THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
June 21st, 2012
Volume VI, Edition CXV
Editor's Note: The survey that was linked to here in the Newsletter over the past couple of days is now closed. Thanks to all who replied...we had a ton of responses and Amy Henderson will notify the two prize winners in a few days!
Top News
by Phil Allaway
NASCAR Makes Additional Rule Changes for Sprint Cup Series
On Wednesday, NASCAR sent a technical bulletin to Sprint Cup Series teams regarding new rule changes. Two notable changes were mentioned.
The first of which is another adjustment to the side skirts. As you may remember, NASCAR adjusted the rules pertaining to side skirts just a month ago. Wednesday's changes will result in a half-inch increase of ride height on both sides of the car. The right side skirts must be off the ground at a minimum of 4.5 inches at inspection, but no more than five. In addition, the left side skirts must be a minimum of five inches off the ground at inspection, but no more than 5.5 inches. According to the bulletin, these rules are considered to be "the next step in looking at the [aerodynamic] package at intermediate track." However, they are likely to be required at every track.
The second bulletin was based around the sway bar connecting links. For those of you unclear about what's being discussed here, this involves the pieces of metal that hang downward on the sides of the car immediately inside of the rear wheels. The sway (or track) bar connects to it and it looks like a large bracket. NASCAR is now mandating that the connecting brackets must be perpendicular to the ground (straight up and down).
Both of these rules are effective June 27th (Wednesday). As a result, the cars will race in Sonoma under the present rules before the new rules debut at Kentucky.
McClure to Return in Elkhart Lake
After a number of false alarms, it is now official. Eric McClure has been cleared by his doctors to return to the drivers' seat. He will be back behind the wheel of the No. 14 Hefty/Reynolds Wrap Toyota for TriStar Motorsports this weekend in the Sargento 200 at Road America. Jeff Green, who drove the No. 14 in McClure's place for the past five races, will slide back over to the team's start-and-park No. 10 entry.
NASCAR Announces Dates and Locations for Banquets
On Wednesday, NASCAR officially released the dates and locations for two of their secondary series. Firstly, once again, the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series will be having one combined banquet, for better or worse. That banquet is scheduled for Monday night, November 19 at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in the middle of South Beach. TV coverage will be provided, but like in recent years, it will likely be tape-delayed.
NASCAR is very pleased to be returning to Miami Beach for the banquet.
"Celebrating the champions of the NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series in Miami Beach enables us to continue the wave of excitement out of championship weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway," said Steve Phelps, NASCAR Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. "The backdrop makes for an ideal location to honor those champions - and their teams and sponsors - after their great seasons."
The split banquet is still designed to host only the top-5 drivers in each series.
Also, NASCAR announced that the Charlotte Convention Center (part of the NASCAR Hall of Fame complex) will host the postseason banquets for NASCAR's regional touring series and the Whelen All-American Series. The Whelen All-American Series banquet will be on December 7th, while the Regional Series banquet, known as the NASCAR Night of Champions Banquet, will be held on December 8th. Note that the Night of Champions banquet is for the K&N Pro Series East and West Divisions, the Whelen Modified Tour and Whelen Southern Modified Tour, the Canadian Tire Series, the Toyota Series in Mexico and the new-for-2012 Euro-Racecar Series.
NASCAR is happy to have both of these banquets return to Charlotte.
"These two events mark the celebration of the best short-track drivers from throughout NASCAR, a spotlight on the sport's best young talent and hometown heroes," said George Silbermann, NASCAR's Vice President of Regional and Touring Series. "And we're excited to return to Charlotte to honor those drivers."
NASCARHomeTracks.com will stream both banquets live on their website. In addition, the streams will be available in multiple languages. The Whelen All-American Series banquet will be available in English and Spanish, while the Night of Champions banquet will be available in either English, Spanish or French.
Entry List Update:
Note: These entries are accurate as of Wednesday night. However, they are still subject to change.
Sprint Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350k: 44 cars entered
Drivers Ineligible to Earn Points:
No. 19- Mike Bliss for Humphrey-Smith Racing
No. 87- Joe Nemechek for NEMCO Motorsports
Driver Changes:
No. 10- Tomy Drissi is in the seat, replacing Tony Raines. Drissi was entered in this race last year for MaxQ Motorsports, but was declared ineligible to compete by NASCAR. This will be his Sprint Cup Series debut.
No. 30- Brian Simo is in the seat, replacing David Stremme.
No. 32- Boris Said is in the seat, replacing Ken Schrader. The car will be sponsored by HendrickCars.com.
No. 33- Stephen Leicht returns to the seat, replacing Austin Dillon.
No. 55- Brian Vickers returns to the seat, replacing Mark Martin.
No. 98- David Mayhew is in the seat, replacing Michael McDowell. Mayhew qualified the HP Racing, LLC No. 66 at Sonoma last year in place of Michael McDowell, who was in Elkhart Lake, but this is the first time that he has ever been on a Sprint Cup entry list (McDowell flew back for the race). If he qualifies, he will be making his Sprint Cup debut.
Drivers who must qualify on speed:
No. 7- Robby Gordon for Robby Gordon Motorsports
No. 19- Mike Bliss for Humphrey-Smith Racing*
No. 30- Unknown driver for Inception Motorsports
No. 33- Stephen Leicht for LJ Racing
No. 49- J.J. Yeley for Robinson-Blakeney Racing
No. 87- Joe Nemechek for NEMCO Motorsports*
No. 95- Scott Speed for Leavine Family Racing
No. 98- David Mayhew for Phil Parsons Racing*
Not Entered:
No. 23- Scott Riggs for R3 Motorsports
No. 74- Stacy Compton for Turn One Racing
Nationwide Series Sargento 200: 45 cars entered
Drivers Ineligible to Earn Points:
No. 18- Michael McDowell for Joe Gibbs Racing
No. 30- Nelson Piquet, Jr. for Turner Motorsports
No. 32- Miguel Paludo for Turner Motorsports
No. 42- Josh Wise for Team Motorsports Group
No. 54- Kurt Busch for Kyle Busch Motorsports
Driver Changes:
No. 08- An unknown driver will be in the seat, replacing Tony Raines.
No. 4- Matt Bell is in the seat, replacing Danny Efland. Bell is a regular in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, driving the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro for Stevenson Motorsports in the Grand Sport (GS) class. This will be his Nationwide Series debut.
No. 5- Ron Fellows is in the seat, replacing Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
No. 10- Jeff Green returns to the seat, replacing Kevin Lepage.
No. 14- Eric McClure returns to the seat, replacing Jeff Green. Once again, this is still unofficial, but as of now, McClure is finally going to return to the seat after his crash at Talladega.
No. 18- Michael McDowell returns to the seat, replacing Joey Logano.
No. 22- Jacques Villeneuve returns to the seat, replacing Brad Keselowski.
No. 23- Bill Prietzel is in the seat, replacing Jamie Dick. This will be Prietzel's Nationwide Series debut. Prietzel is a regular in the Mid-American Series who has a fair amount of experience driving late model stock cars on road courses.
No. 24- Benny Gordon returns to the seat, replacing Angela Cope.
