167 replies to this topic

[Disgrace]

That's supposed to be on fire, right?

[Andrew Hope]

Kanaan

[Muppetmad]

Well, I did stay up to watch this one (thanks to all who helped me with the times!) and I have to say it was pretty disappointing for Texas. Too much emphasis on setup which in turn led to too much emphasis on tyre management.

[PayasYouRace]

I've just realised that the ESPN UK showing clashes with BTCC so I won't be watching it. Sounds like I didnt miss much from this thread.

[anbeck]

I fell asleep half-way through, but it seems that I did not miss the race of the year. Was there some interesting wheel-to-wheel racing in the later stages?

Compared to the British F1 coverage, the IndyCar coverage really leaves wanting. Does this appeal to Americans?
I don't want to say that a good commentator team needs to be young (Murray Walker proves this), but there is something about the whole team, which I don't like - although I cannot really put my finger on it.

One thing I like, though, is the fact that they have to mention all the side-effects in medicine commercials! Who really buys these sleeping pills, when they seem quite suicidal?

[PayasYouRace]

I find American commentators - sorry, announcers - have a different job to what a British commentator is expected to do. They don't just comment on the action but advertise too and it doesn't work for me.

I found the best coverage of USOW was Eurosport's CART coverage, when the had the UK commentary team of Ben Edwards and Jeremy Shaw. The pictures were from ABC/ESPN/whoever but having that commentary team made a lot of difference. Similarly, I miss the old IRL/Indycar commentary team for international coverage. They were an American pair and they weren't particularly interesting for the most part, but at least they weren't advertising things. Their job was simply to comment on what was going on on our screens and anything important that we couldn't see, not to tell us who the sponsors were for every little thing and what time the baseball is on.

The current commentary teams often have the other problem that they seem to be a bunch of friends in their living room rather than doing the commentary job. When something exciting happens they just say "woah" or something, whereas someone like Murray Walker would suddenly go up a notch and describe what was happening.

[greenman]

anbeck, on Jun 9 2013, 10:54, said:

I fell asleep half-way through, but it seems that I did not miss the race of the year. Was there some interesting wheel-to-wheel racing in the later stages?

Not really, or at the very least they didn't show it. Most of the passing came from different tyre strategies (heh, how familiar does that sound) - Kanaan and Andretti having to pit one more time before the finish and then gaining a couple of positions. Helio looked safe with half the race to go and as there was no yellow he lapped all but 5 (or 6?) cars.
It's a shame that this was their first prime-time race on a network, and it wasn't exactly something that will appeal to the masses. It wasn't a bad race, and you get the feeling that driver skill was a big factor, but the lack of wheel to wheel battles, esp. for the lead, + too much emphasis on managing the tyres were a bummer.

And the coverage was just bad... Goodyear and Cheever feeling they had to explain what "spotters" and "apron" are, Jamie Little with her "four tyres and Sunoco fuel", tons of commercials...

[Ross Stonefeld]

Last year was a lot better. I think they had more downforce last year, but were sliding around more. Hmm.

[billm99uk]

Almost the polar opposite of The 500 really - at Indy they couldn't break apart, here they got totally strung out.

Dutch maybe? Cheever is a Dutch name right? Grandpaw was from Amsterdam, maybe?

Edited by billm99uk, 09 June 2013 - 12:06.

[HaydenFan]

Ross Stonefeld, on Jun 9 2013, 07:00, said:

Last year was a lot better. I think they had more downforce last year, but were sliding around more. Hmm.

They kept saying the tires where supposed to have a significant drop off. But like I was chatting with a few race drivers about the race, even the tires can't drop off that much. I'm wondering why the gap from qualifying pace to race pace. I mean they were nearly 220 mph, yet even with new tires a fast lap was 210 and that dropped off to 205-200 mph in a few laps.

I think the lack of downforce caused them to be at the limit. The tires were bad, which compounded the issue even worse. No sliding as I don't think anyone was truly comfortable enough to push the car to that limit. Everyone kept saying how much oversteer they were suffering. Hunter-Reay said in post-race interviews that his car sucked, and he took second.

billm99uk, on Jun 9 2013, 08:06, said:

Almost the polar opposite of The 500 really - at Indy they couldn't break apart, here they got totally strung out.

Dutch maybe? Cheever is a Dutch name right? Grandpaw was from Amsterdam, maybe?

Cheever grew up in Italy, after being born in Phoenix, but that was not his family background (his kid races in F3 with an Italian license). Cheever I believe is English, but I just blame the fact he is boring to listen to due to him being bitter still about his F1 career. You don't see the guy smile, or express any emotion when he speaks.

And to the person who mentioned the ABC guys being advertisers; I think it's an ESPN/ABC issue. Outside the mention of getting new "Firestone Firehawk tires", you don't hear the NBCSN people bring up advertising backers. But really that has always been part of the sport. Al Unser in the Pennzoil machine, not Penske machine. We just have a tendency to distinguish drivers/teams with a sponsor than with the owner name. Target has been with Ganassi for 2 decades. Calling them the Target cars is become common place.

[Ross Stonefeld]

Remind me who the race sponsor was again?

[Risil]

I can remind you who it wasn't.

Just watched the race. My low-wattage insights: agree with Hayden Fan that no one seemed particularly confident pushing the car. And we don't need degrade-happy tyres to make oval racing exciting. Still, I'm not too down. Will Phillips has a hell of a moving target to hit to make the racing good.

Edited by Risil, 10 June 2013 - 21:14.

[Deluxx]

Ross Stonefeld, on Jun 9 2013, 09:44, said:

Remind me who the race sponsor was again?

Firestone kill your tires 550?

[Ross Stonefeld]

So for the second year in a row the winning car is out of spec and we get NASCAR-style fines.

http://auto-racing.s...ed-lose-points/

[Deluxx]

Wow. Could that be accounted for all of his 20 second lead throughout the race?

[Ross Stonefeld]

No, I think a lot of people got hurt by the timing of yellows and Penske nailed the strategy.

[Lemnpiper]

Hi All,


My take on this race is that it reminded me of Usac/Cart races from the late 1970's to the early 1990's. You had the strung out field , with two or 3 dominant cars.The only thing missing was more mechanical breakdowns or a couple more cars into the wall.

So if you truely wanted to see what open wheel racing on ovals was like 20 to 35 years ago on the big ovals this race was pretty much how they occured back then.

Now it is good for the series , that jury is still out.



Paul

[greenman]

Lemnpiper, on Jun 12 2013, 06:58, said:

Now it is good for the series , that jury is still out.

Well... Walker apologized. I have to say, the fact the race was dull due to lack of battles for the lead and strung out field, isn't really problematic - every series is gonna have a dull race every once in a while, and sometimes things like this just happen. But the tyres degrading in the manner of Pirelli on their worst days, and drivers running most of the time 15-20 mph slower than what they should be capable off, was more of a problem.
Still, interesting to see a comment like this.