Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I often wonder if I am wasting my time banging on about the unsafe tracks in the US. Are we just forgetting how to do it or is it too much money and trouble? Until someone gets hurt. Watched the Indycar double header from Detroit this last weekend, an event resurrected by "The Captain" Roger Penske. I have the greatest respect for this man and all he has done, and continues to do to the highest standards when it comes to his race teams, but not race tracks it seems.

Last year the repairs came apart if you recall. That took the attention off the walls and fences. How in 2013 can we have walls less than 39 inches high, how long have those lower blocks been around? How can you have impact zones with single row tires, or none, and those that are there are in single stacks, connected in a few places with rope! George Couzens must be turning in his grave! How quickly we forget. Then there is un-cranked 2 inch water pipe for a fence, with several cables but only one of which is tied off to concrete, the rest just end at the last post. The draft from the cars made it move. let alone if one got up into it. And then there are the single stacks of tires, only four high so they do not cover the barrier, and the ones in front of the power poles alongside pit lane, just one stack, tied with rope. Seriously? Why even bother.

And then there are the bumps, I guess it has "character" like Sebring. Indycar's new Tech Chief, Derrick Walker, is proposing changes to make the cars faster, and he says safer. How about developing and enforcing standards for the tracks? Indycar is going nowhere while it continues to run at bad tracks that do not show off their series to its best.

And while I am about it, since when did highway sand barrels have any place on a racetrack? Dover Downs seems to think they do, as does Watkins Glen. Does NASCAR not require any standards?  

Indycar returned to Belle Isle last weekend, and it turned out not so "belle."  As these photos show the "repairs" to the track did not last the race and caused a two hour delay that meant the TV went away and cars were damaged. Not the show piece Roger Penske or Detroit was hoping for. I do not know what they used but I suspect a rubberized asphalt. It clearly had no bond to the concrete, and why wouldn't they have just cut out the crack properly and use a non-shrink grout? One of the lessons from Adelaide was if you are going to stage a race to show off your sport or your city then you need to be TOTALLY sure it is going work, both structurally and operationally. Not what I expected of an event staged by "The Captain." The track remained as bad as it was in 2008 when they stopped. Why would you not revamp the whole thing, including a complete repave if you intend to run this for several years? I'm sorry to say the US builds tracks down to a price and not up to a standard.

While all this fun was going on we had the Le Mans Test day, and Toyota it seems is going to give Audi a run for their money, if they can be reliable. Peugeot and Audi have always said that their deisels were not winning because of an unfair advantage, it was just that they were out and out factory cars, and no one had competed on that level with a petrol car. Well now Toyota has, and we can see by the times they can compete. Should be great. The GTE Pro is going to put on a show as always, with all the cars seperated by just 2 seconds! Roll on the 16th.

The Canadian F1 race is next weekend, and they are already responding to threats of disruption by cancelling the Thursday pit walk. This could get nastier than Bahrain.

We saw a good MotoGP race in Barcelona, which managed to stay dry much to the annoyance of the Rossi fans. Lorenzo continues to show us that he and the Yamaha are the real deal this year, despite his team mate being nowhere in sight. Where to next year Ben Spies? Back to WSBK? Nice job Cal Crutchlow, but sorry to hear about the crash today in testing. I bet Herve is not pleased.