XM Satellite Radio Indy 300 @ Homestead Event Thread *SPOILERS* - Page 2

rustyfan · 25 Mar 2007, 01:44 (Ref:1875416)

Seems Vision Racing has done a bit of homework during the off-season.

And, whoa, nice save by Scheckter there.

Hazza · 25 Mar 2007, 01:45 (Ref:1875417)

"Screw you guys, i'm going home"

Hazza · 25 Mar 2007, 01:45 (Ref:1875418)

rain!

Knowlesy · 25 Mar 2007, 01:45 (Ref:1875419)

Argh, rain! Arsecakes!

rustyfan · 25 Mar 2007, 01:46 (Ref:1875420)

Argh, damn rain - go away! I'm supposed to get up at a decent time tomorrow, err, today, I don't have time for a rain delay.

Knowlesy · 25 Mar 2007, 01:47 (Ref:1875421)

It does not help that the clocks move forward here today!

Gonna be difficult to get up in five hours time for the 125cc race.

rustyfan · 25 Mar 2007, 01:50 (Ref:1875423)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

It does not help that the clocks move forward here today!

Gonna be difficult to get up in five hours time for the 125cc race.

Indeed.

Hm, I think I'll just leave the DVD-recorder running and catch some sleep.

Hazza · 25 Mar 2007, 01:58 (Ref:1875427)

It's 11am Here. 125s start about Tea time.

+1 to Australian time zone.

Knowlesy · 25 Mar 2007, 02:01 (Ref:1875428)

For once!

Back underway quickly anyways! Marco has no idea what was up with the car. The engineer thinks it's a setup problem, Marco thinks it was broken.

The wonderful Sky Sports decided to change the broadcast channel as the restart came on, so we missed five minutes there.

Knowlesy · 25 Mar 2007, 02:02 (Ref:1875430)

A slight shunt there.

Matt · 25 Mar 2007, 02:45 (Ref:1875443)

Danica can't drive.

Knowlesy · 25 Mar 2007, 03:02 (Ref:1875453)

Very dull to say the least.

Wheldon leads 176 laps, laps everyone up to and including 6th place and wins by a mile.

Not that I am unhappy at the result for Dan and CGR.

Snrub · 25 Mar 2007, 03:25 (Ref:1875459)

Good for Weldon, but I'm not exactly sure that was an encouraging result... What was truely astonishing was the pace Weldon had over Dixon. How that is possible I do not understand, they must have done something significantly different with the setups (?). That wasn't a matter of a minor wing adjustment, etc.

Vision was incredible, I was blown away by their pace.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Knowlesy

Barrichello pits.

I missed the joke... if that way a joke...

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazza

"Screw you guys, i'm going home"

Lol. Very appropriate. I've never seen a car from a front running team drop out due to "scary" handling problems. Very odd. I missed the start (not a huge fan of the foot to the floor through the corner races), but was his car really THAT bad?

deejay · 25 Mar 2007, 03:25 (Ref:1875460)

Dan had it hooked up. Surprised Sam fell away at the end. Signs point to a Ganassi/Penske show again this year, AGR's promise in qualifying didn't show through in the race at all.

Marco still can't seem to get it right on these kinds of tracks.

Danica seemed to be feeling the pressure pre-race, crashing into the pit-wall probably hasn't helped. On the bright side her race pace was okay compared to her teammates.

deejay · 25 Mar 2007, 03:32 (Ref:1875463)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snrub

What was truely astonishing was the pace Weldon had over Dixon. How that is possible I do not understand, they must have done something significantly different with the setups (?). That wasn't a matter of a minor wing adjustment, etc.

Scott was pretty much matching Dan for the last 80 laps or so of the race, so I think it WAS a pretty minor adjustment. Dan obviously just found the setup sweet spot earlier in the weekend.

Really, it's just a continuation of last year on these kinds of tracks, with Dan being just a bit faster and more aggressive than his teammate. Scott will have to pick that up this year if he wants to beat Dan. Although on the bright side for him it was good to see him running the high side in this race to pass guys, something he wasn't really able to do last year as well as Dan and Sam. Seems to be getting a better handle on the Dallara chasis.

Hazza · 25 Mar 2007, 05:52 (Ref:1875490)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snrub

I missed the joke... if that way a joke...

Tony swapped helmets with Rubens for Indy/Monacco.

