Don't get me wrong, George Barber has built one of the most beautiful racing facilities in the nation in the hills outside of Birmingham. I would absolutely love to take a road trip down there for an AMA Superbike race and a trip to Barber's fantastic museum; it has the potential to unseat Laguna Seca as the most scenic racetrack I've ever been to.
Unfortunately, scenery is not something you get to see much on TV. Viewers tune in to watch the on-track excitement -- if they wanted scenery, they'd pop in a blu-ray of "Planet Earth". It's not like I'm asking them to
Luckily, we all sort of understood what the deal was going into the weekend. We've seen a few Grand-Am events at Barber where prototypes had problems getting around slower GTs. The drivers who participated at tests in Birmingham the last two years also expressed their concerns over the lack of passing opportunities. So, when we had exactly ONE on-track pass for the lead on Sunday (by someone claiming to be Marco Andretti...I think it's Mario in disguise), everyone sort of understood why.
While it's not as exciting for the fans, this race was put into the hands of the crew chief/chief engineer/race strategist types. When the first yellow flag flew (which I'll get into in a moment), the guys on top of the pit boxes made their move: about half the field came into the pits while the other half stayed out. As the field spread out over the very long green flag run between laps 14 and 85, those teams who stayed out ended up looking like geniuses, managing to get through the race on (sort-of) two stops.
Among those who stayed out were Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, and Marco Andretti (or whoever that great driver is wearing Marco's helmet). Marco ended up leading a huge portion of the race after passing Helio soon after the first re-start, but he ended up driving it a little too hard and not getting the mileage he needed for a two-stop race. Helio took the lead after that and, after a quick restart battle with Scott Dixon on the penultimate lap, ran off with it. Following him to the podium were Dixon and Dario, while Andretti took fifth.
Notably missing from my writeup so far are the drivers involved in my predictions...
Will Power had the race in the bag from turn 1. Even though he bobbled a bit on the run down to the start, he still got the jump on Mike Conway at the green flag. Everything was looking good for Will until a huge stint of green flag racing broke out after the initial yellow flag. Power was caught behind several cars and, while he could make some passes, he lost touch with Marco and Helio and could never recover.
Mike Conway went through much of the same story as Power. Though he had trouble sticking with Will initially, he almost beat Power off pit lane and hounded him for a long time after the restart. Something must have happened to Conway's car, though, because he started losing touch with the cars ahead; eventually, Justin Wilson picked up the flag for Dreyer & Reinbold, taking seventh place from Conway with a dicey pass that had VERSUS booth man/DRR co-owner Robbie Buhl hyperventilating a bit.
That yellow flag I've mentioned about a hundred times without actually telling what happened came out because of Takuma Sato. I really thought Barber would suit Sato's driving ability and KV had been showing signs of being quick this year. Sato looked great until something in his accelerator system failed early on (hey, I thought Toyota pulled out of the series in 2006!) and brought the car to a halt next to the giant metal spider in turn 5. The problem was fixed, but not until Sato had lost 21 laps to the leaders.
As for the ladies...well, Danica finished the race right where she started in 19th. Notable in this third race of the season is that Danica has been getting FAR less press than usual this season, while people are starting to take notice of Simona De Silvestro. The Swiss Miss was going well, having been part of that group that stayed out during the first caution, and was looking to take a top ten spot until she bumped the gearshift one two many times going into turn 5 and spun the car. Simona ended up in 21st when all was said and done.
In less than a week, the IndyCars drop onto Shoreline Drive in beautiful Long Beach, California for America's premier street race, the Toyota Long Beach Grand Prix. Until then, take it easy!
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