Thursday, December 18, 2003

Revista Motorsports , Los mejores 20 pilotos de Sportscars.

20. Ludwig
19. Brundle
18. Surtees
17. Brooks
16. Andretti
15. Fangio
14. Elford
13. Redman
12. Bellof
11. Mass
10. Pescarolo
9. Wollek
8. Stuck
7. Gendebien
6. Hill P
5. Siffert
4. Bell
3. Rodriguez
2. Moss
1. Ickx





Creo que yo pondria a Sir Stirling de #1, simplemente fue dominante en su tiempo - en sportscars era mejor que su co-equipero y rival Fangio. Su manejo en la Mille Miglia con Denis Jenkinson de co-piloto es una verdadera proeza, dadas las velocidades que pudo desarollar.

Tambien Brian Redman merece un mejor puesto, era reconocido como alguien que podia manejar de todo.

Omisiones significantes:

Mark Donahue: Ganador de 24 hrs. de Daytona en un Lola, campeon de serie Trans-Am para sedanes contra rivales de la talla de Gurney, Parnelli Jones, y Peter Revson, Campeon de Can-Am con el monstruoso Porsche'Panzer' de 1000 caballos de fuerza, legendarios duelos con Pedro Rodriguez en Sebring y Daytona.

Dan Gurney: Ganador en Daytona y en las 24 Horas de LeMans en Sportscars y en GT. Un innovador tecnologico quien luego tuvo mucho exito como constructor en IMSA, Indy y CART.

Bruce McLaren: Ganador en LeMans y en Can-Am, una serie donde los mejores pilotos a nivel mundial competian. Una leyenda por ser constructor.

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

TG made three giant decisions in the history of the Speedway in the 90's.

Two worked out, the Brickyard and the USGP.

The third one has completely bombed, and should be considered the worst decision made by a major sports owner/operator in the last 20 years. Destroyed the sport in general, and screwed up his signature event.

The fans that hate him, absolutely and completely hate him to the point where they will not attend or patronize a series that they see has destroyed the sport in general.

This is a major stumbling block in creating a series where Tony George would play a principal part.

He should recognize this, and graciously step aside, and remain at Indy.

or he can forget about most traditional road course fans attending any IRL event.
I like this guys opinion on the merger...



[quote]
People on these boards are talking about the CART situation like it is one of the above. Forget it. MPH was a closely held, largely institutional stock, held by less that 10 mutual funds. Even those mutual funds were small-cap, high risk funds at any one time, MPH was held by less than 400 individual stockholders. The company is in an advertising-driven business and every annual and quarterly report since going publichas highlighted the precariousness of MPH's business. The difficulties facing the company were never glossed over, nor were they ever concealed...in fact, they were emphasized

Let's face it - CART's 'business' (as all racing outside of NASCAR is) is small potatoes, and none of this is going to be hitting the airwaves on CNBC or CNNfn. Management formulated a corporate strategy for the 2003 season, presented it to the independent BOD and implemented it. It hasn't worked.....tough. They have also formulated a strategy for the present difficulty facing the corporation, and enlisted outside consultancy. They have even offered the sale of the company to its chief rival. The entire process was held in public and forthwithly reported to shareholders via standard dissemination services and methods.

If you are looking for corporate impropriety here, you won't. Every move MPH and management has done was done in public, reported to the board with propoer research and due diligence. You can disagreee with Pook's strategy, but if it failed, that's not illegal..just unfortunate.[/quote]
If I am correct from my reading of the contract, upon approval of the deal, the company will then file the chapter 11 petition. The contract itself will not close, untill the Bankruptcy Court approves it. There is a proposed order that will be attached to the petition, where the contract proposal will be sketched out. Creditors (as well as a shareholder committee)will be able to set out their objections to it.

However the assets in question, are mostly the promotion contracts. Most of the major liabilities of CART, as well as enforcement rights are attached to those contracts, including the ISC claims.

So essentially, the bankruptcy court would get 2 million in cash, combined with whatever cash is left over from the operational side of CART. That would be left over to be distributed to the stockholders.

RACEWRITER ON IRL ACCIDENTS

I like Racewriters take on IRL Safety from this Trackforum thread. Some interesting figures too.

