Let me open by saying the pre-race coverage on ABC was just awesome! They talked a lot about the drivers, cars and the award worthy tribute to Dan Weldon was just breath taking and almost had me in tears all over again. Now let’s get to the race. The start looked good to me 5 rows 2-by-2 yeah they stringed out towards the back but over all I would say it was a good line up add the fact that they all made it through turn 1, and you have a great start. They followed up the great start with some good racing early and I was loving the ABC coverage (at this point) with them not taking their first brake till lap 8! The first yellow came out on lap 8 when Katherine Legge was going so slow that her Lotus engine decided to just stop. (I give credit to Legge for earning her right to be in the race. After not making the 105% cut in the first practice and needing a quick lap on her last lap of practice two to get within 105%. On Saturday and in quals, which is the only time that really matters, she was will within the 105% rule and deserved to be on the grid!) I give HUGE credit to Beaux Barfield for holding the yellow and allowing everyone that wanted to pit, pit under green. Great call! Lap 17 was the restart with Ryan Briscoe leading and again a great restart with eight rows 2-by-2. Going in to one however while they didn’t wreck I must say Scott Dixon’s “hip check” on Ryan Hunter-Reay was kind of a dirty move if you ask me. On lap 20 James Jakes stuffs it bring out the second yellow. Under this yellow Briscoe pits (I must admit at the time I didn’t understand this move if you didn’t pit before the first yellow why would you pit now but, in hindsight it worked out for him being the first of the 3 stop cars.) The restart took place on lap 29 with Scott Dixon leading them and UGLY start only 2 rows side-by-side proving that leaving the pace car on track doesn’t change anything if the leader wants to go early he still can and can keep the field from lining up. Lap 46 Ed Carpenter spins. Contact came from Helio as Ed was trying to pit. Race control reviewed and decided “no further action” was required. Once again I must say this was the right call and good job by Beaux Barfield. Last year the was a cry from the fans that if one persons race was ruined by contact then race control should ruin the other persons race with a call but this was not a “take out” or a “punt” Helio didn’t know Ed was pitting and wasn’t expecting him to slow down coming off the last turn. Helio gained no advantage from the contact it was not initial and was just a racing incident therefore, no penalty was the correct call. Once again great call Beaux Barfield! The next lap however with Carpenter still sitting in the middle of pit in with safety workers all around him and the PITS ARE OPEN!!!!!! This was just a HORABLE call by Beaux Barfield! Safety must come first and having people standing in the middle of pit in and having that many cars weaving around to get in is just WAY too dangerous. (Post race Barfield said that he opened the pits because cars were running out of fuel. That should NOT be a concern of Race Control! If it is not safe to open the pits then the pits should not be opened. In the past IndyCar has had the rule that if you were running out of fuel then you could come into the closed pits for a splash and go but you had to come back once they were open for a full stop. If they did this sure them might still be some cars coming down pit lane but not as many and would be much safer as they wouldn’t be racing to get in and out as they are going to be at the back anyway.) This call is would makes me drop Beaux’s grade for the race over all drop from an A to a C. The restart comes on lap 49 with Dixie once again bring them to the field and once again only 3 rows “lined up” and even that is stretching it. This is something to keep an eye on throughout the season is this a Dixon thing or is it just a coincidence that it happened twice in this race with him leading. With about 32 to go we see Legge stopped (again) but this time just passed pit out. Dixon pits, Helio stays out. I am wondering if Dixon came in early thinking there might be a yellow (I don’t know if this is true or not just what I was thinking). There isn’t a full coarse caution and Helio comes in a lap later. Not through a yellow here is 50/50 for me I am not going to call it a good call but not going to call it a bad call either she wasn’t really in a dangerous position but there were track workers where a car COULD get to however unlikely, so yellow, no yellow, I’ll just go with the flow. Helio leap frogs Dixon in the pits (I think) but Dixon is able to make the pass while Helio tires are still cold. Not sure how ABC doesn’t show this!? First leap frogging through the pit cycle can be very exciting if done correctly (see F1 coverage on Speed as a perfect example!) but, then to not show Dixon passing Helio on track there is just no excuse for that! The only thing worse would be to do it again. Oh wait they DID when Helio passes Dixon back on the OUT SIDE no less! At least they showed a reply of this pass but how do you not show this live? After this the tv coverage gets a little boring however if you follow Pippa Mann on twitter you learn that there are passes almost every lap going into turn 1. It is a shame that the TV coverage was so great for pre-race and the first part of the race to have such horrible coverage here late in the race. They did make up for it again in post race (for those of us who got to see it!). I am surprised that the race went long they had 2.5 hours set out for the race just over half an hour was set for pre-race so that leaves just under 2 hours for the race which should be enough time unless there is a red flag or something like that.
Over all I would say it was a good weekend with a great memory of Helio hanging on the fence with the “Dan Weldon Way” sign. An average start for the new car, not the best start for the new engines with all of the electrical problems. (I took not that the Chevy’s that were reporting this problem all had the in-car cameras and this year for the first year the in-cars run off of the cars battery not its own external battery.) And an average start for the new race director Beaux Barfield. I would say while I think Beaux call a good race except for one horrible call opening the pits but I thought Brain Barnhart did most of the time also. I believe if the exact same race happened with the exact same calls from race control except it was Barnhart calling the race. There would outrage for the horrible job race control did from the some of the more out spoken fans (fuelled by Robin Miller) proving that it wasn’t the calls Barnhart made during his tender as Race Director but it was just a blind hatred for anyone connected to the IRL era. The story of the race has to the race broadcast, which is very sad. There seemed to be a very good race on track too bad we at home didn’t get to see it. The “Legend In His Own Mind” award I am going to give to Will Power. While I like the pit strategy at the time it didn’t work out for him and someone as great on the twisties as Power I would expect him to be able to overcome that and still have a good finish so I was a little disappointed that he was unable to bounce back.
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