The Richmond track is a driver’s track and that means you have to manhandle the car in all conditions to do well, which means cold tires, long runs, restarts etc. Most of the ovals that IRL goes to are much over a mile and a quarter which makes them much faster, they are usually flat out or close to it, but Richmond is the opposite.  Drivers have to lift a lot for the corners and get back on the throttle hard for the straights.  It has big speeds differential between the straights and the turns, with high cornering exit speed and power applications, making it hard on the rear tires. That’s probably why we saw so many cars in the wall on long runs, like Jamie Camera and Will Power. This kind of bullring usually separates the men from the boys in short tracks like Richmond.  You have to keep adapting to the car and changing track conditions during long runs. You start with a car that is heavy on fuel, new tires and with some under-steer built in and as the run goes on, the tires start giving up especially in the rear and it usually goes to loose leaving the driver no room for error. It takes a lot of talent and discipline to race like that for two hours and not crash, I guess that’s why some of these guys get paid the big money.
Tony Kanan did a masterful job of doing exactly that; he was the class of the field, pushed hard when he had the car and laid back and kept cool when he didn’t.  By the end of the race he was uncatchable. Castro-Neves managed a well deserved second place with great pit work from his team and Dixon did what he had to do to stay in the points lead with a car that in anyone else’s hands probably would not have finished as high as 3rd. .  His team also did a great job with fuel strategy. One guy that was also fun to watch was Weldon.  His car was visibly loose late in the race and he was catching at the exit of the turns and having all kinds of trouble putting the power down but still finished fourth.
Some of the trans-Champ drivers did a great job too, like Servia and Wilson, which shows that in a track where the driver can make a difference those guys can be competitive especially once they get more time experience with the cars.
Qualifying was interesting with Rahal showing his potential by getting third, but he seemed to run out of talent during the race. There were a lot more cars on the track than usual, 26, a lot for a three quarter mile oval, which may account for so many of the yellows.  Most of these drivers are not used to running with so much traffic.
Next race is a permanent road course, the first one of the season .  We’ll get to see how the Trans-champ car drivers do. I think Powers, Wilson, Rahal and Servia should be pretty good there. The crews must be getting pretty tired by now especially those that have a limited number of chassis available. A lot of cars were crashed Saturday night and usually any crash on an oval is a big one, plus they will be changing from oval to road course, which is a very time consuming, and arduous change. It is hard for fans to appreciate the amount of work these guys do behind the scenes to put those cars on the track… nothing like living the dream!

In F1 news, there was no race this weekend just testing in England (Silverstone).  Lewis was quick in his Mc Laren.  This will be an important race for them on their home soil, the equivalent of Monza for Ferrari.  Kimi was fourth, quite a bit off the pace but who knows what that means, they could be running heavy, I guess we’ll find out on Sunday. The British press seems to be giving Lewis a hard time at least for now, they are brutal over there. The kid is awesome and they look for ways to criticize him, which is too bad… I predict he’ll get stronger and shut them up by winning more races.

I woke up early looking forward to watching the French GP.  I went downstairs to get my cup of coffee and sit down in front of my big screen, turned on the TV and my Tivo only to find out that the race was on Fox this weekend and would not come on until 10:00 am on the west coast-shit!   I would have to wait over two hours-an eternity!  Finally 10:00 came and the race was on.  The down side was I would have to watch it LIVE without the convenience of being able to blow through commercials and getting an hour and an half or so of non stop F1 action. Oh well…
The race was very interesting to me from the technical standpoint.  I watched practice on Friday and qualifying on Saturday and I noticed that the BMWs were nowhere.  It’s strange after their great run in Montreal but here they seemed very stiff and non compliant bouncing all over the last chicane leading to the front straight.  On the other hand the Ferraris were great through the last chicane.  They were compliant and fast. The Mc Larens were close but not as good as the Ferraris. I heard Steve Machet talk about the need to run low at Magny-Cours because of all the medium and fast corners and smoothness of the track.  Which is true.  It makes total sense because these cars are more aerodynamically efficient when they are low, but low usually means vertically stiff. The Ferraris looked good over the curbs and they were also fast on the straight which means they found a way to run low and efficient and at the same time keep a lot of the mechanical grip by being compliant over the curbs.   So, how did they do that?  First I have to assume that they may have a more efficient aero package at the moment, which helps run a little less wing and that can be huge, one or two degrees lower on the rear wing can easily mean an couple of miles an hour more in straight line speed. The other factor may be a better mechanical package that generates more mechanical grip and therefore not needing as much down force. I think that Ferrari has both figured out and that’s what makes them so good this year. All these cars have very sophisticated suspension systems with all kinds of ride controls, roll controls, third dampers and in some cases mono-shock systems. Boy I would love to be able to have a look at the suspension set ups on some of these cars. Whatever they are using, Ferrari has the advantage at the moment, they are fast in all kinds of circuits especially the permanent road courses like Magny-Cours where a good combination of aero and mechanical grip is so important. That was made obvious by the way Kimi and Felipe drove away from the field. On another note I was very proud of Trulli.   He drove his ass off and got on the podium, something I have been predicting since the start of the season. What I didn’t quite understand was how Alonso, who was running so well at the beginning ended up behind Kovalanien and Piquet.   But that’s F1 I guess. Good for the red cars; they were flawless other than the exhaust on Kimi’s car. They deserved to win.

