Grand-Am Rnd 1: Rolex 24 24-27 Jan 2008

[Knowlesy]

Slow last lap for 01?

Edit: Caution, explains it.

Could be bad for the overheating that...

[FIRE]

01 in pits

[Boro]

what happened to car 61?

[dxk1]

While I certainly understand the need for some yellow flags and caution periods, what they do at Daytona is ridiculous. I believe the LeMans way is much better and you certainly get the better teams racing at the top of the leaderboard. At Daytona, they seem to try to contrive close racing by constantly bunching up the field with cautions.

Seems like the top 5 a few hours ago was mostly Porsche powered cars and now they are all gone!!! Could it be a third in a row for Ganassi? Those guys seem to understand the way to run this race. Just hang around close to the top (the cautions won't let you drop back too far) and they go for it in the last few hours.

DK

[Boro]

Originally Posted by dxk1

While I certainly understand the need for some yellow flags and caution periods, what they do at Daytona is ridiculous. I believe the LeMans way is much better and you certainly get the better teams racing at the top of the leaderboard. At Daytona, they seem to try to contrive close racing by constantly bunching up the field with cautions.


DK

That's the NASCAR way

[rdjones]

Is that rain I see?

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by dxk1

While I certainly understand the need for some yellow flags and caution periods, what they do at Daytona is ridiculous. I believe the LeMans way is much better and you certainly get the better teams racing at the top of the leaderboard. At Daytona, they seem to try to contrive close racing by constantly bunching up the field with cautions.

Daytona has almost 70 cars on 3.5 miles, not 55 on 8 miles, it's a bit different...

[Knowlesy]

It is all NASCAR's fault. I'm going to sit here, watching the race, and complain about yellows because I honestly never saw them coming. Not once.

[Boro]

Oh gimme a break. In all forms of racing that I follow, these guys are the worst when it comes to knee-jerk FC yellows.

[dxk1]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

Daytona has almost 70 cars on 3.5 miles, not 55 on 8 miles, it's a bit different...

We all understand that and realize that it is different. My point is, at Daytona, they will put out a yellow flag for a blown tire while at LeMans, sometimes they won't even put out a full course caution when someone goes off the track and bends up their car. There's just a difference in philosophy. At LeMans, they feel the most prepared, most reliable, best driven car should win. At Daytona, the idea is just to keep everybody close so the race is exciting. I suppose both have their place.

DK

[Knowlesy]

Originally Posted by Boro

Oh gimme a break. In all forms of racing that I follow, these guys are the worst when it comes to knee-jerk FC yellows.

I don't care for the yellow flags either, I too think it is too much at times.

However there has been enough to keep me interested.

And most series in the world have inexplicable yellow flags/safety cars etc... it is an annoyance that has to be dealt with I am afraid.

[rdjones]

Ok we are back live on Eurosport.

[Boro]

I just think people were spoiled from last year's Daytona race

This year seems somewhat normal for an endurance race with the attrition rate and cautions.

[dxk1]

Wow! What happended to the Porsches? Now the highest Porsche is the TRG car in 11th place and they're even in second place in GT.

DK

[SebringMG]

Crowd is not as big as i expected......

[Boro]

They're all in the infield.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by SebringMG

Crowd is not as big as i expected......

Capacity crowd in the infield. I wouldn't want to watch a 24hr race from the grandstands either.....

[dxk1]

The Grand-Am live timing site would greatly benefit by having some type of designation as to whether a car is in the pits or out and having all cars officially out of the race marked as such. The only way to tell now is to keep track of the lap counter and notice that it doesn't change in the normal lap times. That's not easy to do for ~70 cars!!

DK

[Knowlesy]

Top job by JPM again. Hopefully the car stays reliable in the (usually) safe hands of Pruett.

Carlton Kirby making some truly disturbing comments.

[dxk1]

Looks like Gurney is gaining on Montoya by about 5 seconds a lap. Some quick math says, it takes about 20 laps to gain one lap and it takes about 40 minutes to run 20 laps, so Gurney is going to come up a lap short.

DK

[Knowlesy]

Yeah, but if it got close they'd run faster laptimes in the 01. Just controlling the gap at the moment.

[Boro]

01 is running 1.50's to save the car.

Pretty sure they can turn it up when and if necessary.

[AU N EGL]

If the damaged car comes to stop in a bad place that car needs to be moved. and damaged Carbon Fibre pieces are very sharp and cause many tire punctures. Better to though the yellow and clean the track then have major carnage.

[jc_nl]

Originally Posted by AU N EGL

If the damaged car comes to stop in a bad place that car needs to be moved. and damaged Carbon Fibre pieces are very sharp and cause many tire punctures. Better to though the yellow and clean the track then have major carnage.

If you go by that then every single race (involving cars with carbon tubs) in Europe should end in total chaos.


It doesn't


It doesn't even cause a massive number of punctures

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by jc_nl

If you go by that then every single race (involving cars with carbon tubs) in Europe should end in total chaos.


It doesn't


It doesn't even cause a massive number of punctures

It did in the last Grand Am race of last season, and put out one championship contender, so I guess they are a little cautios this time, as they took quite a lot of flak for not throwing a FCY at that race.