Notes taken during the SPEED broadcast of the Time Warner Cable Road Runner 225 at the Milwaukee Mile on 6/4/06
Welcome to the Bridgestone Presents the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford (BPCCWSPF) at Milwaukee, the oldest continually operating oval tack in the world (Since 1903)
In a shocking development, Sebastien Bourdais has won the pole. Derek Daly tells us that Bourdais has never led at Milwaukee.
(In a somewhat disconcerting production move, I don't believe booth announcers Derek Daly and Rick Benjamin got one second of on-camera time the whole entire race.
Starting lineup: Sebastein "Try to act shocked" Bourdais, Bruno Junqueira, A.J. "The Lone American" Allmendinger, Justin Wilson, Will Power, Mario Dominguez, Oriol Servia, Katherine "Show Some" Legge (first mention of Legge comes at 2:38 in the broadcast), Nelson Phillipe, Paul Tracy, Speedy Dan Clarke, Andrew "Lone" Ranger, Charles Zwolsman, Jan Heylen, Nicky Pastorelli, Alex Tagliani, Christiano "What's" da Matta does not start for some reason (must be none of our business because SPEED doesn't tell us) and gets a DNS.
Race officials are immediatly concerned if there is room for 16 whole cars on the Milwaukee Mile. Could be crowded out there!
Derek -- Bourdais credits the speed he has this year to help from Oriol Servia last year. Thanks so much, Oriol!
Let's light this candle. Green-green-green. Yellow-yellow-yellow. Starter waved it off. Hey, we're all professionals here.
Bill Stephens says Tracy is going to make up as many spots as he can right out of the chute. That would be highly uncharacteristic of Tracy to come out blazing.
Green-green-green. Bourdais got about a 120-yard jump. He's like one second ahead taking the flag.
Yellow-yellow-yellow. Cue the circus music in turn three. Dominguez gets into Bruno and then gets into Tacy. Double play! Replay shows Dominguez goes high and darts Bruno with his right front and then hip checks Tracy out with his right rear.
Daly reminds us that Bruno has two 11-inch long rods and about 18 screws in his back from wrecking at Indy in 2005. Bruno backed it into the wall on this one again. Dominguez pits with a trashed front end. Shades of Long Beach.
Down to Bill with Tracy -- Just a shame. Trying to pass. My teammate (that would be Mario) drove right into the side of Bruno. Crashed three cars out for no reason.
Jan Beekhuis for a race tech feature. RuSport has text messaging up to race control so they can send instant messages. No mention if they use instant message shorthand like "LOL" or maybe "WTF?"
(6/7/06 Edit) --- Holy sh*t! Thanks to several alert posters below, I checked the tape and right here someone says, clearly, "f*ck you" during the broadcast. Here's the transcript after a review of the tape:
Rick Benjamin (talking over video of Justin Wilson driving: "Nine laps are on the board ....
Unidentified voice says over the top of Rick: "f*ck you"
Rick doesn't even react. It's like he didn't even hear it "...under caution, after that incident going into turn three ..."
Sure sounded like a clear "F*ck you" to me. Shout out to the alert listeners and posters below.
(end of edit)
Video of Carl Haas and what appears to be a 18-inch-long cigar. Daly says it's been a "Hang on to your hollyhocks" weekend.
Down to Jan with Mario -- Mario says I went under Bruno, we touched, we spun. Mario's right front suspension is toast. Jan -- did you come up into Bruno? Mario -- Have to watch the replay before I can tell you that.
Lap 13. Green green green.
Katherine Legge is 5th. FIFTH. Someone wake up the queen, Katherine Legge is fifth.
Bourdais is 1.5 seconds in front. Shocking.
Lap 15 -- Bourdais, Allmendinger, Wilson, Oriol, Legge, Phillipe, Will Power, Ranger, Speedy Dan, Zwolsman.
Lap 19 -- Bourdais is starting to lap people, even with 10 laps of yellow. Cue the bitchslapping music. I'm thinking it should be something with a heavy bass line, like a porn movie or something. Or maybe the sound of a paddle hitting a butt with a "Thank you sir! May I have another?"
Lap 20 -- Ruh-roe. Bourdais' right rear is going down. We got ourselves a puncture. The booth guys are on this big time. It may be trouble for Bourdais! Stay tuned! A ray of hope.
Bourdais pits. Hummdinger takes the lead. Derek reminds us it takes "tirty-five seconds to get down pit lane" and pit with the speed limit.
Legge is 4th. Decided lack of frothing about this in the booth.