No. 30- Nelson Piquet, Jr. returns to the seat, replacing James Buescher.
No. 33- Max Papis returns to the seat, replacing Paul Menard.
No. 70- David Green returns to the seat, replacing Johanna Long. This is another race where Robinson-Blakeney Racing is running the No. 70 in order to keep ML Motorsports locked in.
No. 74- An unknown driver will be in the seat, replacing Mike Harmon.
No. 87- Alex Kennedy is in the seat, replacing Joe Nemechek. Since Nemechek will be in Sonoma, NEMCO will take advantage of their relationship with Sacred Power Motorsports for Road America.
No. 99- Victor Gonzalez, Jr. is in the seat, replacing Kenny Wallace. Travis Pastrana was originally listed as the driver here.
Drivers who must qualify on speed:
No. 08- Unknown driver for Randy Hill Racing*
No. 5- Ron Fellows for JR Motorsports
No. 10- Jeff Green for TriStar Motorsports (Guaranteed to start via the Past Champions' Provisional)
No. 15- Blake Koch for Rick Ware Racing
No. 26- John Young for Young Motorsports. Young is a former racer in SCCA Trans-Am and World Challenge.
No. 32- Miguel Paludo for Turner Motorsports. If he qualifies, this will be Paludo's Nationwide Series debut.
No. 39- Josh Richards for Go Green Racing
No. 42- Josh Wise for Team Motorsports Group*
No. 46- Chase Miller for Team Motorsports Group*
No. 47- Matt DiBenedetto for Team Motorsports Group*
No. 52- Tim Schendel for Means Motorsports
No. 59- Kyle Kelley for Kelley Racing. If he qualifies, Kelley would making his first Nationwide start since 2010.
No. 74- Unknown driver for Mike Harmon Racing*
No. 75- Kenny Habul for SunEnergy1 Racing, LLC. If Habul qualifies, he will be making his Nationwide Series debut. He is the CEO of SunEnergy1, a company that specializes in green technologies. In addition to his work, he has raced on road courses for years, most recently in the CASCAR Super Series (now the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series), where he has a best career finish of third in 2006 at Edmonton City Centre Airport.
No. 89- Morgan Shepherd for Shepherd Racing Ventures
*- Expected to Start-and-Park
Izod IndyCar Series Iowa Corn Indy 250: 25 cars entered
Driver Changes: None
Entries:
No. 2- Ryan Briscoe for Team Penske
No. 3- Helio Castroneves for Team Penske
No. 4- J.R. Hildebrand for Panther Racing
No. 5- E.J. Viso for KV Racing Technologies
No. 6- Katherine Legge for Dragon Racing
No. 8- Rubens Barrichello for KV Racing Technologies
No. 9- Scott Dixon for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 10- Dario Franchitti for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 11- Tony Kanaan for KV Racing Technologies with SH Racing
No. 12- Will Power for Team Penske
No. 14- Mike Conway for AJ Foyt Enterprises
No. 15- Takuma Sato for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
No. 18- Justin Wilson for Dale Coyne Racing
No. 19- James Jakes for Dale Coyne Racing
No. 20- Ed Carpenter for Ed Carpenter Racing
No. 22- Oriol Servia for Panther/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
No. 26- Marco Andretti for Andretti Autosport
No. 27- James Hinchcliffe for Andretti Autosport
No. 28- Ryan Hunter-Reay for Andretti Autosport
No. 38- Graham Rahal for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 67- Josef Newgarden for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing
No. 77- Simon Pagenaud for Schmidt-Hamilton Motorsports
No. 78- Simona de Silvestro for Lotus-HVM Racing
No. 83- Charlie Kimball for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 98- Alex Tagliani for Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian
Have news for Phil and the Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com with a promising lead or tip.
~~~~~~~~~~
Got NASCAR-related questions or comments?
Send them John Potts' way at john.potts@frontstretch.com; and, if you're lucky, you'll get your name in print when he does his weekly column answering back to you – the fans that keep Frontstretch afloat. Potts' Shots will run on Thursday with a whole new set of Fan Questions and Answers!
Today's Featured Commentary
Quick Shots for June 21, 2012
What's Vexing Vito
by Vito Pugliese
- The Sprint Cup Series heads to Sonoma this weekend for the first of two road course races on the schedule. It also marks the return of Robby Gordon to Sprint Cup competition. You may remember the "other" Gordon; nails on the twisties, remarkably competitive on plate tracks, out to lunch on downforce tracks due to virtually zero funding, and being the only other Dodge team fielding a car for 2012. Might Dodge's current plight of having literally no teams signed up for 2013 be the boon that Gordon has been waiting for to help revive his fledgling race team?
After leaving RCR after the 2004 season to pursue his dream of becoming an owner and driver, Gordon was able to land a major sponsor (when those were still plentiful), competed in every make of car, finished as high as 26th in points as an owner-driver, and now finds himself at a bit of a career crossroads. He intimated months ago his team was essentially in mothballs, as without a sponsor, it was too expensive to operate. His Speed Energy Drink brand was formed to help support his racing efforts, and now Gordon is working to create his own stadium truck racing series.
It really is a sad state of affairs that somebody of Robby Gordon's talent, ability, and personality is languishing on the sidelines, while other drivers of proven suspect capability remain entrenched in the sport. Perhaps Dodge's dilemma will serve as the catalyst for Gordon's resurgence into relevancy. If not, Gordon is almost always a factor at Sonoma regardless of funding – or lack thereof.
- Kurt Busch had another run in with a reporter this weekend.
That's almost as hard to believe as him spinning out on the second lap of the Cup race, following a ten-day suspension for a comment made to a reporter following the Nationwide Race at Dover, and public admonishment from team owner James Finch for bending up 14 racecars this season. There is a bit of an odd pattern developing of Busch being upset following Nationwide Races, yet not wrecking cars. In the Cup Series, the issue seems to be wrecking cars. Up to this point, he has not had any incidents with reporters on Sundays.
What also seems to be occurring is a trend is media members potentially egging on Busch. At Charlotte he was being crowded and bumped into by several reporters during a session outside of his team hauler, which led to a few awkward pauses and icy stares during his statements.
At MIS he was said to have blown off his media obligations on pit road – although he was actually waiting patiently in the Media Center to talk. His back and forth with Marty Smith of ESPN was from a sarcastic remark that was misinterpreted by Smith and his camera man. While Smith certainly did nothing wrong to warrant the remark, and has always been exceptionally fair and generous in helping drivers tell their side of the story, one gets the feeling that just about everybody in the media has had it with the antics, the attitude and the decade of disrespect that Busch has shown to many who cover the sport.
Personally, Kurt Busch has never been anything but polite and professional whenever I have had any interaction with him over the course of the past four years. What I do see still, is his team and PR group refusing to interject or help corral their driver before things escalate. I'm not saying he has to be treated like Garland Greene in "Con Air", wearing a muzzle and chained to a chair, escorted by armed guards…well, okay, maybe I am.