Trackforum Link
There are about 5,000 hardcore fans who think Tony George is a genius, and the rest think he's an idiot. And I think everybody else thinks he killed the golden goose.”
-----
Robin Miller



That pretty much sums it up. Around Indy there are maybe 4 or 5 Hulamanophiles, the propagandists who sing Tony George's praises. In Indianapolis Mr. George only hears what his amen corner tells him, and since his familiy, like Dan Quayle's is part of the Nap-town-Oligarchy no one dares criticize him too strongly. That has further empowered him to continue his obstinate and obnoxious course, despite the fact that sane people in the rest of the nation thought he was on the road to ####. Now it is a case of most people don't give a ####. And even some of the locally-based hardcore have given up on the IRL after it became Penskified.

And there are also die-hard fans, some who loved the 500, loved CART, and love road racing, who absolutely and completely despise Mr. George. He is seen as the ruin of the sport, and anything associated with him (except for the USGP) is garbage. All teams who abandoned CART are traitors and the #### with the drivers. No way are these fans going to go over to a George led IRL even if it races on road courses.

I used to have delusions that somehow a merger could be worked out, but a couple of weeks in Trackforum disabused me of that notion rather quickly. I got back on 'the Wagon' pretty darn quickly after that, if you know what I mean.

I do not want a series that in any way was affiliated with the management, sales, and marketing arms of the IRL. I believe they do not have the kind of long-term vision and international perspective that are necessary to lead an Open Wheel series in the North American continent. Their mentality is collectively stuck in the grimy pavement around the Taco Bell on 16th Street.
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Monday, October 20, 2003

IRL cars suck....................... There is something fundamentally wrong with the design, .................... and throw in the dangers inherent in ovals, quicker speeds and closer racing and a recipe for disastyer

Monday, July 07, 2003

CART en Cleveland

Muy bien por la carrera de Noche, le dio ese "toque especial" que se necesitaba para darle mas energia a la serie y a esa carrera en particular.

los de SPEED por CBS: Producion excellente, esas citas de Paul Tracy al principio del programa fueron excellentes, buena musica.

Bourdais, excellente

Friday, June 27, 2003

Quotes and Opinions on Article Regarding Hispanic Market For Cable

HISPANICS ARE A GREAT DEMO--AND THEY LIKE DIGITAL
By Jonathan Blum, Kagan

The 34 million or so Hispanics in the U.S. comprise an even more attractive demo when viewed by where they live and how old they are. Hispanics form a solid part of the desirable urban market: Out of the 90 million Americans who live in cities, about 26% of them are Hispanic, with 56% of them being 18 to 34, compared to 39% of 18- to 34-year-olds for blacks and 23% for white non-Hispanics. Hispanics are not only younger, and therefore more attractive to advertisers than these other groups, they're interested in cable as well. According to a recent study by Horowitz & Associates, 34% of city-dwelling Hispanics subscribe to upgraded digital cable, with a very attractive 45% of 18- to 34-year-olds taking the service.

A template for the possibilities for Hispanics comes from large retailers like The Home Depot and Wal-Mart. These major chains moved into long forgotten urban areas, in part to service the growing Hispanic market, creating some of the most profitable stores in their businesses.

So the market is definitvely there; a large demo, which is very young and with a heavy concentration in urban areas. CART is trying to capitalize on large urban areas.
quote:

Even among bilingual Hispanics, Spanish-language advertising "seems to be not just more relevant but more effective in motivating them to buy or to purchase a certain brand," she added.




Needed: FORD ads with Mexican & Spanish speaking Drivers, similar to the ones with NASCAR drivers that FORD runs.

More of those billboards and TV as well as ads in Spanish Language Networks

quote:

In the spring, Turner tried to capitalize on its baseball offering with the Home Run marketing campaign aimed at helping cable operators add Hispanic subscribers. Turner provided about 50 systems with direct-mail brochures touting the availability of Spanish-language audio during Braves games, and on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, plus CNN en Español and HBO Latino. The promotion also threw in free issues of People en Español.

