LONE STAR SPECTACLE; The IRL offered plenty in Texas.(Competitions of car racing)

Byline: CURT CAVIN

You wonder how Eddie Gossage does it. While other tracks get fire, his gets fireworks.

The Texas Motor Speedway president was nearing the bedtime hour June 3 when television replays from the Milwaukee Indy-car race ("Gas in the Tank,'' AW, June 11) showed feisty Danica Patrick confronting former Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon. Gossage got so giddy that he startled his wife.

The next day's planning meeting in Gossage's speedway office was a promoter's dream, a series of ideas volleyed across the office. Gossage pulled out a photograph of himself posed with Don King. The hype for the weekend race would be Texas-sized, complete with autographed red boxing gloves and a striped referee's shirt worn by Andretti Green Racing's Tony Kanaan at the driver autograph session.

By the time Saturday night rolled around for the Bombardier Learjet 550, everyone in North Texas had to know Patrick was on hand. When she wasn't talking about how Wheldon did her wrong in Milwaukee, Wheldon was calling her "a spoiled brat.'' Gossage's staff kept right on selling tickets, welcoming 86,000 people through the gates.

"A home run,'' he called it.

The race almost produced a grand slam. Tomas Scheckter got out of his spun car so furious at Marco Andretti that he stormed to the edge of the front straightaway and threw his gloves in Andretti's direction. (The irony: The gloves came closer to striking Patrick's trailing car.)