2006 CCWS Rd. 10-Grand Prix of Denver

[mlittle]

With the championship battle in the Champ Car World Series now a three-way battle, the series moves from Silicon Valley to the Front Range and the Mile-High City, a/la Denver, for the Grand Prix of Denver presented by Centrix Financial. Set aboust the streets around the Pepsi Center, the track features a signature turn of its' own, the infamous Mile-High Corner(turn 9), which is a reverse of Cleveland's Funnel Turn.....but just as scary and inviting for drivers.

Here is the event schedule for the weekend.................(note, all times listed are U.S. EDT; -4 hrs. GMT)

Practice Session #1}12:15 pm, 11 August 2006
Practice Session #2}4 pm, 11 August 2006
Qualifying Session #1}4:25 pm, 11 August 2006
Practice Session #3}12:15 pm, 12 August 2006
Practice Session #4}4 pm, 12 August 2006
Qualifying Session #2}4:25 pm, 12 August 2006
Final Practice Session}11:30 am, 13 August 2006
Grand Prix of Denver presented by Centrix Financial---3:30 pm, 13 August 2006(broadcast live on Speed Channel)

[mlittle]

According to the rumors page over at autoracing1.com, MiJack-Conquest Racing's Andrew Ranger, currently 5th in points at the moment, may miss the upcoming race at Denver due to sponsorship "issues"(read......lack of money..... ) and may be replaced by Enrico Toccacelo, who tested one of the team's cars at Road America late last week. Considering that Ranger is currently 5th in the ChampCar points standings, it will be sad to not see him on the grid this weekend in the Mile High City.

[mlittle]

A.J. Allmendinger(#7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L) secured a front-row starting spot and a championship point Friday by pacing the field during QS-1, edging out 2-time Denver race winner Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L) by a mere .049 secs. The surprise of the day was Allmendinger's teammate, Paul Tracy, who crashed in provisional qualifying and was in 16th(and last) place after the session. Here are the top-5 after QS-1.......

1}A.J. Allmendinger, Forsythe Ch. Racing......................1:00.714 sec
2}S. Bourdais, Newman-Haas Racing............................1:00.763 sec
3}A. Tagliani, Team Australia.......................................1:00.988 sec
4}J. Wilson, RuSport Racing.........................................1:00.991 sec
5}B. Junquiera, Newman-Haas Racing...........................1:01.141 sec

[mlittle]

Let's see........there have reports of a strange flying contraption buzzing the Pepsi Center(that'd be T-K's plider.... ), and, meanwhile, the rest of us are at Brooklyn's tavern in Denver, where we'll open up the Friday notebook......

1}Supporting their fallen comrade. While Cristiano da Matta continues to recover from injuries suffered in testing at Road America, everyone in the ChampCar community is thinking of Shorty, and it shows...everywhere. A few examples......
~~all 16 cars in the ChampCar race and all the Atlantic Championship cars are sporting da Matta stickers with both the da Matta family's nickname, Kiki, and the Brazilian's blue/lime helmet, along with the words, Push Please(a reference to his uncompetitive 18 months with Toyota's F1 program)
~~several drivers have the same sticker on their helmets and HANS devices
~~several drivers also have the words, Get Well Cristiano, on the sidepods of their cars, with the Brazilian flag next to the words

2}That's CDW Red! RuSport's Justin Wilson, meanwhile, is sporting a new helmet, courtesy of the Boys & Girls Club of Denver(after the race, the helmet will be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to the Boys & Girls Club...) The helmet features the Denver skyline agst. a backdrop of the Rocy Mts.; the skyline is predominantly black, the mountains are purplish, and the sky is kinda' pinkish, or as Wilson's chief mechanic, Larry Ellert, put it,

It's NOT pink! It's CDW Red!

3}Haas's tumble. Newman-Haas co-owner Carl Haas didn't have the best of days'; he took a bit of a spill when his scooter hit a piece of sidewalk curbing. But it wasn't all bad; it happened in front of Brooklyn's tavern, where some......free-spirited fans where heard saying.....

Did you see that! The cigar never left his lips!!

4}Good day for Team Oz. Considering that in the course of 2006, Team Australia has had 8 major repair jobs and 3 tub changes for their Lola chassis', it was very nice to see the green-and-gold at the top end of timing charts, and it was, IMHO, great to see Tag there while seeing last week's bonehead award winner, PT, languishing in last after QS-1. It was a good session also for Tag's rookie teammate, Will Power, who set the 8th-fastest time in the QS-1.

[mlittle]

After struggling with the tricky track conditions on the streets of Denver Friday, reigning series champion Sebastien Bourdais rebounded by setting a new track record on the 1.657-mile street circuit, relegating provisional polesitter A.J. Allmendinger to the outside of row 1. Here is the grid for the 5th annual Grand Prix of Denver................

