Surfing Kangaroos in the Concrete Canyon - Australian V8 Supercars

Opening lap wreck with Grand-Am standout Ricky Taylor at the wheel. Picture from V8Supercars.com.au

                I have talked about the Australian V8 Supercar series in some of my last posts, so I figured I would give them a dedicated posting. Speed has a tape delay on these races, and it finally aired Saturday night. The race happened at Surfer's Paradise in the Gold Coast of Australia. The track is known as the Concrete Canyon to the drivers. They really know how to put on a show, as the picture I opened up the post with shows. This race is known as an Enduro, each team has their normal driver, but they get a co-driver from outside the series. Greg Ritter is the normal driver of the car shown in the picture above, and his co-driver was Ricky Taylor. He races Daytona Prototypes in the Grand-Am series.

Ricky Taylor's Grand-Am Daytona Prototype SunTrust Corvette. Picture from autoweek.com.

                 The story behind the picture above is that the V8 Supercar guys use a standing start to begin the race. Think Formula 1, where everyone is sitting on the grid, and once the lights go out, it's time to go. Well since the international drivers start the race, and most aren't used to this, some people stalled. When this happened, it instantly created a gridlock. Here is the highlight video from V8Supercarofficial's YouTube channel. You can also see the second try at the standing start, and more chaos. Other than Juan Montoya hitting the jet-dryer at Daytona, where have you seen this much excitement in racing?



 

                Before you say it, the international drivers can drive. Here is the list and in parenthesis are their background: Nick Heidfield(F1), Marco Andretti(Indy Car), Darren Turner(DTM/Lemans), Sebastian Bourdais(F1, Indy Car, Grand-Am, LeMans), Richard Lyons(SuperGT), Mika Salo(F1), Simon Pagenaud(ALMS), Jeroen Bleekmolen(Porsche Supercup), David Brabham(GT1), Graham Rahal(Indy Car), Frank Montagny(F1), Justin Wilson(Indy Car), Ryan Briscoe(Indy Car), Will Power(Indy Car), Stephane Sarrazin(LeMans), Gianni Morbidelli(F1), Nicolas Minassian(LeMans/Indy Car), Max Papis (F1/Indy Car/NASCAR), Peter Kox(DTM/BTCC), Jamie Campbell-Walter(FIA GT), Peter Dumbreck(LeMans/DTM), Mike Conway(Indy Car), Ricky Taylor(Grand-Am), James Hinchcliffe(Indy Car), Boris Said(NASCAR/Grand-am), Marc Lieb(LeMans), Lucas Di Grassi(F1), Tonio Liuzzi(Superstar Series). As you can see, many forms of motorsport are represented, and they all are very talented. Unfortunately NASCAR is in season, so we can't showcase our stars in this race. I'm sure Marcos Ambrose would love to make a return, and take some friends such as Juan Montoya, Brad Keselowski, and maybe even Carl Edwards. I was sold on the driving talent of these guys when I was watching an earlier race and Jacques Villeneuve was filling in for an injured driver. He drove three races, and was towards the back for everyone. That guy jumps in a Nationwide car, and battles for the win, but can't even break into the top-20 against their guys, come on now.

                I have gone on long enough, but at least I have filled this one with a ton of pictures, and video for you to look at. The Australian V8 Supercar guys put on some awesome racing that has all the bumping, banging, and mirrors flying that lends itself to some exciting racing. I am planning the trip to Austin in May 2013 to see these guys in action, and I can't wait. One of my friends going, who was part of the Lexington Goat Herd, which was our group of friends who owned GTOs. She is convinced that we can steal a Holden while we are there. Check for us on the news, you may see a 5 foot nothing girl, followed by a 300 pound guy being locked away for it. I'll leave you with a video of 3-time Winston Cup Champion Darrell Waltrip and his ride in a V8Supercar from last year. He talks a lot when he is scared, and as you can tell he won't shut up. Until next time.







NASCAR needs help with the Party Mix: Part 1

“Hey DJ, let me borrow that Party Mix cd!”

            Children of the 80’s and early 90’s will understand what the quote is talking about. I remember burning a ton of cd-r’s and running out of things to call them, so many of them were different volumes of Party Mix one, two and so on... NASCAR needs some help with their party mix of tracks, and scheduling mainly on the top-tier series of Sprint Cup. I think about the new IPhone 5 commercial when the guy is sitting there talking to someone on the phone, and asks if they had Déjà vu, over and over again because it never changes. The term insanity stands for doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the different results. NASCAR expects that their attendance numbers will suddenly change by putting the same product out there for us to watch, I highly doubt that France Family.

   

Danica Patrick and Brad Keselowski suffering through a night at Bristol Motor Speedway. Picture from Zimbio.com.

                     The first point we need to breakdown before we go any further, is who owns these tracks? International Speedway Corporation owns twelve of the tracks used in Sprint Cup, and other feeder series of NASCAR. ISC owns Chicago, Darlington, Daytona, Fontana, Homestead, Kansas, Phoenix, Talladega, Martinsville, Michigan, Phoenix, Richmond, Talladega, and Watkins Glen. The other group is Speedway Motorsports Inc. which owns a total of eight tracks that are used in Sprint Cup, as well as the other feeder series of NASCAR.  SMI owns Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Kentucky, Las Vegas, New Hampshire, Sonoma, and Texas. If you are doing the math that leaves three tracks that are independently owned that can still draw the Sprint Cup series. These tracks are Dover, Indianapolis, and Pocono.

            If we break down the weekends, and how the races are divided up, ISC receives nineteen dates, SMI receives twelve, and the self-owned tracks receive five. The big gripe that I for one, along with a lot of others in the media, and fans alike have is the redundancy of the so called cookie cutter tracks. All of these 1.5 mile tracks lend themselves to a lot of boring racing, which will not lend itself to growing the sport at all. A second issue I have with the schedule is this, road courses. If NASCAR wants to compare the quality of their drivers to other auto sports, then they need to showcase their abilities turning left, and right. These boys put on a good show at Sonoma, Watkins Glen, and even the Nationwide series at Road America, Watkins Glen, and Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Grand-Am which is owned by NASCAR, and the American Lemans Series announced their merger, which got me excited because NASCAR gained the rights to Road Atlanta in the deal. I am hoping we can see some stock cars on that circuit in the near future.

Road Course ringer Jacques Villeneuve in the #22 Penske Dodge at Road America. Photo from Sbnation.com

            That is a lot of information already, so I am going to split this up in a couple different posts. I am trying to keep you interested, and secondly from having information overload. In our next installment, we will cover some more topics, like fixing the constant feeling of every track being 1.5 miles, while constantly missing the big stock cars on winding road courses. We will also talk about aligning the sport with other road course series to gain some of their fans. I'll leave you with the final lap of the 2012 Napa 200 from Montreal. Until next time.