Texas Race Thread

[rustyfan]

Congrats to Helio Castroneves on winning at Texas. Personally I haven't had a chance to see the race yet - was supposed to have been shown tape delayed at noon today, but it was moved to later (I assume in order to not collide with the Formula 1 race, which is aired by the same network albeit on a different channel)

Also, I was positively surprised to read that the race last night was crash free. Have to make sure to get one of the reruns taped so I can watch it.

[D.R.T.]

Not too much of a race to write home aboot.

Wheldon lead all day/night untill a screwed up stop cost him. Hornish followed him most of the night, then stalled on his final stop.

Helio wins from Dixon.

[stradlin21]

Positives for me from the race

The pace of the Fernandez cars, Matsuura and Sharp were near the front at times and both came home in good positions.

Hope fully they will continue to get stronger

and a word for Ed Carpenter, a decent finish last week backed up with another top 10 and ahead of Scheckter!!

he has had some stick so good to see him fighting back

[2112]

This was NOT the typical IRL race at TMS. I don`t know exactly where to pinpoint the causes for this.

[Dutton]

I enjoyed the race personally.

The lack of yellows has to go down as a bonus imo.

[Fish_Flake]

It was a remarkably subpar meeting at the so-called "action track" of the IRL. The race featured no crashes, no spectacular engine failures, and most importantly, no on-track passes for the lead. Even more so, the racing behind the Penske and Ganassi quarted was equally static and dull. Worst of all, the ridiculously late final round of pit stops scattered the field about the track and left no time for one mad dash to the finish, making Castroneves' last several laps unbearably routine.

What I noticed was the homogeny of the leaderboard throughout the evening: every multicar team seemed to find itself in the same pack for most of the race. As drivers were racing against their teammates, everyone just settled in, the the lack of agression on the racetrack was a direct cause for the remarkable lack of attrition by contact or mechanical failure. Without cautions, the field slowly spread out, and the prospects of stretching out the fuel window to accomodate a two-stop strategy disappeared.

It wasn't a great race, but the end result was caused by a compounding of the multiple variables I listed above, and definitely not the normal turn of events seen at Texas. The show will be better in Richmond, but it might be time to worry if no one can ascend to challenge the Penske and Ganassi camps.

[Dutton]

It certainly wasn't great, but I found the fuel conservation aspects, highlighted by the lack of yellow, quite intriguing. The battles up front may not have been dynamic, as such, but it was far from a foregone conclusion until quite late on imo.

Motegi was worse to my mind.

I guess I am just trying to highlight some positives, as the negative will always be clear.

[drdisque]

one thing that they didn't mention on air was that after his last pit stop Hornish was able to get around Sharp and Vitor to salvage a 4th place finish and that Sharp edged Vitor by less than a car for 5th.

[Tim Northcutt]

Meira ran out of fuel on the final straightaway....

[jethro10]

Originally Posted by 2112

This was NOT the typical IRL race at TMS. I don`t know exactly where to pinpoint the causes for this.

Yep, but it's becoming more common.
Shame really, it is getting a little boring.

Jeff

[Mystery]

I thought it was an ok race actually. The battle at the front wasn't thrilling although that was down to Dan being that much faster than Dixon and the Penske guys and them in turn being miles faster than the rest. But to be fair further down the field there were some nice battles and stories to look at and I thought the coverage of the race just about did them justice.

Not a classic race by any stretch of the word but it kept me well entertained for a couple of hours which is more than I can say of certain other races I watched over the weekend.