2006 CCWS Rd.5-G.I. Joe's Grand Prix of Portland

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Since the mid-1980's, the Champ Car World Series has traveled to the City of Roses, Portland, Oregon, to Portland International Raceway, where some of the more interesting finishes in series history have occurred.........

--in 1986, Michael Andretti, leading late in the race, tries to nurse his car around on a scant fuel load, only to run out at the very last corner.......father Mario was the beneficiary, passing by to take the checkers

--the closest finish in ChampCar history occurred here in 1997, when former F1 pilot Mark Blundell won by .027 secs, barely edging out then-Walker Racing driver Gil de Ferran

--last year, off-sequence pitstops sent then-PKV driver Cristiano da Matta to Victory Lane, especially after frontrunner Justin Wilson suffers a rare(for Cosworth in NA motorsports!) engine failure(later ruled an "oil-pump" failure) at midway

As for the track itself......at 1.964 miles, it's about the typical length for a natural-terrain road course in NA motorsports. As you begin heading down the pitstraight towards the Festival Curves(turn 1-1A), it's not uncommon to see a three-wide gaggle of cars narrow to one-wide, and usually, even with the newly cemented area which was a gravel-trap, at least one car usually goes off-course here. Once past the Curves, it's down to turn 2, whre its' a quick flick to the right. Now the drivers enter the "technical" section of the track, where the drivers face four turns(turns 3-6) in fast right-left-right-left succession. After turn 6, the drivers then head down a long curved backstraight, hitting around 175-180 mph in 6th gear, before reaching a qucik left-right chicane(turn 8-8A; the backstraight contains turn 7, where the track curves to the right gently). Once through the chicane, its' only a second to turn 9(the Carousel) and then its' back to the frontstraight, and that is a lap around Portland.

Here is the event schedule for the race..............(note, all times are U.S. EDT, -4 hrs GMT)
Practice Session #1}1:15 pm, 16 June 2006
Practice Session #2}5:00 pm, 16 June 2006
Qualifying Session #1}5:25 pm, 16 June 2006
Practice Session #3}1:15 pm, 17 June 2006
Practice Session #4}4:45 pm, 17 June 2006
Qualifying Session #2}5:05 pm, 17 June 2006
Final Practice Session}8:30 pm, 17 June 2006
G.I. Joe's Grand Prix of Portland}3:30 pm, 18 June 2006, CBS Sports live TV coverage

As always, I'll have qual. and race reviews, commentaries, observations, and anything else that passes by. So stop, smell the roses, and have some fun!

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In what many racing analysts are saying is the biggest driver change in the past few years, RuSport Racing announced earlier today that, effective immediately, Cristiano da Matta will drive the #10 Western Union Ford-Cosworth/Lola instead of current driver A.J. Allmendinger; their decision is effective for the remainder of the 2006 Champ Car World Series season. Here are some quotes from the principles involved.......

Carl Russo, Owner, RuSport Racing:

A.J. hasa been with us since we created RuSport late in 2002. During that time, we won the 2003 Toyota Atlantic Championship and the 2004 Champ Car Rookie of the Year together. However, as A.J. and RuSport have progressed, we believe a different environment will help A.J. to grow even faster, and so we have made this very difficult decision. We expect that A.J. will be a winner in any category he competes in. We thank him for all his efforts and we wish him well in the future.

Cristiano da Matta, Driver, #10 Western Union FC/L:

To say this is a great opportunity would be an understatement. This is my sixth season in Champ Car; only in the past two of the previous five have I felt like I could fight for a race victory every time I went to the track. Now, I can say I have that opportunity again with RuSport. I'm looking forward to getting started, and I plan to make the most of this opportunity. I want to thank Dale Coyne and the entire team at Dale Coyne Racing for all of their hard work, and I would also like to thank Carl Russo and everyone at RuSport for giving me the chance to compete in the #10 Champ Car.

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According to autoracing1.com's "Rumors" page, there may be a major driver change in the ChampCar paddock prior to the upcoming race in Portland. If the reports are to be believed, here is what is expected.....

