Surfer's, Great Race, Or ...?

[GP Racer]

Well, I had no intentions of staying up into the wee hours of the morning to watch Surfers, I thought I would catch the replay, but it was to good and bizzare to turn off.

What did you guy's think? For me, I'm not sure if it goes down as a great race, or a mistake filled demolition derby driven by a bunch of rookies. Part of me loved it, alot of aggressive driving , which lead to alot of passing and action. Guy's were really going after this win, with no-holds barred. On the other hand, were the driver's overly aggressive, causing far to many accidents and punts, spinning out so many times when nobody was even around them? It seemed quite amaturish at times, even leaving the announcer's speechless as to explaining it all! At one point Varsha quoted Casey Stengal when he said about his Mets "does anybody here know how to play this game?"

Whew! I'm tired! Any thoughts?

:confused:

[Needless]

I'm similarly in two minds but it certainly kept my attention. A few two many yellows but there were a few interesting scraps. The championship battle made things more interesting but i was confused why Junqueira did not come in for slick tyres earlier (hindsights a wonderful thing!)

The international commentary - Jeremy Shaw - was equally critical, particularly of Bourdais. I agree that Bourdais was trying to hold up Tracy at the start but I'm not convinced that someone would deliberately do doughnuts in the middle of the track after crashing in order to slow the competition down - a bit too risky.

The race also highlighted a few things that could be amended with cart:

1. If the rolling start is waved off with yellows, surely the offending driver should be punished just as you would if you jumped the start from a standing start. The race should also start the next time round without losing a racing lap although obviously this could not happen indefinately.

2. Dominguez got docked a lap for losing a wheel. Surely the fact that he lost a wheel was a penalty in itself. What other series has this rule?

3. Geoff Boss. Whilst the Dale Coyne cars do not appear to be the quickest cars out there, I don't think he has been on the pace anywhere.

Will still be watching the race at Fontana and the 2004 season for which I understand a few additional cars/teams may be joining.

[SALEEN S7R]

For me the race was pretty good, I stayed up all night to watch the race. Some of the moves though were a little suspicous, and I really dont know what Bourdias was thinking at the start of lap 1. He should have eased off and let Tracy through, but hes a rookie, and Im guessing he had strict instructions from NH regarding what he had to do. He was just doing a job.

Great to see Darren Manning on the podium though - and the first Reynard 1,2,3 this year.

[Muzza]

Hello, GP Racer,

It was a strange race (Reynard 1-2-3? I have to eat my words, after having professed that they would not be anywhere in the race... Granted, luck was a factor, but i have to recognize that I was completely wrong!) but in my opinion the only inccident caused by aggressive driving was the start one, when Bourdais unnecessarily punted Tracy.

There were some spins at the last turn (a place that has seen similar incidents in the past) due to guys coming to power to abruptly. In treacherous adherence conditions, and without traction control, several drivers were caught out.

Bourdais's picturesque crash can hardly attributed to overdriving either. Notice that Junqueira, just ahead of him, almost went to the wall too - Bourdais was indeed hungrier than Bruno attacking that kerb, just slightly.

I did not see exaggerated aggressiveness on the accident that involved Tracy, Moreno and Tagliani - Moreno breaked out of the ideal trajectory, trying to defend his position from Tracy, and did it too deep and in a slippeery track (that was called slippery by the announcers even when it was dry - why? Fluids from supporting races?), and spun, collecting Tagliani in the process. Tracy was just inside of Moreno, but managed to stay clear, until Tagliani run back onto him!

Did anybody understood what happened to Bruno?

Just my opinion...

Muzza

[dirtfan]

Like you said, entertaining, although at times it seemed more like a Sprint car "C" main. For every skillful racing pass, there were several bonehead tangles. I guess this is to be expected with aggresive driving on a street course, where there's no place to go to escape a spinout.

[racefanatic]

I came home right after Sebastien crashed and I was a little confused... then of course I watched the rest of the race. I can't believe it hailed! Just like at Indy for F1! That was a pretty weird race, but it's always fun to see a new winner. I really didn't understand what happened to Bruno either! I wish that wouldn't have happened. Anyway, I guess I have some mixed feelings too, but congratulations to Ryan and I can't wait until Fontana.

[macdaddy]

All week long I've been looking forward to this race...
Didn't start until after midnight...
And then the rain delay...

This morning, I woke up on the sofa, surrounded by empties, realizing that I missed the last part of the race! The last thing I remember was Bruno leading Adrian...

[Jordi]

What happened to Bruno?
Also, poor Oriol was victim of Fernandez. CART.com says Oriol ran into Adrian's rear wheel, but to me it seemed Adrian went to the right to make room and just pushed Oriol against the wall. Whatever... Another luckless race for my mate...

[rustyfan]

Whenever the drivers managed to not look like first-year Formula Ford drivers, they did manage to put in some good moves out there.

I wouldn't go as far as saying it was a great race, but it was certainly an interesting one and one of the better ones this season. The number of yellows were really annoying though, and they really need to make the cars easier to start or something, because the yellows due to stalled cars got pretty silly after a while...

Shame Junqueira threw it away there in the end - would've been nice with a showdown at Fontana.

Lastly, I hope they make some changes to the aerodynamics for next year to improve on the slipstreaming - it was all but absent at Surfer's, even though the long straights there are like made for it.

[evo]

Remember the thread along way back that had a poll asking who do we think the next rookie to win his first will be? Well, now we have that answer. Bravo Ryan.

[Snrub]

There were sort of two races going on. There was the exciting race with passing and competitive racing. Then there was the demolition derby race where everyone seemed to be trying to ruin their races. Essentially anyone who finished well stayed out of trouble.

