Notes taken during the CBS broadcast of Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland on June 24, 2007.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Montage! Aussie Will Power like his countrymen AC/DC brings intense power from down under (props to Champ Car for working an AC/DC reference in there).
Paul Tracy Fight Club montage. In this corner, weighing in at about a buck fifty, Alex "The Helmet" Tagliani. Also video of the helmeted Bourdais getting into Tracy's grille. Tune in to pay-per-view for CCWS RAW!
Graham Rahal. Love him. Much CCWS love for him. For those of you just tuning in, he just graduated high school. For the rest of us, that would be reference number 102 to Graham's tender youngness. Rahal is from a town about two hours from Cleveland, so he has tons of peeps in the hizzouse, including father Bobby Rahal.
Live from Burke Lakefront Airport, it's the Champ Car Grand Prix of Cleveland.
pressdog beer of the race is Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale, a right-sexy brew from Denver, Colo. Tire Bite is a must buy for the pressdog.
Pit Dude Cameron Steele (or possibly Rick Benjamin) says Sebastien Bourdais is the winningest driver in all of motor sports since 2003. Leads the championship. Leads the number of races won. Leads the number of poles. Leads everything. May, in fact, be prime minister of France as well.
Bill Stephens. Simon Pagenaud, fellow French guy, probably has his ride with Team Australia thanks to Bourdais. Sounds like Bourdais saw Pagenaud in Atlantics, made a few calls, snapped a few fingers, and Pagenaud had a ride. "Zees ees no beeg deal." (Made the quote up. Forgive me.)
Gridding. Rick with Jon (YAN) Beekhuis on camera (Is it Jon or Jan? I keep screwing that up) in Cleveland. Looking fabuloso. Replay of last year's Cleveland race. That would be Paul Tracy going up and over Bourdais' car, smacking Bourdais on the head, knocking him out and sending him to the hospital. Replays. Tracy's car looks like Jaws coming out of the water to devour a skier. Slapped it into climbing gear and went up and over Bourdais on turn 1. Nasty. Bourdais was ok. No major injury. Probably just enraged him so he won every race after that by 18 seconds rather than 10.
Jon. Standing Start. Jon cannot be more enthusiastic about the standing start. Heading into turn one this year at 90 mph rather than the flying start last year wherein they went into the turn at 150. Fewer prospects for a festival of carbon fiber.
Onboard cameras -- Rahal, Will Power, Justin Wilson, Neel Jani (master of the pan flute!)
Starting lineup. Bourdais (on the pole. Try to act shocked.) Pagenaud, Power, Rahal, Robert Doornbos, Speedy Dan Clarke, Paul Tracy, Justin Wilson, Alex Tagliani, Oriol Servia, Neel Jani, Tristan Gommendy, Alex Figge, Bruno Junqueira, Katherine Legge, Ryan Dalziel, Jan Heylen.
Standing start coming. Sequence of lights. Red, red, red, no lights means go.
(I know you're looking at the stunningly hot Miss Grand Prix over there rather than reading this.)
Let's light this standing-start candle. Red, red, red, we are green-green-green. Everyone is away. No stalls. Bourdais leads into turn 1. Jon -- second race in a row that standing start has worked. Been brilliant. We don't lose all the cars in turn 1. He's giddy. Replays of start. Lack of circus music is deafening.
Lap 3 -- Doornbos goes for the pass. Tracy into Rahal. Off the track. Graham keeps it running. Tracy's horns are flying everywhere. He's like an enraged bull out there.
Yellow yellow yellow. Full course. Graham got out in the slippery stuff. Slow way down. Tracy smacks him.
Doornbos gets under Rahal. Tracy tries to duck under Rahal and it's a Spearfest. Snout-first into Rahal's side pods. Jon calls it PT's fault.
Uh, oh. Doornbos black flagged for drive through for blocking. Block party! Race controls figures he didn’t give Rahal enough room. Champ Car Bringer of the Law Tony Cottman is CRACKING DOWN. Tony don't play, MFers.
Lap 5 -- Alex Figge is out of his car. Restart coming. Bill Stephens with Tracy boss Niel Mickelwright. Couldn’t really see what happened. Trying to get passed Rahal. Nose is trashed. Get that replaced and get back at the back of the field. No lost lap.
Restart. Green-green-green.
Jon. Graham blames Doornbos and not Tracy.
