Round 14: Grand Prix of Portland, Portland International Raceway. Sept 11-12

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 14: Grand Prix of Portland, Portland International Raceway. Sept 11-12

After a three week gap the IndyCar series resumes at Portland, which was cancelled last year because of the coronavirus. Portland as a race venue, returned to AOWR in 2018 after an 11 year hiatus, having previously been part of the CART/Champ Car schedule from 1984-2007.

Portland International Raceway is part of the Delta Park complex, on the former site of Vanport, which is just south of the Columbia River. The venue hosts ICSCC, SCCA and OMRRA road racing as well as the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West and SCCA autocross events.

The city of Vanport was hastily built by Henry Kaiser in 1942, to house World War II shipyard workers. With a population of more than 40,000, it was the second largest city in Oregon at the time and the largest public housing project in the USA. Vanport lay between the contemporary Portland city limits and the Columbia River, on reclaimed lowlands and protected by dykes. Tragically, after weeks of heavy rain, the dykes failed at 4.17pm on Memorial Day, May 30, 1948. A 10 foot high wall of water rushed in killing 15 people, flooding the entire city and destroying all the buildings. With no prospect of Vanport being habitable, it was abandoned.

In 1960, the city of Portland bought the land from the Army Corps of Engineers for $175,000. Racing enthusiasts saw the potential of the land and the Portland Rose Festival Association was persuaded to sponsor a race and so the Rose Cup was born, with its first running in June 1961. The race has been an important part of the Rose Festival ever since.

However, racing on the old city streets was dangerous, with drivers leaving the track unexpectedly or colliding with leftover concrete foundations or even finding themselves driving into ponds! Under threat of losing the Rose Cup races, as many of the sanctioning bodies refused to back races due to the deteriorating roads, the track was finally paved in the 1970s.

Funded by a $100,000 loan arranged by the Rose Festival Association from four banks, all of the monies were paid back by 1973 and the facility has operated as a commercial enterprise ever since, generating a profit for the City of Portland and meaning it requires zero funding by the taxpayer.

In 1975, the track changed its name from West Delta Park, to Portland International Raceway and hosted the third round of the Trans-Am Series, the premier series of the Sports Car Club of America, which was won by John Greenwood, driving a Chevrolet Corvette, who went on to win the championship that year.

On June 17, 1984, Portland hosted the fifth round of the CART PPG/IndyCar series, Stroh's 200 Miles, though for nearly its entire existence, the title sponsor of the race was G.I. Joe's sporting goods and auto parts store. It was won by Al Unser, Jr, in a March 84C-Cosworth DFX, driving for Galles Racing. The race became a perennial on the calendar, up until the last race as a Champ Car event on June 10, 2007, which was won by Sébastien Bourdais, in a Panoz DP-01-Cosworth XFE driving for Newman/Haas/Lannigan Racing. The race was notable for two things. It was the first standing start in Champ Car history, with all 17 cars getting away from the grid and there were caution periods.

Like many tracks on the IndyCar calendar, Portland has undergone a number of changes.

In 1984, prior to hosting the fifth round of the CART/PPG IndyCar series, the track underwent some $800,000 worth of improvements. Most noticeably was to the track itself, with the addition of a chicane, known as the 'Festival Curves', toward the end of the main straight, while a permanent pit lane and paved paddock area was installed for the first time on the infield. Elsewhere, Victory Boulevard was widened and concrete barriers and fencing were installed along the inside of its entire length. The final turn was also repaved and widened near the new pit entry road. The entire front straight, Vanport's Cottonwood Street, was also repaved. The changes increased the track length to 1.967 miles (3.165 km).

By 1992, the speed of the CART race cars need to be slowed and the Festival Curves were reconfigured into a much tighter chicane and paved in concrete. The Festival Curves were again modified for the 2005 season, with the second turn widened and made faster to try and alleviate the traditional first lap pile-up.

In 2008 PIR went through a further track renovation, with a complete resurfacing with new asphalt and the reconfiguration of Turns 4 to 7. The fence on the inside of turn 6 was moved to provide a better sight-line, while Turn 7 was sharpened, to slow cars down prior to entering the back straight. FIA-specification curbing was also installed around the track which opened in its new form on February 23, 2008, with a ribbon cutting ceremony.


Some trivia:
Driver with most wins: 3, Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr.
Team with most wins: 8, Newman/Haas Racing.