Breland said the offer helped draw 10,000 new subscribers and that response was enough to prompt another campaign,



Are you listening, Cable Operators, CBS, DirecTV, SPEED, and CART??
quote:

This month,
"We are gearing up for our second year of exclusive Spanish-language coverage of the Major League Baseball postseason," he said. In addition to game coverage, the network will have pre- and postgame shows and live remotes for the Spanish-speaking audience.

Fox offered similar coverage last year and drew a very positive response from viewers who liked seeing the games in Spanish. And not just in a SAP version on a general market broadcast, but really a Spanish-language telecast with Spanish-language graphics, commentators and on-site reports.



CART should use the Spanish language guys who used to do the old ESPN transmission like Jorge Koechlin, and have them broadcast on FOX Sports instead of the guys they have now, and/or have them do a SAP version to go with the CBS and SPEED shows


quote:

Fox's advertisers include MasterCard, Mobil, General Motors, Toyota, Radio Shack, Tecate Beer and Smirnoff Ice. Sternberg said the channel soon will be close to a sellout position.



Ok., those are hardcore advertisers who might be enticed (of course excluding the car manufacturers and Tecate), into sponsoring cars if CART really takes off in the Hispanic market quote:


In addition to baseball and soccer, sports traditionally popular with Hispanics, Fox Sports is revving up coverage of auto racing. Since June it's been airing a highlights show covering the NASCAR Busch series.

Sternberg said there is already a base of Hispanic racing fans, but he expects it to grow. "There's no shortage of corporate sponsors in NASCAR," he noted. "And the footprint geographically of NASCAR is spreading into places like Southern California and Texas and Illinois and Miami and other markets where there are quite a few Latinos."



Uh oh!!!! CART has to act quick with a targeted effort.

Monday, June 23, 2003

Semana de Carreras,


CART Portland

Un buen trazo, otra buena carrera en el "nuevo" CART.

-Paul Tracy, se le esta yendo a la cabeza, esto de ser el 'ni~o mimado' de CART, y vuelve a ser el mismo malgenio de siempre.

- Tienen que cambiar a arranques a la F1, esto de seguir al carro guia y arrancar en formacion es imposible, aburren estos malos arranques.

Pilotos:

Tracy: Hablantin, malgenio, enojo a media parilla. Como dijo Tommy Kendall, necesitan llevarse al hombre al trailer de 'Lilly" para que le den "Vitamin P" o Prozac. Claramente, rebaso incorectamente a Michel en los pits, finalmente penalizado. Lastima, actuo maduramente al ser penalizado y limpiamente se dio la distancia para no perder en los pits.

Adrian Fernandez: Una carrera excellente, un muy merecido triunfo. Se mantuvo entre los primeros lugares, y no le fallaron los pits. Mas importantemente, el equipo le puso un buen carro al final, y lo supo aprovechar. La maniobra a Tracy fue una muestra de agresion controlada, riesgosa, pero exactamente lo que tenia que hacer para ganar. Lo que quisiera saber es si verdaderamente Tom Anderson no le informo sobre la penalizacion a Tracy, cuando Adrian estaba segundo. A Tracy si le dijeron y pudo sacar ventaja, si Adrian no sabia, bien le pudo haber costado la carrera en otras circumstancias.

Tagliani: Despues de sus 'problemas' con Tracy, se pudo mantener sereno, y acabar bien

Junquiera: lo que hizo Jourdain la semana pasada, lo hizo Bruno en esta, manejando un carreron para ponerse en 4to al final.

Jourdain: Agresivo, riesgoso, todo el credito en el mundo, por jugarsela toda con Tracy. Lo rebaso limpiamente al arranque, y en los pits le gano. Su movida contra Tracy termino arruinandolo en esta carrera, pero creo que no le costo el campeonato. Mas bien fue una se~al a Tracy de que Michel no se va a dejar intimidar por las habladurias, y que no va a quitar el pie del pedal.

Bourdais: Su manejo en otras condiciones le hubiera valido la victoria, aca fue una carrera acortada por una ala suelta.

Oriol Servia: Otro solido final, Patrick y el son una buena combinacion.

Hunter Reay: Impresionante toda la semana, mostrando que merece estar a este nivel.

