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Umm, Tanner Foust sorta.

Texas! Finally a race that Danica Patrick will be good at this seaso...

Oh.. Shit, I forgot...

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"Every day on Memorial weekend, comes the chance to cross these bricks, and live forever. No votes, no politics, no thanks to the Academy. Nothing. Just driver, machine, and pursuit of immortality"

Really interested to see how the new car will go on a high banked oval. Indy filled me with hope that you can slipstream the car ahead and actually overtake it without stalling alongside. Higher downforce though... Hmm.

Bit apprehensive coming into this race tbh, how this weekend does will set the tone of high banked oval racing for the rest of this chasis life cycle...

Plz Pray no pack racing

Can't believe they're actually running a higher downforce package than Indy. I thought they'd do everything in their power within what the car allows, to trim the downforce and drag as much as possible for Texas since it's quite similar to Vegas.

You know, I hate seeing stuff like this. Just because Vegas happened the way it did, doesn't mean it is going to happen over and over again.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
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Open Wheel racing cars should not race in packs. Vegas was hopefully the end of a long line of dodging a big bullet.
If you have cars that take off after wheel to wheel contact then creating a downforce package that means wheel to wheel contact is highly likely to happen is completely batshit insane.
And its not like it was good for ratings, not like it was great for the racing quality with everyone flat out and defending the inside, so why the hell do they think its a good idea to put drivers in that situation anyway?

Give em more power, let them draft, Indy was fine, lets stick to that please.

To be honest, Texas never showed the kind of pack racing that other places did, like Chicagoland, Kansas and Las Vegas. We don't see 2 by 2 all the way through the field. The last few years it was even a bit boring by the fact we didn't got those extremely close finishes we got at the other tracks.

So, my main concern with this track it's if it can provide good racing instead of a lot of the single file, hug the white line racing we've had there in the past. As someone pointed out in another forum, the only two mayor crashes seen at Texas were not a consequence of pack racing.

Come on Codename, MOTOR SPORT CAN BE DANGEROUS...

(I'm not shouting BTW, this is how it is written on all the signs I've seen before at circuits)

No-one wanted Vegas to happen but it did. You can blame pack racing as much as you like but it was still just a freak occurance. We'd seen pack racing without Vegas-style issue for many years and everyone had pretty much been ok. But now it has happened we need to move on. Stop beating on Indycar for what happened.

The funny thing about your Indy reference is that it partly contradicts the point you're trying to make. At every restart we had something that was potentially as dangerous as pack racing, thanks to the tightly packed field, many speed differentials and heading towards T1 4 or 5 abreast. But there were no accidents which showed all the drivers coped and behaved very well. So shall we now continually beat a drum at how the new aero packages have created a new "silver bullet" for the drivers to dodge? No. We shouldn't, because....



...and the drivers know and accept the risks.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

You're flogging a dead horse Kieran.

Pack racing is the wrong formula for open wheel cars, I'll stand by that....

And what has it done for the sport exactly? It hasn't brought thousands of new fans into the stands has it?
There's simply no point in keeping them in one big dangerous pack that has the potential for disaster at any moment where the drivers can't even use their skills to avoid any incident because they're stuck full throttle on the white line...

Why not let them breathe a bit more, give them more horsepower and less downforce, put the damn thing back into the drivers hands a bit more, yeah there'll be mistakes but they'll hopefully be 1 or 2 car incidents which reduces the chances of these things taking to the air and tearing down a fence a hell of a lot more than the alternative.

Pack racing is like a drug that Indycar didn't know how to quit, and I hope its one habit they finally kicked with the end of the last chassis cycle.

Yes because low and behold if the habit hasn't been kicked you'll continue to remind us how much you hate it.

My point being... please drop it and move on.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I don't mean to egg on anything, but why should he move on? This is exactly what forums like this are meant for, opinions on what is currently right and wrong with motorsport.

It's not like we're talking about an issue that is out of date or insignificant - many drivers came out after Wheldon's death and said the biggest thing they felt nervous about was pack racing on high speed ovals, and this is the first event we'll get to see if anything's been done about it. Seems pretty relevant to me.

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Yes, this is relevant now. I don't really like the fact that every IndyCar thread turns in to a debate about pack racing and Vegas and what-ifs. But the big question in my mind has been about oval racing abilities of the new car. Will it be better than the old one?

We all can agree that the Indy500 was better with the new car. So it's a good indicator. However, there's still two different oval configuration races to see. That would be superspeedway and short oval configurations.

For the Indy, our biggest concern was about the safety of the car in big crash. Will it save its driver in big crash? It didn't fail at Indy in all of those crashes, which was a big relief for everyone.

Now, for Texas, our biggest concern is about the pack racing. Will there be pack racing, Vegas-style?

So far we've seen only good races with the DW12 (Detroit was not a problem cause by the car, the car was very racy there too). If it proves to be a winning concept in Texas too, for me it's a great testimony of a successful change for the series and only the skies will be the limit for the IndyCar series from that moment on.

So I'm looking forward for the Texas, open-minded, hoping that we would have another great race coming up. If the Texas race goes well, we can start to expect good races for the rest of the season and push the bad memories behind.

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"Indy doesn't give you a second chance. You have to earn it."

Can we let the cars hit the track before panic mode kicks in maybe..?

This is what Dixon said after the Texas test a month ago:



Briscoe:


This is the aero package they will be running this weekend:

I do actually agree with Codename, although I confess to enjoying the racing they had in the early 2000's. It was pretty much racing in a pack, but with the ability to draft up to the car ahead and actually overtake. The driver seemed to have more of an input. Sadly it reached a point where they wanted even more downforce, for the sake of side by side finishes, I assume. Just because Vegas was one of the only multi car pile ups, it wasn't the only huge accident caused by the high downforce side by side formula. Think about Franchitti at Michigan, or Kenny Brack. The drivers were getting as close to each other as possible, in the hope of picking up a little bit of side draft. That's not right. I do feel open wheel cars are fine to race on ovals, and I don't mind the field being toooo bunched up (not to Vegas levels). But the tracks shouldn't be easily flat out, and overtaking should not be a 20 lap side by side battle.

That's just my opinion. I'll now happily wait to see how the new car runs here. If it's anything like Indy, we're heading in the right direction.

Here's what can be expected at Texas, I guess:

[youtubeidiot]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWtfj61ROd8[/youtubeidiot]

Thinking about it though, they didn't even pack race at Texas last year, so maybe the teams know a trick to keep them apart anyway no matter what the regs....

Maybe the cars just work that way at Texas.