Auto Racing 2024

They can't race competitively on large tracks and are becoming ridiculous on the tracks where they can legitimately race their cars. What sucks is the idiot did doughnuts afterwards, when he should have sheepishly gone to winners circle.

Online, people seem to think the two racers crashed out due to the incident are suffering from karma. That could very much well be true, it'd also would be an indictment on NASCAR and what nonsense they allow when drivers mean to do these things. It is bad enough when cars go into places they shouldn't be and cause large wrecks that make the previous 4 hours meaningless. Forget when they do this stuff intentionally.
 
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Indycar had the Bommarito 500 and it was, something else. Fans of Penske will be happy and mad. People that don't like Penske with be happy and mad. There was qualifying, but a number of cars had engine related penalties, Palou, Dixon, maybe Herta... he did some bodywork during qualifying and finished his run with an average 100+ mph on the oval, so maybe he wasn't penalyzed.

On the initial green flag, Herta entered a cheat code that allowed clipping and passed a few rows on the front stretch. Racing started a little squirrely with Legge and Carpenter choosing to get bad incidents out of the way early. Legge was out, and Carpenter would have the remainder of the race to ponder who should really be driving this car that he owns.

Veekay got into a wiggle, which slowed him down, which caused a crunch behind him and ruined Kirkwood's night.

Things settle down a bit and thanks to the yellows, there were a couple of pit strategies going. Getting late in the race David Malukas went for a move inside on Power, but could finish it because Kirkwood was in the way. Power tried to counter, but couldn't, because Kirkwood was in the way. Malukas's move was brave, but he held his line just above the apron. But that wasn't enough room for Power, who'd clip Malukas who would then subsequently spin into the wall. The Power, Malukas dynamic was important because racing it out to checkers would likely have meant they'd be fighting for the win as Newgarden and McLaughlin needed a splash and dash. But thanks to Power's maneuver, Malukas was out of the race. Funnily enough, an irate Power (you'll see shortly) would yell at Malukas for the incident. Power just... he just has to power. And Penske haters are mad at this point, as Power isn't penalized. I get that Kirkwood was in the way, so 'racing incident'. But for him to yell at Malukas afterward who made a brazen but maturely held pass, that isn't cool. Power owes him a drink.

The yellow allows the other two Penskes to pit and stay ahead and then low light of the night comes as the race goes green. I'm watching them round turn four and I flashback to 1982, where Rick Mears is parading the cars down the front stretch like it is a Sunday Drive. The cars are too tight, too close. I remark, there is going to be crash. Light turns green, Palou, swings out because he is the first driver in the line to realize the laws of physics prevent fermions from taking up the space of each other. Rossi, who must have slept through his physics course, runs up on Will Power, and pops a wheelie, making this unconformably the third race in a row where a car hasn't kept all of its wheels on the pavement. Herta, Power, etc... complained that the restart was awkward and Newgarden was brake checking, which isn't allowed. Newgarden said he wasn't, which maybe is accurate, but the accordion behind him presents a case of he was causing problems up front. Driver in front sets the pace, but he didn't get going at the green, as Palou was making up ground before Newgarden put space between himself and McLaughlin. Penske haters are fuming. The restart is reviewed, no penalty. Red flag, grab yourself a drink.

They restart one last time, Newgarden wins, Penske haters burn the track down (I presume). Palou finished fourth, Herta fifth. The actual cool thing was that Linus Lundquist was having a solid run and brazenly passed Herta and Palou and got himself on the podium, which was great, even if engulfed in presumed flames.

O'Ward's and Ericsson's cars went on protest and the drivers were not able to finish.

I'm uncertain about Veekay's strategy, being in sixth and then going for the alternative strategy. But they did. Had a couple hiccups in the pit, a bar on the car that was doing its own thing. Amazingly enough, Veekay found himself in sixth at the red, managing to get around the craziness. However, during the red, one of the warning lights was out in the back of Veekay's tail wing. Indycar forced them to fix it and sent them to the back of the line! :mad: I'd get if it was a performance enhancing fix, but for *bleep* sakes! Veekay finishes in 10th, great overall for a night that sucked terribly for him. He is really showing he has the skill and maturity.

Sting Ray Robb managed to lead several laps Saturday Night, being on a different pit strategy and finished 9th. So that was rather unexpected. I'm stunned he still has a ride. He must get enough money coming in to pay for his ride via Pray.com (yes, please ignore the religious blind spot on using Jesus as a sponsor).

As silly season continues (all season long), Malukas announced going to AJ Foyt racing. Why? I have no idea. AJ Foyt racing sucks. They can only manage ovals. This also likely means that Sting Ray Robb is going to be gone. I can only imagine that Dale Coyne will call him up, but Dale Coyne is struggling terribly at the moment putting out a car that can finish a race.