1}Sebastien Bourdais, #1 McDonald's FC/L.................59.096 sec*
2}A.J. Allmendinger, #7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L............59.350 sec

3}Justin Wilson, #9 CDW FC/L...................................59.878 sec
4}Paul Tracy, #3 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L......................59.903 sec

5}Alex Tagliani, #15 Aussie Vineyards FC/L................59.919 sec
6}Andrew Ranger, #27 MiJack-Tide FC/L.....................1:00.007 sec

7}Bruno Junquiera, #2 Hole in the Wall Camps FC/L....1:00.029 sec
8}Oriol Servia, #6 Gulfstream FC/L............................1:00.096 sec

9}Mario Dominguez, #19 N. Illinois Steel FC/L.............1:00.147 sec
10}Nelson Phillipe, #4 WellBox/Mi-Jack FC/L................1:00.333 sec

11}(R)Will Power, #5 Aussie Vineyards FC/L.................1:00.405 sec
12}(R)Charles Zwolsman, #34 GoldenPalace.com FC/L..1:00.453 sec

13}(R)Dan Clarke, #14 Sherwin-Williams FC/L..............1:00.887 sec
14}(R)Jan Heylen, #11 Diamall/Muermans FC/L.............1:01.201 sec

15}(R)Katherine Legge, #20 Bell Micro FC/L..................1:01.370 sec
16}(R)Nicky Pastorelli, #8 Curacao FC/L.......................1:03.472 sec

[mlittle]

Let's see.......Julian's lost in traffic over at Red Rocks, T-K's still flying the plider(and scaring a lot pedestrians..... ........), and I'm trying to compose some notes for the Saturday notebook. Here goes.....

1}Trackside falls, take 2. Yesterday, it was Carl Haas; today, it was Greg Allmendinger, father of driver A.J. Allmendinger. Unlike Haas, though, the elder Allemendinger fell off a golf cart and suffered a mild concussion, and will stay overnight in a Denver-area hospital. If he's anything like A.J., he'll be trackside come racetime.

2}Who'll drive the #10......With it likely that Cristiano da Matta will miss the remainder of the 2006 ChampCar season, speculation is rising as to who will fill Shorty's place on the grid; and it's interesting to note who's on Carl Russo's list of possibles......former ChampCar drivers Patrick Carpentier, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Michel Jourdain, Jr. top the list, along with Toyota F1 third driver Ricardo Zonta(and that's just for the Montreal race). After Montreal, it gets more interesting, for reports are that Russo is actively talking to agents for IndyCar Series drivers Buddy Rice and Dario Franchitti in hopes of securing either for the last three rounds of the ChampCar season(Road America, Surfers Paradise and Mexico City).

3}Movin' up the record books. With his pole for Sunday's Grand Prix of Denver, Sebastien Bourdais took his 24th pole in just 55 starts. Doing so moved him ahead of 3-time Indy 500 winner Johnny Rutherford and put him right behind his current trackside nemesis, Paul Tracy. For Newman-Haas Racing, it was the team's 36th pole in the past 100 races; of those, Bourdais has 24, Cristiano da Matta 7 and Bruno Junquiera 5.

4}Oh Canada............No, I don't know the words(despite singing them at the top of my lungs back during the Stanley Cup Finals..... ) but it was the same feeling, as Canadian drivers Paul Tracy, Alex Tagliani and Andrew Ranger qualified P4, P5 and P6.

[Julian Mayo]

Julian is at T3......Tracy and Tags

Gotta remember that anyone who has done race miles around the Mountain, and brought enough car home to be rebuilt, is AKA Aussie, by way of Honarary Badge of Big Balls.. The fact that he drinks Wild Turkey and Melbourne Bitter has nothing to do with anything.

The suitcase I have with me at T3 contains a fold up chair.........."what's that Officer?'
"Oh this......its a monocular camera sighting device"
"Why the crosshairs?.......so I can pre-focus the camera to the point where I can see the the blood vessels in Mr Tracy's Eyeball.
Why is the Monocular camera sighting device attached to something that looks suspisciously like a H&K 7:62 5 shot 42 inch floating barrelled tripod equiped sniper rifle?"
" um........it was the only way I could smuggle my camera thru customs.......
Oh, ok....and you have a nice day too, officer"

Now Mr Tracy........as soon as those blood vessels dilate

[mlittle]

With partly cloudy skies and everyone's thoughts on injured RuSport driver Cristiano da Matta, former RuSport driver(now FCR driver) A.J. Allmendinger won his fourth race of the 2006 season, but it was the last-lap crash between A.J.'s teammate, Paul Tracy and Newman-Haas's Sebastien Bourdais that stole the media attention(more on that later..... )

