St pete Discussion thread (RACE RESULTS INCLUDED)

[GP Racer]

Wow, what is up with the Ganassi boys!? They were really horrendous last season, and they are continuing that trend this year. I'm shocked that they look so bad on a road course. I thought they would shine here.

And what the heck happened to Scott Sharp? He's much better than this on road courses.

Alot of unknowns here, but it should be very exciting!

[luke]

Originally Posted by GP Racer

Wow, what is up with the Ganassi boys!? They were really horrendous last season, and they are continuing that trend this year. I'm shocked that they look so bad on a road course. I thought they would shine here.

And what the heck happened to Scott Sharp? He's much better than this on road courses.

Alot of unknowns here, but it should be very exciting!

What I think the problem is GP Racer, is that the reason as to why, Penske, Andretti-Green, and Rahal-Letterman, are the main teams to beat is because they, have unlimited budgets, it's not like what the IRL used to be like, when all sorts of teams, with all sorts of budgets would take part.
I'm sure the current teams who only take part in Indy every year, would idealy take part in a full season, and they could have done at one point of the IRL.
Ganassi doesn't have as much as some would think he does.....

Last year you could have said it was Toyota, but this year look at Penske. I'm not all that suprised in Ganassi's pace, and performances, what I'm more suprised with is, Scott Dixon's. Especially when he was the 2003 champ, on his debut. He seems to me like the Jacques Villeneuve of the IRL.

[marcus]

Race results have now been added to this thread

[Snrub]

I caught bits at the start and the last half of the race.

Kannan: He was very quick and he's definately improved his racecraft since he last was on a street course, but I think he deserved at least one black flag. I'm not sure what number the corner was, but his moves on Manning and Briscoe (less so with the later) were dirty. Notice how Briscoe was blocking Kannan's inside line on every corner BUT the one Kannan tried his pass on? The reason for that was because the corner was VERY tight. There is essentially only one line and a couple of inches to vary it. Kannan dive bombed up the inside at the last minute, the two Ganassi cars had no where to go. Briscoe *may* have been able to really mash the breaks and prevented an accident, but he shouldn't have had to do that because it would have completely compromised his corner and he would have more time than is acceptable when being passed. I couldn't help but being reminding of Zanardi. The other thing that was most annoying about it was that the always went his way, he was undamaged and the officials didn't penalize him. Then I thought about it, Kannan has mentioned how he has been influenced by Zanardi @ Mo Nunn, maybe he has decided it was time to drive dirty.

Dario: Why wasn't he able to keep up to Kannan and Weldon at the end? Even in other points in the race, he didn't show his past strength.

Herta: He was leading early on, had a bad pitstop and was never a factor again. What happened?

Sheckter: Wierd crash. My first thought was what Goodyear suggested that he was caught out by the shadows. He didn't seem to turn the wheel the way I expected. Thoughts?

[Kicking-back]

An entertaining race.

Reminded me of CART's mid-nineties glory days.

[Hugewally]

Originally Posted by thebear

According to a local newspaper report, all of Friday's times were on grooved rain tires in order to assist in laying down some rubber on the course regular race setups will be used today.

Rain tires were used only in the first part of the first session on Friday and not by everyone (Foyt Jr was on slicks the entire time). Slicks went on all the cars after the first stop in the pits.

[mac]

Originally Posted by Snrub

Then I thought about it, Kannan has mentioned how he has been influenced by Zanardi @ Mo Nunn, maybe he has decided it was time to drive dirty.

Except with the amount of dicing and passing that Zanardi did, he VERY RARELY made contact with other cars.

He had an almost unrivalled knack for pulling off impeccable, clean passes - and plenty of them.

The only time I can recall him clearly being at fault in an overtaking incident was with Helio at Mid-Ohio in 1998.

There were incidents with Herta at Vancouver in '97 and Tracy at Surfers Paradise in '97, but those were racing incidents.

Tony perhaps needs to have another chat to Alex about executing clean passes.

[GP Racer]

Originally Posted by Snrub

Dario: Why wasn't he able to keep up to Kannan and Weldon at the end? Even in other points in the race, he didn't show his past strength.

Sheckter: Wierd crash. My first thought was what Goodyear suggested that he was caught out by the shadows. He didn't seem to turn the wheel the way I expected. Thoughts?

