Racing Of The United States Variety

[Massa 0]

Yeah, by the time I dig through the politics to get the news/rumors about stuff, I end up being so frustrated with IndyCar I don't even care who is driving where.

The rear bumper has been reconfigured for the oval races (at least Texas/Fontana/Indy, I think). Trying to eliminate bodywork at the back to get the weight balance more normal so they can go faster. I guess the drivers didn't like lifting/braking in the corners.

[HandyNZL 1]

Opinions are just like arseholes; everyone has one, and the internet lets you take a picture of it and post it for all to see.

I can only imagine that braking through the corners / lifting (never a good thing at any time) would be unweighting and unbalancing the cars, and therefore making them squirelly / less predictable to drive. Whilst the speed may indeed go up if they are removed and the balances changed and they can go flat, it doesn't have to mean that was the reason for doing it. It may actually be safer to go faster in this case.

[JHS18 0]

Barrichello confirms full season Indycar ride, says his wife has no problem with ovals.

Rubens Barrichello will race full-time in the IndyCar Series with KV Racing in 2012, it was announced on Thursday.

The most experienced driver in Formula 1 history will contest the full season - including ovals - driving the #8 entry for the team co-owned by 1996 CART champion Jimmy Vasser.

"I am thrilled, it is something very new to me," Barrichello said. "I need to thank everyone involved, especially Tony [Kanaan] because he has been involved for a long time.

"I will start as a rookie, but I think I will get better as the year progresses. My main thing is to be an addition to the team.

"They have been doing very well and Tony brought them to a different level last year, so I hope with my contribution we can build on this and take the team to another level. I am extremely happy and have a big smile on my face."

KV also confirmed that Kanaan, who joined from Andretti Autosport ahead of the 2011 season, will remain with the team for the next two years.

"I am very excited to be returning to KV Racing Technology not only with a two year deal but also to have Rubens as my team-mate," Kanaan said.

"We have always dreamed about racing together but never imagined it would actually happen and certainly not in the near future or in Indycars."

Team co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven added: "I was at Sebring when Rubens first got into an Indycar. The smile when he got out of the car was a great moment and lasted for three days.

"Teamed with his 'brother' Tony Kanaan this is going to be an exciting season for the drivers, the team and the fans."

Barrichello has tested several times for KV in recent weeks, most recently at Sears Point last weekend. On the final day of running, his best lap was 0.9s adrift of the pace set by Penske's Will Power.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97762

[HandyNZL 1]

Cool....and now he is in a series in which he CAN race for 20 seasons

[Massa 0]

Big day in American racing this week: the most enterprising, boldly American racecar of my time went for a drive!

Now it's not going very fast in that video, but I am very excited that DeltaWing lives. Who knows where this project could go with the time to develop and the right partners?

[HandyNZL 1]

The thing is a drag car...the idea that a narrow track front and a wide track rear will stabilise in a high speed corner? Yeah, right.

The thing, if ever driven at high speed in a tight corner, will roll faster than a Reliant Robin. So the only thing to do is back off and go slow, and race cars are all about corner speed, not straight line.

As an engineering project to throw some ideas at and see what happens, then sure, but as a feasible racing car, I think not.

[Massa 0]

American enterprise > physics. You will be proven wrong.

[Massa 0]

I will give you the drag car comment.

All cars are girls, we all know that, yet this one looks to be wearing male bodywork...

[Massa 0]

DeltaWing article.

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20120302/ALMS/120309965

Pretty sure it has a Nissan engine after Ford turned them down. Who would deny Dan Gurney of all people an engine?

[HandyNZL 1]

Especially Ford, but then, the guys he used to know are probably all dead or have been "moved along"

[Massa 0]

Castroneves fastest in the Sebring test, or at least as of right now. IndyCar aren't showing timing and scoring this year per engine suppliers' request; they don't want to be blamed if times aren't quick enough because they feel it's Dallara's fault, whether it is or not (so far, the new car has been faster than the old IndyCar and slower than the Panoz DP01 at road courses. Slower than the old car on ovals as of right now).

Power is struggling with the new car; he prefers weight at the front. The design of the DW12 obviously places a lot of weight at the rear. Doesn't suit his style as well as teammates Castroneves and Briscoe, apparently, which could mean we see a resurgence of the forgotten Penske guys.

Lotus will only supply five engines this year, but they can't even get those ready. Bourdais/Dragon have to sit out the test as Lotus couldn't give them an engine. Get a couple engine failures in testing or St. Petersburg from Lotus, and some teams will flat out be sidelined.

