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At
long last, the in-depth
Nashville
race recap!
I
was fairly comfortable in letting my Running Race Recap opinions
stand as the final word on Saturday night’s Nashville event,
that is until I listened to last night’s Mike King radio show;
and heard the comments, claims, counter claims and finger
pointing; after what may have been the most exciting and
event-filled final laps in series history. So I think that in
light of all what was said by both Kanaan and Buddy Rice, we
should take another look.
(The
start) ESPN
had weather-related technical problems and barely made it on the
air with the cars on the track and ready to start the race.
Vitor Meira moved into the lead, passing Buddy Rice with an
inside move. Weldon also passed Rice after another lap, this
time on the outside and uncontested, as Rice appeared to
“settle in.” Kanaan would pressure Rice but would lose
momentum and eventually also fourth place position to Sam
Hornish Jr. The two drivers made an unexpected three-lap, side
by side run for the spot; with Sam prevailing before the first
of many timely caution flags were displayed after 11 laps, this
one for debris.
(Lap
14 restart) ESPN
was off on commercial and rejoined the race 4 laps after the
restart with Meira still in the lead. Two drivers at the back of
the pack with nothing to lose; Scott Sharp and Mark Taylor,
pitted during the caution period. Somehow, after the restart
Rice was able to regain 2nd position from Wheldon,
and Kanaan got back around Hornish. On lap 33 ESPN went away
from green flag action for a “fluff/fill;” better saved for
a caution period, then went to commercial, but within two laps
of the “breakaway,” there was another debris caution. This
one resulted in a full sequence of pit stops; with the lapped
car of Ed Carpenter out of position and in the way. Meira came
out of the pits in the lead, but Hornish jumped from 5th
to 2nd. Giving credit where due, there was a great
slow motion pit exit view shown by ESPN, clear as can be, that
decided the restart positions!
(Lap
43 restart) The
restart order, Meira, Hornish, Rice, Kanaan, Wheldon and
Manning. The first restart was waved off, the next time around
they were under green for the first of several all-out, exciting
and dangerous restarts, with Rice ducking under Hornish for the
pass as the field bunched up, forcing Scheckter and Castroneves
high, out of momentum, and almost into the fence. In a daring
move, Scheckter went from 7th position at best,
outside of first Manning and then Wheldon before running out of
room. Castroneves followed and was outside of Manning when Tomas
checked up, too high on the track. Tomas fell all the way to the
back of the pack, Helio to 18th. Up front it was
Vitor, Rice, Hornish Kanaan and Wheldon, and would remain that
way until lap 60 when Sam Hornish drifted high and fell to 7th.
On the next pit stop, Dr. Jerry Punch reported that Dan Wheldon
came on the radio and apologized for “pinching off” Hornish
and causing him to lose positions. Two laps later, Ed Carpenter,
off the pace all day, and “trying to get out of the way of the
leaders;” “marbled” into the turn four wall. Carpenter had
turned the slowest “best speed” of the race at 191.3; two
mph slower than Jaques Lazier. The build up of cement induced,
ground off rubber became an issue, and would soon attract other
cars as well. Scott Goodyear talking about RBTC crash damaged;
quoted the dollar amount as “a million bucks.” In a more
orderly exit from the resulting full-field pit stops; Adrian
Fernandez, last seen in 9th position, mad a huge jump
in the standings, up to 3rd (al la CART)! This
segment of stops cost the field two cars, as the cars of both
Jaques Lazier and Dario Franchitti exited the race, Lazier with
a half-shaft problem, Franchitti with gearbox issues!
(Lap
73 restart) Again
no start, I mentioned on my running race recap that the real
cause of the problems at the start of the
Kansas
race was
that the field came down for the start too slowly, so perhaps
the IRL is watching this issue closely. Either that, or there
has been too many cases of drivers jumping the start. As Meira
and Rice drafted away from 3rd place Fernandez,
everyone began to bunch up behind him in some great side by side
racing. Hornish, who had lost a couple of positions before the
pit stops, had to force his way past Manning, who had gained
track position because his team didn’t change any tires on the
pit stop. With most of the drivers in mid-race ride-around mode,
Meira and Rice moved out to comfortable lead over Wheldon, who
had an equally large gap over Fernandez.
(Lap
110) With
Meira almost 6 seconds in the lead, Tomas Scheckter pushed up
into the wall. There was mention of contact by
Taylor
, but the
left side of the #4 car looked clean and the replays didn’t
show any contact. Marbles, Tomas was high and “marbled” the
wall, slow as well. Goodyear mentioned damage costs at Panther
Racing as well as a half-million dollars. I’m not buying into
that; if the RBTC bill is twice that, carnage between both teams
are about equal in my book. And way out of line as well, neither
team should be crashing that often. In the pit stop sequence,
Vitor Meira was the one to try and “tip the tank” this week,
but a vent hose won’t do it. Looking at the replay, the man at
fault was the right front tire changer, who gave Vitor the wave
to go before the hose was pulled. There was no hang-up, the hose
popped right out when pulled. Meira then stalled the engine, but
it wouldn’t matter, he was at the back of the pack by then and
would return to the pits for a look-see. If nothing else, Vitor
would be the “show” in catch-up mode.
