IndyCar 2021!

Wow! Watching Grand Prix of Alabama qualifying from Barber tells me we are in for a fabulous, exciting, competitive season. This has to be the best driver lineup in decades. The addition of Roman Grosjean from F1 & Scott McLaughlin from V8 Supercars down under, the maturation of youngsters like Pato O’Ward (who took pole), Colton Herta & Alex Palou, the enduring presence of IndyCar greats like Scott Dixon, Will Power, & Simon Pagenaud, and legends in the making like Alex Rossi & Josef Newgarden will make for a season to watch in what is arguably the most competitive, exciting motorsports series. And this is without mentioning that the likes of Ryan Hunter-Reay, James Hinchcliffe, Grahan Rahal, Ed Carpenter, Helio Castroneves, Juan Pablo Montoya, Sebastien Bordais, Tony Kanaan, & Takuma Sato are still around. And oh yeah, some guy named Jimmie Johnson will be there, too.

Can’t wait to get this season underway with tomorrow’s race. The schedule looks great featuring long time favorites and a Long Beach finale. I will miss Iowa and Pocono, though; hopefully they can make a comeback in the future.

Conway Takes IndyCar Long Beach Win

 IndyCar Long Beach

IndyCar Long Beach What a 40th Grand Prix of Long Beach!

In an unpredictable, somewhat chaotic IndyCar Long Beach race, Mike Conway of Ed Carpenter Racing won with a clean and steady approach while those around him were banging each other, scraping the barriers, or running out of gas.

Conway was running 15th when the leaders began cycling thru the pits with 27 laps to go.  Up to that point, pole sitter Ryan Hunter-Reay had dominated the race.  Hunter-Reay and Andretti Autosport teammate James Hinchcliffe pitted together while running one-two on lap 53.  Hunter-Reay exited the pits just ahead of Hinchcliffe while Josef Newgarden pitted behind them from third.  Newgarden had done a great in-lap and with a clean pit stop, got out just ahead of Hunter-Reay into Turn 1, but naturally on cold tires.  Hunter-Reay and Hinchcliffe on warming tires were stacked up behind Newgarden around the fountain.  At Turn 4, Ryan Hunter-Reay made an over optimistic attempt to pass Newgarden and punted him into the left barriers.  The ensuing melee took out Newgarden, Hunter-Reay, and Hinchcliffe who were running one, two, three as well as Tony Kanaan and Takuma Sato who ran into the pile up from behind.

On the restart, the running order was Scott Dixon, Justin Wilson, Will Power, & Mike Conway.  Shortly after the restart, Dixon nudged Wilson into the barriers on the approach to Turn 8.  The impact was pretty light, but it was enough to destroy Wilson’s left front suspension.  Wilson was furious because even though Dixon had to stop before the end, Wilson was good on fuel and was well positioned for a win.

In earlier action on Lap 32, Will Power helped Simon Pagenaud into the tire barrier at Turn 6 while Pagenaud was running in second place as the sequence below shows:

IndyCar Long Beach

IndyCar Long Beach

IndyCar Long Beach

Pagenaud was about as upset at Power as Wilson was at Dixon. For his part, Will Power apologized, surprised that he wasn’t penalized.

Ultimately, Carpenter took a well-deserved checkered for running a clean and consistent race.

IndyCar Long Beach

The top 15 at the finish:

Pos  Driver              Team/Engine           Time/Gap
 1.  Mike Conway         Carpenter/Chevy  1h54m41.6418s
 2.  Will Power          Penske/Chevy          +0.9005s
 3.  Carlos Munoz        Andretti/Honda        +1.5591s
 4.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Penske/Chevy          +2.0226s
 5.  Simon Pagenaud      Schmidt/Honda         +2.8169s
 6.  Mikhail Aleshin     Schmidt/Honda         +3.8574s
 7.  Oriol Servia        Rahal/Honda           +4.9621s
 8.  Marco Andretti      Andretti/Honda        +8.1948s
 9.  Sebastian Saavedra  KV/Chevy              +8.9029s
10.  Carlos Huertas      Coyne/Honda          +24.2295s
11.  Helio Castroneves   Penske/Chevy         +30.0552s
12.  Scott Dixon         Ganassi/Chevy        +30.7310s
13.  Graham Rahal        Rahal/Honda             +1 lap
14.  Sebastien Bourdais  KV/Chevy               +3 laps
15.  Jack Hawksworth     Herta/Honda            +3 laps

Many more pics at IndyCar Long Beach.