Lap 6 -- Spin. Bruno is around. Stalled. Yellow? Yep. Yellow yellow yellow.
Replay. Tracy noses Bruno in the ass. Another front wing is toast. Tracy is a one-man Festival of Carbon Fiber. Move it or lose it if Tracy is around ya.
Tracy won here in 2003. In for a new nose. That would be nose number 2 on the race. Is there a limit? Bill Stephens: Thought the car was fine and now they need another wing. Will stay on the lead lap.
Jon take us around the track. 2.1 miles. Jon -- Track is wide and inviting. Rhythm section going from a runway to the taxiway. Go over a crown there, dicey. Wall on Turn 8. One big thing you can hit here and it hurts.
Trying to get Bruno started.
Jon – if going to gain position your best shot is early on. Everyone bunched. Paul Tracy trying to take advantage of what happened to Rahal and spear city. Second one with Bruno. That was awfully aggressive. (Tracy? Agressive? Seriously? Alert the media.)
Steele in pit. Rahal pitting. Going to top off since he’s in the back o the pack.
Right rear tire changer was at Graham’s christening when he was baby. My viewing is enhanced.
Lap 9 – Junk may be done for the day. He’s taking the steering wheel off and popping the collar. Never a positive sign.
Dayle Coyne -- Weekend getting bad. Now Tracy taken two of them out already. Sixth-quick this morning felt we could have done something. Bruno said not working. Left rear a little askew.
Paul Tracy gave him the chrome horn. The punt from behind. Two for Paul. Bruno is toast.
Yellow remains for debris.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame segment with the Pacific Coast Motorsports dudes, Figge and Dalziel.
Green. Lap 10. Justin Wilson takes a few spots going into turn one. Doornbos gets by Wilson. Onboard with Wilson. 5th on restart. Got 4th from Doornebos.
Justin Wilson is World's Tallest Open-Wheel Driver and therefore one of heaviest. Not fat by any means, but still. When you're a six footer. He's 14 pounds over the minimum car weight.
Doornbos coming in to serve penalty. Drive through for blocking. Has to do it under green. Cottman scowling.
Jon – Champ Car took all the starters because some work and some weren’t. Champ Car going to put them on again some day. For now they took them off.
Tag – moving up. Currently 5th. Started 9th.
Lap 13 -- Bourdais, Power, Pagenaud, Wilson, Tag, Clarke, Servia, Jani, Dalziel, Go Mindy!
Dan working on Tag. Tag and Clarke fighting for fifth.
Dan had a tough weekend. Got into incident last lap with Mario Dominguez last year at Cleveland. Spun in 1-2 all weekend this year. Finally got it hung together.
Cameron -- Paul Stoddard team boss for Dan Clarke and Robert Doornbos. You’ve got to respect the judgment (of the zebras on the blocking call) but I’ve seen the replay twice don’t think he did anything wrong.
Lap 14. Clarke goes inside Tag.
Bourdais leads. Fastest in both sessions of qualifying. Won 2003 and 04 but not in 05 and 06. Leads by 2 seconds.
Justin and Dan for fourth. Dan staying with it. Dan working on it. Staying on it. Dan is right up on his ass.
Lap 20 --- Wilson second two weeks ago in Portland. Bill Stephens -- They are hoping lightning strikes twice on Wilson. New engine last night and hope it works like it did two weeks ago (which was good).
Ryan Dalziel and Gommendy. Gommendy goes off. Tire in the dirt. Bad sign. Tracy coming up. Goes into 11th. Clean pass.
Tracy passes Dalziel. No contact! Dalziel dropped a wheel off and that was all Tracy needed. Jon says there’s still hope for Tracy to win it. (He’s got lots of front wings left.)
Figge is out with gearbox trouble.
Block party! Doornbos. Slow off the corner so he slides over and “defends.” Jon -- Came off off turn one and saw he was slow and drove to the right. OK in Europe but not in Champ Car. The Bringer of the Law may take a close look. But then again he's made his one blocking call for the race. May be well into his second pint by now.
Onboard with Wilson – Has been passed by Speedy Dan who is up to 4th. Replay. Wilson got off into the dirt. And Dan ate him up. Damn dirt is a speed killer, boys. Don't go out there.