Yellow-yellow-yellow. Speedy Dan does a slow-mo spin and keeps it out of the wall. Derek calls it a "long, lazy spin." I think Speedy Dan did it just so the field could bunch up on Bourdais and keep him from putting everyone six laps down.
Down to Jan in Bourdais pits. Slaps the microphone next to the puncture in Bourdais' tire. You can hear the hiss. Cool.
Lap 26 -- Legge is 4th. The booth guys are getting Leggemania! Atta boys. Still a long, long, long ways to go to get to the IRL Danica-level stuff but you gotta start somewhere.
AJ leads. Bourdais is a lap down. Like that matters.
Holy Bat Turn. AJ gets sideways going into the pits. Saves it. These Champ Cars slide around on the track like dirt track cars.
Legge stays out. I smell a Danica Moment coming.
AJ pits. Manages to keep it going straight. 10.5 seonds. Wilson in. 9 seconds. Servia in. 8.4 seconds. Yee-haw! That's a pit stop boys.
Lap 27 -- LEGGE LEADS. LEGGE LEADS. Stayed out when everyone pitted and leads the race. Very Danica-esque. Bourdais is right behind her but a lap down. That's going to last about 20 seconds after the green flies.
Bourdais Milwaukee montage. Shows him hitting the wall two years ago.
Green-green-green. Bourdais around Legge by turn two. Got that lap back. For five seconds there after the puncture I thought maybe Bourdais was screwed. Guess not.
Legge leads. Derek says Katherine is relying on Jimmy Vasser for coaching. Katherine gave Vasser a shout out last night when Derek was hanging with her.
Lap 41 -- Wilson passes Legge for the lead.
Down to Jimmy -- Really amazed at how well Legge took to her first oval at Milwaukee. Doing a great job. High fives all around. (Indy 2007. I'm just planting the seed here. Come on, Katherine. You know you want to.)
Lap 45 -- Wilson 1.8 in front of Legge.
I think I dozed off in here somewhere.
Lap 54. 8 cars on the lead lap.
Yellow-yellow-yellow. Yellow flag for "track inspection" (WTF?) This is going to be a yellow for track inspection. What are they going to do out there? Have a beer and set up some lawn chairs for a while?
Video of Phillpe getting wiggly.
Lap 57. Wilson leads. Legge and Bourdais are going to pit. Might as well pit under this 20-minute yellow.
Legge is in. Doesn't want any changes. She's out. Bourdais in. 6.8-second pit. It's just not fair.
Wilson leads.
Lap 63. Someone says they're blowing off marbles from the high line. What? Sha. We're going to have a red flag here to wash down the entire track or something. It's gripping viewing watching the jet dryers.
Michelle Beisner must have gotten the axe or something because we got Bill at the Milwaukee Brewers game with AJ. AJ met Robin Yount and got a Brett Favre jersey. Look for AJ to throw an interception during the race.
Lap 67. Milwaukee police consider sending in the hostage rescue team to get the fans stuck watching a yellow that has no apparent cause out of there.
Bill says Will Power's right side mirror is gone! Video of it. Gone. Some debris ripped it off. Sha. That's kind of close to Will's head, don't ya think? I would have pulled over and parked it if some debris RIPPED OFF A MIRROR ABOUT 24 inches from my face.
Restart? Really? Lap 74! Wake up the queen (or the audience, whichever).
Bourdais has come all the way around the track (aided by the yellow) and is up to 5th now. Now he's fourth and working on Legge and Servia.
KK Cam activated. Kalkhoven in the PKV pits. Very proud of Katherine.
Wilson is 4.4 in front of AJ.
Lap 85. Nelson. Feeling confident. Flash back to friday when he speared his gear box into the SAFER barrier. Crew worked all night to get the back up read. Shout out to the crew.
Lap 87. Nelson passes Bourdais. There's something you don't see every day. Wait a second, Bourdais is back around Nelson. Clearly, Bourdais is toying with the field.
Lap 92 -- Wilson, Oriol, Bourdais, Nelson, AJ, Will Power, Katherine, Ranger, Chuck Zwolsman, Speedy Dan.
Bourdais is all over Servia. Lap 97 goes low. McDonald's team says the car is fine.
Lap 100 -- Wilson, Bourdais, Servia, Nelson, AJ, Power, Legge, Ranger, Zwolsman, Speedy Dan.
102 -- Boudais leads. Pitting. AJ gets some new tire pressure. Oriol gets some wing. Derek says it's "hair-em scare-em time." (?)
Bourdais is now ahead by 15 SECONDS. that's more than half a lap. Legge is in second. There are two cars on the lead lap, Bourdais and Legge.
