Racing Of The United States Variety

[Massa 0]

And after my post about Newman/Haas pulling out last night...the rumors are now public that Newman/Haas will withdraw. My guess was unfortunately right that a guy who got dumped by HVM for not having enough funding magically pulled N/H out from under and that Lotus would have an extra engine the day after they said they wouldn't supply any extra cars at Indy was just impossible.

That said, they haven't officially withdrawn yet, but I trust the guys saying they are going to.

Car count for Indy: 32. Could go up to 33 if MSR Indy get an engine. Could go down to 30 if BHA and D&RR don't get engines. I hate when the drama about qualifying isn't who is going home but who is going to show up. And we won't see any last-minute deals anymore, with the engine leases being what they are. Sucks.

[Massa 0]

Grand-Am racer Taylor Hacquard, who co-drive the Yellow Dragon #36 with John and Jarrett Andretti in the Rolex 24, was attacked recently while walking to his girlfriend's house late at night. Hacquard was beaten unconscious and left on the side of the road. He is in intensive care. Bleeding in his brain.

Hopefully he makes a full recovery. That's really rough and unfortunate.

[Massa 0]

American Michael Lewis finished ninth in his F3 EuroSeries debut. Félix Serralles was a guest driver and retired from the race. I think races two and three are tomorrow, maybe race two is today, I don't know, I just look at the flags.

[Massa 0]

Panther Racing owner John Barnes was fined and placed on probation for a comment made on Twitter calling IndyCar "embarrassing" for how they've handled some engine issue with Honda changing the turbo or something like that without being penalized.

They say they got this Beaux Barfield guy from ALMS, but he sure seems like something you'd find in Daytona...strange.

[JHS18 0]

This may have been discussed at some point in here already, but just wondered how you see things (or if you even care):

So what's your take on the American DTM/Grand Am situation? There was only 9 DPs in the Grand Am yesterday, and it seems they're struggling to get more cars to the grid. The GT category is fine - but what is happening to the DP class?

I know an American DTM series was announced a while ago that has never taken off and the DTM have talked to Grand Am and the Japanese Super GT series, but I don't see how it all fits together. Do you see Audi, Mercedes and BMW really joining Grand Am?

I guess my question is really what do you think the future of Grand Am is, and particularly the DP class?

[Massa 0]

Audi have already joined Grand-Am with the R8 GT car, but getting past technicalities...

1) The plan was (is?) to run DTM as a separate series with Grand-Am. It would be a supporting class, so there wouldn't be Audi/Mercedes/BMW in Grand-Am. They'd just get some older chassis from the real DTM and have it be entirely separate.

2) American DTM was a believe it when I see it kind of deal. Still is. I'm not convinced it will ever happen. There's no money.

3) I hope it doesn't happen, personally. Too many damn racing series in the U.S. We should have NASCAR and stock car racing, a purpose-built oval IndyCar (emphasis on safety and eliminating pack racing) running flatter speedways in conjunction with USAC and midget/sprint racing, one sports car series for road racing, NHRA for drag racing, and the grassroots stuff. Four top-tier series and their network of supporting/ladder divisions. It's redundant to have all these road racing series here. It's a very small following and they're just over-saturating us.

4) Okay, back to reality. The economics of Grand-Am: 9 DPs? I'm pretty sure they only had 7 run the full season last year. NASCAR has subsidized Grand-Am teams for years. As part of the agreement to become the "Official (whatever) of NASCAR," they sometimes mandate sponsoring a Grand-Am DP team. The Crown Royal sponsorship of various DPs (most recently MSR) was an example of that; every sponsor the Doran #77 has had (Kodak, McDonald's, Combos, Circle K) were all examples of that. NASCAR is basically paying for these teams by directing their series partners' money to them. I know one guy at Doran who said one day before the Rolex 24 a truck showed up, dropped off the sponsor decals, and they put them on the car having never known until then who was going to be their "sponsor" for the year. SparkNotes: There is no actual money in Grand-Am.

When ALMS created LMPC, they intended to steal teams from Grand-Am (as well as provide an entry point for teams to eventually move up to P1/P2). It was a low-cost prototype, similar to the DP, but slightly faster, and, as a spec class, supposed to be more competitive (since Ganassi was winning 100% of the Grand-Am races at the time). Level 5 made the switch, and eventually became a P2 team, so LMPC accomplished both of its goals to some extent. Anyway, a lot of teams that could have been DP teams became LMPC teams instead.

