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'Fixes' and 'rule-bending' in racing


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#1 Buford

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Posted 30 March 2004 - 20:51

This is something I posted in RC during one of the periodic discussions of is NASCAR fixed or has it ever been. Maybe some of you who do not venture into the cesspool of ignorance in Racing Comments would be interested and maybe it could kick off a discussion of "the fix" in the history of racing.
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Well I do think NASCAR is more legitimate now than it was a few years ago but I can never really trust them to be showing me a real open competition race where nobody has an unfair advantage to fit whatever script they have on their minds this week. Look, NASCAR has a long tradition of being a "show" going back to the beginning. Bill France 1st was way ahead of his time in realizing the way to make a business out of a bunch of brawling criminal hillbilly grease monkeys was to give the audience what they wanted. Entertainment.

My father had one of the top Midwest based factory backed stock car teams in the 1950s and 1960s. They were originally backed by Nash, then Studebaker, and finally Ford. We had a great driver. My dad innovated several things like having a fully ready backup car, white coveralls, and stuff like driving wood chips into the springs to change the chassis like they use spring rubber today. We also had the first Quarter Midgets in the Midwest painted up like the big car team that my brother and I drove in intermission exhibitions. It was all to advertise his construction business and it was a very effective promotional tool and took him from a small business to one that handled all the State of Illinois highway lighting and traffic signal business etc. It all grew out of the racing team.

Every year in the 1950s, Bill France would call my dad up and literally beg him to come South and race with Nascar. His financial incentives were 1st and 2nd place money for our 2 cars at EVERY RACE regardless of finishing position plus payment for all damage caused by the good old boys and more than that if we needed it. Why? Because we were to play a role. We were to be the much hated “Yankee Hotshots” come south with legions of well funded, well equipped troupes to once again “march to the sea” across Confederate lands and thump the poor hillbillies. We would be there to be booed and hated and we would be well paid to be the bad guys in the show.

Well we were already the bad guys in the North. We were already booed all the time because we won too much. That is why he got the Quarter Midgets. To diffuse some of the animosity we got from being too good and too well funded. People who had never seen kids in little race cars loved our intermission shows. So being the bad guys would not necessarily be a change in role for us. But at that time NASCAR was no big deal and we could make more money up North running various tracks. We ran Wednesday night, Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night. All at different tracks, both dirt and pavement. Plus the whole idea was to publicize the construction business and running in the Carolinas would do nothing for us in the business promotion. My parents and the driver and many of the crew had young children in school they did not want to uproot and move to the South which was a major hellhole in the 1950s. There were a lot of reasons my dad turned down Bill France year after year. But being part of a “show” was not one of them. We had been paid by promoters to fix races in the past – aka not win and let the local hero win. So racing was not above putting in the fix behind the scenes since the beginning and I do not believe they are now either.

NASCAR has always been a show and entertainment 1st, a legitimate racing series 2nd.

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#2 scags

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Posted 30 March 2004 - 21:21

Nascar might be subtler now- instead of a quite word that the tech guy won't be looking too close this week, they give certain teams more areo help to keep one team or "manufacturer" from winning to much.

#3 rdrcr

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 05:53

Some great stories there Buford...

Yeah, I've always known of NASCAR's "theater" antics... getting "the call" and all that scuttlebutt that surrounding the engineering of how the race unfolded. They've just gotten better at it these days, that's all.

Surely the Indy 500 has had some internal machinations that could be called "fixing" the event. Such as the 11th-hour, altering of rules to prevent cars from being overly competitive, etc. But I doubt anything would qualify as being as overt as NASCAR.

I don't think I've heard of any stories of collusion in the SCCA - gross incompetence and revenue diversion maybe, but no fixing per se. Though I was only in there for a limited time before getting fed up with no track time, small fields and a lot of whistle-blowing for no apparent reason.

#4 eldougo

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 06:16

:lol:
Surely you gest Motor racing "fixed"!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NEXT :lol:

#5 Ray Bell

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 06:25

Like the days at Oran Park when Leo Geoghegan diced with Glynn Scott... Leo in the Lightweight Elan, Glynn in the Lotus 23B.

And then Leo in the 32 diced with Glynn in the 23B.

Are we to assume that the Elan was as quick as the 32?

#6 McGuire

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 11:35

There is considerable testimonial evidence that Johnny Mantz got "the call" in winning the 1950 Southern 500. The car was reportedly blatantly illegal, but when Big Bill France ordered the chief technical inspector to give the car a pass, he resigned on the spot. One of the car's co-owners was Big Bill himself.

