bobt993

Larry, JimB is a very accomplished racer. The difference between 160 and 220 mph is not 60mph. The math does not work as a linear equation at high speeds. You need a humbling moment by a pro to know how good they really are. If you look at the posters that do not agree with you, most of them are pretty damn fast.

race911

Too funny here.

Some observations:

Realize Briscoe had moved his way back up through the pack. I even mentioned to my wife that, hey......all of a sudden he's behind Danica. (I thought back to that Sears dive bomb he pulled into 7 a couple of years ago.) So yet another yellow comes out and as I watch them peel out, Briscoe has gotten the position. Except. Danica comes to a stop almost directly in front of us and her team is nowhere to be found running down pit lane. But you knew it was over. A couple of minutes later my wife (on the prompt of the radio broadcast) is watching her do her storming up pit lane through the binoculars. Would have been HILARIOUS if no one intervened.....

About the cars, what it takes to drive them, etc. My first time there, and with the absence of passing except if you got a run on the leader on a restart, I came away with a sense of.........damn fast, but I'm sure many, many could lap near those speeds. (Note I have not said: race, drive in traffic, keep it off the wall if you go 1 inch off line.) In reconciling this with the mid-late '80's cars I saw at Phoenix on the 1 mile oval: Mears, Andretti(s), Unser(s), Sullivan, etc., it seemed that setup and bravery separated them from the Ganassis and Coynes (remember they WERE drivers).

1AS

Ken, I think it's a bit harder. None other than Rick Mears described Indy as going down the hallway of your house at 100 mph, and turning left into a closet. At current speeds, the track is consistently described as feeling very narrow. I think a driver needs lots of laps to even believe he can go flat, and all the while knows that there is no way to correct when it starts to go. Then there are the guys who can feel it, and make those instant micro adjustments to keep pointed straight. Indy cars on an oval are the one race car i wouldn't care to try. (add fuel dragster to the list). AS

JimB

Thanks Bob but just for the record, if I drove an Indy car every day for the rest of my life I couldn't run mid-pack in the Indy 500.

If you can get by the junior high name calling, this thread has some of the funniest posts I've seen in years. Where do these guys come from?

prg

+1
I enjoy club racing a fairly quick open wheel car. I'd love to take an Indy car around Road America.

You couldn't pay me enough to race an Indy car on a high speed oval.

race911

My wording is probably off (still on East Cost time?).........my "many, many" referred to pro-level drivers in other disciplines, ALMS, NASCAR, sprints, etc.. But in my youth, would I loved to have progressed to that level to even give it a try. Yep. Probably would have met the T1 wall.........

As alluded to above, or maybe it was another thread, I'm more in awe of these guys (girls) after getting back into a sports racer with the Radical, and realizing how large the gap must be.

chris walrod

Here is Danica's post race interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7nqwGt4-I

Essexmetal

Chris,

Thanks for that. Best laugh I have had for days.

I will chime in with a few thoughts on this. We all know how the media is and how they need to "puff" every story. Every time she cries that she’s a racer and wants to be treated as an equal she knocks back her cause by throwing one of her foot stomping tantrums. Media snatches it up and we see it replayed for months. She gets press but looses any credibility she may earn as a driver. As pointed out earlier Danica needs to reflect on her own pit lane foibles, and they took place in a much more relaxed atmosphere.

At best I would chalk this up as a racing incident. (I don't think Brisceo is a card carrying member of male chauvinist racing and set out to make sure a woman never wins Indy.) From the angle I saw it he had to cut pretty hard to get clear of the car in the pit in front of him. With cold tires and the fact that they are your clutch I would expect the tail to snap out when he straightened out. Looks like Danica had a couple more feet of clearance to the pit wall as well.

500

It looks to me like Briscoe does hold more of the blame here, but it is, to me, a pure racing incident. Drivers always bolt out of their box as soon as they are signaled to do so and are striving to get out in front of others. I think Ryan lost a bit of traction and got squirly and Danica was the victim.

The marching down the pit lane thing was over the top. If Ryan had deliberately pushed her into the wall or something, then I can see it. But it was a typical racing accident. Yes, he should apologize to her, but her antics will probably not reflect well in the long run. She has made her own racing mistakes too. It was very good that officials intervened as it could have ended up much worse.

Circuit Motorsports

We have no idea what Danica would have done when she got to Briscoe's pit box.

Had it been a war or words, I wouldn't have cared. I'd rather see someone bring up their issues with a person face to face than what Kanaan did. Face to face confrontations happen all the time in the top level racing. Rarely do they escalate to anything other than a heated discussion. This didn't even get there and everyone is blowing it way out of proportion.

Kanaan threw his teammate under the bus by not only blaming him for putting him out of the race but for Sarah Fisher crying in the ambulance ride. Passive/Agressive attitudes like that are much more annoying. Sure it wasn't the nicest thing to do by Marco but it was completely legal and not a dirty move by any means.

mklaskin

Wow! All this over a couple of pretty normal racing incidents.

I don't blame Danica for being angry at all. I think, though, that she gets away with a little too much attitude. Remember her coming after Dan Wheldon last year at Milwaukee? I'm not saying he was right, but had it been another male driver, fists would have flown. The other drivers are almost powerless because they would been seen as "picking on a girl". She's not the first one to get clipped in the pit lane, and she won't be the last. Move on.

I agree that she has talent and deserves her ride, but she is not where she is solely on merit. Bobby Rahal put her in 550 Maranello at Road Atlanta back in 2002 or 2003 and she was average, at best.

As for Kanaan, after all the replays, I still think he left a little gap and Marco went for it.

chris walrod

Tony said in his post shunt interview that he saw Marco coming fast and purposely gave him room. If it were the other way around, does anyone think Marco (or any Andretti for that matter) would have gave room to a team mate -- heck no. Punk!

mklaskin

I think that supports my interpretation of the incident.

For the record, I've been a huge fan of Kanaan and Castro-Neves since they drove for Steve Horne in Indy Lights (1997).

mglobe

OK, I still don't agree with the Danica bashing, but that's pretty damn funny.

mark kibort

Hey, ive i havent driven at 220mph on an oval, but I have stayed at a holiday inn

If everytime someone passed another car going into a turn at 220mph, the passed car backed out, got off line and crashed, they wouldnt have enough cars for a racing season. I think watching the video says it all. there was about 2 car widths at the bottom of the track. Lots of other guys seem to be able to pull it off. Hey, its ok, he got scared-startled-surprised But, the whining in the interview was pitaful.

mk


QUOTE=38D;5449164]I'm not sure how we can possibly understand what it is like to do 220+ mph on a oval, and what is/isn't difficult.[/QUOTE]