IMSA Race TUSC Round 9: Indy

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

I have wanted to do this sort of business for a while but don't really have the business ability, cash, or much else in the way of talent, but ai ma pretty sure it will be the way all sports are provided sooner or later. TV and Internet will merge eventually (enough people will 'cut the cord" so that the two separate entities providing signal into home will be redundant beyond supportability) and most sports, with an audience too small for major production, will have sort of "E-Fanzine" crews covering them.

You bring up some good points. I don't think the goal is to replace the TV coverage, the goal is assist the TV coverage. There is a whole lot going on in these races and it all happens real fast or dreadfully slow. I think having an adjunct team that is monitoring the action and the stories and then can whisper in the director's ear and the commentator's ear to update and alert them, or just advise them would help them tremendously.

As for all the equipment, many of the people don't even need to be at the track. They can be anywhere in the world if the Timing & Scoring and Pit Notes are working properly. I've seen and been immensely impressed with what some of you folks can do when you are given some data.

I think the key thing is to have small teams that can focus on each class and give an intelligent update in 30-45 seconds of what is happening in that class. The commentators are overwhelmed. They are only commenting on whatever TV view the director has selected.

I think with the live feeds that go around the world via the Internet, highlights can be digitally prepared anywhere in the world and then used when the Class Teams do their 30-45 second updates. So, traveling, trucks, studios, etc., etc. aren't needed in some cases where the data stream from the track during the race is providing realtime data about the race. The pit notes, photographers, video resources and reporters at the track can fill in the gaps and provide imagery to support the story.

So, Maelochs, you made some good points. Attempting to duplicate or replace the TV coverage does not make sense. What does make sense is to develop an adjunct system that can help make the TV system more effective. Technically, some of this is possible without anyone leaving home. That helps a lot with the budget.

Bottom line, the goal is to make the coverage better so that new fans can get a glimpse and be turned on by the excitement, color, beauty, danger, and the world-class abilities of drivers, teams, designers, and...

We saw how the ALMS grew and attracted the fans but the lament was that the show was not properly packaged and presented to the world in a format that they grasped and allowed their short attention span to focus upon. Hey, with a $50,000 budget, I think we can do miracles!

[wdave0]

>>-How can the DP's go so much longer on fuel than the P2s? Makes no sense.<<

>>A race handed to the #5 car. No penalty?!?! Complete and utter bullshit there!<<



Everybody is equal, just some are more equal than others.

[Mechanic Z]

Quite simply, Friday's race was pathetic.

Have seen the start, Action Express should have been penalized. It's boneheaded driving like that that gets people hurt.



BoP is still broken, only had timing and MRN, but didn't see any evidence of a P2 passing a DP, outside of pits.

MRN's coverage, though it didn't have any axe-grinding from Gold this time, was appalling. They almost completely ignored the racing in GTALMS, GTD and PC. And their coverage of the P class wasn't that good either.

This race has killed most of my enthusiasm (again) for attending Road America.


Bratwurst should be good anyway.

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by Mechanic Z

Quite simply, Friday's race was pathetic.

Have seen the start, Action Express should have been penalized. It's boneheaded driving like that that gets people hurt.



BoP is still broken, only had timing and MRN, but didn't see any evidence of a P2 passing a DP, outside of pits.

MRN's coverage, though it didn't have any axe-grinding from Gold this time, was appalling. They almost completely ignored the racing in GTALMS, GTD and PC. And their coverage of the P class wasn't that good either.

This race has killed most of my enthusiasm (again) for attending Road America.


Bratwurst should be good anyway.

I respect you for sticking with MRN, but if it were me, I would rather follow it on Twitter than suffer through their commentary.

[Deleted]

I didn't watch cause I didn't feel like doing so. Nuff said.

Speaking of Road America, it will be 'interesting' to see the comparative single lap times there as it's only the second circuit this year where both series were present last season, and PC was 2,5 seconds faster than DP...

2013 ALMS-Rolex-CTSCC joint weekend poles
1:51.460 - P1 (HPD ARX-03c)
1:54.806 - P2 (HPD ARX-03b)
1:55.362 - DW (Deltawing Elan)
1:57.630 - PC (Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet)
2:00.028 - DP (BMW Riley)
2:03.410 - GTE (SRT Viper GTS-R)
2:11.183 - R-GT (Ferrari 458 GT3 Grand-Am)
2:11.931 - GTC (Porsche 911 GT3 Cup)
2:19.310 - GX (Mazda6 GX)
2:22.295 - GS (Nissan 370Z)
2:31.117 - ST (BMW 328i)

[jasonjessica09]

The Indy race was nothing special by any means. This was the first 2 hr 45 min race with all 4 divisions and it seemed rushed especially with all the commercials and featurettes which are garbage.

Plus why such a heavy skew towards the prototype category? GTLM and GTD coverage got a huge shaft I think. These manufacturers putting $$$ into the GTLM class should not be happy about the lack of exposure on this one. Plus with it being a support race on Friday. It was just weak. Lets forget about this one and move to Road America.

I hope IMSA can make a smart move about what to do with Indy in the 2015 schedule because being a Friday support race just does not cut it. By Saturday morning it was an afterthought.

[jasonjessica09]

Originally Posted by Chiana

I didn't watch cause I didn't feel like doing so. Nuff said.

Speaking of Road America, it will be 'interesting' to see the comparative single lap times there as it's only the second circuit this year where both series were present last season, and PC was 2,5 seconds faster than DP...

