PT's monthly article

[Dov]

From The Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=969048871196

Every racing series has some kind of drama that plays out off the track. But CART this year had more than its fair share.

The battle in bankruptcy court for the series' assets, Alex Fernandez and Bobby Rahal leaving to join the Indy Racing League, my team's struggle to find a sponsor to replace Player's — it's all been a huge distraction at a time when we should have been focusing on the first race in Long Beach on April 18.

The deafening silence from the new owners of what's now Champ Car about what they had planned for the series left those of us remaining worried about our futures. At one point, I was surfing the Net to find out information about my own career.

It's not like I could put out feelers for rides in other racing series as a backup plan. I have a contract with my team owner, Gerry Forsythe, so I can't start negotiating with anyone else.

Besides, as returning champ, I have an emotional commitment to Champ's success.

So I was relieved when the owners of the series — Gerry, Kevin Kalkhoven and Paul Gentilozzi — met with several of us in Las Vegas at the end of March to try to put our minds at rest.

They convinced us at the meeting that they're willing to put their money where their mouths are. To prove it, they've signed former Formula One drivers Ralph Firman and Justin Wilson, among others, to fill out the field of definite drivers.

Things are still up in the air with my own team in one respect, though. I still don't have a major sponsor — it's difficult to find one with the resources of a Player's — but Gerry has said his own company will pick up the tab for the team until he can find a large enough sponsor.

So, less than a month before the start of the season and the returning champion does not have a major sponsorship deal. Though there's a lot of guessing about what this means for the series, I know the reason for the delay.

Gerry wants to wait till he can sign a backer that has enough money to be the single major sponsor of the car. He wants a clean-looking car, not one that's plastered by a hundred names of tiny sponsors. After all, this isn't NASCAR.

Despite all this behind-the-scenes jockeying, the teams haven't been sitting around waiting for the dust to settle. We've all been working as if the series will start as planned in Long Beach.

All the teams have the same basic car and engine set-up, as well as the same rules and regulations to work within. But there's still enough leeway to allow each team to fine-tune its cars to the optimum degree. A little improvement to the car can sometimes be the difference between winning a race or not.

Our team's aerodynamicists use sessions in a wind tunnel to find ways of tinkering with the body, reducing wind resistance as much as possible while still keeping the car's handling responsive at high speed. With this type of testing, they might only shave a tenth of a second from a lap time, but over the course of a 100-lap race that can add up.

This year they've found some ways to improve the car's time, but I'd just as soon not mention them here for the competition to read. Besides, they'll experience our competitive advantage soon enough.

The next stage in preparing for the series kickoff is putting the perfected car together with the driver to see how they work together on the track.

Earlier this week, I tested my primary and backup cars at the Sebring and Homestead tracks in Florida, and the week before the Long Beach opener, I'll be doing one more day of testing at California Motor Speedway.

It's important to test at more than one track because each requires something different from the car and driver. Sebring is a fast track with long, quick straightaways and fast turns, while the one in California is the slowest, and the one with the most twists and tight chicanes and hairpin turns.

At each testing session, we look at how the car has to be tweaked — different suspension, shocks or wing set-up — to make it run best on a given course. We have a set schedule of what we will throughout the day and for how long.

Typically, I'll go out and drive for about five laps at a time, then come back in and get something else adjusted. Over the next few weeks, the engineers will analyze the data from the telemetry systems, so they'll know the effects of the different set-ups on the car and which would be the best for each race.

At the same time, they're looking for me to tell them whether the car is comfortable to drive or not. It's one thing to say that altering a piece on the car improves the downforce, allowing it to go faster, but if it means I'm constantly fighting a nervous car around the track, it won't do much good in a race. The trick is to find the right balance between getting as much out of the car as you can and making it easy for the driver to do his job.

Sebring was my first time driving in about six months, and after nine hours and some 100 laps at various settings, I can tell you I was pretty tired and my neck was a bit stiff — but the only cure for that is more laps.

My teammates Patrick Carpentier and Rudolfo Lavin are also at the testing sessions. Though we all start off with the same set-up, each of us has his own schedule to follow during the day.

In Rudolfo's case, they didn't tinker much with the settings, as he's new to the Champ Car this year, so he used the day at Sebring just to get used to driving the Lola. By the end of the day, he was turning in lap times quicker than either Michel Jourdain Jr. or A.J. Allmendinger, who were both testing at Sebring the same day.

