did you see the crash? Aleshin into the catch fence, left some debris there (entire front wheel/tire/hub/wishbones); but I haven't seen the crash itself (or a replay). he's had a great year, bummer to end it like this. I'm cheering for Helio tomorrow.
We didn't see it but were watching timing & scoring Chas. Up until a few minutes ago indycar.com was streaming it. Marco's car got heavily damaged too.
Kimball too. not sure on Savvedra (sp?) Aleshin is en route to the hospital, skipping the medical center...think good thoughts...
According to Marshall P, Aleshin got taken to the hospital and had 10 workers on his car working to extricate him. No updates on Saavedra , I didn't know he was involved- just Marco, Charlie, Bourdais & Aleshin is what I heard.
I met him a few times in LA (he was living there at the time, working for Racer IIRC), great guy. tell him I said hello, 50/50 on whether he remembers me
appears Aleshin was airlifted to Loma Linda. that should sound familiar to long time Indycar fans say a prayer, folks.
That was a wicked looking shunt for Aleshin. The brief video that is on the Internet shows him running a really low line and another car on the apron coming into the pits which may have caused him to check up or otherwise alter his line that got him out of shape before all hell broke loose. Lucky no one else was hurt. The new cars are strong and, no doubt, a vast improvement from events in Las Vegas in 2011. BHW
well, yes and no....yes they are incredibly strong, and much safer for the drivers. but they are still getting airborne (even at relatively low speeds), which is what part of the design philosophy of the DW12 was supposed to cure. so we traded aesthetics for the illusion of safety (giant front wings, rear attenuators, and sidepod wheel arches). I'm not sure what the answer is there... btw, here's the wreck: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g9c6F5asS4]2014 IndyCar - Mikhail Aleshin Tears Down Catchfence in Horror Crash - Fontana Practice - YouTube[/ame]
It's 10:11PM and they haven't started this f-ing race yet? Indy Car is dicking around on a level NASCAR would envy. WTF? BHW
Is it realistic to suggest that open wheel cars will never get airborne again? That is the inherent thrill, open wheeled cars dicing side by side. Wasn't the point of putting the sponsons around the rear wheels so the cars wouldn't be leaping over each other as we'd seen so many times? In the endlessly long lead up to the start of the race last night, they asked drivers their opinions on the indecent. Ryan Hunter Reay thought that the tracks could make the retaining walls two feet higher. Not sure if this would be a cure for cars getting into the catch fencing or not. BHW
Did anyone east of the Mississippi see the Fontana race all the way to the end? The race didn't start until 10:20PM ET and took 2:32+ to run (an incredible average speed of 196.111 MPH) but who'd know since it ended at nearly 1:00AM. Indy Car had better figure this out. BHW
no, i don't think that's realistic. the only way to keep open wheel cars from leapfrogging each other is to make them proper closed wheel cars (ie chassis and body panels completely covering all but the face of the wheel). RHR's suggestion would help in some cases but not in cases like DW's, or Brack at Texas, or Briscoe at Chicago. and of course there's the issue with sightlines for spectators, TV, etc. and I agree, 10:15 Eastern to start a 500 mile race that decides the championship? stupid. I DVR'd the race, and probably won't watch it.
Sort of reminds me of the late 80s when Group C drivers were ready to boycott Le Mans unless or until the ACO installed a third tier of guard rail to the armco barriers on the Mulsanne straight after we lost Jo Gartner in 1986. We look back on that now and it all seems rather silly especially after the shunt this year with Duval where the Audi likewise got airborne and up into the catch fencing. But, for sure, shunts like this will continue to happen regardless of the height of the walls and hopefully the tracks have learned lessons from the Las Vegas debacle. As for Indy Car running their championship finale in the middle of the night, someone would have to explain the logic going on there. I may have made it about a third of the way through the race, Diffey's voice eventually wore me out. Does he get paid by the word? The NBCS broadcasts would be just fine with Townsend Bell and my old friend Paul Tracy handling things in the booth. BHW
their schedule was reduced to not interfere with baseball, college and pro football, NASCAR chase, beginning of hockey and basketball. OK, fine, lots of competition in the fall. but then they choose to finish the season in August in the inland empire, which almost guarantees triple digit daytime temps; so they have to put the race at night. makes no sense. they should move Fontana to March (before DST begins) and have a night race there to start the season (it could be started around 6pm local/9pm eastern; or day into night starting at 5pm) and then make Pocono a day race to end the season with a 500 miler. so you start and end the season with double points, triple crown event 500 milers, end the season with a day race on eastern time, and still don't interfere with other sports. the argument will be that Fontana would then be too close to Long Beach, but nobody is going to Fontana anyway and they are 70 miles apart in a 15+ million market, so I think they'd be OK. agree on the broadcast, Townsend and PT are excellent. Diffey et al just get in the way.
I think the late start was to ensure that the sun had already set. If you watched the prerace, you saw that the sun would have been right in the driver's eyes going down the back straight if they had started any earlier. I think the race should be moved to later in the year (August is too early to be ending a season anyway) and run in daylight.
correct, too hot to run during the day and the sun has to completely set or turn 3 is a blind corner (at 220 mph ), so they have to do the late start. too late. I understand the shortened season, there's just too much late summer/early fall sports competition. Indycar needs to rebuild a fan base, hard to do that in such a noisy environment.
