Notes from the 2010 IndyCar race at Sao Paulo, Brazil

Notes taken during the Versus broadcast of the Sao Paulo Indy 300, Sao Paulo Street Circuit in Brazil on March 14.

Holy spring break! I was in tony Los Angeles (at Universal Studios, to be exact) when this race went down live, so we're all over the DVR replay.

pressdog beer of the race is Schell's Firebrick lager, August Schell Brewing Company, New Ulm, MN. Second-oldest family owned brewery in the US. Word! www.schellsbrewery.com.

Welcome to Sao Paulo. It was sunny an hour ago but now it's cloudy with sprinkles.

Bob Jenkins, Robbie "Incredi" Buhl and Jon Beekhuis are at the mic, almost certainly back in the Versus studios in the US calling the race off the monitor.

2.6-mile, 11-turn street course with a .9-mile straight, longest in IndyCar history. Jon says we're holding up the race to see if it is going to rain or not. Pace car is out checking the track. Jack Arute is trackside in Brazil and has to be hung over. Seriously. Who are we kidding here?

Arute interviews the trackside pit lane radar. Dude. Jack sounds kind of wheezy to me. Ease up on the long, skinny cigs, Jack. Got kind of a black lung rattle to ya here. (Hope Jack doesn't actually have lung disease or I'll feel kind of shitty for that.)

We got seven Brazilians in the race. Rafa Matos, Helio Castroneves, Tony Kanaan, Ana Beatriz, Vitor Miera, Mario Moraes, Mario Romancini.

Jon would love to see it start dry. Looks like he will get his wish. Down to Jonny Saad, President "Group Band" and Grand Marshal. Jonny Saad may be the least fired-up man in all of Brazil. Gives us a casual "start you engines" thing as if there are toddlers sleeping near the stage he doesn't want to wake.

Jon takes us around the circuit, including a "rhythm section" (featuring a drummer named Julio, no doubt -- rim shot!) and the monster straight. Robbie says it's very bumpy (dispite being mostly repaved).

Trackside Online starting lineup. Patrick was in the hizzy down at Brazil kicking out many original-material updates. Be like the pdog and subscribe to Trackside today.

Dario Franchitti, Alex Tagliani, Justin Wilson, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Will Power, Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Ryan Briscoe, Helio Castroneves, Tacuma Sato, Simona De Silvestro, Rafa Matos, Danica Patrick, Hideki Mutoh, Alex Lloyd, Vitor Meira, EJ Viso, Dan Wheldon, Mike Conway, Mario Romancini, Marco Andretti, Ana Beatriz, Mario Moraes, Milka Duno.

Down to Arute. Street races are all about track position. He expects three stops this race. Jack thinks there will be no green-flag pit stops. Jack calls Tagliani a "sneak guy." I think he means dark horse or something here.

Onboard cameras with Helio, Tony, RHR, Andretti and others.

Let's light this candle for 2010. Standing starts are for the WEAK. We're .... green green green.

Cue the circus music! yellow yellow yellow. We got a dust storm in the sambadrome and it's a FESTIVAL OF CARBON FIBER. Holy shit!  Mario Moraes' car has MOUNTED Marco Andretti's vehicle, and perhaps Marco himself. Cover the kids' eyes! Usually you pay extra for this kind of action on TV. Checking my Dish channel ... not in the 900s. Hmmmmmm.

A tiny E-100-powered car pulls up, 98 clowns jump out, samba up into the crowd before laying on random people.

The camera stays with the field instead of showing us Festival of Carbon Fiber at the first turn. Fail.

Replays. Looks like Mario's car got airborne and landed on top of Marco's car, undertray right over the cockpit, and just stuck there.

Replays. Holy F1! Sato (former F1 driver) came down into the first chicane going roughly 176 mph, then tried to lock 'em up and put it sideways setting off the clown convention. I think he bashed into the back of Helio or Dixon. My notes are sketchy. Then Moraes bashed into the back of Marco who may have been seriously checking up to avoid T-boning someone. Wheel launch  ... Houston, we have liftoff ... and then it got X-rated. 

Replay in-car with Helio. Dust from the grinding in the Sambadrome looks like driving through an Iowa snow storm, to be honest. Helio gets bashed and then rolls over the front end of Sato.

Jenkins throws it down to Jack and we have minute dead ear. I imagine Jack sitting on the pit wall, stubbing out a cigarette, finishing a Packy Wheeler story, hitching up his fire suit, adjusting his head phones, waving to someone he knows from AJ Foyt's crew in 1976, checking to see if he has matches, groping for his microphone, then ... tells us Marco is radioing that he is OK.

