This means that CART is only going to have one chassis - Lola.
This also causes big problems for 6 of the 13 CART teams that use Reynards as they'll be scavenging for parts until they can get converted over to Lolas. Teams affected: Team Kool Green, Patrick Racing, Players/Forsythe Racing, Mo Nunn Racing, Team Motorola, and Walker Racing.
The Yamaha 400 was the Indy Racing Leagues first race at the 2-mile track in Fontana. CART has raced there for a number of years. Due to late scheduling, only about 15-35,000 tickets were sold. Too bad, Californians missed an awsome excellent race that saw non-stop racing for 85 laps before debris on the track brought out the first yellow caution. Up till then the race speed average was at least 210 mph!! Buddy Lazier says he had an awesome car for the race, but he crashed it during morning practice and had to race his backup car.
The race began with Sam Hornish, Jr dueling with Jeff Ward and Eddie Cheever with 2 lead changes on the very first lap! This race would go on to set the IRL record for most number of lead changes, 39. Tomas Scheckter moved up and passed Hornish for the lead on lap 29. Hornish would experience radio problems again throughout the day. He also lost his pit speed limiter and had to manually try to keep the car under the 60 mph pit lane speed limit. His guide on the radio, Pancho Carter, continues to coach the 22 y/o racing champion.
Jacque Lazier was surprising folks as well as his team, when he kept refusing to pit. The crew would be yelling at him on the radio, "Pit! Pit!" and he would zoom on by. They would hold out signs telling him to pit, but it did no good. He would pit when he was ready and lucky for him, his engine never died before he had refueled. Twice he ignored their pleas and we all saw him run 41 laps between pit stops.
Hattori's engine blew around lap 150 of 200. Tomas began to have some engine trouble and as his car suddenly slowed, Hideki Noda slammed into the back of him resulting in both cars getting demolished. This was the fourth race car to be ruined this year for Cheever Indy Car. But Eddie didn't have time to worry about that as he was leading the race having taken the lead on 162. The Infiniti engines had plenty of power this day. Due to not taking on new tires, after the yellow, Gil de Ferran temporarily had the lead, but soon Cheever, Hornish, and both Lazier brothers passed him. Then the racing really took off!
There was side by side racing at 219 mph! These four cars were two and three wide and they would get so close that their tires would touch! During these closing laps, it was Jacque Lazier running beside Eddie Cheever, Jr. for the lead. On lap 191, Cheever's Infiniti engine blew up, tossing a giant plume of white oily smoke into the face of Sam Hornish, Jr. Sam went right and missed the slowing Cheever, as the veteran managed to keep the car going straight as he brought it down onto the apron. Soon, Memo Gidley's Infiniti engine blew as well . The rookie Frenchman, Laurent Redon, was now in 3rd, but he had Infiniti power too, would his engine last?!
On these last few laps, Jacques was in front of Sam. On the last lap, they ran side by side. Sam took the lead, then Jacques passed him back they dueled to the end and coming off the last turn before the checkered flag, they touched wheels! Sam Hornish, Jr. was able to get his nose a few feet infront of Lazier to take the checkered by 2/100ths of a second!
Sam's race average speed, including caution periods, was 179.276 mph, a new IRL record (and this was over a 400 mile race!) Redon did finish in 3rd, so at least one Infiniti engine survived. He was followed by the two Penske cars. Hornish led a race-high 73 laps, although all but one of those laps was not at the end of the race. Jacques Lazier led 45 laps, Cheever led 33 and Scheckter led 28.
2001 Miss Universe, Denise M. Quinones August from Puerto Rico, sang the National Anthem prior to the Yamaha 400 race.
And the winner receives....
Champaign Shower ............ Price: $30
Trophy presentation.......... Price: $1200
Prize Money award ........... Price: $120,000
Miss Universe presenting you with a Maurice Lacroix IRL "Tiago" Chronograph.... Priceless!
A windy day at the Mile in the Desert, found Helio Castroneves on the pole, beside points leader Sam Hornish Jr. This race was sponsored by Bombardier ATV and they let one of these ATV's lead a 60 mph pace lap of the field, before the Corvette came in and took them on the real deal. That was different.
25 cars started the race (as opposed to 20 at CART's last race), but only 12 would finish on this tight fast circuit.
Shigeaki Hattori and his Epson sponsorship is back, moving into the ride at Bradley Motorsports that was vacated by the retiring Buzz Calkins. Shiggy managed to bring out the first yellow when he spun on lap 4. By lap 23, Sam passed Helio for the lead. Then Tomas Sheckter passed Ward for 3rd position. Unfortunately for Tomas (and Cheever Indy Racing), his Infiniti engine soon developed problems and he was out.