Vasser: aparecia, desaparecia, y al final estaba en buena posicion.

Moreno: no se vio mucho.

Dominguez: me impresiono por la forma en la cual se mantuvo delante y/o detras del muy experimentado Moreno. Mostrando mucha madurez.

Manning: otro buen manejo, este va a ganar una carrera esta temporada. El podio esta cerca.

Mad Max: Necesita mas tiempo para aclimatarse, pero bien ver a Max otra vez.
NASCAR en Infineon Raceway (Sears Point)

Un manejo impresionante del que era el otro chico malo de CART, Robby Gordon, manteniendo a raya al otro Californiano, Jeff Gordon. Las ultimas 20 vueltas fueron electrizantes. J. Gordon, tiro demasiados comentarios inecesarios contra Robby al final. Casi todos los "Young Guns" de NASCAR hicieron muy buen papel en este, uno de solo dos circuitos que corre la "NEXTEL CUP" Harvick en tercero hizo un carreron, Newman, Busch, Earnhardt Jr., y Kenseth, todos terminaron entre los primeros 15, un buen resultado considerando el numero de corredores especialistas en circuitos corriendo.


Rally: Un par de dias raririsimos que vieron fuera a Gronholm, Burns, y a Martin. Los Citroen fuertes, FORD repitiendo malas ma~as,. Peter Solberg se mantuvo en la pelea, 3ero el primer dia, al irse Gronholm se mando adelante y no miro para atras. El manejo del ultimo dia se lo doy a Harri Rovanpera, con traccion en solo 3 ruedas para aguantar el embiste de Loeb en casi tres etapas.

Friday, June 20, 2003

Porque CART anda bien esta temporada.
Sumamente entretenida esta temporada, por los cambios en las reglas que
1. prohibieron traction control
2. congelaron el desarollo del chassis, asi que todos estan parejos.
2. bajaron el poder de los motores en ovalos de 900 bhp a casi 700, con un limitador de revoluciones, y reducion del "boost".
3. Incrementaron la carga aerodinamica en ovalos, creando mas accion lado a lado y rebases en pistas cortas y largas.
4. Subieron el "boost" del turbo en circuitos, para compensar por la reducion de rpm en el motor, manteniendo casi el mismo poder de temporadas pasadas. Y el turbo patea mas temprano, poniendo mas 'torque' en las llantas en la parte baja de los cambios - haciendolos mas dificiles de manejar.

O sea que hay mejor accion en los ovalos cortos ,en los circuitos corren igual de veloz, solo que los carros son mas dificiles de manejar, creando buenisimas carreras.

Monday, June 16, 2003

IRL en Colorado ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Boring, aburido,

whats up here,

it is like watching the worst CART races of 2000, with low downforce high power engines, all ovals sucks. I want to see Tony, Helio, Gil, Dixon, Hornish and Scheckter cranking it up in Road America
Carreras del fin de Semana:

LeMans, Buen final para los Bentley's, los Corvettes no pudieron con Ferrari, y un Porsche le gano a los otros Porsches. Ah, y de paso "Mad Max acabo de 5to en un Panoz

F1:

Bueno ver cuatro carros en fila

Schumi: Schumi es Schumi, pudo despachar a los Williams y mantenerse al frente con otro manejo magistral.

Montoya: Un error clave al inicio, le robo de lo que pudo haber sido una victoria, pero espectacular sacandose a Weber y Alonso

Alonso: Sensacional con poca maquina

Ralf: No habia forma de parar al hermano mayor, pero le quitaron tiempo en los pits los de Williams

Christiano: "Shorty" corrio muy bien, le sirvio su parada en pits, pero se la robaron cuando le estallo la maquina

Wilson: Impresionante verlo presionando a todo el mundo

Kimi: Que forma de perder el cameonato en calficacion, una vez ok., pero la segunda no puede ser.

Coulthard/Barrichello: bien ordinarios.

Jos: noveno.



El equipo de SPEEDTV: muy bien por T. Bell, y un cien por ponerle el apodo "Birnardi" a Minardi.

CART en Laguna

Carpentier: Pudo domar a PT, aguantarle embistes a Junquiera.