From RuSport to Forsythe: Allmendinger
From Coyne to RuSport: da Matta
From Forsythe to Coyne: Dominguez

According to all available sources, current Forsythe racer Mario Dominguez has fallen out of favor at FCR, having already incurred pts. penalties from Milwaukee and having taken out 2003 series champion Paul Tracy twice this year at the Mile and Long Beach. Any expected announcement most likely won't be until mid-week prior to the Portland race.......

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According to autoracing1.com's "Rumors" page, there may be a major driver change in the ChampCar paddock prior to the upcoming race in Portland. If the reports are to be believed, here is what is expected.....

From RuSport to Forsythe: Allmendinger
From Coyne to RuSport: da Matta
From Forsythe to Coyne: Dominguez

According to all available sources, current Forsythe racer Mario Dominguez has fallen out of favor at FCR, having already incurred pts. penalties from Milwaukee and having taken out 2003 series champion Paul Tracy twice this year at the Mile and Long Beach. Any expected announcement most likely won't be until mid-week prior to the Portland race.......

Two-thirds of the above are confirmed.......Forsythe Championship Racing today officially gave Dominguez the "Order of the Royal Boot", i.e., Dominguez was dismissed from the team, thus leaving the ChampCar paddock bereft of a Mexican presence for the first time in a long time. Reports are that Dominguez are in talks with teams in both ChampCar and the IRL; however, nothing could be confirmed at the moment.

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Q: What is the best way to impress your new boss?

A: Capture the provisional pole in QS-1!!


For new Forsythe Championship Racing driver A.J. Allmendinger(#7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L), that's what happened.........in a qualifying session that was dominated, once again it seemed, by Newman-Haas's Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L), the Californian reeled off two flyers and snatched P1 away from the Frenchman to capture the provisional pole, the point that goes with it, and the front-row start on Sunday(regardless of QS-2 results, Allmendinger can start no worse than P2). It was a close-run risk, though.......

Late in the QS-1 session, CTE-HVM's Dan Clarke(#14 CTE Racing FC/L) had brought out a red-flag stoppage after spinning out on the curved backstraight..........and, with 3 minutes remaining in the session when the green flag flew again, teams had, at best, 2 laps to post their fastest lap of the session, which is exactly what Allmendinger did. While everyone braved the QS-1 on the standard-compound Bridgestones(the "blacks"), "Flattop", who was running the softer-compound(i.e. the "reds") Bridgestones, reeled off, following his out-lap, two very golden flyers......and walked away P1 at session's end. Here are the top-5 from the QS-1........

1}A.J. Allmendinger(#7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L).............58.378 sec/121.114 mph
2}Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L)..................58.464 sec/120.936 mph
3}Paul Tracy(#3 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L)........................59.121 sec/119.590 mph
4}(R)Will Power(#5 Aussie Vineyards FC/L)..................59.160 sec/119.513 mph
5}Alex Tagliani(#15 Aussie Vineyards FC/L)..................59.275 sec/119.281 mph

There were a few other surprises in QS-1 as well........Allmendinger's former teammate, Justin Wilson(#9 CDW FC/L) was 6th, followed by the two CTE-HVM entries of Nelson Phillipe and "Speedy" Dan Clarke in 7th and 8th. PKV Racing's Oriol Servia(#6 Gulfstream FC/L) was 9th in provisional qualifying, while new RuSport driver Cristiano da Matta(#10 Western Union FC/L) set the 10th fastest time.

The starting grid for Sunday's G.I. Joe's Grand Prix of Portland will be set following QS-2 tomorrow afternoon.......has someone finally stepped up to challenge SeaBass? We shall see.........

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There were a few things of interest happening both on and off-track today.....let's open up the notebook.....

1}Team Oz rising? Although the first three spots on the grid fell to Allmendinger, Bourdais and Tracy, P4 and P5 were grabbed in QS-1 by the Team Australia duo of Will Power and Alex Tagliani..........especially considering that, like most everyone except Allmendinger, they were running the "blacks"(the std.-compound Bridgestone Potenzas') when they set P4 and P5(Power's was set almost literally with no time remaining; he finished his out-lap with 7 seconds left in the session......unlike the first two knockout sessions in Formula 1 qualifying, a driver can compete his or her qualifying lap if they cross the start/finish line prior to zero). Especially beneficial to the team was the open test back in mid-April at Portland, which Power alluded to in the post-QS 1 press conference......