(Lap
119 restart) Rice
in the lead as Meira grabbed about five cars on the outside. The
last of them was Mark Taylor, and Vitor had to go three-wide to
the outside on that one.
Taylor
was
impressive as well; you gotta love that G Force Honda package,
stand the wings up and let that horsepower haul it around. With
Vitor advancing as quickly as possible, he had
Taylor
in tow as
well, both working their way to the front. Hornish got past
Wheldon and into 2nd and Kanaan followed a couple of
laps later. At lap 150 Rice had a six second plus lead on
Hornish, Meira is up to 5th behind Wheldon,
Taylor
got hung up
behind bell and Castroneves in 8th. On lap 163 it was
Herta in the wall this time. All Herta did was get a half-car
out of the groove and he was in a four-wheel drift into the
wall, flat spotting the tires trying to stop. On the resulting
pit stop, Vitor Meira gave up four of the positions he gained
with air gun troubles. Dan Wheldon beat everyone out of the pits
because his team didn’t change any tires; we already know how
that worked out. The Dallara doesn’t have nearly the downforce
of a G Force car and Wheldon, who couldn’t hold off the
Dallara’s of Hornish and Kanaan when all of them had fresh
tires, had no chance.
(Lap
177 restart) Rice
got a huge run on Wheldon and was far enough under him that when
Dan turned into turn one, Rice was already there. The two made
contact with Rice’s right front tire ahead of the left rear of
Wheldon, who was knocked sideways but recovered. The amazing
thing I missed in watching the race Saturday night; was that
Tony Kanaan also made a tire to tire brush with Rice as he
passed, and wiggled the back end. Buddy Rice never got below the
yellow line at the bottom of the track, never got off the
concrete and onto the track apron. Wheldon probably never saw
him, never thought Rice could get that far under him that
quickly. After the contact, Dan was so far around he was bound
to crash when Rice hit his left front and knocked him straight.
Somehow Alex Barron made contact with something; he exited the
car during the caution with damage to the left front suspension.
Tony Kanaan did a visual inspection of the Wheldon car and
pronounced it ok as the race was about to resume. After all
those laps on the tires and that contact, Wheldon would remain
on the track in an example of points racing at its worst!
(Lap
182 Restart) Wheldon
in the lead, followed by Kanaan and Hornish, Kanaan makes the
outside pass right away; followed by Hornish, Wheldon slips high
and
Bell
ducks under
him, but Meira went low under
Bell
at the same time for fourth. Meira ended up with a shifter
problem; and as Castroneves passed him, Wheldon’s right rear
tire finally gave up. The entire casing was torn from the wheel
and the caution flag was out again.
(Lap
188 restart) Tony
Kanaan in the lead, followed by Hornish, Darren Manning was in
third and lost that right away to Castroneves. The cars ran in
lockstep until the final laps, Kanaan, Hornish, Castroneves and
Manning, and on the last lap, going down the backstretch Hornish
moved outside and then inside as Kanaan mirror-drove and wiggled
the car like a snake. Finally Hornish settled into an inside
pass and Kanaan started down on him and almost made contact with
Sam’s right front wing, Hornish lifted, lost momentum and the
race was over. As I said, last night Tony Kanaan was critical of
Sam’s driving on Mike King’s radio show, I guess he can’t
see past his nose. I like TK, he is great for the series, a
great race driver, but he shouldn’t throw stones if…
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Frantic pit stops, impending disaster, poor decisions and blocking mar the exciting finish to the Firestone Indy 200!
It isn't as if it was a scintillating race in the first place, but the “frequent Frenchman (Jacques Debris)” kept things interesting; as first Vitor Meira and Buddy Rice; and than later Rice alone; checked out and moved off to a six-second lead. There never was a green flag run long enough to put the bulk of the field a lap or more down.
That said; it was obvious that there would be no green flag passes for the lead between two cars of similar speed, and that’s where it got ugly. There was so much intense pressure on the teams and drivers that bad choices were made on tire changes to in order to secure better track position. There was also so much shared desire to hustle a pit stop along, that the race leader tried to leave the pits with the fuel vent hose still attached to the car. These are things that happen when the cars evolve to the point where they are so close in speed and so maxed out; that a contender not in the lead can only get there by taking extreme and dangerous chances on pit road. In other words, we may have turned IndyCar into CART II; the racing has begun to resemble it far beyond a point of concern!
While we weren’t going to have the fuel economy runs we saw starting at TMS and suspected at Kansas Speedway, it was also clear we weren’t going to see the racing we saw at Richmond either. Thankfully, the Firestone Indy 200 wasn’t going to be the “yawner” we saw at Phoenix and Motegi either, the new engine and aero rules and the “marbling” into the wall issues were to prevent that.
