Honda Indy Toronto

[SUBARUTEAM]

there was nothing much in the rahal briscoe crash - i think the line belonged to graham - but thats racing. Same with the dixon crash, he gave room to RHR but got caught in the wrong place (outside of turn 1) and got punted into the wall. No stress there from either party.

its going to happen when you have a 170mph straight leading into a 1st gear 100 degree right hander - it has crash written all over it. I'm not aware of any corners like that in F1.

[Jag_Warrior]

After watching Robin Miller's take on the race it made me wonder if we saw the same race?!!!

I think there is a fundamental difference between people like myself who have been reared on British-European racing with Formula One as the standard and those in countries like the US and Canada.

Last season in the DTM there was a period which culminated in a particular race which was almost as boisterous as Toronto and it resulted in very strict groundrules being laid down - to the point that some said it would discourage overtaking attempts.

I guess its like the BP versus US situation. Someone like myself have been disgusted at how the US governmnt led the attack in America on a private company as if BP WANTED the spill and did not have the MOST to lose if it was not plugged qucickly as possible.

I think the cultural difference between people in the US and so many other countries is very real - so it was today.

Thank you for coming to this part of the forum and making all of us F1 fans look bad through guilt by association (to you). You just spread love and joy where ever you go, don't you?

As for BP, we all know what would have happened if that had happened off the coast of Israel, now don't we? Yeah, the American taxpayers would still be on the hook for cleaning it up! Word? Word!!!

Now since you just came here to troll anyway, why don't you run off to the NASCAR board and insult the great nation that bankrolls and props up your little pile of sand/sorry excuse for a nation? See how well THEY treat you over there.

[garyshell]

Oh joy Saint Devote graces us with his presence and starts by telling us he never watches the IRL and then proceeds to tell us exactly what is so wrong with it. Then he goes on to try to defend BP. What a piece of work. Please folks don't feed the troll, just ignore him and maybe he'll go crawly back under the rock where he belongs. (Notice that F1 was not running this week, so the poor boy was bored and had too much time on his hands. Too bad he didn't just sit on 'em.)

Gary

[Easy Drifter]

A very critical article in the Wheels section of the Toronto Star by a reporter. Not their motorsports writer though.
However she does not even know that they run on ethanol but refers to gas.
The 6 pages of comments also showed a huge lack of knowledge and general anti racing attitude. People complaining about the shutdown of the Lakeshore when TO shuts down streets all summer long for events. Others obviously do not even know Mosport exists after 50 years of operation saying there are no tracks in the GTA.
Legit complaints were high ticket prices, the ban on your own water, high food prices, (apparently beer on Sunday was up to $10 from $8.50 earlier).
Poor promotion and advertising was also mentioned.
I know there was none up my way, including in Barrie (135,000) and Southern Georgian Bay general area another 70,000.
All Toronto area stations said it was on TSN2 but none mentioned it was also on ABC. (TSN2 just picked up the ABC feed.) Few get TSN2. This hurts future attendance although you cannot blame the promoters for that.

[garyshell]

While nobody is going to aruge that PT isn't past his prime, and many statements you and FormerFF have made are absolutely true, I think PT even today is one of the top 8 or so best drivers on today's grid.

And apparently the old dog is still able to learn a few new tricks!

http://www.racer.com/paul-tracys-tor...MC-RACER_DAILY

Gary

[the bro]

A very critical article in the Wheels section of the Toronto Star by a reporter. Not their motorsports writer though.
However she does not even know that they run on ethanol but refers to gas.
The 6 pages of comments also showed a huge lack of knowledge and general anti racing attitude. People complaining about the shutdown of the Lakeshore when TO shuts down streets all summer long for events. Others obviously do not even know Mosport exists after 50 years of operation saying there are no tracks in the GTA.
Legit complaints were high ticket prices, the ban on your own water, high food prices, (apparently beer on Sunday was up to $10 from $8.50 earlier).
Poor promotion and advertising was also mentioned.
I know there was none up my way, including in Barrie (135,000) and Southern Georgian Bay general area another 70,000.
All Toronto area stations said it was on TSN2 but none mentioned it was also on ABC. (TSN2 just picked up the ABC feed.) Few get TSN2. This hurts future attendance although you cannot blame the promoters for that.

The Star seemed pretty critical of the race, the Sun was a bit more positive.
Showing a picture of empty grandstand 45 minutes before the race, and implying this is indicative of a lack of crowd is misleading. I personally was not in my seat 45 minutes before the race. Why would you be on a hot day?

The race itself was pretty good. You had several passes for the lead, how can you beat that. Lot of carnage, but it's a street track. At least in Toronto you rarely get a follow the leader type of race. Lots of opportunity/temptation to try a pass, which sometimes doesn't work out.

I sat in the Dr Pepper grandstand and thought it was a reasonable value. Free pop all weekend, free t shirt on Sunday, free slice of pizza Sunday. The food prices I didn't think were too out of line.

