59 replies to this topic

[llmaurice]

I'm just so glad they call the cars Daytona Prototypes because they seem to me to almost be a one make series of less than 20 cars backed up by a semi sports car race runninbg at the same time .
Roll on LeMans I say !

[EDWARD FITZGERALD]

48 entries , reflecting the current economic climate , agree on Martin Haven , never stuck for someting to say .

[EDWARD FITZGERALD]

48 entries , reflecting the current economic climate , agree on Martin Haven , never stuck for someting to say .

[Henri Greuter]

The top 4 of a 24 hours race finishing within 4 seconds at the finish....
Unless somethimg has happened to have such organized and heklped to creat, it reads as a better race in the final stages then most GP's or other endurance races with more appealing cars than those DP contraptions.

henri

[slucas]

If I'm not mistaken , weren't you allowed to add oil & water to a car after a race before weighing in? A weight rule is considered black & white but NASCAR has added some grey and when explained , as per Mr. McGuire, I must part with my old world race thinking and agree with him.
It's a 24 hour race. To keep it fair the cars would need to be weighed after every pit stop. Who's to say the other guys weren't running 20lbs. light up untill their last pit stop. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting anybody cheated...

There was a rumour that NASCAR knowingly allowed one of it's big names to run a very illegal engine so they could get the race result they wanted. They had a VIP visiting so it was good business. I doulbt anyone else complained either. It's business first ,sport second.

Not to me. The Grand Am rules have always been the same and the series stuck to its rulebook and its own precedents regarding the underweight, so the ruling was correct as well as consistent. Since the underweight was not intentional and did not affect the outcome of the race, the officials wisely decided not to let it affect the adjudication of the race either.

How was the underweight unintentional? It was the result of a leaking dry sump system. The officials were already aware of the oil leak and were watching the car for the possibility of flagging it, so they were not surprised to find the oil tank nearly empty. The officials had no doubt that the leak was real and inadvertent. Thus there was no intent to circumvent the weight rules, or any rules for that matter.

Why did the underweight not influence the race outcome? The car must weigh 2275 lbs without driver or fuel. The underage post-race was 12 lbs, or about one-half of one percent. Six quarts of oil -- less than a variance in fuel load or a difference in weight between team drivers, and thus not a tangible factor in the car's performance, especially over a 24-hour race.

Personally, I'm glad that in this instance the GARRA officials were able to employ judicial judgement and simple common sense, rather than cutting the baby in half and taking a victory away from a team that truly earned it. If one appreciates that sort of pencil-sharpening there is plenty enough of it to see in F1.

[RA Historian]

There was a rumour that NASCAR knowingly allowed one of it's big names to run a very illegal engine so they could get the race result they wanted. They had a VIP visiting so it was good business. I doulbt anyone else complained either. It's business first ,sport second.

They do it in nascar whenever it fits their story line, so why not in the Grand Am?
Tom

Edited by RA Historian, 31 January 2011 - 22:17.

[mfd]

The top 4 of a 24 hours race finishing within 4 seconds at the finish....

Nothing surprising there when you consider they didn't green flag it until the last lap began

[Henri Greuter]

.

There was a rumour that NASCAR knowingly allowed one of it's big names to run a very illegal engine so they could get the race result they wanted. They had a VIP visiting so it was good business. I doulbt anyone else complained either. It's business first ,sport second.

You mean when Richard Petty won his magical 200th victory with a certain Ronald Reagan in the grandstands?
Who happened to be the US president at that time?


Henri

[RA Historian]

You mean when Richard Petty won his magical 200th victory with a certain Ronald Reagan in the grandstands?
Who happened to be the US president at that time?
Henri

That is one of the more well known instances of nascar rigging a race. More common is "the call", where a team is surreptitiously informed that certain parts will not be teched that weekend. "The Call" is well known in the game, but only talked about soto voce since officially it does not exist. But whenever a certain outcome will fit nascar's story line, variations of "the call" and/or phantom yellows are employed. Stage managed, or 'massaged' outcomes of nascar races occur occasionally, but with a fair degree of frequency. One of many reasons why I dislike nascar and everything about it.
Tom

[Bob Riebe]

That is one of the more well known instances of nascar rigging a race. More common is "the call", where a team is surreptitiously informed that certain parts will not be teched that weekend. "The Call" is well known in the game, but only talked about soto voce since officially it does not exist. But whenever a certain outcome will fit nascar's story line, variations of "the call" and/or phantom yellows are employed. Stage managed, or 'massaged' outcomes of nascar races occur occasionally, but with a fair degree of frequency. One of many reasons why I dislike nascar and everything about it.
Tom

No the worst was when Coo Coo Marlin was leading the Daytona 500 with few laps remaining but was suddenly called in for dropping oil.
After the "proper" people were in the lead suddenly he was cleared as they found no oil leak, and let out but had no chance to regain the lead.
--------------------------------------
With the current pathetic state of motor racing, January means nothing, but I can still remember well when the year started with Daytona speed weeks, to me the 24 was actually the sort of convoluted start of, which was followed by eight months of hot and heated racing glory.

My dad always said there was nothing golden about the golden years and it seems more and more correct with each passing season.
Bob

PS-Reading about the Tasman series in Autoweek was also a high-light.

Edited by Bob Riebe, 07 February 2011 - 22:48.