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Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Kimi to Williams sounds interesting. At least then Williams will know how good their cars really are.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Well, it looks like Vettle is going to win the remaining races. I don't necessarily dislike Sebastien, but I am ready for someone else to win a race. Who is it going to be?
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Kimi to Williams sounds interesting. At least then Williams will know how good their cars really are.

That's the truth. It will be interesting to see how fast he can be in that car.

In other news, it looks like Alexander Rossi is getting closer to F1 as he will get a race in the GP2 series at Abu Dhabi and a test in the Team Lotus car at the Young Driver test the week after the F1 race. I hope he shows well and can get a GP2 ride for next season. It would be awesome to see an American back in F1 again.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Briscoe is staying with Penske.

Bobby Rahal's fired his team up again, partering with Honda and hiring near legendary team manager Tom Anderson.

I'm getting a little juiced up about the next season after reading articles about what teams are singing with what suppliers.
The biggest open question is getting the power/downforce ratio figured out to be able to run on the 1.5 mile ovals. I wonder if off season testing is limited in anyway?
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Briscoe is staying with Penske.

Bobby Rahal's fired his team up again, partering with Honda and hiring near legendary team manager Tom Anderson.

I'm getting a little juiced up about the next season after reading articles about what teams are singing with what suppliers.
The biggest open question is getting the power/downforce ratio figured out to be able to run on the 1.5 mile ovals. I wonder if off season testing is limited in anyway?

good to see Kimi back!

re: Indy, I read from Robin Miller that the drivers want to look at the 95 schedule for a foundation re: ovals, so 1.5 milers out. INDY, Milwaukee, Iowa, Loudon, Phoenix, possibly Michigan and Cali

in other words they're calling for tracks where you cannot be flat-out all the way around and it sound like Randy B is listening

man I hope they come back to mke and put it the week after Indy where it should be
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

good to see Kimi back!

re: Indy, I read from Robin Miller that the drivers want to look at the 95 schedule for a foundation re: ovals, so 1.5 milers out. INDY, Milwaukee, Iowa, Loudon, Phoenix, possibly Michigan and Cali

in other words they're calling for tracks where you cannot be flat-out all the way around and it sound like Randy B is listening

man I hope they come back to mke and put it the week after Indy where it should be

Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on top?
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I'm going to be confused at the start of next year's F1 season:

The FIA has officially confirmed that three Formula One teams are to change their names for next season.

Lotus will become Caterham, with their full team name changing from Team Lotus to the Caterham F1 team.

Renault will become Lotus, with their full team name remaining Lotus Renault GP.

And, finally, Virgin will become Marussia, with their full name changing from Marussia Virgin Racing to the Marussia F1 team.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

A look at the Circuit of the Americas

Still seems optimistic that it'll be done. I guess we'll see.

Interesting they have to remove 10 ft of soil everywhere the track is due to the clay soil. I thought clay soil was very stable. My yard is largely clay and seems virtually inpenetrable to water.

Read the Baltimore race is on it's deathbed due to the promoter's incompetence, ala Milwaukee. I bet of all of us who post here on this thread could successfully promote the race in Milwaukee. All we need is some start up cash.

I wonder if the F1 promoters in NY/NJ have any experience in promoting racing.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Interesting they have to remove 10 ft of soil everywhere the track is due to the clay soil. I thought clay soil was very stable. My yard is largely clay and seems virtually inpenetrable to water.

Read the Baltimore race is on it's deathbed due to the promoter's incompetence, ala Milwaukee. I bet of all of us who post here on this thread could successfully promote the race in Milwaukee. All we need is some start up cash.

I wonder if the F1 promoters in NY/NJ have any experience in promoting racing.
Clay soil expands when wet and contracts when dry. It's not impenetrable it just takes a long time to absorb.I agree on the promotion.I was under the maybe mistaken impression that the cars could run flat out all the time at Michigan.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I was under the maybe mistaken impression that the cars could run flat out all the time at Michigan.

I'd guess they can. There's not as much readily-available historical performance info for Michigan, but it's twin, Texas World Speedway, had speed records set by Indy cars in its heyday (and Greg Biffle got up to 218 mph in NASCAR testing there).
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I'd guess they can. There's not as much readily-available historical performance info for Michigan, but it's twin, Texas World Speedway, had speed records set by Indy cars in its heyday (and Greg Biffle got up to 218 mph in NASCAR testing there).

I thought Fontana was Michigan's twin?
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Michigan and Fontana are the twin tracks. Texas is 1.5 miles, Michigan and Fontana 2milers

wow, so at one point people were wondering if the economy and move to new cars might limit the field for 2012 and result in less than 33 at INDY?

this from Indy Star writer Curt Cavin in response to car counts:
Answer: Well, let’s do the counting of what we genuinely expect: Penske (3), Ganassi (4), Rahal (1-2), Panther (1), Foyt (1), HVM (1-2), Andretti (3-4), Coyne (2), Conquest (1), Dreyer & Reinbold (1-2), Shank (1), Carpenter (1), KV (2-3), Fisher (0-1), Schmidt (1-2), Herta (0-1), Dragon (0-1), Newman/Haas (2). If you take the fewest number possible from each team, there’s 25; take the higher, it’s 34. I’m comfortable saying there will be 28-29 regulars. But remember, it’s November.