SoCal Speed!

Spring brings racing to Southern California, and several of the season’s best events happen over the next couple of weekends.

SoCal

First of all, this weekend we have the Porsche Club of America (PCA) 13th Annual California Festival of Speed at Auto Club Speedway.  The Festival of Speed is the largest Porsche event in the Southwest, and it really does have something for everyone: Cup Races, Time Trials, Autocross, Concours, Vendors, & a Swap Meet.  More info including schedule and map on the calendar here: California Festival of Speed.

Next weekend the TUDOR United Sportscar Championship (TUSC) and IndyCar come to SoCal for the 40th Grand Prix of Long Beach – a massive weekend celebration of SoCal speed.  Long Beach is really a can’t miss event for motorsports fans.  Check out what SoCal’s Bill Auberlen of BMW Team RLL has to say about the party that is Long Beach here on the TUSC site.  Information, tickets, schedule, map, fan guide and much more can be found here: Grand Prix of Long Beach.

So far, aside from some really horrible officiating calls that have directly effected the race results, the unification of ALMS and Grand-Am under the TUSC banner has worked out quite well.  In particular, the series seems to have gotten the balance of power between the former ALMS LMP2 cars and the former Grand-Am DP cars just about right.  No surprise, the racing the in the GT classes has been particularly exciting and competitive.

IndyCar welcomes fan favorite Juan Pablo Montoya back to open wheel racing with Team Penske with teammates Will Power and Helio Castroneves.  The competition between the Penske guys, Team Ganassi (Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Ryan Briscoe, & Charlie Kimball), and Andretti Autosport (Ryan Hunter-Reay, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, and Carlos Munoz) should be particularly close this year.  Sadly, we’ll be missing the 2009 Grand Prix of Long Beach winner, Dario Franchitti, who retired in the offseason due to injuries sustained in the Houston race last year.

Also next weekend, the Porsche Owners Cup will be running a Cup Race and Time Attack weekend at Willow Springs.

We’ll Miss You, Dario

Dario Franchitti, Long Beach 2009

Just over a month ago, Dario Franchitti suffered a frightening crash on the last lap of the second race of the Houston Grand Prix double-header.  His car was thrown into the catch fencing which caused his car to violently spin through the air while disintegrating.  This was by far the worst IndyCar crash since the 2011 season ending crash that took the life of Dan Wheldon – another case of a car being ripped apart by catch fencing.  Along with countless fans, I breathed a sigh of relieve when we learned that although he was pretty banged up, Dario would be okay.

A week ago, on advice from his doctors, Dario announced that he was retiring from motor racing, effective immediately.  Sadly, the injuries he sustained in Houston were serious enough to put his well-being at grave risk should he consider racing again.

Dario Franchitti, Long Beach 2009

Dario Franchitti – A Humble Hero

Dario closes out his career with four IndyCar titles, three Indy 500 wins, and 31 open wheel wins – one of the most successful all-time US open wheel racers – while being a cheerful, approachable, fan favorite along the way.  One of the special things about Dario is his knowledge, respect, and reverence for the history of the sport and its heroes – especially fellow Scot, Jim Clark.  Strangely though, he consistently and humbly underestimated his place in that history.  He’ll be remembered along with his heroes.

I was fortunate to see him race six times at the Grand Prix of Long Beach, including his 2010 IndyCar victory, once at Auto Club speedway, and meet him at the Monterey Historics races.

Dario Franchitti, Long Beach 2009

Even without the Houston crash, Dario had fewer days in IndyCar ahead of him than behind him.  I did think he had the chance to be a four-time Indy 500 winner, though, having just won his third in 2012.  As a versatile driver and true lover of the sport, I expected Dario to race sports cars for a long time even after an IndyCar career came to a close.  In 2008, he joined fellow Ganassi racers Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Pruett, and Memo Rojas in winning the Rolex 24 at Daytona.  I could have even imagined him joining Mark Weber on the Porsche LMP1 team sometime in the future.

Dario Franchitti, Auto Club Speedway 2012

I really hope Dario stays involved in IndyCar in some meaningful way – the sport and the series needs him.  Losing him as a driver is a serious blow to Target Chip Ganassi Racing, his teammate Scott Dixon, the entire paddock, and the series.

We’ll miss you, Dario.

