NIGHT FIGHTERS

Champ Car’s return to Houston was a lot tougher of an event than I was ready for this early in the season, but the Houston Region organized marshals “warmed” to the task, and gave it their all, despite heat and humidity by day and darkness and intensity by night. A good number of marshals on hand had not done a CCWS event since we last came downtown in 2001, but their numbers were bolstered by a contingent of veterans from California, Canada, the Midwest and even some visitors from the Netherlands, Norway, and Mexico.

I would like to heartily thank all those who participated and put up with the long days (starting with the ten o’clock meetings,) while working very deep into the evenings. And an extra-extra special thanks to Flag Chief Jim Lowe who busted his butt from laying out the posts in the weeks leading up to the event, through the weekend which saw him create and staff two entire posts that were required just hours before the first session. An incredible, highly dedicated leader who really cares about his people – thanks, Jim

A CHICANE FROM WHOLE CLOTH

Even though the layout was on the books for some time, you just cannot get a feel for a place until you see it in three dimensions. The pit straight was long and had some gentle bends, but due to the location of the Reliant Center at the end of it (turn two,) there just wasn’t an adequate runoff for such a long straight. This did not go unnoticed by a small faction of CCWS drivers who effectively lobbied late Wednesday afternoon for a remedy. Chris Kneifel, our former Chief Steward/Race Director/Circuit Director, who is now consulting as a circuit builder, stepped up to the problem with Tony Cotman fresh with the knowledge gained last year getting San Jose off the ground (get it?) CSK led the construction crews all night – even the Grid Girl competition stage had to be picked up and moved - to create a mini version of the old Festival Curve in Portland – a sharp 90 left followed by a 120 right and a 60 left back onto the straight to set up for turn two. Posts 1A and 1B were created, landlines were dropped by Palmer, flags and equipment appeared, Jim Lowe did some very quick reassigning and we were ready to go – very much on time – by 11 on Thursday morning!

1B HAS BINGO

Just like its namesake in Portland and its cousins in San Jose and Australia, this chicane generated many opportunities to bail out and run straight through it, putting extra pressure on our crews to catch all the short cuts. I cannot speak for ALMS or Star Mazda, but the combined shortcut totals for CCWS and CCAC were easily over 100 for the three day event. Yeesh. But while irreverently poking fun at the whole affair on Friday, a brainstorm hit me, and I only wish I’d have thought of it earlier in the weekend. Later that night, I drew up two different sheets of car numbers in a 5 x 5 square, one each for Champ Cars and Atlantics, and presented one each to the keepers of said dreaded real estate, posts 1A and 1B – For the warm-ups, they were gonna play SHORT CUT BINGO!!! The CCWS card featured a #12 Jimmy Vasser Free Space. Sure enough, near the end of the Atlantic warm up, ol’ 1B came through for us - good show! I’m gonna check to see if they play Bingo down under and get three cards ready…

SCARED OF THE DARK?

As night fell, the joint took on an entirely different character. The CCWS has done night events before, but either on ovals or the vast wide-open spaces of Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport. But this was an honest-to-goodness STREET race, with walls and fences and banners and signage, replete with the shadows those pesky things create. Some of the darker colored cars, and especially the metallic charcoal grey of the CTE cars were VERY hard to see as they darted into the shadows. Downright spooky if you ask me, and I was glad again to be inside. But our comms and flaggers did the job we expected and I neither heard nor had any complaints. One scary incident involved Paul Tracy moving over on Dan Clarke (in one of the dark CTE cars, you guessed it) and they had a coming together on the ultra-fast long, blind sweeper that skirted the edge of the Astrodome. Wonder if Tracy lost him in the shadows?

IF IT’S HOUSTON, THAT MUST BE A.J. (no, not that one…)

We had the great pleasure on Friday morning to witness a first in CCWS Marshaling history as our morning briefing featured an actual Champ Car driver stopping by to say a few words. We have done some things at the end of the day in Montreal with Quebecois drivers, and in Mexico with Mexican drivers, so I thought it only fair to nab an American for this big moment. So a big ON COURSE tip o’the hat to A.J. Allmendinger for helping us out and sharing his thoughts about the circuit and the series. What made it even easier was the late morning meeting start time and the 75 or so steps it took to walk over from his transporter - which was in the same corner of the expo center as the SCCA compound!

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT

So back to the chicane again. The race start, and how we were gonna get everyone through there on lap one, became a huge discussion point at the drivers’ meeting. I’ll just say there were wildly different opinions and very few had the confidence that it could be done. One suggestion was to watch the ALMS start on Friday night, and it was damned impressive! Yes, yes, they have fenders – good on’ em. But there was a palpable air of “let’s help one another out and get through here, boys” and it worked. They singled up at the drop of the green and they went through with hardly a bump. And they only created one full-course-yellow in nearly three hours of racing!! For a tow-in!! ALMS is an endurance series and all its participants bring a very calm, cool “endurance” mentality to the table. A huge credit to them.

So CCWS Race Director Tony Cotman spent the better part of race day morning lobbying this same approach. The idea in brief was to pair up early, beam back a nice picture of some orderly two-by-two rows for the international audience and voluntarily thin in out upon the acceleration of Mario Dominguez the pole sitter. And for the most part it worked, the only casualty being Justin Wilson losing some parts in a side-to-side. Fair enough, but no big melee or shortcut extravaganza. Some times (actually oft times,) the true meaning of Power is not “power over” but “power with.” (Where was this thinking in 1996?) Enough philosophy, it was a great thing to experience.

The race itself seemed to take three hours, like we were doing a 500-mile race in the dark. I think up in race control we girded ourselves for a very busy and troubled race and when you heighten up your senses for a period of time, time seems to slow down. I was on the edge of my seat the whole way. Sebastien Bourdais qualified only fifth but Newman/Haas got him there again for the win. But the long day ended on a pretty freaky incident in turn three, so maybe that’s what I had sensed.

We were coming off a yellow with one lap to go til the green after yet another shoving match at the chicane. On the straight between turns two and three, Alex Tagliani gassed it to clean his tires and then to the naked eye appeared to deliberately accelerate straight into the tires in the turn three runoff. Of course he gave the land line cable running behind the wall a massive belt and the insidious hum appeared on contact, signifying a big problem. Tag hit right at the seam between two wallblocks and caved them back about two feet, obliterating the front nosepiece and burying himself in the tires. I saw the tape thereafter, which was incomplete as he also took out the cable for the TV camera as well! So we were in the dark for a while until we got the word from the post that he was out and appeared fine. But when something that weird and unexpected completely startles you (remember we were under full-course yellow) it’s a disturbing thing to see… The short story is that the pump that feeds his water bottle came loose and was rattling around in the pedal box area. It is actually mounted forward of the pedals in the nose box, but it shook loose and somehow got to a location behind the pedals toward Tag. He tried many times to move it toward him so he could grab it but could not do so. SO under caution the pump got lodged in between the throttle pedal and the heel rest, it caused the throttle to stick and that is what sent him into the tires.

So from here in the dark in Houston it’s off to the sun and heat and dust in Monterrey. More in a couple days.

Adios,

JHS