I was a little bit nervous before Sebring this week, as most of the guys on other teams had already had a few days testing and were turning in very fast times. After a decade in CART, I'm at the stage now where I need only a few days of testing with the car to get a feel for the car, and by the end of the day at Sebring we were definitely on pace with the others.

It's the same approach to testing we used last year, with the result that I won the first seven races.

The biggest change to the car this year is a new feature called a "push to pass" button. During the race, the driver can push this button in the cockpit and get an added 50 horsepower and 300 rpm at the top end of the engine's performance. If you're close enough, that should give you extra power needed to pass another driver as you head out of a turn and into a straightaway.

What will make it more challenging is that each driver will only get to use the boost for a limited amount of time each race — say, 60 seconds total, available only in 10-second bursts — so they'll have to pick and choose when to tap that reserve of power.

During testing, this button added a noticeable 5 mph (8 km/h) boost to my acceleration. Watch for this power burst to come in handy on long straightaways like the Lake Shore in Toronto, and change the strategy for drivers in a race.

The new feature should also help get the fans more involved in the racing. There are plans to use the computerized telemetry to let the fans at home and trackside know throughout the race how much boost each driver has left.

Though some of the younger drivers new to the series like to get involved in the technical side of things like planning their strategy for the different tracks on the circuit, I don't get too worked up about that stuff. I've raced on almost all of the tracks, so I know what to expect from them and the car.

Even the few tracks that have been added, like the one in Seoul, don't rattle me. To prepare for those, I'll try to walk the unfamiliar track before the warm-up laps to get a feel for the surface, the way it's laid out, the shape of the turns and where the shift points might be.

Then all you can do is hope your crew is fast enough to respond to any feedback you give them after you've driven the track for the first time. They need that information to make adjustments to the car's handling, so you can go out and turn a great qualifying lap.

But I'll know better how the competition on the track compares to the complicated manoeuvring off-track after Long Beach and I'll let you know in my next column.

[Andy, S]

Tracy says that Firman has been signed as well as Wilson , hasnn't anyone noticed?, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills

[camcartfan]

Alex Fernandez?

[Snrub]

We knew about Wilson, we didn't know about Firman for sure. Earlier rumers were Firman to Coyne. If this is true I'm going to have to change my fanasy team. For Firman's sake I hope it's somewhere better.

[Flavinha]

Firman is at World Series by Nissan...

[zerO]

Originally posted by Flavinha
Firman is at World Series by Nissan...

EXACTLY ?!... looks like PT has been playing with Qualudes again (or peyote) - those things have funny effect on memory banks ?!

Kray-zerO

[rush1]

"So, less than a month before the start of the season and the returning champion does not have a major sponsorship deal. Though there's a lot of guessing about what this means for the series, I know the reason for the delay.

"Gerry wants to wait till he can sign a backer that has enough money to be the single major sponsor of the car. He wants a clean-looking car, not one that's plastered by a hundred names of tiny sponsors. After all, this isn't NASCAR."


That is a priceless quote. Gerry wants a clean car, I'm sure.

[Snrub]

I thought it was an odd thing to say too.

[Dov]

GF wants one primary sponsor livery and maybe one or two associate sponsor decals, but he doesn't want his cars smeared with little logos like the NASCARS have........

[Testure]

Some teams are like that though, aren't they? Look at Minardi in F1 - their car is plastered in decals. Compare that to a Jordan, a similarly underfunded team, which is pretty blank looking. Presumably, Jordan could raise more money by covering the car in stickers, if they wanted.

I think the idea is that it devalues the sponsorship package. For example, if you sell title sponsorship for a small fraction of what you'd expect to get if times were good, then you'll only get a small fraction when times are indeed good once again. Basically, an odd sounding argument at first, but it's common enough.

[Liz]

I think he wrote that in two parts, and didn't go back and read it before he turned it in. "Alex" Fernandez -- how soon we forget.

And did you unbelievers notice that Lavin was turning faster laps than Jourdain Jr. by the end of the first day?

[Dov]

Originally posted by Liz
And did you unbelievers notice that Lavin was turning faster laps than Jourdain Jr. by the end of the first day?

I think that's great news, but now let's see what Lavin can do in a crowd!!

[Snrub]

I agree with both Liz and Dov. Lavin's got me paying attention now, but testing is still testing.

Lavin's got both a great chance and an uphill battle. Last year he may have been humiliated by Manning, but he atleast had the excuse of a poor car. If he's got the same car as PT and if he qualifies 1.5 seconds back we've got a problem. If Jourdain qualified 1.5 seconds back we know it's the car.

[Liz]

Or perhaps that married life is affecting his [Jourdain's] focus?