The fact remains that as much as Busch has apologized for his actions and remarks, he still has a hair-trigger temper that gets set off in short order. Is it really paranoia if they're out to get you? What might help Busch more than anything is one of those "Come To Jesus" meetings with those in the media like he had with James Finch last week, clear the air, and help set the record straight for both parties.
- On the heels of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s win at Michigan International Speedway Sunday, and a pair of controversial Executive Orders issued the past two weeks, President Obama stands ready to issue a third decree this Sunday, giving Dale Earnhardt, Jr. a road course win, his first consecutive wins, and the Sprint Cup Series points lead. Polls that showed him in danger of losing North Carolina in November will show a 15-point swing to the positive come Monday.
The only misstep made by Earnhardt, Jr. this past weekend at the Quicken Loans 400, was the introduction of his girlfriend, Amy Reimann in victory lane. After repeatedly having to endure the same question of "when will you win?" every weekend for the past four years, now he has a new question that will be placed to him on a constant loop three days a week: "When are you going to get married?"
Vito Pugliese is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at vito.pugliese@frontstretch.com.
~~~~~~~~~~
COME JOIN THE FRONTSTRETCH FAMILY!
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
June 21st, 2012
Volume VI, Edition CXV
Editor's Note: The survey that was linked to here in the Newsletter over the past couple of days is now closed. Thanks to all who replied...we had a ton of responses and Amy Henderson will notify the two prize winners in a few days!
Top News
by Phil Allaway
NASCAR Makes Additional Rule Changes for Sprint Cup Series
On Wednesday, NASCAR sent a technical bulletin to Sprint Cup Series teams regarding new rule changes. Two notable changes were mentioned.
The first of which is another adjustment to the side skirts. As you may remember, NASCAR adjusted the rules pertaining to side skirts just a month ago. Wednesday's changes will result in a half-inch increase of ride height on both sides of the car. The right side skirts must be off the ground at a minimum of 4.5 inches at inspection, but no more than five. In addition, the left side skirts must be a minimum of five inches off the ground at inspection, but no more than 5.5 inches. According to the bulletin, these rules are considered to be "the next step in looking at the [aerodynamic] package at intermediate track." However, they are likely to be required at every track.
The second bulletin was based around the sway bar connecting links. For those of you unclear about what's being discussed here, this involves the pieces of metal that hang downward on the sides of the car immediately inside of the rear wheels. The sway (or track) bar connects to it and it looks like a large bracket. NASCAR is now mandating that the connecting brackets must be perpendicular to the ground (straight up and down).
Both of these rules are effective June 27th (Wednesday). As a result, the cars will race in Sonoma under the present rules before the new rules debut at Kentucky.
McClure to Return in Elkhart Lake
After a number of false alarms, it is now official. Eric McClure has been cleared by his doctors to return to the drivers' seat. He will be back behind the wheel of the No. 14 Hefty/Reynolds Wrap Toyota for TriStar Motorsports this weekend in the Sargento 200 at Road America. Jeff Green, who drove the No. 14 in McClure's place for the past five races, will slide back over to the team's start-and-park No. 10 entry.
NASCAR Announces Dates and Locations for Banquets
On Wednesday, NASCAR officially released the dates and locations for two of their secondary series. Firstly, once again, the Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series will be having one combined banquet, for better or worse. That banquet is scheduled for Monday night, November 19 at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in the middle of South Beach. TV coverage will be provided, but like in recent years, it will likely be tape-delayed.
NASCAR is very pleased to be returning to Miami Beach for the banquet.
"Celebrating the champions of the NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series in Miami Beach enables us to continue the wave of excitement out of championship weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway," said Steve Phelps, NASCAR Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. "The backdrop makes for an ideal location to honor those champions - and their teams and sponsors - after their great seasons."
The split banquet is still designed to host only the top-5 drivers in each series.
Also, NASCAR announced that the Charlotte Convention Center (part of the NASCAR Hall of Fame complex) will host the postseason banquets for NASCAR's regional touring series and the Whelen All-American Series. The Whelen All-American Series banquet will be on December 7th, while the Regional Series banquet, known as the NASCAR Night of Champions Banquet, will be held on December 8th. Note that the Night of Champions banquet is for the K&N Pro Series East and West Divisions, the Whelen Modified Tour and Whelen Southern Modified Tour, the Canadian Tire Series, the Toyota Series in Mexico and the new-for-2012 Euro-Racecar Series.
NASCAR is happy to have both of these banquets return to Charlotte.
"These two events mark the celebration of the best short-track drivers from throughout NASCAR, a spotlight on the sport's best young talent and hometown heroes," said George Silbermann, NASCAR's Vice President of Regional and Touring Series. "And we're excited to return to Charlotte to honor those drivers."
NASCARHomeTracks.com will stream both banquets live on their website. In addition, the streams will be available in multiple languages. The Whelen All-American Series banquet will be available in English and Spanish, while the Night of Champions banquet will be available in either English, Spanish or French.
Entry List Update:
Note: These entries are accurate as of Wednesday night. However, they are still subject to change.
Sprint Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350k: 44 cars entered
Drivers Ineligible to Earn Points:
No. 19- Mike Bliss for Humphrey-Smith Racing
No. 87- Joe Nemechek for NEMCO Motorsports
Driver Changes:
No. 10- Tomy Drissi is in the seat, replacing Tony Raines. Drissi was entered in this race last year for MaxQ Motorsports, but was declared ineligible to compete by NASCAR. This will be his Sprint Cup Series debut.
No. 30- Brian Simo is in the seat, replacing David Stremme.
No. 32- Boris Said is in the seat, replacing Ken Schrader. The car will be sponsored by HendrickCars.com.
No. 33- Stephen Leicht returns to the seat, replacing Austin Dillon.
No. 55- Brian Vickers returns to the seat, replacing Mark Martin.
No. 98- David Mayhew is in the seat, replacing Michael McDowell. Mayhew qualified the HP Racing, LLC No. 66 at Sonoma last year in place of Michael McDowell, who was in Elkhart Lake, but this is the first time that he has ever been on a Sprint Cup entry list (McDowell flew back for the race). If he qualifies, he will be making his Sprint Cup debut.
Drivers who must qualify on speed:
No. 7- Robby Gordon for Robby Gordon Motorsports
No. 19- Mike Bliss for Humphrey-Smith Racing*
No. 30- Unknown driver for Inception Motorsports
No. 33- Stephen Leicht for LJ Racing
No. 49- J.J. Yeley for Robinson-Blakeney Racing
No. 87- Joe Nemechek for NEMCO Motorsports*
No. 95- Scott Speed for Leavine Family Racing
No. 98- David Mayhew for Phil Parsons Racing*
Not Entered:
No. 23- Scott Riggs for R3 Motorsports
No. 74- Stacy Compton for Turn One Racing
Nationwide Series Sargento 200: 45 cars entered
Drivers Ineligible to Earn Points:
No. 18- Michael McDowell for Joe Gibbs Racing
No. 30- Nelson Piquet, Jr. for Turner Motorsports
No. 32- Miguel Paludo for Turner Motorsports
No. 42- Josh Wise for Team Motorsports Group
No. 54- Kurt Busch for Kyle Busch Motorsports
Driver Changes:
No. 08- An unknown driver will be in the seat, replacing Tony Raines.