I would call it a great race, but you have to ignore the finish a bit.

[marcus]

what is it with rain with these cars ????

I mean every time it rains they fly off all over the place like a bunch of lunatics.

Im not being critical of the series at all , but trying to raise a question of why this happens everytime it even looks like raining ?

are the drivers just not good enough ? (I doubt it very much)
are the cars to powerfull ? (Reduction this year so maybe not)
are the drivers just not experienced enough in wet conditions ? (they dont run alot in the rain so this is a posibility)

it just basically annoys me that when things look like being an interesting race it turns to mush.

In F1 or other classes the rain comes I say cool this could be interesting , but In Cart I just groan and almost feel like turning off (allthough i just couldnt bring myself to do that )

Im just wondering what is the reason for it ?

why does rain ruin Cart races ?

Does anybody know ?

[vatuloa]

The best "parts" and what the TV could not show you was the girls on the balconys censorship would have stopped it. For the race itself the move Tracy made to get out of the entaglement it was as iff he did not worry about damaging his car. With a little less throttle he would not have needed the repairs that cost him 2 laps. He was about 6th when it happened.

[jetsetter]

It was an unbelievable race although some of the driving that was taking place out there needs to be questioned & as for Marcus's question about the drivers struggling in the rain, i think it has a lot to do with not having Traction Control so the cars have a habit of getting a lot of wheel spin.

[Shaggy_SoCal]

marcus,

There aren't many CART drivers that have raced in rain. So I think that plays a major factor. Plus how often do the teams have to set the car up for wet weather?

The lack of traction control plays a part as well. Even with rain tires, the rears will spins much, much easier when the track is wet.

Now, I'm not an engineer, but I'll take a stab at this. I wouldn't be surprised if most, if not all of the cars had a dry weather setup, and thus did not have enough mechanical grip when the track got wet.

My 2 cents.

[Snrub]

I think it's just very slippery for them when the track gets the slightest bit damp. It's not like F1 where the dry weather groved tires allow them to drive in fairly wet conditions.

CART doesn't have the peak power, but the engine produces power a lot earlier so it does make it slippery.

[vatuloa]

The track is hard to pass on so unless there is a problem with a car it can become a prossession. The organises knowing this must have arranged the best storm of the year to fall on the track. The storm was alot worse 20klm SW the hail was as big as tennis balls. This however made the result so interesting and remember no driver has ever won the surfers event twice.

[Omega99]

The unexpected is always entertaining. F1 races in the rain are always entertaining because strange things happens. ie. Brazil: Schumacher crashes, Rubens' engine dies, a huge crash ends the race, and Fisichella wins... The same thing happens in CART, when they do actually race in the rain. Some drivers become more cautious, some become more aggreessive, trying to capitalize on the cautious drivers. It does look sloppy, but its exciting and unpredictable. Rian doesn't ruin CART races IMO. The officials can, however...

[Jay]

In this race, it was also all of the yellows bunching up the cars which created many opportunities for messes...

A few other factors:

-The CART wet tires are not like the F1 wet tires..they're much harder, and can actually be run in the dry, and often do on Friday because the teams don't want to use their slicks wet - saving money. Also, Bridgestone doesn't put anywhere near as much R&D into CART's rain tires as F1, they just want a tire that will allow CART to run in moderately wet conditions. There is NO wet weather testing in CART. If it's a real storm, they won't be able to race.

-A temporary street circuit, like Surfers is a regular street 362 days a year, meaning that it contains a lot of dirt, oil and other chemicals that cars leave. When it rains, a lot of this stuff is released from the asphalt and can create a surface that it is literally as slippery as ice in places - this might have been what Bourdais hit. This is not a problem you would have at permenant road courses, like F1 usually races at.

-CART simply does not race in the rain that much, and the drivers have very little experience handling these machines in the wet. Apart from Surfers, Road America and a few wet practice sessions this year, they haven't run in the wet at all. Compare that to most series in Europe that actually do wet weather testing - something that isn't done in CART.

-When it does rain at CART venues, it rains a lot. Although it rains a lot in Europe and the UK, it doesn't usually rain with the intensity that it has in Surfers in the past two years. It would have been suicide for CART, or any series to race in the amount of water that Surfers saw last year and this year.

As for Surfers, if you look back at past races, even in the dry, they've been demolition derbies as well. Surfers is a track that encourages aggresive driving, but more often than not, it ends in a big crash in one of the chicanes. In fact, compared to the 2000 race, which was run in the dry, this one was pretty clean....

[NorCal]

Jay,
You hit the nail on the head - they just don't run much in the wet. However, I'm not sure whether it was CART, the track or the people working on the track but it certainly wasn't the rain debacle I witnessed at Road America. They had the cars on track shortly after the rain stopped.

[racer69]

Entertaining, but i didn't walk away thinking i had seen a very good race.

[marcus]

I guess that the case , just not enough experience in the wet , I know surfers is a hard track at the best of times so that was definately a factor.

so how do they combate this problem of driving in the rain ?

beats me but they need to do something because its not doing them any favours at all.

[Robert Ryan]

The V8Supercar races showed a lot of discipline by the drivers, none of the crazy "winner take all"moves in the CART race. Also a lot of people left when the CART race started, that is why the stands and the streets looked pretty empty.

[DNQ]

Good points Jay, yeah, that explains it all ... it's no surprise it turned into a demolition derby out there with those factors, plus quite a few drivers who haven't driven a ChampCar in really wet weather either.

It was an interesting race, that's for sure - plenty to remember it by - certainly an interest result.

[bartman71]

this was the second year in a row the race was a joke because of weather.
just my opinion they should hold the race on the the old adelaide f1 track.
it is wider and less likly to be a demolition derby also used to produce good racing