Involved: Helio, Marco, Dixon, Sato and Moraes. More replays. Jon is all over the replay train. Does a little stop action to show us the two incidents (Sato Sidweays and Moraes Mounting).

Marco still has his head attached, so it's a pretty good day for him.

Alex Lloyd in the pits. Taking the cowling off. Not a good sign. Festival of pitting under yellow.

Lap 5 -- Jack is back with us. I would not be shocked if he was actually talking with a cig in his mouth. Sato, Moraes and Marco all checked and OKed. May be more bad blood between Moraes and Marco? Replay of Lap 1 of 2009 Indy 500 when Marco got a little nutty, I thought, and tried to inhale Moraes in the shittiest possible position on the first lap.

Jack sounds like he needs to be intibated. Seriously. I'm starting to worry he DOES have emphysema or something. Jack says Moraes declines to talk right now. He'll try to scout up young Marco.

Jon says Moraes "overcooked it." Declares Moraes guilty. But what if Marco locked them up in front of Moraes, Jon?  Not so fast there.

Lap 7 -- Franchitti, Tag, RHR, Kanaan, Matos, Mutoh, Meira, Wheldon, DeSilvestro (!) Viso, Danistar.

Lap 9 -- GREEN. We make an entire lap without circus music! Viewing enhanced.

Jack with Marco. We got hit from behind. When you can't see a foot in front of you, something should tell you to lift. Says it was part his fault for not qualifying well and being back there where circus moments occur in the start of street races.

The Sambadrom concrete was super slick in practice, so they ground it before qualification, but I guess a bunch of dust was left.

Lap 10 -- Cars look like a pod of dolphins porpoising down the front straight. Wilson is back to P16. Why is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Down to Jack -- Dead air. Insert me imagining him grinding out a cigarette and adjusting himself here.

Dixon inhales Simona. Inside ...CLEAR. I think this overtaking happens at the end of the long back straight into the last turn before we head for the start-finish.

Viso inhaled by Briscoe. Dude. Overtaking. I've seen more televised passes on the track in 11 laps than I saw in the entire street-road race schedule last year. Simona is being inhaled by everybody, it seems. Jack -- discussions of tire changes and random Packy Wheeler-level stories here. Why is Simona dropping back? NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Lap 16 -- Tags and RHR are waring on the track. We're onboard TK who is behind it. Looks like Tags has better straight-line speed, which is what you probably want on this track.

Some of these on-boards make it look super dark out.

Franchitti leads by 1.6 seconds. Robbie says "Put the power down ..." DRINK YE BASTARDS.

Again with the tire fixation. Reds are softer, better grip, don't last as long. Blacks have a bit less grip but last longer. Have to use one of each, minimum, unless it rains and then the mandatory tire changes is out the window. The booth guys will cover this an estimated 19 more times.

TK looks under Tags .. NO. Has to lock up and gets DE-NIED.

Franchitti leads by 1.7 now.

Lap 21. Jon tells us the push to pass button gives you 22 seconds of an extra 9 or 10 horsepower. You get 15 pushes.

It would be nice to know how many pushes every car has left. Jack talks put strategy while we got some serious overtaking on the screen. Dude. Maybe focus on what's going on on the track first, then talk about pit strategy later. Mutoh gets inhaled by Castroneves. Booth guys are missing a hell of a race.

Lap 22 -- Cue the circus music! Yellow yellow yellow. Milka is toast on the track. Full course. Not sure what happened. Stalled. What happened will be ... NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Maybe Jack could hustle down to Coyne to find out what is up rather than opining on the beauty of the red sidewalls.

A tiny wrecker pulls up and 19 clowns jump out dressed as María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Moquiere de les Esperades Santa Ana Romanguera y de la Najosa Rasten (Charo) jump out and yell "cuchi-cuchi" while playing flamenco guitar.

Note 1: Charo is quite an accomplished flamenco guitar player. Note 2: Charo's house was on my Hollywood tour of stars' homes during my spring break in LA. Charo's sister lives there now. Charo lives back in Spain. She's 60. Unless the tour guide was totally bullshitting me.

Jon and Robbie say they would pit here. Dario has led all 22 laps so far. Dario, RHR, Tagliani, Kanaan, Wheldon (!), Matos, Meira, Patrick, Dixon, Conway.

No major mentions of Danistar so far on this race. Kind of surprised they are not obsessing over Danica.