2013 MAVTV 500 Wrap – Power & Dixon

IndyCar put on a great show for the last race of the season – the MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.  Even with Scott Dixon entering the weekend with a 25 point lead, his championship battle with Helio Castroneves was still in doubt until late in the contest.

IndyCar has chosen an excellent race and venue for the season finale with the MAVTV 500 – a big track with multiple lines that’s tough on both drivers and cars.  In both of the last two seasons, the outcome wasn’t decided until late in the race, and ultimately in neither case did the season champion actually win the race.  If you’re anywhere near Fontana, CA, you really should see this spectacle in person.  Access to Auto Club Speedway is easy; with a paddock or infield pass, you can get very close to the action during practice and qualifying sessions; and the venue itself is a good place to watch a big race, in this case the MAVTV 500.

Will Power drove a great race to the top step of the podium.  If he drove such a race last year, he’d have been the reigning champion coming into this year’s race.  Scott Dixon drove a smart race – content to run in fairly open spaces mid pack for much of the race, saving fuel, and staying out of trouble.  Helio Castroneves clearly had to be aggressive, and he nearly pulled off a come from behind championship win.  He was competitive for the win throughout most of the race, meaning Dixon couldn’t afford to play it too safe.

Congratulations to Scott Dixon, 2013 IndyCar Champion!

Ryan Hunter-Reay Is 2012 IndyCar Champion

IndyCar Champion

Early in the MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana

Gripping Fontana Race

After an exciting and surprising 500 mile race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Ryan Hunter-Reay is the 2012 IndyCar Champion, and Ed Carpenter won his second ever IndyCar race.  Hunter-Reay entered the race 17 points adrift of leader Will Power.  When Power spun and crashed at Turn 2 on lap 55, Hunter-Reay had his opening – he needed to finish sixth or better to overtake Power and become the first American IndyCar Champion in 6 years.

Power Somehow Rejoins Race

After a simply amazing effort by the Team Penske Crew, Will Power returned to the track on lap 123.  The #12 Verizon car was severely damaged by the lap 55 crash, and the team had to replace the entire rear end plus many other parts to make the car track ready.  Other crews were ‘high-fiving’ the Penske crew members in a mix of awe, amazement, and respect.  I’ve never seen a car so badly damaged return to a race.  Power was able to turn a dozen laps before retiring, and this was enough to move him ahead of E.J. Viso.  Now Hunter-Reay needed to finish fifth or better to be the IndyCar Champion.

 Battle for MAVTV 500 Win and IndyCar 2012 Championship

After Will Power retired, there were two races ongoing – one for the MAVTV 500 win and one to become IndyCar Champion.  In the former, there were 24 lead changes after Power’s crash.  JR Hildebrand ran really well on the high part of the track early in the race.  Unfortunately he had a brush with the wall, which necessitated a repair that put him several laps down and out of contention.  In the middle part of the race, the lead was exchanged multiple times between the likes of Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan, Alex Tagliani, and Ed Carpenter.  As the race wore on, it was apparent that nobody was clearly dominant, and that promised an interesting finish.

IndyCar Champion

Beautiful Sunset at MAVTV 500 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana

Carpenter Wins With Gutsy Drive

Ed Carpenter was competitive throughout, led the most laps overall, and drove a great race to win the MAVTV 500.  The victory was the second of his IndyCar career.  Tony Kanaan spun into the Turn 4 wall bringing out a red flag on lap 242 to preclude a parade finish under yellow.  Dario Franchitti who had taken the lead from Carpenter on lap 237 would lead from the restart and take the white flag, but Carpenter had a strong run thru Turn 2 from high on the track and passed Franchitti down the backstretch just as Takuma Sato crashed out bringing out a yellow flag for the last half lap.  What a finish!

Hunter-Reay A Worthy IndyCar Champion

Ryan Hunter-Reay is certainly a deserving IndyCar Champion, winning more races than anyone including three in a row during the summer stretch and a win in the penultimate race in Baltimore setting up the showdown in Fontana.  In the run up to the finale, Hunter-Reay also turned down a deal to race with Team Penske and signed a new contract with Andretti Autosport.  For Will Power, this makes the third year in a row that he finished second while going into the final race with a strong chance to win.  It was also the third year in a row that a crash in that final race ruined his chances to win.  Congratulations to Ryan Hunter-Reay, IndyCar Champion for 2012.