I guess Shiggy likes yellow, because he brought out another caution period after he got up into the gray and smacked the wall. I wish Epson would give up sponsoring lame Japanese drivers and give the money to someone deserving. Oh well, at least Shiggy didn't hit Little Al this time and break his leg.
Robbie Buhl was impressive as he worked his way up, finally passing Helio for 2nd place. Buhl would do well through out the day, but near the end, his Infiniti engine called it quits. How disapointing!
Another yellow came out on lap 79 when de Vries spun in through the gate in the fence where the safety trucks come out and smacked the wall and fence from the wrong side! He was rather lucky to be ok.
On the restart, a multi-car crash happened, collecting Giaffone, McGehee, George Mack, Ward and Boat. I thought that Shiggy was out, but I could have sworn I saw that Epson car spinning through the middle of it doing a 360. Whoever caused the accident got away scott free. Sam Hornish, still leading the race, came into the pits. He lost first gear and had trouble getting out of the pits. He would later lose 6th gear and would have to race in 5th, consequently hitting the rev-limiter frequently. (This limiter prevents over-revving and detonating the engine.)
Little Al ended up leading at the half way point and ABC showed us a new trick: splitting the tv screen vertically and showing the image on the left from the in-car camera of Unser and putting Hornish's view on the right side. With about 60 laps to go, Eliseo Salazar passed Al for the lead. Eliseo would go on to finish in 4th which should make A.J. happy. By the way, this was Foyt's 500th race as a team owner!
Lazzaro spun and collected Scott Sharp and Eddie Cheever Jr, removing them from the race for the remainder of the day. Cheever Indy Racing now has 3 wrecked cars in the first two races of the season. Lazzaro took a trip to the hospital to be checked out. He was complaining about back pain. He'd probably be complaining about nose pain if he had gotten around Eddie.
On lap 142 there was another caution for debris on the track. During some pits stops, the two Penske cars moved into the lead. They would dual with each other, Helio winning. Meantime, Sam was forced to watch from 3rd place as he drove around in 5th gear. Unser finished in 5th, followed by the Lazier brothers and then Billy Boat.
Helio, per his custom, climbed the fence after winning. A more somber Gil de Ferran and Roger Penske dedicated the race to the teammate they lost recently, Gary Buckner.
It was a hot hazy day in Malaysia. At the start of the race, Montoya and Michael Schumacher went for the same corner and Michael ended up getting some front end damage that forced him to pit. The incident also sent Montoya off line and moved him back to the middle of the pack. Then race official made Montoya pull into the pits for a drive-through penalty. Although Montoya finished the race infront of Michael, Michael stated that he thought the penalty given to Montoya was a bit unfair when viewing other incidences where no penalty was given. Montoya said he was pissed off, even though he worked his way back through the field to finish 2nd, behind his Williams team-mate, Ralf Schumacher. Michael obviously worked his way back up through the field too, but due to some bizarre bad luck for Jenson Button in the Renault on the last lap, Michael got around him to finish on the podium.
Nick Heidfeld and his Sauber teammate, Felipe Massa, both had a good day, finishing in the points.
Extreme bad luck for Kimi Raikkonen and Rubens Barrichello, whom both were in 3rd place, and 2nd place respectively, when their engines blew. Jordan also suffered, when both of their cars contacted each other. Fisi was able to get his car repaired and re-enter the race.
(3/12) - IMS has added an advertising space to the top of the pagoda-style control tower. The space has been bought by Bombardier Aerospace (who make Learjets and Skidoo Jetskis and ATV's.) and the tower is now to be called Bombardier Pagoda! This company's name sounds French, and is pronounced like Bomb-Bar-Dee-Ay. So, don't forget. You don't want any confusion when you tell someone to meet you over by the tow... um, I mean.. the Bombardier Pagoda!
But, please forgive me if I forget to call it that, I still call the RCA Dome the Hoosier dome and thats been changed for probably a decade.
In addition to the naming of the tower and the sign, Bombardier has been named an Official Sponsor of the IRL and IMS. Bombardier Aerospace will sponsor the $50,000 IRL Rookie of the Year Award and contribute to the Indy 500 prize fund.
I've been out of town, so a little lapse here in news...
Weather at Homestead included temperature of 82 degrees and high winds of 23 mph with 10+ mph wind gusts. Unlike, practice the previous day, the wind didn?t seem to cause any accidents today. There were several Chevy engine failures during the race, perhaps caused by electronics, but the saddest malfunction happened to Robbie Buhl on lap 193 of 200 when his Infiniti let go while he was in 4th place.