From Robin Miller: We know Honda is with Ganassi (Dario, Dixon, Rahal, Kimball), Sam Schmidt (Simon Pagenaud), A.J. Foyt (not sure yet), Bobby Rahal (maybe Jay Howard and another TBA). Chevy has Penske (Power, Helio and Briscoe), Andretti (Marco, Hunter-Reay,?????), KV Racing (Kanaan and Viso???), Panther (J.R. Hildebrand) and Lotus/Judd has Mike Shank. Dale Coyne, Eric Bachelart, Ed Carpenter, Bryan Herta, Gary Peterson, Jay Penske, Dreyer & Reinbold and Newman/Haas (Servia & Hinchcliffe) are yet to align or announce plans with a manufacturer.


if Cavin is right and there are 28-29 regulars that's AWESOME news for the Indy series

right now along w/Josef Newgarden I think they REALLY need to focus on getting Kyle Larson in the show at any cost. he's possibly the next Tony Stewart
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

Michigan and Fontana are the twin tracks. Texas is 1.5 miles, Michigan and Fontana 2milers
It's triplets. Michigan, California, and Texas World Speedway, which is also a 2.0 mile track.

Not Texas Motor Speedway, Texas World Speedway. The one near College Station that was forcibly retired from top-level racing in the early or mid '80's. The oval is still there, a bit the worse for wear, and because it's so similar to the other two tracks, NASCAR teams have been known to test on it, since they have severe limitations on their testing at tracks where the series actually competes. While I think it would be cool for top-level racing to return there, especially now that the road infrastructure would support it, it would need an interested owner and a ton of money plowed into it. The spectator areas are clearly dangerous, the team-side facilities are well past it, and as I said, the track itself is somewhat the worse for wear. (It also has a rather fun 2.9 mile road course, which is in fairly good condition aside from the front straight that it shares with the oval.)

As I said, there's actually some historical performance info available for TWS (unlike with MIS which really only has historical track development info), which includes a speed record that was set in the '70's and held for ten or fifteen years. Which leads back to my original comment that I think it is a fast track that would likely be mostly or entirely WOT (and thus similarly for Michigan and California).
 
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Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I'd guess they can. There's not as much readily-available historical performance info for Michigan, but it's twin, Texas World Speedway, had speed records set by Indy cars in its heyday (and Greg Biffle got up to 218 mph in NASCAR testing there).

Were those records at TWS faster than the 241+ Gil De Ferran (if memory serves it was De Ferran) did at Fontana? I have a vague memory of NASCAR running at TWS but they were disappointed in the crowds. Hard to believe there would have ever been a time that NASCAR wouldn't have been successful in Texas. And I think TWS was an exact clone of MIS, down to the 18 degree banking in the corners, whereas Fontana is somewhat flatter.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

The record from the '70's was, if memory serves, around 214 mph; you can find it at the track's website. The thing is, they haven't run open-wheel cars there since the '80's, so anything more recent (as with De Ferran) will certainly beat it.

I'm told that at the time TWS was running NASCAR and IndyCar, the roads were poor (though that's still not necessarily an excuse for lack of turnout from Bryan and College Station). Nowadays, there's a good highway connection to Houston, so you would think it would be viable if they were to ever make the investment to bring high-level racing, be it NASCAR or IndyCar, back. However, with the level of investment required, probable opposition from aTm, and existing racing at TMS, I doubt it happens any time soon.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

if Cavin is right and there are 28-29 regulars that's AWESOME news for the Indy series

May be a dumb question, but since it was an issue before- will there be enough cars made to support that? That's a lot of manufacture time between now and next May. Probably need closer to 40 cars to support a field of 33, and that would be cutting it really close.
 
Re: Open Wheel Racing 2011, hurry, before we downsize your engines....

I'd guess they can. There's not as much readily-available historical performance info for Michigan, but it's twin, Texas World Speedway, had speed records set by Indy cars in its heyday (and Greg Biffle got up to 218 mph in NASCAR testing there).

The one big difference between MIS and Fontana (and TWS??) is that they have multiple lines that are pretty wide. So even if there are 33 cars doing WOT all the time, there's generally enough space in-between cars to support that. Let alone a half mile is a lot of space to add cars.

Even with that, I'm personally not a huge fan of the race at Michigan. The driving still is about the most guts vs. the most skill. Safer, but not much more interesting. IIRC, the closed track speed record is a Pensky driven by Mears at MIS. Something like 240mph.

That being said, I will tell you that MIS is a WHOLE lot more bumpy than it appears to be. I did the stock car experience there this past summer, and even at 145mph, you could feel that the track isnt' exactly smooth. This in a large, closed car, at 145mph, not a tiny open car being forced to follow every contour of the track. (that, and I just can't imagine what it's like to run in a pack- you have to look so far ahead based on your speed, but also have to be focused on a car just a few inches from you- holy cow).
 
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