Done. From now on when I refer to Dumb and Dumber it means Reed and Goodyear.Quote:
Originally Posted by garyshell
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Done. From now on when I refer to Dumb and Dumber it means Reed and Goodyear.Quote:
Originally Posted by garyshell
Agreed. You would think road racing fans would've liked that race more than a typical oval race considering it was basically a road course race with all left turns.Quote:
Originally Posted by nanders
Reminded me of an F1 race too. There was very little, if any, pack racing. Few cautions meant the cars were very spread out with only a few cars having a chance to win. Slower traffic and pit stops were the important factors in deciding the race.
The fanatics need to get their stories straight. First they don't like oval racing because it's side-by-side the whole time and flat out, yet they see Michigan as a good oval race even though it's flat out pack racing? I don't get it. Homestead was NOT pack racing and was NOT flat out, so why didn't the fanatics like it?
Take off the CC goggles and actually watch the racing, people.
This brings a question to mind. I heard that during one of the broadcasts also. If a loose car is fast, wouldn't that lend to drivers who have experience being able to go well in these cars. Specifically sprint car drivers. If that is the case why are there those who claim these drivers(sprint car drivers) find it hard to adjust to rear engined open wheelers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hoop-98
I know this might derail the topic a little, but it looks like its headed to the dumps anyways. Anybody let me know if I should start a new thread for this.
Not true for me....Quote:
Originally Posted by downtowndeco
I remember the CART days at Michigan where lead changes were exchanged between many of the drivers.
I don't know, maybe it was the commentary. The lack of excitement.
I'm not sure, it just wasn't it for me dog....
:D
Good points Gary!Quote:
Originally Posted by garyshell
Homestead-Miami isn't Michigan. The same way that Bristol isn't Daytona.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimispeed
I'm sure it was the commentary. It's yawn inducing!
And we're not looking a full mature series yet. The teams had a month to get ready after spending the entire off season (and lots of their own money) under Forsythe's illusion that there was going to be a Champ Car season. Look, 2008 (the first few months at least) is a real season for the existing teams and a test session with prize money for the transition teams. We need the teams to get ready, we need the foreign road racers to adapt, and that doesn't happen overnight.Quote:
Originally Posted by theugsquirrel
Yep. Also as the season progresses there should be more cars for the ex-CCWS teams so the drivers can be a bit less tentative about driving on the ovals. Hence more competitive.Quote:
Originally Posted by BenRoethig
Quote:
Originally Posted by acescribe
I have to agree that the international commentators are just boring! I dont have any problems with them going back to the studio now and again, but please do something about the commentary! Bring back at least Jeremy Shaw. Not too sure how easy it will be to get Hinch in the commentary box now though.
They need to do something as these commentators are very poor and say some really dumb things. Hinch, yes please. I like the studio bit as the UK guys at least say something of interest about the race, Championship, teams etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by jwhite9185
Scott Goodyear is great he tells it like it is and does a good job !
My two pennies for what they are worth....but I find orchestrated 'pack racing' really, really, really boring. It renders the first 199 laps of a race largely irrelevant, or certainly anything before the final pit-stop/caution.
What we got on Saturday was a good motor race. When Dixon, Kanaan or Andretti had a faster car, they would pull away, and it would be up to others to drive faster and catch up, which they sometimes did, there was Wheldon making his way up from the back, and all in all you can say that whoever won deserved to win (Kanaan's dose of misfortune aside), which is what any sport should be about IMO.
Was it a classic? No, but a good, honest old-fashioned motor race that I enjoyed and had no complaints about.
I like the bull fight analogy as well. Remember if EVERY race was a tense thriller, then by comparison NONE of them would be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcoCheever
BOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG. ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz.
Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. He is like listening to paint dry. We realy need someone like Parker Johnstone, Tommy Kendall or Jon Beekihus in the booth. My prferenece would have to be Jon. He is the best I have EVER heard in my 50 plus years of listening.
Gary
I like that bullfight analogy!!! It was an ok race to me, and the average race is just that, ok, imo.
