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Kill a Poacher
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posted
Great race in Florida for the season opener. Some spectacular airborne crashes. The big "ohhhh" when #1 and #2 learned only one car can make it thru the turn made for one car. Lots of new drivers. Thank goodness Sato wasn't there as he would have increased the crash count.

Looking to be a great season..


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Posts: 1367 | Location: Escaped from Kalifornia to Arizona February 2022! | Registered: March 02, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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That's the problem with a 6 month off season. St. Petersburg (which some Youtube comments had pissed off people that there's racing in Russia again...) is equal parts thriller and shit show. I really felt bad for Scott McLaughlin. He finally gets around Grosjean and 1 little mistake puts him a lap down.

This should have been an Andretti day, but his drivers are still making too many mistakes. At least his pit crews didn't mess things up, and Devlin DeFrancesco walked away with no injuries after that nasty airborne hit.

Sadly, it's another month until we get to Texas for the PPG 375 on April 2nd.
 
Posts: 4125 | Location: Kansas City, MO | Registered: May 28, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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As usual, Herta was his own worst enemy. With his experience you'd think he would know better than to try to pass on the outside while in the marbles.

Jim


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Posts: 9791 | Location: The right side of Washington State | Registered: September 14, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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And everyone on Youtube is crying that McLaughlin intentionally wrecked Grosjean while Grosjean was on the outside and never was going to make the turn.
 
Posts: 4125 | Location: Kansas City, MO | Registered: May 28, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by Jimbo54:
As usual, Herta was his own worst enemy. With his experience you'd think he would know better than to try to pass on the outside while in the marbles.

Jim


His dad was a great racer in his time. But he was also older and wiser. Hopefully Junior Herta will improve with experience and stop blaming others for his aggressiveness//mistakes. But then again, being on the Andretti card, its expected to blame others..IMHO


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Posts: 1367 | Location: Escaped from Kalifornia to Arizona February 2022! | Registered: March 02, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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^^^^

Yeah, Colton has made way too many bad mistakes in his career but St. Pete was on Will Power, another driver with some history of red mist.

A highly entertaining start to the season, IndyCar being IndyCar. The good, the bad and the ugly. After a fun F1 opener in Bahrain, I thought IndyCar would suffer in comparison. But no, a good day for motorsports.




Set the controls for the heart of the Sun.
 
Posts: 8307 | Location: Flown-over country | Registered: December 25, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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We finally got great racing at Texas again. That was one of the most thrilling ovals I've seen in a long while. I think less cars crashed today than in Australia this morning. Even Grosjean was looking very impressive on the oval before he clipped his front wing and crashed out.

The sad thing for me is I found out that on Pato O'Ward's website, he did a package deal with Texas Motor Speedway for a box seat with a hat, shirt, garage pass, and catering for $399 a person. Of course, I only find out about this TWO WEEKS ago and I couldn't get the days off to go. Next year, I'll keep an eye out for it so I can arrange some vacation time.
 
Posts: 4125 | Location: Kansas City, MO | Registered: May 28, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Posts: 4125 | Location: Kansas City, MO | Registered: May 28, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Great race, edge of seat back and forth changes right down to the last lap. I noticed the stands were almost void of spectators. This on many tracks. Hope it's not the demise of the sport.

And I am not entirely in agreement that Rossi deserved that penalty for the Pit crash..Thoughts??


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Posts: 1367 | Location: Escaped from Kalifornia to Arizona February 2022! | Registered: March 02, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by urbanwarrior238:
Great race, edge of seat back and forth changes right down to the last lap. I noticed the stands were almost void of spectators. This on many tracks. Hope it's not the demise of the sport.

And I am not entirely in agreement that Rossi deserved that penalty for the Pit crash..Thoughts??


If Texas starts producing more races like that, then the crowd will come back. I can't remember the last great Texas race before last weekend.

As far as Rossi, ultimately it was hit pit crew that sent him into Kirkwood even though Kirkwood wasn't in the preferred lane he should have been. Thankfully, his car broke so it wasn't that big of a deal. There's also this from Marshall Pruett giving a bit more detail on the issue:

https://racer.com/2023/04/04/p...re-at-fault-in-texas

quote:
PRUETT: Neither Kirkwood nor Rossi were at fault in Texas
Marshall Pruett April 4, 2023 4:22 PM ET

As IndyCar’s rules for pit lane procedures are written, Kyle Kirkwood did nothing wrong on Sunday afternoon as he attempted to turn into his pit box with the No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda.

Alexander Rossi – the former driver of the No.27, with whom Kirkwood made contact – was also a blameless party in the unintentional incident that was triggered when he was exiting his pit box and did his best Roman Reigns impression by spearing Kirkwood.

