In a message dated 08/04/2003 9:58:40 PM Central Daylight Time,
bradlnss@lightspeed.net writes:
> Sorry, I know it's the wrong place but...I was absolutely amazed at the
> debacle that was the CART Road America event
Brad:
At the last minute Sunday morning, I decided to go up to ROAD AMERICA for the
CART race. Shirley wanted to weed her garden and knit (tsk, tsk), so I went
up all alone in my street TR4. Saw two good races in the morning, both run in
the dry. There was a nasty pile up in the GT race, when a Corvette got out
into the marbles going into the carousel, hit the wall, and came back across
the track. A Viper T-Boned it, and the two of them collected two or three
other
cars. The CART race was as you described...a debacle. At the speed the
CHAMP cars go, I don't blame them for not wanting to run in the rain. I
watched
the start from the stands on the front straight, and the open wheel cars kick
up so much spray and fog, speeding into Turn One is like racing into a steam
bath. I done this at half their speed, and it is not a good idea. I stayed
till the very end (as did a lot of fans). I watched the final session from
Turn
14. It was short and sweet, but had some GOOD racing... by Alex (Johnson
Controls) and especially Max Papis. Mad Max was living up to his reputation.
He
made a hell of a pass charging up the front straight hill, immediately before
taking the Checker. The Newman/Haas team clearly had superior equipment and
no one could touch them.
I am convinced that the decisions CART chose to make on Sunday were dictated
by their guarantees to future events. Their contracts require them to grid a
minimum of eighteen (or maybe it's nineteen) cars. There are some teams who
now have serious back up car issues. The morning CART practice session was red
flagged THREE TIMES. You can tell they are worried (paranoid) about losing
any more cars. CART appears to be in deep Doo Doo.
What is really sad, is I can remember CART at ROAD AMERICA, when they used to
get 'back yard efforts' in addition to the regular teams. There were CART
cars that only ran ROAD AMERICA. I think I recall forty car (plus) grids.
That
is awesome. ROAD AMBER is four miles long. If you are going to run eighteen
car grids at ROAD AMERICA, you better find a way to keep them close together.
Bill Dentinger
|