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(7-11-05) The Argent Mortgage
Indy 300 in retrospect.
While I didn't do a full recap
of the race, I do have some thoughts about the results and some
of the things learned during the running of the race.
It appears that as stated, Team
Penske never tried to run a fast qualifying lap, and the speed
Sam Hornish qualified at was a pace he could run all day...
There is no doubt that this was the best attended IndyCar race
ever held at Kansas Speedway... Rahal Letterman Racing, a team
that ran first and second the last time at Kansas Speedway, and
qualified it's three cars in lockstep at the front, was probably
trapped by the cool temperatures of the morning warm-up and the
forecast of overcast and impending rain, and changed the setups
on their cars. Before the first pit stops, they had all three
cars running at the bottom of the top ten, and Danica was the
slowest of the three, unable to either find a comfortable gear,
or get the car into that gear. She also had traction control
issues that caused the engine to run off-song... Tomas Scheckter
was able to pass the struggling Buddy Rice on lap 8, and 2nd
place Dario Franchitti was willing to let him lead for 42 laps,
before Tomas pitted on lap 50... On lap 48 Hornish headed for
pit road, the first to stop. I have suspected that Team Penske,
in a quest to match Honda and Chevy horsepower, had found some
relief at the expense of fuel economy, we would see later in the
race during two long runs that the fuel mileage of all three
engines are now almost evenly matched... Exiting the pits,
Danica Patrick almost lost control of her car in what appeared
to be a driver error. Later we would learn that the team had
turned off the traction control, and in reality, Danica reacted
well to something that isn't practiced or expected, and saved
the car... On lap 55, after pitting, Roger Yasukawa lost
control, perhaps on cold tires, and backed the car into the
SAFER. Yasukawa said the car had a push before the pit stop, and
"the team added some wing," perhaps too much.... On
the restart Hornish began to show that he could run on pace with
the AGR teams, running at the front after the pit stop
sequence... This would be the first of two long caution-free
runs, and with the cars running about 7 laps under the yellow
flag, we would see Scott Sharp run 64 laps before pitting, and
several others ran 60 laps or more. That means that now these
cars should be able to run 58 laps, or more than 85 miles of
green flag running. In the 2nd long run sequence, Tomas Enge
also ran 64 laps, so the Chevy engineer's have found some fuel
economy as well... Enge would also show some speed, running at a
Scheckter pace as the two Panther cars ran 2nd and 3rd to race
leader Wheldon... Again Hornish was first to pit, but this time
he ran 56 laps to get past the half-way point of the race...
Scheckter managed to run 57 laps on this run... RLR let Danica
down with a horrible pit stop, the team late in making front
wing adjustments... There is no doubt that even though Chevy and
Toyota have made fuel mileage gains, overall it is the Honda
that gets the best fuel economy... Ryan Briscoe came to a stop
at pit-out and brought out the 2nd caution flag... Chip Ganassi
appears more than willing to sing the praises of Ryan Briscoe
and Darren Manning while ignoring Scott Dixon, I wonder if there
is a message in that? On lap 134 the car of Kosuke Matsuura
showed a smoke trail, and Matsuura failed to get the car to pit
road, bringing out the final caution, and the bulk of the field
pitted... Hornish stalled on pit road, and three laps later,
with 61 laps to go, Roger Penske brought Sam back in to top off
the tank. None of the other cars could go the distance, and
Penske, with the 2nd Hornish stop, put fear in the hearts of the
other teams. Sam, who was late on the restart and set a fuel
conservation pace from then on, caused the other teams to call
out to their drivers to "go full-rich," and set a pace
that would allow them to pit and still hold off Hornish. As soon
as Penske saw the race would go green for the full distance, and
the ploy wouldn't work, Sam picked up the pace and would pit
again when the rest of cars. There were two Tomas Scheckter
below-the-white-line excursions, and in both, he was forced down
there. Michael Andretti was animated and unhappy in talking to
IndyCar officials, but it was Kanaan, his driver that did the
forcing. In the 2nd instance, Tomas gained a spot that he would
be forced to relinquish, once he let TK back in front, Scheckter
was back in the good graces of Brian Barnhart, and able to race
on... Clearly everyone would have to pit, and before that
happened, we would see Danica Patrick move up to 3rd in pit stop
related gains. Wheldon, who hadn't stopped in the last caution,
was the first in, Scheckter moved to the front, but was to be
pressured by Franchitti. Danica was now 5th, and she would pit a
lap after Scheckter, running as high as 3rd or 4th before her
stop. Danica finally got a great pit stop, but when everything
cycled out, she would finish 9th. It was Wheldon and Meira
momentarily in front, then Kanaan got back up to speed after his
stop and passed Vitor. TK would be credited with leading the
last two laps, outside of Wheldon and effectively blocking
Meira. Vitor would make a desperate, frustrated move below the
white line for the win, but I doubt it would have been allowed
if he had managed the pass. It was Rice and Meira that did the
two abreast "block" at Kansas last year, negating any
chance for anyone else to win, what goes around, comes around.
AGR found its way to the front again, the panther Chevy's looked
strong and Danica continued to learn IndyCar 101...
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Yep,
it's race day, and just when IndyCar is poised to catch the
attention of the American race fan with renewed Danicapower on a
day where there is limited competition for the race fan's
attention, it appears that the weatherman may step up and water
down the enthusiasm
with a forecast for a "40%
chance for strong storms." I hadn't expected this
problem as I sweated out the start of the race at Daytona last
night, and breathed a sigh of relief once the carnage filled
race (?) past the half-way mark and became "official."