Lap 24 -- Pits are open and everyone pits except Simona. De Silvestro LEADS. Simona leads. Somewhere in a Key West bar Todd Harris emerges from under a pile of drained Red Stripes and yells "SALLY RIDE!" before passing out again.

Jack and the weather station says the red cells (storms) are coming. BRACE BRACE BRACE.

Jon -- Simona is a legit leader. She pitted on Lap 20 so this isn't some stay out for some token laps lead deal.Of course she'll have Dario behind her on the restart. No pressure though. Speaking of, Mrs. Dario must not be in the hizzy, because no sign of the floppy-hatted one.

Robbie gives Simona some props. Those of us who want to see an angry rivalry  break out between Simona and Danica are readying DVDs of this section of the race to send Danica with "Simona wanted you to have a copy of her workout program" notes attached.

Lap 26 -- Jenkins declares Simona winner of the 2009 Atlantics championship! Imagine her surprise since I think she got third in the championship. John Edwards (real champion) spews beer all over his big screen here.

Lap 27 -- Ryan Hunter-Reay has his name on the rear wing. Isn't that special? Wonder what RHR did to become the favorite of IZOD. I mean, the guy is a good looking man (jussayin) but, wow, IZOD is digging his shit big time.

Lap 27 -- GREEN. Simona gets a big jump. Nice. Simona radios to Danica "this isn't miniature golf." (Sorry. Made that last bit up.)

Robbie says "get the power down" again. DRINK, BITCHES.

Simona is dirt tracking a little here. I may be in love. (In a father-daughter way, but still.) RHR is all up in Dario's business. RHR under Dario ... CLEAR. The Gentleman Driver has been inhaled. Ashley spews champagne all over her big screen here.

Turn 1 has a local yellow. I float weightlessly for several seconds here as the earth stops rotating. Local yellow in an IndyCar race? What the?  Watch for the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

RHR is all up in Simona's business now. Only a matter of time. RHR goes inside in The Passing Zone and almost gets airborne due to the bumps. CLEAR. RHR leads after two nice passes.

Lap 29 -- Danistar. Stalking Briscoe. Overtakes him in the front straight chicane. CLEAR. Nicely done. Insert me being honestly impressed here by Danica's inhalation of Briscoe in a tough spot on the track.

Arute again talks tires while we're watching actual overtaking. Passing apparently is becoming so commonplace now that of course Arute is just talking casually about something else while someone is passed.

TK -- SPEARED. Not sure who did it, but we got a yellow yellow yellow. Replays. Tags gets ass-ended by Wheldon and then bashes into Tony and they both end up ass around while Wheldon continues. IHJ SEES NOTHING. Have at it, boys and girls. It's got kind of a NASCAR feel to it. (Insert tedious, humorless comments about how Wheldon didn't INTENTIONALLY hit him, blah blah blah here.)

DUDE. We are staying green through this. Local yellow. It's human sacrifice .. dogs and cats ... living together ... MASS HYSTERIA.

Note to the IHJ: If you continue with this local yellow fetish, I may break my 4-foot-personal-space rule and hug you at Kansas. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. (I hear tasers do no permanent damage.)

Briscoe dives into the pits for rain tires. Rain tires? It's raining? Jack? Hello? Jack? Is this thing on?

Jack comes back to life in time to say what an INCREDIBLE call it was from The Captain (Penske) to go to rains right now. GREAT CALL, Jack says.

Lap 30 -- Back stretch has rain. Big rain drops. Festival of pitting for rain tires.

Cue the circus music! Bia goes ass around. Waited to long for rain tires. Justin Wilson almost nails teammate Conway coming out of the pit. Robbie -- That's not good. RHR misses a corner on his slicks. Now Danica goes ass around. Booth guys -- woooowoowooowoowoowoowoo.

Full course yellow as cars start to skate around.

Jack declares we got ourselves a Brazilian monsoon coming. SEEK SHELTER NOW. Jack "next thing we'll have locusts." Jack Arute, pressdog.com fan.

Alex Lloyd has contact. Rear wing askew. Danica in for a new nose from where she clipped the tire barrier.  Wait a second. I think this yellow is just local for Alex. IHJ, you sexy beast!

Storm knocks out the timing and scoring. I strongly believe frogs cover the tracks and flies will carry away young children soon. Briscoe is getting his rear wing adjusted. Jenkins -- this is the most watched TV show in the HISTORY OF BRAZIL. Wow. The Brazilian ratings are Super Bowlish.

Red flag. Red red red. We got ponding on the track, so we're parking everyone.

Tagliani with Jack. What happened? Tags -- I think Dan never braked and threw me up in the air into Tony's car. 

