2014 Round 2- Long Beach - 13.4.2014

[steveaki13]

So Round 2 this weekend at Long beach

Just thought I would open the thread ready. :)

[mr_swiss]

Weather should be great, sunny not too hot.

Looking forward to a great event and a King Taco Breakfast Burrito.
40th running of the Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Planning on bringing a couple friends for the first time.

Rooting for Justin :)

[Starter]

I'm gonna miss this one too. Seems this year's schedule runs against my local racing. (The horizontal snow at our Summit Point driver's school the weekend of St Pete was interesting.) I'll try and DVD this one and catch up Sunday night. Bet they can't run green as long this week. :D

[steveaki13]

As an Indy Car newbie, can I ask a question about "running Green" and cautions.

Why does Indy car go to full caution after every incident? I mean in F1 we have yellow flag zones, Double waved yellow flag zones and SC (full caution). Just wondered why Indy Car doesn't deal with smaller incidents by trying to keep the area under localised yellows.

Just a question :)

[Starter]

As an Indy Car newbie, can I ask a question about "running Green" and cautions.

Why does Indy car go to full caution after every incident? I mean in F1 we have yellow flag zones, Double waved yellow flag zones and SC (full caution). Just wondered why Indy Car doesn't deal with smaller incidents by trying to keep the area under localised yellows.

Just a question :)
It's a good question. That's the way it used to be done in the early days of CART. Corner workers cleared most incidents and wreckers/safety trucks weren't on track nearly as much. Over time it changed. I think there are several reasons why it changed. One is that many of the drivers, officials, etc. were from the oval tradition. There are a lot of good reasons why you want full course yellows on an oval, also why you want to clean the track on an oval too. There were also a number of car to car incidents on road courses and, worse, a few incidents where course workers were injured or had close calls (think Vancouver) because even though the incident was yellow the drivers were in "race" mode. Bad publicity, insurance and (IMO) fuzzy thinking made the powers that be lean way to much toward trying to make what is inherently a dangerous sport into a "safe" sport. Then we got the original IRL and (old) BB, who is a dyed in the wool oval guy, and oval rules applied. Those are just my thoughts on it, others may differ.

[FIAT1]

As an Indy Car newbie, can I ask a question about "running Green" and cautions.

Why does Indy car go to full caution after every incident? I mean in F1 we have yellow flag zones, Double waved yellow flag zones and SC (full caution). Just wondered why Indy Car doesn't deal with smaller incidents by trying to keep the area under localised yellows.

Just a question :)

It's called close competition in some circles. Most of the time local yellow is sufficient enough, as it was in the old days, but Indycar these days is different, very different. They're all yellow girlie men and no more strong and resilient. Their starts and restarts are priceless and done in very amateur manner, but hey it's three wide right? Yay!!!

[steveaki13]

It's called close competition in some circles. Most of the time local yellow is sufficient enough, as it was in the old days, but Indycar these days is different, very different. They're all yellow girlie men and no more strong and resilient. Their starts and restarts are priceless and done in very amateur manner, but hey it's three wide right? Yay!!!

So is that some of the reason, just to inject extra excitement into the race?

[FIAT1]

So is that some of the reason, just to inject extra excitement into the race?

My opinion is yes most of the time, but calling it excitement is a bit of a stretch .

[steveaki13]

Anyone watching Round 2?

[steveaki13]

Crazy move by Ryan Hunter-Ray

Absolute carnage ensues.

Edit: Looking at the replay he was a fair way up the inside.

[heliocastroneves#3]

I thought St. Pete was quite a good race but afterwards that was nothing compared to this one, what a hell of a race today! Congrats to Conway, really like him on the road/street courses, he might suck big time on the ovals but what a beast he is on those road/street courses! :D

On to Barber, truly can't wait for that one, the first permanent road course on the schedule. :)

[Starter]

Crazy move by Ryan Hunter-Ray

Absolute carnage ensues.

Edit: Looking at the replay he was a fair way up the inside.
Not far enough. His fault.

Poor Newgarden can't buy a break.

Also poor move by Dixon on Wilson, should have been reviewed.

[garyshell]

Also poor move by Dixon on Wilson, should have been reviewed.


Yes, but what the hell was Wilson doing on the outside anyway?

Gary

[Starter]

Yes, but what the hell was Wilson doing on the outside anyway?

Gary
Trying to pull off an over and under.

[zako85]

This was a good race, but it would have been even better without the carnage caused by Ryan Hunter-Reay. Will Power was also lucky to finish on the podium and score really good points despite collision with Simon Pagenaud. But then again, IndyCar always seems to have this on the street courses.

[Doc Austin]

Looking at the replay he was a fair way up the inside.

From Ryan's in car camera it looks like he only got as far as his front wheel alongside Newgarden's rear wheel. It looked like a good move but when Newgarden's tires hooked up there wasn't enough time to get alongside, and the corner got there so fast that there wasn't enough time to get out. The corner just got there too soon and Ryan was stuck. It turned out to be a bad move but I'll bet at least half the field would have done the same thing.



Absolute carnage ensues.

You will always have that with narrow tracks that have blind corners and no run off. Generally I prefer to see them race these cars on a real road circuit. A street race or two is ok, but I'de like to see the series get back to Watkins Glen and Road America. It would be cool if the went to VIR too, but I don't think that will ever happen.