The Long Beach GP feelgood thread

[Muzza]

What a great day in Long Beach today (Saturday):

- Vasser scores pole position (first since Michigan 1999!), grandstands brought down with cheers;

- MG is announced as engine supplier for 2003;

- very competitive qualifying - I would stress the great drives by Townsend Bell (impressive on the off-camber turns, fighting with the car all the time not to lose speed - he is also the fastest Reynard), Bruno Junqueira (very smooth) and Alex Tagliani (carrying that dog of a car on his back);

- in my opinion today's was the best Saturday public attendance since 1999;

- perfect organization, these guys know how to run the show. By the way, the autograph session of yesterday (Friday) was exceptional. All drivers were there, exceptions made to Kenny Bräck and Scott Dixon. I don't remember being on an autograph session with so many drivers (well, cannot compare to ALMS!), so much people and everything running as smoothly as possible (an autograph session will never be perfect, since 80.000 fans cannot be attended, but yesterday's was quite close...)

- good weather and lots of girls...

I cannot wait for tomorrow.

Cheers,

Muzza

[Speedworx]

Its good to see CART having good news and not the bad news it kept having in 2001.

[Jay]

Great to hear that! That's the thing about Cart, regardless of what trife is in the news, it still has a ton of great, well-attended events.

Can't wait to see the race!

[Liz]

I am glad to see such an upbeat attendance and good coverage of the race too. Although I think it will not be long until someone grabs Derek Daly by the throat on camera. Although I was pleased to see Mikey mess up, I think buttonholing him about it on camera was not the best thought Daly ever had.

How did the new qualifying setup play among the fans in the stands? I heard there was some discussion about it on Friday. Do they mainly seem to like it?

[Lee Janotta]

Two Americans on the podium! CART couldn't ask for a better end to this weekend! Marketing magic!

Joe who?

[jcclausen]

LBGP

Great race. Great TV coverage. 220 thousand (weekend) attendance.

Sorry Roger, you went the wrong way. The American open wheel series of choice is definitely CART.

[SevenGrain]

I thought it was a great race, but I must imagine that Jimmy Vasser will be kicking himself for days. I can't believe that he slowed down as much as he did, generally drivers hustle around until they meet up with the pace car. I bet he won't do that again. But still a great day for Team Rahal with Jourdain finishing fifth.

[Liz]

The weirdest race I have ever seen. But I have to admit that after snoring through that stupefying nonsense at Imola this morning, even a race where my team behaved like prats all day long was wonderful fun.

Query: How many races will Brand X have to ADD TOGETHER to come up with a figure of 200,000 attendees?

[Muzza]

Liz,

The public reaction to the new qualifiying rules was mixed. I will try to explain on a rather polemic way... (but I cannot think on anything better to express my point of view).

Those in the stands that were kind of "F-1/road circuit/die-hard-techie racing fan" liked it, because of the strategy and the alternance of peace and pandemonium it causes. These are guys and gals that like racing more as science and less as show. I will call these the "estereotypical European fans".

On the other hand: those that were kind of "Nascar/ovals/motorsport as a popular sport" did not appreciate it. These are people that prefer show to science, "estereotypical American fans".

Before someone sends me hate mail, I stress again the word ESTEREOTYPICAL...

I liked it - but I am somewhat biased for it because of my F-1/ sportscar/road circuit racing background.

The main problem was that the PA system guys were TOTALLY LOST during qualifying. They barely knew the rules, and did nothing to explore those "moments of silence" better. It took the main announcer some fifteen minutes to come up with the expression "oh, this is like a poker game" (and he was very proud of it - I guess he found it quite original!). So a big part of the public - not everybody is a professional racing fans like us... - was lost and poorly informed.

I guess they are all learning with this new set-up - by all I mean teams, drivers, public and even PA announcers.

Anybody agree/disagree?