Eddie Cheever, Jr. was very angry when his new driver tried to pass him, and bumped him right into the wall on the 3rd lap! Tomas Scheckter would end up bringing the car home in 6th place anyway.
Helio Castroneves managed to pass Hornish once during a restart, but Sam passed him back with in a lap. For awhile, it looked like the Penske cars might be giving the Panther Pennzoil cars some competition, but Sam totally dominated, even though his radio broke and the pits couldn't hear what he was saying. By ¾ point of the race, he had a lap up on the entire field!
On lap 160, Billy Roe had contact with the wall bringing out a yellow. Everyone pitted except for the Penske team. This allowed his drivers to get back on the lead lap with Sam. Roger gambled that another yellow would come out, as his cars did not have enough fuel to make it to the end. He was right. On lap 170, Scott Sharp's car lost power and another yellow was thrown, allowing the Penske Marlboro's to get a splash of methanol.
Jacque Lazier and Team Menard had a rough day. On the 2nd lap of the race, his shock cover blew off. Later his right rear tire began to deflate and that caused him to spin out. The team got him back out, only to have Billy Boat hit him. He managed to finish the race, but he was 14 laps down.
Airton Dare did a great job filling in for Beechler, he was running in the top 5 early on and by the ¾ point, he had got up to 2nd place! By the end, he was in 6th and during a restart, he got up into the marbles and smacked the wall unfortunately.
Sam Hornish, Jr. and the Panther Pennzoil team started on the pole and lead 166 laps and won the race under a caution with 9 lapped cars between him and 2nd place.
Scott Goodyear began working in the booth for ABC and he did and EXCELLENT job! Sadly, the crowd at Homestead was very light. There was 9 cautions during the race, 5 cars did not finish and there were 7 lead changes.
Michael Schumacher asked for his fellow drivers to take it easy into the first turn of the first lap of the race. The sharp right hander has caused a lot of accidents in race starts past. Ferrari has decided to use last year's car for the season opener at Melbourne. None the less, both Ferraris qualified on the front row, Rubens Barrichello winning the pole.
Unfortunately for Rubens, Ralf Schumacher chose not to listen to his older brother and as Rubens blocked and braked for that first turn, Ralfie slammed right into the back of him and launched himself high into the air and he basically flew to the gravel trap and out of the race. This caused a slew of crashes which knocked 8 drivers out, including Rubens. The top 5 who made it through the chaos were:
1 Coulthard
2 Trulli
3 Montoya
4 M Schumacher
5 Irvine
Montoya had some type of problem right away on the restart and Michael got around him. Surprisinlgy, Michael was unable to get around Jarno Trulli. But then on lap 8, Trulli suddenly spun out of the race and the safetly car had to come back out.
Then on lap 11, at the first turn, DC couldn't keep it on the track and Montoya passed Michael a moment later! A good battle began between MS and Montoya. By lap 16, Michael pulled a awesome outside pass back on Montoya! Kimi Raikkonen, the new McLaren driver, had worked his way up to 3rd behind Montoya by then. At the same time Heinz-Harald Frentzen got black flagged! The Ferrari began quickly pulling away from the Williams.
At the half way point, only 10 cars were left in the race. Jacques Villeneuve had moved up to 6th, when his rear wing blew off which forced him to wreck. DC flew off into the grass again. He was having some engine trouble and eventually retired. Now only 8 cars left.
Everyone pitted around lap 38 of 58. When Kimi slid into the grass when pulling out of the pit lane, but recovered. After all the pit stops, the standings were now:
1 Michael Schumacher
2 Juan Pablo Montoya
3 Kimi Raikonnen
4 Eddie Irvine
5 Mark Webber
6 Alex Yoong
7 Mika Salo (down a lap)
8 Pedro de la Rosa (down a lap)
Michael kept pulling his lead out over the Williams. Michael would later say that his Bridgestone tires came up to temperature and helped him beat the Michelin-shod Williams and McLaren. Salo would soon unlap himself and pass Yoong to get into the points. This was a nice boost for Toyota, getting a World Championship point in their very first F1 race! Another big story was how Mark Webber finished in the points while driving for the traditionally worst team in F1, Minardi. Webber is an Australian and his home crowd went nuts cheering him on. Also, the new owner of the Minardi team, Paul Stoddard is also Australian.
The 2002 Ferrari is supposed to be awesome. What must the other teams think now that last year's car just whupped up on all their new cars?!
Sadly, during a practice for the NASCAR Grand Am cars, the Archangel Motorsport entry flipped and crashed, killing their driver Jeff Clinton of St. Louis.
(2/8) - Daytona International Speedway has erected a 9-foot bronze statue of Dale Earnhardt. Dale died at the track on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
