The circuit is very different, but the favorite remains the same as the IndyCar Series heads to the streets of St. Petersburg for the second race of the 2007 championship on Sunday afternoon. source: irl-live.com "I would say Dan (Wheldon)," answered Helio Castroneves when asked to pick a favorite to win on this weekend. "After the first practice, or at least the only practice we had at Daytona (on the road course), he seemed to be very comfortable. That might be a challenge." Wheldon crushed the competition on the Homestead-Miami Speedway oval, scoring maximum points (53), and running away from the competition by over 6 seconds. He now returns to his adopted hometown where he won in 2005. One of just two street circuits on the IndyCar Series schedule (the other is Belle Isle in Detroit), the St. Pete layout has parts that are both beautiful and challenging. The main straightaway spends most of the year as an airport runway and the long run down to turn one is one of the best passing zones on the course. After that, the course winds its way in fairly typical street course fashion with a set of group of slow 90 degree turns (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) that eventually dumps the cars onto Bayshore Drive. Basically the backstretch, Bayshore takes the drivers passed a yacht filled marina, through the "kink" and down to turn 10, another 90 degree left, but a good passing zone. The final spot where drivers have tried to pass in the past is turn 13. This long and wide hairpin has seen numerous collisions in the past as drivers hustle to get through the corner and onto the front straightaway.
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