Neiman & Long

[cameraman]

Anybody read any kind of explanation of what the hell happened? Neiman's story is I was driving and all of a sudden I was heading for the fence.

The tv coverage was after the fact, the damn French cameras were wholly ignoring gt2 at the time.

[extramundane]

I've heard both that Pat Long was too aggressive and that he had a mechanical failure, but both accounts are hearsay.

I have to wonder if Porsche might be keeping a lid on it. :confused:

[cameraman]

This is one of my major complaints about ALMS/LMS racing.

Abysmal coverage.

Unless the team is making the effort, like the Flying Lizards' race blogs, media coverage of these races is horrible. You don't see interviews of the people involved beyond single sentences culled from a broadcast. Cars just vanish off the track - no explanations provided.

If the sponsors and series officials want to build interest in the sport they should get off their asses and make information about the races easily available.

[oddlycalm]

If the sponsors and series officials want to build interest in the sport they should get off their asses and make information about the races easily available.
Totally agree. To quote pressdog on the subject; "obviously this is none of our business" or "you're missing a great race here guys."

oc

[cameraman]

Patrick Long, who claimed the pole in the French Imsa Performance entry, was caught out when Seth Neiman braked early in the Flying Lizard RSR at the fast right-hander at Indianapolis. I wonder if Neiman agrees with that:saywhat:

I wonder if Long was texting someone at the time:shakehead

[extramundane]

If the sponsors and series officials want to build interest in the sport they should get off their asses and make information about the races easily available.

Nah, they're still patting themselves on the back over the position lights. :shakehead

[FCYTravis]

Nah, they're still patting themselves on the back over the position lights. :shakehead
The ones on the Audi are hardwired. :laugh:

[extramundane]

Pat Long's version (http://www.pca.org/panorama/plblog.html):

So when I got back in the car for my second stint, starting the third hour of competition, I was just on my out lap when things went wrong. With tire warmers allowed at the 24 hours of Le Mans, when the car gets dropped off the jacks you are at racing speed when you come out of the pits, there’s no really working up to it. So it was just straight back into it and I came up on two cars fighting for position about halfway through my first lap, going down into Indianapolis. I came up on them quite quickly because they had been jostling for position and I was letting them sort their differences out. I was following the Flying Lizard car and he was accelerating past the Ferrari and I decided to go in his lane and tag along behind him. Just as I peeked past the Ferrari who was on my right, the Porsche ahead of me was hard, hard, hard on the brakes. It caught me completely by surprise because that’s not a section of race track where I do any braking. Out of complete surprise and with that much speed, I jerked to the right to avoid running into the back of him while sliding in front of the Ferrari, but at that high rate of speed and with that much steering input, it sent my car sideways and in doing so, on the correction I sideswiped into the side of the #80 car, purely trying to avoid him. He didn’t see me and continued to begin his turn into the right-hander. We brushed wheel to wheel and went into the gravel and unfortunately because of the high rate of speed, the car suffered a damaged front suspension that didn’t allow me to even get the car back to the pit lane.

[Fio1]

I wonder why Neiman was braking there? Maybe he got spooked about passing the Ferrari, braked and didn't know Long was there. The mix of driver ability is a major problem with endurance racing. Then again, Long should have let those guys sort their differences out, like he said, and backed waaaay off. Pass the Ferrari on the straight, nit into Indianapolis.