Long Beach Race Thread ***SPOILERS***

[BobGarage]

might as well start this off...

they are on the pace lasp now.

[BobGarage]

Power takes the lead in T1.

two cars stuck on grid.....

[Crapwagons4Ever]

GO GO GO. Wow Will Power gets P1 from the start..

[BobGarage]

servia and figge were the cars stalled on grid.

[Crapwagons4Ever]

Radio commentator doesn't even know if the Champcar cars have TC or not... oh boy...

[Crapwagons4Ever]

Go PT!

[BobGarage]

PT's off trying to pass Tags for third.

[Crapwagons4Ever]

well there was that one.. pt flat spots tire

[BobGarage]

mario moraes out at T1.

Timing and scoring had the yellow signalled a good 45 seconds before radio commentators picked it up!

[BobGarage]

PT's got problems on the back, which caused him to flatten the tyre and go off trying to pass tags.

Looks like he's not going to win today.

[-Helix-]

Not a very good endorsement for standing starts in ICS.

[Crapwagons4Ever]

mario moraes out at T1.

Timing and scoring had the yellow signalled a good 45 seconds before radio commentators picked it up!

This is most likely just a delay on encoding/sending the audio stream...

[BobGarage]

Not a very good endorsement for standing starts in ICS.

because a car (Power) jumping from 4th to 1st into T1 is a bad thing!?

[BobGarage]

Wilsons out :(

[F1boat]

Live score link?

[BobGarage]

Live score link?

http://gmsleaderboard.vfx.com/ChampCar/Free_LiveTiming.asp

[BradCA1]

Might be a dumb question...

but, where are you getting radio commentary from?

[F1boat]

Thank you. But now that Wilson is out I am unhappy. He is really unlucky this season :(

[BobGarage]

Might be a dumb question...

but, where are you getting radio commentary from?

IMS Radio

http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1603475&segment=211353

[BradCA1]

IMS Radio

http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1603475&segment=211353
Oh, thanks...thought I heard cause of the rain delay in Japan they weren't going to make it to Long Beach...guess not!

[BobGarage]

nelson philippe has stopped on course.

[BobGarage]

full course yellow.

viso is leading, but has not yet pitted

[BobGarage]

Juho Annala out with break failure.

Been slowest all weekend long...

[BobGarage]

morenos dropped out. radios on a ad break at the moment so I don;t know why.

PT just interviewed (from qualifying yesterday) saying post race he will sort out his contract with forsythe and be free to race.

[BobGarage]

montagny just passed Tags for 2nd....

[portlandCARTfan]

TV delayed by Lakers game, still 5 minute left to game at 2:38

[BobGarage]

tags is dropping back fast..... dominguez passes him for 3rd place.

[BobGarage]

bernoldi passes tags now for 4th place.

[BobGarage]

and perera passes him for 5th. tags tyres have fallen off completly.

[BobGarage]

servia and rahal both passed tags now. white flag out.....

[BobGarage]

Power Wins!
Montagny 2nd
Mario D 3rd.

Rahal hits the wall on the last lap and fails to finish

[portlandCARTfan]

Screwed out of opening laps. dang

[d_hill39]

I think the irl should use the panoz champcar as their new car,it looks too good to go to waste.

[ShiftingGears]

Yeah Will Power!!! Glad he could win the last Champ Car race.

[seppefan]

nelson philippe has stopped on course.

Punted out at the last hairpin corner before the start straight. Looked like Bruno, took a lap to get him going. Power next to perfect. Wilson engine failure.

Want to but a Panoz.....they sounded great. Big crowd,sunshine, great Atlantic race and weekend,

It will be mega next year.

[-Helix-]

because a car (Power) jumping from 4th to 1st into T1 is a bad thing!?

I was talking about the stalled cars.

You can get a good start and pass cars on rolling starts too so I don't see how that makes standing starts more attractive?

Having cars stalled that could potentially cause massive wrecks far outweighs someone getting a good start.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm pro-standing starts and would love to see them in ICS. I was hoping for a stall-free start so it would look good for the ICS suits.

[millencolin]

THATS MY BOY!!!! SIR WILLIAM POWER WINS!!!! Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi! Oi! Oi!

that was worth getting up early for!

So freakin STOKED!!! thats how its done!!!

[harvick#1]

well done to Will Power, drove a perfect race and well deserved final win for the CCWS. its a shame that the Panoz will not be raced again :(

[BenRoethig]

mario moraes out at T1.

Is this Kid supposed to have some kind of vast upside I seem to be missing? With people like PT and Tags looking for work, I'm wondering why he has a seat.

[nigelred5]

I was talking about the stalled cars.

You can get a good start and pass cars on rolling starts too so I don't see how that makes standing starts more attractive?

Having cars stalled that could potentially cause massive wrecks far outweighs someone getting a good start.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm pro-standing starts and would love to see them in ICS. I was hoping for a stall-free start so it would look good for the ICS suits.

