Tag: IndyCar

A Promising Start For Baltimore

Last weekend’s IndyCar and ALMS double-header event at the new street circuit in Baltimore was a tremendous success.

Ticket sales had been strong since they were put on general release some months ago, support locally was something we haven’t witnessed outside of each series’ main events (the Indy 500, Sebring 12 Hours and Petit Le Mans) for a long, long time. It reminded me of races at Long Beach or Surfers Paradise 10 years ago.

It was pleasing to see the talk of a large attendance wasn’t just pre-race marketing hype, the place really was full!

Officials from the championships racing this weekend said the crowd on Friday was higher than they’ve seen on race days at some venues this year. That’s partly a measure of how popular this event was, and partly how poorly these series draw at some locations.

The region around around Baltimore and Washington DC has been lacking major motorsport for a long time, the only thing I can think of was the ALMS round in Washington in 2002. There’s a significant amount of population in that region and it was time someone hit it. That’s probably why so many turned out this weekend.

Resurgence

I’m glad it was ALMS and IndyCar which took the chance – it paid off for them. Both series are in desperate need of some good news and this was just the tonic, proof that people do want to come out and see their races, and potentially proof that untapped markets are better propositions than flogging dead horses in established locations. Perhaps it will serve as a wake-up call to these series to race where they are welcome and to drop venues which aren’t working any more, no matter how hard that might be.

From the on-the-ground reports I’ve seen in the media, on blogs and on Twitter, it sounds as if the crowd was a mix between the usual smattering of hard-core fans, a good number of existing racing who may not necessarily follow either/both of these series, and a lot of people completely new to racing. From the sounds of the reactions it was a hit with all concerned. I hope they made a lot of new fans!

Difficulties

The weekend wasn’t without its difficulties. Hurricane Irene was luckily downgraded to a tropical storm before it reached Baltimore but the preparations for its arrival and the necessity to wait until it had passed – and repair any damage – caused severe delays to the build schedule. A street race needs a lot of extra work over and above a road course or oval, including laying the concrete barriers and fencing, repaving the streets, building up the grandstands and creating temporary facilities for teams, drivers and media.

Given the delays it wasn’t a surprise to find construction rolling well into Friday. They finished by lunchtime and cars were on track from a little after 1pm. At that point I expected crash after crash as various fault were found with the circuit. Would the chicanes be alright? Would they slow the cars enough for them to cross the light rail tracks safely?

We needn’t have worried. Somehow despite a 5-hour delay they still fit in practice sessions for all series on Friday, no mean feat when you have two top series and 3 junior series all desparate for track time on a brand new track, some of whom needed to qualify as well as practice.

Tony Kanaan’s warm-up crash was horrifyingly scary and he was very lucky. I don’t think there’s anything the track people can do other than smooth out the bumps in case it was those which caused the mechanical failure. If it wasn’t, then it could’ve happened anywhere in the world.

Racing

The racing was very good by street race standards, better than I’ve seen at many other street tracks. The ALMS race was the better one for me and I think that was a function of having multiple classes, faster cars having to make their way past slower ones engaged in their own tight race. For the first time ever there was the question of whether an LMPC car would win overall because the LMP1 cars couldn’t make 2 hours on a single stop as other classes could. That became moot with the safety cars but it was an interesting dimension – I was rooting for the LMP1s to beat the others on speed because that’s what they should do, but I enjoyed the fact they might not and had to race for it!

The real focus was in the GT class which was as fun as always, and the field of Ferraris, Porsches, Corvettes and BMWs looked right at home on the city streets even more so than any of the other classes racing that weekend including the others in the ALMS.

The IndyCar race wasn’t as good, big open wheel cars always struggle on narrow streets like these. It wasn’t a total borefest though. There was concern it could’ve been like many street courses with a single-file parade, the order only changing when someone crashed. That didn’t happen, we actually had a solid race with a bit of drama and controversy, which is all you can ask for from this type of track. I still prefer natural terrain road courses but Baltimore proved to me it has a place in both championships, perhaps even at the expense of an existing street course such as St Pete.

