Izod Indycar Series Rounds 6+7 of 19: Belle Eel Park
Track length: 2.36 miles
Race length: 70 laps
Lap record: Juan Montoya (Lola/Toyota), probably* -- 1:13.056
Previous winner: not James Hinchcliffe, that's for sure!
*There's a new layout, which is the same as the old new layout. The revival event used the old old layout, which should more properly be described as the new old layout. There may be a new new layout somewhere but we'd need a Punnett square to identify it.
Mo(notony)town
Indycar racing has a long history of making bold but extremely questionable decisions. The most famous one in recent years happened when Bruton Smith and Bobby Rahal got drunk and signed a deal to race military surplus F-15s at Bristol. It was cancelled after computer simulations held after qualifying projected a number of fatalities greater than the whole of Tennessee.
This one is a bit less extreme but still puzzling. They've decided to run full-length races on consecutive days on the most reliably boring track on the calendar. I think they're planning to dynamite the bridges out of Belle Isle during Saturday's race, ensuring a good turn-out for part two.
Like a struggling tyre supplier being accused by its customers of carrying out tyre testing, I don't know where to look.
Come on, it's not as bad as Mid-Ohio!
Well that's true. Belle Isle has this weird and often-remarked ability to be incredibly dull for 30 laps then some idiot stuffs it into the wall and all hell breaks loose on the restart(s). So in some ways it's the quintessential street circuit. Takuma Sato appears to be treading the other side of the fine line between stupid and clever this year, so we might need another volunteer (make that two volunteers) to be this weekend's Felipe Massa.
Too obvious.
Schedule plz
Friday, 31 May
08.50-10.50: Grand-Am practice
11.15-12.25: Indycar practice
13.35-14.35: More Grand-Am practice
15.00-16.10: Indycar qualifying
16.30-17.05: Grand-Am qualifying
Saturday, 1 June
08.30-09.00: More Grand-Am practice
09.15-09.45: Indycar qualifying again
12.25-14.25: Some Grand-Am race, what kind of a wussy race only lasts two hours
15.30: Indycar race number one
Sunday, 2 June
09.30-10.00: Indycar race two warm-up (wha?)
10.00-15-30: The ineffable void
15.30: Indycar race 2
Fact
During the Second World War Detroit asked the international community (with a couple of notable exceptions) whether it would like to host the United Nations on beautiful Belle Eel. However they didn't have the idea of combining it with an Indycar double-header so the bid was unsuccessful.
Looks more like a manatee to me
Plea
Does anyone understand how Indycar's points system works? Why did First Loser Carlos Munoz get fiftyfour-fiftyfifths (or 98%) of the points Tony Kanaan got for winning the World's Biggest Auto Race?
Anyway, go forth and comment. It'll all be over soon.
Edited by Risil, 27 May 2013 - 19:24.