No. 4- Matt Bell is in the seat, replacing Danny Efland. Bell is a regular in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, driving the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro for Stevenson Motorsports in the Grand Sport (GS) class. This will be his Nationwide Series debut.
No. 5- Ron Fellows is in the seat, replacing Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
No. 10- Jeff Green returns to the seat, replacing Kevin Lepage.
No. 14- Eric McClure returns to the seat, replacing Jeff Green. Once again, this is still unofficial, but as of now, McClure is finally going to return to the seat after his crash at Talladega.
No. 18- Michael McDowell returns to the seat, replacing Joey Logano.
No. 22- Jacques Villeneuve returns to the seat, replacing Brad Keselowski.
No. 23- Bill Prietzel is in the seat, replacing Jamie Dick. This will be Prietzel's Nationwide Series debut. Prietzel is a regular in the Mid-American Series who has a fair amount of experience driving late model stock cars on road courses.
No. 24- Benny Gordon returns to the seat, replacing Angela Cope.
No. 30- Nelson Piquet, Jr. returns to the seat, replacing James Buescher.
No. 33- Max Papis returns to the seat, replacing Paul Menard.
No. 70- David Green returns to the seat, replacing Johanna Long. This is another race where Robinson-Blakeney Racing is running the No. 70 in order to keep ML Motorsports locked in.
No. 74- An unknown driver will be in the seat, replacing Mike Harmon.
No. 87- Alex Kennedy is in the seat, replacing Joe Nemechek. Since Nemechek will be in Sonoma, NEMCO will take advantage of their relationship with Sacred Power Motorsports for Road America.
No. 99- Victor Gonzalez, Jr. is in the seat, replacing Kenny Wallace. Travis Pastrana was originally listed as the driver here.
Drivers who must qualify on speed:
No. 08- Unknown driver for Randy Hill Racing*
No. 5- Ron Fellows for JR Motorsports
No. 10- Jeff Green for TriStar Motorsports (Guaranteed to start via the Past Champions' Provisional)
No. 15- Blake Koch for Rick Ware Racing
No. 26- John Young for Young Motorsports. Young is a former racer in SCCA Trans-Am and World Challenge.
No. 32- Miguel Paludo for Turner Motorsports. If he qualifies, this will be Paludo's Nationwide Series debut.
No. 39- Josh Richards for Go Green Racing
No. 42- Josh Wise for Team Motorsports Group*
No. 46- Chase Miller for Team Motorsports Group*
No. 47- Matt DiBenedetto for Team Motorsports Group*
No. 52- Tim Schendel for Means Motorsports
No. 59- Kyle Kelley for Kelley Racing. If he qualifies, Kelley would making his first Nationwide start since 2010.
No. 74- Unknown driver for Mike Harmon Racing*
No. 75- Kenny Habul for SunEnergy1 Racing, LLC. If Habul qualifies, he will be making his Nationwide Series debut. He is the CEO of SunEnergy1, a company that specializes in green technologies. In addition to his work, he has raced on road courses for years, most recently in the CASCAR Super Series (now the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series), where he has a best career finish of third in 2006 at Edmonton City Centre Airport.
No. 89- Morgan Shepherd for Shepherd Racing Ventures
*- Expected to Start-and-Park
Izod IndyCar Series Iowa Corn Indy 250: 25 cars entered
Driver Changes: None
Entries:
No. 2- Ryan Briscoe for Team Penske
No. 3- Helio Castroneves for Team Penske
No. 4- J.R. Hildebrand for Panther Racing
No. 5- E.J. Viso for KV Racing Technologies
No. 6- Katherine Legge for Dragon Racing
No. 8- Rubens Barrichello for KV Racing Technologies
No. 9- Scott Dixon for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 10- Dario Franchitti for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 11- Tony Kanaan for KV Racing Technologies with SH Racing
No. 12- Will Power for Team Penske
No. 14- Mike Conway for AJ Foyt Enterprises
No. 15- Takuma Sato for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing
No. 18- Justin Wilson for Dale Coyne Racing
No. 19- James Jakes for Dale Coyne Racing
No. 20- Ed Carpenter for Ed Carpenter Racing
No. 22- Oriol Servia for Panther/Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
No. 26- Marco Andretti for Andretti Autosport
No. 27- James Hinchcliffe for Andretti Autosport
No. 28- Ryan Hunter-Reay for Andretti Autosport
No. 38- Graham Rahal for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 67- Josef Newgarden for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing
No. 77- Simon Pagenaud for Schmidt-Hamilton Motorsports
No. 78- Simona de Silvestro for Lotus-HVM Racing
No. 83- Charlie Kimball for Chip Ganassi Racing
No. 98- Alex Tagliani for Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian
Have news for Phil and the Frontstretch? Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com with a promising lead or tip.
~~~~~~~~~~
Got NASCAR-related questions or comments?
Send them John Potts' way at john.potts@frontstretch.com; and, if you're lucky, you'll get your name in print when he does his weekly column answering back to you – the fans that keep Frontstretch afloat. Potts' Shots will run on Thursday with a whole new set of Fan Questions and Answers!
Today's Featured Commentary
Quick Shots for June 21, 2012
What's Vexing Vito
by Vito Pugliese
- The Sprint Cup Series heads to Sonoma this weekend for the first of two road course races on the schedule. It also marks the return of Robby Gordon to Sprint Cup competition. You may remember the "other" Gordon; nails on the twisties, remarkably competitive on plate tracks, out to lunch on downforce tracks due to virtually zero funding, and being the only other Dodge team fielding a car for 2012. Might Dodge's current plight of having literally no teams signed up for 2013 be the boon that Gordon has been waiting for to help revive his fledgling race team?
After leaving RCR after the 2004 season to pursue his dream of becoming an owner and driver, Gordon was able to land a major sponsor (when those were still plentiful), competed in every make of car, finished as high as 26th in points as an owner-driver, and now finds himself at a bit of a career crossroads. He intimated months ago his team was essentially in mothballs, as without a sponsor, it was too expensive to operate. His Speed Energy Drink brand was formed to help support his racing efforts, and now Gordon is working to create his own stadium truck racing series.
It really is a sad state of affairs that somebody of Robby Gordon's talent, ability, and personality is languishing on the sidelines, while other drivers of proven suspect capability remain entrenched in the sport. Perhaps Dodge's dilemma will serve as the catalyst for Gordon's resurgence into relevancy. If not, Gordon is almost always a factor at Sonoma regardless of funding – or lack thereof.
- Kurt Busch had another run in with a reporter this weekend.
That's almost as hard to believe as him spinning out on the second lap of the Cup race, following a ten-day suspension for a comment made to a reporter following the Nationwide Race at Dover, and public admonishment from team owner James Finch for bending up 14 racecars this season. There is a bit of an odd pattern developing of Busch being upset following Nationwide Races, yet not wrecking cars. In the Cup Series, the issue seems to be wrecking cars. Up to this point, he has not had any incidents with reporters on Sundays.