Standings wise, Palou remains in front, and actually adds to his series lead. 14 races so far, and he has 11 top 5s. Guy is a machine. All of the action happening in front of him and his instincts get him through. After a while, you have to stop calling it luck.
 
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Portland Grand Prix - Indycar visits Portland, Oregon to race on the relatively short road course. Santino Ferucci managed to win the pole over Will Power. It was Foyt Racing's first pole in ten years.

The race started and kind of ended in the same lap. Will Power took off, got the lead, and he'd only relinquish it during the last or second to last pit cycle. Dixon got diverted by Kirkwood which led to an awkward encounter with Fitipaldi and sent Dixon into the wall, ending his race in the first lap.

Ferucci slipped back to 8th. Veekay went to an early pit strategy which would have helped out if there was an opportune yellow, but it didn't happen. The radio was quiet for most of the race, as Veekay was generally happy with the alternates and the car. Palou had to fight the race on primaries when most others used the alternates, and finished in 2nd. Dude is a machine. McLaughin moved up something like 10 spots to finish 9th. Newgarden finished in 3rd to piss off people that don't like Penske. Armstrong had a great finish with a fifth.

The trouble with the race was the cars were really too even to be competitive, once cars split out to 0.5 second gaps. So it was a relatively clean event, but overall boring. But rather have a little boring than brain farting like in Toronto. Best car won today, can't argue too much against that, other than if you don't like Penske.
 
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Tire based racing is much better than fuel economy racing, as proven at Milwaukee. Final race of the Indycar calendar is this weekend in Nashville, oval and not that awful road circuit!

IMSA is at Indy next week and it is looking to be close to as warm as the Six Hr event at Watkins. The main difference being I had a car on the in-field at Watkins and went through a dozen or so bags of ice. I'm going to go bankrupt staying hydrated! Need to see if they have water stations to fill water bottles.
 
Nashville to finish off the season. Thanks to a 12 Volt battery mishap to Palou in the previous race, Power had an outside chance of winning the championship at Nashville, win the race and put pressure on Palou, second place... hope Palou drives near Sting Ray Robb too often, third place... require supernatural involvement. Technically, McLaughlin had a chance, but that required Palou "finding God, retiring, and moving a monastery... in Tibet" before qualifying. Palou did not retire.

And for Power, in good universal balance of luck, it wouldn't even be close as Power's lap belt inexplicably became undone 19 or so laps in to the race, setting him 4 to 5 laps behind the leader as he went back into the pit and a crew member fixed the problem.

Andretti's cars looked strong and stable in qualifying, including over the bump of doom, which was why I figured Herta would win (though it was Kirkwood who'd get the pole). While the yellows killed Veekay, it did help provide an interesting set of strategies and a fun race overall. Herta would end up jousting with O'Ward who was magically in first place out of no where. Herta had the muscle though and pulled a pass and drove off onto victory.

Veekay? Oi! Bad bad bad luck. On reds to start, so pitted earlier, and stayed on reds, but a yellow came out. Green lap pit stops cost a lap or two, while yellow stops cost zero laps. But Veekway was done with the reds which sucked on the concrete. Look to Felix Rosenquist who caused the yellow because his tire catastrophically failed in a turn. But as long as no one else caused an accident, Veekay could have a shot... until Ericson went in to the wall after getting into the marbles. So Veekay effectively had no shot in heck.

Ferucci killed it at the end of the season. Foyt's team seems to manage ovals better... though Ferucci did miraculously figure out a pole at Portland. Malukas who was in contention near the end, minus a bit of fuel finished top ten, completely a pretty good partial season with Meyer Shank... but he is now headed to Foyt's team to join Ferucci... meaning Sting Ray Robb won't be racing Indycar any more. It was a miracle he finished the season.

This guy, pictured with my daughter, won his third title in four years (of his first five total in Indycar), putting him in legendary company of the likes of Rick Mears.

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It looked a little wetter watching on TV. How was it in person?

We went to the F1 races there in 2001, 2002, and 2003. The in-field was built for the F1 cars, so I am glad to see that other series have kept racing on it.
 

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It looked a little wetter watching on TV. How was it in person?
It was great! The rain in the forecast surprised me, as the forecast didn't seem to be that big of a deal. Had to get a poncho last second at Target. Poncho was good enough to stay dry.

It sprinkled a little around 11:00. Then a shower started about 12:40ish. Then it started raining more, a solid shower. Not too heavy (nothing like Watkins Glen), but when they did the restart, most of the cars made it, but the one GTD car near the end of the line spun out heading onto the front stretch. So they held it back under yellow for a bit. The video they showed on the screen made the weather look awful, it wasn't that bad. Probably around the 3 hr mark the track was drying up, at least on the final turn into front stretch. You could see the cars on the wets cutting inside on the front stretch to wet the tires and cool them off as the track dried.