Perhaps the biggest compliment to the event organisers is that the largest problems over the weekend were down to the series themselves and not the track at all. After all, the Friday delays were forgivable given they just had a near-hurricane.

The IndyCar race start was awful and could’ve resulted in horrible injury, with two safety pickup trucks on track in turns 1 and 2 as the green flag was waved at the start line. Both trucks moved to safety in the nick of time but the second truck was a very, very, very close call. It should not have been there.

The other issue was down to reordering the field on a restart after half the drivers got stuck in a Macau- or Pau-style traffic jam at the hairpin. Eventually I think it turned out that INDYCAR (sanctioning body) had moved the delayed cars ahead of those who continued, except for those which caused the incident or suffered damage. My own opinion is that the delayed cars should’ve been left in the order they resumed which is what happens in every other series in the world. Perhaps the bigger crime was the lack of information, to their credit they played the radio call from Race Control giving the field order, yet everyone at home was kept guessing at the reasons WHY that order was given.

Lessons

The track was too bumpy, everybody knows it and I really hope that is fixed for next year. The drivers generally agreed much of the track was like Long Beach, which is a fairly bumpy street course. The rest of the track was much worse and this area needs to be fixed, it was not safe. There comes a point where a good challenge for a driver tips over into becoming unsafe and I think some areas of this track did that, but as a first attempt this wasn’t a massive complaint and they will learn for next year.

The pitlane was very tight. I don’t think there is anything they can do with the available space where pitlane currently is, I hope they can find an alternative location for it.

The chicane before the rail tracks was too slow and too tight. I’m glad they took the cautious approach in year one, it was the right choice, however next year I’d like to see a chicane which is faster which in turn will make turn 1 more of a passing zone.

Summary

A fantastic debut event which got more right than wrong. Lessons were learned as early as Friday morning and continued to be learned throughout, so that by Saturday evening’s ALMS race it looked like fully sorted, and by Sunday evening’s IndyCar race it looked like it had been running annually for years. I have no doubts whatsoever that things like the bumps will be fixed for 2012.

I got the impression this is a can-do city willing to solve any problems in order to make a race meeting happen. The area of the racetrack seemed perfect with the Inner Harbor as a backdrop. The atmosphere was of curiosity mixed with excitement. I hope both ALMS and IndyCar stick together to make this event a long-lasting success. I want to go to this race meeting.

I keep being told by Americans that their people only like oval racing. Well I’m sorry. On this evidence, I just don’t believe you.

Onboard Lap

To see how bumpy and challenging this course is, take a ride along with Gunnar Jeannette in his LMPC ORECA during ALMS qualifying last Friday:

http://vimeo.com/28684848

2 laps around Baltimore Street Circuit with Gunnar Jeannette, #06 CORE Autosport ORECA FLM09, LMPC class, American Le Mans Series

2011 Indianapolis 500

Hot on the heels of one of the best Monaco Grands Prix for a few years, we saw one of the most best Indy 500 climaxes for a few years. It was on the same level as the year when Marco Andretti and Sam Hornish Jr raced over the last few laps to the flag, though this was dramatic for completely different reasons.

The build-up and pre-race festivities were as captivating as ever. The half hour leading up to the event, starting from the moment the drivers are introduced to the crowds, is one of my favourite periods in sports build-ups. Obviously nobody does preamble and build-up quite like the Americans but even this is something else again. As Steph, a Canadian, said in her must-read recap of the day at the track, that whole 30 minutes was enough to make you feel patriotic even if you aren’t from the US.

I was watching on a web feed because I can’t afford Sky Sports and IndyCar pulled their official live web stream this year, setting back their web presence by several years. My feed stuttered at the start so I missed it.. which was very annoying because I love the start at Indy.

I quickly learned from Twitter that the Dixon had got a bit of a jump start, apparently going before the green went out. I’m not sure if that’s true or if he just had better reactions, still, the race was green! Amazingly the full field of 33 squeezed through the narrow turn 1 and out of turn 2 without any great problem, it is always a nervous time waiting for a near-inevitable crash on any start or restart at Indy.

