it's all going very pete tong.

[bella]

look, i know i'm supposed to be nice and not post lots of propaganda, but this is getting silly. yes, i'm going to rant on about bad luck, and christian fittipaldi's disturbing magnetism towards the stuff.
it happened again. the engine blew up. after salvaging a somewhat pants race, it all went wrong again. i guess where i bring you lot in is will it ever cease? do you think it's time for both parties to part comapny, and for christian to find himself a home elsewhere on the cart grid? if it's not the handling, it's a freak occurance like a fireball.
i appreciate that helio also has a lot of the bad karma floating around, and seesm to retire more often than not as a result of an engine misdemeanor. so why does gil keep on doing ok?
is christian that pants (say yes, and i'll send round the biggest guys in the neighbourhood)? or is it just a phase?
someone pat me on the head and tell me it's going to be ok - italy just lost to france in euro 2000, and i'm having a poo weekend......*sob*
but seriously. what do you guys think about the whole great big dark side conspiracy (note my ambiguity....)? does it exist? or is michael andretti really a god? andrettirules, that question doesn't apply

help. reasons, explanations. and break it to me softly. unlike those big meanies at 7g.

[Liz]

(1) It is a conspiracy. (2) God is onto it and working out a really big punishment for Mikey. (3) Even if the French will be insufferable for the next two years, I am grateful the bloody Italians lost and serve them right. (4) Helio's cars blow up because he is young and has lots of years to get it right. Gil's cars don't blow up because while driving for Walker he has used up his lifetime quota of DNFs and God has taken pity on him and said "Race on, my boy, and win!" And about time too.

[Hyacinth]

Bella

At least you're not a Paul Tracy fan! TKG should change its name to Murphy's Law Racing.

[bella]

i think it's personal. god is out to ruin my life. and the lives of those associated with me.

tkg are having a pretty pants year, aren't they? hehe... hang on, who actually IS getting it right? apart from good old bob moreno (ok, less of the old).

i don't like all of italy. i like francesco totti's hair, all of fabio cannavaro, and flippo inzaghi's skills. bixente lizarazu's a bit of a sweetheart, so it's nice he won again.

gil's just hit his luck phase. soon, he'll be having an early bath too. mind you, rather him than paul tracy, or andretti (yuck).

apologies for my outburst. i was in a deep and irretrievable state of depression. and i still am. ever since seeing that andretti is 2nd in the championship. how did he do that??

[AndrettiRULES]

Cuz Andretti is "The Man"

But seriously, Michael got off easy in Cleveland this past race. I don't know if it was visible during the telecasts...but Michael was a relatively slow car and was holding a lot of faster cars up, approx. 6 of them! He just saved the race because of the nearly impossible task of passing in the CART series. I'm starting to get fed up with this stuff, we need some passing!!! It'd help if they could find a distance where everyone could be goin' full tilt instead of just droning around trying to conserve fuel...but hey, that's Rahal's job, not mine.

Yes, you've heard it here first...I think I'm the only Andretti fan out there that WILL truthfully comment on him. I call it as I see it. I think it helps having a dad that doesn't like him and can put some sense into my head after watching an incident.

AR

[KC]

There are two reasons why one car cannot pass another. It is too slow to get it done. That can be the driver's line, engine power loss, or pure setup problems. The second is, the rules do not encourage passing. That is not the case in CART. A lack of passing would imply that Christiano daMatta did not recover from 17th to finish third. Paul Tracy did not come from 17th to the top ten on the first lap. Dario franchitti did not pass from 12th to 6th. There is plenty of passing in CART. Sometimes we see tracks that limit passing, but this is not the norm. You mustt remember, each of these guys is vey fast and it takes eiter a mistake or a seriously faster car to make a pass.

[AndrettiRULES]

Firstly, it should be noted that Tracy moved up from 17th to 6th on the first lap because of the huge jam in turn one. If you watch the replays of the first turn, he ran right through the middle of the turn and zipped by all cars that were involved in the accident. He also had a clear run up the straight into the next corner which allowed him to pass once more because many cars were putting their wheels off and losing traction down that stretch. This happened to Michael and he dropped a position to de Ferran because of it.

