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Portland Tribune

The Portland Tribune has a good honest comparison of the IRL versus ChampCar.

Stupid White Men

No, not the book from Michael Moore, I'm talking about the guys making up the rules for racing series this year. ChampCar had some seriously stupid qualifying and pitstop rules early in the season, NASCAR's yellow flag rules are rediculous, and F1's qualifying rule continue to be confusing. The teams don't even know what the rules are. Motorsport.com writes:

It could present a problem again, but with drivers required to do six laps in each 25 minute session, there's not going to be a lot of time to waste with the new format. At the moment it's a little unclear if six laps per driver are compulsory or if that is the maximum they are permitted, and could choose to do less.

If the teams and media don't know, how is the fan supposed to understand? Qualifying is a lot more exciting when you have a clue about who is fastest. It used to mean that it was the fastest lap, but I don't know what it means any more.

The NASCAR Caution Debacle

Dave Despain is throwing in his two cents about what NASCAR should do about the caution flag issues in Cup.

His ideas are ok, but here is what I suggest:

1) If the yellow comes out, then you revert back to the last scored lap.

2) If the yellow comes out with 10 or less laps to go, you revert back to the last scored lap, and throw the red with the pit lane open. You allow all teams to put on tires and fuel When you resume the pace laps, do not count the yellow laps since everyone will have fresh tire and fuel. Then race to the finish. If another yellow comes out after that, the pits are CLOSED, the yellow laps still do not count. Also, the race must end with green, white, checkers.



I also want to throw out an idea that my Dad has. His least favorite thing about Cup are the guys who just ride around all day and don't fight for the lead. His idea is to award points for every position on every lap, so that every lap counts. He would weight the points so that 1/3 of the points is based on race laps, and 2/3 is based on the finishing position. I REALLY like this idea!

Kahne at Michigan

KASEY KAHNE QUOTES from motorsport.com:

"Michigan is a great track for me. I've always liked it. I've run there twice in a Busch car. Last year I started on the pole and finished second. You can run high there, which I like, but, you have to keep up with the track. It's going to be a good race, and fuel mileage will be really important. Even more important will be that we are good on our final run and avoid any problems."



"We're running a special paint scheme at Michigan -- the Fueled by Dew Dodge. It's pretty cool. The car is green and black with a little bit of red and so is my uniform. Maybe the Dew paint scheme will give us a little extra fuel for those long green runs you have at Michigan."

This really could be the week for Kasey's first win. He keeps running strong, and it is only a matter of time.

Indy: The longest throttle open moment on the F1 schedule

The motorspot.com US GP Notebook says:

The longest blast: F1 engines are at full throttle for about 23 seconds from the exit of Turn 11 to Turn 1 of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road circuit. It is the longest flat-out section of all 18 tracks on the F1 calendar.

"For an F1 engine, the longest single period spent at full throttle is the most punishing characteristic at any circuit, rather than the overall percentage of the lap during which the engine is at full load," said Denis Chevrier, head of engine operations with the Mild Seven Renault team. "The challenge is essentially one of heat evacuation, and the area of the engine on which it has the biggest impact is the pistons.

"When a driver is accelerating through the gears, the engine is not actually at maximum revs for very long, and braking means that the moving parts are given respite from the load they are under, and heat is evacuated. However, for a continuous period at full throttle, there is no respite, and no opportunity for this energy to be lost.

"Furthermore, the relationship between the challenge of dealing with an extended period at full throttle, and the time this involves, is not linear: in other words, if you double the time spent at full throttle, this more than doubles the challenge."

So while the circuit is considered to be less than exciting by the drivers, the circuit definitely provides a unique challenge to the engine builders.

Dirt Cup Weekend

This weekend is Skagit Speedway Super Dirt Cup. I saw the first hauler pull into town yesterday, and the buzz is building. I'm going to miss Friday night's action, but I plan on going for Thursday and Saturday nights to watch the sprint car action.

ChampCar is in Portland this weekend, which means that it is a big racing weekend in the Pacific Northwest. We will see if Ryan Hunter-Reay can continue his dominance form last week. I think the Forsythe and Newman/Haas cars will be back on top, though.

Cup is at Michigan, and F1 is in Indy this weekend. More later.

F1: BAR gunning for Ferrari

Motorsport is repoting that BAR has the best chance this weekend of gunning down the Ferrari buzzsaw. Personally, I'd be surprised.

Ralph Schumacher is starting to get bored of Ferrari's domination too. He said:


"It starts to become boring for all of us that we are unable to beat them," he said in regard to Ferrari. "We have tried many years now, but they do something which all of us have not figured out yet."



I'll tell you what Ferrari figured out. They figured out that the only way they would win championships is to pay out the mega-bucks for Micheal Schumacher.

Tracy: IRL cars are four seconds slower than Atlantics at Mid Ohio

Paul Tracy is saying that the IRL cars tested at Mid-Ohio and are four seconds slower than the Atlantics.

