14 replies to this topic

[HistoryFan]

With Ed Carpenter currently leading in the last laps in Texas, a question comes to my mind: Carpenter just racing the oval races and is a very good oval driver (much more better on ovals than on road or street corses).

 

So which drivers were that good oval drivers in the past? (and not that good on other tracks).

 

And was there a similar case in the past with one driver racing the road and street tracks and the other the ovals with the same car as Carpenter/Conway now?

[Ross Stonefeld]

(for anyone not entirely up to speed with what he's asking, he's talking about Indycar)

[HaydenFan]

http://www.champcars.../recordbook.htm

 

For being that American open wheel racing spent many years running only on ovals (a couple of road races a year on occasion) for the first 80ish years, you had many greats not do that well on the road circuits. Of Foyt's 67 wins, only 3 came on road circuits. 

 

Even more modern, Hornish scored 19 IndyCar wins (on 116 starts). None on a road circuit. Of those starts on road/street circuits (11), he scored 2 top 5's (2nd @ Watkins Glen being his only podium). 

 

In all honesty, I think Marco Andretti is starting to fall into this group. He is one of the fastest on every oval. Hasn't scored many wins (1 in 2011), and does have a road circuit win, but his name is always talked about much more when the series is at an oval. 

 

Trying to not go beyond the introduction of CART in '79, and finding it hard. You had the guys who where some of the top drivers in the IRL to struggle after the merger (Buddy Lazier, Buddy Rice), but they were not with any winning teams at the time of said merger. 

[Lemnpiper]

 You  really didnt have many road race courses on the Indy car schedule each year til what the late 1970's or early 1980's? 

 

 

  For that reason a better  question might be  who was better at Paved ovals vs Dirt Ovals, and vice versa .Both  forms of racing had  folks that like Carpenter excelled at one but not the other.

    It's a real pity  dirt tracks are to a large degree ignored by Indycar & Nascar , since they offer even a better opportunity to see just how good a driver is  under various formatted tracks.

[Bob Riebe]

 You  really didnt have many road race courses on the Indy car schedule each year til what the late 1970's or early 1980's? 

 

 

  For that reason a better  question might be  who was better at Paved ovals vs Dirt Ovals, and vice versa .Both  forms of racing had  folks that like Carpenter excelled at one but not the other.

    It's a real pity  dirt tracks are to a large degree ignored by Indycar & Nascar , since they offer even a better opportunity to see just how good a driver is  under various formatted tracks.

There were few road races in the seventies and only a few some years in the sixties.

 

It was not until the eighties that there were a fair number.

 

One does have to be careful about not being good, etc.

It depends as much on the team and car as the driver.

 

Tom Sneva won a single road race but does one win make him poor at it?

 

He was, from his record, extremely good at short paved ovals but does that make him bad at large fast ovals?

Edited by Bob Riebe, 11 June 2014 - 05:00.

[Henri Greuter]

How about Arie Luyendijk?

 

His three victories within CART all were on ovals: Indy 1990, Phoenix and Nazareth 1991.

 

In 1991 there were five oval races and in addition to the victories at Phoenix and Nazareth he also scored a second at Michigan (like he would do in 1994 too) and a third at Indy. He was a DNF in Milwaukee, the remaining oval of the year.

 

I remember that during my vacation of 1991 I went to both Indy as well as Milwaukee: saw the two worst of his five oval races that year.....

 

 

Henri

[Collombin]

To the surprise of most, Nigel Mansell did much better on the ovals than the road or street courses.

Not that he had much success on street courses in F1 either.

[HistoryFan]

How about Arie Luyendijk?

 

His three victories within CART all were on ovals: Indy 1990, Phoenix and Nazareth 1991.

 

In 1991 there were five oval races and in addition to the victories at Phoenix and Nazareth he also scored a second at Michigan (like he would do in 1994 too) and a third at Indy. He was a DNF in Milwaukee, the remaining oval of the year.

 

I remember that during my vacation of 1991 I went to both Indy as well as Milwaukee: saw the two worst of his five oval races that year.....

 

 

Henri

That's a very nice example.

[ghinzani]

Well the likes of Scott Brayton, Pancho Carter, Johhny Parsons jnr etc etc where among the legions of Oval specialists along with all the USAC, Sprintcar, SuperMods drivers who tended to do Indy and a few others only. Off hand the likes of Caliva, Krueger et al never faired very well on road courses. On the other hand the great Jim Crawford became somewhat of an Oval specialist, especially after his Indy accident, having been an ACE on European road courses prior to going to America.

[HistoryFan]

what was the last dirt oval race in IndyCar? Was it Sacramento in 1970, won by Al Unser?

[Collombin]

Yes, not that it was called IndyCar then, of course. The national championship became a paved oval only affair in 1971, whilst USAC created a new division for the dirt ovals (later known as Silver Crown).

[HistoryFan]

Thank you

 

very sad that there are no dirt track races today.

 

But silver crown were not the same cars than the "Indycars" (USAC cars)?

[Collombin]

I guess they would have been similar to the dirt champ cars used in the 60s but it was rare to even see a roadster race on the dirt, let alone a rear engined car.

[Lemnpiper]

I guess they would have been similar to the dirt champ cars used in the 60s but it was rare to even see a roadster race on the dirt, let alone a rear engined car.

 

  Lloyd Ruby attempted to run a rear engined car on dirt tracks (gene white's #25?)  one year back in the 1960's, and results weren't all that great, since I think he DNQed as much if not more than he would qualify. This may have been the case  where other team owners saw how poorly a good team did trying to qualify  a rear engined car on dirt  that they decided not to try it themselves

 

   Dirt anyone try racing any of the Gulf-Millers on dirt?

 

 

 

   Wasn't that  a sprint car A J Foyt ran at Milwaukee  against RE cars  and FE roadsters?

[Collombin]

I would have thought it was AJ's usual Meskowski champ dirt car rather than a sprint car - ie it would have been the same car he raced at Springfield the day before. That was the whole reason he ran it: without the Lotus, it was all he had on him!