Here is the race recap.............
~~at the start of the race, Bourdais took the early lead, leading the first 20 laps; meanwhile, Tracy and fellow Canadian Alex Tagliani tangled at turn 1 on lap 1, ending Tag's day and sending PT to the rear of the field
~~tires were a major issue, as most every driver couldn't complete a full stint on either the Bridgestone Potenza standard or option tires; only Bruno Junquiera could complete a full stint(around 31 laps) and that on the black-walled standards
~~after the first set of stops, Allmendinger quickly erased Bourdais's lead, passing him on lap 48 following a restart for debris(I'm still wondering....what debris? )
~~btwn. the first and second round of stops, Allemendinger held onto the lead, while PT scratched and clawed back up to third, finishing the climb up by passing Brit Justin Wilson; Wilson would eventually fade back to eighth place by the end of the race
~~after the second and final round of stops, Allmendinger reclaimed the lead and never looked back......meanwhile, Bourdais and Tracy soon got into a close battle for second/third which culminates in........
~~on the last lap, Bourdais makes several attempts to pass Tracy; tries in turn 1, fails; tries a pass down the pit straight entering turn 4, fails, and then.....on the last turn(the Mile High Turn), SeaBass uses the last bit of boost in the Cosworth to pass Tracy......only to have PT overshoot his braking point, slide right into Bourdais, and take both of them out. PT would finish 6th, Bourdais 7th, and Bourdais had.....some words for Tracy after the crash.

Here are the top 10 from a wild Denver race..................
1}#7 A.J. Allmendinger.................................97 laps
2}#2 Bruno Junquiera...................................-20.588 sec
3}(R)#14 Dan Clarke...................................-50.281 sec
4}(R)#5 Will Power.......................................-55.915 sec
5}#4 Nelson Phillipe.....................................-1 lap
6}#3 Paul Tracy...........................................DNF(contact), -1 lap
7}#1 Sebastien Bourdais..............................DNF(contact), -1 lap
8}#9 Justin Wilson.......................................-1 lap
9}(R)#20 Katherine Legge............................-1 lap
10}(R)#34 Charles Zwolsman.......................-2 laps

[rah]

Nice to see Power doing well. Looks good for the best rookie of the year.

[mlittle]

Nice to see Power doing well. Looks good for the best rookie of the year.

It looks that way, rah. He's adapted well to the different circuits in the ChampCar series this year, and he's largely kept his nose clean during the year, so unless anything happens, he should be a near-certain lock for rookie honors this year.

[mlittle]

For his last-lap.......incident Sunday in Denver, ChampCar officials have decided on the following penalties for Forsythe Championship Racing's Paul Tracy............
1--forfeiture of three championship points
2--extension of probation by one additional race(meaning it will last from Montreal through Surfers Paradise)
3--fine of $25,000 USD

In response, FCR VP of Operations Neil Micklewright issued the following terse statement............

(The team) believes that the penalty imposed to Paul Tracy is simply wrong and not appropriate, but we have to accept the decision of the Series even if we disagree with it. We eagerly await the penalty that should be imposed to Sebastien Bourdais for his actions, including running across a 'hot' track and initiating physical contact with our driver.

All I can say about what happened is...........

[cmlean]

So...............What is deemed a breach of probation??
PT could claim that it was a 'racing incident' but, for someone of his experience, it seemed he had a total brain fade that caused him and Bourdais to collide on the final corner of the race.

[Julian Mayo]

So...............What is deemed a breach of probation??
PT could claim that it was a 'racing incident' but, for someone of his experience, it seemed he had a total brain fade that caused him and Bourdais to collide on the final corner of the race.

One needs to have a brain, for it to "fade"
I used to admirer Tracy, for the way he attacked the concrete canyons of Indy.

[mlittle]

So...............What is deemed a breach of probation??
PT could claim that it was a 'racing incident' but, for someone of his experience, it seemed he had a total brain fade that caused him and Bourdais to collide on the final corner of the race.

One needs to have a brain, for it to "fade"
I used to admire Tracy, for the way he attacked the concrete canyons of Indy.

It a'int the first time he's had......brain fade, cmlean. Tracy's only saving grace in what happened is that Bourdais hit him first; if PT'd laid a hand on SaBass first, PT would be suspended, no question.

Here's another thought, cmlean......there were only 16 cars on the grid for the race; suspend PT, and you end up with one fewer driver on the grid.

[cmlean]

You wouldn't be suggesting that, due to the imminent demise of the Lola that teams are now saving money for the new Panoz and some are therefore not turning up to race in the last few events.

The show must go on so therefore indiscretions will not be dealt with as severely due to the number of available competitors left to finish the current series.