Trouble In Texas
June 11th, 2009 at 9:11 pm by Mike Thomsen under Auto Racing, Sports
Anyone who knows me, knows I am a big IndyCar Series fan, IndyCar racing has been my favorite sport since I was a kid.
Of course, my favorite sporting event is the Indianapolis 500, but my second-favorite IndyCar race is the annual shootout in Texas.
I enjoy the race at Texas so much, it actually caused a breakup with a woman I was dating a few years back. It seemed she really wanted me to take her to a specific restaurant for a date on the night of the Texas race. I told her I’d be happy to take her to dinner, but we had to either go to a restaurant with a big screen TV, or be finished with dinner before the green flag.
When she decided that wasn’t for her, that was the end of that. If you’re wondering, I really wasn’t that broken up over this particular breakup, because she was actually fairly annoying, but I tell you that story, to illustrate how much I enjoy the Texas race.
Fast forward four years, and it was time for another Texas tussle.
Except this year’s race was a little like that former relationship, i couldn’t wait for it to end.
The side-by-side, nail-biting battles we’re used to seeing, were really nowhere to be found on this particular night. Ryan Briscoe ran off and hid, until a mysterious caution flag.
Any racing fan knows about the so-called “NASCAR cautions”. These are supposedly “engineered” cautions to bunch up the field if a driver gets too big of a lead. A writer I used to know in Toledo called these flags “Pierre DeBris”. I don’t think the ICS threw a “NASCAR caution”, but unfortunately, there are going to be questions, because of the timing of the yellow.
Even after the caution flag, there really wasn’t too much side-by-side action until teammates Danica Patrick and Marco Andretti went at it late. Helio Castroneves won the race, and celebrated on the fence, but something was missing.
After the race, the people looking for the old Texas started getting louder. The well-respected champion Scott Dixon sounded off, saying there needed to be some kind of rules change to make the racing better.
Ed Carpenter came out for change after the race. “I’m disappointed for the fans in particular because Texas is supposed to be exciting racing and unfortunately the cars are too similar now and it weakened the product. I’ve never seen this race turn into a one groove track before. We want to put on a good show and I’m afraid this was not it. You couldn’t pass and you couldn’t pass guys that were a lap down. It turned into a fuel strategy, track position, no passing race and no one wants that. Texas is usually the place you shouldn’t have to be playing fuel strategy gambles. This is a place you should be able to drive from the back to the front and unfortunately it is just not that way right now.”
Carpenter is of course, the stepson of IndyCar boss Tony George, so he’s in a unique position when he makes a statement like this one. But Carpenter’s right, the racing wasn’t as good as it had been in the past.
I am not an engineer, so I can’t solve the problem in this blog, but I hope this is just a blip on the radar for the IndyCar Series. The IndyCar Series has a lot going for it, it’s easily the most fan friendly series in motorsports, and for years, it’s had the best on-track product.
Except for last Saturday.
Personally, I thought the race was virtually a carbon copy of the same race during the season that Kanaan won the championship. That’s going back a ways. That’s back when there were 3 engine suppliers, two chassis suppliers, seriously sticky tires, no go-slow do-hickies on the rear wing, and no Danica Patrick. In that race, it was TK and Dario who checked-out on the field at the end of the race (AGR and RLR had Honda engines and dominated big ovals). There were long stints, green flag pit stops, and lots of running in line.
So, I don’t buy that a real crisis exists here. I do think they’ve inched and pinched and ethanol’d the current car until it really doesn’t fulfill any of it’s missions (oval, street, road) as well as it should. OTOH, I also think that there are more factors than just the car at play here; most importantly, money—something that those doing the complaining seem to be forgetting.
Many teams are currently facing a gauntlet of five ovals in a row. Ovals, especially the big ones, extract maximum penalties for small mistakes. Losing it on a road course might mean replacing some bodywork or suspension pieces—or, perhaps nothing at all. Losing it at Texas can mean replacing gear boxes, weight jackers, engines, electronics, the monocoque chassis (tub) itself… Just replacing a weight jacker will run you $50,000. Crashing at 215 mph is very expensive.
You have a bunch of teams with nothing to gain. They can’t win the race, and in all probability they can’t win the championship, but they can go bust. Many of them are barely hanging on in the current economy. Drivers for these teams know that tearing up equipment will cost them their ride, if for no other reason than their ride will no longer exist. In that kind of situation the primary goal becomes to have a careful, safe race, and put the car on the trailer in one piece at the end of the night.
Ergo: long stints, green flag pit stops, and lots of inline running.
Last year you had a lot more risk taking, by drivers that were running there for the first time. There were more yellows. Yellows beget restarts, which beget lots of passing and 2 or 3 wide situations, which beget more yellows. But, not every race is like that, and I don’t see any reason to pretend that they are. Some of the people complaining the loudest (various bloggers and posters on discussion groups) sound like their memories of Indy Car races come from watching old 30 second Fox Sports promos on YouTube.
As for Dixon, I think what he’s complaining about is Penske having an edge, and them having stuff back at the shop all ready to go, but they can’t use it under the rules tightening that’s in effect this year. They want the rules loosened up. That doesn’t have anything to do with a lack of wheel to wheel action at TMS.