Any motor racing fans here?

[richwagmn]

Indy car, F1, NASCAR, pro rally?

 

[gregod]

Indy car, F1, NASCAR, pro rally?

i love it all. any racing with wheels, i'm a fan of.

F1 was my favorite, but i wish it would get its rules straight to create some continuity and excitement in the sport. it has gotten a little dull recently. they were talking about going with four cylinder engines in the future which is an interesting idea, but ferrari put the kibosh on that. i hope it does happen, though. i would love to see how much horsepower they could crank out of an in-line four.

NASCAR, in spite of going in circles (ok, ovals), is pretty exciting because anybody can win and there is lots of passing.

i often watch the lower formula classes and gt class races on tv, too. i love watching almost stock porsches race against tricked out ferraris, lambos, lexuses, etc. and winning.

rally is also great. it is like cycling. the fans are right up on the course, sometimes even helping the drivers after a crash. on tv it is even better because you get a better sense of the split second decision making.

i could go on and on....

 

[Maxiton]

Indy car, F1, NASCAR, pro rally?

Yeah, I love pretty much all racing on wheels. (I watched some Nascar as a kid, but not really into it now.) F1, Indy Car, Rally, Moto GP. Don't know much about any of them, but finding out more gives me something to look forward to.

Anybody know of any subscription sites that allow for watching live events?

 

[richwagmn]

Cool. I'm the same way. I follow F1 a bit, but NASCAR and Indy racing much more.

Indy has had an excellent season with the battle between Franchitti and Power. Power's just such an excellent road race driver. I think they're 5 points apart with two races left.

Did anyone else see opening chase race at Chicago Land race last week? I'm not a fan of fuel mileage racing and watching cars coast to a finish but it is a part of the race. I wish they'd put a road race into the chase too. I love watching cup cars on road race courses.

 

[Black-Balled]

F1 and rally are my favourites, but I like most all fast things on wheels, honestly.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Le Mans is the Great Race. All other motorsport is just waiting. Endurance > all other motorsport, by a long way.

I used to love F1 a lot more than I do now. I used to enjoy Champ Car, but open wheel racing in America is just terrible these days.

 

[oldborn]

Love WRC but not have a chance to watch it really, they are muchos Crazy!!!.
"Today a monkey could drive an F/1 car. Although I don't know how fast he could drive it." Niki Lauda

 

[bridgeman]

I recently got the IOM TT bug. Can't watch enough of it. Totally bizaar if you ask me. I happened on some youtube stuff while watching cycling vids and was thinking how fast we ride through technical sections out on the country roads on our traing rides. Then I checked out some on board camera views at IOM. It's surreal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVXc29ZgutI

 

[BroDeal]

I used to be a fan of Formula 1. Button winning the championship showed what a joke F1 has become. The constant rule changes are annoying. Limits on the number of engines that can be used are ***. It also became farcical when Super Licenses were being given to kids too young to get a regular driver's license. F1 was supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport, where drivers proved themselves by rising through the other fomulae. Now they are one step away from giving drives to teenagers who do well playing Gran Turismo. The whole thing has become so artificial. This year I have not watched a single F1 race.

 

[ramjambunath]

V8 supercars is not half bad considering the championship winner doesn't win every race of the season. It's just a bit too Aussie centric to become a world event.

SBK, in terms of entertainment is brilliant but even that this year has been pretty dull thanks to Checa's domination.

I used to like F1, but it's been a decade since I really enjoyed watching it. Unfortunately nowadays any decent motorracer can win the driver's title given the best car. Also the fact that GP2 basically spoon-feeds riders with the exact races as Formula 1 has also reduced adaptability of a driver in the sport and riders from F2 or F3 (if they exist now) really have not much chance to prove their talent unless they get into GP2. Also money plays far too important a role in the sport and a very good driver with not much sponsorship can't stay in F1 and has to make way for an average or decent driver with big money. Finally, DRS is car doping and makes overtaking artificially easy. In essence, the more Bernie Ecclestone has got senile, the worse F1 has become.

 

[Martin318is]

Le Mans is the Great Race. All other motorsport is just waiting. Endurance > all other motorsport, by a long way.

I used to love F1 a lot more than I do now. I used to enjoy Champ Car, but open wheel racing in America is just terrible these days.

I saw what you did there

 

[bridgeman]

Remember when F1 had titanium skid plates, and they would yeild a huge amount of sparks on bumps in the road? That was through the 80's and early 90's I believe.