Still, nine DPs is actually a lot for a non-Rolex 24 race.

Grand-Am has been a perennial money-loser for NASCAR. They regret owning it, but no one else wants it.

It would be easy, theoretically, to merge the series. P1 and P2 can be equalized to one class (ALMS did it before). LMPC and DP can be combined; their performance is almost identical already. ALMS GT stays as is. The Porsches used in GTC are legal in Grand-Am (hence Grand-Am teams like TRG run GTC as well), so you can just combine Grand-Am GT with the few GTC cars. Four classes, one series, Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Long Beach, Laguna Seca, Mosport, Elkart Lake, all the best.

They'll never do that. It's all political.

Television ratings? Grand-Am isn't doing too poorly. Their viewership is about on-par with IndyCar, ALMS, etc. As SPEED becomes a sports network, I'm not sure where Grand-Am fits in the picture on that front.

5) So, the future for Grand-Am...it's the same as the future for ALMS, IndyCar, etc. Any of these series. If you told me tomorrow they all folded and were never coming back, I'd believe you and could tell you 1,000 reasons why that happened. If you told me they were always going to find ways to survive on varioius subsidies or through various deals or whatever, I'd believe that, too. The future for all professional, major American racing series outside of NASCAR is unpredictable. It has been for years. At any given moment, Grand-Am could buy ALMS, ALMS could buy Grand-Am, one could fold, both could fold, NASCAR could sell Grand-Am, it's just crazy. The number of rumors you get about this and that is incredible. It's every series' last season ever, this guy's resigning, they'll replace him with this guy who will do this and take the sport there, well now they're parterning with him, oh look, the series has a new backer, maybe they can get this program to do that and if it works they'll be at this point which looks good, and they say they're doing this and seeing this growth and their finances are this but no one believes that because of all of those things there.

SparkNotes: There are too many races to watch. Competition is almost always efficient. But I don't think it's very efficient in the tiny, tiny market of American sports car racing. Then again, Champ Car got their 600,000 viewers, and IndyCar got their 600,000 viewers, then they merged, and they ended up with 400,000 viewers.

[Massa 0]

Eddie Cheever, III. won again in Italian F3 after taking the pole. They're racing on the Hungaroring this weekend. He now leads the championship.

The two U.S. drivers really sucked in World Series by Renault. Alexander Rossi's going backwards.

[Massa 0]

Tuned in to catch the end of the Nationwide race today.

Vicious wreck on the first green-white-checkered attempt. Eric McClure tried to avoid the wreck, got tangled with another car, and flew all the way down the track, full speed into the inside wall (SAFER barrier there fortunately, and paved, rather than grass).

He is being extracted from the car. Talking, but clearly injured. First injury in a long time in NASCAR. Hope it isn't bad.

The replay...I can't quite figure it out. He made contact with Kurt Busch, then collected Jeffrey Earnhardt. He and Earnhardt went toward the wall, but McClure seemingly hit the accelerator, rather than the brake, and had a burst of speed right into the wall.

[Massa 0]

McClure being airlifted for further treatment.

[Massa 0]

McClure destroyed the SAFER barrier on impact. Even after repairs it is still bent out of shape. That was a vicious hit. Still not sure why he hit it so fast. I know it's hard to slow the cars down, but it looked like he sped up.

[JHS18 0]

McClure destroyed the SAFER barrier on impact. Even after repairs it is still bent out of shape. That was a vicious hit. Still not sure why he hit it so fast. I know it's hard to slow the cars down, but it looked like he sped up.

I agree. Just seen it. Looked really strange, it definitely seemed to speed up rather than slow down. At least he was concious and talking.

Hopefully any injuries aren't too serious. I wish him a quick recovery. It's never nice, whatever form of racing you follow or drivers you support to see someone injured in this sport.

[Massa 0]

Danica doesn't know.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor/nascar/story/2012-05-05/danica-patrick-wrecks-sam-hornish-after-race/54777782/1

Here's the incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3i48DgppU

Now Kyle Busch was suspended for a weekend for turning someone into the outside wall under caution. After the checkered flag, that's caution. So Danica essentially did what Kyle Busch did. But NASCAR's a big circus and they'll do nothing. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do things, but just do the same things for everyone, you know?

[Massa 0]

Also, RE: Eric McClure...awake, alert, and talking. No further updates. Being kept overnight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs2G4Ar8go4

You can see his car (orange #14)...the throttle hangs, or something.