Paul Tracy is the man who coined the nickname "Crapwagons" for the IRL cars when he said, "I'm not going to drive one of those crapwagons."



Apparantly, Paul was right on with his moniker for the IRL cars.

Vasser also chimed in:

Jimmy Vasser, who has an ownership stake in PKV Racing, thinks that fans wouldn't like what they see if the IRL took over in Portland.

"I'm the only guy that really has driven them all -- Champ Car, NASCAR, IRL -- and Champ Car is the coolest car for the driver," he said. "I would say if Portland fans want to keep Champ Car racing here in the future they should come out and show their support in June."

It is clear that the IRL cars will need more horsepower to put on a decent road race. It also sounds like they need better gearboxes. Time will tell, as more testing reports and rumors come out.

IRL: Texas Qualifying

Dario qualified on the pole for Texas.

Twenty-one cars qualified for Saturday night's 500k event.

Thursday Notes

Carl Haas
The boys over at Autosport are reporting that Carl Haas has inked a deal to run the IRL next year. Carl hasn't confirmed this yet, however, but from appearances, it looks like Carl is defecting.



Carl must be feeling left out of the party or something. I don't understand how a guy who had three of the worlds greatest road racers running for his team over the years can go to an all-oval series.

Paul Newman is apparantly planning to form his own team, perhaps with Mario.


Rusty Goes 228+ At Talladega
Rusty took out his Miller Lite Ford onto the high banks of Talladega to see what it would do without a restrictor plate.



"They were timing lap segments and straightaway speeds and Rusty's fastest lap had him running an average 221 mph in that segment and 228 mph at the end of the straightaway," crew chief Larry Carter offered. "The overall lap time was a 44.27 (-second, 216.309 mph) and that beat Elliottt's old record by more than seven-tenths (of a second). It was some sight to see, I'll tell you that."

Wow! Can you imagine the speeds they would get after tweaking on the car all weekend, and in the draft? It would be insane.

F1: Canadian Grand Prix has been resuscitated

Montreal is buzzing this week in preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Piero Facchin of Motorsport.com writes:

Peel Street will be extremely busy in the next few days with events sponsored by BMW, Ferrari and Porsche. On McGill College a whole block has been closed to traffic so that Jaguar may exhibit its models, and will present a great fashion and design event called "Sensation Design" lasting right through to Sunday, with fashion shows and outdoor concerts.

Crescent Street will also be closed off to traffic and will host pit-stop competitions, autograph signing by drivers, outdoor concerts and much more…

With all this going on, I can proudly say that the Canadian Grand Prix has been resuscitated!



The buzz in the streets is probably going to be more exciting than the racing with Ferrari's totally destruction of the competition this year.

Hunter-Reay: Overconfident after one win?

Marc from the Full Throttle blog wrote in the comments section the IRL Roadcourse Test:

It looks like if Ryan Hunter-Reay gets his way he will be running in F1 next year.

Read Marc's post here.

I read Ryan's comments, and he sounds like he's a bit overconfident. He won a race on CART's only oval after running at the backend of the grid for all of last year, and now he thinks he is game for F1?

I'll be more convinced after Ryan wins a couple of road races this year.

By the way, Marc's blog is excellent. Check it out.

IRL Cars: Slower than Atlantics on Road Courses?

The forums seem to be buzzing about an alleged IRL test at Mid-Ohio. The word is that they were slower than the Toyota Atlantics times. Ouch.

Robin Miller: Penske's Latest

Robin Miller is lambasting Penske for his latest efforts to unite open wheel racing.

Roger Penske vows he's going to spend the next few months trying to repair the split in open wheel racing. In addition, no doubt, to helping O.J. look for Nicole's killer and getting gas prices under control.

Penske's recent editorial in the New York Times that he's decided to roll up his sleeves and save open wheel racing would almost be humorous if it wasn't so self-serving and hypocritical.

Phew! (Read the rest of Robin's article)

Slow Blogging

Yes, I saw the ChampCar race this weekend, no I didn't watch the Cup race. The coverage of the Cup race made it sound like a total screwup by NASCAR of the timing and scoring. I don't know if it is due to their new yellow flag rules or not. Nevertheless, they need to go back to their old rules. Their rules package is horrible this year.

The ChampCar race was pretty much another snoozer. I can't understand why Ryan Hunter-Reay was so much quicker, and it makes me wonder if his Ford has a little more "oomph" than the rest of the field. Ryan even complained of understeer after the race.

He still ran a good race, and congratulations to one of the few US drivers left in this series.

Dale Coyne's new rent-a-ride driver, Gaston Mazzacane, sucked. He still finished better than Tracy and Bourdais, however. Tracy needs to shut his mouth. He's getting diarrhea of the mouth lately. I saw his incident with Carpentier, and he just got a little to aggressive on the outside and lost it.

I was surprised to see over 38,000 fans there. Milwaukee has always been a pretty good venue for ChampCars. I went to that race from 1995 to 1999, and it always was a great time.