Unfiltered Race Notes – Long Beach 2014

Note for the notes: I write something like this for every race, but never really released these to the public. More content is always fun so I thought it would be a good time to start posting these. Not totally sure why this has never happened before. Let me know if you want to see more!

This is pure anotherindycarblog stream of consciousness thought written while the race was happening… On an Ipad… With a tiny keyboard… it keeps my thoughts short and easy to digest later. So you get all the partial thoughts, spelling mistakes and tiny out of place nuggets with no time reference.

Remember, these are supposed to be fun. Take what is written with a grain of salt. This is a long unfiltered stream of snap judgments and knee-jerk reactions. I only denote laps when I remember to look and describing this as linear would be an overstatement. These eventually fuel my “IndyCar Rewind” articles and anything in “Pit Lane Reporter” that reviews previous action. Enjoy!

***pre race***

Very honest comments from will power. he makes it feel like he is looking at IndyCar from a different point of view. I’m not convinced because I’ve heard this story before

Seabass sounds like he thinks he’s going to beast the standing start. only chevy in top 6.

Does Josef Newgarden need to buckle down? i know the fun is… fun, but is his head in the game enough? Sarah Fisher is a Boss.

The Verizon and IndyCar “Driving Technology” commercial is awesome and i think it would work well on any broadcast and channel, not just races.

Jack Hawsworth… well spoken, but nothing special.

Pagenaud, Montoya, Sato – I love they mentioned them

Miller and Dario at the car show. Looks pretty cool.

Sam Posey intro… absolutely amazing. there is something special about Posey’s voice over a well cut and tracked montage.

Umm… PT looks too big to even think about sitting in an IndyCar, but the track lap with Townsed Bell was well done. PT and Bell play very well against each other. Did Tracey really pull the wrestlers mask out? The blue demon mentions the blue mist. cute PT… cute.

Also, PT looks embarrassedly sunburnt.

Crowd Looks very good on the front straight for opening ceremonies. Pit lane looks easily as packed as Indy.

***Race***

Al Unser JR looked super pumped to give the command and i really like how the cars are staged on pit lane in a Le Mans style set up. cool for the crowd.

Interesting that Kimball has 270° one way in his steering compared to 180° with Will power

Love the driver facing on-boards.

Arie spun the two-seater. Can’t buy that kind of ride.

The decision of RHR to start from the left may have been very good for Hinch. he starts in what would have been P3 box. an extra half grid spot to the paint on S/F line.

beautiful start

Aries spin cost us a lap. Lame.

Montoya looks good. first time we’ve really seen him. Castroneves does not.

Still wish they would let us know whos radio we are hearing.

Bell calls the 2014 sportscars ALMS err IMSA

Through the field on lap 10

JPM biggest mover by lap 15. five positions

electric problems for Briscoe

Power and Helio knife fighting… hope helio comes out on top.

Marco rocking a broken wing. upper left front element.

I see old marco is back. over cooking the entrance of corners and driving with no patience.

lap 25

Bourdais into the tires on cold tires. bourdais always crushes my hopes for him. Hard to be a fan

PT giving Seabass props for driving like a stud back in the day

power punts pagenaud exactly like franchitti used to dump power.

orange cone goes flying into the hairpin

rahal turns wilson before the green even comes out. come on! I hope Wilson wasn’t leaving a gap, but this was moments after Rahal “let wilson know he was there”

Lap 35

looks like JPM went off strategy. Either by accident or design, i bet his race is cooked.

Bourdais penalty. insult to injury.

The streets look pretty damn smooth. probably the nicest “street surface” along side St. Petersburg

Love how they always qualify Kimball’s “first diabetic IndyCar driver” with “licensed”

and Bourdais into the tires again. Come on man, this is ridiculous. It looks like a carbon copy of the previous crash, I hope the cars broken and not Bourdais’s skill. (the lie of a fool)

Kimball Blowed up. Chevy. Big smokey blowup.

Lap 42

Rahal gets drive through for Wilson incident. Excellent. Graham thinks it’s terrible and believes it’s the definition of incidental contact, says he was hit too. Yea Graham, but you were never pointed the wrong way because of it.

I’m watching this on a new TV, and Kimball’s car is ORANGE, but RHR’s car is the wrong shade of YELLOW

restarts look really good today

The banking of shoreline drive translates very well to TV this year. Maybe I’m just more receptive of it because of all the talk of rolling down it during the standing starts.

through the field again on lap 46

Looks like RHR may be holding up Newgarden and Hinch

talk of two-stopping because of yellows. should be illegal to even discuss fuel savings

Conway has been giving people trouble all day long. excited to see what the ECR crew can do with him later in the year with more time together.

everyone feels settled in. probably trying to save fuel in hopes of a late race yellow. I bet it would only take one to let a few guys go the distance.

Nothing better than seeing Rahal lose a position.

Lap 50

dude, where are the yellow flags?!? How is it possible for TK, Sato and Hawksworth to still be running full chat into the crash? and with Josef’s car sitting on Hawk, the safety team took a bit too long to get to a submarined car.

Pretty questionable move on RHR’s part. Not sure if he was in the wrong, but this is exactly why I don’t quite believe in RHR even with his championship. Front wheel to real wheel contact with *just* a nose inside is not an ideal situation.

Michael Andretti sounds pretty disappointed as well about the whole shebang. Says more patience is needed. Looked pretty similar to your own move on Emmo when you put him into the run off Michael… I’m just saying.

Saavedera driving with a possible broken finger due to debris impact? The level of epicness will be determined once the result of said broken bone is decided.

TK blames the two guys for wrecking on cold tires. did you see the flags? are there flags warning you of trouble? could this implicate deeper flagging issues within the series?

OK, Josef definitely has his head in the game. Rough luck for him.

Lap 74

LOTS of moves before the line! PT is correct in saying the green wasn’t out yet before the cars popped out of line

everyone should be good to go until the end.

Dixon moves over on wilson, clear as day. bent suspension for Justin

Could Conway actually get this win?

Andretti with an EPIC move around Servia and Pagenaud with a little help with turning from Aleshin

Power weaving… shocking

aaaand andretti in with a broken nose

Conway shouldn’t be too far behind, that wing is looking bad.

Rahal stalls, better and better all day for the guy.

Conway, The Destroyer of Worlds

RHR pretty classy in taking most of the responsibility for the incident. Big man. down to simply making the move for the lead, should have waited. class act, just more talk than talent.

Lap 80

Ten lap trophy dash

JPM back to p5

Power on reds, I don’t think they’re going to last the entire run.

also, why did RHR’s car roll back into the track? was he not on the brakes? I cant imagine he totally lost braking ability. amateur hour

Great camera angle leading onto the back straight

surprised power has held on as long as he has on the reds.

Lap 86

Dixon is short

Ed is a cool cat. Conway at the front, not a bead of sweat.

Conway. Boom

Checkers

Why is power always so dejected sounding? I’m so sorry you’re a racecar driver.

JPM says he saw yellow flags, still doesn’t feel 100%. Reds are still kind of mysterious for him. If he can go from 15 to 4th and not be 100% the field should seriously be worried.

Pagenaud has some very strong words for Power. Pags seems hot, I hope he puts power into the tires later in the year. A few drivers had some pointed opinions of Power after the race. Shocker. Again

Pretty cool seeing the right front of Rahal catch on fire. Nice to know the brakes perform that well, I knew we used brake fans, but that was a good demonstration.

Good race if not a bit sloppy

—

So there we go. This is just an experiment for this week so let me know if you want to see more of these throughout the season. And as always, thanks for reading!

Eric Hall

 

Advertisement