Of course during the split the partisans would proclaim each race of theirs a classic and of the others a joke.
The fact that we are mainly discussing announcers, must mean the race was ok lol...
rh
Good one.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcoCheever
All I can ever think of when I see Goodbeer on TV is..........
"WAS THAT REALLY THE PACE CAR???????????"
He needs to go hang out with Jared from Subway. He's looking a little pudgy.
As for Reed, it was a single thought coming ionto my mind over and over.
That man should not be shot in HD. He looked like Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera!!!!!!
They did okay, IMO. Champcar races were pretty bad last year with the exception of Jon. It was usually a constant uninformed homer fest.
Oh yeah, Jack Arute, please do your homework. I heard him say the drivers had a hard time adjusting to the car after dark becasue they only tested in the day time. Jackie, you are still an ****clown.
I was rooting pretty hard for Marco to win. The kid could use a break after having a bad year in 2007.
One HUGE thing missing last night......PT.
Free him of his contract NOW!!!!!!!!!
Looking forward to St. Pete.
Not since CCWS's HDNet coverage back in '04 did I enjoy American open wheel racing in true HiDef. (Although I beg to differ with the announcers, the in-car view is widescreen but not true HiDef) So I say cheers. Now if only F1 was in HiDef on SpeedHD...
The loose cars being faster because they had less downforce. Less downforce means less drag. Less drag means faster speeds. Even though they had to lift in the corners, the straightaway speeds were greater, making them faster overall per lap. I haven't seen all the race yet (I'm watching it tonight) but from what I saw, the fast cars were twitchy in the corners but they weren't driving them, in a broadslide, like sprint car drivers do. IndyCars are also a lot faster than spint cars, so the transition between sprint / dirt cars is very difficult. They are very different cars.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad_Hatter
Jeff
The problem is the IRL cars have waaaaaay too much downforce. Even trimmed out, the wings are gigantic and make for less than scintillating racing. The end result is the cars travel the same speed pretty much all around the track. Boring.
To me, this just illustrates the problem with the IRL formula. If this were a CC race there would be more lifting, faster straightaway speeds and more passing. A lot more variation all the way around the track. Hopefully they get this fixed with the new formula.
I just kept thinking that contrived or not, the whole show would have been infinetly better with the Handford device.
The other problem is, as some of you noted, the coverage. ABC's IRL coverage is just plain cheesy and boring. Goodyear is boring, Jack-a-root is boring with his stupid up close and personal crap, and the little interviews trying to make Tony Kannan interesting just doesn't cut it. I also cringed at the phoney emergence from the cockpit scene with the confetti and the staged cheers. It was so obvious and so forced.
Give me Paul "whoa" Page and a drunk Derek Daly making racist remarks about Hiro anyday, followed by AJ bitch slapping somebody in the winners circle. At least they're really into the product.
Wish I could say the same thing. It's going to be a long two years if this keeps up.
Too much downforce....too little downforce....too much wing....not enough wing.....too much horsepower....not enough horsepower....too fast....too slow......TV good....HD good.....TV bad.....HD bad......Jeremy Shaw good.....Jack Arute bad.......Jack Arute fine......rules are good......rules are bad.....officials are good.....officials are bad......CC drivers are good on ovals......CC drivers are bad on ovals............Graham Rahal crashed....Dan Wheldon crashed.....
Did I miss any fly crap to be taken out of the pepper?
1. Yeah, but I also heard someone say something to the effect of "there was no more grip on the front end of the car so they had to take some off of the rear". I'm not sure whether or not they meant downforce or overall grip from the rear.Quote:
Originally Posted by cartpix
2. I thought that the wing angles were fixed.
Not sure what race you were watching, because I definitely heard Dixon lifting. There were some folks who had trimmed out their cars,Quote:
Originally Posted by Osiris333
Quote:
Originally Posted by Osiris333
I don't understand the remark about Kannan, he is interesting and a genuinely nice guy. I have said elsewhere that the announce team is bad. There are much better folks in the industry than what we are getting. Where is Dr. Jerry Punch, Gary Gerold, Parker Jonstone, Tommy Kendall, or Jon? As for the cockpit scene, tell me one race in the past five years in ANY series that has not had that contrivance. You act as if this was an IRL/ICS exclusive. Every single ChampCar race did it. I don't like it either, but it is part of the TV package.
