Winners and Losers - Kansas

[GP Racer]

My winners -

1 - AGR, for doing a superb sand bagging job on everyone! They were awsome today...

2 - Chevy, who is now so competitve, I can't see them leaving this series any longer.

3 - Kansas Speedway, for again packing the house! These crowds are very likely to keep both Honda and Chevy here. Has anyone else noticed the big crowds since Indy?

My Losers -

1 - Scott Dixon, who appears to have just given up. He beat only Jimmy Kite. By Ganassi's comments today, he obviously believes that Briscoe is his best driver. Scott could very well be gone for next year.

2 - Scott Sharp, while not really a loser, is just frustrating as hell! He constantly drops way back, then always comes back and gets into the top 3, but never leads, and never wins. Can he win?

Not many losers today, it was a clean, exciting race!

Who are your winners and losers?

[Knowlesy]

Superb, clean race and a great finish. Made up for the slightly soporific F1 and GP2 races in Magny Cours today!

[infoxicated]

Winners
Tony Kanaan - great drive, great finish.
Dan Wheldon - didn't let Tony gain on him by much.
Panther - good solid finish by both cars.
Scott Sharp - looked really racey today.
The fans in Kansas - what a race to witness!

Losers
RHL - other than Vitor, Danica and Buddy lost 16 places combined from the start.
Bryan Herta - disquiet in the ranks, but if Bryan is going to grumble he's got to start producing better than 15th when the rest of his team are in the top four.
Barnhart's credibility - if Enge warranted a penalty last week, then Scheckter should have been driving through today for that undertaking move on Kanaan.

[Snrub]

Winners:
* Kansas/IRL - While the term "packed" would be incorrect due to a lot of empty seats randomly distributed, there were a heck of a lot of people there.
* Meira - Consistantly at the front while his teammates languished in the back. Obviously he was doing something that his Rice couldn't.

Losers:
* Us for having to hear about Danica constantly. Personally I don't care about her if she's in 16th not doing anything!
* Ganassi - I still cannot get use to a team that once had a record period of performance that only Penske can relate to, relagated to backmarker status. It's not like they have poor drivers either. We're talking about championships in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, should have 2000 if not for reliability, 2nd 2002, championship 2003! They were US OW's Ferrari equivilant.
* Rice - He's had some really off times this season. He's gone from one of the stars to near also ran status.

[drdisque]

I think Sharp's problem is that the Aguri/Fernandez team has only 2 cars this year and get no useful testing data from Matsuura because he's rather inexperienced and his english is still quite poor.

Scheckter was not penalized because per Barnhart's instruction, he let Kanaan pass him.

[Tim Northcutt]

When Sharp got up to 3rd, and challenged for 2nd, he got pinched in the middle between an inside car he tried to pass and a car on the outside trying to pass him...

He had nowhere to go and the hole in front of him was closing fast....thus he let off the throttle and dropped to about 12th....

Did a nice job of fighting his way back up to 6th, though....

Just in the wrong place at the wrong time....that's just racing luck...

He drove a good race on Sunday....a very good race....

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by GP Racer

1 - AGR, for doing a superb sand bagging job on everyone! They were awsome today...

It is interesting that they don't seem to be so dominant in qualifying. Do you think it is a set-up thing with their car, or do they just not care about qualifying? Wheldon said that it is something they would like to get sorted in Autosport last week though.

[GP Racer]

Originally Posted by AdamAshmore

It is interesting that they don't seem to be so dominant in qualifying. Do you think it is a set-up thing with their car, or do they just not care about qualifying? Wheldon said that it is something they would like to get sorted in Autosport last week though.

Well, my guess is they care about qualifying, but there not going to sacrifice a good race set-up to get it.

On the superspeedways, they always seem to have the power and speed to catch-up no matter where they qualify, so I think Wheldon maybe playing up the "frustration" AGR has had with qualifying!

Just watch Kannan slice through the field, coming from last to first in a matter of 3-5 laps. Pretty awesome stuff!

[Adam43]

I thought that too. They can't care too much where they are on the grid, because they all have the car and the talent to get to the front very quickly and (importantly) continue to stay there until the end.

[infoxicated]

Originally Posted by GP Racer

I think Wheldon maybe playing up the "frustration" AGR has had with qualifying!

I don't know what Wheldon was playing at there - to be moaning about qualifying when you've just had a one-two finish is a bit much.

TK said that he didn't work on qualifying at all - something to the affect of dialing in his race set-up, sticking some new tyres on it and qualifying. For a track like Kansas you can kind of get away with that, especially with the Honda engine, but he better get used to qualifying a bit better on those road courses we could be seeing more of.

[drdisque]

I think they know that as long as they put down a lap they'll be at worst 12th-14th and be ahead of most of the Toyotas and probably the Fernandez & D&R cars so all they'll have to pass are the cars they'll be racing anyway, the Rahal, Panther, and Penske cars.

[Adam43]

That is true, qualifying is less of an issue on an oval. I guess they may well have a different programme on road courses which gives greater importance to qualifying.

I don't think Dan was whinging about qualifying he is just stating what a lot of people have said. He said they always turn it around for the race and also said "it is frustrating for all the team". So it isn't just him.

[GP Racer]

Originally Posted by infoxicated

This quote was from a post which has subsequently been removed.

Dan is the kind of driver that you just want to see win, because he looks like he is having so much fun out there. No pretensions, no airs. He is a kind of a throwback figure, like the kind of drivers we used to have, that would be happy driving a race car for beer money!