I don’t have a MasterCard but the last six weeks of summer for me might as well be a MasterCard commercial. Although it was a mix of different family, people, races, hotels, restaurants, cities, airports and time zones, the end result regardless of the costs was simple: priceless.
Getting back Sunday morning ended an epic stretch that in six weekends covered two American Le Mans Series races for MichelinAlley.com in Utah and Connecticut, a NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Road America for Motorsport.com, two weekends in a 10-day period visiting family in Phoenix and San Diego and one weekend at home in Greendale, my adopted home and suburb of downtown Milwaukee.
It was a weird sense of déjà vu driving back from the track to a second hotel in as many days – from one in Great Barrington, Mass. on Thursday and Friday to one near the Hartford, Conn. airport Saturday night – and then wondering while in a tired haze, where am I? Another hotel? Same hotel lining? What state?
As it was, the capper to this stretch was the second in a period of four ALMS races in seven weekends, at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Certainly the area is beautiful and the drive scenic to and from, but perhaps I suffered this weekend from unreasonable expectations I placed on myself.
Whereas at Utah I had minimal expectations, going in dreading the heat and the area, I was pleasantly surprised with the experience. I was excited for Lime Rock thinking it would be cooler and the scenic atmosphere would more than make up for the tight track. But I can’t say this was my favorite weekend of the season.
Certainly the track and drives are gorgeous and I wish I had taken more photos. That said, the weather was miserable — constant rain on Friday left everyone soaked. On Saturday everyone was soaked again, but this time from the 90-plus degree heat coupled with I’d guess about 70-80% humidity. Not to mention the media center’s air conditioning was limited to a few vents (but a major improvement from trailers they’ve had in the past, I understand). I almost didn’t miss the much-touted Phoenix “dry heat” that everyone always says they prefer (of course I usually respond, ‘Well, yes, Phoenix at 115 is still a dry heat, but so too is a 400-degree oven…’).
It was another barnburner of a finish as the Muscle Milk Team CytoSport Porsche RS Spyder driven by Klaus Graf made a move to lap some slower GT traffic, contacting Patron Highcroft Racing’s David Brabham in the HPD ARX 01-c as he attempted to overtake. Graf got a stop-and-go penalty but Brabham suffered a delayed puncture that ruined his chances. A popular first overall win then for Graf, co-driver and team owner Greg Pickett.
GT and LMPC also had tight finishes – Patrick Long in a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR holding off the pair of Rahal Letterman BMWs in GT with LMPC’s winner Gunnar Jeannette running out of fuel on the last lap but still managing to complete his final lap before the second-placed car took the checkers.
The weekend highlight for me was having the opportunity to meet racing legends Sam Posey and Skip Barber at Posey’s Connecticut cottage among other dignitaries and Posey’s friends for a Friday night dinner. Major thanks to my editor and adviser for that.
As this was a fairly busy weekend elsewhere, with F1, IndyCar, NASCAR, and MotoGP also on track, some other thoughts:
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I never have liked Ferrari’s tactics, dating to the Michael Schumacher era of utter annihilation. Sunday’s farce of a Grand Prix at Germany — with Schumacher, “Schumi Jr.” Sebastian Vettel and their four countrymen in the field’s home race— brought back bad memories and re-anointed Felipe Massa as the role of Ferrari wingman.
The last time they pulled a stunt like this was in 2002 at Austria with Rubens Barrichello pulling over right before the flag. Massa’s engineer Rob Smedley not so subtly told him that teammate Fernando Alonso was faster and asked him to ‘confirm’ the message. What would have been a boon to the series with a popular win for the driver who a year ago to the day was struck in the face by a 2-pound spring dislodged from Barrichello’s car was instead turned into a political matter to ensure Alonso got the win he lost at turn one.
Massa, as ever, handled things bluntly but professionally in post-race. The team still would have gone 1-2 anyway for the vaunted Constructor’s Championship with Massa ahead, and Alonso is not going to leapfrog two Red Bull and two McLaren drivers in the Driver’s Championship, so why screw up the deserved winner’s race and blatantly disregard the regulations? Just a joke.
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Oddly this was not the biggest racing scandal by the end of the day. Along with the human error of umpire Jim Joyce taking away a perfect game thrown by Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga in June, today IndyCar’s resident chief steward Brian Barnhart (I’ll refrain from negative nicknames) made his own gaffe of epic proportions. The difference between the two was the humility and acknowledgement of the mistake Joyce showed and the arrogance in Barnhart levying what was, frankly, a BS call on Helio Castroneves in the IndyCar race.
Castroneves appeared to hold his inside line, perhaps moving a fraction of a car length to the left entering the right-handed turn one at Edmonton while defending his position against teammate Will Power on a late race restart. And while anyone with half a brain could see it wasn’t a block, Barnhart thought otherwise, and Mount Helio erupted, thermonuclear style. Rightly so.
Barnhart defended the decision in a post-race interview on Versus.com suggesting that once a driver is on the inside line on a road course and not attempting to pass, that that is blocking. His inconsistencies and the lack of clarity regarding what’s blocking (apparently this) and what’s not (Danica’s near detonation chop on Kanaan at Texas) are damning and should be the impetus for Randy Bernard — a rodeo man — to pull the trigger and rid IndyCar of this man once and for all. His presence, like Milka Duno’s on track, is only hurting the series’ pub and credibility right now, not helping it.
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This weekend (Friday, July 23) marked the one-year anniversary of starting my Twitter account. After being a vehement hater, some 3,400+ tweets and 285 followers later, plus running two other accounts, I think I can say I’ve changed my mind about the usefulness and practicality of Twitter. Thanks to those who follow (and have not yet got sick of my racing tweets), and also to those who influenced me to get off my rear end and get one going. I haven’t checked myself into “Tweet-a-holic’s Anonymous” yet…
Out for now and on to another rare stretch of a week and a half at home. Cheers.
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