Ron's letter from America* - 9th June 09
Texas is an exciting oval. It has high banking, the steepest in the series. Now you may remember several years ago when it first opened they had to cancel the IndyCar meeting because the cars were going to fast and the G forces were too great on the drivers. So much so that they now have placed a lot of restrictions on the cars in order to slow them down, making it a safer track to race on.
The draw back to this is it isn’t so good for the drivers or the spectators. Previously we would have cars three or four wide but now you don’t have the speed to be able to carry the car up high for any length of time. The way to win (and pass) at this track is now to stay down low.
This is the advantage that Team Penske had on Saturday night. Scott (Dixon) and Dario (Franchitti) just did not have the speed of the Penske cars of Helio (Castroneves) and Ryan (Briscoe). In fact at one stage during the race they were one to two miles quicker a lap. Now that’s quite a bit when you consider that they were lapping at over 210 mph in about 24 seconds.
When you are low you are running a tighter line, therefore scrubbing off car speed, so you need the aerodynamics to stay down there. To go up high you cover a greater distance and need the speed to do this and compete with the car below you on the track.
Texas is an oval where you are flat out all the time. To pass up high on the track means you have to have more speed, but it isn’t there when you are going flat out.
What compounds it is if you have to back off for any reason then it takes a couple of laps to get back up to where you were before. This happened to Scott when he had a go at passing Briscoe near the end of the race. Unfortunately Tagliani pulled out from the pits and of course Scott had to back out.
Scott was telling me that when you take away all the aero that is required and the restrictions, the cars today are 180hp less than when they first went there. It’s a great track but they need to find a better margin, which allows more over taking. It will be better for the drivers and the crowd.
Hey, we finished third and Briscoe should have won it and was unlucky not to do so. However if he had won then Scott would have been further behind in the points.
It’s onto Iowa in a couple of weeks for the next round. We are having a much-needed break after three consecutive weekends racing. Well, back to work at the Palm Beach International Raceway is still racing I suppose.
We have a really interesting weekend coming up. It is the Grand MINI 50th Birthday Bash. Check this link out. It is going to be huge, around 500 MINI’s from all over the States and I’m looking forward to it.
More soon.
Other letters from Ron
- Castroneves claims Texas, Dixon third
Qualifying was average, the racing should be great
*Ron Dixon is father to Indianapolis 500 winner and 2003 & 08 IndyCar champion Scott Dixon. He is also the President of Palm Beach International Raceway, Junpitor, Florida. This season nzracer.com follows Ron on his road trip around America with the Indycar Championship. Each week Ron will give us the insiders view from track side, pit lane and behind the scenes.