What also seems to be occurring is a trend is media members potentially egging on Busch. At Charlotte he was being crowded and bumped into by several reporters during a session outside of his team hauler, which led to a few awkward pauses and icy stares during his statements.
At MIS he was said to have blown off his media obligations on pit road – although he was actually waiting patiently in the Media Center to talk. His back and forth with Marty Smith of ESPN was from a sarcastic remark that was misinterpreted by Smith and his camera man. While Smith certainly did nothing wrong to warrant the remark, and has always been exceptionally fair and generous in helping drivers tell their side of the story, one gets the feeling that just about everybody in the media has had it with the antics, the attitude and the decade of disrespect that Busch has shown to many who cover the sport.
Personally, Kurt Busch has never been anything but polite and professional whenever I have had any interaction with him over the course of the past four years. What I do see still, is his team and PR group refusing to interject or help corral their driver before things escalate. I'm not saying he has to be treated like Garland Greene in "Con Air", wearing a muzzle and chained to a chair, escorted by armed guards…well, okay, maybe I am.
The fact remains that as much as Busch has apologized for his actions and remarks, he still has a hair-trigger temper that gets set off in short order. Is it really paranoia if they're out to get you? What might help Busch more than anything is one of those "Come To Jesus" meetings with those in the media like he had with James Finch last week, clear the air, and help set the record straight for both parties.
- On the heels of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s win at Michigan International Speedway Sunday, and a pair of controversial Executive Orders issued the past two weeks, President Obama stands ready to issue a third decree this Sunday, giving Dale Earnhardt, Jr. a road course win, his first consecutive wins, and the Sprint Cup Series points lead. Polls that showed him in danger of losing North Carolina in November will show a 15-point swing to the positive come Monday.
The only misstep made by Earnhardt, Jr. this past weekend at the Quicken Loans 400, was the introduction of his girlfriend, Amy Reimann in victory lane. After repeatedly having to endure the same question of "when will you win?" every weekend for the past four years, now he has a new question that will be placed to him on a constant loop three days a week: "When are you going to get married?"
Vito Pugliese is a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at vito.pugliese@frontstretch.com.
~~~~~~~~~~
COME JOIN THE FRONTSTRETCH FAMILY!
Hey Frontstretch Readers,
We are looking for someone who shares our enthusiasm for NASCAR and has an experienced background in web design. Specifically, we are looking for someone who can help maintain and enhance our website, increase our SEO, and upgrade our publishing platform while producing a limited amount of content throughout the season. This job presents a perfect opportunity for someone with a technical background, a person who wants their work to gain national exposure.
If you are interested, contact frontstretcheditors@googlegroups.com. Please include references to your past work in your e-mail.
~~~~~~~~~~
The Critic's Annex: Road to Le Mans: Racing Redefined
by Phil Allaway
Hello, race fans. Welcome back to the Critic's Annex, where we take an additional look at motorsports-related programming on a weekly basis. Last weekend, while Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was finally breaking that long, overhyped winless streak at Michigan, one of the most well-known endurance challenges on the planet, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, was in action in France.
As you may know by now, Audi won once again with their R18 e-tron Quattro, a rather interesting diesel-electric hybrid vehicle where under normal circumstances, the car was rear-wheel drive. However, whenever the electric motors attached to the front corners of the car were activated, the car became a four-wheel drive vehicle. This technically side-stepped an ACO rule that specifically bans four-wheel drive vehicles since it is not a full-time setup.
However, that wasn't the only interesting hybrid prototype in town. Toyota returned to Le Mans for the first time since 1999 (the manufacturer stopped coming to Le Mans in order to focus on their then-brand new Formula One effort). Their steed of choice: The Toyota TS030, a new gasoline-electric hybrid. In overall design, the car appears to be simply a more modern interpretation of the TS010 from 1992 and the TS020 (also known as the Toyota GT-One) from 1998 and 1999. However, its much more than just that.
First, a brief history lesson. Back in the early 1990's, the FIA sanctioned the World Sportscar Championship. It was a prototype-only series that attracted manufacturers and privateer outfits. Around 1991, they instituted a rule mandating 3.5 liter engines similar to those found in Formula One at the time (IMSA did not mandate this for the Camel GT Championship, but did allow those powerplants to be used). The idea was that there would be an additional use for that technology. Unfortunately, all that did was escalate costs so that the championship was cancelled after 1993. Toyota appeared on the scene in 1992 with the TS010, the fetching piece of machinery seen in this testing clip from Eastern Creek Raceway in Australia. The car, powered by a 3.5 liter V10 engine, was designed to take on the Peugeot 905's that were dominant at the time. It was also built with bodywork that either covered the rear wheels like in the clip, or without wheel covers. It was a quick car, earning victory at Monza, but was generally not quite good enough to defeat the 905's unless mechanical ailments hit the French cars. However, the end of Group C at the end of 1993 ended the program. It should also be noted that there was no tie-in between these cars and the Toyota Eagles being run by Dan Gurney's All-American Racers in the IMSA Camel GT Championship at the same time.
For 1998, Toyota returned with the GT-One (codenamed TS020), a challenger for the GT1 class. Since it was a Grand Tourer, road cars had to be built (they built a grand total of two road versions, and both of which are currently in museums). The car's main competition were the Mercedes CLK LM's (1998) and the CLR's (1999), along with the Porsche 911 GT1-98, the Nissan R390 GT1, the Panoz Esperante GTR-1 and the open-top prototypes of that era (Ferrari 333sp, Riley & Scott Mk IV, Courage C36, BMW V12 LM, etc.). The car was very fast, but not the most reliable. Both years that they competed, only the slowest of the three cars finished the race. This was the entry driven by former Formula One racer Ukyo Katayama, Toshio Suzuki and Keiichi Tsuchiya, the "Drift King" (you may remember him from the three NASCAR exhibition races in Japan back in the late 1990's). They finished ninth in 1998 and nearly won the 1999 race.
Two changes more or less ended the program. First, there was a move away from the GT1 class after 1999, likely partially in response to the multiple takeoffs at Le Mans involving the Mercedes CLR (most famously, Peter Dumbreck flipped into the trees during the race), and towards open-top LMP prototypes. Also, Toyota was gearing up to enter Formula One (which eventually happened in 2002) and the team that ran the prototypes ran the Formula One team.
That same team is back now with the new TS030 Hybrid. However, this car was not supposed to debut this season. The original grandmaster plan was to debut in 2013. However, due to multiple factors, the timeline got moved up. More on that in a bit.
The actual show begins with a look back at Toyota's racing history on the world stage. A significant amount of time is spent talking about Toyota's successes in the World Rally Championship, where multiple championships were won in the 1990's. However, no reference was made to the scenario where the entire team was thrown out for a year due to an illegal air restrictor that was designed to conceal itself from scrutineers.
In the special, it was explained that the TS030 Hybrid's debut was moved up to 2012 partly due to a desire by Toyota management to show support for their workers that were affected by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March of last year. In addition, Peugeot decided to pull out, effectively leaving Audi without any competition.
The decision left Toyota Team Europe (TTE) nine months to build a car from scratch for Le Mans. TTE actually spent many years trying to perfect the setup that they wanted to use in the TS030 Hybrid. The overall goal here was to acquire information that they could transfer over to street cars.
