Cart's Town Hall in Ohio

[Jay]

I"m sure many of you have heard of this open forum Cart held in Columbus Ohio where fans were let in for free to directly question all the major players in Cart such as Chris Pook, Chris Kneifel, Mario Andretti and Bobby Rahal.

There's an article on Cart.com right now that had a pretty good summary of hte night. http://www.cart.com/News/Article.asp?ID=4180

My favorite quote would have to be Mario's: ""It's tough to control your kids anymore!"

[StuiE]

Mario: "Without the Indianapolis 500, do you think that the IRL would still be alive? No chance! Will CART be around? You're damn right it will be around! "



Could be standing starts by Mid Ohio, interesting

Standing starts -
To resounding cheers, the CART officials tipped their hand on the rumored plans to use standing starts at their street and road course venues. After a short exchange concerning the current pit rules, Mario raised a complaint about the current start policy of a wave off when the field is not in the correct alignment. Kneifel responded, "What about standing starts?"

When Daly followed that comment with the pronouncement: "My vote, on all road courses, -- standing starts", the audience cheered loudly. Pook said: "We're working on it." Daly followed with: "It might not be ready for Mid-Ohio, but we might" After hearing the response to the topic, Daly warned: "If we end up with standing starts, it's because of you people here in Columbus."

http://www.motorsport.com/news/article.asp?ID=101667

[macdaddy]

Standing starts, eh? Sounds pretty good. But I wonder how many first laps will be run under yellow anyway because of somebody stalling on the grid.

[Jay]

I like that idea, but not this year... Give the teams and drivers some time to adapt their clutches/gearing and give the drivers more of a chance to practice it. Maybe for next year...

[camcartfan]

I agree. This year is too soon.

[enemy-ace]

I doubt they would implement it this year. They're not going to start weighing the car and driver together until next year, so I would imagine having standing starts this year would be to hasty for Pook & Co.
Rahal mentioned that next year with everyone running Cosworth's that he would like to see Traction Control disappear. I hope he lobbies hard for this and is successful. I listened to it on CART.com, and it was a real feel good meeting. Another reason why I like CART! They are really being Pro-Active.

[macdaddy]

I really hope that Liz gets "the scoop" about traction control when she talks to Fernandez in Montreal. I'm quite curious about what the veterans think about it.

[macdaddy]

About standing starts... They're gonna have to come up with something to monitor "jumped starts" that is more definitive than a judgement call by observers. How do they do it in F1?

[Lee Janotta]

Judgement calls by observers, I think.

You've got marshalls, TV cameras, reporters, officials, and thousands of fans all watching the start. When someone jumps, they're going to be spotted.

[Jay]

Actually, in F1 they have sensors in the road that pick that up. A small hole is drilled into the asphalt, and a sensor is placed there that sends out a signal if a car's wheel moves before the lights go out. I'm not sure if this is the case in Monaco though... It used to be an exception.