Rossi’s race was ruined on the spot as the crisscrossing cars collided; his No. 7 Chevy needed repairs to its suspension which cost the team multiple laps. Despite being briefly slightly delayed, Kirkwood’s day was unaffected until an unrelated suspension failure took him out of the 250-lap contest.

Where heat and scrutiny began to rise with the situation was in the NTT IndyCar Series’ decision to penalize Rossi rather than Kirkwood, who was initially thought to have breached protocol. NBC’s commentators went hard against Kirkwood during the broadcast, which then led to a volley of criticism directed at Kirkwood on social media, but at least one host later apologized to the sophomore driver after getting a better picture of the situation.

As series has instructed its teams and drivers, those in the outer lane — the ‘fast’ lane — are the top priority on pit lane when it comes to decision-making. Those in the middle lane — the ‘transition lane’ — are second on the priority list when drivers either pull away from or pull into their pit box. Last on the list are those who are in their pit box.

Drivers are also told to remain in the fast lane until it’s time to steer into their pit box; they’re only allowed to drive straight within the transition lane on approach to their pit box in the rare instance of finding some sort of blockage in the fast lane.

Otherwise, turning from the outermost lane across the transition lane and into the pit box, as Kirkwood attempted to do, is precisely what’s expected of each driver.

Whether Kirkwood did or didn’t make a late turn out of the fast lane to meet his Andretti Autosport pit crew sitting four boxes down the road from Rossi’s Arrow McLaren crew is immaterial. Unlike IMSA, which has a regulation that limits how soon drivers can start turning towards their pit box, IndyCar drivers are free to choose — within reason – when they start to turn out of the fast lane to make a pit stop.

Despite being unable to see each other from the confines of their open-wheel race cars, Kirkwood followed all of IndyCar’s rules for pitting, and accordingly, was not penalized. And Rossi followed the instructions from his team to engage first gear and fire out of his pit box after service was complete, but was deemed to be a rule-breaking instigator.

Their collision, a surprise to both parties, was initially attributed by the series as a breach of Rule 7.11.1.10, ‘unsafe release of a car from its pit box’, which led to a lap 62 drive-through penalty for Rossi. It was later revised to a violation of Rule 7.11.1.7, ‘contact with another car,’ which is an interesting adjustment as the penalty gives the impression of shifting the blame from the No. 7 Chevy’s crew to its driver.

Rossi followed orders from Brian Barnhart, his car controller, and was understandably incensed when he was told to serve the penalty. It’s here where a few points have emerged that would be worth evaluation by IndyCar and its rule makers.

Just as drivers have adopted the somewhat recent practice of exiting Turn 2 on ovals and weaving hard left to indicate to those who are following that they will be pitting — a signal to steer clear because they will be slowing significantly in a few seconds — it seems like a similar conveyance of information to crew chiefs and car controllers about a driver’s intent in the fast lane would do wonders to avoid future clashes.

It’s a miracle that dozens of crashes aren’t the norm on pit lane at every race. But thanks to the incredibly talented and quick-thinking outside front tire changers or car controllers who reside on the timing stands and decide when to release their drivers from the pit box, they are rarities.

Nonetheless, the person in charge of releasing their driver is asked to process an amount of information that would overwhelm most people.

In a pit stop that lasts around eight seconds or so, it starts with using the last two or three seconds of the stop to assess local information about the readiness of their car: Are all tires properly secured? Has the refueller successfully removed the fuel probe? Has a wing change been completed? Is the car on the ground and are all wheel guns and hoses clear of the car’s exit route?

Once that mental checklist is completed, the next task — done in the final second or two of the stop — involves looking up the road, judging the distance between oncoming cars and their own, trying to recall whether those cars are pitted in front or behind their driver, which is important to know as it’s used to judge whether those cars are driving out of pit lane and continuing on or are due to pull in and pit, and then, while making an assumption that those who are likely to pit aren’t serving a drive-through penalty or continuing without stopping due to being called in by mistake, the car chief or controller elects to hold or send their car.

All while the 100-plus decibels of racing sounds and other assaults on the senses must be filtered out, and all in less time than it takes to read these final few words. Multiply the number of cars entered in each race — at least 27 per round this year — and the number of pit stops per car — between four and six at Texas — and these rapid-fire calculations were performed more than 100 times on Sunday without contact. That only one car-to-car crash happened defies all odds.

In the case of the No. 7 Chevy, the team could have held Rossi for another beat or two and let Kirkwood clear their box. And had Kirkwood seen Rossi as he started to turn in, he could have tapped the brakes and waited for the No. 7 to drive off. But as he said in a post-race interview, with the narrow view out of the No. 27 Honda, Kirkwood only saw the two cars ahead of Rossi: Scott Dixon and Alex Palou.

But those things didn’t happen and we’re left to ask how some blind spots can be removed in the future.