In January, five months before Le Mans, the first TS030 was fully assembled and started at TTE's factory in Köln, Germany. The engine for the car was built separately from the chassis in Japan was a new generation hybrid engine based on a prior model that was tested in a SuperGT-spec Toyota Supra in 2007. That particular model tested in a number of official SuperGt test session alongside regular SuperGT racers (footage was shown in the special), but never actually raced.
Five of the team's six drivers for Le Mans (Nicolas Lapierre, Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi) were interviewed for this special. Stéphane Sarrazin was not interviewed because he wasn't signed to the team yet (at the time, Sarrazin was still committed to Starworks Motorsport in the LMP2 class). They generally talk about the car in various stages of the development cycle, and how they would virtually test before the actual on-track testing began. This was done in a giant simulator that appeared to be a leftover from when the team was still in Formula One.
The scene now shifts to the Paul Ricard High Tech Test Track in the South of France for testing (Note: this course in various configurations hosted the Grand Prix of France 14 times, most recently in 1990). The drivers talk about how nervous they are for the sessions, while the engineers are a mixed bag between confidence and nerves. The first test goes off fairly well, despite some issues with the transmission. Two weeks later, the official unveiling for the media was held at Paul Ricard.
Audi's announcement of the R18 e-tron Quattro came as a bit of a shock (at least to Wurz), but showed off a completely different system. The Toyota can store energy that is gathered by the regenerative rear brakes. The Audi cannot store energy, but it can generate it via a Flywheel system somewhat similar to the one in the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid that raced at Petit Le Mans in 2010. This gives Toyota an advantage of reserve electric power if they were to run out of fuel on course. The Audi would still have the starter motor at their disposal, but that can only help you for a short distance, as Frank Biela found out in 2003.
A second trip back to Paul Ricard saw continued issues with the transmission, along with the added difficulty of a wet track. That turned out to be the least of their problems. Lapierre crashed the TS030 and damaged it enough that the team could not compete in Spa. The 6 Hours of Spa was supposed to be the car's debut in competition. As a result of the crash, Le Mans would be the car's debut.
After the crash, the team discovered that the crash was caused by water leaking into the car and burrowing a hole in a control arm. Kinda unusual, actually. A month later, with the original chassis repaired, TTE traveled to Motorland Aragon in Spain to continue testing at the relatively new circuit. The plan was to do a 30-hour endurance test, including pit stops. Davidson kinda screwed up trying to start the car, which kinda bites, but there's apparently a whole manual that each driver was given that included the proper protocol in starting the TS030. Its apparently not quite like starting your garden variety manual transmission vehicle.
The test proved that all of the aerodynamic, engine and safety modifications made to the car after the Paul Ricard crash were beneficial to the effort. However, since they missed Spa, they could not check themselves directly against Audi.
Finally, we get to Le Mans. We skip the Test Day and go straight to scrutineering, where the cars are inspected ahead of the race right in the middle of the city of Le Mans. Following the inspector's stamp of approval, the now-blue TS030 is ready to be displayed to the general public.
However, the show detours here to talk about the fitness required to race at Le Mans. Wurz talks about the required physical conditioning since the car can exert over four g's of force on drivers in the sweeping corners and under braking. Scenes of Wurz training by swimming and riding a road bike up hills was shown. Compared to the rest of the show, this just seemed out of place. Its relevant, but they should have gone about it differently.
Finally, the show finishes off with a look at qualifying, which was actually run the night before the show premiered. Davidson's No. 8 blew an engine in practice. The team managed to change out the entire unit in 85 minutes on Wednesday, which is quite amazing. Toyota's speed advantage on the straights was somewhat surprising, and it helped them to qualify third and fifth.
This is where the show cuts off, with narrator William Fitchner asking questions about how the Toyotas will do in the race. Well, we know how they did. Neither car finished. The No. 8 was infamously eliminated when Piergiuseppe Perrazini turned into Davidson at the end of the Mulsanne Straight, causing this scary crash. Everyone under the sun blamed Perrazini for the wreck, while Perrazini (via a translator) blamed Davidson. At the time, I thought that it reminded me a little of Todd Bodine's crash in the 1996 Humminbird Fishfinder 500k at Talladega in the Busch Grand National Series. Ok, not an exact match, but I think you get the idea. As for the No. 7, it ran very well early on, but lost time after nerfing the Delta Wing into the wall shortly after Davidson crashed. The engine later failed, putting the car out of the race. I wouldn't necessarily call their effort "Racing Redefined," but everyone in Le Mans knew that the Toyotas were there and were quite competitive before they dropped out.
Overall, I thought that the special was an interesting look into the birth of the Toyota TS030 Hybrid and its introduction to racing. However, there was no mention of Peugeot's pull out actually affecting the effort. This was one of the reasons the whole program was expedited in the first place. The training piece was really out of place in the second-to-last segment and should have been inserted earlier. Also, since they had an in-car camera in the car at the time, I would have liked to see some footage of Lapierre's crash in Paul Ricard. I'm sure that Toyota's got some footage of it somewhere. Maybe they should have explained the burrowing instance a little more clearly, or even shown viewers a graphic showing what happened.
That's it for this week's edition of the Critic's Annex. Check us out next week, where I will be covering the Rolex 250 presented by VisitFlorida.com at Road America. Until then, enjoy the road racing in Sonoma and Elkhart Lake this weekend.
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager and a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frontstretch Line of the Week
From Mirror Driving: Maintaining Earnhardt Momentum, Fans' Fear Of FOX And A Rookie Champ?
"Fans I've associated with have had nothing but poor words for the FOX broadcasts. Has anyone ever met someone who actually likes them? I sure haven't." - Kevin Rutherford, on FOX's broadcasts. This was not always the case, but fan sentiment has turned again FOX in recent years.
~~~~~~~~~~
ADVERTISEMENT
Are you looking to advertise your website, product or brand? A good way to get your name out there is via direct advertising here in the Frontstretch Newsletter! Interested parties can contact us at tony.lumbis@frontstretch.com for details.
~~~~~~~~~~
TODAY ON THE FRONTSTRETCH:
MPM2Nite: Moving Pictures
by Matt McLaughlin
~~~~~~~~~~
The Critic's Annex: Road to Le Mans: Racing Redefined
by Phil Allaway
Hello, race fans. Welcome back to the Critic's Annex, where we take an additional look at motorsports-related programming on a weekly basis. Last weekend, while Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was finally breaking that long, overhyped winless streak at Michigan, one of the most well-known endurance challenges on the planet, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, was in action in France.
As you may know by now, Audi won once again with their R18 e-tron Quattro, a rather interesting diesel-electric hybrid vehicle where under normal circumstances, the car was rear-wheel drive. However, whenever the electric motors attached to the front corners of the car were activated, the car became a four-wheel drive vehicle. This technically side-stepped an ACO rule that specifically bans four-wheel drive vehicles since it is not a full-time setup.