Indy car:
What a contrast to the beautiful road course at Magni Cours with the oval in Iowa.  I am not a big fan of ovals for open wheel cars, I think they are boring and the close competition is manufactured by the rules and the fixed wing angles and rev limiters they impose on the cars. Be that as it may it was another race affected by fuel strategy. The Target Chip Ganassi guys have figured out the ovals and they are on a roll while the AGR guys can’t seem to buy a win.  Kanan was fast but did not finish.  I think he is the only one that could do something for the championship. Marco is still too inconsistent and Danica is a one race wonder in my opinion unless she gets a whole lot of talent in a hurry. Penske had some bad luck and the transition driver continued to be just that.
I don’t see Dixon loosing this championship.

When I decided to get back into racing there was one thing that I was not going to compromise on and that was the standard of the team and the goals we wanted to achieve. Getting a group of individuals to work as a team is difficult.   You can have the most talented payers and not have the best team. Everyone has an agenda and their own motivation for doing what they do as individuals but in a team environment only one is important “the common goal”.
It is always interesting when I work with a new group of people to see what makes them tick and how they interact with each other. It was no different when I put together a group of guys to compete in the Challenge. I wanted to make sure we had a group of individuals that were dedicated, open to learning and had one common goal, winning, even if they didn’t know it. That sounds good and every one says they want to win, but only people who have done it before know what it means.  It means commitment, sacrifice and dedication, to do what it takes, to pay attention to detail and to be engaged and present in what needs to be done; to be humble and work as a group, cover for your team mate without seeking the lime light and to only credit the team for successes and take failure personally.  Pat Riley’s book “The Winner Within” talks about that.
When we went to Montreal for the race I noticed that our team was starting to get to that point. Everyone was looking out for the common good and working together getting one step ahead of the game and keeping their head down.  I call that concentrating on the process and not the result.  I knew that if we did that and gave Zak a good car we could win the race; I felt we were ready and we were!
Is been a long time but I’ve never forgotten what it feels like to win a race, and it certainly felt good when we did it in Montréal. It was a great team win.  It gives everyone more confidence and motivation to go on.   But to be a real winner is to be a consistent winner and that means keeping the celebration short and getting back to work for the next one. Success is not permanent but neither is failure. We all need a little motivation form time to time.  This is my favorite part of Vince Lombardi’s speech, “What it takes to be number one”.

“…But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour – his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear – is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he lies exhausted on the field of battle… victorious.”
-Vince Lombardi

I am back in the racing mood! Let’s catch up with what’s been going on in the racing world.
In F1 there was the Monaco Grand Prix, which was awesome. But I am really upset that Ferrari made the same mistake this year as they did last year in Japan when they didn’t put the tires and wheel on during the pre-grid to meet the 30 minute minimum. This caused Kimi to receive a pit drive through penalty, which ultimately cost him the victory. However, Hamilton did run a very competitive race. We’ll see how they do in Montreal.

As for the Indy 500, the guy that won the race is the guy that should have won the race, Scott Dixon. He was the smartest all month and the fastest all month. The Ganassi team was really the class of the field. They had the car figured out and had it just right. The win came as no surprise to me. It was a shame though that Danika was taken out during her pit exit as I think she could have had a decent finish.

As for this week, I am excited to be back in the racing mode. I am in Montreal for the Ferrari Challenge race, which happens to be running with the F1 guys. I did stop over in Indy to watch the last episode of the Cart/Champ Car saga. Champ Car dissolved this week and had their bankruptcy auction to sell off remaining items. I wanted to go and see if there was anything I wanted, but nothing caught my eye. I did however see a lot of people that I hadn’t seen in a really long time. It was like a very sad high school reunion. We reminisced about the good old days, when open wheel racing in the U.S. was in its prime. There was even a period there when Bernie Ecklestein was nervous about us encroaching on his F1 European market. We had the potential there to do so for a few years. With our races in Japan, Australia, Brazil and across Canada, all we needed was a couple European races and we could have been a formidable competitor to Formula 1 racing. But alas, CART has died while F1 has thrived. Hopefully this blending of two series will create a stronger series that can actually serve as real competition to NASCAR, which commands most of the sponsorship and fan interest. But I digress, the take away is that the auction was very sad and it was hard to see that entire memorabilia being sold to people who were just going to turn around and sell it on eBay. I saw a lot of old stuff that we used to have for our team and it brought back a lot of memories. I think we all see this as a real tragedy in American Motorsports. So many good and talented people lost their jobs and teams, hopefully this will never happen again. I can only be hopeful and think that IRL and Tony George will be good and gracious stewards for our sport.

On a happier note, I am very excited to be in Montreal again and am looking forward to a fantastic weekend. I will enjoy watching the F1 guys from up close, but I will also enjoy racing with my teammate, Zack Brown. Through some of his connections, I will get to hang out with the McLaren guys and get a behind the scene peak which will be very cool. I still think, though, that Ferrari will be the team to beat. However because this track is similar to the Monaco circuit with lots of low grip, McLaren could be in the running. And as for me, as long as I can keep the car in one piece and stay on the black side of the road, I think I’ll be fine. We shall see.

Until next time…