Beekhuis recaps the race here. Bob says when we go green the race will be a timed deal. 44 minutes from re-start to finish. Before you get your undies bunched, I think this is race control's call, not Versus. Drivers are getting out of there cars.

Arute with RHR. Asks him about passing Simona for the lead. RHR said Dario was tougher to get by. I knew Dario was for the lead of the race. Dude. DISSing Simona. Not real cool. RHR does not look good here. Comes off as "Simona, pfft." Struck me as a gratuitous smack at another competitor.

Jack with Will Power who snuck up to P2 while Jack and the booth posse talked about red and black tire issues. Will is eating a banana and honey sandwich while in his car. Like he hit the drive through or something. Is it me or does Power look like Ray Bolger as the Tin Man when he's in the head sock?

(Insert rain delay and random weather discussion here.)

Rain stopped pretty quickly and the peeps are out sweeping up the ponds so we're about to restart. It will be RHR, Power, Franchitti, Dixon, Matos, Wilson, Meira, Helio, Viso.

Everyone will start on rain tires. Jon says cars will cruise around and get an idea of when to go back to slicks. Should be pretty quick since the rain is done and sun is out.

Arute interviews Mike Andretti and I get nothing out of it. Something about doing the opposite of the leaders on rain tires, etc. I got nothing.

RHR's pit has the dry tires out.

TK is behind the pace car, waiting for the wave around. Right here Jon et al say TK will wait for the wave around and then pit. BUT, I thought the rule was if you take a wave around you CANNOT pit under that yellow. That's part of the deal. I strongly believe this is the rule. But the actual rules maybe NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. The difference between red sidewall and black sidewall tires is HIGHLY important, though.

Jenkins mentions that DRR, of which Robbie is a co-owner, has put lots of money and effort into improving. Robbie thanks him for that and says they want be around for a decade or more. 

Vitor pits for slicks.

Lap 38 -- Jack says RHR needs to save fuel. We're GREEN. 36 min. to go.

Dario and Dixon lead, then Conway, Wilson, Helio, Viso, Bia, Simona, RHR and Power. I think the Target twins are still on rain tires. RHR dove into the pits for slicks on lap 37.

Ruh-roe ... Simona fading fast. Has an issue. What is that issue? NONE OF YOU BUSINESS. We're  busy covering the difference between rain tires and slicks.

34:25 to go. Penske choked the rain to dry tire call. Bia getting rapidly inhaled.

Lap 41 and 42 -- Target twins dive into the pits for dry tires. RHR leads.

Danica either moving over or getting inhaled by everyone. She's a lap down, so I would hope she's moving over.

Lap 44 -- Vitor passes power but cuts the corner so he has to give it back.

Danica pits for slicks. Left rear has issues. She's back out. She's a lap down from the rain slide earlier, so not such a big deal.

Lap 45 -- RHR, Briscoe, Matos, Power, Vitor, Wheldon, Dixon, Conway, Dario, Wilson.

Power is stalking Matos for third. Romancini tags the wall. Got a rear wheel askew. Crawling back around to the pit. No yellow. Beautiful.

Jack -- RHR may have to give up the lead to save fuel. Debate here between Robbie and Jon about if you give up the lead and draft to save fuel before trying to repass late. Robbie says yes. Jon says no because if you do it and get a yellow you're screwed.

Lap 50 -- Briscoe overtakes RHR. 17:41 to go. RHR is all up in his business. Pressure pressure pressure.

Lap 54 -- Booth -woe wooooooooo. Briscoe locks them up and goes into the tires. Yellow Yellow Yellow. Full course. Fuel savings is now officially not an issue.

Briscoe gets back to pits. We're about to go green.

Lap 56 -- GREEN. 9:26 to go.

HOLY DVR FAIL. My DVR ran out right here. (Insert bad words here.) Let's go to the lap chart --

Lap 56 -- RHR, Wilson, Matos, Miera, Wheldon, Dixon, Conway, Dario, Wilson, Helio.

Lap 58 -- Power overtakes RHR for the lead. Vitor inhales Matos for third.

Lap 59 -- RHR and Vitor post their fastest laps of the day.

Lap 60 -- Power responds with his fastest lap of the race.

Power wins.

Trackside Online final results --- Power, RHR, Vitor, Matos, Wheldon, Dixon, Dario, Conway, Helio, Kanaan, Wilson, Viso, Bia, Briscoe, Danica, Simona, Romancini, Lloyd, Tagliani, Mutoh, Duno, Sato, Andretti, Moraes. 

