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Official Motorsports Thread of 2013 (MotoGP, WRC, Le Mans, Nascar, IRL, V8's etc)

Dave Long

Banned
The chase needs to go. A season long points chanpionship like every other series in the world eliminates all this nonsense. I'm surprised it took this long for more teams to game it this way.
 
The chase needs to go. A season long points chanpionship like every other series in the world eliminates all this nonsense. I'm surprised it took this long for more teams to game it this way.
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The Chase was always a half-assed idea by an organization (NASCAR) that specializes in half-assed ideas.

All it does is enable teams to game the system, either "legitimately" (Jimmie Johnson's team using the first 26 as a preseason) or otherwise.
 
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All it does is enable teams to game the system, either "legitimately" (Jimmie Johnson's team using the first 26 as a preseason) or otherwise.

To be fair, only 1 of Johnson's 5 championships would not have also been won under the pre-Chase season long format.

But yeah, the Chase is a futile attempt for cooked up drama. Of course, with MWR involved, I guess there's actually a lot real drama.
 

Scottify

Member
The new United SportsCar series got itself a title sponsor, Tudor Watches. They signed up for 5 years. Great news for the series.

Press Release

nXdl57v.jpg
 

Scottify

Member
Wow. I wonder what dirt Hendrick has on NASCAR? This is the strangest thing ever, maybe this will be the catalyst to abolishing the Chase. I'd be all for it.
 

Chris R

Member
Have Gordon win the chase and then abolish it the next year. Straight points might not be the best system, but there has to be something better than the chase.
 
Isn't it just an attempt to mimic the other major US sports with a playoff-like system? Of course it makes zero sense in motorsport because all the other competitors are still involved, but I guess that has to be the thinking behind it.
 
NASCAR. What else is there to say, it's a goddamn circus.

To be fair, only 1 of Johnson's 5 championships would not have also been won under the pre-Chase season long format.

But yeah, the Chase is a futile attempt for cooked up drama. Of course, with MWR involved, I guess there's actually a lot real drama.
IIRC, JJ would have 3 under the old (rational) points system of having a 36 race season rather than a 10 race season. So 2 out of 5. But this sort of revisionism is complicated by the mere presence of the chase, since teams try to budget accordingly.

(JJ can make up for it by getting robbed this year, since he'd clearly have this on lockdown without the Chase)
 

Vyse24

Member
So before the final practice, a driver meeting was held to announce some new rules that will be in effect starting tomorrow. The rule goes as followed:

Rule 12-4L if Mike Heltons memory serves him right said:
NASCAR requires its competitors to race at 100 percent of their ability with the goal of achieving their best possible finishing position in an event. Any competitor who takes action with the intent to artificially alter the finishing positions of the event or encourages, persuades or induces others to artificially alter the finishing position of the event shall be subject to a penalty from NASCAR. Such penalties may include but are not limited to disqualification and/or loss of finishing points and/or fines and/or loss of points and/or suspension and/or probation to any and all members of the teams, including any beneficiaries of the prohibited actions.

Also starting tomorrow, there will be 1 spotter per team on the spotter's stand. They will only be able to have 2 analog radios, a scanner and a Fan View with them. Digital radios are now banned.

Entire transcript of the conference can be found here: http://pressdog.typepad.com/dogblog/2013/09/transcript-of-nascar-100-rule-press-conference-.html
 

B.K.

Member
More overreaction from NASCAR after Richmond:

NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said Saturday that changes to restart procedures will be revealed during Sunday's drivers' meeting. While it's unlikely there would be an abolition of the action-inducing double-file restarts, which were added four years ago because of heavy support from a fan council, NASCAR could eliminate the zones and allow the flagman to determine the restart. Another choice might be putting the leader in a separate row and putting the field behind in side-by-side formation.

http://www.jayski.com/cupnews.htm#20130915b
 
Justice was served with Gordon in it. I don'care what people say, like the Maradona hand goal or some other examples, everytime you can correct a mistake, i'm all for it.

Damn rain, it's gonna take forever to get this race in.
 

thefro

Member
Edit, Big Takeover beat me.... should be exciting to see him, Castroneves, and Power on the same team.

Have to wonder if this encourages Ganassi to go after Kanaan or Bourdais now to try to keep up.
 
Kind of deserved for being so stupid at manipulating a race. When you do that over a radio that everyone is listening, you are just too idiot.
 

