Russo and Eric talk shop, and Eric gets 2 phone calls

[f1manoz]

Ganassi and Andretti will be getting more than boos from myself if I was to attend!

Think Figo after he went from Barcelona to Real Madrid...

[Flatspot]

Not quoting you out of context macdaddy. Just using your quote to embelish my feelings toward those specific teams. I understand exactly where you are coming from and agree with you.

[Uesque]

Originally posted by Flatspot
I respectfully reserve the right to boo whomever I choose on the grid or on the street. Ganassi and Andretti would be at the top of my boo list. That said, they have every right to compete in Champ Car if they so desire.

Go to a NASCAR race and look at the "I hate Jeff Gordon" signs, and you'll see that booing is not necessarily a bad thing for getting fans in the seats. Anything that elicits a strong emotional response in the fans will be good for the series. It's when they don't care either way that you have problems.

[jjspierx]

Originally posted by Snrub
Ultimately I think the biggest problem with CC racing right now is that the teams aren't equal enough. When there were stronger teams the competition was closer. Combine that with the spec series and it would be very good.

Gotta disagree with you on this one Snrub. Champcar has the most equal playing field of any other top tier racing series that I can think of off the top of my head. Everybody has the same tires, engines, and for the most part chassis's. Sure some teams are on a shoe-string budget and can't test as much or afford many spare parts, but the fact is, for most of the teams, if they aren't competetive, its because there drivers aren't as good, or because there engineers haven't figured out how to setup the cars properly for their drivers. Nothing can, will, or should change that. There will never be a completely level playing field in ANY racing series, but I think Champcar is as close as it gets.

I know you have your opinion that Newman Haas has these magical setups that give them a huge advantage, but I just don't buy that. I've worked on race cars, done aligmnents and setup on race cars, and most importantly raced race cars. Setting up a car is not rocket science. There is no magic setup that will work well for all drivers. Every drive has a different driving style. One driver can drive a car and say it has horrible understeer and a different driver could drive it and say it oversteers. Its all about driving style and learning to adapt to a cars setup. Some setups are inherently good and bad though. I won't argue that Newman Haas has SOME advantage having been around as long as they have, but the fact is, they have the best drivers, and great engineers. The other teams will catch up after they've been around the series for a few years. It really helps when a driver and engineer can work together for multiple years so that they can work together to get a setup that works for the driver.

Ok, I think I'm done.

[mountainstar]

I find it strange that some fans want teams or drivers to return that just tried to off champcar in recent times as well as bashing champcar at every opportunity. I want to keep the cancer that previously infected CART in remission.

[BootsOntheSide]

Roger Penske didn't try to kill CART. Nor did Chip Ganassi, Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan or anyone else. They made business decisions based on which series was likely to give them the best outcome. The person most responsible for CART's current problems is Joe Heitzler.

[Snrub]

Originally posted by jjspierx
Gotta disagree with you on this one Snrub. Champcar has the most equal playing field of any other top tier racing series that I can think of off the top of my head. Everybody has the same tires, engines, and for the most part chassis's. Sure some teams are on a shoe-string budget and can't test as much or afford many spare parts, but the fact is, for most of the teams, if they aren't competetive, its because there drivers aren't as good, or because there engineers haven't figured out how to setup the cars properly for their drivers. Nothing can, will, or should change that. There will never be a completely level playing field in ANY racing series, but I think Champcar is as close as it gets.

I won't disagree that things are close in CC, but CC racing is at its best when things are VERY close. You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the engineering. Ignore NH and look at Forsythe. There's no question they had a poor year and didn't set up the car properly. If all the teams had similar budgets they'd have similar engineering. In the past with unequal equipment the engineering was close enough that things were pretty close.

NH's setups aren't magic, but they are better. The past couple of years they've built on very successful setups. It means that if they did nothing but use the previous year's setup they've got a decent qualifying position. While the other teams are trying to figure a reasonable setup NH is fine tuning their pole winning qualifying setup. Ultimately it means they have an advantage that is hard to beat by teams that are less capable of developing setups. I don't think the other teams will catch up until their engineers get good through experience or they hire good engineers.

I'd tend to disagree that setups aren't rocket science. In fact it's more cost effective to send people into space than to develop a F1 setup. I know it's foolish to argue this point with you of all people here, but don't you think that when developing a setup that adapting to the car is more important than driver style? My understanding has always been that teams develop setups to be fast and only tweak them to a driver's preference so that it is more likely that the driver will be able to be successful with the car. Correct/incorrect? My only personal experience with this kind of setup is with racing sims, which only begins to scatch the surface. It's remarkably hard to read telemetry to optimize only 15 settings to perfectly compromise each setting for a lap.

[MisterX]

Wonder if Russo and Eric also talked about Justin's move?

[gttouring]

i would welcome most teams back i think- after all they all formed the landscape of openwheel, before the split-andretti green, well i would love Kanaan and dario back in champcars...and herta!
Penske, he did what he could i suppose, but toyota had other plans really, the captain and his team are as stalwart in champcar as a black number 3 was in NASCAR, can we do well with out it, yes ofcourse, but it is good to have it around, for the better.
in fact bring them all back, this series was the contemporary sideways move to f1 and top series in the world
what happened? if we have learned anything from school, united we stand.