My final Miami thoughts '02

[Lee Janotta]

Kanaan: Tony, jeez, use your mirrors!!!

Paul Tracy: I _love_ watching this guy drive. Opposite-lock out of nearly every corner, kissing the wall... His car control is simply immense! A shame he's always been plagued with bad luck, and something of a lack of racecraft.

Jimmy Vasser: You were kidding, right?

The track: This course starting off awful on Friday, became undrivable on Saturday, and _finally_ became barely usable on Sunday, thanks to the support and ALMS races breaking in the pavement. But it's still horrible. When you have _no_ place to pass, drivers will inevitibly make kamikaze moves like Vasser did. Fix it or move the race to Sebring, but it can't stay this way.

That chicane right after the pits had better be gone next season!

[Jay]

I don't know... for all the whining from certain drivers, I thought the course worked out pretty well in the end. It could use another passing zone though, which will hopefully come next year.

All that aside, this is one of Cart's best venues. A jewl on the calendar. I hope Cart continues to come here year after year with their friends in ALMS.

[Liz]

Pirro did some race commentary on the radio feed and he had many complimentary things to say about the racing. "Not like Formula One," he said, "You can't fall asleep!" Except for that one section where it was so slick you could see the cars reflected in the surface, it wasn't much worse than Monaco and everyone seemed to be having fun.

[jcclausen]

It was a fun race. I would say the course is a bit short. The chicane is nonsensical. The ambiance of the race itself rivals that of Long Beach. I disagree with moving it to an abandoned air strip (Sebring)in the middle of nowhere. Street races in major cities are exactly what CART needs. The purists among us may disagree, but purists don't pay the bills. The three day crowds like those in attendance at Miami do. I for one would much rather watch a race at a proper road race track, but it's the other 99,999 go-through-the-gate people who count. I'm already looking forward to St. Pete next February.

[tanalised]

I was patriotically gutted to see Kanaan put Dixon into the wall on the 18 th lap. I gripped the armrests of my comfy chair and swore viciously at Kanaan, the traitorous b@stard that he is. Despite my one eyed view of the affair I thought Scott had the inside line and the momentum to take Kannan at the corner and Tony drifted into him well before the braking zone. I also thought Dixon would win today based on his speed this weekend and the way he stayed with Kanaan the whole 18 laps he had in the race.

Other than that I quite enjoyed the race!
Now how do I do the beer thingy again?

[brightline]

I agree with jcclausen. Moving any CART event or adding an event at Sebring would be cutting the St. Pete races throat. It's the same market! Everyone's keeps saying they want a race at Sebring...It would be the same fans, same TV market, no real benefits. Besides CART need Miami and Miami needs CART.

Sebring is a nice little community but they don't even have there own TV station to my knowledge, The pick up Tampa and Sarasota stations.

Sebring would only work if it was the same weekendas as the 12 hours which wouldn't benefit the ALMS because that weekend stands on its own just fine. Also, adding another race at Sebring would not bring out the fans (remember Andy Evans Octoberfest with the then WSC cars (LMP) and the FIA GT series, there were only a few thousand fans!) Another point (not to put down sebring's fan base, because I love that track) is that half the locals that are in attendance don't even watch the race, they are just there for redneck spring break. They turn the infield into a shanty town and try and get drunk girls to flash them. These are not the most sophisticated people in the world and not appreciative of what CART does.

Anyone who has spent the weekend camping at Sebring can back me up on this one. By saturday afternoon you are ankle deep in beer cans in the fenced off walkways.

[kdr]

i only occasionally watch cart or irl...but the crowds at yesterdays race, compared with the empty seating at irl - it just makes me wonder whats going on in the head of penske, target, toyota, honda et al.

but what do i know...i only watched in the hope of catching some of the alms!

[Liz]

Pook said their figures were 75,000 to 100,000 for the weekend which sounds low to me. Of course, it's hard to judge when you are watching a street race. I was glad to see so many people stayed to watch the Trans Am, which was a very exciting race too (although Johnny Miller seemed to have got into the stupid-pills this weekend too.)

Once they get that one corner complex sorted out, this race should be marvelous.

You're right about Sebring, it's pretty well self contained and the camping is terrible compared to what we get at other races unless you can camp with the marshalls at the SCCA. Even a lot of the ALMS people complained about the number of rednecks cluttering up the place, although they did seem to keep to their cantonment most of the time. One of them hit our car and didn't bother to leave a note or anything, too.

I love Sebring though and plan to return next year. And I'd love to go to Miam too!

[Crash Test]

What a horrible, stupid, terrible track. CART and ALMS deserve waaayyy better then that. There was one possible overtaking position on the track, and it was too bumpy for many people to overtake. The layout in general was shocking- way too narrow, and how bad was the track surface? That was a joke! People (ie engineers) have been making race tracks for a long time now, and there are a lot of good street circuits in North America for lessons to be leart from. This effort would be something a pre-school kid would design for Mario Kart... Great setting though, but at what cost do we sacrifice racing? Whoever was responsible for this should be taken out the back and given a clip over the ears.

[/rant]

[Flatspot]

Thank goodness they already have plans to change the track for next years race. Hopefully they will get some surface experts that know what they're doing too!

The attendance figures seem to be about what Pook says were by intentional design. Get 'em in the first time, check to make sure what you can handel and move it up from there. That way you won't have the problems Rockingham had last year which probably kept many away from the race there this year. Seems logical to me!