quote:

Originally posted by DanH:

I do have to applaud IndyCar Race Control for being one of the most consistent in Motorsports. With Pato and Dixon, as long as the wheels are squared up and it’s a side to side hit, there won’t be a call. I am wondering if they’re going to be making a change to that or if they’re going to let the drivers “enforce” each other.

I think Pato totally forced to the inside of Dixon's line. Pato was driving into and over the curb for that pass. Driving where there really isn't safe room to do so.

He wasn’t the only person taking that line. They also mentioned during the broadcast that it had been smoothed over by the city and multiple cars were using that during Practice sessions. There’s also corners like that in Toronto where the same thing occurs.

Day One of Indy 500 Qualifying happens today. For those that want something to watch with F1 (or God) cancelling Imola, here's the 30 minute highlights for every race this year. We've have 5 races with 5 different winners with some fantastic racing. Enjoy.

Radar shows a big storm moving into INDY area. Wonder if will be rain delay..tomorrow??

Just set my dvr to record.
Don't usually watch Indy, but we'll be out back all day. Monaco & Indy should be great to have playing. Maybe Coke 600 too, but outside of a few road courses [watched COTA this year & it was fun with no stage delays] NASCAR usually does nothing for me.

Pretty good race for the first 450 miles, the rest was pretty wild and no way to predict who would win as they started the last lap.
I wasn't sure who would still be running a lap later.

Because of work today I watched both Indy and Monaco off the DVR. Monaco was interesting only because of the rain. but it was just another Max/RB domination experience. Ultimately boring. Indy on the other hand, highly entertaining and LOADS of action. Congrats to Newgarden; well-earned first Indy win.

With so much on the line for whoever wins, Monaco was a lot of fun. It wasn't a given that Max would win, early on it looked like Aston Martin may have made the right call and might be in the cat bird seat. Before that could play out, rain and I was on edge the rest of the race. Yeah, the result was business as usual but it was fun getting there.

A great qualification with Max's magical third sector and Ocon who took advantage of his shocking third place, qualy set the tone for the weekend.

Indy was a worthy follow-up, at least ten top guys had a chance as the last laps played out.

Best racing weekend in years, I guess NASCAR's 600 mile snoozefest was rained out as a fitting capper.

The upside-down cockpit shot was pretty crazy
Overall an interesting race.

Curious what those wheels weigh? 15-20 lbs?

More than just a tire/wheel there. The upright (vertical suspension part with spindle, brakes, etc. plus it looked like the driveshaft) with the wheel the most visible are what went over the fence and just cleared a grandstand full of spectators.The weight and velocity are significant.
I was at the Indycar race in Charlotte in '99 on top of the suites when a similar event happened right below me, but hit in the grandstand, killing three people.
That race didn't have a capacity crowd so likely was less populated than the Indy seats. That incident lead directly to the wheel tethers that normally prevent this type of thing.
Glad to see no injuries and I suspect the Speedway is getting the bill, not the owner.

That was a fantastic race. I also wanted to add this video to help clarify any questions on the red flag situation.



While I'm fine with a race ending under yellow, Indy hits the right balance of wanting to end under green while not spoiling the race. A red flag in IndyCar means the race is FROZEN. No one gets to add new tires or change any parts/wing settings (and in IndyCar's case, no extra fuel). You also avoid the NASCAR Green/White/Checker crap where the race goes into overtime until everyone stops crashing each other. The race ends at the last lap that everyone knows about in advance.

I also find Marcus Ericcson crying at the end of the race incredibly annoying. All 4 of his wins in IndyCar all came about because of a red flag being thrown in those races and now it's a problem. Also in the above video, according to several race engineers, tire temps and pressures were back up to the same levels as the start of the Indy 500 which really makes Ericcson's sour grape whine and cheese even more annoying. If this was Iowa or Gateway, he'd have a point

Also on Racer's Youtube channel, they've had several roundtable discussions with IndyCar/Honda/Chevy on their hybrid system next year. Instead of the battery pack everyone else uses, this will be a supercapacitor mounted on top of the V6. It currently weighs only 65 lbs, doesn't use lithium, and will give about 100 hp of rechargeable boost so instead of increased turbo pressure for a limited amount of time, it can be used any time it has a charge. Not sure exactly how it'll be recharged as it was hinted there could be a separate paddle to pull, but I didn't find any specifics on that yet. It has been tested (and in the rain) at the IMS Road Course, but no oval test yet.

On to Detroit. They've moved from Belle Isle back to the downtown F1 track with some updates.

quote:

Curious what those wheels weigh? 15-20 lbs?

Yeah, I'm not an engineer but my understanding is it's not just the weight of the tire but the velocity which creates a metric shitton of energy. Like Charlotte, I'm afraid that going into the crowd would have had an awful outcome.

We were watching live and I jumped out of chair shouting at that, not because of the car sliding upside down but the tire clearing the fence. Very, very fortunate.