First to “poor decisions/bad choices” on pit stops, that of teams opting not to take on tires and short-stop the fuel for “first out of the pits” considerations. Jack Arute made a great analogy to a cheese grater to show how the concrete racing surface ground down the tires, there was also an example of an in-car shot of a tire worn to the cord. Yet in the closing stages of the race, the AGR team of Dan Wheldon opted for a “no-tire” strategy in the final stop of the race. Well it worked as planned, and Wheldon was first out of the pits and into the lead with very little racing left In my running recap of the race here at Ovalicious/IRR, I immediately posed this question, “Wheldon out first, I wonder if the team changed tires?” Less than a minute later the ESPN announcers confirmed the obvious, Wheldon beat everyone out of the pits on old/worn tires. As I slow-typed my next comment, which would have been (trust me here) “there is no way Weldon holds off Rice,” the race restarted, contact was made, and I had to backspace out of the quote and post this, “Rice gets under Dan, hits and they don't crash!!!” If you haven’t followed a “Running Race Recap” yet as the race is going on, here is the
transcript link, see for yourself what they look
like.
My next observation was this, Wheldon came down on Rice, and I have never seen that much contact not result in a crash... Wheldon's fault, no doubt, and it was too late to block...
In my opinion Wheldon made a futile attempt to block Rice knowing he wasn’t going to be able to hold that G Force off anyway, but as I just quoted, he started the move after Buddy was already under him. It is testimony to how hooked-up these cars are that neither crashed. It also could be indicative of how low Rice was on the track; or how early into the turn, because Wheldon managed to avoid “marbling” into the wall as others had before him. The contact may have been “the final insult” to Dan’s right rear tire as well, because it was about to fail. How poor was the AGR decision not to change tires, well TCGR/Scott Dixon did the same thing, moving Dixon into 6th position when Wheldon assumed the lead? Dixon, with even fewer laps left in the race, decided to pit for tires during the Wheldon/Rice caution period.
As I said, in my opinion Wheldon made a too-late attempt to block Rice, but the Big Block of the Race Award goes to Tony Kanaan, for chopping down on Sam Hornish Jr., Sam saved Tony’s butt as well in backing out after what looked like light contact, Sam could have given Kanaan more of his right front wheel and stuck him in the fence!
“Poor decisions/bad choices” covered; let’s look at “frantic pit stops, impending disaster” and the what, where and why of it. Two weeks ago Dan Wheldon (same driver, same crew) left a pit stop with the refueling nozzle stuck in the car and pulled the fuel tank over in what could have been a replay of a CART (them again) pit fire at MIS years ago. Fortunately, quick thinking on the part of the AGR crew shut off the fuel flow and nothing exploded. This time at Nashville it was the race leader, Vitor Meira that tried to leave the pits with just the vent hose attached. While this probably wouldn’t have tipped the tank because the vent hose is of a smaller diameter, a spark could have ignited any fuel in the line and the resulting fire could have raced up the hose and into the pit side fuel tank, causing a blowup like we saw in the Menard pit at Indy a few years ago. Folks, this is dangerous, stupid and easy to prevent. A car can’t leave the pit with its wheels still in the air, so all the IndyCar series has to do is impose a rule that the car can’t be lowered off the air jacks until the fueling process has been completed! If they put enough “bite” in the rule as to penalize any team that doesn’t comply with a one-lap deduction, the problem will be solved. The CART (I know…) series had the same chance, but none of the owner/partners were willing to give up a possibility of much needed win on pit road to do the smart thing. Instead they opted for a single-point refueling hookup, while that cut down on the number on people over the wall, and that is commendable, the rig is large, heavy and cumbersome, and might cause more problems than it solves. I trust IndyCar officials, and expect they will react accordingly.
Now, since this isn’t football or HOLLYWOOD SQUARES, there is no requirement to be a “blocking specialist,” but IndyCar has several of them; and in spite of countless warnings and fines imposed, the problem just won’t go away. Tony Kanaan is a great race driver and person as well, but while he is no Scott Sharp in the “blocking” department, both Tony and Helio Castroneves come to mind whenever that subject comes up. If this was “fender and bumper” racing, the practice would still be frowned upon, but not nearly as darned dangerous. While not caused by blocking, the thought of Kenny Brack’s car being launched by wheel to wheel contact at TMS last year should be impetus enough to put the same “teeth” in a no-blocking rule as well as wheels-up pit stop edict also.
I think I have covered everything that is solvable from the Firestone Indy 200, if the title sponsor can’t figure how to stop the “marbles,” and apparently none can, because it is an issue with almost every series, I have no suggestions. As to the evolution to CART-like fuel economy/win on pit road racing, it wasn’t a problem in past years, but it isn’t easy to sort out why. No, I don’t think it is due to the influx of former CART teams, I’m thinking it was bound to come to this anyway; most racing does when the cubic dollars take over and aero influenced cars are the norm. Unfortunately I am long on blame, and short on solutions, most concerned race fans are as well.
I wrote this in lieu of a tardy in-depth race recap, I’m in time-search mode, looking for a window of opportunity to sit with the VCR and sort it all out. We all know what happened; I hope you will check back for my opinion as to why.
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