2013 ALMS-Rolex-CTSCC joint weekend poles
1:51.460 - P1 (HPD ARX-03c)
1:54.806 - P2 (HPD ARX-03b)
1:55.362 - DW (Deltawing Elan)
1:57.630 - PC (Oreca FLM09 Chevrolet)
2:00.028 - DP (BMW Riley)
2:03.410 - GTE (SRT Viper GTS-R)
2:11.183 - R-GT (Ferrari 458 GT3 Grand-Am)
2:11.931 - GTC (Porsche 911 GT3 Cup)
2:19.310 - GX (Mazda6 GX)
2:22.295 - GS (Nissan 370Z)
2:31.117 - ST (BMW 328i)

I will guess LMP2 and LMPC will be about 1 second slower. DP 4 seconds faster. GTLM about 1 second faster.

[Mechanic Z]

Originally Posted by BullMan

I respect you for sticking with MRN, but if it were me, I would rather follow it on Twitter than suffer through their commentary.

Yeah, Twitter's been the only way I could tell what was going on.

[Rcz]

Ugh... Yes I agree about those damn commercial. But what can you do? It's the manufacturer that are paying for the TV coverage. Tell them to screw off? Then I'm afraid we wouldn't have TV converge at all.

The race converge it self also needs to get better, I know shooting live TV for 4 classes is very difficult but I know they can get better then this.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by jasonjessica09

I will guess LMP2 and LMPC will be about 1 second slower. DP 4 seconds faster. GTLM about 1 second faster.

Sounds plausible I suppose

Mazda should be at least 15 seconds faster than their GX cars last year, so that'd be a nice meaningless PR line for them as well

[Ferrari333SP]

One major way to spice up the Indy? Remove those god-awful turns that prevent the cars from blasting down the main straightaway. I got through about 10 minutes at the beginning of this race before having to turn it off, because I couldn't take the cars having to slow down for those few new turns before the main straightaway; makes no sense to me. I want to see fast cars, yet this new layout prevents that. They didn't sink quite as low as what the people did to Hockenheim, hacking off the ONLY reason people paid attention to the track in the first place, the long straights, but still; ughhhhhh.

Bring on Road America.

[Coach Ep]

Historic tire issues and all the liability consequences that came with them were likely to have caused the reconfiguration of the road course.

Not a good race by any standards, track really does not belong on the schedule - but still expect it very much to be so....

[Ferrari333SP]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

Historic tire issues and all the liability consequences that came with them were likely to have caused the reconfiguration of the road course.

Not a good race by any standards, track really does not belong on the schedule - but still expect it very much to be so....

If Indy cars can race around those corners at 230mph+, and not have tires that explode, then surely these sportscars having nothing to worry about at much slower speeds.

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by Ferrari333SP

If Indy cars can race around those corners at 230mph+, and not have tires that explode, then surely these sportscars having nothing to worry about at much slower speeds.

The sports cars are much heavier and have tires that need to do more than take a single corner at 200+mph. There's also 10+ different types of cars that'll work the tires differently so you have to do 10 times as much work to develop a "safe" tire. Also, keep in mind the sports cars are accelerating through the corner (coming out of a slower corner onto the banking) so it puts a different load into the tire than a top speed mostly lateral load.

It's not easy, which is why I tried not to give Continental much grief about their crappy "speedway" tire... until they forced us to run it (sometimes...) on conventional circuits.

-mike

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Mike Hedlund

It's not easy, which is why I tried not to give Continental much grief about their crappy "speedway" tire... until they forced us to run it (sometimes...) on conventional circuits.

'Sometimes'?

Speedway tire on conventional circuits?

My brain hurts.

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by Chiana

'Sometimes'?

Speedway tire on conventional circuits?

My brain hurts.

Yes. Last season they decided at the last minute to make everyone run it at WGI (I think because the Camaro and Porsches were having problems with rear tires failing because they were dropping wheels off in the bus-stop).

We had tested after Daytona on the normal tires to get ready for COTA/WGI/Indy/Laguna and were really happy with the car. But hadn't tested on the speedway tires and it showed during the race.. we were way off pace. We couldn't get enough heat into them to make them work. At COTA on the "normal" tire we were running pretty strong until an Audi took us out near the end. I think they made us run the "speedway" tire at Laguna too for some reason... but I can't quite remember as we got taken out of that race (by a DP) too.

-mike

[Ferrari333SP]

From a fan perspective though, speed is what we want, and those new turns take away the speed we're looking for. Hopefully by next year they do more development on the tires, and they could possibly get rid of those new turns. Doesn't seem that likely though.

[TF110]

From watching on the big screen tv, there was nearly no one in the stands. Only a few seated at the start/finish line. Was anyone on this forum there for this race? Was there people in other seating areas? I saw there were some decent amounts in the grass.

[Rcz]

I think most people were in the infield grass. But I really don't know.

[Lagunaseca_4life]

http://sportscar365.com/features/pho...-race-gallery/

[Articus]

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

http://sportscar365.com/features/pho...-race-gallery/

These 2 pics say a thousand words

[Salamus]

Nah, it only says 2 words "Red Winning!"

[Lagunaseca_4life]

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

http://sportscar365.com/features/pho...-race-gallery/

-edit: look at the pictures with grand stands in the back ground,since people have been wanting to see the crowd.well there they are,I thought it looked like an ok crowd.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by Salamus

Nah, it only says 2 words "Red Winning!"

[Deleted]

I wanted to compare those to the Kansas "crowds" but then I realized that gallery from such event, if there ever was one, does not exist on IMSA.com Thankfully Dagys took some

Anyway judging by those few still images the stands don't look particularly worse or better than at Daytona, but then again at Daytona people are jam packed in the infield