FastMachines.com Radio Episode #31
May 29, 2009
Chris and Josh wrap up the 2009 Indy 500 with the Indy blogging elite - Bill from PressDog.com and Jeff from MyNameIsIRL.com. We talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly from Indy including the Maro wreck, Danica’s excellent run, Tony and Vitor’s HARD crashes, and the poo that Robin Miller has stirred up over Tony George’s supposed ousting at IMS. We also check in on NASCAR with the bounce of Tony Eury Jr. from the 88 car, as well as some ALMS talk with Le Mans looming large next month. Have a listen and shoot us your comments - good, bad, or ugly.
Let us know what you think by commenting on this posting, or shoot Chris, George and Josh an email by sending to radio@fastmachines.com. Also check us out on Twitter “@fastmachines.
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Helio wins forgettable five-hundred
May 25, 2009
Helio Castroneves did what so many people expected him to do: he won his third Indy 500 on Sunday afternoon in Speedway, Indiana. The Penske team gave Captain Roger his 15th win at the Brickyard by giving Castroneves the best car on the track, and by performing flawlessly in the pits.
In a race where green-flag passing was scarce, pit stops were the primary way to gain track position. This boded well for Castroneves, because his pit crew won Friday’s pit stop competition on Carb Day. They delivered again on Sunday.
The 2009 edition of this famous race won’t be very famous. It was a stinker, a bore, a good opportunity to take a nap, an activity I usually save for the Coke 600 later in the day. With crashes every 15 to 20 laps and no green flag pit stops, the race never had a chance to “unfold” like it has done so many times in the past. The race was a series of green flag runs with no passing, and then pit stops where the field was shuffled a little bit.
The on track action was mostly boring, except when the field stacked up behind Milka Dunno. The IRL should have parked her, because she was a hazard out on the track. Until she learns that you shouldn’t be throwing blocks out when you are three laps down, she is a danger to everyone out on the track.
Marco Andretti made some of his own “bad Andretti luck” at the start of the race this year. This driver of priviledge must think the the Red Sea would part for him, or that other drivers should feel the “Andretti-tremor in the force” should he try to make a ill-advised pass. Marco tried to pass Mario Moraes on lap 1 in the short chute coming out of turn 1, and ended both of their days very early. Marco is supposed to be seasoning into a mature racer, but his move shows casts doubt into that status. How many times do we hear the phrase, “you can’t win on the first lap”? Marco apparantly hasn’t heard it enough.
NHRA Needs To Do The Unthinkable
May 25, 2009
In this modern era when motorsports and sports media are interwoven, I am going to suggest the unthinkable. The NHRA needs to schedule the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals on Memorial Day weekend.
The Mac Tools U.S. Nationals, the longest running and the most prestigous drag race the NHRA hosts, has traditionally been held on Labor Day weekend. The race is so large and the competitors are so numerous that an additional qualifying session is granted to the professional competitors and elimination rounds are held on Monday instead of Sunday. It truly is a unique racing experience given the history and tradition of “The Nationals”. So if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Because it could be so much better with just a slight change in date.
I would suggest the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals be moved to Memorial Day weekend. I am not suggesting moving the U.S. Nationals away from O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis. I am not suggesting changing the daily racing schedule. I am merely suggesting moving the race dates from Labor Day weekend to Memorial Day weekend.
I can hear what everyone would be saying already… “Don’t you realize that the Indy 500 is held in Indianapolis that same weekend?”. “The NHRA can not compete with the Indy 500″. “The U.S. Nationals would get lost and pushed to the wayside in the wake of the Indy 500″. I would argue that the U.S. Nationals would greatly benefit from sharing the national spotlight with the Indy 500.
Let’s face it. The nation’s top motorsports journalists will already be in Indianapolis covering the Indy 500. With business travel budgets squeezed tighter than a drum, we all know that the Indy 500 is so huge that news outlets must budget every year to send at least someone to Indianapolis over Memorial Day weekend. They know their competitors will be there so they just find the money in the budget to go. Convincing a motorsports journalist’s editor to send a writer to Indianapolis to cover racing two times a year is nearly impossible.
