Iowa: Saturday Notebook 1
– A heartbroken Arie Luyendyk, Jr. lead everything this weekend at Iowa except the last 15 laps of today's Jen-Weld 100 for the Firestone Indy Lights race. With 15 laps to go, Luyendyk got caught in traffic, and was passed by Dillon Battistini for the win.
– Bruno Junqueira had the lower suspension on one side fail and that is what caused him to spin.
06/21/08
– Marty Roth lost control of his car when his rear suspension broke and hit the wall in Turn 2 in morning practice. Roth stated that shortly before the crash, the rear sagged and one of the front tires actually lifted off of the ground. The car hit the wall hard enough to punch a hole in the SAFER barrier, breaking the engine block. He was cleared to drive, but his car sustained too much damage, and he won't race tomorrow.
– In the second morning practice, Bruno Junqueira spun in the same spot, and collected Dan Wheldon en route to the SAFER barrier. All are cleared to drive, but both cars were heavily damaged. Wheldon went to a backup car, but Bruno broke the tub (and most of the rest of his car), doesn't have a backup car, and won't race.
– With the withdrawal of Roth and Junqueira, the car count is down to 24 for tomorrow's race. Mario Dominguez's Pacific Coast Motorsports team (PCM) decided to take a week off to regroup. Crashes at Indy and Texas, failure to make the Indy 500 and a miserable day at Milwaukee no doubt have the team reeling.
– If the Ethanol people were looking for bang for their sponsorship dollars, then they've gotten it from the Indy Racing League. In 2004, the Ethanol industry found that the largest barrier to acceptance of ethanol was a perception that it didn't give good performance. Paul Dana was able to convince the ethanol industry groups that involvement in the IRL would cure that problem. Indeed, polls now indicate that performance concerns are no longer thought to be a problem in most of the USA. In addition, the PR boost has bought the ethanol industry the name recognition that they need to get continued funding for R&D.
– Vitor Meira is the best Indy driver no one has ever heard of, including second-place finishes in the Indy 500 in 2005 and 2008. After crashing his car at Milwaukee, his team thrashed all night to get it to run on Sunday. Vitor stayed with the team, at one point going on a coffee run causing his Bimmer to smell like coffee for a week after making a Starbucks run during the late-night thrash ("23 epressos please…"). He's been running in the top 5 in practice, and should he win tomorrow it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to AutoRacing1 readers.
– There are two Ferraris in the driver's parking lot. AutoRacing1 is hard at work to find the owner of the F430 (red) as well as the older 300-series black model. Stories are also abounding in the press room of rental cars being abused in the hands of IRL drivers who are testing the limits of their vehicles, a la Cole Trickle in "Days of Thunder."
– Who says that Indy car people don't enjoy good racing? There are lots of bleary eyes in the garage area as many drivers and crew members went to see the midget cars at nearby Knoxville in the 7th annual Knoxville Midget Nationals.
– Cedar Rapids is as bad as the TV coverage claims. IF you can imagine an entire city with all of their belongings — soaked with filthy water — stacked out on the curb, then you've got the right idea. Now that the river has gone back to normal levels, the entire downtown is covered with dried mud and dust, and the locals are praying for a day or two of rain to wash the dirt away. This race is being staged only because hundreds of EMTs and law enforcement officials from surrounding stated volunteered their time in Iowa over the past two weeks. Tim Wohlford reporting from Iowa