CLEYYZYEGSJC (part two)

On the way to Montreal, hopefully not for the last time, but time now to catch up.


YEG (Edmonton Intl airport)

Again this race, held in the land where it doesn’t get dark ‘til 10:15 and so far up north that I get nosebleeds, continues to impress, both in its organization and staffing. Rudy Van Woerkom once again put in a ton of effort as the flag chief. He planned on an assistant – the way everyone else does - but had his man drop out with just a few weeks to go, so Rudy again did the work of three!

There are not a lot of experienced marshals in this part of the world, so our crew was made up of about 40% novices and people who had never marshalled before, but it was not very apparent by us in Race Control. The corner captains and experienced people who travel great distances to help us put on this event really, really come through. Just like any efficient military unit, it’s the “non-coms” (sergeants) that hold things together and they walked the fine line of keeping their corners running while at the same time passing on their skills to the “newbies”. So we all want to express our utmost appreciation to all who attended, whether veteran, novice or newbie. Great Job! You make a great team, eh?


OPINIONS, PLEASE…

The quality of the marshalling and communicating was such this weekend that it caused Tony Cotman to comment that it was some of the best information we have received this season! Could be that several of our veteran communicators are speaking up a little more when it comes to opinions on blocking and interference, and although we won’t penalize a driver without corroborating evidence, it will often lead us in the proper direction when it comes to uncovering some complaints (which we all too often hear) from the teams. Edmonton, like Cleveland, is an airport circuit where you can see great distances both before and after your post, and in one case we were investigating the video and data on a specific complaint of interference during practice. The post that saw the incident develop asked us to check the video replay from two corners before, as that’s where it all began, and when that was brought up, Mr. Cotman was immediately convinced, and the offending driver was properly sat down.

Our rule 6.17.5G states that drivers who are not running at “full pace” should not interfere with any drivers that are, either in practice or qualifying. So remember, those of you on the posts can be the key, to keeping us fair and safe. I’ll bet that there are always at least one pair of eyes on every car at all times on all laps. Anyone noodling about out there that gets in the way, please tell us or tell your captain!


ABOVE AND BEYOND

I don’t often call out an individual’s performance, but Gail Fetterman, our communicator at turn nine, more than carried her share when our land line comm system was partially felled by a car in the wall during the Edmonton race. Again that ol’ familiar crack and buzz, followed by faint voices when the 20 car whacked the wall at the exit of turn 7, one of our busiest spots, taking the land line out from turns 3 through 8. Yeesh. And for some reason, the Palmer Audio backup radios couldn’t get through, either. So instead of flying deaf, from Gail’s post at nine, she could make out most of the action from these turns and described several incidents for us until Palmer Audio got things restored about five minutes later, which seemed like a half hour. As I tell my flag chiefs when they do assignments, It’s great to have strong people in strong places!! Thank you, Gail.


SJC (Norman Mineta San Jose Intl Airport)

Well, after last year we had a lot to be wary of for this event. Thoughts went back to 2005 when we were plagued with too-long days, too-long lines for spectator bridges, and too-high flying cars over trolley tracks. But thanks to lessons learned and hard work on the part of the organizers, we left those issues behind us. We rejoined our former Race and Circuit director Chris Kneifel who headed up the construction for this track, and it showed. Chris builds ‘em “like a race director”. The City of San Jose made good on their promise to re-build the approaches to the light rail lines that the circuit crosses, plus the track was re-routed to go straight over the worst of the crossings last year. After the much anticipated first few minutes, the tracks happily became a non-issue. Schedule-wise, Tony Cotman and Champ Car’s Operations department put their feet down at the end of last season and insisted our promoters do away with 12+ hour days, which will now keep our volunteers much sharper come race day afternoon. AAAAAAmen.

A big tip ‘o the hat to Flag Chief Mike Neff, Comm Chief Barb McLellan and all of SCCA San Francisco region for putting forth great support for this event. The 2nd pre-race party at the Rock Bottom brewery even surpasses it’s sister gathering on the day before Long Beach, and SF Region’s Social Committee really puts out some delicious and well crafted dinners at the end of every race day, only a few steps away from the action in the SJ Convention center which sits in the middle of the circuit. We could get used to it. I mean, for the first time in many years our hotel was right in the middle of the track and I was 328 steps away from my bed as I sat in Race Control. It’s tough to get it built, but ahh, the joys of urban racing… Thank you everyone, near and far for helping us out!


