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Nice job Wesley. In regards to your home page, it's got to be tough to be an Andretti, he is constantly surrounded by Latin beauties. It seams the married Danica Patrick is not the smiley type, probably a defense mechinism to keep all the Don Wuan types from hitting on her all the time. Now if you want the laser white affable smile, Milka Duno has it.
I hope Danica wins her first race here, it would be good for Danica, Newton Raceway and get the Cyclone State a little free pub.
ahh in Carbondale cant make it
I have a Radio-Shack scanner, I can't rememeber the model number, but it's alot of fun. Usually you can pick up a scanner sheet at the track with all the frequencies of the teams plus the ESPN guys and the production feed (which can be real entertaining).Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry1982
Today at the track the air was pretty moist. Parts of the day, the IndyCars were throwing vapor trails that were about 10 feet long. These pics don't show it as good as it looked in person but will give an idea.
Scott Dixon, Iowa 2007
Tomas Scheckter, Iowa 2007
Okay, got a scanner yesterday. Walking out the door now. Maybe I'll see you!Quote:
Originally Posted by wesley_w
I'll be the guy in the blue T-shirt.
In-laws went to the race, said there were a fair amount of crashes. Sounded like just over half of the field finished the race.
I watched it on TV, sorta interesting, seemed like 1/2 the laps were under caution. I did enjoy Danica "It's not my fault" Patrick whining after the race.
I was not pleased that it was not in HD. What kinda crap is that? It is 2007, ALL major events should be broadcast in HD!
Amen to that!Quote:
Originally Posted by brianhos
Interesting tidbit, the IRL cars run on 100 percent ethanol, not e85, not the 10 percent ethanol at your local pump. There was virtually no smell attributed to burnt race fuel like one maybe used to at there local dirt track. One of the many things I noticed while in attendance.
Vapor trails were cool too. They were most notable when cars were drafting....?????
[QUOTE=brianhos;146525]I watched it on TV, sorta interesting, seemed like 1/2 the laps were under caution. I did enjoy Danica "It's not my fault" Patrick whining after the race.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounded to me that Danica was as upset about the tires being the wrong compound for the cooler weather as she was the crash that took her and 3 others out. From where I was sitting, and watching the track screen replays, it wasn't her fault. She got caught in the middle, and when the lower car moved up into her car, she had no where to go to avoid the contact. End of defense for her. She's getting way too much publicity on account of her gender. She's a fair to middling talent, and not deserving of THAT much hype.
As far as the race itself, it was amazing. Too many crashes and yellows for comfort, but from most of the seats (not all) you can see just about the entire track. A lap every 17-18 seconds makes for a lot of head swiveling. WWOW!!! But, the track is so fast and so small, bad things cover a lot of ground quickly. Hope the track doesn't get a bad rep for that. Everyone keeps saying how much the drivers love it, so maybe it won't. BTW, there is a Daytona type sports car race the middle of July. They were talking about a top speed of 190+ for them, if that's their speed at Newton, they'll be faster than the IRS cars. And that would be something. Be sure to come early to avoid the traffic problem encountered by the later-morning arrivals. We were there by 8 a.m., and it was about like prime time traffic for a BB game at Hilton. :biggrin9gp:
I'm not much of a race fan, but on Danica's crash it seemed like her car was veering back and forth and that she actually initiated the wheel contact.
they were 4 wide, yes, but the three other cars were holding position in a very tight formation, Patrick appeared to moving around quite a bit in what little "room" she had. maybe this is the "looseness" they were talking of her complaining about at the start of the race? any race fans that can comment on it out there?
Here are some of my raceday photos
Wesley Winterink's Indycar Photos
and here are some from practice and qualifying
Wesley Winterink's Indycar Photos
About the tires, there are no tirewarmers allowed in this series, unlike Formula One. On a cooler overcast day like Sunday, it takes a couple race pace laps to get the tires to a good temp. I think they only bring one compound to each race, and Firestone brought a harder tire this weekend.
I thought the race was awesome, I would give anything and yes i really mean anything to get in one of those and race wide open for 250 laps.
As for Danica, when she was sandwiched I am sure the air flow created by the cars around her caused her car to "float" (kind of like the feeling you get in your car when a semi goes flying by you on the interstate) and that caused the crash.
Tires, firestone brought a hard tire to the race expecting hot conditions, but in fact we had cool conditions and with that is takes a couple more laps for the tires to generate heat and stick. I would have thought most of the drivers would have figured this out before the race and took it easy until the tires "fired" but they didn't.
Traffic, we got there at 7 AM and had no traffic issues.
I have ZERO complaints about the race or the track it was one of the sweetest things I have ever witnessed and can't wait til next year.
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First on the restart the leader was on the gas coming to the green and then he checked up, making everyone else check up and then the leader took off. Danica spun her tires a little bit and that is why everyone got a run on her. They decided to make it 4 wide which may or may not have been a good idea. The bottom car was holding his ground, but the top 2 started to push down just a little. Danica's car had been loose on restarts all day so when they started to come down she tried to move, but know where to go, she may have steered to much and then caused the wreck. The wreck could have been prevented had one of those 4 backed off, mainly Danica since she knew she was loose. :yes4lo:Quote:
Originally Posted by clones_jer
Here is a picture taken from IowaSpeedway.com
http://www.iowaspeedway.com/images/p...853-1kindy.jpg
Other than that I laughed at all of the traffic complaints on the Des Moines Register's article. But everyone of them thought that they could leave 1 1/2 hours before the race and still get there with time to spare :laugh8kb: Psst, There are more than one way into the track :yes4lo:, but I guess those SUV's get lost once they leave the freeway :rofl8yi:
Should could have got loose or she could have just swerved a little to try and alert the other 2 drivers that she didn't have room. She had a right to be mad, she got sandwiched, plain and simple. At least she completed more laps than her rival, Dan Wheldon, who wrecked on the first lap.Quote:
Originally Posted by clones_jer