Speedy started 9th, now 4th. Dan goes wide. Red sidewalls are about the same as blacks. Most people want the reds off. The reds are always sucking. Supposed to be faster. Usually not.
Dan on camera. Momentum building since Vegas. Everybody got to go testing bug I had to sit in the back by engineering stand and watch everyone else go test. Portland starting coming back and now in top six and running top three in warm-up coming back together slowly but surely.
Stephens – Clarke says winning and running well helps everyone forget all the crazy shit he's pulled before.
Lap 26 -- Bourdais, Power, Pagenaud, Clarke, Wilson.
Leaders will pit soon. Rick - Three stops today. Jon - We have heard from team Australia they will follow everything Bourdais does if they can. Pace themselves and match Bourdais's rate. Pit when he pits etc.
Steele – Reporting on the radio he can’t keep the pace he wants and keep the numbers he wants since Will is pushing him so hard.
Rick – No fuel control knob any more. Jon -- Now have to lift coming into the breaking zone. Save fuel but go fast is hard to do, but they can do it. Special technique. Actually driving harder than you do when you’re full out.
Power is three seconds back from Bourdais. Bourdais may stop this time around.
Lap 28 -- Power will go one lap more than the race leader. Bourdais in first. Rare. Sun freezing. Usually he goes a couple of laps longer than anyone before pitting on first stint.
Cameron – Wasn’t able to hit his fuel numbers. Bourdais in and out.
Wilson in. Pitting from 5th. Fuel takes 9.5 seconds. Wilson out. Steele says one of the crew members pulled the air gun back over the wall and got whapped and went down.
Power in. Tire Changer cam! Killer. Power out. Reds on. Gets to the end of pit row in car and rocks it.
Rahal leads during cycling. First lap he leads ever. PT second. Rahal used fuel strategy to get to the front, but when they pit they’ll probably drop back.
Lap 31 -- Tracy is second, but has to pit. Tip of the hat to Paul Tracy. Off twice, two nose cones and now back up in front.
Ride with Will Power who totally looks like Ricky Bobby. He’s ahead of Bourdais. If you can go a lap longer than Bourdais you can grab a spot. Turned the tables on Bourdais.
Gommendy back in. Bill – Gommendy stayed out longer than Jani. Going with a split trategy.
Wilson two seconds ahead of Bourdais.
Rahal has reds on the front and blacks on the rear. Rick -- Can’t do it. Jon -- Don’t get credit for running reds doing that. Don’t know that you are actually prohibited during the race. Much confusion and scrambling to find out WTF.
Heylen and Gommendy smack. Yellow yellow yellow.
Lap 36. – Gommendy’s right front is askew. Got together in the middle of the final corner. Gommendy took the grass. Came in, car stepped out. Goes across the grass, whips back the other way and spears Heyelen. Holy tank slapper! Whips around and spears Heylen in the sidepod. Snout first into his pods.
Kevin Kalkhoven – Looks like Tristan came out of the pit, cold tires, being pushed and lost it. Jimmy Vasser. Tristan's car was voted the prettiest car out here, at least before the accident.
Rick – HUGE crowds all weekend. Packed house today.
Graham will be 6th. Mixed tires. Cameron. John Tzounakakis. Rahal boss. You caused us a little panic. Not mixed set. Had reds on and smacked into PT and it rubbed the reds right off right rear is black but the red is rubbed off so it's really a red sidewall.
Cottman, Bringer of the Law. On camera. Can’t run a mixed set. Drive through for Doornbos. How did you make that decision? The incident got penalty was blocking Rahal. Would you have been over there if the car behind was trying to pass? Absolutely not. Cottman brings the hammer for the pas in Turn 1 with Graham wherein Doornbos threw a block party.
Steele with Joe Barbieri, Manager, Bridgestone Motorsports. We saw (the black tire in what was supposed to be four reds) on the screen ourselves and Bridgestone tech said it was full set of reds. Can’t run a mixed set. Red just got rubbed off on one.
Bill Stephens. Bruno -- We had a tough weekend car much better. I did really good start. Passed a couple of guys. Not unusual for PT to do a chrome horn with somebody and this time it was myself. Bruno's race life has been sucking since he took the wall at Indy on 2005.
Restart coming. 52 minutes to go.
Lap 41 -- Greene green green
Wilson 5th and chasing Speedy Dan. Onboard with Wilson. Got a run. Looked inside and no. Tag and Tracy side by side. Tag passes and get passed back. Tag has to have nuts of steel to go side-by-side with Tracy.