I personally didn't see da matta pass one car ON THE RACETRACK except for Gil de Ferran, who was having brake problems and Dario Franchitti who's transmission was beginning to fail. For much of the race he was droning around as the last car in the train following Michael. Somewhere around the 8th position I believe. But because of a few cars failing towards the end and superb pit-stops he was able to finish 3rd. He did make a pass on Michael in the closing stages, but again, that was another case of Michael getting shoved out onto the dirt off of turn one by Brack. Franchitti just barely nudged inside of him into the next turn which caused Michael to go off-line and scrub off a lot of speed...thus, da matta squeezed through in the tiny straight connecting turns 3 and 4. Or turns 2 and 3, however you look at the track.

By far, the majority of passing occurs on pit-stops. And personally, I don't find that nearly as exciting as passing on the racetrack. I've seen it many times in the CART series, there is a relatively slower car in front of a long line of cars...where that long line of cars is caused by that other slower driver. But unless that car is DRASTICALLY slower, no one can get the passing done. I understand that because of Champ Car aerodynamics it makes it nearly impossible to follow closely and make a pass. One guy has to screw up in most cases for a pass to occur.

AR

[Liz]

Hang on, is this CART you were watching or F1? I saw a lot of passing and always do, in CART, even on really boring tracks you see more than you see in F1. I saw Montoya and Mikey pass and re-pass each other several times, and also saw Carpentier, Tags, da Matta, and of course Tracy pass several cars - even Gil passed a few cars because he had to pass them or hit them! Brack also passed a few cars here and there.

[AndrettiRULES]

Mikey and Montoya?! They were never in contact with each other for the entire distance! You are talking about the Cleveland Grand Prix aren't you?? Montoya got shunted to the outside on the first turn and dropped down to the 12th position. He was always well behind Andretti except towards the end before the last caution. At that point Ganassi knew he couldn't make the distance and he went full tilt trying to catch Moreno. He did cut the distance in 1/2, but a caution came out and he came into the pits to fill back up...he came out 7th, and finished 7th.

I know CART has more passing than F1, but there are hardly any competitive passes going on besides the re-starts. Besides the occasional screw-up, they're out there parading around, albeit closer together than F1.

A lot of top guys were passing Gugelmin at the start, but I believe he was having some kind of problem because he was drastically slower than everyone else.

I'm not trying to 'diss' CART, it's by far my favorite form of motor racing. But, I do find on occasion, their races being extremely boring because the top guys are not passing on the racetrack itself. So now, I always look forward to race starts and re-starts....and pit stops.

If CART itself isn't extremely happy with their racing, why does Bobby Rahal want to re-vamp the current formula? Introducing less HP to the motors and giving them back their high-downforce wings?---->I know they currently have high-downforce wings on road courses, so please do not think I'm that ignorant. I've been a fan of CART for approx. 7 years now, and gradually every year there has been less passing going on. IMHO if it weren't for Alex Zanardi from 96-98, and Juan Montoya last year...CART would have been extremely boring for the most part. Each driver seems to bring a lot of excitement to the race weekends because one great move is/was expected of them from race to race.

I just believe that most positions are made by either pit-stops, or DNF's. For example, Franchitti, de Ferran, Fittipaldi, and Tracy all were in front of da Matta throughout the race...but each ended up with a DNF. There are 4 positions 'given' to him there, not passing on the race track itself. Also FYI, da Matta started in the 5th position. But then again, he was involved in the first lap
accident. I guess I wasn't paying enough attention towards the back of the pack when he was making his way up...but I'd imagine many of those positions he made up were DNF's.

AR

[AndrettiRULES]

I would also like to note that I was at the race Sunday. All of these comments are mainly of what I watched while there in person. I did tape the race however and some of my comments have been from the taped version.

AR

[AndrettiRULES]

Please excuse me for my statement about Michael and Montoya. I had been thinking about your comment Liz and finally remembered them being together on lap 68 or 69. Michael had just come out of the pits and had a great run down the straight but Montoya easily out-breaked him because his tires were already warm after 2-4 laps of driving. So, yes they were together, albeit very briefly.

At that point the running order was Moreno, Brack, Montoya, Andretti, Franchitti. This is when Montoya started going full tilt in an attempt to catch Moreno.

AR

[Liz]

We all know what we saw. Whether we saw it or not!

I think sometimes it's harder to see things than we think it is - just ask anyone who supposedly witnessed an accident.