You CAN'T get a good, fair rolling start at Long Beach. They never have. They really need the start line moved at least 100 yards further down Shoreline to allow the entire field to get off of the hairpin before the green drops.


I"ll argue that the threat to safe standing starts by a stalled car is way overstated.
Today was a case in point. A car stalled mid pack, and yet everyone got away clean and without incident. Probably one of the best starts in the history of the LBGP IMHO, even with the FCY. Properly aligning and spacing the grid gives plenty of room to avoid a stalled car.

They should strongly consider SS's for the road and street races next season.

[nigelred5]

$$$$ and he probably works for cheap

[Marbles]

Who was Power racing for? Walker or Kalkhoven? Partnered up? I'm confused? Congrats anyways.

Newbie mistake by Rahal... ouch... how many corners to go in the race?

Classic Tracy! Dings the car up in the first ten laps although this time there was no big LB finish as in prior years. :(

Thank(s) God that not only were they able to fly Jack Arute in for this broadcast but they were also able to detail the lengths they went through to do this! For the sake of Humanity I hope he had an organ donation of some sort in his shirt pocket to give this odyssey it's rightful place in history!

One thing I will definitely not miss about Champ Car is\are the Moron(s) in charge of the roll hoop camera installs. Combined with that stinking ever present score crawl there is nothing like a cockpit shot with a view of one foot of asphalt in front of the car. How many decades ago was Lap Of the God(s)? :)

[millencolin]

Is this Kid supposed to have some kind of vast upside I seem to be missing? With people like PT and Tags looking for work, I'm wondering why he has a seat.


I would say $$$, but his sponsor is the long time dale coyne sponsor "sonny's bbq'... he didn't bring that sponsor to DCR

KICK HIM OUT and bring in Tracy, BobbyD or Tags

He and Milka Duno need to go

[pits4me]

Any news on the VIP in the Pace car that crashed in T1 yesterday at Long Beach? It took 3 rows of tires to stop the car. No Brakes?

[weeflyonthewall]

A fitting summary of Long Beach from the renegade scribe.

Cairo, NY—When played in reverse the checkered flag, dices, pit stops, pro-nostalgia crowd and entrants from every important nook and cranny of the erstwhile Champ Car universe made for an entertaining, if not memorable, event.

With little to win and nothing to lose this was not a time for opinions about spec chassis and long-life engines or about red tires or the validity of P2P in a would-be drivers' series. This was not a time to discuss the merits of standing vs. flying starts or whether ovals should have been erased from the festival events schedule.

This was a time to root for an American, a Canadian, an old-timer, a long-haired kid, a super sub, a Mexican, Australian, European or South American. It was a time for purists and nostalgia buffs to wish only for driver safety and a win by the day's best pilot while hoping that the victory would be the result of a last-lap pass on a near-empty fuel cell with virtually no remaining tire life.

But talk of the over-hyped media darling from that even-more ridiculous offshoot of our beloved speed sport and of the show that was staged simultaneously an ocean away would never be placed on the back burner.

If the image of three generations of whine makers and the TV dance champ story had long legs then this concocted legend is bound to be driven through the media in a Humvee with a tank trailer full of fuel in tow.

Even after the magical siren sound of the turbos -- the sound that had transformed Long Beach over its Grand Prix years -- had permeated the city, the cacophony of disrespectful, ignorant interlopers was all that could be heard by a TV audience that came to pay its last respects to its dying old friend while there was still some breath left in his doomed body.

Like the sickening sound of scavenging seagulls encircling a seaside garbage dumpster they wailed on about the duplicity of championship points and of the future of their dumbed-down road machines at the very venues that their supporters vehemently derided just one day before the "unification" announcement. Long Beach, of course, always headed that list of hated street events.

They never stopped droning on about the media darling, incessantly reminding us that she would be leading the rest of the combined talent pool -- including our own hapless members of her contingent -- to the next speedway and ultimately on to Indianapolis and beyond.

Just when we thought that the final laps of our final race would be given their due respect as part of an historic motor sport event, the Speedway inheritor's special delivery package from Honda Mountain arrived. It was drop-shipped, along with a pitcher of hallucinogenic Kool-Aid, to the announce booth just in time to completely desecrate the finish of our memorial.

Muting the volume helped little as the amateur propagandists gushed over the media darling's specious accomplishment while she selfishly croaked on about herself and herself. At all times her un-glamorous, un-retouched mug occupied half of our TV screens.

It's odd how, once drunk, that particular variety of powdered soft drink makes the whole f-inheritor package, including the rat-faced girl, the flying insect machines, the splitter's new down-under-blunder partner, the fat old jumpers and the rest of the wannabe NASCAR sham circus look, at least to the undiscerning, like an all-new alternative to the pre-unification version.

Drink enough of the stuff and it's like playing the whole split in reverse. It looks like it's healing but un-drugged people can see that it's really getting sicker.