Original Track layout 1966-68:


Track layout 1971-1983:




Track layout 1992-2004:



Track layout 2008 to date:



Lap record:
Will Power, September 1, 2018. 57.2143, 123.577 mph (198.877 km/h).
Team Penske
Dallara IR18-Chevy Indy V6
Verizon IndyCar Series

Previous race:
https://www.motorsport.com/indycar/n...Bvalue%5D=2243

Previous Pole:
Colton Herta, 57.8111. 122.302 mph (196.825 km/h)
Harding Steinbrenner Racing
Dallara IR18-Honda HI19R Indy V6

Previous winner:
Will Power
Team Penske
Dallara IR18-Chevy IndyCar V6

Laps: 105
Distance: 206.22 miles (331.878 Kms)
Race Time: 1:58:43.
Speed: 104.225 mph (167.733 Km/h)
Fastest lap: Sebastien Bourdais, Dale Coyne Racing, lap 42. 59.0022 sec. 119.833 mph (192.852 km/h)

Cautions 3
Laps 18: 1-11, 14-16, 98-100.


Broadcast:
NBC. Sept 12, 3:00pm ET, 7:00pm UTC, 8:00pm BST
Sky Sports F1, 8:00pm BST

[mstets]

Thanks for the history. Could you add the 1984 track layout? I had cars racing there from 1983-1986 but don't remember what the 1984 chicane looked like.



Hunter Reay missed qualifying with an engine problem that showed up in the practice session, so his bad luck continues. Ganassi cars looking really strong.

[mstets]

Here is group 2 qualifying. I didn't get group 1 saved but the order was Ericsson, Rahal, Rossi, Chilton, Askew, O'Ward.

[mstets]

Fast 12 session.

[mstets]

Palou takes his first Indycar pole and closes the gap to points leader O'Ward to nine points.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying result:

Alex Palou takes his maiden pole, with a time of 58.7701, 1.55 seconds off the lap record which is 57.2143. The lap times have gone up in general over the season due to the Aeroscreen, which adds another 60 pounds to the weight of the car. Championship leader Pato O'Ward is 7th. Rookie Callum Ilott, made his IndyCar debut, starting in 19th.

None of the Penskes made the top ten, with the top Penske driver Power in 12th and top Chevy is Rosenqvist in 3rd.

There is a 27 car field.

[Teretonga]

Why is Palou in PNC Bank livery not NTT. Are both Dixon and Palou in the PNC Bank livery at Portland?

[mstets]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Why is Palou in PNC Bank livery not NTT. Are both Dixon and Palou in the PNC Bank livery at Portland?

Yes, both have PNC as primary sponsor.


Dixon was quickest in the warmup, followed by Newgarden, Jones, Palou, Harvey, Rahal, Sato, Rossi, Askew, and VeeKay. Interesting to see Newgarden near the top after being 18th in qualifying.

[broadrun96]

PNC works with the entire Ganassi program, and they are huge commercial and real estate bankers in the NW, not so much retail banking though.

[broadrun96]

Ah yes, turn 1 lap 1 at Portland

LOTS of overestimation of braking ability there

[broadrun96]

Pato to the front by luck of being in the right place to not be hit and avoid the leaders going through the cut through

Looks like Pato, Rahal then maybe the cars who cut and then further back since they were well in front. But who knows cause it's Indy

[broadrun96]

Looks like everyone that went through chicane are moved to the front

[broadrun96]

Hope no one hadn't watched Monza yet today, thanks NBC

[broadrun96]

Settling in after Turn 1 fun

Rahal looks steady and clean, Pato fast but the primary are slow for him and he lost the lead, the qualifying leaders are owing 2 more stops and not gaining on the front much. Seems like few are trying to stretch it to 2 stopper, feels like 3 and full bore all race over fuel save.

[broadrun96]

And now all the guys who were in the Turn1 fun and qualified well have shot to the front in the pit cycle with HELLA overcuts. Rahal went from catbird seat to falling through the field

[joeb]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

And now all the guys who were in the Turn1 fun and qualified well have shot to the front in the pit cycle with HELLA overcuts. Rahal went from catbird seat to falling through the field

This was such a strange race to me. After that first lap incident and all those cars getting cycled to the back, I thought the people in front would have controlled the race. But it turns out being cycled to the back and putting on lap nine was the strategy to have. So bizarre. It also didn't help that I turned away a few times to watch football and so as I was flipping back and forth I missed a lot of stuff in 10 lap stretches.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

And now all the guys who were in the Turn1 fun and qualified well have shot to the front in the pit cycle with HELLA overcuts. Rahal went from catbird seat to falling through the field

It seems that way but then reflect back. The guys there at the finish had gone through the chicane escape rather than crash into each other which would have caused a red flag.
Once sent back they pitted earl, about 8-9-10 when the field was still under yellow. Legal, but they had nothing to lose by it. That extended their run through the first stage and most of them pitted later than the cars pushed to the front when they were relegated.