Junquiera: Cara mas agria, pero a como va manejando, esta poniendo estampa para favorito al titulo - si se relaja un poco.

Tracy: De todo un poco: un ritmo rapido, conducion al limite, un par de errores en pits, impaciencia, y todavia llega 3ero, se calmo un poco al final.

Jourdain: Un poco de confianza y se ha convertido en un favorito para el titulo. Conducion precisa, tiempos increibles en calificacion, bajo su propio tiempo de pole, dominante. Se la quitan, y arranca 13, y al mejor estilo Zanardi (aunque mas preciso) bate a Adrian, Servia, y compania, en llantas frias y todavia en el "Saca-corchos". Un cuarto muy merecido. Si este salia de Pole Ganaba.

Servia: No se le vio mucho, pero llego.

Adrian: Rapido en su primer salida, le robaron tiempo y posiciones sus paradas, tentativo en llantas frias, aunque no hizo errores, y mantuvo a Jimmy V. a raya al final.

Dominguez: Corriendo vueltas furiosas, quisiera ver sus tiempos, ya que creo que marco vueltas muy rapidas.

Friday, June 13, 2003

Second round from Laguna Seca, Joel Carmathias is picking up the pace, and is among decent company in the tables. Herta of course is doing his stuff on this course, and Bourdais is just flying.

Strike that, Junquiera is quicker now, more than half the grid is within two seconds of Bruno's top time of 1:10.751 . Same goes for the practice times for the F1 Grid.

Wish I was in Montreal.
Ok, Pizzonia el mas rapido en Montreal, y el Cuate el mas rapido en Laguna, buen comienzo para ambos. Sera con una carga minima de combustible la del 'Junge Boy"?
En el cambio de carros entre JPM y Jeff Gordon, Jeff hizo un trabajo fantastico en su primer 'Test' de un Formula Uno. Dando vueltas en el BMW Williams FW24, su primera vez en un Monoplaza de este tipo, marco un tiempo de 1.16.46 en una vuelta.

Cuando la Fisher hizo su vueltas en un McLaren, marco un tiempo de 1: 32.651


Veamos este tiempo de Gordon, en terminos de la parilla de Formula Uno del 2002, que es el modelo del carro que esta usando.

Alex Yoong, marco el tiempo mas lento en el 2002, con un 1:16.138,
o sea que Gordon estaba a menos de un segundo del tiempo mas lento de la parilla.


Lo interesante es que la experiencia automovilistica de Jeff, ha sido Stock Cars en ovalos las ultimas 10 temporadas, y sus comienzos fueron en midgets y sprint cars de USAC - donde probablemente adquirio su control de carro. Indudable que tiene un talento natural enorme, para marcar estos tiempos.

En terminos de Montoyin, no hay sorpresa, igualo los tiempos de Gordon en el circuito, con el #24 Chevy.

aro que fue promocional, pero como dijo un comentarista, habia mucha incertidumbre del resultado - especialmente para Gordon, ya que este bien pudo haber hecho un papelazo, ni siquiera arrancando de la linea.

Los tiempos de Gordon no estuvieron muy lejos de los que hizo Montoya en el "Shakedown" inicial del FW24 en la ma~ana. El circuito es uno de esos que combina una recta larga y rapida con un curso interno bastante tecnico - o sea uno donde la puesta de punto del carro es un compromiso - haciendola poco facil para un novato. Pero a pesar de eso Jeff hizo muy buenos tiempos e impresiono a Steve Matchett de Speed y al mismo Juancho.
quote:: Juan, a lot of F1 purists tend to look down their noses at other forms of racing, particularly stock cars, but how impressed were you by what Jeff did? How well did he actually do in your opinion?

MONTOYA: I think he did really well. I'll we honest with you, I wasn't expecting any less from him. I got to say he's a very good driver. He's done really good things. If you look at his background, anything he's driven, he's won. And he's like, you know, I got in the car, and I was comfortable with it straightaway. And it's the same thing, you know. I think we're both drivers, to get to where we are, we've driven through a lot of things. And when you're a good driver you probably drive anything, from a tractor to a F1 or, you know -





quote: I said to Jeff, you'll see how good the car is that it's just sometimes you are at the limit. You go through a corner and say, 'Oh, I can go quicker, I can go quicker, I can go quicker.' It's a matter of just quicking it up. I think it's a shame he didn't get more time in the car because I'm sure with more time he'd be as competitive as any of us in the F1.

