Outside...outside...outside...outside...outside... outside...

[nrc]

Gee, I guess the IRL's magic formula for "wheel to wheel action" isn't such a trade secret after all. Just cut the power, pile on the downforce and presto. If only we had 24 degrees of banking to keep them stuck a bit better on that high line. :shakehead

I can accept it as an oddity to make the trip to Eurospeedway economical - it's a great facility and it seems to draw well - and to keep another oval on the schedule. But I sure wouldn't want to see a full season of it.

[Hink]

That right pissed me off. I can't accept it at all.

CART has bungled ovals for 5 years now. They finally tried to change but still managed to be overly successful at failing.

Stupid wing rules - Good thing they tested their design before showing it off publicly (they didn't).

Back to the drawing board to try to make the oval racing 1/10th as good as it was in 1997 you idiots.

[Kate]

Oval racing is dangerous and boring. There is no way to make it anything else. The only real good thing about this race was that it let some of the rookies show themselves in a good light as they were quite adept in circles where there is not so much to hit.

And I can very much do without hearing "still there...outside..." in ennervating repetititve drone ... zzzzzzzzzzz

[Warlock!]

Originally posted by nrc
I can accept it as an oddity to make the trip to Eurospeedway economical - it's a great facility and it seems to draw well - and to keep another oval on the schedule. But I sure wouldn't want to see a full season of it.
Gotta agree. I do, however, think that the big downforce package will rock at Milwaukee... but not at a 2-mile oval.

Warlock!

[Foxman]

I don't think that either driver should have received a penalty, that said, if you are going to call one out on it, you have to call the other one out on it. I didn't see Dominguez do anything that Bourdais didn't do. It's inconsistent officiating in my book and it makes it look like there was favoritism played to bourdais.

As for the wing package, in 1997 they ran a wing that was between a road course wing and a super speedway wing, I think that would be the way to go, the full road course wings give too much drag for a big oval, they'll probably be great for Milwaukee but they needed less drag in Germany.

Fox

[flobee1kenobi]

As far as applying the same rules and penalties to all drivers, I aggree completely. there is also a very fine line between making things fair and overabusing the rulebook. Should we add weight to a very fast car to keep the racing tighter(NASCAB)?
Sometimes,I think they should just let the drivers race-somebody would've made a mistake sooner or later and the pass would've happened anyway.That kind of tight,white knuckle racing is what everybody wants to see, and when the penalties start flying, it puts an end to that.

[JoeBob]

I haven't seen a good place to plop this thought, so this thread wins. There was one cool thing about the "outside... outside... outside..." thing. Varsha and Kendall pretty much just shut the heck up for the battle the last few laps and let the teams tell the story. Going with the leader's radio to provide the commentary was very cool, and added quite a bit to the drama.

Bob and Tommy added a quick comment here and there, where one was needed, but pretty much let the spotter do the play-by-play. It made Sebastien's battle to keep Dominguez behind him all the more dramatic on TV. If we had been on another network, we would have heard rambling on and on about the great action we were seeing, how wonderful the series was, etc.

[Treeface]

There was a pass to be made. Dominguez couldn't figure it out. It took Bourdais 2 attempts to realize he wasn't going to draft past Jourdain around the outside going into a turn. So he broke the draft coming out of turn 1 and outran him into turn 2. Dominquez kept trying to slingshot pass into a corner for 10 laps. 2 or 3 times a lap. He finally got desperate with 4 laps to go and just started running wheel to wheel as much as possible but never looked to set anything up. Dominquez had the faster car. He should have set up Bourdais coming out of turn 1 or turn 3. IMO he would have beaten him to the next turn.

[Railbird]

Big wings, low power.

Looked familier to me.

Draft up behind the other guy's barn door and pull out to pass, oops, your barn door bites into the wind and bogs down the Specford.

Like nrc says, add a little banking and the next thing you know they'll be droning around side by side all afternoon.

Aero-lock racing makes for a thrill show, not a great race.

[Chief]

I thought Dominguez's mistake was two fold: first, he made the wrong decision and didn't get outside of Haberfeld and Bourdais got him on the outside. Second, Dominguez was trying so hard to pass on the outside I don't think he ever realized that tucking in close in the corners he might find a way to loosen Bourdais up. Rookie mistake (or no one can remember how to race ovals). I think Bourdais was faster anyway.


I don't understand what you are all complaining about. Ok, big wings on a superspeedway is one thing, but it was a compromise. The racing was great, it didn't resemble a Hanford leapfrog deal, in fact I thought it was closer to a proper oval race as I remember it, and CART was doing it 15 years before the IRL was stillborn. Perfect, no. Just what do you want?

[RichK]

Originally posted by Chief
Just what do you want?

I want the best f'ing drivers racing in the best f'ing cars, g'dammit! I've got neither now.

[Napoleon]

Got to agree with Chief on this one.

[nrc]

Originally posted by Chief
I don't understand what you are all complaining about. I'm complaining becuase it's not a perfect world, dammit! :)

Seriously, I accept it as a necessary evil, just like the Handford device. I hope for a day when the money is flowing again and CART can afford to ship two wing packages to Europe.

[G.]

FWIW, I thought it was great. Mario's car was faster on the straights, Sebastian's was faster on the corners. You had two young drivers trying to figure out this racin' thing. Pretty white-knuckle stuff.

Leapfroggin'? Entertaining as all get out, but not racing.

Three wide, flat out? Not racing, but aero-testing.

Trying to figure out a way to get around this guy/ trying to figure out a way to stop this guy? And not crash? Racing.

[pchall]

Originally posted by Chief
The racing was great, it didn't resemble a Hanford leapfrog deal, in fact I thought it was closer to a proper oval race as I remember it, and CART was doing it 15 years before the IRL was stillborn. Perfect, no. Just what do you want?

Chief is on it.

This reminded me of the best qualities of CART oval racing in the mid 80s -- a lot like a good Pocono race without the crappy track surface and tunnels making life difficult for all the drivers/

[cart7]

All I can say is, it beats what we've been watching on the ovals the last 4-5 years. Shame we don't have a few of the short tracks back like Phoenix, Gateway or Naz., it would certainly make for a better show.