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We went to the F1 races there in 2001, 2002, and 2003. The in-field was built for the F1 cars, so I am glad to see that other series have kept racing on it.
They opened up the east side of the backstretch which was nice. I don't recall that being open last year.
 
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Turn 2.. cars in the back are finishing Turn 1. The early morning is always the best time to catch this part of the track.

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Progressing towards Turn three. Early morning isn't as kind here because there is a large TV screen blocking the sun.

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Exit from Turn 4. This is a hard one, for multiple reasons. They whip around Turn Four (yes, I'm switching between spelling out the numbers and using their numeric form... I might also start capitalizing the word "turn") and the open slots in the fence give you such a limited time to track and focus. I don't think I got any 1/160s here. The other issue is there are campers here now. I will note, there are clearly demarcated white line striping which provides a crease along the fence line. Is it to allow photographers access? Is it to allow access to the electric line hookups? I'll let the philosophers decide. As long as no one clearly using the space, I was happy to occupy it and have a friendly chat if the camping folks had "comments" about my laissez faire attitude on leaving things up to philosophers.

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They opened up the golf course side of the Hulman Backstretch. This is "turns" 5 and Six. You'll see why below. There are two open slots in the fence to the north of the bridge, but only is really manageable, and when I say manage, I mean contorting oneself against the fence (halfway between poles for maximum bend) and putting a leg out onto the slope to brace. Oi!

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"turns" We don't need no stinking turns! South of the bridge is a nice viewing mound. I don't recall seeing photo options over there.

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The entry into Turn XIII. The Michelin Pilot Challenge about ready to start. There are a couple locations to play with here. After the grid walk, I huffed it out here to see if I could get some shots without the glare, but the sun is hanging to the south. The bigger problem was getting there first and then some IMSA photo guy plopping himself right in front of my. There is about 15 feet to work with, and the far left is the way to go, and he gives me a couple degrees to work with. I repeated cursed him out in my head. I showed him!

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Turn quartoze. It takes forever. In fact, this car, is still in the turn, turning. A great view here can be had from the Penthouse. Should I remove the capitalization there?

Here is another view from the other side.

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It was a bit wetter when I took these shots.
 

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Again, congratulations on getting some outstanding photos.
Thanks. This was the first year I actually got to practice with multiple events, instead of seeing just one thing a year and pausing on high speed photo taking. The practice helps.

Looking forward to next year. Two at Mid-Ohio and one at Road America. Maybe the 8-hr GT at IMS in October.
 
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WT... Toothbrush looking letter?!

article said:
Sting Ray Robb is moving to Juncos Hollinger Racing for the 2025 IndyCar season. The Idahoan, who made his debut in 2023 with Dale Coyne Racing and moved to A.J. Foyt Racing in 2024, is the first driver confirmed by JHR for the upcoming year.

“To be sought out by leaders like Ricardo Juncos and Brad Hollinger and a team as driven as JHR means the world to me,” Robb said. “We share a vision for what we can achieve together, and I’m honored to contribute to JHR’s continued growth, as I also grow as their driver. Excited to see what we accomplish together with our ambition and the ‘power of possibility!'”
JHR can't afford to race anymore, so now they are effectively selling their rides. Sting Ray Robb somehow has access to a good deal of money. I saw an Ad on Facebook about how you could become a member of his team by backing Pray.com. Dude leverages up his religion for cash.

That isn't the issue here. The problem is that Sting Ray Robb sucks. Dude got into a couple crashes that could have caused him or others serious injury... because he can't race at the Indycar level. At AJ Foyt Racing, Ferucci was really getting things going once the team hit a stride, while Robb always finished ten plus positions back. But, because he is able to get people to give him money to race, he gets the seat, well at JHC. AJ Foyt signed Malakus in a massive step up from Robb.

Meanwhile Rinus Veekay is stuck without a ride, despite outperforming his car. No sponsor options for him, led to him exiting Ed Carpenter Racing, who would pick up Rossi, which would, admittedly, be an improvement, but they also stuck with Rasmussen who is TBD at the moment quality wise. The hopes are Dale Coyne can make something happen with financial back and Veekay can maybe get a seat there and outperform in that car, but Indycar, with the addition of the hybrid, which really hasn't helped the quality of the racing (I mean can you even tell?), is getting harder and harder to financially back. Indycar is in danger of running out of people that can "afford" to race in it.

It is so annoying to see Robb in a racecar at a level he isn't remotely competitive in. Especially when better drivers are out there, but don't have access to capitol to buy themselves a seat. I generally don't dislike drivers, but Robb is on the short list for me.
 
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Great video from the Williams F1 team showing the factory going above and beyond to find salvageable parts from what was left of their two cars after the three crashes in Brazil.

Watching the FP1 and FP2, the Williams mechanics were able to put two cars together for Las Vegas this weekend.
 
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