With the sun shining brightly overhead and racetime about 3+ hours away, here are some of the weekend's highlights..................
~~When plans were announced for the return of Indy-style racing to the Detroit area, most everyone's eyes(mine inculded) rolled as if to say, "Good luck!"
Well.......looks like, by all accounts, it's been a success so far; reports are from DGP officials that less than 1000 grandstand seats(out of 26k total) are sold; all 100+ corporate chalets inside the track itself are sold out, the shuttle service btwn. Belle Isle and Detroit via. the MacArthur bridge is running flawlessly(using around 2 dozen large charter buses and 3 dozen smaller limo-style buses) and from my vantage point in the paddock, the sightlines are better(okay, a lot better!) than they were when CART raced here. In a sense, this track is remarkedly similar(in terms of preparation and setup) to St. Pete., although St. Pete does have one advantage..........its' in the South and its' on the Gulf waters.......
~~IRL president of competition Brian Barnhart and IRL president of commercial operations Terry Angstadt presented their "State of the Series" report on Saturday and here's a bit of the highlights................
--the IndyCar schedule for 2008 is set currently at 16 races(essentially, every race run this year
except Michigan(.........
...............); there is work being done to secure a 17th race for 2008(reports are that it will be a West Coast event; where is the question.............)
--in the long-term future, the IRL is looking at eventually going to a 20-21 race schedule w/events other than Motegi on the calendar(rumors are that the IRL has had officials w/out their IndyCar creds travel to the ChampCar race at Surfers Paradise to watch and "spy" on the other series, for instance.......
)
--next year will see the use of paddle shifters instead of gearshifters inside the cars; this will help in both reducing the things that can hit and hurt a driver during a crash and will help reduce the number of "over-revs" that Honda techs to deal with during engine rebuilds/repairs
--updates to the steering and wing systems on the cars will be standarized in 2008; essentially, the IndyCar Series has been allowing teams such as Andretti-Green Racing and A.J. Foyt Racing to run a variable-setting rack & pinion steering setup, which helps the driver turn the cars easier without having to remove "castor" from the suspension setups(according to IRL tech chief Kevin Blanch, this is legal to do....as long as no electrical, mechanical or hydraulic assistance is used, teams can run different rack & pinion setups
--series officials are looking at making updates to the current Dallara chassis for 2008; these changes involve, (1)widening the current monocoque by 2-3 inches to accomodate FIA rules; (2)allowing teams to potentially add/reduce downforce to the rear wings on ovals in the future[basically, this teams raising/reducing the rear wing angles.....more wing, more downforce; less wing, less downforce], (3)making changes to the seating areas in the car to increase safety and driver extraction
--series officials are also considering adding to the 2008 prize purse by reducing the purse spread btwn. first-to-last and by adding performance incentives to the purses[currently, the 2007 total purse is expected to be around $28-$30 million or so].....note, there is supposed to be a major announcement sometime in the next week prior to Chicagoland as to this point
