Grand-Am Mexico City

[Danske]

Mexico City (Mar 2-4)
Event Page
Entry List

Some little wrinkles here and there for this round.

Because Grand-Am is sharing the weekend with the Busch series they're using the Mexico City course without the stadium section. I'd guess the shared weekend is also responsible for Randy LaJoie and Paul Tracy both driving in the Rolex series for Southard and Michael Shank respectively.

It looks like the Tuttle/SAMAX driver roulette wheel came up on Jonathan Cochet for the season. Let's see if he can be as quick as he was before but without running other cars off the track.

Paul Gentilozzi makes his DP debut driving with Tomy Drissi in the Rocketsports Ford Crawford.

I'm expecting Robin Liddell and Wolf Henzler to seriously challenge for the GT win and continue their march to an eventual GT championship in the Tafel Porsche. The TRG guys have continued whining about the GTO.R being slower on the straights than the Porsches and don't like the removal of the stadium section of the course. It looks like Mexico is the new Phoenix with most of the GT teams skipping this round again, although there are more in attendance than last year.

The engine shuffling from last year and even the last round reminds me of F1 a bit. Krohn has switched to Ford from Pontiac between rounds, following Finlay in their move from BMW last year to Ford this year. Synergy has moved to Porsche power since last year, AJR and Vici have entered with Porsche Crawfords, Cheever has switched from Lexus to Porsche since the Rolex 24, and now there's a rumor of a Porsche Riley in the works. I might guess the spread of Porsche engines is from PMNA offering DP engines, but I'm at a loss why the Fords are multiplying. Finlay switched because their shop is just down the road from Rousch-Yates, but Krohn referencing the Pontiac fires just doesn't seem to adequately explain their switch for me. Eh. *shrug*

With SunTrust collecting only two championship points at the Rolex 24 they're going to have a long, tough road to repeat as champions this year. They're only nine points behind Ganassi, but several other full-season teams finished in the top ten of the Rolex and are way ahead right now.

[Snips1]

Cochet is going to have a busy weekendd, driving both the 0 and 7 car

[19dodge]

it looks like the nr 0 Tuttle car will be their "backup".

I think its a plan for Brian Tuttle to complete more laps in the race (drive both the nr 0 and nr 7). Tuttle wants to win the Jim Trueman award, which goes to the non-professional driver with the highest position in points + most miles completed.

[Purist]

I just hope the GA guys don't have to run the chicane after start/finish.

BTW, what was the deal with the "out of bounds line" last year at the exit of Peralta onto the start/finish straight?

[19dodge]

I believe there will be no chicane at the s/f. The Busch Series ran it last year, but will not this time around.

[Danske]

While the Mexico course would be more unlike Daytona with the stadium section in-use, it will be interesting to see how Cheever's Porsche Crawford does. IIRC, Long said the AJR car was slower than the other cars in the infield, which says to me that the Porsche engine stinks even worse at lower rpm than I thought it did because the car was also many pounds lighter than the others or that AJR tricked everything out for rocketing around the Daytona banking and that suited the Porsche Crawford very well. Long Beach will be an even better test of the relative merits of that package.

[Purist]

The esses should be pretty quick, so with the Porsche engine and ligher weight, AJR ought to be ok.

[Danske]

No AJR for Mexico, but in the first practice session the Cheever Porsche Crawford was fastest for quite a while and finished the session in P3 behind MSR's Lexus Riley and GAINSCO'S Pontiac Riley. Gurney in the latter was also in P1 for a large portion of the session, after whinging in a PR about how the minimum-weight increase crippled the car. Still, it's only the first practice. The report from the track is that the Porsche Crawford is still lightning quick on the straights but stinks in the twisties.

[Danske]

Oh, and Henzler/Liddell in their Porsche were quickest in GT, ahead of the Sigalsport BMW and two TRG GTO.R's.

[billnchristy]

http://www.grandamerican.com/Events/...?SessionID=631
p1
http://www.grandamerican.com/Events/...?SessionID=632
p2

Yes, they will use the peraltada and no chicane, hence times 20sec. lower than last year and about 15 or so MPH

http://www.grandamerican.com/Events/...sp?EventID=135
photos

[paul-collins]

Originally Posted by billnchristy

Yes, they will use the peraltada and no chicane, hence times 20sec. lower than last year and about 15 or so MPH.

Finally some race cars using the proper circuit. Lee Janotta would be proud.

