Katherine Legge & the Queen
©2005 Phil Sedgwick LAT
The 2005 Season is underway, and I’d like to give a hearty “thank you” to all who came out to LB to send us on our way. Because we actually knew we had a season ahead of time this year, there was a great turnout. Special thanks from all of us in the Champ Car family for those who came from Canada, Texas, Florida, the Midwest and even England and the Netherlands, who combined with Ceci Smith’s dependable crew of Southern California flaggers to put on another fine show. We all participated in an historic day on Sunday as Katherine Legge became the first female winner of a Champ Car sanctioned race in her first go, toughing her way to the top in a rough-and-tumble Atlantic Race.
I did my best to put together a spotter’s guide from what I knew and from what the cars looked like at Sebring testing, but totally abandoned it after looking at the cars on Thursday. Too many changes. Thanks to Bob Griffith for again completing his “verbal” spotter’s guide at the 11th hour. Kudos also to all our comms who suffered through the 60 cycle hum from hell on the land line and the non-working backup radios as we got things going on Friday morning. Palmer Audio found a simple little loose connection about an hour into the day and it sounded sweet the rest of the weekend.
I wasn’t as sweet however!! I was rough and rusty around the edges. Kinda thought I would be. I knew Friday would be tough, and we had a lot to respond to on track. When multiple calls come in that fast (which was good,) it took me some time to keep up with it all (which is bad.) Harumph. But with one busy day under my belt, Saturday was easier, which leads to our supreme compliment of the weekend.
Tony Cotman, our new Race Director for CCWS, listened in a bit to the land line on Saturday and spent the rest of his time in RC within easy earshot. It was his first weekend in RC as an official, after putting in 15 seasons as a competitor and a team manager in both CART and the IRL. “Jim,” he said, “I had no idea that you get that much quantity, quality and accuracy from your people out on the corners. The information we get from them is astounding.” So there… as I mentioned before the event, Tony is very impressionable at this point as he comes to terms with his new role, and we made a damn good impression our first time out.
The idea that recently got let outta the bag by Robin Miller, about Champ Car and the IRL sharing a common chassis, was a vision that Tony Cotman shared with us at the RC meetings in March. You can read mor e about it at www.champcarworldseries.com We’ll see where it goes. My take is that the press has it right that CHAMP CAR is the side that’s really trying to make this happen, and teams and fans on both sides of the split can see that…
T’sabout all I’ve got to say right now. The Long Beach crowd really know how to put on a street race. We should know in 60 day if we will be back next year as our contract to run there has expired. Rest assured that if we don’t, that there is a plan B. Monterrey is next, I think on Speed TV. I will listen to the land line en Espanol, and talk to the room in English. With the help of Fritz Herrmann and his merry band of Hermanos, it's always a pleasure.
See the rest of you at the race track!!
JHS