Tracy is 7th.
Lap 44 -- Power, Bourdais, Pagenaud, Clarke, Wilson, Rahal, Tracy, Servia, Dalziel, Jani, Doornbos, Gommendy, Heylen, Legge, Junk, Figge.
Cameron – Gommendy – Wasn’t a physical problem. Car was difficult to control in the beginning of stint with stickers. Lose the rear of entry of the chicane. When I came back on the track Jan Heylen crashed me. (pretty sure Jan won't agree.)
48 minutes to go. 44 laps complete.
Katherine Legge is out of the race. Saw it on the hat (scrolling running order at the top of the screen). Not sure why. Apparently CBS thinks it's none of my business. If you want a series that treats the female driver like one of the guys, actually one of the guys in a pig car, then Champ Car is for you. If they say "Katherine Legge" at any time during the race other than the starting lineup then I'm shocked.
Power to Pass graphic. MUCH better than last year which was unreadable. Can actually read the names. Jon -- max you can use it for any SQUIRT is 10 seconds. 60 seconds total. Gives 50 extra horsepower power to pass. Want to save it as long as you can.
Top two are .7 apart now. Power did an extra lap on first stint. If he can do it again, big advantage.
Pageneaud third. Qualified second. Pagenaud on camera. Parents, best friends, sponsors from Belgium are all here. Very good. Enjoyable. Really enjoyable.
Simon repainted his helmet bright red on the top of the helmet so his friends an family watching in France can see it.
Speedy Dan is 4th. Good run for him.
Cameron Steele. Dan boss. Vince Kremer. Dan coming in soon. Not talking about the strategy.
Bourdais 0.37 behind power. He’s like a shark back there.
Hole in the Wall Camps. Pledge amount for every lap that your fav driver leads. Go to the Champ Car Web site (www.champcar.ws) and try your best to find it (I cannot find anything on Champ Car's Web site, frankly.) Interesting idea, though.
Pagenaud is closing on Bourdais. It’s now officially snowing in hell. So Bourdais is the Team Aussie sandwich. Power in front. Pagenaud in back. The big Mac in the Aussie Vineyard’s sammich.
Jon this is going to get good fast. Very Dalyish statement. What we need is a "Clear the decks and go at it boys! It's a street fight now!" I miss Double D at times like these.
Steele (I think): Pagenaud is on a training regimen and is eating better. Two hours of training per day.
Jan continues to channel Daly. This is going to be great. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Wanting to see someone give Bourdais a run for the money. Team Australia one in front on reds and one in back on blacks.
Lap 55.
Tristan Gommendy. -- One of those things. Made a mistake went off into the chic and I happen to be there. Wrong place at wrong time. Good strategy. Team did a good job. Off sequence. Shame team did a great job.
Jon - Manhole cover in between the chicane. Short cut that hit the manhole cover and that will kick ya up.
Bourdais is 0.8 behind Will now.
Leaders will pit in a couple of laps. Rick says 32, 33 laps of racing left if they stay green. Can go 26 or 27 laps on a tank.
Pagenaud pitting. First of the top three.
Stephens. Reds ready to go.
(I'm watching this on Race Director since I was stuck in traffic outside the Iowa Speedway Sunday during the race, but I gotta say Race Director has issues. Locks up on me often. Just locked up on me again causing me to have to do a work around to get it going again. Annoying. I alerted the Race Director Tech Posse but breath is not being held).
Pagenaud in the pits. Creeps a little. Fishes out of the pit row.
Tag. Is good. Needs 5 or 6 laps of caution to go the distance.
Bourdais in. Lap 57. Car is pushing. 11.1 second stop.
Wilson in. Out. Power in. Bill Stephens. -- Going to the blacks. 8.8. May have short filled.
Rahal in. Lives two hours away from here. Many family members in. I hear he recently graduated from college.
Tracy leads. May be able to make it the distance after he pits. Depends on how long he can go before pitting.
33 minutes to go. Lasted pitted on 35 now on 60. He could be looking really good here. Could roll the dice and come up boxcars on this deal.
Lap 60 -- Tracy, Power, Bourdais, Servia, Jani, Pagenaud, Doornbos, Dalziel, Rahal, Speedy
Tracy may pit this time. Tracy in. Says he has understeer. No changes. (Tracy's motto: Just drive the bitch.) Blacks. Filled. Out.
