Author Topic: CART (Read 1428 times)

hblair · « **on:** April 30, 2001, 12:13:00 PM »

What a buncha amateurs. They ever heard of testing?

<g,d,r>

Apache · « **Reply #1 on:** April 30, 2001, 12:23:00 PM »

Agreed. I'm all for safety, especially considering the recent deaths in auto racing and I am not advocating they should have gone on with the race, but they should have known well before the day of the race IMHO.

It is my understanding that Texas Motor Speedway authorities as late as last week made cart aware of their concerns in ref. to the speeds and even made recommendations as they cannot make rules. Cart officials said they didn't have time for testing?

sling322 · « **Reply #2 on:** April 30, 2001, 12:34:00 PM »

The funny thing is they did test Hblair....back in like November when the temps were nothing near what they would be racing in April. Makes alotta sense dont it?

These cars were doing 230 freeking miles-per-hour in qualifying!!! Thats pretty damn fast when you are driving in a circle on a 24 degree bank. I was a little disappointed that they didnt find a way to slow them down so they could run it anyway. It just seems that they came into the weekend a little unprepared. Texas Motor Speedway even asked them if they were sure they didnt want to test some more and from what I understand CART told them that they were ok with it the way it was. Go figure.

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #3 on:** April 30, 2001, 12:39:00 PM »

They were driving in near blackout g-force conditions.

Tunnel vision in a fighter is one thing, tunnel vision on a closed track with a car 5 feet to your right is another.

Glad they stopped it... wondering what the hell the track designers were thinking. And as far as CART officials go... what did you expect out of this group?

Has anyone seen the track workers at Talladega try to clean up an oil spill in one of the corners? Its a riot. Their trucks can't even make the climb reliably. They almost have to repell down from the top of the bank.

AKDejaVu

sling322 · « **Reply #4 on:** April 30, 2001, 01:12:00 PM »

I agree DJV...those speeds and those G-forces were a little ridiculous, but if they can find a way to slow down a stock car at Talladega and Daytona, why cant they find a way to slow down a CART car at Texas? And they had since November to figure out a way to do it.

It just doesn't make much sense to me. But you can bet that Tony George or whatever that IRL guy's name is was sitting back and having a good laugh about this one for sure. There sure were a lot of pissed off folks at the track yesterday when I got there. I imagine Creamo may have been one of them....all the way from Reno and didnt get to see the race.

funked · « **Reply #5 on:** April 30, 2001, 03:12:00 PM »

Yep Sling is right. They should have figured this one out last winter.

They do have ways to slow the cars down on the ovals, but the problem is that the engineers keeping making the car faster. Even with all the reductions in power and lift/drag ratio, the cars are faster than anything in the history of racing.

Which is why you do a thorough test at a new track to make sure the cars aren't too fast. Duh!

PS I did a rough calculation and I came up with 3 g AVERAGE including straightaways at this track. I am guessing they were up near 6 g in the turns. I'm sure F-1 drivers could handle it, but flabby guys like Tracy or Andretti were probably gasping.

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #6 on:** April 30, 2001, 03:21:00 PM »

Quote

PS I did a rough calculation and I came up with 3 g AVERAGE including straightaways at this track. I am guessing they were up near 6 g in the turns. I'm sure F-1 drivers could handle it, but flabby guys like Tracy or Andretti were probably gasping. (Image removed from quote.)

LOL! You troll! I'd expect this comment out of those soccer playing Euro-trash racing fan wannabes.. but you too Funked? Et tu?

AKDejaVu

[This message has been edited by AKDejaVu (edited 04-30-2001).]

funked · « **Reply #7 on:** April 30, 2001, 04:17:00 PM »

I'm sure some of the CART guys are in good enough shape for F-1, but I'm pretty sure that fitness had something to do with both Tracy and Andretti flopping in their attempts to go for the big prize.

It's also interesting that two of the tubbiest drivers in CART history are both well-known for making big mistakes late in the race. HUFF PUFF PANT CRAAAAAAAAASH.

(Gil de Ferran Fan)

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 04-30-2001).]

sling322 · « **Reply #8 on:** April 30, 2001, 05:04:00 PM »

RPM.espn.com had some stories on their site today, Funked, that said the G-forces were double what they are used to on a normal track. There is even some speculation now that the 2 guys who crashed in practice crashed because of blacking out temporarily. Prolly just a rumor though.

[This message has been edited by sling322 (edited 04-30-2001).]

funked · « **Reply #9 on:** April 30, 2001, 06:13:00 PM »

Yep I did some reading and it looks like my estimate was pretty good - 6.3 g by Kanaan on his 236.7 lap. I'm sure they could take it for a while, but 400 times? Eeeek!

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 04-30-2001).]

Daff · « **Reply #10 on:** April 30, 2001, 06:21:00 PM »

If you black-out, I'm pretty certain they would be aware of that.
I've greyed out once and while I didnt really realise what had happened until I got back on the ground, it was obvious that that was the case. What was the drivers explanations of the crash?.

Daff

------------------
CO, 56th Fighter Group
www.56thfightergroup.org
This is Yardstick, follow me"

sling322 · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2001, 06:39:00 PM »

Dunno Daff....never found anything in the story about what the drivers said about it. One of them dropped out totally because he said he was stiff from the crash and the other was gonna run a back-up car. Like I said, its probably just rumor about blackouts causing their crashes in practice.

I couldnt believe how fast those guys were going though...it was unbelieveable. 230 mph in a car?!?! The first time I went to a NASCAR Winston Cup event, I was amazed by the speed of it. It seems so much faster in person than seeing it on TV, but these cars were 40-45 mph faster than Winston cup cars on this same track! Un-frickin-believeable.

J_A_B · « **Reply #12 on:** April 30, 2001, 07:07:00 PM »

Bah--for real speed you need to watch Top Fuel drag racing.... 0 to 300+ MPH in under 5 seconds!

Hehehe...seriously, CART rocks. Unlike NASCAR, CART doesn't pretend to be racing "stock" cars.

J_A_B

Cabby · « **Reply #13 on:** April 30, 2001, 07:29:00 PM »

So Funked, why aint ya in the WB's/AH GPL League??? We've run Kayalami and Monaco, and Zandvoort is this Sat. With all the "augers"

during the races, you could get right in the thick of the points race with a high finish this weekend.

Ya aint chicken, are ya??

Cabby

------------------
=44th FS "VAMPIRES"=
"The Jungle Air Force"
Welcome To The Jungle!!!"

hblair · « **Reply #14 on:** April 30, 2001, 09:06:00 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by sling322:
I couldnt believe how fast those guys were going though...it was unbelieveable. 230 mph in a car?!?! The first time I went to a NASCAR Winston Cup event, I was amazed by the speed of it. It seems so much faster in person than seeing it on TV, but these cars were 40-45 mph faster than Winston cup cars on this same track! Un-frickin-believeable.

I was at Talledega in '87 during Bill Elliot's legendary run. I believe he qualified at 212mph, and ran up to like 218 in the race. I do remember this for sure, He lapped the entire field.

Open wheeled cars are fer gurls. <g,d,r> (again)