Sebring Observations and Ponderings

[Lee Janotta]

Okay, first the observations. Nothing earth-shattering here, just trying to get the ball rolling on the post-race discussion:

1. I can't believe I watched the whole damn thing! I need a life!!! Or at least some way I can get paid for this.

2. Speed Channel's coverage was first-rate. It's not dead yet...

3. Damn good race!

4. Bryan Herta is a _very_ brave driver.

5. Sebring officials did an admirable job with the surface repairs.

6. Jim Matthews gets a podium! Good on ya! Panoz had miserable luck, but at least their engine ran well.

7. You've _really_ got to feel bad for the Alex Job Porsche that crapped out. What a shame.

8. Cadillac and MG: Good showing... They'll be threats by the Petit LeMans, perhaps sooner!

9. The Grand-Am cars beat the FIA entries. Hah! Take that, eastern hemisphere! (Heh, just kidding)

10. Dick Barbour _really_ made the wrong call with the Mugen powerplant. That car has no speed... I've said it before, he should have stuck with the Judd V8, put it in the Panoz, stripped down the weight and run it in LMP675. Then again, they may be giving him a truckload of money to do development on the engine before it appears in the next-generation Acura (Honda) NSX, which should be quite a challenge in GT once it finally appears.

11. You can't kill the snake!!! Finally, some _real_ teams bring their Vipers, instead of the Rent-a-Racer operation at AVR we saw last year!

Now, the ponderings. Behold my awesome befuddlement, mortals!

1. Do drivers sometimes walk away from perfectly good race cars? I never saw how badly the Doran Dallara-Judd was tweaked when it went into the tires, but I can't imagine it was so bad the car needed to be abandoned. So do drivers sometimes say "C'est la vie!" and leave the car, rather than limping it back to the pits and trying to get back into the race?

2. Can _anything_ stop the Joest freight train? This is _really_ taking a lot of fun out of the racing. And I don't think the winning car was even running flat-out at any point in the last 6 hours.

3. Better question: Are the Germans ever going to lose an endurance race?

4. What the hell happened to the Gunnar Racing Panoz? Were they running a Roush engine or something? Did they not have the suspension and aerodynamic updates the factory cars had? That car should have at least been running in the top ten.

5. Why no cool suits?! Those GTS drivers were cooking in their own juices!

6. Will Saleen please, PLEASE build a few road cars and work with the ACO to get these penalties lifted?! It's horribly unfair to the privateers who bought the cars to now be unable to compete with the 'vettes with only year-old cars.

[Es Nes]

dbr also droped the project. thankfully multimatic will continue to race/devople it. i personally really like that car combo.

GO JOEST/AUDI

[Fab]

12 hours, 2 audis again in the lead at the end, Panoz third 40' before the end but without success (difficult for Panoz to hold 12 hours, what will it be at le Mans : double !), and two Riley Scott beating the LM prototypes (shame !)...

Sad

I go to sleep, hope some will work before prequal in May...

Hope to see MG more and more : really good cars indeed !

I don't like the ascaris, but I have to admit they've done a really good job too...

My favourites are not here... bravo Audi !

[Abs]

1st. Herbert
2nd. Wallace
3rd. Smith

Maybe we will have something to cheer about at LM this year, even if it is an Audi whitewash!!

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Lee Janotta
4. What the hell happened to the Gunnar Racing Panoz? Were they running a Roush engine or something? Did they not have the suspension and aerodynamic updates the factory cars had?

No - this is Roadster #1, the original converted '97 GT1 car. It's just plain old.

5. Why no cool suits?!

Didn't you think the suits they had were cool enough?

[Dr. Austin]

It is just too bad that the champion Audi team can't raise their game just a little bit and get in there and fight for it. They really did make the factory team work for it right up until the end, but it really wasn't close. I don't care if Joest wins all the races because they are the absolute standard, but I'de like to see the outcome in doubt until the last couple of laps at least.

Cadillac was better, for sure, but they will never challenge Audi. first of all, the car, even before it broke, was not fast enough. And second of all, it broke. They are going to have to really find a turn of blazing speed if they are going to have any chance at all.

If you have a reliable car like the 99 Audi, you can work on making it faster. If you have a fast car like the Panoz was on a couple of occasions last year, you can work on reliability. But if you have neither, you are sunk. I'm afraid the new Cadillac is merely an interem step. This car will never be good enough against Audi.

