You may have heard by now that Franck Montagny has been given a drive in the upcoming IRL race at Sonoma. Equally, you might not have heard that and you'd be forgiven because hey, isn't this a Formula 1 site?

It's not exactly a secret that I heart Franck, and that being the case, Mr C thought it could be a good idea to live comment the race. It is the same weekend as Valencia, but being in another timezone, it will be later in the evening. Post-European Grand Prix, post-Debrief, we'll be here, tapping away on the keyboard, pondering what's going on.

That is where we get a bit stuck. We really have no idea what's going on. F1 fans through and through, Mr C and myself have branched out a little into following Le Mans and its various counterparts. IRL is a whole new ball game though - is there a motorsport version of that phrase?

We know a couple of commenters enjoy series' outside of F1, particularly Pat who writes about plenty of other categories, and has already given us some insight into what's coming up - a potential entry list, plus some useful links:

• The Official Site
• Curt Cavin’s daily Q&A
• My Name Is IRL
• Pressdog.com

Given how clueless we are, we're expecting commenting to be a complete mess of chaotic questions and nonsense, with the emphasis being on shouting for your preferred driver. We've started a list of who is supporting who, and we're expecting to see lots of 'FRANCK' and 'SCOTT' comments. We're encouraging it, actually.

Anyway, I hope you can join us, but I'm sure you won't be missing out on too much if you can't. If you've got any advice for IRL n00bs, as well, we're all ears. The race is on Sunday, 23rd August and it starts at 14:45 local time (which should be 10:45 BST), a full schedule is also available.