Round 9: Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio. Lexington, Ohio. July 5 - 7

[joeb]

Originally Posted by dwh43scale

First time visitor to Mid Ohio; last saw IndyCar in 2017.
Photos of the weekend will follow but for the race watched from the grandstand. Hot for us Brits ! Enjoyed the race and the track.

Great race to get to see in person. The lack of yellow kept the flow going and allowed the different strategies to play out as they would.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by dwh43scale

First time visitor to Mid Ohio; last saw IndyCar in 2017.
Photos of the weekend will follow but for the race watched from the grandstand. Hot for us Brits ! Enjoyed the race and the track.

It was just hot hot hot the area. That was a warm day but seemed like tires and cars handled it. The crowd looked to be pretty good, it's on my list to get to one day as it's now second closest road course and the closest Indy road course is not great (Barber)

Originally Posted by joeb

Great race to get to see in person. The lack of yellow kept the flow going and allowed the different strategies to play out as they would.

I was surprised and realized when Grosjean spun we had a caution free race. Not sure starting 2 laps later but same procedure should count the caution

[chunterer]

Pato did well to soak up the pressure.

He's not judt about banzai moves and freakish car control.
Although that powerslide out of the last corner of the race was wonderful

Ericsson drove very well and as mentioned earlier, Sowery gave a great account of himself on his debut.

[dwh43scale]

Images from main and support races here. Despite the relatively high prevalence of fences for spectator snappers (by US standards) still lots of great spots to shoot from -

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjByVcA

Last saw IndyCar at Sears Point in 2017 - the last race of the boxy rear wing cars IIRC. Have never been convinced about the look of the aero screen (aesthetically not safety wise) but looked better in real life than I thought it would. Cars sounded good. Hopefully the hybrid issues (Dixon / stalling in pit lane) will be short lived and not detract from the racing.

Great performance by Toby Sowery; understand that Jack Harvey was in pain so good to see him finish.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by dwh43scale

Images from main and support races here. Despite the relatively high prevalence of fences for spectator snappers (by US standards) still lots of great spots to shoot from -

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjByVcA

Last saw IndyCar at Sears Point in 2017 - the last race of the boxy rear wing cars IIRC. Have never been convinced about the look of the aero screen (aesthetically not safety wise) but looked better in real life than I thought it would. Cars sounded good. Hopefully the hybrid issues (Dixon / stalling in pit lane) will be short lived and not detract from the racing.

Great performance by Toby Sowery; understand that Jack Harvey was in pain so good to see him finish.

Thanks for the photos.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

That's correct. No hybrid power in the pits, which IMHO, is pretty dumb, because we like sportscars!

i agree. Why not keep the system engaged in pit lane? If a car stalls when pitted, it seems safer to have the onboard starter functional rather than have the pit crew scrambling to get a starter over the wall and be exposed to traffic in a busy cramped pit lane.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

There aren't any vacant seats in F1 and if and when they do become available, F1 always looks first to F2 and F3 as they are sanctioned by the FIA.

Emphasis on available. The closure of F1 to new entrants seems short sighted to me. I'm glad that I was around when a talented driver from F2 or any other series stood half a chance of getting a start in F1. Even though the expense to field a team has gone up exponentially and Lord Hesketh wouldn't have a chance now, the series would be more interesting if there were more new drivers and entrants - every year.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by dwh43scale

First time visitor to Mid Ohio; last saw IndyCar in 2017.
Photos of the weekend will follow but for the race watched from the grandstand. Hot for us Brits ! Enjoyed the race and the track.

Are you living in the USA or on holiday? Good to hear that you enjoyed the race. What track in the UK would you think is similar? I am thinking of Oulton Park even though I've never seen it. Oulton was sort of the home track for Chevron, and I was working on a B24 when I first visited Mid Ohio. That B24 (chassis 24-73-02) won the first race of the 1973 UK F5000 season at Brands Hatch. I was hoping to find that it ran that year at Oulton Park but it seems it wasn't entered in either round in 1973. B24s finished 1, 2, 3, and 5 in the first round at Oulton and 1, 2, 3 in the 2nd. Interested to hear if the two tracks are similar. In Can-Am trim the B24 was good on fast tracks (Mosport, Road America, Road Atlanta, Edmonton) but we struggled at Mid Ohio. In practice our driver/owner got Tom Klausler to make a few laps in the car to see if he had any suggestions. He didn't go any quicker and when he got out his only comment was "That's a pretty nice car".