Now a good example of a reliable car is the Matthews R@S Elan. The car finished second at Daytona and third yesterday. It is a really good car that just needs a twist of speed. Perhaps the installation of a Judd motor would help. They were only a few laps back, but I didn't see any reports of them having a delay due to mechanical problems. So, all they need is some speed and they will be right in there.

And the Dyson car was fourth (or fifth?). How many hundreds of thousands of miles does that old rag have on it anyway? What an old anvil!!!

The big disappointment for me was the Dallara going out so early. i would have like to see them get in there wheel to wheel with the Audis, just to see who had what.

And I would also like to have seen what would have happened had Kane's MG stayed in the fight. Even before the fuel and tire advantage had time to play itself out, the MG was already fighting the Champion car and cadillac.

so for now, it's time to go back to sniffing resin and epoxy until the next race. When would that be?

[Es Nes]

what set the caddys back so many laps? i was on the road and the hotel didnt have speed

i did catch the last few hours of live timings though. they seemed to be doing the same times as the leading two cars when i checked and they were doing 1.50-1.53s.

did anyone record the entire race? :\ *es hates highlighhts*

[choked_wasp]

The problem with "cool" suites is that they are meant for shorter sprint races, and after 12 hours at 160 degrees F. the water would be absolutely to hot. Another problem with them is that they take awhile to connect and disconnect.

The caddys had starter problems so they replaced them on both cars during the race.

[Es Nes]

starter problems? they still havent figured out how to constently start their cars? and this with the lmp02 being a new car? LOL i thought they would have learned that leason with the r&s designed car ...

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Dr. Austin
so for now, it's time to go back to sniffing resin and epoxy until the next race. When would that be?

Good question - is the April date for Miami still an option?

[Dr. Austin]

No. they have had to move the Miami race back to october. I didn't catch it all, but Don Panoz said it will run in conjection with the cart race in october. If there is a cart by october.

[Rick]

Hey Doc, just how serious are the Cart problems. Living next to the Gold Coast the media tends to gloss over the problems and all we get is "Indy on the Gold Coast rah, rah, bigger than ever, etc" and most people over here have no idea how bad the problems are.

[Dr. Austin]

I'm not sure this is the right forum for this, but your question will just cause a raging slagathon on the Indycar section. No one over there seems to have much of a sense of humor about these things. That's why I really don't give a s*** about either Indycar league anymore.

But if you look at the rising and falling fortunes of sportscar racing, you can see what a cyclical sport auto racing really is. Right now CART is in a crappy part of the cycle. Things looked bad, really bad, until Pook took over, but don't think the problems are over yet. CART is still hamstrung by being a public company, something they would be wise to use their warchest to buy themselves out of. I think they are going to struggle and lose some events, but they have too good of a product to be down too long.

The short answer is that they will be ok, but for awhile it is going to be a bumpy ride.

[choked_wasp]

Originally posted by Es Nes
starter problems? they still havent figured out how to constently start their cars? and this with the lmp02 being a new car?

It was the typical thing that everyone gets. The car gets too hot in the engine bay the metals expand (as we all know), and it locks up the starter. Corvette had that problem last year. However there is a simple solution to it, just take a Co2 extinguisher and blast the starter and it'll will cool down. So there must have been more to it than just the starter.

[Es Nes]

must be a gm problem then

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Dr. Austin
If there is a cart by october.

If there is a Miami race in October. I don't believe that.

Originally posted by Dr. Austin
I'm not sure this is the right forum for this

No it isn't. CART vs. IRL is older and colder than GrandAm vs. ALMS - tedious, unsavoury, unnecessary - as is single seater (and no, it is NOT called "open wheeler") racing altogether. I strongly doubt anyone here, or on any other sportscar forum, wants to hear about it. Please keep it out.

[Rick]

Sorry about that - didn't mean to start a fight. Not really up on the politics, saw the comment and was just asking while I was here.

[Logan]

Being here in the UK, I've got to wait until next Sunday until I can actually see any of the race (and even then it's a one hour highlights programme!), but it was good to see Johnny Herbert doing well and not the usual red nosed Audi taking all the glory, especially if the whole LM campaign is geared up to enable the Kristensen car to win for the third time.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the MG mix it with the big guys even if it was for a limited time before the suspension caused trouble, if the works cars are still fast and sort out the reliability issues before June who knows what could happen?!