Rob29 · 25 Mar 2007, 09:28 (Ref:1875626)

Dam! I missed the middle of the race when most of the action seems to have happened.Managed to stay awake untill 01.30GMT and the first ad break when I set the VCR to record the next 2 hrs.Up and started to watch it just after 9BST.Unfortunately Skysports decided to switch channels,so I only taped about 45 mins.Never mind rerun at 8am,but now its 0945 so I only got the last 15mins ,plus post race studio chat now in progress.
Oh well they just signed of with one of my favouite songs of all time.The Only Ones-Another planet...

Knowlesy · 25 Mar 2007, 11:24 (Ref:1875724)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hazza

Tony swapped helmets with Rubens for Indy/Monacco.

And they are clones.

Tony is the more refined clone of Rubens.

It's true, just do a google search.

Snrub · 25 Mar 2007, 21:31 (Ref:1876186)

I disagree, Weldon had a HUGE lead in a very short period. Basically he came back after the bungled pitstop, hung around with Dixon for a while. Suddenly he decided that he wasn't going to leave anything to chance and just left Dixon in the dust. Having a 7 second margin on an oval is pretty tough to do, particularly when there is little traffic (few cars running) and it's fairly easy to pass them.

deejay · 25 Mar 2007, 23:14 (Ref:1876293)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snrub

I disagree, Weldon had a HUGE lead in a very short period. Basically he came back after the bungled pitstop, hung around with Dixon for a while. Suddenly he decided that he wasn't going to leave anything to chance and just left Dixon in the dust. Having a 7 second margin on an oval is pretty tough to do, particularly when there is little traffic (few cars running) and it's fairly easy to pass them.

Actually, Dixon was around 1 second behind going into the final pitstops and 5 seconds behind when they came out. Wheldon made about 4 seconds in that final pitstop. So Wheldon only made a second or two on track over Dixon in the final stint of the race. I think Dixon must have improved his car over the race because he left Hornish behind quite dramatically when earlier he couldn't keep up with him.

That being said I think it was pretty clear that Wheldon was faster and that Dixon (and Hornish for that matter) could only hold on (just) when in Wheldon's draft. Dixon certainly took advantage of that to break away from the pack.

Probably the most amazing part of of Wheldon's drive was how quickly he made it to the front once he got back in the pack.

Hazza · 26 Mar 2007, 00:20 (Ref:1876313)

The other interesting thing is only the guys with good cars could run flat around the oval. Everyone else needed to lift into the corners, but Dan could just flatchat it around...

stradlin21 · 26 Mar 2007, 00:31 (Ref:1876320)

Great job by Dan Wheldon, really pleased to see him win again

Credit also due to Vitor Meira and Ed Carpenter aswell

Without doubt Carpenter is the most improved driver in the series and he out drove his teammate again on the way to a good finish and he pulled off a great overtaking move at the same time as lapping Roth

Roth actually scored his best ever result at this race

bad luck for Marco and AGR but Ganassi were so strong

i think everyone apart from them, Meira and Vision are still in bed!

and an awful race for Rahal Letterman, even with the penalties after quali, they were still way, way, way off the pace!

looking forward to St Pete!

(and check out the new lady!)

still, sweetie Sarah is still my no.1 female driver

Ryan_Briscoe1 · 26 Mar 2007, 12:02 (Ref:1876649)

congratulations to danica patrick on another great race. Once again she is showing us that she can compete at the top level, and got the seat not just cos she is a marketing tool.

Mystery · 26 Mar 2007, 12:45 (Ref:1876674)

ooooh - harsh RB - but fair - that was dreadful.........

I think there have been many occasions in the past where a driver has pulled it in like Marco did. Darren Manning is one which came immediately to mind, but in this format of racing there'd be many others I would think.

Just looked up the Perez crash on Youtube and it is very very nasty looking indeed. I would not expect the catch fencing to grab a car the way it did so I think that should be looked at if possible.

Got home from work about 1am on Sunday morning so I actually timed that pretty well for the start of the race. Nice of the organisers to wait for me really

Loved watching sparks coming off the cars, but that was probably about as exciting as the racing got, but to be fair Dan was just so much faster than everyone out there that it was always going to be like that. Watching him slicing through the field in 11 laps was highly impressive.

Doubt he'll be a contender at St Pete's however. I'd expect the unexpected for this one - has Manning driven an IRL car on a road course before? Marco will be hoping for a slight improvement I guess. Danica might have a little practice on pitting between now and then.

Knowlesy · 26 Mar 2007, 16:39 (Ref:1876836)

Manning did St Petersburg in 2005 I think. Which Dan Wheldon won incidentally.

The smart money is on Helio or Scott but don't count Mr Wheldon out entirely. He's not too shaky on road courses.

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