Round 10: Kohler Grand Prix. Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. 24th-26th June.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Round 10: Kohler Grand Prix. Road America, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. 24th-26th June.

The last major AOWR event to be held at Road America, was the Champ Car Generac Grand Prix of Road America, in August 2007. After a 9 year hiatus, the race finally returns. Up until then, Road America had been a perennial event on the CART/Champ Car calendar, from 1982 - 2007, with the exception of 2005 due to payment issues. The first race was won by Héctor Rebaque for Forsythe Racing, in a March 82C-Ford Cosworth DFX and Sébastien Bourdais won the 2007 race for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing, in a Panoz DP-01-Cosworth XFE. With the merger of Champ Car and the IRL in 2008, the race was dropped from the calendar.

The first race yo be held at Elkhart Lake was in 1950 and organized by the Chicago Region and Milwaukee Region of The Sports Car Club of America. It was the first of three races from 1950 - 1952, which were held on courses layed out on public roads. However, after a fatal accident at Watkins Glen in 1952, it was decided to discontinue motor racing on all public roads and the event was moved to a private, purpose built course. Highway engineer Clif Tufte, got together with local citizens and the Chicago Region of the Sports Car Club of America to develop and build a permanent racecourse. On September 10, 1955, Road America held its first SCCA national race weekend.

Since then, the track has hosted many major American motorsport's series, including the American Le Mans Series, CART, NASCAR and the United States Road Racing Championship. During this time the layout has hardly changed, apart from a chicane that was installed for AMA motorcycle competitors at The Kink.

Some trivia:
Of the current drivers, only Sébastien Bourdais, Simon Pagenaud, Will Power and Graham Rahal have raced at The Grand Prix of Road America, when it was a Champ Car event. Simon Pagenaud and Will Power were both team mates at Team Australia, in the 2007 Champ Car season and Sébastien Bourdais is the only current driver to have won The Grand Prix of Road America, also in 2007.

The driver with the most wins: 3.
Mario Andretti: 1983, 1984, 1987.
Emerson Fittipaldi, 1986, 1988, 1982.
Michael Andretti: 1991, 1992, 1996.

The team with the most wins: 10.
Newman/Haas Racing: 1983, 1984, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2007.

Original track layout:


Current track layout:


Length: 4.048 miles (6.515 km)
Turns: 14

Lap record:
Dario Franchitti, August 19, 2000. 1:39.866, 145.924 mph (234.84 kmh). Team Kool Green, Reynard 2KI-Honda HRK. CART FedEx Championship Series.

Last winner:
Sébastien Bourdais,
Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing,
Panoz DP01-Cosworth XFE

Laps 53
Distance 214.544 mph (345.275 km)
Race Time 1:40:58
Speed 127.481 mph (205.16 km)

TV Broadcast
NBCSN, Jun 26, 12:30pm. EST

[owrforever]

Advance ticket sales are very promising, may exceed 100,000 for the weekend. A lot of pent up demand and great expectations. The weather looks a little dodgy, with thunderstorms predicted Saturday night and into Sunday morning, hopefully the system will blow through by start time. Depending on track conditions expect the old record to be beaten, probably down into the mid 1:30's. This track suits many of the contenders; Dixon, Bourdais, Pagenaud, Power, and Hunter-Reay have to be favored. If the rain hangs around all bets are off. Will probably watch from Fireman's Hill, outside Turn 5.
If they get over 100,000 this could turn out to be one of Indycar's biggest races, after the '500!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by owrforever

Advance ticket sales are very promising, may exceed 100,000 for the weekend. A lot of pent up demand and great expectations. The weather looks a little dodgy, with thunderstorms predicted Saturday night and into Sunday morning, hopefully the system will blow through by start time. Depending on track conditions expect the old record to be beaten, probably down into the mid 1:30's. This track suits many of the contenders; Dixon, Bourdais, Pagenaud, Power, and Hunter-Reay have to be favored. If the rain hangs around all bets are off. Will probably watch from Fireman's Hill, outside Turn 5.
If they get over 100,000 this could turn out to be one of Indycar's biggest races, after the '500!

That's just what the series needs, a return to a traditional road course and a good attendance.

[Purist]

Here are a few tidbits from the other thread.

Race Record: 55 laps, 1:37:00 (137.697mph), Christian Fittipaldi, 1999
Active Years: CART (1982-03), CCWS (2004, 2006-07), 25 races

On that 1999 race, it was run without caution. However, it was fully re-started after an accident at Turn 1 on the initial start. The 2000 race was also caution-free.

I think it will be tough for the new cars to eclipse the mark of the 1999-2000 CART machinery. The DW12 may make more downforce, will likely take some of the corners faster, and has better braking. On the other hand, there's no way the DW12 can match the 210-mph top speeds seen with CART. Those three long straights will add up with a, I'm guessing, 20-mph deficit in top-end.

It's good to hear about the strong ticket sales. The first time I went to Road America was a blast, especially because, in 2007, they had the ALMS running for four hours on Saturday afternoon into the evening.

[fieldodreams79]

The comparison between the original and current layouts is superb.

I wish there were more like this fantastic place! Wonder how long it will be before IndyCars will need to use the chicane before the kink. I hope never, but I am a realist.

RE: the crowd, it would be awesome to have that many and it wouldn't surprise me. Wish I was drinking the Beast and eating cheese and sausage with all the Cheeseheads this weekend.