IndyCar Auto Club Speedway Qualifying

IndyCar Auto Club Speedway

Will Power on qualifying lap at Auto Club Speedway

In the IndyCar Auto Club Speedway qualifying session, Marco Andretti took the pole for the MAVTV 500 with an average speed of 216.069 MPH.  Will Power, series leader and favorite for the Championship going into the final race of 2012 qualified third at 215.940 MPH.  His Team Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe was second with a speed of 215.058 MPH.  Power’s closest competitor for the series title, Ryan Hunter-Reay of Andretti Autosport qualified seventeenth at 212.773 MPH.  Hunter-Reay comes into the race seventeen points behind Power and must have a strong finish combined with Power misfortune in order to take the series crown.  Rookie Josef Newgarden qualified fourth at 215.919 MPH.

IndyCar Auto Club Speedway

James Hinchcliffe burns some rubber heading out to qualify at Auto Club Speedway

IndyCar Auto Club Speedway

Simon Pagenaud on a qualifying lap at Auto Club Speedway

Brutally Hot Conditions At Auto Club Speedway

Qualifying was tough on the hot day in Fontana with air temperatures over 100 degrees and track temperature reaching over 140 degrees.  Similarly hot weather is forecast for race day on Saturday.  With the IndyCar Auto Club Speedway race being a grueling 500 miles under difficult conditions, many teams opted to change engines while accepting a 10 place grid penalty.  Troubles also forced some drivers into an unplanned engine change.

IndyCar Auto Club Speedway

James Jakes heads out for qualifying at Auto Club Speedway

Final Starting Grid

After engine change penalties are factored in, the starting grid looks like this:

  1. Marco Andretti, #26
  2. Ryan Brisco, #2
  3. Tony Kanaan, #11
  4. JR Hildebrand, #4
  5. Ed Carpenter, #20
  6. Rubens Barrichello, #8
  7. Katherine Legge, #6
  8. Oriol Servia, #22
  9. Dario Franchitti, #10
  10. Sebastian Saavedra, #17
  11. EJ Viso, #5
  12. James Jakes, #19
  13. Will Power, #12
  14. Josef Newgarden, #67
  15. Scott Dixon, #9
  16. Alex Tagliani, #98
  17. Helio Castroneves, #3
  18. Graham Rahal, #38
  19. James Hinchcliffe, #27
  20. Simon Pagenaud, #77
  21. Takuma Sato, #15
  22. Ryan Hunter-Reay, #28
  23. Charlie Kimball, #83
  24. Wade Cunningham, #14
  25. Justin Wilson, #18
  26. Simona de Silvestro, #78

IndyCar Auto Club Speedway

Helio Castroneves on qualifying lap at Auto Club Speedway

 

IndyCar Auto Club Speedway

JR Hildebrand on qualifying lap at Auto Club Speedway

More pictures are posted in a gallery here.

 

Hunter-Reay Win In Baltimore Sets Up Fabulous Fontana IndyCar Finale

Ryan Hunter-Reay’s late race restart ambush of Ryan Briscoe secured a come-from-behind win at the Grand Prix of Baltimore and set up an exciting IndyCar finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana in two weeks.

Ryan Hunter-Reay #28 Andretti Autosport - Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

With his win, Hunter-Reay now trails IndyCar series leader Will Power by 17 points going into the final race of the season at SoCal’s Auto Club Speedway on September 15th.  With the race winner collecting 50 points, if Hunter-Reay also wins at Fontana, Will Power must finish second or third to take the IndyCar series title – fourth or worse, and Hunter-Reay takes the crown.

WIll Power #12 Team Penske - Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

Will Power, who has been at the top of the series standings most of the season and was on fire early in the season with three consecutive victories, has not won since Sao Paolo Indy 300 in April.  Meanwhile, Ryan Hunter-Reay has gotten hot, winning three in a row himself and four of the last seven races, including Baltimore.

The Auto Club Speedway showdown was set up by Hunter-Reay’s fabulous timing of a restart after a late race caution at Baltimore when he accelerated from second place into the lead past Power’s teammate Ryan Briscoe into Turn 1.  Team Penske and Briscoe complained bitterly that  Hunter-Reay jumped the start, but IndyCar race control maintained that Hunter-Reay began the charge after the green flag was waved – a legal restart.  No other drivers are close enough to Power to have a chance to win the championship.  Sure is strange not to have a Target Ganassi driver in contention!

