2014 St. Petersburg Grand Prix

I had the chance to check out the St Pete Grand Prix. First time as I've always passed on this event because of the fence being an obstruction to my photography but I really wanted to see the PWC cars so I bit the bullet and got tickets for yesterday and today.

The day started out ok and as I walked the track I began to find a few spots for pictures. Took a break to grab an early lunch and soon after the rain came and got worse as the day went on. I finally gave up around 4:00 but not before the stadium trucks did their thing and it was pretty cool to watch especially after such a long lull in the action.

Really didn't feel like getting up early and making the two and half hour drive again today so I passed. Sure wish today's weather happened yesterday but what can you do. I had a good time and saw the potential so I'm sure I'll add the event to my roster and return next year. The weather is perfect today and they should have a great race.

Here's a few pics from yesterday.
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good pics! thought about going, probably should have, but didn't have the enthusiasm for the time and money required to watch 1 corner at a street circuit. I got spoiled at Daytona and Sebring

thanks for the pics, keep 'em coming!

 

I don't like the fact you can only see one corner at a time either.

What I really didn't care for was the grandstands were reserved seating and you couldn't sit in them with a general admission ticket. They were practical empty but the five or six ushers kept general admission ticket holders from entering them. Too bad as it would've helped me get over the fence. Walking the track there are lots of great spots to see a bit of the action but you have to look through the fence.

I stood at the last turn before the front straight and they would come out of the turn sawing the wheel fighting the slide as they came out to the wall. It was pretty amazing to watch from that position.

While Daytona is very open, St Pete feels very confined but there is still plenty to see and do. I'm kind of wishing I went back as I already had the ticket but didn't want to do the drive in my old beater Jeep.

 

A few more pics
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^^^ now that's a duck face!

so far this indycar race has been excellent.

 

Power should have been penalized for that ridiculous slow start. If he was not driving for Penske......

Lost respect for these IndyCar officials.

 

He admitted he lifted so it's clear cut what he did even though the officials didn't act on it after it happened.

I also think they had the restart zone too close to turn 14 and should've moved it farther down so the entire field could be on the straight before restarting.
Seems like having several cars still coming around the turn when the green flag drops is asking for trouble.

 

Great pics, I forgot to TiVo the Indy race, but did catch the PWC replay. Thankfully the weather cleared up by Sunday.

 

one of the consistent problems has been guys jumping the gun on these restarts...Will has been vocal about this in the past so this might have been a way to keep them honest. RHR and Dixon both said they didn't see anything wrong w/ the way Will handled the restart. of course Helio took issue with it and the guys involved in the wreck had the most obvious complaint. but also seemed like those guys in the back were indeed jumping the gun. pretty good race overall and good win for Will.

 

Holy crap AJ.....try a salad once in a while!

 

Maybe Sato can convince Super Tex to try a sashimi diet? Hehe

 

It was a fun race to watch. The trick for viewing is finding an invite to a party on a high rise overlooking the circuit. We were on the 27th floor balcony above turn 5. We could see most of the track...turns 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14.and so on. With a TV inside we would see replays. And a couple of times we went to street level at Turn 8 for a close up.

Fun time. My first Indycar race.

 

Indycar pulled a 0.6 rating for that race.

sad.

 

Perhaps if it was on a consistent network race to race. One week they're on
NBCS, the next ABC, the next ESPN, etc.

I had assumed (yes, dangerous I know) that the SPGP would be on NBCS after the
F-1 replay.

Then, had to scramble around before finding out it was on ABC and on at virtually
the same time the F-1 replay was being aired.

BHW

 

TV packages for anything but NASCAR in this country suck.



live streaming could be the way to go if fundamental issues like bandwidth are solved (I'm looking at you, PWC), but then you still have to market it so people know how and where to find you.

I'm hoping that Verizon can help raise the profile of Indycar, but I'm suspecting they're just here bc they can't be in NASCAR.

 

Indy Car is going to have to do something about the cars though too.

We are now three years into this new Dallara DW12 car They appear just as they did
in their debut. You mean to tell us that these cars couldn't receive some subtle aerodynamic
tweaking in that time?

I don't care what NASCAR says, people want to see something new. If it's just the same
cars every year only with a few different drivers and liveries, that isn't going to be
enough.

Where would F-1 be if the cars looked the same for half a decade?

Let's see something new Indy Car. You hit the reset button in 2012 and there has
not been a march forward in any way since.

BHW

 

I think the problem is there's no money to pay for the new updates, wind tunnel time, testing, etc.

they shouldn't have released such a hideously ugly car, but that's hindsight being 20/20.

 

I don't think it's that simple. Iirc, there was a feeling of DW died because of the dangerous cars and WE need to address this NOW!

 

that's BS, that car was well under development before DW died. remember, he did most of the testing work on it

and it really hasn't achieved its goal of preventing cars from going up and over each other, or otherwise achieving liftoff...

 

What I meant was there was a push to not delay the new car

 

ah, I see. misunderstood you

I'm not sure how much of that was due to DW's death but there was a big push to get the new car out for 2012, even after a lot of complaints about the car (styling, cost, difficulty to setup, etc). the promised aero kits never arrived, I think mainly due to cost, but it would have been nice to see better looking cars on track

 

Difficult to believe there is no money there to develop the chassis and upgrade
them every once in a while.

They're risking running into monotony and people are going to get bored watching
these same cars year after year.

They're going to let the teams boost their engines in order to go for qualifying record
speeds at Indy with the new revised qualifying format. That is interesting but Indy
is only one race.

Let's hope too that some of this year's crop of rookies help shake things up at the pointy
end of the field. New names are always good.

BHW

 

I think outside of Penske, Ganassi, Andretti and whoever has the Nat'l Guard sponsorship ( ), there really isn't any money. funded drivers, lame sponsors (Boy Scouts? some BBQ sauce I've never heard of? yikes), no sponsors...

I agree they need some new stars, I was hoping Newgarden would be that be he hasn't produced, Hawksworth is clearly a great talent but has modern racing driver complete lack of personality. sad.

 

Its too bad no F-1 drivers make the cross-over to Indy Car with the possible exception
of Seabass, back in the 90s when Mansell made the cross-over, that really added a
lot to the credibility of CART.

BHW

 

I thought the cars would have a high pitch whine sound but after listening to them at the track they seemed more subdued.
Not as low and growling as a DP but not as high as I remember them at Indy on TV.
Did they make a change somewhere along the car's evolution?
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