For the opening laps it was a joy to watch so many cars running so amazingly quickly, drivers ducking around to stay within the draft whilst cars ahead of them moved to break the tow. Every year I forget how that looks, how fast they are.

After a while things settled into the usual form for a long-distance oval race, pounding around making laps between safety car appearances – except this year they were very good, I was pleasantly surprised at the relative lack of yellows this year which meant we had a fairly fast race – it clocked in at just a few minutes shy of 3 hours when it can run 15 or 30 minutes beyond that, what with the speed of cleanups (or lack of it) at Indy.

When we did have yellows the drivers then faced the double-file restarts which most seemed to dread. They all trod carefully and somehow, somehow got through the first restart lap unscathed on all but one occasion. Many were expecting carnage and I commend the drivers for playing it safe yet still racing hard, that looked like the trickiest thing they had to handle all day. Indy wasn’t thought to be wide enough – okay it is a wide track by dimension but as the speed increases the more space the cars need, and at these speeds every minor movement moves the cars a lot, so a lot of space is needed. Hence the perceived narrowness. At 220mph it must feel like a narrow tunnel. There were some fraught, frenetic restarts.

We had some good racing during the green periods too which doesn’t always happen at Indy, or if it does the TV coverage misses it whilst they focus on the leaders (in this rase the Ganassi team were for the most part in control of the lead). ABC did their best to avoid showing us some actual racing but some of it did creep on to the screen and it was great to see. ABC were diabolical from the moment the race began. Pre-race? Fantastic. Post-race? Mostly good too. The coverage from flag-to-flag was largely awful. They missed some restarts. They cut away from battling drivers to show someone running alone seemingly sometimes just because they wanted to talk about the driver they cut to (tip: you can talk about someone without them being on the screen).  They played out too many commercial breaks, one even followed just 30 seconds behind another which is inexcusable. The entire team didn’t seem to be on their game which was disappointing.

However, I do give them credit for sticking with the final 20 minutes of the race without going to a break, I was so gripped by the closing laps I didn’t notice it was that long so thanks to those on Twitter who pointed it out. I also give them credit for, at long, long, last getting the flags of UK participants correct. For so long they’ve run a Scottish flag for Dario and a UK flag for everyone else, this time they ran Scottish and English crosses. You can’t have it both ways, either a UK flag for all or nation flags for all. Pet peeve of mine!

The culmination of the race was fantastic. A handful of cars ought to have made it without needing to stop again but they had to conserve fuel (Franchitti and Hildebrand). Others could stretch it to the end with a yellow flag if they saved fuel under green, but if it went green all the way a pitstop would be needed and their chance of a win would be over. One by one those hoping for yellow realised they wouldn’t make it. It became a game of chicken, how long do you stay out on a lean fuel mix, hoping for a yellow flag before giving in and pitting to give your driver a chance to make up lost time on full-rich with new tyres?

The field got mixed up through the final stops due to people mixing up their strategies, shuffling cars from the pack up to the front. So it was that we had Danica Patrick leading from Bertrand Baguette in the closing stages. First Patrick peeled off, some later Baguette did the same, and then were able to race hard without worring about fuel to claim 10th and 7th respectively.

Incredibly, the dominant Ganassi cars of Franchitti and Dixon had been short-filled! They’d held the advantage between them all race long, only to throw it away by gambling on a yellow.. or simply by making an error.

JR Hildebrand was left in the lead for the final run to home. I have to be honest, I hadn’t clocked he was good to the end at this point. I assumed he would be the next one to duck into the pits.. but the laps kept ticking down. 3 to go. 2 to go. White flag to signal the final lap, he’s going to do it! This was something special, a rookie in the series was going to win their biggest race, one of the big pillars of motorsport.