They were generally faster than the cars/drivers who replaced them at the front but not significantly. But further yellows reduced fuel consumption and actually enabled them to run an alternative strategy that timed their fuels stops to the 80-85 lap area which gave them a straight run home.. the others had to stop around 75 laps but had to take on full fuel loads.
The drop back guys didn't require full reloads so could short-fill because they only needed enough to get home.
It takes longer to fill the tanks then to change a set of tires.

Running on full tanks towards the late end of the race was also a handicap....
And some made a bad choice re tires.
Entirely unpredictable but that's Indycar and why it tends to throw up interesting and unpredictable outcomes....

[mstets]

Did I mention that the Ganassi cars looked strong? I hate the way this race played out, with those that avoided contact on the first lap and stayed on track losing out to those that had contact and/or took the escape route. I'd be in favor of a single file start at Portland.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by mstets

Did I mention that the Ganassi cars looked strong? I hate the way this race played out, with those that avoided contact on the first lap and stayed on track losing out to those that had contact and/or took the escape route. I'd be in favor of a single file start at Portland.

Go and read Palou's comments regarding what actually happened to him. I wasn't watching the video play but he was very much the innocent party but was still penalized. It doesn't appear that anyone took responsibility for doing an analysis of what actually happened.
The most serious incidents were back in the pack.
If you take action but your action is non specific it doesn't do your cause or your movement a lot of good.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Go and read Palou's comments regarding what actually happened to him. I wasn't watching the video play but he was very much the innocent party but was still penalized. It doesn't appear that anyone took responsibility for doing an analysis of what actually happened.
The most serious incidents were back in the pack.
If you take action but your action is non specific it doesn't do your cause or your movement a lot of good.

I wasn't able to record the race and would need to see a replay, but it looked to me like Rosenqvist caused the turn 1 mess. Hard to say if Dixon and Palou would have made it through the corner otherwise, but Felix was not penalized and ended up sixth - ultimately benefiting from the turn 1 contact.

Wonder how AMSP feels about the issue. O'Ward was arguably the biggest loser from the turn 1 incident.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by mstets

I wasn't able to record the race and would need to see a replay, but it looked to me like Rosenqvist caused the turn 1 mess. Hard to say if Dixon and Palou would have made it through the corner otherwise, but Felix was not penalized and ended up sixth - ultimately benefiting from the turn 1 contact.

Apparently that is what happened.
Rosenquist braked late, hit Dixon lightly as he turned in, but that pushed him into Palou and both of them went wide failing to remain on the racing surface.
But they resumed further back in about 6 and 7. Rosenquist didn't even make the corner but just went straight ahead through the obstacles and back onto the circuit. missed T1 and 2 completely.

Dixon, Rossi, Palou etc penalized because they did not take the chicane properly.
It didn't make sense which was why Palou was confused (completely innocent party) and you can understand why.
Although it seems they weren't penalized they were. Its just that the penalties applied played out in helping them as the events in the race played out.
The penalties apply to the actions and are taken immediately for that incident. The final result plays out to what it is.
It wouldn't be reasonable to penalize them at the beginning for a racing infraction and insist that it determines the event result.

But there was also action further back with Grosjean hitting Hinchcliffe up and some people and Askew going sideways in the pack.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by mstets

I wasn't able to record the race and would need to see a replay, but it looked to me like Rosenqvist caused the turn 1 mess. Hard to say if Dixon and Palou would have made it through the corner otherwise, but Felix was not penalized and ended up sixth - ultimately benefiting from the turn 1 contact.

Wonder how AMSP feels about the issue. O'Ward was arguably the biggest loser from the turn 1 incident.

Here are the extended race highlights and they include an aerial shot of the Turn 1 incident.


https://youtu.be/pfPiYbPvreE

[broadrun96]

There was NO chance at that speed either Ganassi guys was making the corner regardless of the cars behind, poor angle and far too late on the brakes. They didn't even start to turn at all and were ahead of the insanity.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Race result:

Unfortunately I missed the race, so it will be highlights on YouTube as soon as they are available.

From reading the posts there was first corner chaos, like in 2018.

Palou's win puts him back in the lead by 25 points over O'Ward, with two races left. Exciting times.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

There was NO chance at that speed either Ganassi guys was making the corner regardless of the cars behind, poor angle and far too late on the brakes. They didn't even start to turn at all and were ahead of the insanity.

That was the way it looked to me. One of them might have made the turn but it's hard to picture both making it through.