On to the IndyCar finale in Fontana…

Interestingly, SpeedTV has reported that Team Penske is courting Hunter-Reay as a replacement for Briscoe in their third car for next year.  For their part, Andretti Autosport maintains that they intend to have Hunter-Reay resigned for two years by the Fontana finale.  Briscoe’s management has also been aggressively shopping his services to other IndyCar teams as his seat at Penske has been in question for some time.  Sure makes for an interesting build up to Fontana.  Stay tuned…

UPDATE (090712): 

Autosport is reporting here that Hunter-Reay will be staying at Andretti Autosport.

Dario Franchitti & Scott Dixon at Auto Club Speedway

Auto Club Speedway (ACS) in Fontana will be hosting the IZOD IndyCar finale under the lights in September when the series returns to SoCal, and today, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon came to ACS to treat a small group of fans to a lunchtime visit that included interviews, Q&A, a photo session, and a sampling of their signature cuisine.

Dario Franchitti

Scott Dixon

Gillian Zucker, President of Auto Club Speedway was the event host, and she did a nice job of interviewing and engaging the drivers with audience submitted questions. Both of these guys quickly make connections to a crowd and are approachable good sports.

Scott Dixon is currently 4th in the standings and 28 points behind IndyCar series leader Will Power with three races to go.  He has a chance of winning the Championship if he has a couple of good races at Sonoma and Baltimore heading into the finale – especially if Power (1st), Ryan Hunter-Reay (2nd), and Helio Castroneves (3rd) founder.  Dario Franchitti is currently 8th with no realistic chance of defending his Champion status.  Aside from a fabulous month of May that saw him win his third Indy 500, Dario has had a tough year in which just about anything that could go wrong, did.  Aside from trying to take wins, his main role for the rest of the season will be supporting Dixon, his Target Ganassi teammate.

Dario & Scott were having fun!

During the interview we learned that Dario’s family fled Mussolini’s Italy for the ‘place with the worst weather.’  His maternal grandmother is, in fact, Scottish.  Scott Dixon’s wife Emma was a former top middle distance runner for Great Britain.  Dario favors street courses, while Scott favors road courses.

Dario and Scott are both lukewarm on the push-to-pass. In the recent race, the 5 second push-to-pass delay made it confusing and difficult to use it properly at the start. How do you time the boost that will happen 5 seconds in the future when you don’t know exactly when the green flag will drop?  Everybody got it wrong.  Supposedly the delay is going away.

Both of them felt the finale will be an interesting race with changing conditions as the sun goes down – compromising vision – and the track cools off.  500 miles around the Auto Club Speedway will be exciting and tough.

After the interview and a picture session, fans were invited to sample Scott Tots and Franchitti Ziti – really.

The guys with Scott Tots and Franchitti Ziti

Both of these guys are passionate racers, and the fans love them.  They’re great ambassadors for the sport, and I wish them well for the rest of the season.

Scott Dixon & Dario Franchitti

So What About IndyCar Push-To-Pass?

Well after watching a few races under the revived IZOD IndyCar series push-to-pass system, I can’t say that I am a big fan – at least yet.  At Edmonton, most of the radio chatter in the last few laps of a competitive race was about when to use push-to-pass, how much to use, how much other guys might have left.  Helio Castroneves was able to hold off Takuma Sato, perhaps with the help of conserving his push-to-pass time throughout the race.  Too much like a video game for me.  This weekend at Mid-Ohio, there was a revision in that there would be a 5 second delay between push and effect.  I never heard an explanation for the change, but I would guess that it was to prevent push-to-defend: the overtaking driver would know where he wanted the push-to-pass boost and would push 5 seconds early, and the overtaken driver would not be able to respond.  At Mid-Ohio, it was not easy to determine the effect of push-to-pass on the race.  Winner Scott Dixon had great pace throughout and the Target Ganassi team executed flawlessly on pit stops.  I do have to give IndyCar kudos for how they reflect the use of push-to-pass on live timing and scoring – which is perhaps the best timing display in professional racing.

Personally I would rather see overtaking more dependent upon driver skill and looking after tires that performed more on the edge.  And I think the cars should have much more horsepower all of the time with less dependence upon aero.  Again this would put a premium on driver skill and car control.  Think of what a race is like in the rain.  In fact, on Twitter, there were folks rooting for rain at Mid-Ohio.  Opinions?