601 replies to this topic

[Risil]

Indycar Series Round 2 of 14: The GMR Grand Prix at the Indy road course

Hola, Indycar fans! It’s only July and we are somehow approaching the second race of this brief June-October season. For the first time, the not-really-a-tradition traditional Indianapolis road course GP has been cut adrift from the big show and is now a conveniently-situated and series-owned standalone event. Instead of being the warm-up for 10 million hours of practice and a relatively brief 500 mile race at the end, it’s the lead-in for a crazy run of five races in three weeks which will go some way towards defining the whole season. But before the double-headers at Road America and Iowa Speedway, drivers will have to brave the medium speeds and tepid curves of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s interior road course. It promises to be a moderate amount of fun! Oh, and hot. Really hot. Hope they punch some nice big holes in those deflector shields.

When’s it on?
Compared to Texas last month this event is very liberal with its track time, giving over two whole days for competition! On Friday there’s 90 minutes of practice between 11.30am and 1pm, with qualifying starting at 4.30pm. Then on Saturday we have a morning warm-up at 9 before the race starts at 12 noon. I hope that bold is bold enough for you. There’s also some NASCAR Xfinity racing on Sunday. What? NASCAR sharing the bill with Indycar? At IMS? Yes, times are changing. This race is sponsored by ambulances and the NASCAR race is sponsored by hand sanitizer. Think on that.

Remind me about this race track
The Indy road course is, more or less the infield track that Formula One cars raced on between 2000 and 2007. Some of the twists and loops have been straightened out and regrettably there’s a tight Esses at the end of the lap where there used to be the big oval corner. Here’s a map:

and here’s some footage from Graham Rahal’s visor cam back in 2016:


Plusses are that the track is plenty wide, there are a couple of good passing places and there’s a nice St Petersburg style flick before the infield straight. The speedway grounds are also quite well maintained. Negatives are, well, it’s a bit mickey mouse, isn’t it? All the same, the track collided with some rain showers last year to produce an amazing battle between Pagenaud and Dixon, with the excitingly yellow Penske passing to win with two laps to go. Every race on this layout has been won by either Simon or Will Power. Even though the first one should’ve been won by Jack Hawksworth. To prevent the traces of human events being erased by time.

 
Fill me in on Indycar 2020
We’ve only had a very small amount of Indycar in 2020. For virological reasons we’ve had one race (Texas) so far instead of nine, but though much has changed, Scott Dixon is still the guy who wins regardless of circumstance and difficulty. The track’s outside groove had been covered with this rubbery NASCAR substance, which had then been partially removed, apparently along with most of the grip. This produced a very strange race where attempting to pass anyone resulted in some cartoon sawing at the wheel and a general effort not to pay for flying too close to the sun and trying to improve your lot by one stinking position.

For all that it was quite enjoyable, or perhaps it was the lack of sleep. In the last stint Felix Rosenqvist exercised minimum caution in trying to catch his Ganassi teammate, and found the wall on lap 190 while aiming to lap James Hinchcliffe. 2019 title rivals Pagenaud and Newgarden inherited second and third respectively. Zach Veach, Conor Daly and Ed Carpenter were the random selection of midfield drivers who had good evenings, whereas a very good evening turned into a very bad one for Charlie Kimball, who for much of the race had been implausibly running his Foyt car in the top-five before fading and finally crashing on the last lap. That’s Kimball! I hope he comes back. In the chase for rookie honours, Rinus van Kalmthout crashed and somehow took out fellow noob Alex Palou, leaving Oliver Askew with the coveted Guy Who Finished Highest On His Debut non-awarded non-trophy. Rossi, Rahal and Hunter-Reay all had their seasons barely start following pre-race mechanical trouble, and Takuma Sato’s first race ended before everyone else’s started after a qualifying crash ruled him out of competition. Plenty of drama and sublimated revenge on the way, then.

Who’s racing this weekend?
All the usual drivers! Almost. Tony Kanaan , nominating Canadian mortal Dalton Kellett to take his place in the AJ Foyt car. Who is Dalton Kellett? I don’t know. A complex game of musical chairs within the Carlin and Ed Carpenter teams has Max Chilton replacing Conor Daly in the #59 Carlin and Conor Daly replacing Ed Carpenter in his self-owned #20 entry. Would Indycar be simpler if there was just one big team that everyone drove for? Perhaps. Substitutes aside, we get a few extra part-time entries (hooray). James Hinchcliffe is back again with Andretti for his three-race beat-McLaren grudge match tour (current score 0-1 to Schmidt-Woking), Sage Karam continues his undead wanderings with the first of a two-race deal with Dreyer and Reinbold, and former Young American Spencer Pigot is driving a third Rahal car for two Roberts surnamed Citrone (capitalist) and Buhl (racing driver). All three will probably finish outside the top ten, but what do I know?
 
So that’s Indy. We’ll be back for another Indy in August, and then a third Indy in October, but for now this is the only Indy we’ve got. See you on Friday for practicequalifying, Tarot, and whatever else!