#7 KWSN - DSM

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 11:43

NASCAR is hell bent on Dale Earnhardt Jr winning the championship, to the point that there is one set of rules for him, and anothet set for all others.

Dale is a fine driver and may one day win a Champioship by himself, howerer NASCAR's constant biase in favour of him will forever taint the championship(s) he will doubtless win.

:cool:

#8 McGuire

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 12:01

Originally posted by eldougo
:lol:
Surely you gest Motor racing "fixed"!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NEXT :lol:


The sport has always been relative measures of pure sport and show biz hustle. The backstage intrigues are part of the appeal I suppose.

#9 Manfred Cubenoggin

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 12:33

Good thread, Buford. Great stories.

While it was hardly a fix, I remember well the Mosport CanAm in 1969. Bruce and Denny were miles ahead of everyone else in qualifying but in the race, diced with the likes of Surtees in the Hall McLaren M12 and Gurney in his McLeagle in the early stages. They were just playing to the fans and putting on a show. After a bit, the orange cars put the hammer down and were long gone. Nobody had any illusions that it was something other than a little grandstanding. Still, very exciting to see a 'battle' up front. Thanx, Bruce and Denny.

#10 Buford

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 22:46

I have read that some of the IMCA fairground Sprint Car races of the 1950s and 1960s were staged events with the outcome already determined by agreement of the officials and participants.

The closest I ever came to in a fix from the officials in my own racing was at a Sprint Car race when there was only about 19 cars present. The promoter told us at the driver's meeting. "Boys, we are short on cars tonight so everybody is going to make the feature and everybody is going home with a check. Don't tear up your cars in the heat races. Just go out and make some noise for the spectators."

One year I guess I was part of a fix in a way. I ran three races for a rich guy in his car disguised as him. He would go into his motor home just before it was time to get into the car and I would come out in a replica of his suit and helmet and get in. I would race and won all three times, and then would pull in right up to the motorhome, and hop out and immediately go in. In a few minutes he would appear outside and accept the congratulations.

At the time I did not know why he was doing this. I thought it was chickenshit to be accepting congratulations for winning when he did not do the driving. But he was paying me $500 per race plus expenses so it was OK with me. A couple years later, I found out he had made a big bet with one of the other drivers he would beat him in the last 3 races and since he had never beaten him before the guy took the bet. So I guess he made a bundle on the "fix." The closest we came to getting caught was one time when I got black flagged in practice for passing on the yellow and had to come in and get yelled at by the chief steward. I had a dark green shield though so I just kept reving the engine and looking straight ahead and nodding my head until he shut up and waved me back out on the track.

#11 McGuire

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 23:08

Everything about the Granatelli Bros. shows at Solider Field was staged, including the wrecks.

In match racing and 8-car traveling shows in drag racing, picking a winner beforehand and then splitting the purse evenly was common practice for years. It was the only way people could make a living. The price of winning was not worth the cost of hurting the equipment, so everyone laid down.

In virtually all forms of racing there was always appearance or tow money. Some racers got it, some didn't, and everyone got something different. Some deserved it for the crowds they drew; others were just more adept at negotiating it than others. There was nothing especially "fair" or "sporting" about it. Welcome to show business.

#12 Buford

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 23:17

I worked with a guy in the late 1960s who ran SCCA. He had been a stock car racer in South Dakota a decade or so before and he said he drove a car owned by the track that was designed to turn over easily. Whenever a race was getting boring he would get a signal and would crank the car one way or the other and it would flip once or twice. They would paint it different colors on different weeks and I guess this worked for awhile. But one day he did his flip right in front of the leaders who were coming up to lap him and it caused a major crash. The spectators got their money's worth that day!

#13 Ray Bell

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 23:18

Originally posted by Buford
.....I ran three races for a rich guy in his car disguised as him. He would go into his motor home just before it was time to get into the car and I would come out in a replica of his suit and helmet and get in. I would race and won all three times.....


You know that Jim and Michael will be spewing about this, don't you?

All their careful record-keeping... all their analysis of results... all their work over the years blown to shreds for the sake of your $500!

Better send them full details so they can update their records and be the only people in the world who have it right...

#14 Buford

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Posted 31 March 2004 - 23:22

It was just Midwestern Council of Sports Car Clubs minor sports car races. They don't even have any records. Just minor racing stuff.

