Monday Morning Crew Chief
Written by Jonathan Ingram · June 30, 2008
Ten For The Weekend
1. The Unification High Is Over, Or Should Be — The Indy Racing League is now in charge of open-wheel racing in North America, but apparently has lost control of its races. The starts and re-starts at Richmond on Saturday night that led to a near-record 102 caution laps were an abomination. Another show in front of an excellent crowd gets undone. This is a perennial problem on short ovals and road courses, where the drivers in various parts of the field lag back, then havoc breaks loose as they approach the flagstand. Now that there’s no rival series, a dictatorial approach by the IRL would go a long way in these cases. Perhaps the sense of entitlement by the teams and drivers, who always had an ace up their sleeve when they were two competing series, would then begin to disappear as well.
2. Dodge Backs In Again — Poor fuel mileage from the Dodge engine led Kurt Busch to pit early at New Hampshire on a fuel gambit. The strategy paid off for Penske Racing when rain caught out the front runners on a standard pit schedule for tyres. Too bad. It would have been nice to see if Tony Stewart could have caught his old pal Busch, who would have been on higher mileage tires, in the closing laps. Earlier this year, Kasey Kahne beat Stewart in Charlotte after Kahne was forced to pit early due to a lack of fuel mileage in the Gillett Evernham Dodge, which then rolled the dice by skipping a last stop for tires.
3. Kyle Busch Vs. Juan Montoya on the Golden Mile — Who do you like in this brouhaha between Rowdy and JPM? Shepherding another competitor into a position where he has to lift or crash is an age-old art form in Formula 1, Montoya’s previous stop on his world tour. It’s also a long appreciated tactic among the good ol’ boys of the Sprint Cup. This approach always gives a driver a plausible denial. NASCAR sided with Busch and handed a penalty to Montoya after his retaliation for whatever went on before wrecked several cars on the front straight.
4. Marco Is Le Man For Le Mans — Marco Andretti will race with Franck Montagny in the Andretti Green Racing Acura at Lime Rock on July 12, a move precipitated by the intense competition among Honda’s factory-backed teams versus Audi and Porsche in the American Le Mans Series. All three of these manufacturers have their eye on expanding a share of the American market in the wake of the crumbling fortunes of GM, Ford and Chrysler, so the racing budgets will not stop expanding any time soon. Porsche and Honda have their eye on the Le Mans24-hour and the new rules for 2010 as well. Andretti, who will do double duty in the IRL race at Nashville, was the team’s fastest driver at Sebring and Montagny drove to the podium in a Peugeot at Le Mans. …Meanwhile, Audi has replaced Frank Biela with Le Mans winner Dindo Capello for Lime Rock, a major, um, policy shift in search of more speed.
5. Mears Finds Speed — For the second straight week, at New Hampshire Casey Mears found some speed in the wake of his looming departure from Hendrick Motorsports. Hendrick is ready to install 18-year-old Landon Cassill, pole winner in the Nationwide race at New Hampshire, in No. 5 and Mears wants to re-locate during the silly season shake-up at hand. All will be sorted once Tony Stewart either signs for more money from Joe Gibbs or switches to an ownership deal at Haas CNC Racing.
6. Rossi Falls On His Assen — A rare unforced error by Valentino Rossi in the Dutch MotoGP and a victory by Casey Stoner has tightened the points chase that includes Dani Pedrosa. Is this a sign of age in the Italian? Could this be the beginning of the end? Ah, didn’t he set one of the race’s fastest laps with a bent handlebar and broken shifter after getting back on?
7. The Secret Is Out — Remember those terrible tires that brought so many complaints about Goodyear from drivers in Atlanta back in March? Well, it seems NASCAR wanted tires with more “give up” from the manufacturer to generate more passing as the laps wound on and some drivers used up their rubber. When those tires turned to stone towards the end of stints, the howls began. More recently, NASCAR/Goodyear have quietly gone back to the more consistent version with less give up. That produces racing from pit window to pit window and track position type races for the millionaires who prefer a smooth ride. (See New Hampshire, where fuel strategy and track position dictated the victory.)
8. Horrors! More Testing — In preparation for the British Grand Prix, last week Lewis Hamilton completed 250 laps of testing for McLaren Mercedes. (Perhaps there was some penance involved for two consecutive race penalties, but still… .) And, Robert Kubica called for more development by BMW to stay even with Ferrari and McLaren. Why not discourage so much testing by eliminating the use of tracks on the schedule? Everybody could build their own test tracks like Ferrari, but wouldn’t that make more sense? Meanwhile, back in the states, NASCAR’s John Darby suggested opening up the door to no limits on testing for Sprint Cup teams at tracks scheduled to host races. The major teams already run test teams at non-Sprint Cup tracks virtually around the clock. Why not just limit NASCAR teams to one major sponsor and cut off the cash flow?
9. Dan Davis Retires — Running Ford Racing Technology during a period of dwindling budgets and on a rapidly changing landscape was no easy task and Davis deserves a break from the action in favor of Brian Wolfe. The expectations for Ford and racing are always high, recently contrary to the budgets. (See F1 and the demise of Jaguar after the demise of Jackie Stewart’s team. See also the rise of Jack Roush as the chief decision-maker in Ford’s NASCAR program, where he created Roush-Yates Engines by virtue of writing a hefty check to Robert Yates. See, finally, the sale of Cosworth.) In addition to three NASCAR Sprint Cup championships and eight straight Funny Car titles in the NHRA, the Davis legacy includes the development of Ford “Blue Box” crash data recorders now very much needed in the NHRA.
10. Edwards Has The Ride Of The Day? — For once, American rider Colin Edwards may have out-shone fellow Yamaha rider Valentino Rossi. Having dropped to the rear of the field in the Dutch MotoGP due to Rossi’s spill, Edwards came through the pack to finish third at the wire ahead of fellow American Nicky Hayden.
Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com.
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