Cheers, and what a weekend,

Muzza

[Muzza]

Just came back home from Long Beach, some quick thoughts:

- it was great to see two American drivers at the top of the podium. Michael Andretti did a perfect race. I would have loved to see Vasser winning, but I felt like he lacked a bit of punch when needed;

- note though that Vasser had the same problem as everybody - it was quite difficult to overtake today, especially with the temperature much cooler than expected.

- Papis did very well too, and he was the happiest guy around at the end! The whole weekend he was speaking well of the Sigma team and was trying to keep their chins up after a so-so performance on Friday and Saturday. After the race he could only emphasize how important such a good diasly was important on the search for a main sponsor, because the team is running with a very low budget...

- Townsend Bell was very impressive during the warm-up (I wonder how he did NOT crash on Turn 1!). Bell reminds me of Bryan Herta on the beginning of his career - I just hope he finds a different fate than Herta.

- if the cars would allow overtaking, and with a better starting position, Paul Tracy might have won. I have been very, very critical of Tracy throughout the years, but he was equally precise and audacious under braking.

- Tora Takagi continues to be one of the most challenging mysteries of mankind (one day the Discovery Channel will run a special on him - "Tora Takagi, The Enigma of The Rising Sun"). The way with which he alters great and mediocre laps, and mixed intelligent with stupid moves is beyond my comprehension. Or would it be a case of a driver playing too much with brake bias/roll bar set-up during the race?

- As a Brazilian, Long Beach was my worst nightmare!
Bruno had a horrible start, then sped in the pitlane, then made a major, gross braking error and crashed on Turn 1.
Tony was closing up on the frontrunners when the car gave up (electric problems, I heard).
Christiano (what a great guy, just ask anyone who had the chance to talk to him) was put out by a very wrong move by Fernández - and this was not the first time Adrian behaves poorly on the pitlane. Baaaad, Mr. Fernández!
And Christian, the Last Green-and-Yellow Hope, had his Toyota succumbed...

Oh well, it was great. And I managed not to get sunburned!

Cheers,

Muzza

[Knottsfreak]

Yup, LBGP was great!! I even ran into Memo Gidley in the Paddock, poor guy, he needs a RIDE! And I was really disappointed in the Players team, hoped they could of done better, and I think that Adrian Fernandez was distracted by the Simple Green Girls in the pits, damn they are HOT HOT HOT!!! YIKES! And what a great run by Mike, I got mad at him on Friday because he almost ran me over with his moped and didn't even say anything! At least when Paul hit me, he stopped and said sorry. I forgive him though. In all, LOTS of FUN!

[macdaddy]

The incident in question wasn't Fernandez' fault at all. He has every right to enter his own pitbox. daMatta's crew was at fault here for cutting him loose into oncoming traffic.

Great race from Long Beach. Andretti and Papis show that strategy can still play a part in this new rules package. Andretti has now been in victory circle at least once for fifteen consecutive seasons! And it was wonderful to see Sigma on the podium.

[Liz]

Max is so happy when he wins -- even when he gets on the podium --, I love him.

Thanks for the explanation from the stands -- likely you're right and as people get to understand it (and the drivers too), there will be less impatience with the fact that "we paid $$$ to sit here in the stands and WATCH NOTHING?"

The announcers at the Trans Am tracks have the same difficulty dealing with on-track activity or inactivity that the teams know about and apparently the announcers do not. Perhaps some training for the announcers is indicated.

That pitlane in Long Beach seems to me to be waaaaaay too narrow. Can't anything be done about it?

[Knottsfreak]

NO, not really. We could always ask Long Beach to make Shoreline Dr. 4 lanes wide, eventhough the street always has light traffic. Pit lane dosn't have to be widened, drivers and crews are the ones responsible for when or when not to release them selves from the pits. They just need to be a little more responsible.

[angus987]

Sorry to be negative but the race was a snoozefest on TV. Clearly faster drivers were simply not able to pass- reminded me of F1, onlt that was worse this weekend due to Schumi being so much faster than anyone. Anyway...I didn't think it was a champagne weekend for OW racing both F1 and Cart. The WWF show on wheels (I mean V8 Supercar) was entertaining though......