I speak from a position of experience on this one. When I was working for the NHRA’s Media Relations Department I was the lead manager in charge of the U.S. Nationals for a few years. I would make calls and send emails to all the heavy hitters in the world of motorsports journalism and invite them to Indy for the U.S. Nationals. After all, it is the NHRA’s Super Bowl so why wouldn’t they be there covering it? Many of the responses from those big time journalists I had targeted was the same. “Sorry, there is no money to go to Indy twice a year. Given the fact they I was already in Indy in May, we can’t pull it off to go there in September.”
If the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals were moved to Memorial Day weekend, all the world’s motorsports journalists would be at The Brickyard on Sunday. I am not so naive to believe they would skip that race to attend the final day of qualifying of the U.S. Nationals. But extending their stay in Indy an extra day in order to cover the U.S. Nationals eliminations would not be a hard sell to those dolling out travel budget per diems. Everyone would prefer to have the reporters on site for qualifying and eliminations. But wouldn’t you rather have the number of reporters covering the eliminations be double or triple than what you normally get if they weren’t covering the NHRA on Sunday? After all, qualifying results are nice but it is the head to head racing that most people are concerned with.
Will this suggestion fall on deaf ears in Glendora? Possibly. But it is something to consider if the NHRA wants to be considered a major player in the world of motorsports. Sometimes you need to change things drastically that will undoubtedly annoy the traditionalists in order to move the sport forward. Then again, traditionalists are not the ones moving the sport forward. If it were up to them Fuel Altereds and Front Engine Dragsters would still be competing.
Ryan Newman gives Stewart-Haas first Cup pole at the 600
May 23, 2009
Ryan Newman did what he does best, putting his car on pole for the Coca-Cola 600. The Rocket’s 43rd pole position was the first for the Stewart-Haas team.
With Kyle Bush, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin and Jimmy Johnson rounding out the top five, there were few suprises in the first few rows. Junior starts deep in the field from the 27th spot.
It is exciting to In this 600 miler, the starting spot is not really of much importance. Be sure to drink a lot of Coca-Cola to stay awake for all 400 laps (unless you are a Jeff Gordon or Junior fan and prefer to imbibe in a Pepsi or Amp energy drink). But seriously, I want to see a show of hands: Who can watch all of this race without falling asleep at least once? After drinking a sixer of Corona and eating way too much BBQ on Sunday afternoon, only the strongest survive.
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Here’s a full report from GM Racing:
CHEVY PRESS NOTES - CHARLOTTE QUALIFYING
Concord, NC - Ryan Newman behind the wheel of his No. 39 U.S. Army Impala SS will lead the field to the green flag for the 50th running of the Coca Cola 600 Sunday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway (LMS).
The 28.651-second/188.475 m.p.h. lap landed Newman the 44th pole of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career and his eighth pole at LMS.
Five Team Chevy drivers captured four of the top-five and five of the top-10 starting spots for the season’s longest race. Jeff Gordon, No. 24 DuPont Impala SS, will roll off third in the 43-car field for the 400-lap/600-mile race.
Mark Martin, No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Impala SS, will start fourth with Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe’s Impala SS, starting fifth.
Read more
Button puts Brawn on Monaco pole
May 23, 2009
If the off-season is known as “silly season”, this year’s regular season of F1 racing might be, to steal a line from Matchbox 20, a “Mad Season”. The little team that could, Brawn, has put their car on pole for the 2009 Grand Prix of Monaco. Jenson Button has really figured out how to get the most out of the Brawn package, and has won four pole positions in six races.
Kimi Räikkönen will try to use his KERS advantage to overtake Button from the second position on Sunday. Räikkönen’s qualifying result was a huge improvement over the first four races of the season where his best starting position was seventh, and he qualified an abysmal 16th in Spain two weeks ago.
