Bob Barnard Track Engineering

What a busy weekend. I have asked before, who schedules this stuff? F1 qualifying on during the first stage of the Tour de France, and then the race on Sunday, not to mention the Wimbledon Finals and the World Cup. Crazy weekend, made worse by Daytona being rained out and run on Sunday so trying to watch Indycar from Pocono and Daytona. Tried to fit in a life between all this. Thank goodness for a long weekend. 

So Indycar at Pocono for a second year, and the race being extended to 500 miles did nothing for the size of the crowd. No wonder they reportedly do not want to finish the contract, there was no one there. Best part of the race was Montoya winning. It was sad to see the footage from back in the 80's when CART raced there to packed grandstands, but then it was Danny Sullivan winning and not a Columbian beating a Brazilian and Australians. Americans love to see Americans winning, look at the US Soccer team and how America stopped to watch them at the World Cup. When asked how to fix Indycar Robin Miller said remove pit speed limits. Really? The racing on the track is boring so let's see them race in pit lane? Is that the best you can come up with? Paul Tracy said when asked on air that he could not say or he would get fired. By who? He works for NBC as a commentator, or is NBC the series promotion company as I suspected. Come on guys, no one wants to watch spec racing with a bunch of drivers no one knows or cares about. Yes it costs more to go back to what worked, but you would then have an audience and sponsors would follow. Someone needs to invest.

Nice to see that Mercedes can share the problems around and keep the Championship alive, but it would be better if the could change Lewis' wheels at the same speed as Nico's. Good race and a full house. The English want to see their men win just as much as Americans. Nasty hit for Kimi though and it would be nice if for once the bridge was built long enough so that the verges do not have to neck in to accommodate it. Personally I would have placed a stack of tires in front of the damaged guard rail and got on with it. The chances of having that accident again were pretty remote. And dare I say it, once again Vettel is beaten by Ricciardo, who did not have to whinge and moan his way past other drivers.

A big weekend of racing. MotoGP turned on their usual good show, but Turn 1 at COTA? Tilke missed a great opportunity to make that a really good corner. Instead we have a crash site. But the commentators were at it again. "The most competitive field we have ever seen." Seriously? Where were you in the late 80's and early nineties when Gardner, Doohan, Magee, Rainey, Lawson, Mamola, Koscinski, Sarron, Schwantz and co. were around?

Indycar at Long Beach had its usual accidents at the usual locations. How anyone thinks this can be an F1 track is beyond me. If they left out some of the petunias around the base of the fountain we might have a track wide enough to race on. The Tudor Sports car race was a yawn. Time was when an LMP2 car could beat an LMP1 car around here, but now it cannot even beat a DP.

There is always the quote that "it's a long race" by drivers, even if it is the same length as all the rest, but Saturday evening we really did have a long race. 500 miles around Darlington took forever. I wondered why it started so early. It was all I could do to stay awake.

Which brings me to the point. I come from a European back ground with a spell in Oz, so I am used to watching a sport event without it being turned into a continuous commercial. Sky manages to show an entire F1 race without ads, so why can't Fox or NBC? I know Sky is subscription, but all the sport here in the US is basically on cable which I pay for anyway. NASCAR is by far the worst, a race being one long ad, even when the race is being shown with every opportunity taken to show a sponsor logo for Kentucky Fried, Sprint, Progressive Insurance etc. Then there are the "infomercials" during the sports car races, and Indycar has to go off and interview anyone they can find that they think is a star of anything. 

There has to be a template for showing sport in this country that includes three old farts in suits and ties blabbing on, and usually a female studio anchor and pit lane or side line reporter. With an average age of probably sixty the boys on NBC for F1 have about as much chance of bringing in a younger fan than I have of being knighted. Take a look at the Sky guys. They are at a race track and dressed like you would expect at a race. NASCAR and Indycar and even the NFL are all the same. Is this just me or is it that the TV guys know what the average American sports fan wants. A blonde bimbo with big tits.

Now that's off my chest, so to speak, let's look at F1 goings on. Domenicali has fallen on his sword, or was he pushed, and his obvious replacement is a car salesman. First guy I would have picked, not. Perhaps Montezemolo is actually the problem. Bernie's problems are about to get worse with the prosecution dismissing his blackmail defense. But the judge is going to give him days off it seems to run F1. Red Bull lost the appeal, as they should. Whining that they could not keep second place if they obeyed the rules is a strange defence. There are probably twenty other cars out there who feel they could win if allowed to cheat a bit. Or is that just me?

You may wonder why I prattle on about track safety here in the US. Here is a photo of an incident at what is supposed to be one of our top tracks, owned by the largest track owner in the world.

The photographer suffered three broken ribs, three broken bones in his upper left arm along with two puncture wounds in his arm from the breaks, a small “brain bleed,” and multiple cuts and abrasions. Lucky to be alive. Not much in this photo is correct.

Meanwhile, NASCAR has made up new rules to prevent a recurrence of the "race" at Richmond, including the need for drivers to race at 100%. 100% of what? If a driver is leading but in fuel saving mode, is he disqualified? And then we had the Chicago farce. After sitting around for 5+ hours most of the few spectators that were there had gone home. So what did we do once they actually put cars on the track? Went to a pit stop under yellow. Why not start the race and let them take their chances with a green flag stop? The TV guys were even better, no sooner had the pit stops finished they went to an ad! At that point I turned off, as I suspect both the other viewers did too.

So JPM to Penske in IRL. It always struck me as odd that Ganassi sacked JPM from the NASCAR team and then suggested he might like him in his Indycar. Why not just transfer him? No wonder JPM said yes please to Roger. Should be interesting to see him next year, might liven up the racing.

No surprise that Baltimore is not back next year. Good riddance, awful track, and how they could say they had a larger crowd this year is beyond even most promoters imagination.

Kimi to Ferrari, you read it here.

I turned on the Indycar races from Toronto last weekend and watched the GoPro lap of the track with Townsend Bell and Steve Matchett driving us around the course quite quickly with neither wearing a seat belt! How do I know it was quickly? Because Steve had to keep grabbing hold of something to stop being thrown around. Why not wear the seat belt idiot! I am sure Honda was very pleased at this fine example of safe driving.

And then of course there is the track where we have been racing for many years, but we still cannot afford to repave it, much like the New Hampshire NASCAR track. Rope tied tire barriers have never been acceptable as far as I know, but Indycar thinks they are just fine. Just as NASCAR thinks debris fence with the post and cable on the track side of the mesh is OK. Is there no one involved who knows or cares? How are we ever going to raise the standard of motor racing safety when we have these examples?

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?