[Danske]

That is what your "proper circuit" does to cars, you *******!!!

[richmini99]

Finally some race cars using the proper circuit. Lee Janotta would be proud.

Isn't that the truth. I never thought we'd see the day. Should make for an exciting day tomorrow.

[billnchristy]

Qualifying:
http://www.grandamerican.com/Events/...?SessionID=634

Top 10 <1 sec apart
All 4 running chassis in top 10.
All engine makes except BMW in top 10.

[Purist]

More of a history question here, but I've gotten the impression that the banking in the final turn, Peralta, used to be steeper. Does anyone know if this was the case?

[Adam43]

The entry is different to the past so there has been some work there.

[Net-Ranger]

Originally Posted by Purist

More of a history question here, but I've gotten the impression that the banking in the final turn, Peralta, used to be steeper. Does anyone know if this was the case?

Use to be...sadly no longer, last changes to Peraltada was on 1990 due to the constant complains of Ayrton Senna about the turn, for the great Senna, Peraltada was one of those cursed turns for him, he always have afraid of it, funny thing is that the rest of the f-1 drivers in that time loved it!!!!!

right now the banking of the turn should be around 3° to 6° degrees of banking, before 1990 use to be 36° degrees!!!!!!

but still, even with the present banking cars could easily reach around 160mph at the end of the turn

[Bramzel]

Finally found a clip of the JC France / Bingham battle:

http://www.zoomin.tv/videoplayer/?fu...206500&nbg=ftv

Might make the GA more popular under other sportfans

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Net-Ranger

Use to be...sadly no longer, last changes to Peraltada was on 1990 due to the constant complains of Ayrton Senna about the turn, for the great Senna, Peraltada was one of those cursed turns for him, he always have afraid of it, funny thing is that the rest of the f-1 drivers in that time loved it!!!!!

right now the banking of the turn should be around 3° to 6° degrees of banking, before 1990 use to be 36° degrees!!!!!!

F1 returned to Mexico City in 1986 after sixteen years (the last event before that was the one with crowd problems). It was not 36° at that point and I am not sure it has ever been!
I am also not sure Senna constantly complained about the corner. Although bumps did catch him out a couple of times. In 1986 he was on pole by three tenths, but reckoned he had lost another half a second because of a bump (although the quote I am reading does not say if it was in Peraltada).
In 1991 he rolled his McLaren in Peraltada because of a bump. I think this caused the banking to be removed, rather than 'constant complaining'.

The last changed to Peraltada were much more recent than when F1 was there. Look at the current map on the Grand Am website it is not just a banking change. These were done because of requests by CART IIRC.

[Purist]

The only change I'm aware of with CART was the addition of the cutoff to go through the baseball stadium.

It might help if someone could hunt up some old photos or film of the circuit.

[Adam43]

http://www.racingcircuits.net/

GP circuit: http://www.racingcircuits.net/Mexico/Mexico%20City.gif
'86 to '01
Current circuit (I think): http://www.racingcircuits.net/Mexico...ity%202002.gif

[paul-collins]

Originally Posted by AdamAshmore

http://www.racingcircuits.net/

GP circuit: http://www.racingcircuits.net/Mexico/Mexico%20City.gif
'86 to '01
Current circuit (I think): http://www.racingcircuits.net/Mexico...ity%202002.gif

It appears the site now won't let you link to the pics directly, so here's a direct page URL:

http://www.racingcircuits.net/Mexico...oCity2002.html

This would appear to be the current champcar circuit (including the Horquilla section). I would guess that the GA race took the shortcut past the Horquilla section as shown here:

http://www.racingcircuits.net/Mexico...005nascar.html

[Purist]

Yes, I know the various configurations, but there's no info on the banking of Peralta given on that site.

I've only seen one photo from more than a decade ago that really shows any of the banking, but it's kind of hard to tell much from the camea angle (above and outside looking at the exit of Peralta and down the start/finish straight).

I did a Google search a few nights ago, but couldn't find much detail information on it, just a few basic overviews of changes to the circuit. There may have been something a little more on one or two of the sights, but my Spanish isn't quite good enough to be sure what they were saying.

[billnchristy]

it is definitely much flatter now. The only reference I can give to show the change would be to play Pro Race driver, it had banking on its Peraltada.

[Purist]

I assume Grand Prix Legneds has Peralta in its original form?