The test benefitted the whole team, because, obviously we developed a setup that just needs finetuning for Saturday. Plus for me, it's nice to get in the car and go for a time straightaway rather than droning around learning the track.

2}Fired, engaged and hired......all in one week?? If the paddock reports are to be believed, Forsythe Championship Racing's A.J. Allmendinger has had an interesting week.........last week, RuSport Racing dismisses Allmendinger, replacing with Cristiano da Matta. Then, according to autoracing1.com, he announced plans to marry longtime girlfriend Lynne Kushnirenko, a Toronto-area chiropractor. And, finally, just within eyesight of Portland, Forsythe hires the Californian to replace Mario Dominguez. Imagine, he was fired, engaged and hired in the space of one week......and you thought your week was interesting???

3}Portland....a funny track? During the top-3 QS-1 post-qual. press conference, reporters got to see the series' biggest rivalry, btwn. Paul Tracy and Sebastien Bourdais, up close and personal(in a jovial way, of course...... ). Towards the end of the press conference, Tracy remarked, "You know, Portland's a very funny track to deal with.", to which SeaBass responded jokingly....."You call that funny. You and that track both drive me nuts.", which good a lot of guffaws and laughs from the assembled press. But PT did have a serious point about Portland.......PIR has a reputation in NA motorsports as a very, very finicky track, where you can conceively be on cloud nine for most of a lap, only to lose that lap on the next corner..........also, unlike most of the tracks on the ChampCar calendar, where QS-2 times are usually faster than the times set in QS-1, 8 times in the track's history in the series, the driver with the fastest QS-1 time has won the pole for the race from the Friday time, which doesn't bode well for either "The Thrill from West Hill" or SeaBass.

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In a QS-2 that saw five drivers hold the point of the spear for several minutes each, Newman-Haas Racing's Bruno Junqiera(#2 Hole in the Wall Camps FC/L), on his last flying lap with second left, grabbed the pole position for Sunday's running of the G.I. Joe's Grand Prix of Portland. In the space of the 30 minute session, Cristiano da Matta(#10 Western Union FC/L), Justin Wilson(#9 CDW FC/L), Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L) and A.J. Allmendinger(#7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L) all held P1 during the session........then Allmendinger cooked the tires at the Festival Curves, forcing him to retire to the pits to wait out the last few minutes of the session, only to see Junquiera capture the pole. Here is the starting grid for the race...............(all cars FC/L)

1st}Bruno Junquiera(#2 Hole in the Walls Camps)...............57.631 sec/122.684 mph
2nd}A.J. Allmendinger(#7 Indeck/Forsythe).......................57.639 sec/122.667 mph

3rd}Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's)............................57.646 sec/122.652 mph
4th}Justin Wilson(#9 CDW)..............................................57.818 sec/122.287 mph

5th}Cristiano da Matta(#10 Western Union).......................58.018 sec/121.866 mph
6th}(R)Dan Clarke(#14 CTE Racing).................................58.214 sec/121.455 mph

7th}(R)Will Power(#5 Aussie Vineyards)............................58.244 sec/121.393 mph
8th}Nelson Phillipe(#4 Sherwin-Williams)...........................58.297 sec/121.282 mph

9th}Alex Tagliani(#15 Aussie Vineyards)............................58.328 sec/121.218 mph
10th}Paul Tracy(#3 Indeck/Forsythe).................................58.376 sec/121.118 mph

11th}(R)Nicky Pastorelli(#8 Muermans)..............................58.826 sec/120.192 mph
12th}Oriol Servia(#6 Gulfstream)......................................58.830 sec/120.184 mph

13th}Andrew Ranger(#27 MiJack/Tide)...............................58.885 sec/120.071 mph
14th}Mario Dominguez(#19 Pride of Mexico/Roshfrans)........59.233 sec/119.366 mph