Except… he didn’t win. Charlie Kimball was minding his own business at the tail of the lead lap trying to make the end of the race. Hildebrand comes up behind him in turn 3, somewhat faster it must be said, and has to make the choice of holding back or passing him through turn 4. People had been lapping cars in turn 4 all day so he decides to make the move.. but goes too high, into the marbles, into the wall. To his credit he still mashes the throttle whilst his car is still at speed dragging along the wall, anything to get to the finish line! It nets him second position in his first Indy 500 which is still an incredible result.

As JR scraped along that wall a white car flashed by in between he and Kimball. For a few moments – which seemed much longer but can’t have been – nobody knew who had won, not on the TV broadcast, not on Twitter or anywhere else. Partly I suspect because the livery was unfamiliar, possibly because we hadn’t seen much of him all day despite having run in the top 6 for a lot of the race. Then it was announced:

Dan Wheldon won the Indy 500 in a one-off entry for Bryan Herta Autosport! A phenomenal result from a man who always runs well at Indy no matter what his fortunes are elsewhere, one of the ‘nice guys’ of the paddock, and that label also applies to his team boss Bryan Herta. I was a fan of Herta when he was driving and I’m so pleased he’s won this race as an owner, along with assistance from the team of the amazing Sam Schmidt.

Chaos ensued. I’ve seen fans at the Indy 500 that cheery and ecstastic once before and that was when Helio Castroneves won the race after acquittal at a tax trial which could’ve seen him jailed. Yet these fans seemed even louder and there were more of them! The place was jumping. Wheldon was crying on the radio and again on the podium. The US was denied a home winner at the last turn but nobody could argue against a Wheldon win, he puts so much into Indy and I sense the locals treat him as one of their own.

If you missed the race or want to relive it, do watch these 15-minutes of highlights from the official IndyCar YouTube channel. You just have sit through some abysmal commentary from the track feed, which is so poor it even makes IMS Radio (also included) sound professional when really it is tear-your-hair-out frustrating to listen to. The video is still worth watching.

What a race. After some lean years Indy is once again back where it belongs as one of the great pillars of world motorsport. Fantastic!

Result

  1. Wheldon (Herta)
  2. Hildebrand (Panther)
  3. Rahal (Ganassi)
  4. Kanaan (KV)
  5. Dixon (Ganassi)
  6. Servia (Newman/Haas)
  7. Baguette (Rahal Letterman Lanigan)
  8. Scheckter (KV)
  9. M.Andretti (Andretti)
  10. Patrick (Andretti)

Driver Points

  1. Power 194 (14th)
  2. Franchitti 178 (12th)
  3. Servia 150 (6th)
  4. Kanaan 135 (4th)
  5. Dixon 129 (5th)
  6. Rahal 120 (3rd)

Amazingly both Power and Franchitti took a similar points hit, so there’s no change at the top.

The next event was the double-header Firestone Twin 275s at Fort Worth on Saturday 11th June, which I haven’t really seen yet. The next event after this post goes up is the Milwaukee 225 on 19th June.

Friday Favourites: 13 May 2011

Hello everyone, here is another in the irregular series highlighting some of the best of the motorsport web.

There is a lot of good stuff out there at the moment so I’m a way behind with my reading, apologies if I’ve not mentioned yours, and do feel free to follow up in the comments with anything worthwhile that you think people should see.

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20 Years On: The Cat That Owned The Cream
 – Adam Cooper / Autosport Plus (subscription required)

Even if you don’t like sportscars you should read this for the sheer number of F1 crossovers. you’ll be amazed as I was, I like sportscar racing but my knowledge of that era is limited to say the least. Just look at it though. The Jaguar XJR-14 is one of the best-looking race cars of all time, all classes. Adam Cooper relates how succesful it was and how it lead to a certain group of people to work together with great success not just in sportscars, but beyond..

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F1 Photographers Versus The Democratisation Of Media
– Mr C / Sidepodcast

The modernisation of written media is covered regularly, as print gives way to web and that in turn opens the way for good quality bloggers and amateur writers to get themselves noticed. It seems, in a motorsport context at least, the same hasn’t been spoken about when it comes to photography. Mr C explores the issue here, and a lively conversation ensued in the comments when an F1 photographer turned up to debate the issue.

