Drivers hate miami

[Dov]

I'm in Toronto, which is about 2 hours from where Macdaddy lives and the race was live here on CBS. Im assuming that Macdaddy could have watched it live, but I could be wrong?

[429CJ]

But the accident of Servia was clearly because of those bumps. Race course shouldn't look like the test track rumble strip.

[macdaddy]

Not to worry, BobbyB... It was very much my own fault. "4PM" was ingrained into my brain, and I forgot that the race was already won-and-lost by then! And if Dov watched it on CBS then I probably could've too! Didn't even think to look, as our household was tuned into the trusty "Cartoon Network" at the time!

[Liz]

I have nothing to say about Bruno until I calm down. If he isn't fined and given detention by Newman-Haas, it'd be a darned shame.

Although I would have prefrered Bourdais to find Tracy when he went looking for him. How long would that fight have lasted? (Please express your answer in nanoseconds.)

[MLM]

I'm not too happy with Bruno, either, amiga
He threw away a GREAT chance to close in on the championship.
And, he took out Tiago, also.

[BobbyB]

Hey, all this tumultuous action is what keeps us coming back for more, right? Who could have guessed the screwball tangles that were to take place today? Never a dull moment!

[Tenoch]

Last year i hated that track this year i hate it even more it looks like a one lane tunnel with the trees and the concrete barricades and the bumps, if this race is such a succes why don't they get a good facility going after all i doubt it anyone goes to see the race.

[Snrub]

I was in London 1/2-1 hour from Chatham and could have watched it. I didn't want to go to the effort of taping F1 so I watched it first. (I know, I know...)

Why the didn't do something about that bump I don't know. Grind it down, use concrete to smooth it out...

Bourdais isn't stupid, he kept his helmet on.

[Dov]

Originally posted by Liz
Although I would have prefrered Bourdais to find Tracy when he went looking for him. How long would that fight have lasted? (Please express your answer in nanoseconds.)

I say about 10/10ths!

[evo]

I'm glad they didn't get rid of the bump. It makes it more challenging for the drivers.

[Crash Test]

I thought people were smarter than that. The track last year was the worst thing, well, ever. So what do they do? Make another shocker! Why not revive the Roval in the car park at Ceasers Palace? At least at place like Long Beach and Surfers Paradise, the tracks have their bumps and are far from perfect, but they do offer three or four genuine overtaking spots.

Imagine if at the Athens Olympics they made the running track 50% narrower than normal and used marbels for the surface because they couldn't be bothered putting effort into it...

[Dov]

Well, some people liked the race......

Posted on Mon, Sep. 29, 2003

IN MY OPINION
Only in Miami: Road rage and mayhem merge beautifully
COMMENTARY / GREG COTE
gcote@herald.com

Tempers flare in the heat of competition at Miami

I t was just what you would expect, really, in downtown Miami when the traffic is heavy. Tempers. Road rage. Accidents. Coarse language. Drivers chasing one another.

That's during normal rush hour, when your biggest concern is weaving SUVs driven by gun-packing businessmen and honking minivans steered by middle-finger waving soccer moms dueling to see who can blast under the yellow light first.

This was not normal rush hour, however. Not even for Miami. Not Sunday afternoon alongside Biscayne Boulevard and the Bay downtown.

This was rush hour on speed.

Between concrete walls.

With 19 guys in cars capable of 240 mph.

And all of those machines funneled into a narrow 1.2-mile track.

With 13 sharp turns.

Not to use technical, gearhead jargon or anything, but there is an official name for this type of racing. It is:

COMPLETE INSANITY!

Mario Dominguez from Mexico City didn't so much win Sunday's CART Champ Car Grand Prix Americas as he did survive the attrition, escape the mayhem.

''It feels amazing I tell you,'' said Dominguez. ``It's just unbelievable.''

Not sure if he meant winning, or crossing under the checkered flag having not banged a wall or spun out or at least been panhandled by a bum.

Have we mentioned the race was contested in the middle of Hades?

At least that's how it felt as our Chamber of Commerce sun blistered in and turned the track hotter than the Florida Marlins.

''My face literally felt like it was burning,'' said driver Ryan Hunter-Reay of Boca Raton, one of nine entries not to finish. ``I don't think I have ever been so hot in my life.''

Narrow tracks can sometimes render CART races surprisingly uneventful, because conditions make passing extremely difficult.

Uneventful was not a word for Sunday.

Only six cars were chasing Dominguez on the lead lap at the end. Had many more of these exotic beasts been knocked from the race, the winner, by default, would have been the pace car.

Horsepower and testosterone made a chaos cocktail all afternoon. The race was shaken, and stirred. And fast.

The drama began within seconds.

Pole-sitter Adrian Fernandez lost his lead right off the line but got it back dramatically at Turn 1 with a kamikaze dive inside of a shocked Bruno Junqueira, who played the field mouse to Fernandez's swooping, taloned hawk.