Gary
I never said nobody was lifting. I just said the cars have way too much downforce, which makes the drop off in speed between the corners and the straightaway too little, which makes for boring racing.Quote:
Originally Posted by garyshell
As to Kannan, watch NASCAR TV coverage. They don't waste any time with cutaway interviews like that while there is racing going on. And if you think Tony Kannan is going to sell this series to America... well, it hasn't worked yet has it?
And I'm sorry, but I've never seen a coordinated "celebration" like that coming out of a commercial before in CC. It was obvious Dixon had his helmet off for some time and was waiting for the TV cue to raise his arms and get out of the car. It was contrived, phoney and insincere, and it showed.
And it doesn't matter if CC did the same thing or not. It was "contrived
spontaneity." It looked phoney, and that kind of thing isn't going to sell the series.
champ car did that every week. If you watched the international coverage (without ad break straight after the break) you'd see the winner waiting in his car for the signal to get out. Jeremy shaw and hinch filled whilst we waited for US tv to come back from the break.Quote:
Originally Posted by Osiris333
What bores one fan excites another. Road racing fans and oval racing fans, for example, have been going at it for decades and the arrival of Internet forums for them to express themselves just called more attention to it.
Dixon was strong at some points. Marco was strong at some points. Kanaan was strong at some points. Strategy played a part. Then Kanaan ran into Viso and it was undetermined for a couple caution laps whether he should even still be out there to win it. And he wasn't. So Dixon did. Race was interesting to me.
To tell the truth, I really wasn't too cognizant of the post-race interview because I had just gone to the refrigerator. I didn't think about downforce as I watched drivers try high and low for the fastest way through the corners, sometimes side-by-side. I enjoyed it.
Every series I can think of does this. And has for a long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobGarage
Gary
Every professional athlete understands station breaks and network time-out.
It would be nice to hear an announcement team that can actually deliver the verbal integrity many open wheel fans are looking for. What we need is unification in the broadcast booth! Take a listen to SPEED's F1 team. If that's the benchmark, Indycar has a lot more room for improvement.
Bill Adam, Brian Till, Calvin Fish, Jon Beekus, Parker Johnston, Jon beekus?
But please no Paul Page.
Didn't see the race, but I agree the IRL production team is terrible. I saw Marty Reid a few times last year, and though he's better than his predecesor, I find him to be pandering more than the typical cheerleader/broadcaster. I also agree that Scott Goodyear is more boring than a remedial math teacher. Jack Arute, who tries to be funny, is distracting at best. He should not be involved on a broadcast team.
Give me Kendall and Varsha in the booth. Give me Beekius, Fish, and Pruett in the pits.
Homestead is one of the better open-wheel ovals, or at least used to be. I haven't seen a race at Homestead since it's been reconfigured. But the old Homestead and Lausitzring were two really good races. Those old indycar configurations on those tracks (particularly the Lola package in the 2002 and 2003 years) were tough to drive. POint, the Las Vegas Speedway package by CCWS during the last race was really bad. Sorta like the worst of the IRL specs.
As for IRL downforce, I think the CART teams that came over brought the looser setups. I don't believe there was much lifting before they came over. There still isn't on the high-banked 1.5 milers. That's why those teams were so dominant over the past few years in IRL. Their expertise in indycar translated directly into immediate success in IRL. That won't happen with the new breed CCWS teams that came over to IRL.
In the wake of the race, the gratuitous pandering toward the CCWS drivers was embarrassing. They did terrible. They were not competitive. WHy suck up to them? Perhaps because they held their lines....but they didn't show "well" from what I read/heard.
That would be nice!! And, have Jon Beekhuis as their technical advisor and racing analyst as well!!Quote:
Originally Posted by TU Homer
Not ture, the IRL guys had to make a right hand turn every lap to drive around a CART car.Quote:
Agreed. You would think road racing fans would've liked that race more than a typical oval race considering it was basically a road course race with all left turns.