[Mark in Oshawa]

i'd call that smart racing. if she was a man, would you guys be so critical of her?

the issue is that the top guys are really good racers who would not look out of place in F1. to be able to race against these guys is a credit to her.

I say cut her some slack.

I will cut her slack after yesterday. She stayed out of trouble and it was all around her. Then again, it points to the reality that she is a reasonably fast driver on some tracks if the engineers get the setup under her, but she cannot RACE for position. PT passed 6 guys in the first 2 laps. Even if you accept one of them was Duno, (ok 5 guys and one girl), he still was finding ways around people. Now, we all know he wasn't going to win from back there, and the lead was a gamble, he still was battling for position. Danica on the other hand was good in qualifying and held her own. Good for her, but I don't see any point this season where I call her a contender....

THat was what yesterday was all about. People trying to make things happen, and it is partially the nature of street racing you have incidents, but when you have people like Moraes and Viso out there, the carnage is going to happen. Not to mention Helio misjudging the usually well behaved Meira going into 3 and clipping him.

It was an entertaining mess, and I enjoyed it. From my chair up north in the cabin, because it was clear I had no interest in going downtown for it.

This race is a shadow of what it once was, and for that I blame the split ( Toronto fans were CART loyalists and have a vehement dislike of TG) and the inept marketing and management of this race. The point is, commercials and ads in the paper were up this year, but they really have to do something new to get people back.

As for Drifter's talk of an article in the Star about this from a non-racing writer, you should stop reading the Toronto Star once you are past Norris's column Drifter. IT is a birdcage liner and nothing more for the most part. If I had a nickel for every story the Toronto Star had factually wrong, I wouldn't need to work...

[Easy Drifter]

I normally only read Norris' column on line. This one was brought up in the Cdn. Motorsport Historical Group so I looked at it.
McNulty in the Sun may know his stock cars but he makes constant mistakes when writing about other forms of racing.

[Jag_Warrior]

i'd call that smart racing. if she was a man, would you guys be so critical of her?

the issue is that the top guys are really good racers who would not look out of place in F1. to be able to race against these guys is a credit to her.

I say cut her some slack.

I really don't think it's fair or right to suggest that people are hammering Danica because she is a female. If someone is doing that, then let's point out their post and I can jump on them too. But I just haven't seen that. I think that the truth is, if Danica was Dan, we wouldn't be talking about him period. Why would we be talking about some schmoe who's won only ONE pro auto race in his life? Why would ABC be following this guy for lap after lap (when I turned my set on). Let's compare her to her equally annoying teammate, Marco. Each has won but a single IRL race... under rather "interesting" circumstances - though Marco has several wins in other formulas. But still, we don't see Marco being followed lap after lap after lap (unless he's right up front)... not that I want to see him anymore than I do. When I turned on the set, Danica was back in 10th or 11th. All people are saying is, why is so much time devoted to a driver who continues to run mid to back of the pack?

But I do give her credit. Though she only seems to have one bullet in her gun: as long as someone sets her car up JUST right for her, she'll cruise around in the middle of the pack, keep her nose clean, and hope/wait for cars ahead of her to crash out or break. As long as that happens, or she gets a lucky pitstop break, she'll get a Top 10. If not, she'll finish in a position more indicative of her actual race pace. That's the Danica Strategy that I believe Scotty G. is talking about. And it's happened WAY too many times for me to be able to disagree with him.

As for the top IRL runners being "F1 quality"... er... nah uh. IMO, that ship sailed for Franchitti and most of the others (who had that potential) many moons ago. Will Power is about the only one who I could see even being offered an F1 test - and not with a top team. I don't see him even in Bourdais' league, much less in Montoya's (in his prime). There really are some good drivers, no doubt. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that Danica is racing against guys who wouldn't be out of place in F1... sorry, I just can't see that. I'm watching Michael Schumacher get eaten alive by his teammate and others most every race now. It's beginning to look like even The Great One is out of place in F1 these days. Helio, Dixon, Briscoe, TK and Franchitti would be killed at the gates and left for dead. People like Marco, Danica and Mario Moraes don't have enough talent to even be considered a light snack in F1 - though with enough money, any of them could drive for HRT or maybe Virgin. There may have been a time when a couple of them had that potential, but Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, et al would slaughter them now. The current IRL Dallara is too similar to the current GP2 car in terms of horsepower/weight. IMO, that's a big part of why no driver using the IRL formula has ever gotten a serious look from an F1 team. When AOWR cars were beastly, raw and required harder core skills, F1 teams did give tests to our guys. Da Matta and Bourdais didn't do so well. But Montoya sure did raise some hell. But Danica... she'd only get into an F1 race the same as I would: by buying a ticket.

[TURN3]

I gotta say, watching the Twitter banter going on with Schekter/Tag and Rahal/Briscoe and PT chiming in is exactly what Indycar has needed for years. Go figure it is with 3 guys help that don't even have full-time gigs. This is the type of thing we need to get the public's attention, among other things anyway.