However, that wasn't the only interesting hybrid prototype in town. Toyota returned to Le Mans for the first time since 1999 (the manufacturer stopped coming to Le Mans in order to focus on their then-brand new Formula One effort). Their steed of choice: The Toyota TS030, a new gasoline-electric hybrid. In overall design, the car appears to be simply a more modern interpretation of the TS010 from 1992 and the TS020 (also known as the Toyota GT-One) from 1998 and 1999. However, its much more than just that.
First, a brief history lesson. Back in the early 1990's, the FIA sanctioned the World Sportscar Championship. It was a prototype-only series that attracted manufacturers and privateer outfits. Around 1991, they instituted a rule mandating 3.5 liter engines similar to those found in Formula One at the time (IMSA did not mandate this for the Camel GT Championship, but did allow those powerplants to be used). The idea was that there would be an additional use for that technology. Unfortunately, all that did was escalate costs so that the championship was cancelled after 1993. Toyota appeared on the scene in 1992 with the TS010, the fetching piece of machinery seen in this testing clip from Eastern Creek Raceway in Australia. The car, powered by a 3.5 liter V10 engine, was designed to take on the Peugeot 905's that were dominant at the time. It was also built with bodywork that either covered the rear wheels like in the clip, or without wheel covers. It was a quick car, earning victory at Monza, but was generally not quite good enough to defeat the 905's unless mechanical ailments hit the French cars. However, the end of Group C at the end of 1993 ended the program. It should also be noted that there was no tie-in between these cars and the Toyota Eagles being run by Dan Gurney's All-American Racers in the IMSA Camel GT Championship at the same time.
For 1998, Toyota returned with the GT-One (codenamed TS020), a challenger for the GT1 class. Since it was a Grand Tourer, road cars had to be built (they built a grand total of two road versions, and both of which are currently in museums). The car's main competition were the Mercedes CLK LM's (1998) and the CLR's (1999), along with the Porsche 911 GT1-98, the Nissan R390 GT1, the Panoz Esperante GTR-1 and the open-top prototypes of that era (Ferrari 333sp, Riley & Scott Mk IV, Courage C36, BMW V12 LM, etc.). The car was very fast, but not the most reliable. Both years that they competed, only the slowest of the three cars finished the race. This was the entry driven by former Formula One racer Ukyo Katayama, Toshio Suzuki and Keiichi Tsuchiya, the "Drift King" (you may remember him from the three NASCAR exhibition races in Japan back in the late 1990's). They finished ninth in 1998 and nearly won the 1999 race.
Two changes more or less ended the program. First, there was a move away from the GT1 class after 1999, likely partially in response to the multiple takeoffs at Le Mans involving the Mercedes CLR (most famously, Peter Dumbreck flipped into the trees during the race), and towards open-top LMP prototypes. Also, Toyota was gearing up to enter Formula One (which eventually happened in 2002) and the team that ran the prototypes ran the Formula One team.
That same team is back now with the new TS030 Hybrid. However, this car was not supposed to debut this season. The original grandmaster plan was to debut in 2013. However, due to multiple factors, the timeline got moved up. More on that in a bit.
The actual show begins with a look back at Toyota's racing history on the world stage. A significant amount of time is spent talking about Toyota's successes in the World Rally Championship, where multiple championships were won in the 1990's. However, no reference was made to the scenario where the entire team was thrown out for a year due to an illegal air restrictor that was designed to conceal itself from scrutineers.
In the special, it was explained that the TS030 Hybrid's debut was moved up to 2012 partly due to a desire by Toyota management to show support for their workers that were affected by the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March of last year. In addition, Peugeot decided to pull out, effectively leaving Audi without any competition.
The decision left Toyota Team Europe (TTE) nine months to build a car from scratch for Le Mans. TTE actually spent many years trying to perfect the setup that they wanted to use in the TS030 Hybrid. The overall goal here was to acquire information that they could transfer over to street cars.
In January, five months before Le Mans, the first TS030 was fully assembled and started at TTE's factory in Köln, Germany. The engine for the car was built separately from the chassis in Japan was a new generation hybrid engine based on a prior model that was tested in a SuperGT-spec Toyota Supra in 2007. That particular model tested in a number of official SuperGt test session alongside regular SuperGT racers (footage was shown in the special), but never actually raced.
Five of the team's six drivers for Le Mans (Nicolas Lapierre, Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi) were interviewed for this special. Stéphane Sarrazin was not interviewed because he wasn't signed to the team yet (at the time, Sarrazin was still committed to Starworks Motorsport in the LMP2 class). They generally talk about the car in various stages of the development cycle, and how they would virtually test before the actual on-track testing began. This was done in a giant simulator that appeared to be a leftover from when the team was still in Formula One.
The scene now shifts to the Paul Ricard High Tech Test Track in the South of France for testing (Note: this course in various configurations hosted the Grand Prix of France 14 times, most recently in 1990). The drivers talk about how nervous they are for the sessions, while the engineers are a mixed bag between confidence and nerves. The first test goes off fairly well, despite some issues with the transmission. Two weeks later, the official unveiling for the media was held at Paul Ricard.
Audi's announcement of the R18 e-tron Quattro came as a bit of a shock (at least to Wurz), but showed off a completely different system. The Toyota can store energy that is gathered by the regenerative rear brakes. The Audi cannot store energy, but it can generate it via a Flywheel system somewhat similar to the one in the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid that raced at Petit Le Mans in 2010. This gives Toyota an advantage of reserve electric power if they were to run out of fuel on course. The Audi would still have the starter motor at their disposal, but that can only help you for a short distance, as Frank Biela found out in 2003.
A second trip back to Paul Ricard saw continued issues with the transmission, along with the added difficulty of a wet track. That turned out to be the least of their problems. Lapierre crashed the TS030 and damaged it enough that the team could not compete in Spa. The 6 Hours of Spa was supposed to be the car's debut in competition. As a result of the crash, Le Mans would be the car's debut.
After the crash, the team discovered that the crash was caused by water leaking into the car and burrowing a hole in a control arm. Kinda unusual, actually. A month later, with the original chassis repaired, TTE traveled to Motorland Aragon in Spain to continue testing at the relatively new circuit. The plan was to do a 30-hour endurance test, including pit stops. Davidson kinda screwed up trying to start the car, which kinda bites, but there's apparently a whole manual that each driver was given that included the proper protocol in starting the TS030. Its apparently not quite like starting your garden variety manual transmission vehicle.
The test proved that all of the aerodynamic, engine and safety modifications made to the car after the Paul Ricard crash were beneficial to the effort. However, since they missed Spa, they could not check themselves directly against Audi.
Finally, we get to Le Mans. We skip the Test Day and go straight to scrutineering, where the cars are inspected ahead of the race right in the middle of the city of Le Mans. Following the inspector's stamp of approval, the now-blue TS030 is ready to be displayed to the general public.
However, the show detours here to talk about the fitness required to race at Le Mans. Wurz talks about the required physical conditioning since the car can exert over four g's of force on drivers in the sweeping corners and under braking. Scenes of Wurz training by swimming and riding a road bike up hills was shown. Compared to the rest of the show, this just seemed out of place. Its relevant, but they should have gone about it differently.