Whether it’s a similar pit-in type of weave, provided it’s a pit lane like TMS that’s wide enough to safely perform such a maneuver, or to have the soon-to-turn driver straddle the white line between the fast and transition lanes once they get within a three or four pit boxes of their own stall, or the adoption of a Formula E-style overheard light that informs car chiefs and controllers as to whether the oncoming car has or hasn’t pitted, it’s clear that each car’s decision maker could use more visual cues to understand the intent of cars coming toward their own in the fast lane.

We just could default to the rule that gives cars in that outer lane top priority, but no team — not in a fiercely competitive series like IndyCar — is willing to surrender extra seconds on pit lane. The ability for most car chiefs and controllers to recall where their rivals are pitted from race to race and whether an oncoming car is likely to turn or go straight is another miracle that seems ripe for simplification and clarity.

Given a chance for a do-over, a no-call from IndyCar seems appropriate.

Thankfully, the vast amount of pit stops are completed without drama, but when a Kirkwood vs Rossi situation arises, it presents an opportunity to ask whether more can be done to help pit crews make better decisions in the fastest and most extreme aspects of their jobs. Start by removing the unnecessary guesswork about what the cars in the fast lane are doing so the odds of contact-free pit stops will edge closer to 100 percent.


I'm also wondering how much longer the Devlin DeFrancesco Experiment at Andretti is going to last. All he seems to do is crash while Grosjean and Herta can deliver results and sponsorships to cover their repair bill.
 
Posts: 4125 | Location: Kansas City, MO | Registered: May 28, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Well that kind of clears up the technical issue of what should have happened to avoid (hopefully) a collision...makes sense


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Posts: 1367 | Location: Escaped from Kalifornia to Arizona February 2022! | Registered: March 02, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Now we have 9 days to go until the greatest street course in the world: Long Beach.
 
Posts: 4125 | Location: Kansas City, MO | Registered: May 28, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by DanH:
Now we have 9 days to go until the greatest street course in the world: Long Beach.


This could be a wild one. The quickest car all weekend is starting 6th.
Hopefully it’s a good one. Very tight field of cars.


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Posts: 9447 | Location: NE GA | Registered: August 22, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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You F1 guys missed a great weekend of racing. The IndyCar race was awesome with Kyle Kirkwood holding off the rest of Andretti Autosport and Chip Ganassi Racing for his first IndyCar win at Long Beach.



We also had a great IMSA race on Saturday as well.



Now we're off for a week and back at Barber Motorsports Park which is a track with almost constant elevation changes.
 
Posts: 4125 | Location: Kansas City, MO | Registered: May 28, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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You F1 guys missed a great weekend of racing.


Nuh uh! Have this recorded to watch tonight. Yesterday was WEC racing and RBC Heritage as a distraction. All while sitting outside in glorious weather! Smile



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Posts: 12345 | Location: Madison, MS | Registered: December 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Maybe this result will kick Colton in the pants and make him realize there's more to racing than what he's be doing the last couple years. It would seem Andretti has pushed to get into F1 as an opportunity for an American to shine in that series. A lot of ramifications from yesterday's race.




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Posts: 8307 | Location: Flown-over country | Registered: December 25, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Originally posted by Ripley:
Maybe this result will kick Colton in the pants and make him realize there's more to racing than what he's be doing the last couple years. It would seem Andretti has pushed to get into F1 as an opportunity for an American to shine in that series. A lot of ramifications from yesterday's race.


At least Herta didn't do anything stupid that resulted in a DNF. He has the talent and just needs to work on his strong points.

Jim


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Posts: 9791 | Location: The right side of Washington State | Registered: September 14, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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What happened with Newgarden? His post race interview alluded to something up but he didn't divulge. i.e., don't badmouth and piss off the Captain.


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Posts: 1367 | Location: Escaped from Kalifornia to Arizona February 2022! | Registered: March 02, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by urbanwarrior238:
What happened with Newgarden? His post race interview alluded to something up but he didn't divulge. i.e., don't badmouth and piss off the Captain.

Due to his pit timing, he had to turn down the engine to have enough fuel to finish.
He was running well up to that point.
Pato sure had a disappointing race, all things considered.


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Posts: 9447 | Location: NE GA | Registered: August 22, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Yeah, Newgarden shot from 7th to 1st in 20 laps, led most of the race, and was the first of the leaders to pit for the end of the race. There wasn’t a yellow until the very end of the race, the Chevy’s weren’t as efficient as the Hondas, and Newgarden started dropping placed to avoid a splash and dash. It caught everyone off to the point that no one in the Top 6 had the fuel to use any Push To Pass.

Grosjean has something like 140 seconds left and got told with 2 laps to go, he could use 30 and still hold 2nd.

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.
 
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