There's nothing like seeing F1 as a spectator. Especially old school. My first was Montreal in 95, Senna Curve. The last year of the Ferrari V12. Jean Alesi won on his birthday that day. Nothing even remotely approaches live F1 of those days. The concussion pop from the shifts was a thing to behold. The violent power out of the curves. Getting ripped in the stands.

 

[max_powers]

I want to watch the fastest cars so that means F1 and Indycar.

I like watching F1 again since more passing with that wing that opens up, under certain rules, which indeed are hard to understand.

Indycar has the 'push to pass' button that adds about 80hp, limited uses.

but try to check out the cars at the track. I can stand within 10 ft of the cars at Long Beach turn 6 apex and soak it in.

 

[Black-Balled]

I recently got the IOM TT bug.... IOM. It's surreal.

On the telly from this years Tour of California, opening TT, the vox said he was talking to a motorcycle racer who commented that cyclists had no idea how to take a turn.

I think he failed to realize the differences:
rider ~10x heavier than machine...
contact patch of bike tire vs. motorcycle tire...
etc!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I want to watch the fastest cars so that means F1 and Indycar.

I like watching F1 again since more passing with that wing that opens up, under certain rules, which indeed are hard to understand.

Indycar has the 'push to pass' button that adds about 80hp, limited uses.

but try to check out the cars at the track. I can stand within 10 ft of the cars at Long Beach turn 6 apex and soak it in.

Group C and LMP1 sportscars still go faster in a straight line than F1. They just get dusted on the cornering.

All the most innovative technology is in sportscars. Most of the best racing is too, since endurance formats mean that predictability is all but destroyed - working traffic becomes a real skill, remembering which driver is in which car (is it the top notch ex-F1 driver or the guy who owns the car and isn't much more than an enthusiastic amateur?) even as you fight the fatigue barrier.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I used to like F1, but it's been a decade since I really enjoyed watching it. Unfortunately nowadays any decent motorracer can win the driver's title given the best car. Also the fact that GP2 basically spoon-feeds riders with the exact races as Formula 1 has also reduced adaptability of a driver in the sport and riders from F2 or F3 (if they exist now) really have not much chance to prove their talent unless they get into GP2.

The biggest problem is that almost all of the series the kids get put through until F1 are spec series, all the cars are the same, then in F1 they aren't allowed to test in season, so it's pretty much a total sink or swim situation. Racers like Hamilton and Vettel have changed people's expectations of rookies so people aren't prepared to give people three, four or even five years to adapt to the top level like it took for people like Mansell.

It's also clear that, with the lack of a top tier alternative, the feeder series are not adequately preparing people for F1; in days gone by, when you reached the top of F3000 or GP2, you'd either get picked up by an F1 team, or you'd go over to Champ Car for the money; Montoya, Junqueira, Bourdais, Pizzonia, Wilson, Glock and others went this way. But since the unification of the US series, the oval focus has increased compared to the CCWS making the Euro drivers less viable for the Indycar teams, and the number of seats available has decreased. So these racers are stuck in GP2. And experience is everything in a feeder formula, and so they are often able to hog the top rides and the top of the leaderboard in GP2 - which has at times been absolutely full with people who had been there for a number of years and were clearly not going to get the call-up to go to the top level - the likes of Filippi and Pantano. Others eventually got there, but sponsorship money played a big part as they'd been mired in the upper echelons of GP2 without stepping up for some time - Petrov and Maldonaldo spring to mind. So unless a young driver is a potential phenom, they're usually going to be stuck coming 5th or 6th in the series at first, so teams are looking lower down the food chain to bring people up.

The same thing happened in the late 90s and early 2000s, when F3000 was clearly not preparing people for F1, otherwise you wouldn't have had every F3000 champion from 1998 to 2004 (when it finally was revamped to GP2) bar Heidfeld running to the States for a drive. Instead they were taking people straight from F3, Formula Renault and even lower (see Button and Räikkönen) - it resulted in a wholescale restructuring of the feeder system. One suspects we are due for another one.

 

[DirtyWorks]

I recently got the IOM TT bug. Can't watch enough of it. Totally bizaar if you ask me. I happened on some youtube stuff while watching cycling vids and was thinking how fast we ride through technical sections out on the country roads on our traing rides. Then I checked out some on board camera views at IOM. It's surreal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVXc29ZgutI

There's a recent IOM in full 1080(p? i?) HD. About an hour long. It was a spectacular HDTV demo with on-boards, helicopter shots, and more. I have no idea where one would find it.