Good info as always BJS and Purist!

[S griffin]

It's great to have Indy racing back at this circuit. One of the true driver's circuit in America, let's hope it's a great spectacle

[bjohnsonsmith]

Josef Newgarden will attempt to race this weekend.

http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/124943

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Josef Newgarden will attempt to race this weekend.

http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/124943

That's a racer for ya! Wish him the best, but this will be tough. Kids.

[Purist]

I finally saw in the article reviewing Practice 1 on the IndyCar site that the race distance will, in fact, be 50 laps (202.4 miles).

[icemachine]

Wish I could watch this one live. Will have to be content with a replay Sunday night

[bjohnsonsmith]

IndyCar are showing Quali on http://racecontrol.indycar.com/

Just saw Josef Newgarden interviewed, prior to Q1.

[Artur]

Man, watching this qualifying makes me daydream we had this on WEC too

Originally Posted by owrforever

Depending on track conditions expect the old record to be beaten, probably down into the mid 1:30's.

The times turned out to be much slower than that. Fastest quali lap was not Power's pole but Dixon's 1.42.145 on a intermediate part of the session.

Curiously, I made an interpolation to know, roughly, what would be the laptimes of a LMP1-H car here and that is 1.42.5(compared the % of P1 and GT on Silverstone and used that on TUSCC's qualifying of last year)

Obviously these gaps varies according to different layouts but that just shows how P1-Hs and DW12s have around the same speed on some tracks....

[bjohnsonsmith]

Qualifying results:

If Josef Newgarden hadn't spun at Turn 9 in the final minute of Q1, bringing out the red flag, the grid would have looked quite different, as several drivers who were on their quick laps, were unable to complete them.

1 Will Power. Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:42.2105, 141.379 Mph

2 Scott Dixon. Chip Ganassi Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:42.3759, 141.150 Mph

3 Tony Kanaan. Chip Ganassi Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:42.7279, 140.667 Mph

4 Simon Pagenaud. Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:42.8573, 140.490 Mph

5 Helio Castroneves. Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:42.9449, 140.370 Mph

6 Graham Rahal. Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:43.7782, 139.243 Mph

7 Max Chilton. Chip Ganassi Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:42.7519, 140.634 Mph

8 Ryan Hunter-Reay. Andretti Autosport, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:42.8318, 140.525 Mph

9 Conor Daly. Dale Coyne Racing, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:43.1073, 140.149 Mph

10 Carlos Munoz. Andretti Autosport, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:43.2001, 140.023 Mph

11 Charlie Kimball. Chip Ganassi Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:43.2649, 139.935 Mph

12 Sebastien Bourdais. KVSH Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:43.3291, 139.848 Mph

13 Mikhail Aleshin. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:43.4024, 139.749 Mph

14 Juan Pablo Montoya. Team Penske, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:44.3570, 138.471 Mph

15 Takuma Sato. A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:43.5357, 139.569 Mph

16 Alexander Rossi. Andretti Herta Autosport, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:45.0840, 137.513 Mph

17 Spencer Pigot. Ed Carpenter Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 01:43.6432, 139.424 Mph

18 Jack Hawksworth. A.J. Foyt Enterprises, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:45.5110, 136.956 Mph

19 Gabby Chaves. Dale Coyne Racing, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:43.6672, 139.392 Mph

20 Josef Newgarden. Ed Carpenter Racing, Dallara DW12-Chevrolet. 04:19.1862, 55.753 Mph

21 Marco Andretti. Andretti Autosport, Dallara DW12-Honda. 01:43.7289, 139.309 Mph

22 James Hinchcliffe. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, Dallara DW12-Honda. 04:29.0408, 53.711 Mph

[BudLightJaguar]

Looks good so far. No FCY after the turn 1.

[bjohnsonsmith]

They left the Green flag until the last second but it was a clean start, with Power in the lead.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Very bad luck for Dixon.

[bjohnsonsmith]

They just showed some footage with Paul Tracy driving for Penske and then Team Green, back in the CART days. Those cars were awesome.

[BudLightJaguar]

Bad luck for Chilton. Did he run out of fuel?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Chilton's out of gas. That's a bit of a cock up.

[BudLightJaguar]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Chilton's out of gas. That's a bit of a cock up.

Of course he was short of gas. That hasn't been the main ingredient for American open-wheel fuels since the mid-60's.


Sorry, I just had to

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by BudLightJaguar

Of course he was short of gas. That hasn't been the main ingredient for American open-wheel fuels since the mid-60's.


Sorry, I just had to

IndyCar used methanol from 1965 onwards and these days Ethanol, with a bit of gasoline.

[divxx]

The worst part of watching Indycar races (in the US) are the damned Chevy commercials that run every time in the frequent breaks. So astoundingly condescending with their collection of 'real people'

[bjohnsonsmith]

Daly had a big off. Looks like something broke on the left rear.

[gert]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Daly had a big off. Looks like something broke on the left rear.

Something broke at the back while he was passing RHR.
Too bad. While maybe not a world-class driver, he is showing some good stuff.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by divxx

The worst part of watching Indycar races (in the US) are the damned Chevy commercials that run every time in the frequent breaks. So astoundingly condescending with their collection of 'real people'

I'm watching the NBCSN feed and at least they continue to show the race in the box next the commercial.