Not sure, but Dario might have taken some damage when he contacted Sharp and punted him off. Sharp gave him room in turn one, but Dario blew it, and ran up on the curb, and he sort of skipped into Sharp. Scott was in 5th with a shot at the time. So, no sympathy for Dario from me!

As for Scheckter, there are simply no more excuses left...

[gttouring]

really a good race dammit, and with most of the field looking like the presplit days, i have to say CCWS might not be able to hold off a merge or what ever.
Carpenter has little business on a road course it seems, and AJ foyt IV, for sure has no business in a race car going any direction...
but Herta was awesome. and the penske cars... it all looked like it should
good race really.
but i think the course is one of the best street races ever. the Airlfield section awesome.

[brightline]

The race was good, and cleaner than I thought. St. Pete is probably one of the best street courses around. The crowd looked about the same as the Champ Car race which was also 50-60k for the weekend. The IRL and Honda promoted the hell out of this race, billboards were everywhere and TV ads since christmas time.

My question is: are the IRL cars using traction control on the street courses?

I was at the 2003 race and the rear of the champ cars really snapped around at turn 10, while the indy cars didn't appear to do that on TV. Also, I seem to remember hearing a couple years ago that the indy cars used TC coming out of the pits. Anyone know for sure because the indy cars bounced around a lot but never seemed to get squirrely in the corners (except for Carpenter...who looped it around twice in the same spot).

[Purist]

I think the Champ Cars at least used to use launch control for exiting the pits.

[luke]

Originally Posted by Kicking-back

An entertaining race.

Reminded me of CART's mid-nineties glory days.

Just because the IRL has had one street race, how can you compare it to the 'CART's mid-nineties glory days'?!!

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by luke

Just because the IRL has had one street race, how can you compare it to the 'CART's mid-nineties glory days'?!!

Why not? If KB saw some enjoyable qualities that made him think back to said mid-90's CART races, who are you to tell him his opinion is wrong?

It's all in the eye of the beholder.

Or to put it in another way: opinions are like arses - we all have one

[luke]

Originally Posted by rustyfan

Why not? If KB saw some enjoyable qualities that made him think back to said mid-90's CART races, who are you to tell him his opinion is wrong?

It's all in the eye of the beholder.

Or to put it in another way: opinions are like arses - we all have one

rustyfan - I'm asking how it reminds him, and I'm not saying his opinion is wrong.

[Kicking-back]

Originally Posted by luke

Just because the IRL has had one street race, how can you compare it to the 'CART's mid-nineties glory days'?!!

I'm saying that particular race was comparable with CART street races of the mid nineties.

Entertaining, colourful cars, the big teams and drivers, sunny weather.

Nothing quantifiable, but it just looked and felt right, and in my mind I was transported back to Long Beach 1995 and the like.

[Snrub]

I don't think we need to argue symatics over how the race went compared to the past. It was good. It wasn't a 10 out of 10, but it was entertaining.

Originally Posted by mac

Except with the amount of dicing and passing that Zanardi did, he VERY RARELY made contact with other cars.

He had an almost unrivalled knack for pulling off impeccable, clean passes - and plenty of them.

Tony perhaps needs to have another chat to Alex about executing clean passes.

Zanardi pulled off LOTS of dirty passes, but he did it without hitting his opponent. Simply avoiding contact does not mean clean. He relied heavily on his opponents to avoid collision, rather than avoiding it himself. Some of the time it was mitigated because of what didn't happen, but often he took unacceptable risks. Another example would be with Andretti in '98 @ Elkhart. It it had played out only slightly differently Andretti wouldn't have cartwheeled to safely, but to his death. (Andretti acknowledge that at after getting out of the car)

[trow]

Originally Posted by gttouring

really a good race dammit, and with most of the field looking like the presplit days, i have to say CCWS might not be able to hold off a merge or what ever.
Carpenter has little business on a road course it seems, and AJ foyt IV, for sure has no business in a race car going any direction...
but Herta was awesome. and the penske cars... it all looked like it should
good race really.
but i think the course is one of the best street races ever. the Airlfield section awesome.