Gordon se lucio muy bien en el circuito de las Canarias, incluso ganandole mano a mano en el "Rallycross" en un carro de Rallye al campeon Europeo de los Touring Cars.



Considerando el tipo de carros que ha manejado Jeff, sus tiempos fueron espectaculares. Mostro el tipo de talento innato que muy pocos en el mundo tienen,.

Si no recuerden el desastre que hizo Colin McRae cuando hizo su test, con tiempos francamente desastrosos.

Alex Yoong, marco el tiempo mas lento en el 2002, con un 1:16.138, que fue en practica.

Si bien fue mas lento Jeff Gordon, que Yoong hay que tomar como punto de referencia lo siguiente:

1. Esta fue la vuelta mas rapida DE SOLO 10 QUE CORRIO, y son las unicas que ha CORRIDO EN SU VIDA en este tipo de carro. Miren el numero de vueltas que se corre en un "Test" normal, seran unas 50, suficiente tiempo para aclimatarse al carro. Yoong ya tenia 10 carreras en el circuito.

2. Yoong, ha corrido F3 y F3000, que son las ligas menores de la F1, ha sido entrenado para correr este tipo de carro. Gordon aparte de Karts, nunca ha corrido un Monoplaza de este tipo antes.


O sea que con nada de experiencia y en solo 10 vueltas se pudo acercar Gordon al borde de la velocidad para calificar.


Vuelvo a lo que dijo Juan Pablo, quien no tiene pelos en la lengua, y que es uno de los mejores pilotos en el mundo.

quote:it's a shame he didn't get more time in the car because I'm sure with more time he'd be as competitive as any of us in the F1.
Big Race Weekend, CART at Laguna, F1 at Montreal, IRL at Pike's Peak "Not that Pike's Peak" and the Stockers out at MIS.

Monty is looking awfully quick in Morning warmups. Pizzonia is surprising

http://www.formula1.com/timings/

Jeff Gordon was extremely impressive on Wednesday's Tradin' Paint on Speed, looked like he belonged in an F1 Car.

Montoya not surprisingly did well in the 3000 lb. gorilla,

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Some Colorado Newspaper just said something about Nobody criticizing Tony George anymore. In what universe? The man has done a hell of a job wrecking Open Wheel Racing, and a lot of the mainstream press are finally catching on to it.
What up? Que Pasa, 3 Latin Drivers score big in the last three weeks, first Gil takes Indy, out-dueling Helio at the end, then Michel outfoxes Servia and PT at Milwaukee at night, and to cap it of, JPM kicks serious butt in Monaco.

NASCAR fans are raising Cain, 'cause of Toyota coming in to the series in a couple. Scary how a significant minority of NASCAR fans can turn me off from Cup, just when I start taking NASCAR seriously as a sport, and could see myself enjoying it.

JPM takes Indy and Monaco, those are some serious prizes there, just think of all the great drivers like Jim Clark, Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney, Jackie Stewart, who tried both, and could not do the double.

Michel Jourdain was owed that victory after heartbreak in Long Beach, and he drove splendidly to seal the deal. After eight years of struggling with inferior equipment and all sorts of criticism, it is good to see Michel, truly one of the nice guys in racing get that W. Through it all Michel has always been a class act.

JPM and Jeff G. trading rides. Monty will able to get to speed fairly quick, but I would not underestimate JG who has awesome car control - anyone see him driving a Rally Car in the Canaries this Winter.

Kurt Busch also did a hell of a job in Michel's ride in Sebring, one second off the pace, not bad for a circle-tracker.

Memo needs a ride in CART now.

Kudos to Marko Martin in Acropolis, another one who had his first win due. And lets see if this can lift FORD up a bit.

Lets see how good the FW25 is in Canada, Monty for the pole? 10 more points for the Williams driver can put some heat on the points championship.