TylerD

Member
Kenseth looking very strong.

edit: Oh, and the Danica stat of the day... She has finished on the lead lap in 10 cup races this year. LOL
 

Jezbollah

Member
FYI.

If you have Velocity channel in the 'States, British Superbikes are making their US programming debut with one hour highlights packages at 1pm-2pm this Saturday, and 6am-7am on Sunday.

Great racing, btw.
 
I like the idea, it's just that most consider the road course to be dreadful. It makes it hard to be truly excited about it. They are planning revisions to it however, so we'll see if they can find some character for it.
 

Jezbollah

Member
http://www.indianapolismotorspeedwa...57-ims-to-host-indycar-road-race-in-may-2014/

IndyCar is going to be holding a road race on the road course (which will be getting repaved with some track design changes to be a much more exciting courses) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to kick off the month of May next year.

Seems like a good move to me... this will be a more exciting opening day and draw people locally to the track.

The IMS road course is getting repaved mostly at the request of the MotoGP series - it doesn't surprise me at all that IMS and Indycar are looking to gain further value of this work by hosting a race.

I like the idea, it's just that most consider the road course to be dreadful. It makes it hard to be truly excited about it. They are planning revisions to it however, so we'll see if they can find some character for it.

It might not be the most exhilarating layout, but it gave a tremendous MotoGP race - so much so that MotoGP extended the circuit's contract and looks to be ditching Laguna Seca - where as before Laguna and COTA were likely to be the only two US GPs going forward.
 

Chris R

Member
The only thing I'm wondering about are the dates. Start of May then the 500 build up to the 500 at the end of May. Great if you are a local, but man it would suck if you are a diehard Indycar fan and want to attend both. Maybe slot it in after Mid-Ohio or something since Baltimore isn't happening any more.
 
Is this the thread for moto gp as well? How about dat Marquez. Crazy battles between him and Pedrosa all season.

Shame Dani's bike took some damage as Marquez went by, but yeah, Marc has really impressed. He foolishly dumped it at Mugello, and that was the last we saw of the rookie mistakes. I give him a lot of credit for finding the balancing point so quickly and definitively. Now about those starts...
 

TylerD

Member
Potential for a wild race today in Kansas. Cold, hard tires and cool temps.

Edit: well that didn't take long. Danica starts off the wreck fest on lap 1.
 

moojito

Member
Aye, I don't see much overtaking here outside of the pit lane.

edit: nasty crash in the indy car race as well, I hear. Dario Franchitti launched into the fence. Getting carted off to hospital :<
 

Chris R

Member
Young shrub got lucky that Martin didn't shorten the ass end of his car by a couple of feet.
Montoya doing work these final nascar races :) him and brad should share a beer later tonight. Also wtf is up with fires this weekend? First f1 and now nascar today.
 

Chris R

Member
Aye, I don't see much overtaking here outside of the pit lane.

edit: nasty crash in the indy car race as well, I hear. Dario Franchitti launched into the fence. Getting carted off to hospital :<

Holy shit you were not kidding. Scary crash. Hope all of the drivers and fans are ok.
 

stewy

Member
Glad Dario's OK. Car seemed to perform well. Though a wheel-to-wheel jump like that makes me think that what happened to Dan Wheldon could easily happen again.

Also, the fencing around the Houston track looks flimsy at best. The series can't let that stuff go.
 
Awful wreck in IRL, awful racing from NASCAR (as usual)...

so instead here's something awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMuod2BaHQ8&t=12m30s

I thought Robby Gordon had completely lost his mind when he started talking about doing this a while ago, but it really works. It kind of reminds me of watching pro drivers race crappy road cars, where the cars are in way over their heads.

The Dario crash was horrific. Glad all the fans seem OK. I felt ill when I saw that little kid standing near the fence taking a picture, but remained hopeful that, because of the long lens, he was further back than it looked. I guess that was the case.

Sato, God bless him, but I'd hate racing with that guy. There's a mistake lurking around every corner with him.
 

thefro

Member
My press coverage of the Grand Prix of Houston. They didn't supply me with a media pass so I did what I could.

http://www.houstonpress.com/slidesho...ston-40476656/

I was sitting in Grandstand 4 Race 1.

I'll post some larger photos from flickr soon

That's pretty lame... my understanding is they generally give about every blogger a press pass (provided they have a ticket to get in). If they end up having the race again next year I'd tweet at @IndyCar about it.
 
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