OUT COMES THE PANOZ

On Friday evening, we saw the long-awaited unveiling of our new Champ Car for 2007, the Panoz DP01. Shorter, narrower and nimbler than its Lola predecessor, it is designed to generate much more downforce with the underwing and sidepods, thus relying on smaller wings which should create some closer racing and more passing. As part of the event, I was asked to create an original painting which prominently featured the new car and its Troy Lee paint scheme, surrounded by some of the famous Champ Car chassis that have been used and won championships since Parnelli Jones won the first race with a rear-engine Lotus back at good ol’ Milwaukee. It was unveiled on the same evening and commemorative prints were sold. Getting this done between Cleveland and Edmonton so we could then make prints and be ready for San Jose is the big reason that the month of July went by in a blur! Yes, plenty of copies are still available, but more on the art pimping later.

Back to the car – I had certainly looked at the car in a multitude of photos over the past weeks, but I was still quite amazed to see it in person and in three dimensions. And I will have to say as an artist, that a true measure of beauty is something that looks so much better in person than any photo I have ever seen of it, period. It is beyond compare to have it there right in front of you as you all soon will see come 2007.

The original art was auctioned off the next night at a Gala benefiting the Canary Fund, one of the race’s premier sponsors, an early cancer detection research fund. Tony Cotman brought me news the next morning in Race Control that he was standing next to Champ Car President and CEO Steve Johnson, who began bidding on the piece to hang in the Champ Car offices. Good idea. As the bidding edged higher, Steve and Tony realized someone at the back of the hall was staying with them bid for bid until Tony looked around to see who it was. “Forget it Steve”, said TC with a smile, “It’s Kevin.” Apparently our man KK just had to have this piece, and I guess he has a damned good eye for fine art… The framed original netted The Canary Fund a whopping $11,000.

SLAM, BANG

The race itself was yet another violent dustup plus we had the scuffle in the pit lane between Messrs. Tagliani and Tracy. Maybe we have a marketable series now with this stuff. A pal of mine was at home that weekend and was having his cable box worked on while the race was being shown. The visiting cable guy was highly disinterested with the broadcast until the fight and he then proceeded to ask every question he could about the series, mesmerized, even though he had NEVER heard of it before…

When I get back from Montreal, I’ll cover the details of said print, Denver and Montreal and hopefully Cristiano da Matta’s continuing recovery. Keep Shorty, his family and many, many friends in your thoughts!

See you at the track!

JHS

CLEYYZYEGSJC (part one)

Yes, those of you who travel through our nation’s sometimes-friendly skies will decode the airport codes of our last four races. And that’s how they seemed to me, going by in a huge blur this year as I alternated between long days on the road and long nights on the drawing board at home. But give up show business? With you people? Never…

CLE (Hopkins Int’l Airport)

I landed Wednesday night in a huge electrical storm. Omen for the weekend.

We broke in a new flag chief this year, Bill Crowe, and he passed with flying colors. He and ex-chief turned race chairman Lauri Burkons had their work cut out for them as this is a annually a thinly attended race as marshals go. On top of that the Grand-Am Series was running down at Mid-Ohio, The June Sprints (ok, shoot me for leaving out the trademark) were up at Elkhart, and F1 was running in Montreal (although ASRQ’s Diane Dery came all the way from Quebec to be with the Champ Cars, bless her.) Nonetheless we did some prodding, recruiting and arm twisting and by Sunday we had just over 40 marshals, more than half from outside Ohio. And let me tell you and I do not say this lightly, what this crew lacked in numbers it more than made up for in talent. It may have been marshal for marshal one of the most experienced groups ever put together. I thank Bill, Lauri and each member of this Marshal crew , especially those who came down from Canada and over from the west coast, for being there and boy were you needed!!


STANDING STARTS BY THE START STAND

We chose the wide open runway to reunite the Mazda Atlantics with their much missed standing starts and both races we did with them during the weekend were right on the button. No jumps, nothing, and smooth runs through the first turn! It’s almost like a regular start, first time by, except they come to a stop on the line before the lights and then go, so it’s simpler than the FIA version. The cars grid in the pits, start engines, are led around by the pace car, the pace car pulls in, the cars pull up to their grid spots marked my a single member of their own crew, the grid clears of non-driver humans, a green flag waves all clear at the back of the grid, a 30 and a 15 sec board are shown by JD Wilbur from the start stand (who gives a nice commentary during all this on the land line) and then 4 red lights are lit in 1 second intervals, and then they all go off within 1-3 seconds and we have a race. Doesn’t take much longer to do than to read, and speaking for myself, it will be a great treat to see it done with the Champ Cars. There are some among the Champ Car driver ranks who feel we might reduce some first corner accidents by the sheer result of arriving a little bit slower and having a bit more time to make the right decision… I SAID MIGHT, DIDN’T I???


