"Power to pass" in the CART series (or the Bridgestone presents . . .

the blah blah blah series, powered by Ford)

I don't usually watch CART these days but since they were running at Montreal I figured "what the heck"

The race was a snooze (they say there is no passing in F1?) Anyway, the drivers have access to a button on the steering wheel that gives the driver an extra 50 hp that they can use for up to a minute and a half or so over the entire course of the race. Its called "Power to Pass" and they make a big thing out of it; showing how much each driver has used, etc.

Its kind of "Playstation-ish" to me. Any thoughts about it?

 

I think Formula Palmer Audi had something similar. I really don't like it to be honest. I feel it muddles the racing with gimmicks. Just my opinion.

 

A client of mine won, so that isn't too bad.

Art

 

Oriol Servia is a client of yours? Nice..........

 

It just raises the rev limiter iirc. F1 has the same thing, but it's not limited time-wise. Teams will raise their RPM in order to help pass another car, but then after the pass lower the RPM so the engine isn't stressed as much.

 

He has a problem with a prior sponsor (team owner).

Art

 

I think the whole gimmick of the limit is what I don't like. If the team wants to provide a temporary burst of power that's fine with me, but they (CART) have a whole graphic and they track each driver's use of it. I was pretty disappointed in the broadcast. They focused on stuff like this but didn't really talk about anything of substance.

 

I agree it is very gimmicky but they were just showing who had what left as part of the startegy aspect of the racing. It showed in the end because if Glock would have had any push to pass left he probably would have won. That being said i still don't like it.