15th}(R)Katherine Legge(#20 Bell Micro/Optium)................59.297 sec/119.237 mph
16th}(R)Charles Zwolsman(#34 GoldenPalace.com)............59.315 sec/119.201 mph

17th}(R)Jan Heylen(#11 American Medical Response).........59.589 sec/118.653 mph
18th}(R)Tonis Kasemets(#18 Flexovit Abrasives)................1:00.607 sec/116/660 mph

Notes of Interest...........................
~~The difference of .015 seconds btwn. P1 and P3 is the smallest since 2002, when Dario Franchitti, Alex Tagliani and Cristiano da Matta qualified within .015 secs on the 1-mile oval at Chicago Motor Speedway
~~In winning the pole for Sunday's race, Bruno Junquiera became the 15th consecutive driver to start P1 on raceday; not since 1993 has a driver started P1 in two cons. Portland race(last done by Emerson Fittipaldi)
~~With his 6th-place start, Dan Clarke posted the highest start for a rookie since Andrew Ranger's 4th at Cleveland last year
~~The command "Drivers, Start Your Engines" will be given via. satellite from Afghanistan by troops of the Oregon National Guard's 116th Armored Cavalry Regiment(Task Force Phoenix)

Observations to follow.................

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With the race hours away, here were some of the observations from Saturday in the paddock......

1}He's back.........last year, in Las Vegas, people were surprised to see Honda Performance Development's Robert Clarke chatting it up with some of the ChampCar officials. Saturday, he came to Portland and was seen talking with several individuals, including Ford Racing's Dan Davis, Ford Motor Co.'s, NA chief, Anne Stevens, Cosworth official Ian Bisco(VP-NA operations), and series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven. Rumor has it that the main point of contention is whether Honda can update their 2002-spec H-2R 2.65-liter turbo engine to A)2007-specs, and B)the new Panoz DP01 chassis. On the other hand, he did point out to everyone that, from his vantage point, merger talks btwn. ChampCar and the IRL are still on-going, and that it's just the little things that need straightened out.\

2}Season over, already? With Bruno Junquiera's horrible luck this year, he was asked at the press conference after QS-2 whether it was too late to salvage the season. Junky's response was "I'm going to drive like normal. You never what might happen; if I win four or five of the next races everything changes!"

3}Forsythe's ups and downs..........While new Forsythe driver A.J. Allmendinger is sitting on the front-row, teammate Paul Tracy has struggled during the weekend, and he showed it in QS-2, qualifying 10th. PT lamented about it, telling the assembled press that "I just couldn't go any faster; we just didn't have the speed at all."

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During the pre-race introductions, every driver's introduced with a song of their choice playing in the background......when A.J. Allmendinger was introduced to the 44,000+ in attendance this afternoon for the G.I. Joe's Grand Prix of Portland, the song playing was the Who's I'm Free. How prophetic it was, as Allmendinger used the events of the past week, especially, in the words of Robin Miller, "after getting gassed by Carl Russo and RuSport"(from the ChampCar Audio Roundtable), to notch his first maiden victory in his ChampCar career, leading 100 of the 105 green-flag laps(no cautions today...... ) today.

When the green-flag fell following an aborted start, Allmendinger(#7 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L) jumped into the lead, followed closely by former teammate Justin Wilson(#9 CDW FC/L). While they were the big winners today at the start, the big losers at the start were both Newman-Haas Racing drivers, as Sebastien Bourdais(#1 McDonald's FC/L) and Bruno Junquiera(#2 Hole in the Wall Camps FC/L) fell from 1st and 3rd to 4th and 7th respectively. There were a few surprises at the front, as rookie "Speedy" Dan Clarke(#14 CTE Racing FC/L) jumped up to 2nd early on. During the first stint of the race, Allmendinger began pulling away from Wilson and Clarke, building up a 3-second lead by lap 22 over Clarke and 6-second lead over Wilson. Meanwhile, Paul Tracy(#3 Indeck/Forsythe FC/L), Bourdais, Junquiera and Cristiano da Matta(#10 Western Union FC/L) fought spiritedly for 4th-7th for most of the first stint. Eventually, though, the first round of stops cycled the field some, as Allmendinger briefly lost the lead to Wilson, who lost it to Bourdais for one lap and then lost it back to Allmendinger.