Sorry for the thread drift.

[mstets]

[QUOTE=broadrun96;4218340]It was just hot hot hot the area. That was a warm day but seemed like tires and cars handled it. The crowd looked to be pretty good, it's on my list to get to one day as it's now second closest road course and the closest Indy road course is not great (Barber)
/QUOTE]


What do you dislike about Barber? Of the current tracks that I haven't been to, Barber would be the one I'd most like to visit.

[mstets]

Originally Posted by dwh43scale

Images from main and support races here. Despite the relatively high prevalence of fences for spectator snappers (by US standards) still lots of great spots to shoot from -

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjByVcA

Last saw IndyCar at Sears Point in 2017 - the last race of the boxy rear wing cars IIRC. Have never been convinced about the look of the aero screen (aesthetically not safety wise) but looked better in real life than I thought it would. Cars sounded good. Hopefully the hybrid issues (Dixon / stalling in pit lane) will be short lived and not detract from the racing.

Great performance by Toby Sowery; understand that Jack Harvey was in pain so good to see him finish.

Thanks for the photos. Indycar needs someone like you to photograph the cars at the beginning of each race weekend so we can attempt to learn the new liveries before the race starts.

[broadrun96]

[QUOTE=mstets;4218551]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

It was just hot hot hot the area. That was a warm day but seemed like tires and cars handled it. The crowd looked to be pretty good, it's on my list to get to one day as it's now second closest road course and the closest Indy road course is not great (Barber)
/QUOTE]


What do you dislike about Barber? Of the current tracks that I haven't been to, Barber would be the one I'd most like to visit.

Sight lines outside of buying a museum pass are terrible, you have to be further away to see as the track is recessed from multiple fan areas. The track management is a clear and polite as mud, and something I've heard from multiple people who have visited and we found out ourselves. Managing traffic on the way out was completely crazy, by that I mean they seemed to go home first and leave it to everyone to figure out on their own

[dwh43scale]

Originally Posted by mstets

Are you living in the USA or on holiday? Good to hear that you enjoyed the race. What track in the UK would you think is similar? I am thinking of Oulton Park even though I've never seen it. Oulton was sort of the home track for Chevron, and I was working on a B24 when I first visited Mid Ohio. That B24 (chassis 24-73-02) won the first race of the 1973 UK F5000 season at Brands Hatch. I was hoping to find that it ran that year at Oulton Park but it seems it wasn't entered in either round in 1973. B24s finished 1, 2, 3, and 5 in the first round at Oulton and 1, 2, 3 in the 2nd. Interested to hear if the two tracks are similar. In Can-Am trim the B24 was good on fast tracks (Mosport, Road America, Road Atlanta, Edmonton) but we struggled at Mid Ohio. In practice our driver/owner got Tom Klausler to make a few laps in the car to see if he had any suggestions. He didn't go any quicker and when he got out his only comment was "That's a pretty nice car".

Sorry for the thread drift.

Bucket list holiday - The Glen, Road America, Mid Ohio. Latter felt somewhere between Oulton Park and Brands Hatch. Thoroughly enjoyed watching races at all three and much nicer than my local track here Silverfence.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by mstets

Thanks for the photos. Indycar needs someone like you to photograph the cars at the beginning of each race weekend so we can attempt to learn the new liveries before the race starts.

IndyCar have a spotter guide for each race. If you go to SCHEDULE at the top of the web page, you will see a blue box under each race and then go to Race Info, under that there is another blue box with the link to Spotter Guide.


This is the link for the spotter guide to Race 1 but as it is a double-header, the liveries are the same for both races.

https://www.indycar.com/Schedule/202.../spotter-guide

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by dwh43scale

Images from main and support races here. Despite the relatively high prevalence of fences for spectator snappers (by US standards) still lots of great spots to shoot from -

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjByVcA

Last saw IndyCar at Sears Point in 2017 - the last race of the boxy rear wing

Nice shots, there! Especially like how you found a way to catch some cars through the camera fence hole while the photog provided a path!

Thanks for sharing!