 

[DirtyWorks]

On the telly from this years Tour of California, opening TT, the vox said he was talking to a motorcycle racer who commented that cyclists had no idea how to take a turn.

I think he failed to realize the differences:
rider ~10x heavier than machine...
contact patch of bike tire vs. motorcycle tire...
etc!

There's an element of truth in that statement. Not much though. The motorcyclist tends to forget bicyclists have to coast through every corner. That power is helpful!

 

[ksmith]

Group C and LMP1 sportscars still go faster in a straight line than F1. They just get dusted on the cornering.

All the most innovative technology is in sportscars. Most of the best racing is too, since endurance formats mean that predictability is all but destroyed - working traffic becomes a real skill, remembering which driver is in which car (is it the top notch ex-F1 driver or the guy who owns the car and isn't much more than an enthusiastic amateur?) even as you fight the fatigue barrier

If a Group C and LMP 1 go faster down the straight and yet have lower cornering speeds than a F1 car, how can they have the most innovative technology ?

 

[richwagmn]

Le Mans is the Great Race. All other motorsport is just waiting. Endurance > all other motorsport, by a long way.

I used to love F1 a lot more than I do now. I used to enjoy Champ Car, but open wheel racing in America is just terrible these days.

I assumed you're referring to Indy car racing? Curious why you think it's so terrible?

It's certainly been a close battle between the two top drivers though there are a lot of drivers who just aren't competitive at all.

 

[richwagmn]

I want to watch the fastest cars so that means F1 and Indycar.

I like watching F1 again since more passing with that wing that opens up, under certain rules, which indeed are hard to understand.

Indycar has the 'push to pass' button that adds about 80hp, limited uses.

but try to check out the cars at the track. I can stand within 10 ft of the cars at Long Beach turn 6 apex and soak it in.

I need to do that one day.

 

[krebs303]

I rode down the bike path and watched The LBGP. Free and no crowds

 

[Libertine Seguros]

If a Group C and LMP 1 go faster down the straight and yet have lower cornering speeds than a F1 car, how can they have the most innovative technology ?

A sportscar has to last 24 hours of continuous punishment and be suited to the quick entry and exit and driving styles of 2, 3, sometimes 4 different drivers. Plus, F1 has been all about restriction lately to stop teams running away with it with financial superiority. Sportscars have experimented with different types of fuel, tyres that can last three and a half hours of punishment, and all manner of technology developments that come from those things brought into F1 in the 80s and 90s then banned.

I assumed you're referring to Indy car racing? Curious why you think it's so terrible?

It's certainly been a close battle between the two top drivers though there are a lot of drivers who just aren't competitive at all.

Indycar racing is in horrible amateurish vehicles in front of next to no fans, and unless you're driving for Penske or Ganassi you're just there to make the numbers up, half of them are paydrivers anyway. The CART days were way better, and Champ Car took almost all the best circuits and had better cars, just got killed by an awful business model.

Many drivers went from CART to F1, and a few from Champ Car. Not one single driver has ever gone from the IRL into F1. Ever. And most of the top GP2 guys who in days passed would have gone into Champ Car if F1 teams pass them by... nowadays they prefer to stay in GP2. It tells you how viable it's seen as from a European racing perspective.

 

[richwagmn]

Indycar racing is in horrible amateurish vehicles in front of next to no fans, and unless you're driving for Penske or Ganassi you're just there to make the numbers up, half of them are paydrivers anyway. The CART days were way better, and Champ Car took almost all the best circuits and had better cars, just got killed by an awful business model.

Don't really get your point about horrible amateurish vehicles. I get that F1 cars are the most sophisticated cars in the world. But does the sophistication of the car make the racing better? Some would argue not.

Many drivers went from CART to F1, and a few from Champ Car. Not one single driver has ever gone from the IRL into F1. Ever. And most of the top GP2 guys who in days passed would have gone into Champ Car if F1 teams pass them by... nowadays they prefer to stay in GP2. It tells you how viable it's seen as from a European racing perspective.

Why should Indy car racing care about any European perspective? F1 dominates.

NASCAR could say the same thing about F1 racing from an American perspective. F1 racing is a non-event over here - like soccer.

 

[Rouetheday]

I'm not an auto-racing fan, really, but for what it's worth, NASCAR legend David Pearson was a semi-regular at the restaurant my family once owned. He was a real un-pretentious, low-key fellow. I never saw anyone making a fuss over him, asking for an autograph or a photo. Of course, everyone around here pitched a fit when David wasn't included in the first class of the NASCAR Hall of Fame.