And cybersdorf I know this is the Sportscar forum but I for one (and I think there are a few others) am as big a fan of F1 & CART as Sportscars. long Live motor sports in all its varied incarnations!

Logan.

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Logan
long Live motor sports in all its varied incarnations!

But not its tribulations, and polemics, and flaming, and other like that.

How about a separate "flames" forum? Why it is OBVIOUS that Jason Plato is God, and Mickey Shoemaker isn't, and CART sucks, and GrandAm won't survive 2002, and bla bla bla.....

[Liz]

Maybe you should start a thread called "Why is it obvious that..." and put all those things in it? Then we'd see how many other things turn out to be "perfectly clear" that aren't. To some people anyway.

===========

My observations and ponderings about Sebring:

1. The credentials appeared to have been assigned by throwing everybody's applications down the stairs. Mine gave me esentially what I needed but did not give me computer access; lots of other people of more status than I am did not get the access they needed and were not at all happy.

2. Sebring needs to hire some people with a clue. Or put up a big billboard with a circuit map on it. Or buy glasses for the people they hire. I was amazed how many people who could have SEEN what I was asking directions to from where they were standing, said "I've never heard of that."

3. Don't even ask about the autograph session.

4. As for the cars, though: Can you believe ...

a. That Sascha Maasen and Lucas Luhr drove the whole 12 hours WITHOUT A THIRD DRIVER and they WON THEIR CLASS? Can you keep that team down? NO!

b. That the Gunnar Jeanette Show won't soon be a major motion picture in a theatre near you? What a fun idea, to build a "bunker" of sandbags and camoflage around their paddock space and have jeeps and machine guns! Great party, guys.

c. That our fellow 10-Tenthers, the Sebah Motorsports Team, did such a marvelous job in practice and qualifying, and then their car perished 90 minutes into the show? Great effort, guys, anyway. I will be writing more about them this week, as I have a nice interview to pass along.

d. That Josh Beaulieu in a Barber Dodge set a faster lap time than about 40% of the ALMS field in qualifying?

e. That the Canadian marshalls, who did such a fine job all weekend, were reprimanded by the driver of the 46 car for displaying the Canadian flag at their corners? [However, Ron Fellows sure appreciated it and flashed his lights at each corner where our flag waved. Nice one, Ron!]

f. That nobody told Konrad Saleen that "we're only interviewing the winners" until they were on the press conference podium -- so they coolly held their OWN press conference right in the middle of the scheduled festivities? Quick thinking on their part and we appreciated it too.

P.S. The car mentioned above, which "the driver walked away from", was trashed. Quote from him as the marshalls rushed to his aid, "Oh I have trashed the car!" and upon being asked by the marshall on the corner, "Are you all right," he replied, "Only til my engineer gets here."

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Liz
d. That Josh Beaulieu in a Barber Dodge set a faster lap time than about 40% of the ALMS field in qualifying?

How long would he have lasted in the race, though, esp. without lights

e. That the Canadian marshalls, who did such a fine job all weekend, were reprimanded by the driver of the 46 car for displaying the Canadian flag at their corners?

46 was Carsport Holland - what problem could Messr. Hezemans, Kumpen, Capellari, or any Dutchman or Italian have with the Maple Leaf? Are you sure you didn't mean to implicate an American driver?

Maybe it's a new warning flag: "Caution - moose on the track - no overtaking!"

Anyway, I'm sure they were heartbroken - boo hoo, Mr. 46 (or whoever) doesn't like our flag, we'll never marshal again... - Next time Mr. 46 is trapped in a blazing wreck, I suggest slowly counting to ten before taking any action.

[Liz]

There were various suggestions made as to how to punish Mr. 46 for being ****ant about our flag, up to and including putting limberger on his engine cover. His explanation was that he thought it was a red flag and it confused him. Since the Marshalls were not waving it at him, I should have thought he would pay no attention to it. [I wonder what he thought the American flags meant: "Duck and cover" maybe?]

As for Josh, I imagine it would be about 1/2 lap until Rinaldo Capello ran over top of him and said "Geez, this track IS getting bumpy." But it was a surprise to me to see that those little things go that fast.

[SJ Spode]

Great to see the Ascari team and particularly local Sheffield driver Justin Wilson finish in 6th place.

2nd best result ever for an all British driver line up in an all British car

[cybersdorf]

Originally posted by Liz
...up to and including putting limberger on his engine cover.

You don't mean LUPberger, do you???

[Liz]

That would be my second choice.