[Anja]

I just stopped watching a movie to read this. Gotta have priorities. 

[maximilian]

Splendid!  FINALLY another IndyCar race!  Can't wait! 

[FLB]

Who's picking Will Power?

Jp

[jonpollak]

Jp

[GlenWatkins]

Alright Risil! 

 

Looking very much forward to this back to racing weekend!  DVR will be getting a workout.  I just found out that I my new place of employment has chosen this Friday as a holiday, thought that it would be Monday.  So I'll get to see F1 practice & qually with sometime to recover before Indycar fires up.

[LucaP]

Is there a specific reason for not using the last oval turn? Can't remember

[paulb]

Loves me some Indycar.

Looking forward to the race even though this is one of my least favorite tracks (except for turn 1 at the start).

I hope Hinch has a strong race. I think a top five for him would be very popular result.

Edited by paulb, 02 July 2020 - 00:14.

[Afterburner]

I guess we're not allowed to say the name Dixie any more...   Go Scotty!

She's upset about it too.

[prommer]

I'm led to believe that this little fellow will be coming in handy this weekend, so here's the link:

 

https://i.ibb.co/hX9bQV6/catare1.jpg

 

[milestone 11]

Qualifying live on Sky 9.30pm Friday, race live at 5.00pm Saturday.

[jonpollak]

I'm led to believe that this little fellow will be coming in handy this weekend, so here's the link:

https://i.ibb.co/hX9bQV6/catare1.jpg

AVATAR CHANGE MANIA !!!!
Friday 9am BST
or.. just change it before you go to bed tonight.
Jp

[DS27]

Qualifying live on Sky 9.30pm Friday, race live at 5.00pm Saturday.

 

 

That's Friday night sorted then:

 

Gardeners World, then Gogglebox, then Indycar.

 

Such is the exciting life I lead  

[Risil]

Beats going to the pub and getting coronavirus, doesn't it

[BRG]

I guess we're not allowed to say the name Dixie any more...   Go Scotty!

No, sorry, that is unacceptable ethnic stereotyping against us Scottish folk.  

 

You could call him SD instead.  No, wait, that was the Sicherheitdienst, a part of the Nazi SS, so that is definitely out.

 

It will have to be 'the middle-aged New Zealander' 

 

This PC stuff is so difficult...

[maximilian]

 

It will have to be 'the middle-aged New Zealander' 

 

 

I was thinking "The Old Southerner", in a play on Dixie.

[Risil]

I guess we're not allowed to say the name Dixie any more... Go Scotty!

It's not too hard. Scott Dixon, fine. I Wish I Was In Dixie, better not. Nottingham Forest, fine. Nathan Bedford Forrest, not. Jefferson Airplane OK. Jefferson Davis not.

If we are talking about the Deep South, William Faulkner references will go a long way here (with me).

[Radoye]

Meow!

[jonpollak]

IT'S HAPPENING...

 

Oh and while I'm here...

I went to grammar school with, among others, the daughter of Andy Griffith.

Her name was Dixie.

Every time I hear someone mention Scott I think of her.

 

Jp

[prommer]

Funny you should mention that, Indycat, because when I lived in LA I was friends with Don Knotts' daughter. Right now, she's going through an absolutely awful time trying to dispel a rumor going around a certain segment of Don Knotts' fandom that protesters defaced or destroyed the Don Knotts/Barney Fife statue in West Virginia. This is patently untrue.

 

Also, her name is Karen. 

[red stick]

Faulkner, you say?

 

Well, sorta . . .

 

For every racing fan fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon, the cars are in position behind the catch fence, the tires are laid and ready in the pits and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Hildebrand himself with his long oiled ringlets and his helmet in one hand probably and his steering wheel in the other looking up the hill waiting for the flagman to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that track and those circumstances which made more men than Unser and Foyt and Andretti and Mears look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Indy, Victory Lane, the world, the golden dome of racing's Valhalla itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made those years ago.

Edited by red stick, 02 July 2020 - 15:29.

[prommer]

JP, how do you change the background colors on your 'cat?  Maybe to differentiate we can all adopt the colors of our favorite drivers?

 

I want to figure out how I can get my Indycat to be sponsored by Ruoff mortgage.

 

EDIT: never mind. Figured it out. Looking towards the future with my 'cat.

Edited by prommer, 02 July 2020 - 16:36.

[red stick]

Incidentally, tomorrow is the 157th anniversary of Pickett's Charge.

[Risil]

We never remember the successful charges, do we. But Pickett, the Light Brigade, Culloden...

 

Edit: Steely Dan aside, I suppose.

 

I still recall the way

He led the charge and saved the day

Blue blood and rain

I can hear the bugle playin'

[rghojai]

Wilson Pickett?

[prommer]

Faulkner, you say?

 

 

  Oh jeez, I don't know that we've recovered from that idiot who did the Nabokov parody for last year's IndyGP. 

 

Still though, any rumours to share on the Yoknapatawpha 300 presented by Bundren Coffins?  Will it run next year?

