Problems At Rockingham...

[Craig]

Just spoken by phone with Carrie who spent the day at Rockingham and things are not looking good for the race on Saturday.

Despite the last rain shower being at 6am this morning, there were only 10 laps run today behind the safety car before those on track were pulled into the pits and things abandoned.

Apparently the problem lies not with the rain itself, but with the fact that the tarmac is actually bringing the water up through from below when the cars run on it. The soil beneath the circuit is apparently sodden and from the infield pedestrian tunnel you can hear the water rushing past the tunnel walls.

CART officials stated off the record that qualifying is likely to be scrapped and a solution will be sought to prevent the cancellation of the event entirely.

Doesn't sound too good

[paulzinho]

Oh dear...

[bella]

i'm missing man united v ipswich at old trafford for rockingham. it had better happen when it's supposed to or i'll get rowdy. sunday is not acceptable - some of us have b&q flags to wave at donington...

[Jay]

Damn, I'd go to the football game at Old Trafford... But then, I've seen Cart races, but have never been to Old Trafford.... oh well, hopefully this event will go forward...

[Craig]

Who the hell wants to go to Old Trafford outside of the cricket season ?

Apparently they are undetaking keyhole major surgery on the track tonight which involves drilling 12" diameter holes at various points to drain the water from beneath...! Let's hope it works!

[Ian-S]

Originally posted by Craig Antill
Apparently they are undetaking keyhole major surgery on the track tonight which involves drilling 12" diameter holes at various points to drain the water from beneath...! Let's hope it works!

Then again they could be unpacking the road course wings and inters

[Barry Pomfret]

The management have known about this water seepage at the circuit for months, even in midsummer with temperatures in the 80s water was coming up at various places on the circuit, both on the oval and the road circuit.It seems a bit late to try and do something about it two days before the race! I will be very surprised if the oval race takes place.

[Ian-S]

Any news on your truck yet Barry?

You should know who I am, the "little ****" that came along to a FFord race at Silverstone 1994 ish in a Lanan Racing car, and you didn't like me overtaking you

BTW, still teaching or you retired yet?

[JeremySmith]

Only in England...

[Craig]

Very helpful, Jersound Things apparently look better up there this morning... i'm about to set off, so I hope it's worked out!

[R]

Originally posted by Jersound
Only in England...

Really? What about Elkhart Lake?

If they have known about this problem for months, it's down right irresponsible not to try to do anything about it until two days prior to the race...

[massifheed]

R, this is Rockingham management we are talking about here. Your last sentence could also be applied to the over priced ticket problem which, up until they dropped the prices, looked like securing Carts lowest attendance of the year. I beleive the way Rockingham deal with problems that arise is "the bigger the problem, the deeper you bury your head". I hear umbrellas are handed out to all new Rockingham employees for when the **** hits the fan.

[massifheed]

You see, now here's the dilema. The Cart live timing thing says that the practice is on indefinate hold, and that a desicion will be made at 3pm. So does this mean that if they can't practice today then they will cancel, or does it mean that they will try and practice tomorrow and race on Sunday?

It's a hell of a drive for most people to get there. So what do you do on Saturday morning, set out or stay at home? The weeping problem sounds like bad design, and a problem that won't be solved by drilling a few holes. I read that they had to re-surface Indanapolis when it happened there.

What do you poeple think Cart/Rockingham should do. I can't help but think that if the race is cancelled then Rockingham will find it hard to recover. As much as I hate the people that can say nothing good about Rockingham, it does seem like they may be seeing the fruits of corner cutting. And while many people say that it is going to be an excellent wekend, you have to understand those that are annoyed with all the problems that have been associated with this race, which now look like threatening the race altogether.

[R]

Well, this is the latest update from cart.com:

"CORBY, England--Practice for Saturday's Rockingham 500 at Rockingham Motor Speedway has been cancelled. Today's schedule had already been altered following Thursday's problems with "weepers" that dampened the track; a problem which arose again today.
The schedule for Saturday has been revised as follows: there will be a two-hour practice session beginning at 10:00 a.m. local time (5:00 a.m. ET), and there will be a ten minute installation check beginning at 2:20 p.m. local time (9:20 a.m. ET). The race is scheduled to begin at 3:10 p.m. local time (10:10 p.m. ET), as opposed to its originally scheduled start time of 12:30 pp.m. local (7:30 a.m. ET).