#15 McGuire

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Posted 01 April 2004 - 02:00

Originally posted by Buford
I worked with a guy in the late 1960s who ran SCCA. He had been a stock car racer in South Dakota a decade or so before and he said he drove a car owned by the track that was designed to turn over easily. Whenever a race was getting boring he would get a signal and would crank the car one way or the other and it would flip once or twice. They would paint it different colors on different weeks and I guess this worked for awhile. But one day he did his flip right in front of the leaders who were coming up to lap him and it caused a major crash. The spectators got their money's worth that day!


Sounds like the promoter took some tips from Granatelli. They not only ran flipper cars but jammers as well (guys paid to wreck people). They even did a schtick where the ambulance (handled by a regular driver in disguise) would go out to collect a driver and pretend to get caught in the race traffic and do several laps before it was finally "able" to get off the track.

Pistone, Lorenzen, and some others around the Chicago area made their bones running that stuff before they went to NASCAR.

#16 MPea3

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Posted 01 April 2004 - 02:33

Originally posted by McGuire


Sounds like the promoter took some tips from Granatelli. They not only ran flipper cars but jammers as well (guys paid to wreck people). They even did a schtick where the ambulance (handled by a regular driver in disguise) would go out to collect a driver and pretend to get caught in the race traffic and do several laps before it was finally "able" to get off the track.

Pistone, Lorenzen, and some others around the Chicago area made their bones running that stuff before they went to NASCAR.


weren't the drivers paid to wreck people referred to as "booger artists"?

#17 Buford

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Posted 01 April 2004 - 04:22

Originally posted by McGuire


Sounds like the promoter took some tips from Granatelli. They not only ran flipper cars but jammers as well (guys paid to wreck people). They even did a schtick where the ambulance (handled by a regular driver in disguise) would go out to collect a driver and pretend to get caught in the race traffic and do several laps before it was finally "able" to get off the track.

Pistone, Lorenzen, and some others around the Chicago area made their bones running that stuff before they went to NASCAR.


We raced with Pistone and Lorenzen. In fact, Lorenzen got the Ford Nascar deal in the early 1960s after my dad turned down Dick Rathmann who was representing Ford twice. That is the one he regrets. Not the chances to go South in the 1950s. He should have taken the Ford deal in 1962 or 1963 when it was offered twice. But again, nobody knew Nascar would take off and he had a good business to run.

We had a case where the local promoter paid three drivers who were brothers to take out our cars one night in the big year end race. The word was out what was going to happen. After one of the brothers pinned one of our cars up against the fence the welding truck driver got so pissed off he went out on the track and smashed into two of the brothers in the welding truck while our car escaped. But that was legit. The welding truck driver was not paid by the promoter to make a show and he was banned for life from the track for doing it. That was a good fist fight riot in the pits that night too and several people including our driver ended up in jail for assault. Our guy got out of it on self defense and it wasn't as good a riot as my mother started about a decade before in a story I told here previously.

#18 Manfred Cubenoggin

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Posted 01 April 2004 - 11:34

'...only in America, you say? Pity.'

Wild stuff, Buford. LOL. These revelations are just amazing. Comic opera and Mac Sennett. But what about our Continental, UK and Ozzie chaps? Any of this kind of drama from your shores?

#19 Don Capps

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Posted 05 April 2004 - 19:22

Lest my silence be taken as a tacit or open agreement with the thrust of the comments on this thread, simply let me say that I think that is room for discussion.... :rotfl:

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#20 petefenelon

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Posted 05 April 2004 - 20:36

Originally posted by Manfred Cubenoggin
'...only in America, you say? Pity.'

Wild stuff, Buford. LOL. These revelations are just amazing. Comic opera and Mac Sennett. But what about our Continental, UK and Ozzie chaps? Any of this kind of drama from your shores?



Alan Brown, entrant and sometime driver who died a few weeks back, claimed he was offered a substantial amount of money to throw a saloon car race back in the 60s.....

Quoting Mike Lawrence's pitpass.com column:


"In 1966 I was running a Mustang for Jack Brabham and we came to a point in the season when, if Jack won a particular race, which was likely, then a saloon car championship would go to one team and driver but, if he did not, the series would go elsewhere. Our car only appeared at selected meetings so were not in contention for the championship and a well-known team manager offered Jack and me a thousand pounds apiece to throw the race. I suspect that he was only a spokesman acting on behalf of a manufacturer and had we been interested. we could have raised his bid. I had not liked the way motor racing was going and that was the last straw."

