Lefty's Deceiver

Picked up a USA Today in the hotel today and was interested to read the following about JEff Gordon and JP Montoya:

JG got a ride in JP Montoya’s F1 Bimmer around Indy and was only 1.3 seconds off JP’s F1 lap time after 12 laps. Also interesting (or unbelievable) is that JP was driving JG’s NASCAR and was only about 1.1 seconds behind JG’s time in the BMW!

Can that be true?? The NASCAR is 3400 lbs with 650 hp and the BMW is 1323 lbs with 800 hp.

Thoughts?

Lefty

Drew_K

This was televised on Speedvision yesterday. Your second sentence isn't true: JP in the NASCAR was about 1 second behind JG's time IN THE NASCAR, not in the BMW.

Each driver was about a second behind the other in the same car: JG was a little faster in his NASCAR than JP was in the NASCAR, and JP was a little faster in the F1 than JG was in the F1. I expected Montoya to do pretty well, but I was extremely impressed with Gordon's handling of the F1. He said the blood rushed from his head when he got on the brakes hard.

Gordon was absolutely giddy after finishing his stint in the F1 - he's apparently a big F1 fan, as are a lot of Winston Cup drivers.

Gordon also did a celebrity rally driving event, and he was just a tick behind a WRC driver on his best run. Gordon's a good driver, whether or not you're a fan of the left turn league.

Lefty's Deceiver

Thanks for pointing that out. the USA Today article was a little ambiguous and a work colleague and I were trying to work that out.

Jeff Gordon is certainly a remarkably driver, I saw the rally segment where he was marginally behind Marcus Gronholm. Very impressive.

Doug&Julie

Also for clarificaton (?sp), Jeff Gordon's F1 time was 1.3 seconds off JPs SHAKEDOWN lap, but a good 4-5 seconds off of Michael Schumacher's fastest lap at the track. Still, very fast.

I'm not a NASCAR fan, but I do like Gordon. Maybe because so many NASCAR people hate him?!?

They rebroadcasted the run the same day, so I'm sure you'll be able to find it again on Speed TV. As they say...check local listings!

Douglas_T

I was interested in seeing the local run here at Indy as well! Yes, Jeff is a very fine driver...Wow, what a rush it must feel like behind the wheel of a F1 car!
Doug

Tom

The announcers were talking about how interesting it was to see drivers in different series match up like this. I got to thinking maybe they could develop a special race series. Thak top level drivers from different venues. Let them race on different tracks in equally prepared cars. Maybe use a high performance production based car, and mkae it rear engined to reduce anyone's advantage. We could call it something catchy like "International Race of Champions"!

NetManiac

I caught that on Speed last night also. I thought it was funny when Jeff admitted that he clearly got the better end of the deal. While JP, looking as though he was just trying to be polite, told Jeff the NASCAR was really fun also... really it was!

I didn't realize Jeff was disliked in the NASCAR community. From all the information I keep hearing about him I figured he was well loved. Guess that shows how well I know NASCAR.

Ed Bighi

Tom, I got one better for you. Instead of using these driver humbling rear engined cars that bring out the best, why don't we use Winston Cup based cars and run them on ovals only. That way we can not only attract the PEASANTCAR crowd, but make them happy as well by virtually guaranteeing that their favorite oval drivers will win since the races will only run on ovals.LOL
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