Next race: Streets of St. Petersburg. Sun. March 20. 3:30 PM Eastern on ABC (green flag 3:46 PM)

Comments

[Ryan]

Firebrick... Good choice.

Anytime a blog post starts out by mentioning August Schell Brewing Company, it has my attention. Great brewery and it's fairly close to home for me.

My personal favorite, by Schell's, is Schmaltz's Alt. You might be hard pressed to find any this far into spring though.

Carry on here, I need to get back to the rest of your post. :)

[Ryan Worden]

Same problem here with the DVR running out, but I outsmarted myself and taped the next 7 shows just in case of rain. Sure, my DVR filled up and I missed a bunch of other shows during my vacation, but I saw the last 7 minutes....

And local yellows (can we start calling them Milkas?) rock

[redd]

Finally...the first clown stamp...now the season has officially started.

(Meteor speeds for Earth) "So the red tires..." (Meteor destroys a skyscraper) "are softer..." (Destroys Eiffel Tower) "than the black tires..." (Charo's house on fire.) "But if it rains, all bets are off.."

[vivaindy]

I enjoyed the write-up. There is one thing that I have wondered about since the broadcast. I recall Jenkins saying this is the most watched TV show in all of Brazil.

How exactly, could they know that DURING the race? Do they have realtime ratings in Brazil? Usually we have to wait for at least overnight ratings, etc. but they declared this during the race? How does that work? Or did Bob just pull that out of his rear?

[Jon Pollak]

Best TV based media race review EVER.
When I grow up I wanna be pressdog mkII

Jp

[DougC]

Dog...add an hour to EVERY race on the DVR. I learned that lesson last year. I call it a benifit to being on Versus...actually running the whole race.

[pressdog]

I do have the entire F1 race on DVR, not that I can watch it without dozing. I made it through lap 9 before I was out like a light.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

@Pressdog
If it helps, the Indycar You tube page has highlights here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c553Arr-07M

Might get you a little of those last few laps.
:)

[Filipe]

Vivaindy, IBOPE (Brazil's Nielsen) hss a real time system that networks and some journalists have access to. Still, there were some excess to the claim, the showing had peaks of #1, but finished #2 in the time slot with a very respectable 7.7 rating here.

[Tom]

Filipe, is that the same rating scale as the Nielson? If so that's huge! I heard the race got a 0.4 in the US. (What do you expect for an overseas race?)

[Leigh O'Gorman]

@ Tom,
Probably didn't help that it was on Versus when the Direct TV hassle was on either.

[Dylan]

In Brazil, this race outscored F1, which is pretty big. but sadly, no American sponsors (Target, National Guard, Dollor General, Menards ect.) care.

But it was probably tied with Toronto 09 for best street course, with lead changes and overtakes!!!! Now onto St. Pete, which hopefully will be good, and then, Barber....

[S0CSeven]

'Dog.... no F1 blog????

[pressdog]

I tried to watch the F1 replay but fell asleep twice. From what I hear, I could give you the starting lineup, thrown in some BLOWN UP, SIRs! and you'd have the finishing order. F1 has a boring race (even by F1 standards) problem. They've eliminated fuel strategy and reduced the race to qualifying and tire management. zzzzzzz.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

@ Bill,

Big supporter of the banning of refuelling, but wasn't enough.
Like Indycar did with the fuel knob, F1 needs to rip out the bad aero. Refuelling was just a mask to show that there was no on track overtaking and all the add ons that have been introduced over the years were simply gimmicks.

The suggestions that some have come up with to help overtaking (like mandatory pitstops) are also just gimmicks and continue to ignore the problem.

You'd best call back in a year or two - the problem might be fixed then. In the meantime I will continue to watch with the jaundiced eye of a scorned partner.

[pressdog]

Leigh -- one race does not a boring season make. It's possible things will improve yet this year. One thing Bernie is acutely in tune with is TV numbers/ratings, 'cause he knows that's where the truly awesome cash is. (I don't think he cares a'tall about attendance.) So if ratings start to slide, expect changes sooner rather than later. Agreed that stuff being kicked around now (mandatory pit stops, intentionally crappier tires) are gimmicks that don't address the real problems.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

@Bill,

Your absolutely right; however the general feeling is that the refuelling ban and the removal of the double-diffuser should have been done together rather than step them one year apart.

Unfortunately there is still the issue of the dirty air from cars that needs to be looked at, but the truth is since refuelling came in during 1994, the majority of overtaking has been in the pitlane.

I think Bernie's mention of shortcuts is simply a way of telling the teams and the rulemakers to "fix it once and for all".