[BradSpeedMan 6]

Danica doesn't know.

http://www.usatoday....race/54777782/1

Here's the incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S3i48DgppU

Now Kyle Busch was suspended for a weekend for turning someone into the outside wall under caution. After the checkered flag, that's caution. So Danica essentially did what Kyle Busch did. But NASCAR's a big circus and they'll do nothing. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do things, but just do the same things for everyone, you know?

Maybe she flashed her boobs somewhere (cause she's a hottie, yeah she is) on route to the stewards (if you have those, hell I don't know a thing about Nascar) or something...

yeah, makes sense to me, but then it's despicable me again...

Anyway, enough of my infinite wisdom...time to catch up on some F1 news again

[HandyNZL 1]

Believe it or not, but when you have 700Hp available to you, you actually do hit the accelerator if you're heading for the wall, the theory being that you'll hook up and be able to turn enough to sideways glance the wall. If you hit the brakes and lock up, then you can only go in one direction - straight to the wall. Car's don't turn when their wheels are locked up.

(And strangely enough was talking about this exact same scenario with one of Shane van Gisbergen's crew today at the racetrack...discussing Super V8's and walls and crashes and things...)

[Massa 0]

They don't have 700 horsepower in Nationwide.

But no, thanks Craig, I see where that makes sense now. Eric McClure has a...reputation let's say...so I just assumed whatever he did must have been wrong.

As for Brad:

NASCAR has an imaginary system of race control that doesn't actually exist, and invented their own imaginary court system this year to add extra drama.

[Massa 0]

Eddie Cheever, III. comes out of Hungary with the Italian F3 series lead. P1, P4, and P10 in the three races. Only driver with multiple wins on the season.

Alex Rossi just hasn't looked good in the new cars for WSR. He did score points in race two (P5), which leaves him ninth in the standings. Not a good start for a guy who should really be contending for the title given his experience.

[Massa 0]

Eric McClure is fine.

RE: Danica. I guess there was no discipline given because Hornish had a flat tire. She went to just tap him in the bumper, but due to his tire, he hit the wall like that. It was also due to the tire that Hornish hit Patrick on the final lap to begin with.

Don't ask me about the Cup race today. I've already quit Cup racing for the year.

[HandyNZL 1]

What about the Cup rae today, Eric?

[Massa 0]

Bobby Labonte.

[JHS18 0]

I got excited when Casey Mears was in the lead. After that it sort of lost me a little bit.

[Massa 0]

Casey Mears is my other favorite driver. I almost stopped watching hockey when I thought he had a chance. But then he stopped having a chance so I stopped caring.

[JHS18 0]

When he was in the lead, I was actually amazed he used the #13. That number seems to be avoided so much in motorsport, even in F1, that it shocked me a little bit seeing someone use it.

[Massa 0]

The #13 has been used in 335 NASCAR Sprint Cup races since the sport began, which is not very many. It has only won one race, the 1963 Daytona 500 Qualifier #2 (I have no idea if this counted for points back then; the Duels don't these days). Johnny Rutherford driving for Smokey Yunick then. Last time the #13 was in the top five? 2000. Robby Gordon finished fourth at Watkins Glen driving for Team Menard.

[Massa 0]

ALMS in Laguna Seca on Saturday for a six-hour event. Those of you outside the U.S. can watch live on alms.com. Inside the U.S., you will need to subscribed to ESPN3.com or wait until Sunday's two-hour broadcast on ESPN2. The race is live Saturday at 4:30 PM GMT -5, on ESPN2 the next day at 5:00 PM Eastern.

Two new LMP2 entrants: Dempsey Racing and Libra Racing. Dempsey have a Lola/Judd driven by Johnny c#cker (you may remember his heroics to win Road America overall with a last-lap pass driving for Lord Drayson. This guy is really, really good), Joe Foster, and Patrick Dempsey himself. I'm very excited for them. Libra are fielding a Radical/Ford. Rusty Mitchell and Andrew Prendeville (who is from Morris County, NJ, just like I am, as is sports car racer David Donohue, MLB star Derek Jeter, and craigslist founder Craig) will share that one with Duarte Félix de Costa. Mitchell and Prendeville were both mid-pack kind of drivers in Indy Lights, this other guy is just...not good.

Two LMPs missing: the Dyson #20, which will not run endurance races, and the Black Swan #54, which was damaged at Long Beach, and since they are upgrading to a 2012-spec car for Lime Rock, it didn't make sense to buy all new parts for one race.

Should be fun, though I prefer sprints to endurance.