Lap 62 – 25 more laps of green. Tracy could go the distance from here.
Jon – if he gets home from here, and leaders have to pit, he will VAULT to the front.
Jani tries to take Servia. No.
Stephens -- 29 minutes to go. Much calculating. Niel Mickelwright says Tracy definitely needs more fuel to make it to the finish.
WTF? A side pod comes off Serbia. Debris on the race track stays green. Pod over just peals off. Replays. Just breaks loose. Jani has to activate Escape Maneuver Xray Bravo Tango to avoid the flying shit. Servia has a very Mad Max look now.
Servia pitting. No new side pods for Servia. Couldn't get the jack to work. Have to manual jack it. Circus music breaks out. A tiny car pulls up and nine clowns get out. Crazy.
Speedy Dan spins into the grass. Only a matter of time, really.
Bourdais off the track. Holy shit. Borudais is off. Yellow yellow yellow. Sun starts to crust over with ice. Bourdais may DNF. He’s going to need help.
Power, Pagenaud and Tracy lead.
Bourdais has a mechanical problem. (Race Director crashes again here.)
Speedy Dan is restarted. Probably put it into the wall restarting.
Towing Bourdais. Trying to bump start. Tried to restart. Stalled again.
22 minutes left.
Cameron – Borudais's pit says the car lost oil pressure and automatically shuts down when it happens.
Craig Hampson – Too busy to talk. Going to see if they can get it refired. Bourdais coasts in. Cowling off.
20 to go. Power pitting. Should be his final stop. Splashing. Going.
Tracy is first. Rahal. Doornobs.
19 minutes to go. Bourdais still in the pits.
17 laps to go.
Restart? GREEN
16 minutes to go.
Can Tracy go all the way? Stephen. Niel Mickelwright. Can he go all the way? The way look now on the cusp on making it all the way without stopping. If we had another yellow it wouldn’t break my heart.
(race director blows up again)
Aussie Vineyards can go full out. They pitted so the have plenty of fuel. Look for them to bring the heat behind Tracy.
Oriol still racing without a side pod. Welcome to Thunderdome.
Lap 74
Cameron. Sebastian Bourdais may get back out to collect some points. He’s in 12th six laps down.
Power gets sucked up by lots of people. Got an engine issue. Tire down. Left front Bridgestone down. WTF? Sucks to be Will Power.
Borudais is out of the car. Done for the day.
Derrick Walker. No contact. The tire is locked in the front. Power in. Just tires. And out. Too late. Game over for Will Ferrel, er, Power.
Bridgestone renewed as tire supplier to 2009! Power is thrilled given the quality of his tire.
Graham Rahal is charging. Like he’s going to pass Tracy. May have to pit.
Rahal will have to pit barring a ton of yellow.
Tracy locks them up going into the turn. Tracy may be told to let Rahal go. Yeah. Right. Tracy is going to let Rahal go.
11 minutes to go.
(Race director blows up again.)
Cameron with Bourdais – Just engine let go that’s it. Don’t know what failure is. Let’s go that it. It's BLOWN UP, SIR!
7.5 to go.
Tracy, graham. Doorknobs, Jani. Wilson. Pagenaud.
Race director freezes.
Cameron – Paul Stoddard can go all the way with the field. Doornbos is good to go to the end.
Stephans. Jani. Mark Johnson. Fuel – Little more confident. Pretty good shape. Hope we have 5 laps left.
5 minutes to go.
Rahal pits.
3.5 minutes remaining.
Splash and go.
Tacy still out.
Tracy, Doornbos, Jani, Wilson, Pageneaud, Tagliani, Rahal, Servia, Dalziel, Power, Clarke.
Jon -- Tracy leading the race because he punted to people on the first couple of laps.
Doornbos working on Tracy. Working on him with a fevered frenzy. Driving like a great white shark that smells blood in the water.
2 laps to go. Tracy has run 23 laps. Doornbos doesn't have to have to save fuel so he’s flat out.
Last lap. Doornbos on his ass. Lots of power to pass left. Expect to see the afterburner soon.
Not hitting the button. WTF? Has a boost left and doesn't use it?