Not to mention how uncompetitive the Lotus is compared to the Honda, and how uncompetitive the Honda is to the Chevrolet. Chevrolet just got it right. Engine upgrades will not be allowed until June 1 (rule is unclear; not sure what can be done prior to that, obviously some things can), and with Chevrolet taking clean sweeps of every multi-engine test, and being the most reliable in addition to being so fast, expect Chevrolet to be racing amongst themselves through Indy. I'd figure Honda will catch up after June. Lotus just show signs that they have no money...oh wait, we knew that going in.

It's pretty typical, to see people who spent the last decade wishing for multiple engines, to now be complaining about "haves" and "have-nots" and "why didn't Sarah get an engine until recently" and "it's not fair to the small teams" and blah blah blah. I think people forget how bogus the Honda engine supply was, and how no rules were enforced at all. You think it was a coincidence that Honda only ever used their right to swap out a team's engine for Dario Franchitti, multiple times last year? People said "oh Honda takes back faulty engines," no, they don't. HPD and Ilmor (Penske) built Honda engines, and they all drew from a pool, and if the "haves" didn't get what they wanted they just asked Honda for a new one and it was justified as "well we're trying to preserve our record of no engine failures." And I'm not saying this as a negative or a terrible thing, because it's reality, it's life, Penske and Ganassi put out the best teams and they reap the benefits of that under the rulebook being enforced. I'm just pointing out that even when you just have one supplier, it's the same way, some teams get ahead, others fall behind, and it seems to me in a sport that's all about being ahead of everyone else, the fans wouldn't be so butthurt when someone is, well, ahead of everyone else!

The DW12 looks better in certain liveries than others. Marco Andretti's car, for example, looks fine. Still don't like the car much, but it will all be okay when it goes racing, I'm sure...

...because then I'll be complaining about how all my favorite drivers have Lotus engines instead.

[Massa 0]

Pagenaud was out today in Hewlett-Packard colors, which means Davey Hamilton is around...

...and sure enough, Sam Schmidt Motorsports is now Schmidt-Hamilton.

Second car, the 11, also with hp backing, will run at some point in the year. Indy-only with Hamilton?

Some DW12s from the other end...

Good gallery from Firestone:

Lotus/Dragon stuff is a "contract issue," but that issue may be between Lotus and Judd, and not the team. IndyCar mandates a supplier supplies at least 20% of the field, which Lotus isn't doing (five out of twenty-six). But I don't see what enforcement that rule can have...they aren't exactly going to say the five Lotus cars can't race and go with a twenty-one car Chevrolet/Honda field. So I doubt that will even come up at all.

[JHS18 0]

Pagenaud was out today in Hewlett-Packard colors, which means Davey Hamilton is around...

...and sure enough, Sam Schmidt Motorsports is now Schmidt-Hamilton.

Second car, the 11, also with hp backing, will run at some point in the year. Indy-only with Hamilton?

Now that's a nice livery...

[Massa 0]

Elliott Sadler was confirmed as the driver of the 55 for five races yesterday...

...and now he's been removed at the request of Chevrolet. Sadler races for them and RCR in Nationwide, and they didn't like him in a Toyota in Cup.

Brian Vickers rumored to get those five. They still need to fill the 55 car for the two road races, which regulars Mark Martin and Michael Waltrip have declined to do. Martin, interestingly enough, has said he hates racing the road courses, but something tells me he had a different opinion when he won Watkins Glen in 1993, 1994, and 1995. Typical Mark, whiner he is, whether his problems at road races stem from the COT or the improving quality of road course drivers in NASCAR (once the Chase became a thing, teams realized they couldn't just "throw away" two races as the season was effectively 26 rounds instead of 36, and since then, Cup teams began extensive testing and driver coaching on roadies, and many drivers began running in Grand-Am, as Jimmie Johnson did, to work on it even more. The impact has mostly been more competitive road course races, and less of a need to bring in guys like Ron Fellows and Boris Said. You even see guys like Jan Magnussen or Mattias Ekström being non-factors now because the Cup guys are very good at this stuff now, good enough to not negate their advantage of knowing the car and the specific tracks, at least).

[Massa 0]

Though I have to admit that I really am not feeling NASCAR this year. Something's missing. Not sure what. Daytona was fun because of how I watched (over Twitter with guys I've been on forums with for years; more focused on our banter than the race itself), but I didn't even see a single lap of Phoenix. Just can't really bring myself to care a whole lot about NASCAR or Indy this year.