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Centennial Interview Series

– More Front Wing

Steph and Paul have been pumping out an interview every day in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500. It is a remarkable effort and there are some fantastic names involved from both past and present of Indy racing: Scott Dixon, Bobby Rahal, Mario Andretti (yes… Mario Andretti), Gil de Ferran, Danny Sullivan, the list goes on. I must admit I’ve not had the time to delve into these properly yet but I certainly will be doing so soon.

Whilst there you should go back a couple of weeks and check out the interview with Keith Wiggins explaining the teams’ perspective on aero kits, and also this superb Twitter guide which should be read by every Twitter user, IndyCar fan or not.

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Formula INDYCAR

– Eric Hall / Another IndyCar Blog

Found on a blog I have only just discovered, this post from April raises the fascinating issue of IndyCar following the model set by Formula 1, which is essentially a European series expanding outwards. Eric suggests IndyCar should be a North American series expanding outwards, to a sustainable limit. I agree with him, I’ve often thought that’s exactly what IndyCar racing should be like, most of the races in North America with several elsewhere. Not only is this is a great idea, it is also well-argued in this post. I’ll be paying more attention to Eric’s writing!

He followed it up with a couple of posts about the ‘dream schedule’, part 1 and part 2.

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World of Sportscars, 5.10

– John Dagys / SpeedTV

A round-up of news from the ILMC/LMS round at Spa-Francorchamps, including a great 3-minute video from Level 5 Motorsports, an American Le Mans Series team who have made the jump to race a car in Europe this year as well as their ALMS campaign. Note this article is spread across two pages and it can be easy to miss the page divider on the Speed site.

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There have been many blog posts this week about the DRS wing in F1, I plan to join them over the weekend so I will link to some of them then. Do also keep an eye on the blog for a quick review of the Donington Historic which I ought to have written 10 days ago.

Tony Cotman Talk About the 2012 IndyCar

The sanctioning body INDYCAR and their IZOD IndyCar Series are becoming one of the most open championships in the world in terms of fan access, both at the track and in terms of changing the product based on fan feedback, and explaining their thought processes, although clearly the recent fracas over decisions in race control shows there is still a long way to go.

This is a remarkable cultural shift if you think about the introverted nature of all flavours of North American open-wheel racing over the previous 15 years or more. That’s not to say others aren’t open, the ALMS and the BTCC are pretty good at it too, and so it is nice to see a topline open-wheel series following suit.

Noted motorsport bods NZR Consulting are also good at fan availability, just this week their people have been tweeting from Sao Paulo about the build-up of that street venue and the changes made there since 2010, a job tasked to NZR. Their most pubically-visible ‘name’ is Tony Cotman, who works with the IndyCar Series in race control and is also in charge of stewarding the Indy Lights series. He used to perform a similar function with Champ Car and whilst there he oversaw the transition from the then-old Lolas to the new Panoz DP01.

Cotman and NZR are now in charge of overseeing the IndyCar Series transition from the old Dallara IR7 to the new Dallara IndyCar body with “aero kit” add-ons provided by other makers, as well as the change from a sole supplier (Honda) to competition between 3 makes (Honda, Chevy, Lotus), all  under the direction of the INDYCAR ICONIC Committee.

In this short video made publically available via the official IndyCar YouTube channel, Cotman explains the progress they have made to date and lets us know the timescale they are working toward.

I must say I was very sceptical when I first heard this plan which seemed like a letdown over full chassis competition, and it is still disappointing they didn’t take that route, but now I’m very excited to see how this turns out because it is far better than a single-spec series. The new car with engine competition is something really to look forward to, and the added extra of what should hopefully be a variety of aero kits adds an interesting dimension to the mix. Let’s hope those designs don’t converge over the following years to all look the same.

I’ve not asked IndyCar or NZR, but I assume as it on an open channel with a ‘share’ option that I’m allowed to repost the video. Thanks to the @Newman_Haas team for tweeting the original link and do also follow NZR Consulting and IndyCar if you don’t already.