Bob Barnard Track Engineering

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?

Sunday afternoon I watched two very different races, NASCAR at California and MotoGP from Qatar. As different as you could want apart from the empty seats in the grandstand.

MotoGP gave us an exciting race from start to finish with up to 6 riders at times vying for the lead. A few crashes, and no full course yellows. No one had tire problems, and we saw some breath taking overtaking manoeuvres. The race was won by a guy who broke his leg 6 weeks ago and still had a brace on. Only two short ad breaks, no infomercials or stupid commentators. Great stuff and it will make me want to see the rest of the season.

And then there was the NASCAR race. 400 miles with no green flag pit stops due to the plethora of full course cautions. Tires blowing all over the track, including the race leader with three laps to go despite not having had problems all weekend. Jeff Gordon asked after 80 laps of a 200 lap race if they had enough tires? Goodyear supplies 11 sets for a 400 mile race, and they were lasting as few as 15 laps. What a joke, and makes Pirelli look really good. This is what happens when you do not allow testing at tracks on the schedule. The VP of Racing, Robin Pemberton, said that "they are the same tires as last year," and then added "but it is a new car." Exactly, so why would you think you can just roll up with the same old tires, especially on the oldest asphalt in NASCAR, with the biggest bumps.

Then of course we had MIke Joy, who repeated his previous weeks lies about attendance, not once but three times while we were looking at empty seats in the stands. "There are 68,000 seats and they are all sold." So what, did those people stay home, or were they all in the bar? As I recall the speedway was supposed to have over 100,000 seats when I went when it opened, or was that the temperature? Felt like it. Then there is good 'ol boy Darrel Waltrip. "Everywhere I look there are people racing." Duh, it"s a race idiot.

Finally, if you want to know what's wrong with the state of motor racing you need to go no further than to read Marshall  Pruett's interview with TUSCR Chief Scott Atherton in Racer Magazine. Talk a lot and say nothing, that is what he is really good at. Can't say anything wrong that way I guess so you keep a job.

http://www.racer.com/index.php/imsa/item/102091-imsa-sebring-q-a-with-series-coo-scott-atherton

That was the title of a piece on the ESPN blog about Bahrain a year or so ago, and we are hearing the same about Sochi. Has the FIA or FOM nothing to say? Not even "this is sport and not politics," as lame as that is? Ask Putin if the Olympics or F1 are about sport.

So India is not going to be on the 2015 calendar, what a surprise. They fell for that one. Now what are they going to do with that white elephant of a racetrack? The fate of Turkey, Valencia and Korea in recent times does not stop would be promoters it seems, with Azerbaijan getting a race according to Bernie. What with Long Beach still trying to decide, and a raft of others waiting in the wings there are plenty of people and countries who think they are smarter than Bernie and all the other F1 race promoters.

To assist those people I have recently connected with a group called Meet The Crowd, MTC, who specialise in strategies for would be and existing race promoters, and economic impact assessment, to assist with analysing whether to bid for an event or to renegotiate an existing contract. Our combined experience of organizing and promoting such events is now available. Check out their web site:

http://www.meetthecrowd.com/

In two wheeled matters it seems that Dorna is making up the rules as it goes along. Not a good basis for keeping teams in a sport. As soon as Ducati decided to do what Dorna wants and go to the open class they make up a new class for "works" teams in the open category, a class of one so far. Nice one. I bet Ducati are well pleased with that. Dorna has managed to upset both Ducati and the rest of the open teams, and is annoying Honda about them using the common ECU. If they keep this up they will be as popular as the FIM was in the early 90's.

No other way to describe the MotoGP from Phillip Island last weekend. Shades of Indianapolis F1 and Michelin. Bridgestone were there, so did they learn nothing. Of course not. PI has always been hard on tires, all those long high speed corners that load one side of the tire. So having been repaved for 9 months or so why did it take practice to discover their tire would not last, and not just by a few laps! Presumably someone tested there this spring? If I were a spectator and saw a half distance Moto2 and MotoGP with compulsory pit stops I would be asking for my money back, as they did at Indy and Michelin paid up. What about it Bridgestone?

So saturday saw the end of ALMS at Road Atlanta. Having been there at the start it was a sorry sight. Not that I saw too much, I don't get Fox 2 and to show an hour and a half about 3/4 distance on Fox 1 really does not give one an idea of what's going on, let alone how it ends. Watched a bit Sunday afternoon, but that was so disjointed it was worthless. Anyway, ALMS actually lasted longer than I expected, I thought Don would get tired of it sooner, but then again if it was not costing him money why not keep it going.

On to USRC and LMP2's racing DP's, whoopee. GT's put on the best show so America should consider a pure GT series like Blancpain. Gets the prototypes out of the way and there are no shortage of cars for those events.

Just spent two weeks touring Spain and looking at tracks, including private tours of Barcelona F1 complete with a Ferrari testing. Mid season testing being banned what were they up to? Also inspected Ascari Race Resort, the world's best private track. Brilliant if not perfect, but debt free and shows what can be done with a little commitment and high standards.

Sad to see we keep killing and maiming people here in the US. Two riders at Daytona last Friday, and Justin Wilson badly injured Saturday at California Speedway. Nice seams in that track.

Well it would be if it wasn't so serious for the teams that have to repair the cars. I asked the question a while ago why anyone watches Indycar, a rhetorical question, but the one that follows is why would Baltimore want to stage a race on a terrible race track that has for three years now shown the city in nothing but a bad light. Some people would give them a pass in year one, not me, but some would and did. But by the third year they have learned nothing, and done nothing to resolve the safety issues. Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is the basis of stupidity. 

So we have damaged cars, lost points, and short "races." The cost to the teams would pay for the improvements, and if I were a spectator I would be asking for my money back for the amount of racing I saw. The Indycars were hard pushed to do a lap before running into each other, and let's not talk about the ALMS start! If possible there were less spectators on Sunday than Saturday, maybe they saw enough Saturday to know what to expect Sunday. As Gordon Kirby rightly says on his race report for Motor Sport magazine, when are Indycar going to realize that putting your show on at bad tracks does no one any good. I think I have said this a few times myself. Like staging Sinatra in a pig stye. 

It was a big weekend of racing with WEC at Sao Paulo, MotoGP at Silverstone, and NASCAR at Atlanta. WEC lacked any real interest once the Toyota was punted off. The most exciting time was the Ferrari catching fire, and being destroyed due to the lack of effective fire response. Not good enough for a World Championship. MotoGP put on their usual good show, but let's hope there are more competitive machines next year. Marquez is an obvious worthy Champion and following in Kenny Roberts footsteps in what he is achieving in his rookie year. NASCAR was the usual biff and barge, but good to see Kyle Bush winning. With Tony Stewart a real racer. Good to see Kyle Larson getting a ride too, well deserved, he has driven just about anything he can get into this year. Chip Gannassi has had him under contract for a while it seems, but still not sure why Ryan Newman is out when Danica can only run midfield at best. Checkbook race politics. Kurt Busch deserves the chance after what he has done with the Denver Mattress car this year. 

Not sure Daniel Ricciardo has done enough, but I hope to be proved wrong. At least it answers one question about who goes where next year. Kimi was never going to Red Bull, but Ferrari? He was pushed out if you recall, so he might enjoy going back to prove them wrong, but will Alonso really want him? Alonso had everyone going last weekend with the tweets on a big announcement, and great to see him support his local cycling team and hopefully get them up winning with the top teams.

We are still waiting to find out about whose tires F1 is using next year, and where we will be racing, and of course the new engine and car package will shake up the pieces. In the meantime we have Monza to look forward to.