Too funny ... about Carpenter and IV. Those kids will be fine on ovals but they're hazardous on streets. They had better improve REAL fast if they plan on staying in the cars. I'd say it's not far off when we see Boris Said piloting one of those machines on roads. They were flat out dangerous!



JMHO.

[sr230772]

laughing at trow

[trow]

Originally Posted by sr230772

laughing at trow

[mac]

Originally Posted by Snrub

Zanardi pulled off LOTS of dirty passes, but he did it without hitting his opponent.

Rubbish! Going by your definition, everytime a car passes another car it is dirty! At any time of an overtaking manouevre, the car in front can turn into the overtaking car and make a mess of it all.

Zanardi made A LOT of passes during his time in CART. For him to have only made contact once that can totally be attributed to him, indicates a particularly clean racer to me.

I would love some examples of what you are talking about, because every pass of his that I can think of (minus Helio at Mid-Ohio) was totally fair.

Originally Posted by Snrub

Another example would be with Andretti in '98 @ Elkhart. It it had played out only slightly differently Andretti wouldn't have cartwheeled to safely, but to his death. (Andretti acknowledge that at after getting out of the car)

Not too sure what you're talking about here. Are you referring to Mid-Ohio '98 (the same race as the Helio incident)? Andretti's accident was caused by him hitting debris. The debris was on the track after Zanardi passed Lehto on the back straight and slightly misjudged it, and he clipped the end of Lehto's front wing. Surely you are not blaming Alex for Michael hitting debris and having an accident!?

[marcus]

UMMMM if you guys want to debate this can you please take it to PM.

it has no relevence to this thread at all (I dont even know how Zanardi has anything to do with it as he has never even sat in an IRL car.)

[mac]

Originally Posted by marcus

UMMMM if you guys want to debate this can you please take it to PM.

it has no relevence to this thread at all (I dont even know how Zanardi has anything to do with it as he has never even sat in an IRL car.)

I didn't bring it up!

[miamiyogi]

Hi folks, I am new to the forum. I have a limited budget to travel to races and just wanted to share my perspective on my short journey to watch these guys compete.

I should have reconsidered my selection of going to this race since essentially you end up watching the race on the jumbotron and live for the 15 seconds they pass in front of you. But I don’t want to spark an oval vs. road debate.

The organizers I guess didn't expect anyone to come from out of town since there were NO signs anywhere telling you how to get to this thing. Once in downtown you just gotta follow everyone which led me to the wrong entrance and I ended up walking the whole track. In chit chatting with the natives (Miller Lite does that to me) ($6 for a warm one?!?!?) my general impression was that most were out for the spectacle of the thing and didn’t have a clue what IRL was...most people were mildly enthusiastic about hometown hero Dan. I also was mildly annoyed at the "IRL sucks" banner flying behind a plane around the track.

No one thought someone might need to know where the Paddock was since there was no signs telling you where it was. (what is it with St. Pete and signs?) Grandstands were placed at choice locations so if you had grandstand seating you were in good shape but $85 poorer. General admission areas were few and pathetic. With 10 laps to go I also noticed a throng of something-teens swarming below the grandstand...oh yes they were there for the Good Charlotte concert which probably explains for 5,000 or so of those admissions.

Anyway I will let you know of what I thought of the event and will comment about the actual race in another thread. Next year this should start becoming a world-class event. Does anyone else out there travel to these things like me?

[GP Racer]

Thanks for the first hand info on the race miami.

Sounds like a typical street race affair doesn't it? Some people there for the race, some for the concert, and some just because it's an event. That always explains those big fan numbers that these races always claim. I wouldn't be to hard on the IRL for the lack of signs and directions, since this is there first street race. Those things can always be improved on. That banner is about as childish as things can get, isn't it?

I think a better test of the IRL's ability to draw fans for a road race will be at The Glen, simply because it's far, far off the beaten path. I don't like the date for the race though, as it will probably pretty cold, and rain is likely then, a far different scene than St. Pete! I will, or hope to be going to that race.

[miamiyogi]

I didn't mean to be hard on the IRL. More towards the city/organizers. And I am not upset, understood it was the first go at it. I was just relaying my experience, note my parting shot...it stands to be a great event given time. I will go to St. Pete again because it's easy for me being in the area. I dont think I will attend another road race though- you get a better feel for the race at home.

THANKS!