Following the first stint, Allmendinger continued leading, but now had to deal with lapped traffic, allowing Wilson to catch up some, cutting Allmendinger's advantage from 6.7 seconds on lap 39 to 1.5 seconds by lap 59. By the next round of stops, Wilson was the first to blink, then Allmendinger pitted one lap later, followed by Tracy and Bourdais. Once the second round of stops concluded, Wilson began charging towards Allmendinger, attempting several times to pass by for the lead.....eventually, though, Wilson would flatspot his front-right tire entering the Festival Curves, ending any shot at a win. From then on, it was clear sailing for the Los Gatos, Ca. native, as Allmendinger would lead the remainder of the way, capturing his first series win after 32 career starts. Here are the top-10 from the 2006 G.I. Joe's Grand Prix of Cleveland......

1}#7 A.J. Allmendinger, Forsythe Ch. Racing...............105 laps
2}#9 Justin Wilson, RuSport Racing............................-5.420 secs
3}#1 Sebastien Bourdais, Newman-Haas Racing..........-6.005 secs
4}#2 Bruno Junquiera, Newman-Haas Racing..............-36.368 secs
5}#10 Cristiano da Matta, RuSport Racing...................-39.551 secs
6}(R)#14 Dan Clarke, CTE-HVM Racing......................-50.287 secs
7}#3 Paul Tracy, Forsythe Ch. Racing.........................-52.296 secs
8}#4 Nelson Phillipe, CTE-HVM Racing.........................-52.677 secs
9}#27 Andrew Ranger, MiJack-Conquest Racing............-1 lap
10}#6 Oriol Servia, PKV Racing...................................-1 lap


Post-race observations to follow....................

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With the dust settling from A.J. Allmendinger's win in Portland, the first for an American in ChampCar competition since Ryan Hunter-Reay won wire-to-wire in Milwaukee back in 2004, here are some of the observations from Sunday............

1}Botched start, take 1.....and 2.....In a sense, Brnuo Junquiera was robbed not once, but twice by race control at the beginning of the race. On the final parade lap, Junquiera makes a clean jump, getting a head start on the field.....only to have the starter wave the crossed yellows, signifying a waved-off start. Prior to the second attempt, race director(CCWS VP-Operations Tony Cotman) informs Junky to bring the field in at a consistant speed.....which he does. One problem, though....just as Junky comes onto the pitstraight, the starter waves the green flag a few seconds early, allowing Allmendinger to get the jump on a slow Junquiera. After the race, it was reported that Junquiera had a very heated conversation with a CC pit steward over the start procedures. He wasn't the only one; Bourdais got caught out on the start and following the race, said this to Racer magazine's David Phillips.....

Don't get me wrong, I'm not b------- at the results. Under any circumstances, I would keep my third place, keep my mouth shut and just keep driving. I think to lose that way is just about the worst that can happen to a race car driver. I mean if they don't want Newman-Haas to win, they should just say it, save us the time to qualify and put at the back of the pack; at least we'll see what we can do.

2}It's never sounded better.........back in June 2004, the "Star-Spangled Banner" was played following Ryan Hunter-Reay's dominating win in Milwaukee, and since then, we've heard "O` Canada", "La Marseillaise" and "Rule Britannia", but no "Stars'n'Stripes". That ended when Allmendinger won, capping an emotional week in which his former team fired him, he proposed to his girlfriend at Niagara Falls, NY a few days later, then was hired by Forsythe to drive alongside former mentor Paul Tracy.....then wins on Father's Day in Portland. Hollywood couldn't have written a script with these events in them; the tears A.J. shed in the car after winning were as real as the national anthem being played while he was on the podium. Congratulations, Flattop!

3}Will they return? Attendance figures for the three-day and raceday totals were encouraging, at 44,053 and 77,065 each, both around 20% more than in 2005. In all honesty, though, it will simply depend on whether there is a ChampCar/IRL merger......if there is, the event will likely return in 2008(when a merged series would begin) but will still have to continue increasing attendances in order to survive. Hopefully, today's race will have done just that.