[red stick]

  Oh jeez, I don't know that we've recovered from that idiot who did the Nabokov parody for last year's IndyGP. 

 

Still though, any rumours to share on the Yoknapatawpha 300 presented by Bundren Coffins?  Will it run next year?

If it does, it will be under a different flag . . . 

[red stick]

Successful charges are evidently their own reward.  If the spectacularly unsuccessful ones get you immortalized by the Tennysons and Faulkners of the world, well, that may be the greater reward, I guess.   

[H0R]

 

Also, her name is Karen. 

 

Who?

 

[Risil]

Spotter's guide

[thegforcemaybewithyou]

Someone hacked into my account and changed my picture...

[red stick]

Strange.  When my cat hacks it's usually just a hairball . . .

[Anja]

We have a suspect.

 

[FLB]

I'm led to believe that this little fellow will be coming in handy this weekend, so here's the link:

 

https://i.ibb.co/hX9bQV6/catare1.jpg

 

He's just cooling off. It's what IndyCats do, and many of them will need to do so this weekend:

 

https://racer.com/20...tor-in-indy-gp/

[PayasYouRace]

Spotter's guide

 

They really need to do something about 3 different teams running such similar pink and grey liveries.

[FLB]

They really need to do something about 3 different teams running such similar pink and grey liveries.

Yoy mean this year's blue and white?

[Risil]

They really need to do something about 3 different teams running such similar pink and grey liveries.

 

Alex Palou doesn't even have a sponsor! He's entirely arbitrarily pink and grey.

[Frood]

I heard IndyCat hates yo' retinas.

[FLB]

AVATAR CHANGE MANIA !!!!
Friday 9am BST
or.. just change it before you go to bed tonight.
Jp

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came

In the year of the IndyCat...

 

 

(With apologies to Al Stewart)

Edited by FLB, 02 July 2020 - 19:30.

[pacificquay]

Sad that Kanaan’s run of consecutive races is over

[jonpollak]

We never remember the successful charges, do we. But Pickett, the Light Brigade, Culloden...

 

Edit: Steely Dan aside, I suppose.

 

I still recall the way

He led the charge and saved the day

Blue blood and rain

I can hear the bugle playin'

 

Useless Jp anecdote about " King of the World."

 

 

My High School buddys and I went to the fabled California Jam at Ontario Motor Speedway in 1974.

We met in the school parking lot and there were about 7 of us packed into my Mom's Dodge Monaco as we ambled down 101 to the 10. We arrived about 11pm.

I think and got 'preferred' parking near the main grandstand because of Dad's OMS season parking pass stuck to the front windshield  Walking over to the line we found people going in already.
So in we went..Seemed like we had acres of space as we found a central spot just in front and to the right of the mixing platform. Ha..'that was easy' as we passed around the bota bag with whatever cheap wine was in there and after a while and a few joints of 'commersh'.... I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke the next morning to the PA being fired up.
The first thing they played on it was Steely Dan 'King of the World' It sounded SO GOOD.

I was enraptured.Never ever had I heard fidelity like that.
After the song I stood up, saluted the Sound Man and turned around ..

 

I could not see the end of the people…

It literally stretched on as far as my eyes could focus.

HOLY SCHIT..

I immediately had to take a piss....

 

 

25 Years later I would spend 17 years working for Steely Dan

Jp
 

Edited by jonpollak, 02 July 2020 - 23:12.

[Myrvold]

Meow?

 

Not that I have decided what kind of meow I am going for!

Edited by Myrvold, 02 July 2020 - 21:36.

[Afterburner]

Meow?
 
Not that I have decided what kind of meow I am going for!

The red ones are good.

(As an aside, I wonder how many people remember me as that annoying bastard who used red text for their first handful of posts?)

[Myrvold]

The red ones are good.

(As an aside, I wonder how many people remember me as that annoying bastard who used red text for their first handful of posts?)

 

Well, I do have a somewhat red one stored.

 

And no, I don't remember that! Not that I remember the ones using bold or different fonts either!

[Risil]

Sad that Kanaan’s run of consecutive races is over

 

It's up to Scott Dixon, whose own run stretches back to 2004, to overhaul him.

[Afterburner]

And no, I don't remember that! Not that I remember the ones using bold or different fonts either!

You'd be forgiven as it was almost ten years ago! On another self-indulgently retrospective binge I had video game heroines as my avatar for years (they were technically supporting characters but their sacrifices made them heroines to me), then for a while my favorite actress who always managed to make me laugh, then a little Jinjo.

Come to think of it I've changed my avatar so few times that I've occasionally found myself reading my own posts and going, "Who the hell does this prat think he is?"

[Myrvold]

Come to think of it I've changed my avatar so few times that I've occasionally found myself reading my own posts and going, "Who the hell does this prat think he is?"

 

Same. I have now changed avatar as many times as Will Power have changed teams in IndyCar/ChampCar! See! Managed to get it relevant! meow!

[maximilian]

Jolly good fun!

[maximilian]

Still see too many nonstandard cats, though... 

[Marklar]

*innocently asks* What's the deal with all those cats?