It is typical of Alan that he never would disclose who offered him the bribe. He would not even rise to informed guesses.



#21 Mallory Dan

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Posted 06 April 2004 - 12:02

pete, I read this too in the latest MS, any ideas who it might have been. Are we allowed even to speculate, given that its nearly 40 years ago ??

#22 petefenelon

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Posted 06 April 2004 - 17:29

Originally posted by Mallory Dan
pete, I read this too in the latest MS, any ideas who it might have been. Are we allowed even to speculate, given that its nearly 40 years ago ??


I suppose if you were sufficiently interested in this, digging up the championship positions towards the end of the 1966 championship might give you enough clues...

#23 RTH

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Posted 07 April 2004 - 12:51

Originally posted by Buford
...............Maybe some of you who do not venture into the cesspool of ignorance in Racing Comments ...................


A colourful turn of phrase Sir, - however I have myself noticed a tendency there to shoot from the hip , without even a moments thought and an apparent pleasure in savaging a correspondent - any correspondent , - including the hosts on the flimsiest grounds.

Thankfully here gentlemanly conduct and respect make this such a pleasant forum.

#24 Buford

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Posted 07 April 2004 - 22:44

Yeah - that's why I reposted it here figuring the gentlemen would never see it there.

#25 Dennis Hockenbury

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Posted 07 April 2004 - 23:18

Great stuff Buford. I laughed my butt off at some of your stories.

Thanks for sharing.

#26 Coogar

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Posted 07 April 2004 - 23:44

Ah....
So current F1 is okay then.......

#27 Buford

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Posted 08 April 2004 - 03:45

I am kind of surprised with this base of knowledgeable posters, so few have come up with fix stories. This must be a pretty clean sport, unless I am involved anyway. But I am not anymore so all is fine I guess.

#28 Frank S

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Posted 08 April 2004 - 04:18

Not exactly a "fix" story, but I did cheat and get away with it, my Vega Kammback vs. a roadracer VW bug at the Old Tijuana Airport. Long story short, the VW was much faster, but hung around for a few laps to make a "show". When he finally decided to go away, I shortcut the course by a quarter mile and he didn't quite catch me up before the checker.

Follow the Tijuana - 1 - et seq. links for the full story, with pictures.


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#29 jondoe955

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Posted 08 April 2004 - 05:22

Not a fix story, but something here reminded me of the time I wandered into the pits after the last race at the local track. I saw a crowd of guys, and as I walked up, I noticed someone had a microphone and was interviewing a driver. As I got closer, I realized the shiny object wasn't a mike - but a large wrench, and that the 'interview' was a heated arguement. Nothing came of it, but it widened my 12yo eyes a bit.
My only fix story is pretty mild. I knew Walt Arfons as a teen and went to the strip with him a few times. He had a couple of jet dragsters at the time, but raced them under different names. Didn't really matter much - there was no one else to race against them anyways, they were really 'exhibition' races, but it gave the image of 'competition'.

Thanks all for the great stories. It's hard enough to justify a few (or more!) hours to watching a race, but to think it was all preordained (instead of random luck and circumstances, plus money, preperation and skill)....

#30 Lotus23

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Posted 08 April 2004 - 23:49

I posted this on a now-defunct site over three years ago, but it bears repeating in this context.

This was in the early fifties at a local paved 1/4 mile oval track. I won't name the sanctioning organization, but they weren't noted for even-handed rules enforcement.

Local Hero (names withheld to protect the guilty) was winning week after week, even when he was handicapped by starting at the back of the pack. Curious, I snagged a pit pass ($2.00) to see if I could ferret out the secret of his success.

Superficially, his car looked legal enough, but I happened to be standing behind it when he fired it up: the exhaust fumes immediately brought tears to my eyes! The rules specified "pump gas only"; I don't know where he was getting his pump gas, but it definitely had Something Extra added to it!

Such shenanigans were fairly common in those days -- at that track, anyway -- and outsiders were often far more closely scrutinized than Local Heroes were. The concept of a level playing field had not yet arrived!

#31 RTH

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Posted 09 April 2004 - 08:55

We had that in the 84/85 24 hr races at Snetterton one of the Mitsubishi Starion Turbos - every time he came past our open Caterham 7 the choking smell was unbearable .

