2006 Richmond Race Weekend Thread

[Tim Northcutt]

They take the track in about 2 hours to begin the practice sessions.

My hopes:

1. The weather forecast does not come true....60% chance of storms later today....60% during the day tomorrow...80% tomorrow night.

2. That no one gets hurt this weekend...Richmond is a fast bull ring, and there have been hard hits there by drivers in the past...

3. That we see the type of racing action that we have become accustomed to at this track in the past...because it has been very good.

Share your thoughts in here as the weekend progresses, and enjoy the race!

[Tim Northcutt]

First practice session is over. Here are your Top 6:

1. Helio - 173.029
2. Marco - 172-068
3. Kanaan - 171.950
4. Matsuura - 171.802
5. Hornish - 171.124
6. Meira - 170.891

Franchitti, Scheckter, Sharp and Buddy Rice round out the Top 10

Danica is 11th

Lazier and Giaffone are within a couple of hundredths of each other at the bottom of the lineup.

Lazier hit the wall and damaged his rear wing during the early part of the session...IRL written commentary described it as "Heavy" damage, but it didn't look that bad in a photo of the car on the IRL website.

Giaffone brought out a caution when his car was smoking heavily...don't know if it was an engine, oil leak, or whatever...
Dixon and Wheldon are 14th & 15th

[Tim Northcutt]

Second Practice Session just ended.

Here are your Top 10:

1. Helio - 173.4
2. Sharp
3. Hornish
4. Wheldon
5. Marco
6. Meira
7. Kanaan
8. Herta
9. Franchitti
10. Dixon

13 of the 17 cars in the session topped 170 mph

Cheever was the slowest at 168+

Lazier is repairing his car from the accident in session 1, and I assume Giaffone is changing an engine, since there was a report of heavy smoke from his car in session 1

They will qualify in about 35 minutes.

Let's hope the rain holds off

[Tenoch]

Anyone know if this race will be on ABC or ESPN?

[marcus]

well Im not to happy , 40 minutes before the race my cable decides to shut down

I missed the race completely

[Knowlesy]

It was another record breakingly quick race, two in a row now. I suppose it is more likely when the field is two cars strong though.

Championship battle looks interesting anyways, after Helios tyre failure Hornish closes right in and Wheldon and Dixon are there as well. Meira is little more than 50 points behind as well.

It could be interesting, but I suspect Penske will just walk away with it.

[Dutton]

Yes, Penske are looking a little bit strong.

A pretty decent race, by and large, I thought, when the context is considered. It strikes me as a bit nuts to run OW on such short tracks, but, well, that makes it notable.

[deejay]

What went wrong with Ganassi today? Wheldon didn't back up his quali pace and Dixon was nowhere all weekend. Then that disasterous fuel strategy.