LMFAO, sorry, couldnt resist.
I dont get the thought either about trying to make Kanaan interesting....
Now that is really funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimispeed
Originally Posted by jimispeed http://www.motorsportforums.com/foru...s/viewpost.gif
And, have Jon Beekhuis as their technical advisor and racing analyst as well!!
Can you think of anyone better for the Media Broadcasts??Quote:
Originally Posted by !!WALDO!!
Not for the Series internally, but for the broadcasts of the series!!
Call me crazy, but you seem prejudice towards the CCWS teams. Isn't this the first rabid talk we've heard out of you?Quote:
Originally Posted by TU Homer
It's the first race of a new combination.
Well, I haven't been posting much lately because I just can't get too thrilled about the product we have in 2008 (and probably for quite some time).
And I think that's what many of these posts are about. We aren't happy with the product. Like it or not, but this is a minor league sport (as was CCWS) being painted as a major league sport. The major league motorsports right now are NASCAR and F1 (and maybe WRC). They all have multiple manufacturers, and true competition on many levels. I think the Homestead race would have been much more exciting (for everyone) if there was a combo of engines/chassis and maybe tires. That adds drama, and is probably why many of the CC loyalists had more appreciation for the oval races that we remember from the 90's.
Also, this race was an IRL race in '08, but was no different than one from '96-'07. The CC teams were just gridfillers. Worse than that, many of the old CC teams have new drivers that weren't even in CC last year. So, we're really left without anyone to root for, and lack the drama everyone wanted to see.
Lastly some advice for TG in developing the future formula. You can't beat NASCAR at it's own game. Realize that, please. IndyCar/CART was more popular in the 90's for a reason.
Why him? I know him, nice guy, drove for Foyt so he is more than ok but rather than your opinion, give me facts to why him.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimispeed
Even that spud Paul Page was better then Dumb and Dumber.Quote:
Originally Posted by pits4me
Quote:
Originally Posted by !!WALDO!!
Well, since "you know him", you could probably tell me more facts than I could, but I've seen/heard his PR and commentary as well as analysis of drivers, circuits, cars and teams for many years.
He's very knowledgeable about open wheel, not to mention a very good speaker!! He has a way of explaining complex areas of racing, and car/race engineering that is user friendly to the average viewer.
But you probably already know all of that......
Instead of coming after me, admit it is only because he covered the CCWS. Just admit that.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimispeed
You don't like Scott Goodyear, even though he won the biggest race on the CART schedule twice because he jumped to the IRL. Just admit that.
Personally I think Jon would be good but not good enough to displace a driver with vastly more seat time in race cars and in this formula.
Remember, you are an expert on racing so you do not need an explaination of the complex areas of racing. The average rube will get very glassy eyed to an explaination of the complex areas of racing. The tuner in will turn it off if it is an explaination of the complex areas of racing.
So what is gained? NOTHING!
But you probably already know all of that, if you didn't then you should have....
That is a good point, WALDO. Those of us who are "into it" as hardcore fans might find some announcers' comments as mundane, or "I already knew that, get back to the race." But the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of other viewers probably DON'T know this or that and may find it interesting to understand it better.
I admit I am into it at a level that makes announcers et al meaningless, sector splits,laps since last pit, fuel loads, these things I try to watch.
I guess they must of had announcers but I never heard 1.
I try to watch a race like I was a crew chief, what move woud work next.
I am not suggesting everyone should, but like I told my wife Sunday as Memphis whipped us, watch the guys away
from the ball.
rh
Actually you got it backwards. We want to hear the tech stuff the rest of the world does not although we already know it. I am usually ahead of the broadcasters but that is just me. My point was for us, it isn't that important.Quote:
Originally Posted by indycool
Remember if you want more viewers the KISS formula works. Like Dancing with the Stars. Make that so complicated it would die. The KISS formula works in the 30 second attention span.
Watch how NASCAR and Hammonds handles it. KISS formula to the MAX.