At the time it was mandatory for the turbo cars to run a boost pressure detector which would put on a red light on the device if over standard boost was detected - the same chap was found to have drilled a hole in his out of sight so that no matter what the boost was the light could not ever come on and disqualify him eventually it was discovered and I believe he got a years ban.

In the early eighties there were cases in F3 where hidden valves had been fitted in to the 'airtight' 24mm restrictor box - so with the valve closed it would pass scrutineering -out on the track the valve was opened the engine gained 40BHP and blew past everyone else.

#32 Buford

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Posted 09 April 2004 - 11:26

Well since we have moved onto fuel another story. My father as mentioned in the opening post got the first Quarter midget in the Midwest in 1955. They were racing them in California. Go Karts did not exist. They grew out of Quarter Midgets which were just for kids. They took the body off them and make karts so adults could drive little cars.

My dad had been looking for a little car to use at intermissions of the stock car races. I recall when I was six we went to several places where guys had built little cars and I got to drive them or at least sit in them but they were not what he had in mind. They were homebuilt specials and I wanted all of them and was crushingly disappointed when he wouldn't buy any of them. He wanted a car that was very cool, like a real race car in miniature. One day he saw a magazine article about Quarter Midgets in California and that was it. What he had in mind. He was on the phone immediately and the guy building them was an orange grove owner in Hemet California. His question was "How much and how soon can I get one."

Well it blew everybody’s mind when they first saw it. The first night it came is a funny story of it's own. It nearly caused a divorce when they put my 3-year-old brother in it despite a promise not to do that and my mother was trapped in the stands. Anyway, people were measuring and photographing our car and asking where to get one and within a year there were lots of them around and we got a second one for my brother who was now almost 5 and fully old enough to be a race car driver of course. So we started racing them in two QM clubs.

Well I was unbeatable and after a couple years people were getting pissed. My brother was also unbeatable in the novice class. They started cheating. You could smell the castor oil in the fuel, which was supposed to be stock. They started getting bigger engines which were illegal but when we got one I was so fast my dad had to take it out because he would never protest anybody even though he knew damn well they were cheating, but they would certainly protest us. So I couldn't always win against the cheaters with 1/3 bigger engines but I still was winning more than was popular.

Then we ran into a long series of engine troubles. My car would run, and then cut out and then run and shut down again. We changed engines. Nothing helped. Then it hit my brother's car too. We couldn't figure out what was going on for several weeks. Finally we found the problem. Somebody had put finely ground cork in our gas tanks. It never occurred to us to guard the cars every single minute. It was kids racing. Just little kids. I was about 9 years old. It was my welcome to the racing world.

#33 Buford

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 13:00

This thread has been resurrected from 3 years ago in this current thread

http://forums.autosp...&threadid=93057

so people may be reading it. I now have scans of the Quarter Midgets I talked about above.

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#34 Todd

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 17:39

The worst fix I ever saw occured in the 2002 Surfers Paradise CART race. The pitstop intervals were mandated, and it was pouring rain. The cars circulated behind the pace car until the leaders, who were leaving CART for the IRL, had to pit. When the order matched what CART wanted, the race was called. The only episode that rivals this in my 30 years of following racing was the 1994 F1 season, when the run away points leader was hit with absurd exclusions to create a competition for the championship.

#35 RA Historian

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 19:47

Jeez, you make it sound like that Daytona, Fla, based taxi cab series!

The point that you state certainly is debatable, and this is the first time I have ever heard of that. Not to say that it may not have any truth in it, but the fact is that the end of the race was known to the teams many laps before the checker actually was thrown and as such it was not a surprise. As it was, all teams, not just the projected departees, save Herdez, which was out of sequence on its pit stops, had to make a late mandatory pit stop. Herdez (and Mario Dominguez) won by virtue of a great stroke of luck, not because of chicanery.

Having said all that, the fact remains that a race which was run 90% behind the pace car was indeed a farce. Better they should have bit the bullet and held it over to the next day. But....it was a street circuit and the promoter's contract called for the streets to be given back to the city by Monday. The promoters and the sanctioning body were in a serious bind from the start.

A farce, yes. A joke, yes. An embarrasment, yes. But I would not call it a fix.

(I'll probably get some flack and argument on this, but sorry, folks, just my opinion )

#36 Todd

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 19:57

IIRC, there was a lap at which the race could be called and would have been official. Unfortunately, big name defectors to the IRL were leading when that lap came around. And the next..... Once they had to pit under the rules, then the race was called. You call it like you see it, but it was enough that I stopped watching CART or whatever they are calling themselves this week, having been a fan since the seventies. It was also exactly the way it was seen by the racers who had to pit before the arbitrary race finish in their last CART race.