Finally, the show finishes off with a look at qualifying, which was actually run the night before the show premiered. Davidson's No. 8 blew an engine in practice. The team managed to change out the entire unit in 85 minutes on Wednesday, which is quite amazing. Toyota's speed advantage on the straights was somewhat surprising, and it helped them to qualify third and fifth.
This is where the show cuts off, with narrator William Fitchner asking questions about how the Toyotas will do in the race. Well, we know how they did. Neither car finished. The No. 8 was infamously eliminated when Piergiuseppe Perrazini turned into Davidson at the end of the Mulsanne Straight, causing this scary crash. Everyone under the sun blamed Perrazini for the wreck, while Perrazini (via a translator) blamed Davidson. At the time, I thought that it reminded me a little of Todd Bodine's crash in the 1996 Humminbird Fishfinder 500k at Talladega in the Busch Grand National Series. Ok, not an exact match, but I think you get the idea. As for the No. 7, it ran very well early on, but lost time after nerfing the Delta Wing into the wall shortly after Davidson crashed. The engine later failed, putting the car out of the race. I wouldn't necessarily call their effort "Racing Redefined," but everyone in Le Mans knew that the Toyotas were there and were quite competitive before they dropped out.
Overall, I thought that the special was an interesting look into the birth of the Toyota TS030 Hybrid and its introduction to racing. However, there was no mention of Peugeot's pull out actually affecting the effort. This was one of the reasons the whole program was expedited in the first place. The training piece was really out of place in the second-to-last segment and should have been inserted earlier. Also, since they had an in-car camera in the car at the time, I would have liked to see some footage of Lapierre's crash in Paul Ricard. I'm sure that Toyota's got some footage of it somewhere. Maybe they should have explained the burrowing instance a little more clearly, or even shown viewers a graphic showing what happened.
That's it for this week's edition of the Critic's Annex. Check us out next week, where I will be covering the Rolex 250 presented by VisitFlorida.com at Road America. Until then, enjoy the road racing in Sonoma and Elkhart Lake this weekend.
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager and a Senior Writer for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frontstretch Line of the Week
From Mirror Driving: Maintaining Earnhardt Momentum, Fans' Fear Of FOX And A Rookie Champ?
"Fans I've associated with have had nothing but poor words for the FOX broadcasts. Has anyone ever met someone who actually likes them? I sure haven't." - Kevin Rutherford, on FOX's broadcasts. This was not always the case, but fan sentiment has turned again FOX in recent years.
~~~~~~~~~~
ADVERTISEMENT
Are you looking to advertise your website, product or brand? A good way to get your name out there is via direct advertising here in the Frontstretch Newsletter! Interested parties can contact us at tony.lumbis@frontstretch.com for details.
~~~~~~~~~~
TODAY ON THE FRONTSTRETCH:
MPM2Nite: Moving Pictures
by Matt McLaughlin
Potts' Shots: Redneck Engineering At Its Finest
by John Potts
Professor Of Speed: Practicing NASCAR For Father's Day
by Mark Howell
Truckin' Thursdays: Miguel Paludo on Road America, Road Courses And "Daddy" Day
by Beth Lunkenheimer
~~~~~~~~~~
FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:
Q: In the first few years that the Sprint Cup Series made the trip out to then-Sears Point Raceway, there was a rash of unusual crashes both during the race and in practice sessions. Derrike Cope had one of these unusual crashes in Saturday practice for the Banquet Frozen Foods 300k in 1990. What happened?
Check back Friday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!
Wednesday's Answer:
Wednesday's Answer:
Q: The 1999 Save Mart / Kragen 350k is best known for the two separate rollover crashes involving Steve Park and Ken Schrader. However, the race was red-flagged late in the going due to another incident. This incident resulted in no winner's interview on the telecast due to the race running up against Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. What happened here?
A: With a few laps to go, Rusty Wallace got off-course in the Esses. When he rejoined the course, Ricky Rudd just so happened to be there. Rudd was forced off the road, then spun in front of traffic, where he was hit by Ward Burton. Burton then spun and hit the tires hard enough to rip a whole in the catchfence behind the tires and managed to hit Jeremy Mayfield as well. With just a few laps to go, the field was stopped at the end of "The Chute" (this was the original connector between Turns 4 and 7 that was scrapped after only three years for the current setup) so that the track crews could clean everything up. The catchfence, which had been damaged for the second time in less than two years, was not repaired because it was not protecting spectators.
Frontstretch Trivia Guarantee: If we mess up, you get the shirt off our backs! If we've provided an incorrect answer to the Frontstretch Trivia question, be the first to email the corrected trivia answer to trivia@frontstretch.com and we'll send you a Frontstretch T-Shirt ... FREE!
~~~~~~~~~~
Coming tomorrow in the Frontstretch Newsletter:
-- Top News from Jeff Wolfe
-- In Case You Missed It by Nick Schwartz
-- Keepin' It Short by Mike Neff
-- Links to your favorite Frontstretch articles, trivia, and more!
~~~~~~~~~~
Tomorrow on the Frontstretch:
Four Burning Questions: Sonoma Edition by Summer Bedgood
Summer is back with a four-part look at some interesting stories as we look forward to Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
Holding A Pretty Wheel by Amy Henderson
Amy returns with another interesting commentary.
Friday Fast Forward Into NASCAR's Future by Bryan Davis Keith
Bryan returns with another interesting commentary piece on the Nationwide Series to prepare you for Saturday's Sargento 200.
Voices From the Heartland by Jeff Meyer
Our Tennessee transplant returns with another interesting take on recent events.
IndyCar Series Preview: Iowa by Matt Stallknecht
Matt takes a look at what to expect in Saturday night's Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway.
Driver Diary: Landon Cassill as told to Summer Bedgood
Landon returns to discuss the past month on and off the track.
-----------------------------Frontstretch Trivia Guarantee: If we mess up, you get the shirt off our backs! If we've provided an incorrect answer to the Frontstretch Trivia question, be the first to email the corrected trivia answer to trivia@frontstretch.com and we'll send you a Frontstretch T-Shirt ... FREE!
~~~~~~~~~~
Coming tomorrow in the Frontstretch Newsletter:
-- Top News from Jeff Wolfe
-- In Case You Missed It by Nick Schwartz
-- Keepin' It Short by Mike Neff
-- Links to your favorite Frontstretch articles, trivia, and more!
~~~~~~~~~~
Tomorrow on the Frontstretch:
Four Burning Questions: Sonoma Edition by Summer Bedgood
Summer is back with a four-part look at some interesting stories as we look forward to Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.
Holding A Pretty Wheel by Amy Henderson
Amy returns with another interesting commentary.
Friday Fast Forward Into NASCAR's Future by Bryan Davis Keith
Bryan returns with another interesting commentary piece on the Nationwide Series to prepare you for Saturday's Sargento 200.
Voices From the Heartland by Jeff Meyer
Our Tennessee transplant returns with another interesting take on recent events.
IndyCar Series Preview: Iowa by Matt Stallknecht
Matt takes a look at what to expect in Saturday night's Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway.
Driver Diary: Landon Cassill as told to Summer Bedgood
Landon returns to discuss the past month on and off the track.
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