TBK-Light.com

Someone would have been seriously injured or even killed had they run the race

No it's not.

It's a ~22 second lap time.

The worst part about that is that CART had no thought process in running the race in Texas. I don't recall a single test session for the race until that very weekend. At least with a handful of test sessions, CART can calculate how much they can limit to save the drivers from the stress of the track without sacrificing the racing quality.

Anyway, less talking about 2001, more about 2013. Sunoco Fuels and DreamWorks has partnered up with Tony Kannan for the oval swing and Mid-Ohio. His scheme looks like this:

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/ ... ponsorship

Oriol Servia will become the latest victim of Panther Racing's comedy of errors drive the #4 car for Texas and Iowa.
http://www.indycar.com/News/2013/06/6-5 ... 20at-Texas

Pippa Mann will also race in Texas for Dale Coyne.
http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/ ... -for-texas

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Ducks Angels Sounders Spurs

I was away from home in a place where it was not possible to get TV or Internet from Sunday evening to Tuesday. I heard from radio about some fatal accident and I thought it had been in Texas. But later I found out that it was about Michele Alboreto who had died on Wednesday that week and I believe it was about cause of that accident had been found at that point.

A near certainty. Which is why no one in the know complained about cancelling the race. As stated, the circumstances prior to that are another story.

In practice Mauricio Gugelmin crashed at the exit of T2, banged the inside wall on the back straight, hit the outside wall at T3 and ended up at the bottom of the track at the start of T4. Imagine if that happened in the race in the front of the pack of some 25 cars doing 235mph.

And just when I wrote that up, I started to imagine it and what came to my mind was the Vegas 2011 disaster...damn...

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

Really? That one race killed CART. Lawsuits, Fed-Ex deciding to jump ship, Ganassi and Penske realizing impending doom and leaving... Shall i go on?

Back to the here and now, This is one track where that additional turbo boost would only improve racing even more. We won't get packs (We never really had it as bad as Chicagoland here), and it'll make the cars even more difficult to run, yet still being within the reams of safety.

Anyone remember the fact this track origionally had IndyCar and NASCAR banking? It looked like Darlington with the width of the track compared to the groove.

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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"

there's the first IRL race from Texas, not a bad crowd for IRL

The race was the straw that broke the camels back, but CART was in trouble long before this event.




What? This track has only ever had one configuration.

Nah, the bottom of the track was banked 8 degrees it's first year of operation...they changed it in 1998.

progressive banking in the extreme

It wasn't progressive. It was two separate grades, no rouding up to 24 degrees like modern shit.

Seriously I did not know that, extreme indeed.

It wasn't quite Darlington-like. The high-banked portion was roughly as wide as Charlotte. The lower-banked portion just looked like a really wide apron in my opinion. If you want to look it up, the full 1997 and 1998 IRL races are on Youtube. (15 minutes into the 1998 True Value 500 video, Donnie Beechler flips down the backstretch, so you've got that going for you, which is nice).

Meh, enough old stuff...practice is underway!

They're already above last year's pole speed. Kanaan is on top at 217.577 mph.

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Wonder what the deal is with those bottom three cars, especially Wilson. WAY off the pace.

The fact that he only ran 14 laps, hints he prob had issues.

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Gael

I forgot how awesome the CART cars sounded. Its something Indycar needs to bring back, imo

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"Many people ask me why I always sign off Till We Meet Again, because goodbye is always so final. Goodbye Dan Wheldon." -Marty Reid

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