Round 18: MAVTV 500. Auto Club Speedway, Fontana, CA. 29th - 30th August, 2014.

[bjohnsonsmith]

So here we are, going into the final race of a rather compressed but otherwise excellent season, with Will Power leading Hélio Castroneves by 51 points and with double points to be had. Will Power be the bridesmaid again?

Formerly known as the California Speedway, the track was built in April 1994 by Roger Penkse on the abandoned site of the Kaiser Steel mill in Fontana, California. In 1999, Penske Motorsport who owned the track, merged with International Speedway Corporation, ISC, owned by NASCAR President Bill France, Jr. The newly merged company retained the name ISC and operates the track. In February 2008, The Automobile Club of Southern California, ACSC, became the title sponsor of the venue with Auto Club Speedway becoming the official name.

CART's innaugural race, the Marlboro 500 Presented by Toyota, took place on September 28, 1997 and was won by former F1 British driver Mark Blundell for Bruce McCaw's PacWest Racing. The venue continued to host the event up until 2002. In 2002, the IRL IndyCar Series also added Fontana to its calendar, with a 400-mile race the Yamaha Indy 400 and Fontana became the first track to host races from both CART and the IRL. The race was won by Sam Hornish, Jr. for Panther Racing. The event changed its name in 2003 to the Toyota Indy 400 and continued racing there until 2005 but with dwindling crowds it was removed from the calendar. IndyCar eventually returned to Fontana, with the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2012, as a night race and season finale and was won by Ed Carpenter for Ed Carpenter Racing.

Track Layout:


Length: 2.00 mi - 3.22 km
Turns: 4

Lap record: October 28, 2000. Gil de Ferran, Penske Racing, Reynard 2KI-Honda HRK, 29.823 seconds, 241.428 mph - 388.541 km/h. This is the World Speed Record for a closed course.

Last year's winner:
Will Power
Team Penske
Dallara DW12-Chevrolet

Laps: 250
Distance: 500 mi - 804.672 km
Race Time: 3:13:43
Average Speed: 154.867 mph - 249.234 km/h

TV Coverage:
NBCSN
Green flag, 9:00pm ET.

[Salamus]

Thanks for doing this for every race bjohnsonsmith.

With double points, this is going to be great to watch. Surely Power will win it this time. Oh, and I hope this isn't the last Fontana race.

[D.R.T.]

Fingers crossed for a Power Championship win and a Fontana return.

[rwintle]

Originally Posted by Salamus

Thanks for doing this for every race bjohnsonsmith.

+1.

As for the race - as long as it's not the pathetic crash- and attrition-fest of last year, I'll be happy whoever wins the championship. It will take a monumental fail for Power to miss it again at this stage though.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Salamus

Thanks for doing this for every race bjohnsonsmith.

With double points, this is going to be great to watch. Surely Power will win it this time. Oh, and I hope this isn't the last Fontana race.

No probs. Frostie used to do an excellent intro on the F1 section of 10-Tenths, so I thought why not do the same here.

Cheers.

[Purist]

Bad incident cut short the evening practice. Bourdais, Hawksworth, and Andretti drove or walked back to the pits from Turn 4. They thought Saavedra might have been involved, but I didn't see his car. Kimball's car was pretty knackered, but he climbed out. The extraction team had been around and atop Aleshin's car for several minutes when the stream ended just a bit ago. A portion of the debris fence was dislodged, and there was a wheel assembly caught in it.

I don't know how much was really caught on camera. I saw Andretti come to a stop at the tail end of it. They did not show a replay.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Andretti got below the yellow line, spun up into the path of Kimball's car, who sent the Russian airborne and his front end went into the fencing. Nasty accident, but Aleshin isn't seriously hurt (thank god!), but is complaining of pain in his right shoulder and foot. I doubt he'll be racing though, which is a shame. Despite all of the accidents he's looked promising at times.

[skells22]

@Purist it on youtube the crash in full and once again that catch fenching did it job in keeping race cars where it meant to be

[Yannick]

Here's wishing Mikhail Aleshin a quick and full recovery.

With no practise session left before the race and the driver out, it's way too late to get somebody who could drive relief for Aleshin in the #7 car. If there were enough time, who might that somebody have been anyway? So there are just going to be 21 cars running in the season finale.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Turns out the injuries are serious but luckily not too serious:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115635

[Formulahistory]

`Why will there not be a driver to jumb in for Aleshin? I thought in IndyCar that's possible?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Lack of track time I'd guess. It's probably far too late now. Pre-Q maybe, but now it's going to have to get the approval of every team/driver, lots of paperwork and not enough time. Shame, because I'm sure Gabby Chaves or Sage Karam would've leapt at the chance, but it's not ideal circumstances. Hopefully Aleshin will be better come 2015...

[bjohnsonsmith]

Castroneves on pole and Power's back in 21st!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/115630

Pos Driver Team/Engine Speed
1. Helio Castroneves Penske/Chevy 218.540
2. Juan Pablo Montoya Penske/Chevy 217.621
3. Josef Newgarden Fisher/Honda 217.600
4. Takuma Sato Foyt/Honda 217.323
5. Scott Dixon Ganassi/Chevy 217.057
6. Charlie Kimball Ganassi/Chevy 217.017
7. Tony Kanaan Ganassi/Chevy 216.857
8. Mikhail Aleshin Schmidt/Honda 216.726
9. Ryan Hunter-Reay Andretti/Honda 216.305
10. Graham Rahal Rahal/Honda 216.299
11. James Hinchcliffe Andretti/Honda 215.898
12. Ryan Briscoe Ganassi/Chevy 215.878
13. Simon Pagenaud Schmidt/Honda 215.752
14. Ed Carpenter Carpenter/Chevy 215.326
15. Sebastien Bourdais KV/Chevy 214.713
16. Justin Wilson Coyne/Honda 214.486
17. Jack Hawksworth Herta/Honda 214.173
18. Marco Andretti Andretti/Honda 214.109
19. Carlos Munoz Andretti/Honda 213.991
20. Sebastian Saavedra KV/Chevy 213.981
21. Will Power Penske/Chevy 212.604
22. Carlos Huertas Coyne/Honda 202.319

[Purist]

Off the top of my head, I would have given Townsend Bell a call. He has experience in the cars, and is competent on ovals.