The starting grid will be based on championship points, with Kenny Brack starting from the pole position, followed by Gil de Ferran, and Michael Andretti. The race will be broadcast live on stations along the CART Radio Network as well as on Yahoo! Sports and CART.com. Details on television coverage are still being worked out and will be made available shortly. A more extensive report on the situation at Rockingham will also be made available shortly."

There's no doubt that if the race can't be run, it'll hurt the prospects of CART's "European Tour" for the coming years. Not really a good record to look back on, is it, one race in which a two time champion was crippled, and another race which wasn't run due to bad preparation.

[Ian-S]

You bugger! I was just going to add the same update

[BootsOntheSide]

Talk about a major-mal-mis-organisation problem! What is it with the CART people, are they incapable of thinking a situation through in advance? I'm confident the race will be run, but they should switch to the road course if there's a problem.

[R]

I don't think switching to the road course is an option. Remember the car setup for an oval as opposed to a road course is very different.

[KC]

I don't think that water seeping through the circuit is the fault of CART. And the oval cars are not even the same chassis as the road course machines. The tub is longer, the nose does not have road course wing mounts, the gearbox is a much lighter unit dedicated for oval duty, and the teams did not bring any road course equip because it is an oval race.

Part of the problem arises from the fact that the track needed a race this year to make it financially viable and it forced them to have it at the wrong time of the year weatherwise for England. Next year the race needs to held during the driest part of England's summer.

[botsquad]

Originally posted by R
I don't think switching to the road course is an option. Remember the car setup for an oval as opposed to a road course is very different.

why not? what do the teams need to do besides change
change some suspension parts, crank up the wings and balance the cars?

[Rache]

Well I think the main prize should go to whoever scheduled a UK race in September...blimey why not bring it forward a few months??!!! Yeah it's gonna be boiling in Sept and it never rains in the UK...no, really - honest!!!

[macdaddy]

Fellow Canadians,
The TSN website is stating that the race is still going to be broadcast live, with the start time changed to 10 AM EST.
That is, if there's a race.

[Quadrifoglio]

Been at Rockingham all day Friday, will be very surprised if the race happens although they say they are optimistic. Will be a pity if we dont get to see these fantastic cars and drivers in action around this excellent track but the weather was always going to be a problem in England. Almost any month can give a lot of rain and I have to say that September is often OK, last weekend I was at Goodwood all weekend and the weather was great which was just as well as the hood on my Alfa Spider lets in water!

[Carrie]

As Craig said, I was at Rockingham yesterday and it has to be said, there's only so many times you can wander round the paddock / pits. I think everyone was bored. Also, only in England could you go to a Cart race and find all the merchandise on sale is F1!
Spoke to both Invader and Craig during the day whilst they've been at Rockingham today watching the jet engines trying to dry the track.
Our aim is to drive towards Rockingham tomorrow and then find out what's going on, but it seems crazy that we just don't know what's going on or what is likely to happen. Invader said there was talk of them refunding people's tickets for today. I wonder what they will do about race day tickets if the race doesn't go ahead.
Radio Northants was interviewing the Circuit Director for Rockingham and he seemed convinced that they would find a 2 hour window on Saturday and if they didn't then there'd definitely be a 2 hour window on Sunday, but from what we've seen in the last 2 days, they're going to need a lot more than that to actually run the race. I listened to the interview wondering who he was actually trying to kid, himself maybe because I'm certain nobody who's been at Rockingham would be taken in by what he said
Maybe I'll find myself at Silverstone instead watching Bentleys with Tim and if things do run over to Sunday, then we won't be there, we've got an appointment with Touring Cars at Donington instead

[Invader]

Well, I should be in Leicester and I'm in a rather strange place.
What concerns me most about Saturday's race is the fact that they are burning up tanker loads of Jet A1 in the jet driers in an attempt to get rid of water that is seeping up. Jet driers are designed to get rid of surface water and gravity is supposed to do the rest.
If this race does not take place, I for one will be rather hacked off.
It could also bankrupt the circuit.
I will be there tomorrow come what may but Donington beckons.

[touringlegend]

The 'Hair-Driers', as I like to call them made it on the BBC news tonight, just one thought, how do they manage to keep that thing steady?