#37 RA Historian

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 20:02

As I said: (I'll probably get some flack and argument on this, but sorry, folks, just my opinion )

#38 f1steveuk

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 20:15

F1? Squeeky clean??

Re-fueling rigs with the filters out, lead shot in tubes as ballast (which hence moved under braking /acceleration and improved grip, cars without traction control, that when stuck on wet grass, popped the re-fueling flap, and drove straight off with a strange miss fire, inbedded software concealed in engine mapping programmes, water cooled brakes, or a German driver who set his super fast time in one red car, casually changed to the spare car and parked that outside the FIA bay, oh the list is endless!!!

Jim Clark, Indy following a car with a split oil tank that didn't get flagged????? Me thinks, worms, can, open!!!!!

#39 Disco Stu

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Posted 20 February 2007 - 20:25

Originally posted by Todd
IIRC, there was a lap at which the race could be called and would have been official. Unfortunately, big name defectors to the IRL were leading when that lap came around. And the next..... Once they had to pit under the rules, then the race was called. You call it like you see it, but it was enough that I stopped watching CART or whatever they are calling themselves this week, having been a fan since the seventies. It was also exactly the way it was seen by the racers who had to pit before the arbitrary race finish in their last CART race.


What they did was the fair thing to do. They ran long enough that everyone ran through two pit windows. What would've been unfair would be to throw a checkered flag when some drivers had been forced to pit twice while others only had to come in once. If they were really trying to fix the finish I doubt they'd have done it to make the slowest driver in the field all season the winner, that just doesn't make any sense.

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#40 Lotus23

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Posted 22 February 2007 - 02:41

Buford, you guys had a very professional-looking outfit there!

About as nice a brace of QMs as I've seen in some time.

My 2yo granddaughter is already making "vroom" noises as I pre-stage, then stage, her shopping cart at the grocery store. Once our imaginary Christmas tree blinks green, we blast off and scatter all our fellow shoppers in the produce aisle! (Her dad, who thought this all great fun 30 years ago, now pretends not to notice us...)

#41 Sharman

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Posted 22 February 2007 - 09:30

WHCharnock wrote

I can't recall it properly and had my copy of the verses chucked away by a bloody minded ex

" drove the motor pram with a three fifty Bug,
Every time he changed a nappy
Baby had to change a plug"

#42 Buford

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Posted 22 February 2007 - 09:47

Originally posted by Lotus23
Buford, you guys had a very professional-looking outfit there!

About as nice a brace of QMs as I've seen in some time.

My 2yo granddaughter is already making "vroom" noises as I pre-stage, then stage, her shopping cart at the grocery store. Once our imaginary Christmas tree blinks green, we blast off and scatter all our fellow shoppers in the produce aisle! (Her dad, who thought this all great fun 30 years ago, now pretends not to notice us...)


Yeah they came from California and were the first Quarter Midgets in the Midwest. We were the Jr team for the factory backed stock car team, so I had the benefit as a kid I never had in my adult career. Proper funding.

#43 scags

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Posted 23 February 2007 - 03:07

speaking of kids and motor noises, when my son was two(at my Mother's), he was running a car up and down the carpet- 'vroom, vroom, beep beep, asshole!" I guess he spent too much time driving with me.

#44 Buford

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Posted 23 February 2007 - 05:18

Sounds like my grandmothers parakeet that learned an interesting vocabulary from some workmen who remodeled the kitchen he lived in.

#45 Simpson RX1

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Posted 23 February 2007 - 22:40

Not so much a fix, but a definite cheat...............

Worked with a guy a few years ago that at one point had been involved in a team running production saloon cars.

They negotiated a deal to buy a car that had pretty much run away with the championship a couple of seasons before, and set about doing a winter rebuild in preparation for the coming season.

Far from a prod saloon, they found an oversize engine, hidden tanks and pipes to feed the watercooled brakes, panels that looked standard but had been replicated in light weight aluminium and loads more besides.

Turned out this thing was about as close to production standard as an F1 car! :D

#46 ray b

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Posted 24 February 2007 - 03:39

:clap:
hi bulford glad to see you posting

Simpson RX1 maybe a claiming rule is a good idea
limits the amounts they will spend to cheat
if they know you can buy a winner for a fixed price