Lap 116 -- Bourdais is alone on the lead lap. He has lapped the field. Cue the bitchslap music. "Thank you sir! May I have another?"
Lap 124 -- Nelson fifth. Katherine second. Derek says you "daren't back out of the power" now.
128 -- Bourdais is now nearly two laps up on everyone. Bourdais pits. Under green. Comes out of the pits. And is still in the lead. I never even heard of that before. That is the pure definition of a bitchslap.
Boudais leads by 10.6. If this was a boxing match, they'd stop it. Only getting darted from above by a helicopter-launched Maverick missile will stop Bourdais from winning this one.
Legge third. Ranger 4th. Legge pits. Asks for no adjustments. They give her some wing anyway.
Cut to about five minutes of race recap under green. I guess it's better than watching Bourdais put everyone five laps down.
Lap 146. Bourdais may have, in fact, finished the race by now. Not sure. He could pull over for a Big Mac, get out of the car, take off his helmet, get the drink, get back in, get helmeted up and still be ahead. Derek laments the fact that Bourdais can't get a sniff from the F1 people. Seems crazy given the number he continues to do on Champ Car.
Lap 153 -- Yellow yellow yellow. "Debris." What-EVER. Getting rid of more marbles so people stay out of the wall OR a "this is f-cking embarrasing" yellow to at least get Bourdais within sight of second place.
This'll be a 13-lap yellow for debris. Is this NASCAR or something?
Given the hour-long yellows, we're going to a timed race. 24 minutes to go until the b-slapping stops. People who paid to see an entire race are no doubt very excited about having a timed event given that about a half an hour of it was consumed by phantom yellows.
Lap 155 -- Derek, trying desperately to defibrillate this race back to life, talks about how maybe after Wilson pits he may have some even wildly remote chance of running down Bourdais. I love an optimist.
Lap 158 -- Bill with Will Power's people who are very disappointed. Something busted (universal joint). He's toast.
Back to Bill with Will Power. Car was running well. Tell us about losing the mirror. Power says there was a pretty big piece of debris coming at his head. Sha.
Jan -- Carl Russo for RuSport. They have two good race cars out there. Jan asks if it's good enough to catch Bourdais. Carl says he doesn't know, but we'll find out. Jan asks what he's going to do to stay within sight of Bourdais for the rest of the year. Russo says he's going to "Kiss Paul Newman on the lips, that's what I'm going to do." Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Jimmy Vasser: Oriol is great. Katherine is great. It's all great.
Champ Car waves lapped cars around so that lead lap cars can get behind Bourdais. Down to Craig Hampson who says he wishes they hadn't done that. The rules say they do that in the "final laps" in the race but there are still 40-some laps left. "But, they want to put on a godo show for the fans." Craig acts like it will have some remote bearing on the finish of the race.
Craig. Dude. They could wave second through fifth around and put them IN FRONT OF Bourdais and he still wins.
Lap 165, someone wakes up the flag guy and he waves the green flag!
Boudais, Wilson, Nelson, AJ, Oriol, Legge.
Lap 170 Bourdais leads by 1.8 seconds. (Just run the bitchslapping music in the background for the rest of the race.) Let's go to some video for the battle for 8th in a 13-ish car field between two cars who are five laps down. That's how bad it's gotten.
Boudais is now four seconds ahead and steering with his knees. Replay of Nelson getting a major twitch.
51 seconds to go. White flag. Bourdais wins. Shocking. It's like a jolt of electricity through my body this unexpected result. Bourdais says on his radio "This one is for yoooooooou. You gave me the car to win this race."
Down to someone with Bourdais -- leak in the tire. Thought maybe this wouldn't be the day. Car was a rocket ship. Feels so good.
Finish -- Bourdais, Wilson, Nelson, AJ, Oriol, Katherine (Rick -- "Best finish for a woman in the history of Champ Car!") Ranger, Speedy Dan, Zwolsman, Pastorelli.
Wilson happy with second. Nelson happy with third. Down to Jan with Legge. Right after Derek said that Katherine looked like she felt in command at points in the race. Jan -- "Did you feel like you were in command during parts of the race?" Legge --"Hell no." Car was good. Then got some understeer. Big understeer late. Jan -- "What's did it feel like to lead?" Legge -- It felt good but that's just part of my job. It should be like that every time."
Tune in on June 18 to watch Bourdais win at Portland.
Note to everyone: Thisis totally made up. For humor purposes only.
Notes taken during the ESPN broadcast of the Bombardier LearJet 500 from Texas Motor Speedway on 6/10/06.