It wasn't long before Rodolfo Lavin was black-flagged and penalized for blocking, which happens when stubborn drivers (or those with a death wish) do not accommodate the monsters growing fast in their rear-view mirror.

The real fun started on Lap 69 when series rookie Sebastien Bourdais, who lives in Key Biscayne, and series points leader Paul Tracy played bumper cars and spun, ending the day for both. Bourdais had passed Tracy, who retaliated and pinched Bourdais from behind, tossing the Frenchman into a tire wall.

Bourdais stormed after Tracy, bursting past race officials and over a concrete wall into Tracy's pit, where only the fortuitous absence of Tracy prevented a certain confrontation.

''He made a pass at me, and I was just trying to get it back,'' explained Tracy later. ``It was my fault.''

Bourdais remained irate well after the race. ''It was a really stupid thing to happen,'' he said.

Another mishap cost Fernandez the race. On Lap 93, he was rear-ended by Junqueira and pushed into Roberto Moreno, who had slipped aside to let the faster cars pass. Fernandez, who finished eighth, sat in his spun-around car in the shadow of the Intercontinental Hotel, slamming a fist on his steering wheel.

''It was my mistake,'' admitted Junqueira.

''Just a bad mistake on Bruno's part,'' agreed Fernandez.

Tempers were not finished flaring.

Alex Tagliani was erased from the race on Lap 101 when Alex Sperafico, a rookie, dove into him. ''This is very difficult to accept,'' Tagliani said. ``This is unacceptable for guys to destroy the race of guys on the lead leap.''

The chaos even spilled off the track, into a collision on pit row for which Michel Jourdain was sent to the back of the field, costing him the lead.

At the end, the winner stood atop the postrace podium like a tree that survived a forest fire. Dominguez, 27, is fluent in Spanish and English and also speaks some French and Italian, so he can say, ''Whew!'' in several languages.

Despite Sunday's calamities -- or perhaps because of them -- major-league street racing reaffirmed itself as an asset for Miami, perfect for a place trying to be ''The Magic City'' again. Miami and open-wheel racing fit each other. Its return last year after a seven-year absence marked a political victory and image enhancement for a city without enough of those.

The 150 countries fed Sunday's telecast saw not only cars that sound like thunder and move like lightning, but also a backdrop that makes this street race so colorful, nearly surreal. Over there, the cars were blasting alongside a cruise ship as yachts and sailboats bobbed on the bay. Over here, the machines were biting hard on sharp turns beneath the Freedom Tower.

The tempers inside Sunday's race flared and will fade.

The postcard pictures and sonic boom of this weekend will last longer.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...te/6887203.htm

[indycool]

Well, Greg Cote has a decidedly different idea of what Champ Car racing oughta be than mine. I'm no super racing purist by any means, but the idea of 240 mph Champ Cars trundling around a street course at averages of 75-80 mph and running into each other because they're unsuited for the race track and the race track is unsuited for them....well, as he pointed out, middle-finger-pointing soccer moms can put on that kind of show.

[Flatspot]

Although not the world's best venue, this is part of the diversity that makes ChampCar... well,ChampCar. Some days your stuck in a concrete funnel where a cool head and a little luck makes the race come to you (applause to Dominguez). Other days you can drive flat out on superspeedways going over 200mph three wide in a corner. Then of course there is everything in between.

As Mr. Cote suggests, the race was highly entertaining in spite of itself.

[indycool]

Guess it's entertaining to wad up a bunch of expensive toys. Does that appeal to the CART fan who, Pook says, "doesn't drink Bud, smoke Winstons or drive pickup trucks?"

[MLM]

You can't say that Bourdais doesn't have courage.

[Flatspot]

Wadding up cars is certainly not the point and that's the downside. Watching drivers use their head, lose their head, make good drives, make bad stupid mistakes, drive on a track that is both mentally and physically demanding while conserving or wasting their equipment, gaining on the championship or throwing it away...this race produced all of these results and yes, I personally find that entertaining.

[Liz]

The real fun started on Lap 69 when series rookie Sebastien Bourdais, who lives in Key Biscayne, and series points leader Paul Tracy played bumper cars and spun, ending the day for both. Bourdais had passed Tracy, who retaliated and pinched Bourdais from behind , tossing the Frenchman into a tire wall.

Bourdais stormed after Tracy, bursting past race officials and over a concrete wall into Tracy's pit, where only the fortuitous absence of Tracy prevented a certain confrontation.

'' He made a pass at me, and I was just trying to get it back,'' explained Tracy later. ``It was my fault.''

So, after Bourdais made a pass at Tracy, Tracy pinched his behind, and that made Bourdais come storming over to Players' pitlane ... swinging his handbag, I take it?

What a hilarious description of a race by someone who obviously has never attended a race in his life before this one but enjoyed whatever it was he thought he was seeing!

[429CJ]

No-one should criticise Tracy, he's God almighty, who died for our sins.