And if the Chase started today, you know, Bobby Labonte would be in it! One of just eleven drivers to complete all 514 laps. So I should care.

[Massa 0]

Shows you how closely I've been paying attention...

Davey Hamilton in an 11 car?

Yeah, maybe if it were 2011. But Tony Kanaan is in the 11 this year, and Davey's retired!

[HandyNZL 1]

I watched the 1-hour highlight package of Phoenix (having seen the last three laps of the highlight package of the Nationwide race), and, well, hrrmmmm...

Maybe it was the packaging, but for most of it, they were running, then there was a yellow, then the highlights picked up about 30-50 laps later, during what would have been ad breaks, so it was several laps and zero commentary with one fixed curb-camera, and one camera on someone's roof.

The race itself just seemed flat. So I ended up muting it, and watching Top Gear on the computer

[HandyNZL 1]

Pagenaud was out today in Hewlett-Packard colors, which means Davey Hamilton is around...

...and sure enough, Sam Schmidt Motorsports is now Schmidt-Hamilton.

Second car, the 11, also with hp backing, will run at some point in the year. Indy-only with Hamilton?

Some DW12s from the other end...

Good gallery from Firestone:

Lotus/Dragon stuff is a "contract issue," but that issue may be between Lotus and Judd, and not the team. IndyCar mandates a supplier supplies at least 20% of the field, which Lotus isn't doing (five out of twenty-six). But I don't see what enforcement that rule can have...they aren't exactly going to say the five Lotus cars can't race and go with a twenty-one car Chevrolet/Honda field. So I doubt that will even come up at all.

The car's look OK side on, and from the rear, but the front 3/4 angles make them look big and bulky and, eek!

It certainly looks like livery plays a big part in what the cars "look" like. Will be interesting to see them from multiple angles once on the idiot box. Things can look different when moving.

[Massa 0]

Jimmer: if you like that livery, the guy who did is Mike Peters. Some of his other stuff here: http://petersmotorsports.com/?page_id=4

Craig: Agreed that the angle makes all the difference. I've seen it moving on TV (flipping channels during intermission of a hockey game on the day of the Super Bowl; Graham Rahal was driving it through the streets of Indianapolis). It was the worst thing I've ever seen on TV and I tried to forget it happened. At least the engines sound better this year.

Pocono Raceway will add a catchfence in turn one. They've recently moved walls and paved the infield. The track was also passed down to the next generation, and Dr. Joe Mattioli, the founder, sadly passed away. Dr. Mattioli was a big opponent of IndyCar racing at his track, which they used to do back in the 1980s. The new management, and these track changes, and Randy Bernard's interest in ovals, and Bernard's declaring that they will have twenty races in 2013...it all seems to be headed somewhere.

If they can make it safe, Pocono is the kind of track where an IndyCar race might be pretty fun to watch. It's so fast, but you can't run it flat. Three different length straightaways, three different banked/sized/everything corners. It's a triangle, and all left turns so they call it an oval, but it doesn't drive like one.

Plus I've been there many times and know the secret second way in and out...

...but I just don't see the value of traveling down there for a series I only like one or two weekends of the year. Too expensive and the 200,000 seats will sure like empty with a typical Indy crowd around 30,000, which is why I question them even doing it.

Anyway, it'd be a cool race, if they decide to do it.

[JHS18 0]

Jimmer: if you like that livery, the guy who did is Mike Peters. Some of his other stuff here: http://petersmotorsp....com/?page_id=4

Thanks for that - he's got some cool stuff on there.

I think a lot of teams forget in their desperation to please sponsors that livery designs can look nice.

Far too often sponsors ruin a car's look or livery - point in question Plato's MGKKKKXENERGYDRINKTRIPLE8TESCOMOMENTUM99NGTCBTCCGT8.

[Massa 0]

The sponsors set the guidelines (colors, certain patterns, logo positioning, logo visibility, logo size...), and the sanctioning body sets the rest (number size, placement of mandatory decals...). Not much room for the designer's vision, which is why you don't always get pretty liveries.

[HandyNZL 1]

Jimmer: if you like that livery, the guy who did is Mike Peters. Some of his other stuff here: http://petersmotorsp....com/?page_id=4

Craig: Agreed that the angle makes all the difference. I've seen it moving on TV (flipping channels during intermission of a hockey game on the day of the Super Bowl; Graham Rahal was driving it through the streets of Indianapolis). It was the worst thing I've ever seen on TV and I tried to forget it happened. At least the engines sound better this year.

blah blah blah ....... see the value of traveling down there for a series I only like one or two weekends of the year. Too expensive and the 200,000 seats will sure like empty with a typical Indy crowd around 30,000, which is why I question them even doing it.