Well, let's not worry about things we can't control, what we do
have is a possibility of a benchmark event, and I'm not just
talking about the prospects of Danica Patrick winning from the
pole position. Read more of my Argent Mortgage Indy 300 forecast
here...
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IndyCar photo by
Steve Snoddy
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Danica Patrick shown during
practice Saturday afternoon before she won the event pole
position. With a time differential of 0.0022 seconds between
Patrick and teammate Buddy Rice, IndyCar detractors have begun
talking about her "weight advantage" again, I suppose
that if she manages a win on Sunday, the same Neanderthal's will
be saying, "see, the cars have so much downforce and are so
easy to drive that even a girl can win." I hope she gives
them their chance. Do I think she has a weight advantage,
possibly, but a very minor one? I also think this photo and
another I posted from Indy shows another Danica advantage,
because of her height and small helmet size, there is a clear
and unobstructed air path to the engine inlet. Combine those to
issues and she does have an advantage, but what do you do, made
Danica wear a weight belt like a jockey or SCUBA diver, and sit
on an egg crate? Racing is all about creating an advantage, or
overcoming someone else's advantage, whether it's about one
driver or car just being better than others, or one manufacturer
having more horsepower then the others. In every race someone
wins because they have created an advantage over the rest of the
field. So let the detractors stomp on their sour grapes, I'll
watch tomorrow's race from the edge of my seat, and be joined by
hundreds of new fans at the track and thousands at home on the
couch watching on TV. IndyCar needed a home-grown talent to
capture the attention of America, and now they have one. If Tony
George or some of the original team owners would have known it
was this easy, they could have found a way to better fund and
equip Sarah Fisher, and saved several years of struggle.
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An update... If Danica Patrick
and Ryan Briscoe were bothered by lack of seat time at Kansas
Speedway, it didn't show. Danica led an Rahal Letterman Racing
onslaught on the pole position held first by Buddy Rice, and
then later challenged by Vitor Meira
before Danica won the pole in one of the last runs of
qualifying. As for Briscoe, he posted the fastest Toyota speed
in the first practice session, and was in the top ten in both
before qualifying 11th.
You have to give a call to
Darren Manning, his 214.321 mph "Q" run placed him 5th
on the grid and came in way under the radar.
(7-02-05) The cars are on the
track now at Kansas Speedway in another of the IndyCar two-day
events that are very difficult for rookie drivers to cope with.
The problem is compounded by the fact that as much as the
rookies need the seat time, at these races there is also a
single engine rule, with a race distance of 300 miles, the teams
must weigh the need for practice with the need to keep the total
miles run as low as possible. Follow my Argent Mortgage 300
P&Q coverage here...
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(07-01-2005) After a visit to the
shortest track on the IndyCar schedule, the teams of the IndyCar
series return to the type of track that usually provides their
most competitive racing, the 1.5 mile tri-ovals. While these
tracks are usually referred to as "cookie cutter"
venues because of their relative shape and length, no two of
them are the same, and with 15 degrees of banking, only Kentucky
Speedway has less.
While it is usually very hot on
the 4th of July weekend at Kansas Speedway, Saturday will only
be "warm," it won't get to "hot" until
Sunday, here is the weekend
weather forecast...
Last week at Richmond, IndyCar
had two "Patrick's" in an unusual roll reversal,
"Patrick" Carpentier ended up with an unexpected but
satisfying result in finishing 3rd in a much maligned Team
Cheever car, while Carpentier finished 7 positions ahead of the
other "Patrick," that would be Danica of course. Her
10th place finish, only 3-laps off the race pace, has to be
considered a win for her. Danica finished better than 5 other
cars still running at the end of the race, and no doubt learned
a great deal more about making contested passes. The
underpowered Toyota engines made a great showing at RIR, and
many people may be under the false impression that Toyota has
caught back up to Chevy and Honda in the horsepower department,
I have serious doubts about that. Remember, back in the 2003
season when Chevy was using their "real" engine, the
one that was a dismal failure, and forced the badging of a
Cosworth built replacement? Well, Sam Hornish, then still at
Panther Racing, almost won at RIR, qualifying and finishing 4th
to Scott Dixon in a rain shortened race. I only point that out
to show that an underpowered car can be an asset at RIR.
This weekend at Kansas Speedway
is what IndyCar terms a "two-day" event, I expect to
see speeds in the 214-mph range, as the IndyCar engine
manufacturers continue to find increased speed in the 3 liter
engines. The last outing on a tri-oval was on the high banks of
TMS, and the Chevy powered Dallara's of Tomas Scheckter and
Tomas Enge were the fast qualifiers, while the Chevy's are fast,
Kansas Speedway in 2004 turned out to be a track best suited for
the Panoz Honda's of Rahal Letterman Racing. Last year Buddy
Rice set fast speed at 210 mph and edged out teammate Vitor
Meira for the win, beating him by 0.0051 seconds. If I recall
correctly, Meira had one bad stop on pit road that could have
cost him the race. Since RLR appears to have the Kansas Speedway
setup nailed, I expect we will see Danica Patrick back in
contention for a pole position, and Patrick Carpentier
return to a position close to the bottom of the speed charts,
that is unless Toyota has decided to prop up Team Cheever,
Ethanol Hemelgarn, and AJ Foyt Racing with the same fresh engines
that TCGR gets, the Penske engines being another subject
entirely. Follow Saturday practice and qualifying sessions here...
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