Yeah, I'm glad it wasn't worse for Mikhail. Given how long I was watching the extraction crew there, before the stream ended, and the fact of them showing no replays, I was quite concerned initially.

[Beetle]

After what transpired last night at Fontana with Mikhael Aleshin's grisly crash, I think it races a fair point: should IndyCar dispose of ovals? The last IndyCar fatality was in Las Vegas, a high-speed oval. Dario Franchitti could have easily been paralyzed at his crash in Houston last year, where the sweeping corner with no run-off and just a catch fence closely resembled an oval. Now, Aleshin's crash looks very similar... a catch fence catching a car and sending it into at least five airborn rotations.

Take it with a grain of salt, but from my point of view IndyCar needs to drop the ridiculously tight street circuits with catch fences that can absolute destroy both car and subsequently driver, and dangerous high speed ovals. NASCAR's are heavy enough that they don't easily get airborn, but IndyCars are substantially lighter and contact with the catch fence can have disastrous consequences.

What do you think?

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

I think that they have to keep the Indianapolis 500. Safety standards are good enough for that to stay, and, like Monaco is in Formula 1 and Le Mans is for sportscars, the danger element is part of what makes it so great. It's behind most other venues in that aspect, but to do anything but what is absolutely necessary is generally seen as blasphemy. Since the HANS devices were made mandatory, there have been no fatalities at Indy during the May month. Only Tony Renna, killed in testing, is Indy's tragedy since the dawn of the millennium, and that was 11 years ago.

Plus, imagine Indycar's status and popularity without the 500...

[DS"]

Originally Posted by Beetle

What do you think?

Without ovals, IndyCar would just be a cheap knock-off of Formula One. With ovals, it still has the special something that makes the series more or less stand out among other series.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Beetle

After what transpired last night at Fontana with Mikhael Aleshin's grisly crash, I think it races a fair point: should IndyCar dispose of ovals? The last IndyCar fatality was in Las Vegas, a high-speed oval. Dario Franchitti could have easily been paralyzed at his crash in Houston last year, where the sweeping corner with no run-off and just a catch fence closely resembled an oval. Now, Aleshin's crash looks very similar... a catch fence catching a car and sending it into at least five airborn rotations.

Take it with a grain of salt, but from my point of view IndyCar needs to drop the ridiculously tight street circuits with catch fences that can absolute destroy both car and subsequently driver, and dangerous high speed ovals. NASCAR's are heavy enough that they don't easily get airborn, but IndyCars are substantially lighter and contact with the catch fence can have disastrous consequences.

What do you think?

I don't think they should drop the high speed ovals or the tight street circuits, the variety of tracks is what makes AOWR stand out from F1 and the plethora of Tilkedromes.

Without wanting to state the obvious, motorsport is inherently dangerous something we as fans appreciate, the drivers as participants accept and which is a fundamental aspect of the sport. If you start to eliminate that aspect of motorsport, by removing certain tracks then you'll be left with a sanitized version which will appeal to neither fan or driver.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting nothing should be done to prevent accidents and always welcome developments in motorport safety. IndyCar needs to look at the effectiveness of catch fencing. In the case of Aleshin's crash, if the safer-barrier had been higher, the car wouldn't have been caught in the catch fencing and therefore wouldn't have spun around so violently.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

But I think that you have to remember the Wheldon's accident happened in odd circumstances, such as a huge field and crazy banking. Those circumstances are not going to be repeated in the near future.

Anyway, any chance talking the race?

[Paradise City]

No, Indycars should not dispose of ovals.

[JacobP]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

TV Coverage:
NBCSN
Green flag, 9:00pm ET.

Are you sure this is correct? I thought there was going to be a pre-race show.

[Beetle]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I don't think they should drop the high speed ovals or the tight street circuits, the variety of tracks is what makes AOWR stand out from F1 and the plethora of Tilkedromes.

Without wanting to state the obvious, motorsport is inherently dangerous something we as fans appreciate, the drivers as participants accept and which is a fundamental aspect of the sport. If you start to eliminate that aspect of motorsport, by removing certain tracks then you'll be left with a sanitized version which will appeal to neither fan or driver.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting nothing should be done to prevent accidents and always welcome developments in motorport safety. IndyCar needs to look at the effectiveness of catch fencing. In the case of Aleshin's crash, if the safer-barrier had been higher, the car wouldn't have been caught in the catch fencing and therefore wouldn't have spun around so violently.

This is key. Houston has already been dropped and I think that's really the only street circuit that needed to be disposed of. Obviously the Indy 500 needs to stay... otherwise, I'm not so sure.

Comparing it to F1, even without the ovals, is silly... the IndyCar circuit runs only in North America (may change next year), and the tracks are far less curated than those on the F1 calendar. They should really look into low-speed ovals like Bristol, New Hampshire, or Dover, IMO.

[Paradise City]

Indycar should keep the ovals and the drivers being adults can choose to partake or not.

[Salamus]

Terrible night for Pagenaud. Stuck one lap down in 20th place. As of right now, he would drop from 3rd to 6th in the points.

Power still in position to win the championship.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Got in from a late night and this looks like a great race.