Tracy wins. Tracy wins. Why didn’t Doornbos hit the p to p? Still got 35 seconds in the bank. Didn’t use it.
Tracy. Doornbos. Jani. Pagenaud.
Tracy out.
I made a couple of pretty bad mistakes at the start I got into Bruno which was bad and also Graham. Really thought we were out of it. Team did a great job on the strategy and kept me in the race.
Been long time coming. Waiting for this win for a long time. Didn’t come in the right way but take what get.
Tracy, Doornbos, Jani, Wilson, Pagenaud, Tagliani, Servia, Rahal, Dalziel, Power.
Stephens. Doornbos. Why no power to pass? I wanted save it to the end. Matter of timing. Last couple of laps felt I could push when I needed wasn't there any more. Great team job. Great run.
Bill Stephens. Come on. Follow up. He pushed the button and nothing happened or he thought hew as out of P2P and didn't push it? Dude, ask him.
Jon -- Either didn’t have it or didn’t work. (no shit)
PKV. Neel Jani, master of the pan flue. Gets bronze. The team did a great job. Red Bull car run really well. Some little problems great strategy. KK looks on.
Championship points race. Bourdais still leads, but just three over Doornbos. Then Power, Tag, Justin and Servia.
Tune in July 1, 2 p.m. Eastern ESPN for Circuit Mont-Tremblant in Kay-Beck (Quebec) Can-a-da.
Great write up P-Dog. The disappearance of the much vaunted onboard starters and Doornbos's mysterious disappearing Power to Pass certainly don't bode well. Ugh.
P.S. Awesome Jani nickname/title. I vote it becomes official.
Posted by: Johnny | June 28, 2007 at 09:27 AM
Har. I realize that some dude named Zamfur or something is the real Master of the Pan Flute, but it seems to fit with Jani. The disappearing P2P was nutty, 'cause Doornbos had him. Even Tracy said he was cooked at the end. Somebody got some 'splainin' to do.
Posted by: pressdog | June 28, 2007 at 09:30 AM
Great write up, as always. I attended the race .... seated in the grandstand with the Indeck (Tracy, Servia) pits directly in front of us .... let me add a couple of things CBS missed ...
1) Servia's car had a problem with the in-car jacks at every pit stop. On his first stop the car came off the jacks while the Left Front tire was off the car. Crew had to lift the car to get the pit jack under it. Same problem on the 2nd stop, by the third stop the crew just used the pit jacks.
2) Best part of the race .... when the safety crew towed SeaBass's car into the pits almost everyone in our grandstand cheered ... we were all DELIGHTED to see him out of the race ... no love lost with an Ohio crowd for a whining Frenchman .. =8-)
Posted by: Steve Barnes | June 28, 2007 at 02:17 PM
No big surprise on why Doornbos didn't pass Tracy at the end of the race, Pressdog and everyone else. He probably figured the way Paul Tracy was driving, if he tried to pass for the lead Tracy would throw the mother of all chop blocks and punt him into the tires or wall. Better to finish second and bring the car home in one piece.
With all the pieces he had to replace on his car, has PT used up the reserve of DP-01 parts Panoz built up during OWRS's six week layoff?
Posted by: mmack | June 28, 2007 at 02:19 PM
Awesome additions, Steve. Any relation to John? You could see the crew humping the manual jacks on TV but the CBS crew seemed oblivious. DP01 may have some issues. Doornbos' phantom Power to Pass. The Jack thing. The Dead Cosworth on Bourdais. I have to admit I enjoyed seeing someone else win, even Tracy.
Posted by: pressdog | June 28, 2007 at 02:20 PM
Super job Pressdog.
I can't watch the race here in England but your write-ups are better than being there. Well maybe not better but cheaper for sure.
Keep up the good work, cheers.
Posted by: Tristan Da Cunha | June 28, 2007 at 02:26 PM
Nope ... not related at all to John Barnes (I assume you mean the Panther Racing guy) ... on the issue of the on-board starters ... I asked a mechanic in the paddock on Friday (you could see the starter on an engine the Aussie Vineyards team had as a spare) why it seemed like no one was using them .... his response was that the cars carry such small batteries that there is NO WAY they could produce enough "juice" to restart an engine. He said their team had told the drivers NEVER to use the starter ... wait for a push start or the external starter to get the engine going again.
Posted by: Steve Barnes | June 28, 2007 at 02:43 PM