Lewis Hamilton crashed. The champ was expected to take his newly tricked our McLaren to the front, but took it into a tire barrier instead in Q1. He’ll start 16th.
The UK Times has more on Button’s big day.
STARTING GRID
Pos Driver Team 1 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 3 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 4 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 6 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 7 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 8 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 9 Fernando Alonso Renault 10 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 11 Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 12 Nelson A. Piquet Renault 13 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Mercedes 14 Sebastien Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 15 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 16 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 17 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 18 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 19 Jarno Trulli Toyota 20 Timo Glock Toyota
FastMachines.com Radio Episode #30
May 14, 2009
Chris and Josh mix it up with the Pressdog over F1 and the Indy 500 qualy hoopla and build up. We talk politics, racing, and customer service! That’s right, Pdoggy-dog is still on the whole “customers” thing…imagine that. :) Maybe if the IRL and NASCAR listened to them they’d have higher TV rankings.
Let us know what you think by commenting on this posting, or shoot Chris, George and Josh an email by sending to radio@fastmachines.com. Also check us out on Twitter “@fastmachines.
Click below to listen to us right now in your browser…
Click here to download the MP3 of this week’s podcast and load it on your iPod or whatever you listen to your tunes on.
Castroneves & Briscoe give Penske 1-2 start for Indy
May 9, 2009
Helio Castroneves braved the gusty conditions at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon and put his Penske Dallara on pole for “the 500″. Castroneves knocked fellow Penske driver, Ryan Briscoe, off the top of the charts with a four lap average of 224.864 mph. Castroneves claimed his third career pole at the Brickyard.
Castoneves was ecstatic about the results, and was full of emotions in his post qualifying interviews. “After everything we have been though lately, this is just incredible”, said the two-time Indy 500 winner. “I just have to thank my team, Roger (Penske), Tim (Cindric), my family, my girl friend and everyone who has had faith in me. This is what I know. Racing is my life. Our cars have been extremely strong since we arrived here. Today was about finding the ‘edge’. If the car feels too good, then it’s not fast enough. We were able to squeeze every bit of speed out of the car today.”
TV ALERT: VERSUS delivers six hours of coverage of Pole Day
May 9, 2009
TV ALERT: The VERSUS network is providing six hours of coverage from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today with unprecedented coverage of Pole Day. Coverage started at 12 p.m. ET and will continue until the track closes this evening.
Kenseth leads Darlington starting lineup
May 9, 2009
Matt Kenseth captured a rare pole on Friday for the Southern 500 at Darlington. Kenseth ran a lap of 179.514, setting a new track record to capture his first pole position of the 2009 season. He will come to the green flag tonight with Jeff Gordon on the outside of row 1.
“It was a great lap for us,” said Kenseth in the post qualifying press conference. “You can only go as fast as the car will carry you and (crew chief) Drew (Blickensderfer) and (team engineer) Chip (Bolin) and all these guys on the DEWATL team did a great job of giving me a fast car today, so I’m really looking forward to tomorrow night.”
FastMachines.com Radio Episode #29
May 7, 2009
It’s the month of May so that means the start of Indy 500 talk on the FastMachines Podcast. Chris, George & Josh talk about the favorites to win and the happiest man in Indy this month. There’s of course much F1 chatter as well as a look forward at this weekend’s race in Spain. We also talk a bit of sports car - Grand Am, much to Chris’ chagrin - and we find out that a famous cartoon character is running Funny Car this year. ** NOTE: listen in to learn how to win a 2009 Daytona 500 hat autographed by Mr. Jeff Burton **
Let us know what you think by commenting on this posting, or shoot Chris, George and Josh an email by sending to radio@fastmachines.com. Also check us out on Twitter “@fastmachines.
Click below to listen to us right now in your browser…
Click here to download the MP3 of this week’s podcast and load it on your iPod or whatever you listen to your tunes on.
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