AR1 visits Dale Coyne Racing

Dale Coyne's team hosted AR1's Brian Carroccio at the Plainfield shop Monday

Greetings from Speedway, Indiana. I am spending the week between Milwaukee and Iowa here in the Midwest and am currently about a half-mile south of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

You may have seen on the news that the town of Speedway was pretty hard in storms yesterday. There are numerous trees and wires down and much of the town is without power. I passed one home that had a tree which had fallen through the roof. We here at AR1 wish everyone in Speedway the best.

Over the past two days, I've had the pleasure of visiting two Verizon IndyCar Series team shops. Yesterday, team P.R. rep Trevor Moore and the gracious people at DCR hosted me at the team headquarters in Plainfield, IL. This morning, I made my way down to Indianapolis to visit the Chip Ganassi Racing shop. Just like DCR, the people at Ganassi were very welcoming, and I would like to thank Ganassi P.R. rep Lynzy Stover and the team for their hospitality.

Tristan Vautier celebrates his 2012 Indy Lights championship.

As you might imagine, I made a ton of notes during both visits and will pass some of that information along in various forms over the coming days. But for now, I'll start with yesterday's visit at DCR; in particular, a conversation I had with Michael Cannon, lead engineer for the #19 Dale Coyne Racing Honda.

Of course, Cannon has a wealth of experience in Indy car racing having worked with numerous drivers such as Greg Moore, A.J. Allmendinger, Mario Dominguez, Buddy Rice, Tony Kanaan, Justin Wilson and E.J. Viso to name a few. Most recently, he has been calling the shots for 2012 Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires champion Tristan Vautier.

Cannon was very complimentary of the Frenchman noting "Tristan is a professional race car driver. This isn't something he's doing killing time…he's informed, he's intelligent. The guys that run up the front are the kind of people where this is their job, and they take it very, very seriously.

"You take a guy like Paul Tracy. Paul could be a success at anything. Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan, people like that. They can be a success at anything. They apply themselves, they know all the nuances, they know the weaknesses of their opponents, they know the race cars, and Tristan is in that same category."

Dale Coyne Racing's Michael Cannon weighs in on the MAVTV 500

I also asked Cannon for his thoughts on one of the more discussed topics in IndyCar over the past few weeks: the recent MAVTV 500.

Like many people, Cannon was of two minds regarding the race and in particular, the level of downforce the series opted for.

"There are definitely two schools of thought as to whether we had too much or not. There was a lot of talk about pack racing and I agree, we don't want to do pack racing…

"At the same time, the drivers have to take some responsibility for the lack of etiquette. It's as simple as that. To me it was interesting racing, and I don't like it very much but the people in the grandstands sure seemed to enjoy it."

Cannon continued, "Next year, when we show up and there are four times as many people, there'll be for reason for that. Do we turn our back on that? I don't know, I don't know what the answer is."

Bruno Junqueira and Gil de Ferran battle at Fontana in 2001

Cannon also talked about the Hanford device era in the late 1990s and early 2000s in CART.

"I was there for the Hanford races, they were spectacular as well. They're somewhat manufactured, but the cars did get spread out a little but, it wasn't quite as close. The first year we ran there with the Hanford device (1998), Greg Moore ran 257 miles per hour on the backstretch."

Of course, as Cannon pointed out, "That's a little sketchy too."

Ultimately, however, one quote from Cannon stuck with me more than any other concerning Fontana.

"At the end of the day, I guess we have to figure out what we want to do. Do we want to entertain fans or do we want to entertain ourselves?"

Brian Carroccio reporting for AutoRacing1