Anyway, it'd be a cool race, if they decide to do it.

Really? Damn....

Well, just two weeks to wait and then I can see for myself :s

[Massa 0]

Got hold of 2011 TV numbers (finally...I love this kind of stuff and only NASCAR reports it every week...the rest get very selective with what they share).

Here's a list for you. It includes: the highest rated race per series, and a normal rating for the series (not a real average or median, just an educated estimate of what those figures are around). IndyCar has an exception; I included the Las Vegas coverage of Dan Wheldon's passing, but as that wasn't an actual race, I also included the Indy 500 as their highest. Furthermore, because of the huge disparity between ABC and VERSUS ratings, I separated the two. Other multiple network series (i.e. Sprint Cup) did not have a large enough gap to justify this, while F1 has so few races on FOX that it does not really change the standard race. Single-event data was not disclosed for the NHRA. V8 Supercars broadcasts on SPEED were not included but were reported to have doubled. Plus no one is even going to read this or care or know what rating numbers mean in terms of viewership I'm just really bored, not going to lie, spring break sucks when it doesn't align with your high school friends' spring breaks at other colleges.

I think you can figure out the color coding.

1. NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 (8.7 - FOX)

2. IZOD IndyCar Series Las Vegas coverage (4.2 - ABC) (no precedent)

3. IZOD IndyCar Series Indianapolis 500 (4.0 - ABC)

4. NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standard race (3.7 - ESPN/ABC, FOX, and TNT)

5. NASCAR Nationwide Series DRIVE4COPD.com 300 (2.4 - ESPN)

6. NASCAR Camping World Truck Series NextEra Energy Resources 250 (1.5 - SPEED)

7. NASCAR Nationwide Series standard race (1.2 - ESPN/ESPN2/ABC)

8. Formula One European Grand Prix (0.9 - FOX)

9. IZOD IndyCar Series standard network race (0.8 - ABC)

10. NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standard race (0.8 - SPEED)

11. American Le Mans Series Road America (next-day highlights) (0.7 - ABC)

12. NHRA Drag Racing standard event (0.5 - ESPN2/ESPN)

13. Formula One standard race (0.4 - SPEED)

14. IZOD IndyCar Series standard cable race (0.3 - VERSUS) (they say...I'd call it stable)

14. Grand-American Rolex Sports Car Series Rolex 24 (0.3 - SPEED)

16. American Le Mans Series standard race (next-day highlights) (0.2 - ABC/ESPN/ESPN2)

17. Grand-American Rolex Sports Car Series standard race (0.2 - SPEED)

NHRA takes the biggest losses; they were the number two behind Sprint Cup about a decade ago. I figure as car culture didn't get passed on to the new generation, who don't see cars as status symbols and projects and pieces of an identity, but rather as appliances, drag racing takes the biggest fall because it's all about guys working on their cars. As older fans either grow disenchanted with the sport getting away from the old days, or sadly become victims of biology, there really isn't a new generation to replace them beyond a niche.

Though other than Daytona, all of racing is a niche, just on varying levels size-wise.

[Massa 0]

This is really, really embarrassing.

The safety crew for a professional racing test is an overweight, middle-aged man in a long-sleeve t-shirt and jeans who jogs at the speed of and doesn't even know how to properly carry an extinguisher (it's both harder to dangle it at your side like that, plus you run the risk of it clocking you in the leg and knocking you over).

You'd think, after the disaster that was Simona's Texas fire in 2010, and after losing a driver, safety would maybe, somehow, someway cross someone's mind somewhere in Indianapolis.

Guess not.

Other notes: Beatriz did a seat-fitting at Andretti and has a deal with Chevrolet to run some kind of schedule, though Saavedra will run Indy with AA in an AFS-backed car #25. Jay Penske and Dragon Racing have only paid Lotus for one engine; Legge's, none for Bourdais yet. Lotus have no spare engines; you blow one up, goodbye. Management is currently debating whether or not to pull out of a lot of the racing series they just bought; on the F1 side, Genii Capital has looked into buying in just to keep the Lotus name on their team alive and well.

[Massa 0]

Viso wrecked; he has a new CITGO livery...but no livery comes close to this:

Wish Tag and Herta had a real engine...

Blue for Barrichello, seems to be a popular color this year.