.

These may all be on the new rule that’s causing restart packs to accelerate to green at a much slower pace than years past. As a result, the cars bunched up and all it took was one driver’s mistake to ruin the race for others. “There’s zero room for error, and we can’t bump like NASCAR,” Power said after the race. “…I think this is just going to continue every race. There’s going to be people getting knocked out every single restart.” 

Perhaps Randy Bernard and Brian Barnhart need to go back to the drawing board and find another way to add some spice to races. MINUS 25.

Tony Kanaan pulls off a podium

As much as I’ve written that this economy demands great drivers to be greater fundraisers, I sincerely hope that at least one company that had a chance to help this guy find a ride sooner is kicking itself right now for passing on the opportunity. Good for Kanaan and KV/Lotus (which also got a fifth-place run from Takuma Sato). The last week was a wild one for both driver and team but they performed admirably nonetheless. 

On to the next task for the former series champion: Learning more people’s names. PLUS 8.

Simply Simona

What can you say about her efforts on Sunday, as well as those of her HVM Racing team? Bouncing back from losing their engineer and the subsequent scramble to find a new one, the Nuclear Clean Air Energy squad pulled off a near-miracle. After finishing a career-best fourth, De Silvestro admitted she had no idea she would be able to run with the leaders in post-race. She likely wasn’t the only one feeling that way going into St. Pete, but now, they’ve got wind in their sails heading to Alabama. PLUS 8.

A nice surprise

ABC put up a stronger-than-normal broadcast for Sunday’s race and INDYCAR was rewarded with a 1.4 overnight rating, the highest overnight since 2007 for an IZOD IndyCar Series race outside the Indianapolis 500. We’ll see what the final ratings are on Thursday, but it’s certainly a good bit of news for the ratings-challenged series. Let’s see if Versus can follow suit with a solid viewership for Barber in two weeks. PLUS 5.

War of attrition helps some

At the front of this group is De Silvestro, who started 17th and ran as high as second before coming home fourth. But there were others that started from the back but moved forward with some help from the early crashes. Raphael Matos finished seventh for AFS Racing after starting 16th, while J.R. Hildebrand (11th; started 24th) and Sebastian Saavedra (13th; started 25th) made even bigger gains in their inaugural races as full-time IndyCar drivers. PLUS 3.

“G2” has tough first race

First thing’s first — the “G2” name for the new two-car addition to Chip Ganassi Racing came from IMS Radio’s practice coverage. Now that credit has been given, I think I’ll borrow it. Anyway, Graham Rahal and Charlie Kimball ran into trouble in their first run for the Chipster — Rahal (17th) got knocked into a tire barrier following the first restart and came back out from the pits four laps down, while Kimball (22nd) made his first rookie mistake by accelerating out of pit road on cold tires and going into the wall near Turn 3 on Lap 38. Not a great start for a team that may be expected to be Ganassi’s future, but the season is still young (as is the team). MINUS 10.

No return for Bourdais

If what happened to Sebastien Bourdais on Sunday occurred while he was still raising trophies at Newman-Haas, the team would just roll out a backup car and have at it. But that was then and this is now. Despite the best efforts of his scrappy but smaller Dale Coyne Racing team, Bourdais’ No. 19 couldn’t be repaired in time for race day — putting off the Frenchman’s return to American open-wheel racing for a bit longer. MINUS 5.

FINAL SCORE: -6 beans.

Apologies for the lateness of this edition of “Bean Machine.” Yours truly had to work with the tax man this week and get his returns done. Next time, I’ll do them early.

Let’s count some beans…

1. Extended stay at the top? Will Power’s start to the season is really reminding me of Dan Wheldon’s 2005 title run with Andretti Autosport, when he won four of the first five events (including that year’s Indianapolis 500). He’s already built up a solid points lead with his back-to-back triumphs and with the next two events coming on a road course where he topped the charts in testing (Barber Motorsports Park) and another street course (Long Beach), it’s easy to see him as the points leader barring any accidents when we get to the ovals in May. Not too shabby, indeed. PLUS 10.

2. No ABC love. Rain put the kibosh on any plans the IRL may have had to jack some viewers from NASCAR at Martinsville, which also got cancelled by rain last Sunday. While attendance looked alright the next day on Monday morning (the main grandstand appeared to fill nicely from a near-empty Turns 13-14 on down to Turn 1), the race got thrown to ESPN2. Considering that we’ve heard rumblings about sponsors wanting more viewers for ABC-TV events, this weather problem may not have helped matters on that front. MINUS 10.

3. Another solid street race. While not as crazy as the season opener in mid-March, the St. Pete round had many of the same elements: Mother Nature throwing a tantrum during the weekend, decent racing, a vicious crash, and of course, Will Power winning. Give big props to the City of St. Petersburg for getting the track back early Monday morning after a torrential storm turned parts of the 1.8-mile temporary circuit into ponds and rivers. PLUS 20.

4. Justin Wilson strong again at St. Pete. Dreyer & Reinbold Racing really upgraded themselves when they added the veteran Englishman to go with their younger Brit, Mike Conway. Wilson has become a fan favorite for his ability to be a thorn in the side of the dominating Penske/Ganassi bloc, and just like he did with Dale Coyne’s team last year at Watkins Glen, expect the base to cheer mightily if he can beat the “red cars” this year. PLUS 5.

5. Penske “spring” controversy. As first reported by SPEED Channel’s Robin Miller, Penske Racing was accused of running a third spring to control ride height last weekend. But now it appears that Miller is saying that the spring was actually a roll bar and that it’s legal according to the IndyCar rule book. That’s leaving the Ganassi camp grumbling about not being able to do their own version of ride control back in 2008 (although they, too, say Penske is being legal). Interesting dilemma for the IndyCar tech people and one that needs to be hashed out since ride height can be very critical on road/street courses. MINUS 5.

6. Mario Moraes needs to catch a break. He’s had two bad crashes to start the season — one with him landing on top of Marco Andretti, the other getting plowed into by a helpless Dan Wheldon — and this week, he’s going under the knife back home in Brazil to get a cyst removed from near his ear canal. If that’s not a rough patch, I don’t know what is. MINUS 10.

7. Scrapping for a top-ten finish. Give Graham Rahal and Sarah Fisher Racing credit. The No. 67 Dollar General car was not up to snuff for long periods during the weekend, but the American driver was able to battle with it in the race, and came home ninth with a team that had zero road/street course races under its belt prior to St. Petersburg. Let’s see if Barber brings more good fortune for Rahal and Fisher, who watched the race unfold from the pit box. PLUS 5.

8. Heartbreak for E.J. Viso. The Venezuelan driver was doing a solid job in St. Petersburg and was leading the race when gearbox problems forced him to give up the point at Lap 73. At the least, it appeared he was going to nail down a top-five finish before the shift mechanism failed on his No. 8 KV Racing Technology machine. He had to settle for 17th place. Not much you can say except, “Bummer.” MINUS 5.

FINAL TALLY FOR ST. PETE: +10 beans.

SEASON TALLY (AFTER TWO EVENTS): +38 beans.