“SUNUVABITCH”

That’s right, that’s what I said on the land line as the only way to describe how the Champ Car race was going about 1/3 of the way into it. I don’t try on these occasions to mask my feelings, nor those of Race Control on such a difficult day. Wow. Incident after incident, in multiples, sometimes at opposite ends of the track and even the Sunday Atlantic race had tons of action, which certainly got us ready for the big one. You know all the hits from this one, but My Favorite moment had to be that now famous “CRACK” that is heard on the land line immediately followed by a loud buzz and some forlorn voice calling faintly that some poor soul has smacked the wall big time and taken part of the system down. Joysville. So this time it was Car 9 crunching the wall at turn 4, which had to be called in by turn 9 which is right behind turn 4 as turn 4’s landline went kablooie as a result of the impact. Not 5 seconds later, Car 4, who was leading at the time pulls off out of fuel over at turn 7… 4?... 9?... Turn 9?... Wha?... Who? Needless to say they were called in together while turn 4 was desperately trying to be heard at the same time. It took a while to figure out, and for about 30 seconds I just assume that 4 and 9 had hit each other, which was not the case. Sunuvabitch.

But sometimes those days are to be endured and looked back upon as days that make us all stronger and again my supreme thanks go out to all who helped us through a long weekend.


110%

One closing thought that I will share was an incident in turn one during the race after a restart that left a piece of sharp debris on line. While the cars were over on the other side of the circuit, we asked turn one if they had enough time to retrieve it and they said yes. So out went Brendan Crowe (Bill’s son,) and it turned out he made a hell of a long run there and back as the posts are located so far from the runway surface. He went out with a backup plan, hustled as hard as he could and made it all the way back albeit sans whistle (which I now have and will send back his way,) and some scuffed knees. It turned out to be a mighty ask and was responded to by a mighty effort. It’s not something we want to do all the time, but it was the supreme effort that went noticed. We don’t take unnecessary risks in this series, not after what we have been through, and that’s why we seldom do interventions with marshals (and only under well-controlled circumstances.) Brendan was dispatched by race control after we and turn one had sized up the situation.

On occasion, Race Director Tony Cotman, is questioned about using these “old school” ways of dealing with these matters when we could just throw another yellow, or leave it be. His specific response to this incident was “We don’t use the Marshals a lot for these things, but when we do we have very good results. If I see fit to call upon them, we will.”

Thanks, Brendan for your 110% effort.


YYZ (Lester Pierson Int’l Airport)

On to TO. The new hip moniker for Toronto, one of my favorite (excuse me, favourite) cities on the tour. For those of you who have never been, think of Chicago, only cleaner and everyone gets along.

My heartfelt thanks go out to our brothers-in-white who turn out in good numbers under Flag Chief Peter Corley’s direction. You all have a great attitude and you get the job done, enjoying yourselves at the same time (A number of years ago Gil de Ferran asked “can we take these people everywhere?”) The general culture of the Canadians just seems to be gentler than in the US, and I have a friend who jokes that the Canadians can even make the Swiss look mean.

I had the rare pleasure of having my wife Diane at the track, but I can’t say honestly she was 100% there for the race. One of our favourite groups, Great Big Sea, www.greatbigsea.com kind of a folk-pub-celtic-rock band from Newfoundland were playing Saturday night just across Lakeshore Blvd. from the racetrack at the Molson Amphitheatre, just within earshot of turn three. They brought the “houwse” down (as the Canadians say it, eh) as it was the end of their summer tour. A great way to forget about the stresses of the racetrack for one night! Thank you dear…


CHECKERED PAST

On occasion, when the moment warrants it, we will stop and recognize a job very well done and it was my pleasure at the Sunday briefing. Nick Fornoro was the original CART starter, who did 200 events, I succeeded him with 171, and JD Wilbur is up there now and I haven’t counted his up yet. We figured that after us three, and all of our assistants who waved checkered flags at Champ Cars in an “official” capacity, that the “civilian” who holds the record for most checkers displayed to Champ Cars has to be Toronto’s Peter Zigomanis. We presented him with a Champ Car Driver autographed checkered flag in front of his home crowd in recognition of his work, not only here in TO, but also other to the other events he works with us. Peter has been stationed at several of the events he travels to each year at the “Timeline” which is the point just before the pit entrance where the cars are timed from on Friday and Saturday, eliminating cool down laps. I thank Peter for his skill, timing, reliability, flexibility, endurance and good humour in this task. We’re all countin’ on ya!

to be continued...