Notes taken during the ESPN broadcast of the Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton at Rexall Speedway on July 22, 2007.
pressdog's beer of the race is Newcastle Brown Ale brewed at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, selected in honor of Englishperson Katherine Legge, who sent me a 166 words recently in response to several burning questions.
Video of the Inuit trophy that the winner of the "Canadian Triple Crown" will get after today. CTC is the "championship within a championship" given to the team with the best average finish over the three consecutive Canadian races. Recap. Mont-Tremblant, Robert Doornbos won (Sebastien Bourdais has a snit in the pit after. Allegations of blocking.) Toronto Will Power won after Boudais took the tyres with some help from Mr. Doornbos. Who will win at Edmonton?
Bill Stephens, The Disembodied Voice who comes onto the broadcast at random times is also a pit reporter. There he is on camera. Says the CTC is Team Australia's to lose. Both of their drivers have to finish outside the top 8 to lose it.
Rick DeBruhl, new pit guy. Cameron Steele has the day off, apparently. Says something about RSPORT. Missed it. Michelle Beisner with The Hair. Champ Car Pit Hotty. Newman Haas is a distant third in the CTC contest. Unusually for them to be a distant anything anywhere. Third in overall points as well. Bourdais not worried.
Rick Benjamin and Jan Beekhuis on camera. Points system rewards consistency. Bourdais has had three DNFs this year.
Canadian fly over. We can hear it, but not see it.
Mario Andretti is the grand marshal. Holy Crossing Over. While Marco is getting airborne at Mid-Ohio, Mario is hanging with Kevin Kalkhoven. Mario: "Drivers, start your engines."
Katherine Legge gets air. The earth stops rotating for a split second. Rick says she was into the wall twice this weekend.
Tristan Gommendy is not driving today. Huge wreck in Toronto where Gommendy's car was flipping down the track like a freshly beheaded chicken. Replay of crash on Friday shows nothing. There's Gommendy kind of sliding. Bad video. He's got a fractured vertebra. Pulled him out of the car before qualifying and told him the medical director said he couldn't drive. Not real pleased. Mario Dominguez, who was in town to drive the two-seater, gets the call.
Bill Stephens. Doornbos starts way back in the field. Changed an engine. Car is much better now.
Warm up laps. Will puts the car sideways just to prove he can. Just dicking with it. Screwing off.
Starting lineup: Power, Boudais, Justin Wilson, Graham Rahal, Neel Jani, Bruno Junqueira, Simon Pagenaud, Ryan Dalziel, Alex Tagliani, Dan Clarke, Robert Doornbos, Jan Heylen, Oriol Servia, Paul Tracy, Katherine Legge, Alex Figge, Mario Dominguez.
Standing start coming. Let's light this candle. Lights overhead. Red, red, red, red all dark means we are green-green-green. No one stalls. looks like they are going about seven wide into turn 1. Bourdais around the outside into P1. Total oval pass move. Going to the high side.
Jan says Neel Jani, Master of the Pan Flute, had a fantastic start.
Now Wilson is around Jani.
Lap 2 and still no circus music. Dominquez drives under someone into turn. Who that was is none of my business. Booth guys don't tell me.
Dalziel is on fire up to sixth.
Replay of start. Bourdais swings wide and drives around the outside like he's pulling into the convenience store. Nothing to it.
Bill Stephens with Derrick Walker, team boss of Team Australia. Stephens -- Why did Powers get smoked on the start? Walker -- lot of paint on that side of the track so couldn't get on it as hard. Little wheel spin. Long race though.
Ah, the old "paint on our side of the track" thing. Yeah.
Dalziel spins in turn 1. No stall, though. Keeps it going. Loses about 10 spots. Comes out in dead last. Props for keeping it running and not bringing out the caution flag.
Lap 6 -- The Hat (the crawling race order at the top of the screen) is blinking and screwed up. Like a disco strobe or something. Nutty.
Beisner with Kevin Kalkhoven. Gommendy can't go. What up with that? KK -- Doctors found a crack in one of his lower vertebra. He has a lion heart and is a tough guy and will be back. Pulled Gommendy out of the car as he was going out to qualify and told him he had to sit. Wasn't real thrilled about it.
Jan takes us around the two-mile old airport course. Ultra fast. Very physically demanding.
Visor Cam from Doornbos. Jan LOVES the visor cam since it shows how you get the shit beat out of you on road races. For viewers, it's a great shot of the inside of Doornbos' helmet.
Lap 10 -- Bourdais, Power, Wilson, Neel Jani, Graham Rahal, Bruno Junqueira, Simon Pagenaud, Alex Tagliani, Robert Doornbos, Paul Tracy.
Onboard with Power. You can tell he's saving fuel at the end of the straight because he gets out of the throttle and then waits a split second to get onto the brake That saves bits of fuel. The Disembodied Voice (Stephens) chimes in that Power is becoming the rival of Bourdais for saving fuel. The goal is to run one lap farther than the car behind or in front of you. In Power's case, he wants to go a lap longer than Bourdais.
On board with Justin Wilson. Same exercise. Is he saving fuel? Yes. Jan is on fire about this in-car, save-fuel thing.
The Voice again -- PKV has given their cars a mileage number of 1.9. Jan says that's big-time fuel saving mode. 1.7 is pretty conservative, but 1.9 is insane. Not sure what 1.9 means, but Jan says it's difficult to achieve.
Onboard with Rahal. He's 18, just FYI. Video of Mario Andretti given Paul Newman a ride in the F1 two seater.
Lap 19 -- yellow yellow yellow. Why? None of your business, I guess. The track is yellow. Accept it and move on.
Everyone is pitting. EVERYONE. Bourdais in. Has to wait for Katherine Legge to clear before he can go back out. Sits for a second or more. Bourdais pit boss Craig Hampson may pitch himself off the nearest building. CRISIS. Bourdais gets out. The delay probably means he'll only win by 10 seconds rather than 14.
The yellow as for debris on the back of the race course. Thanks for that memo, finally.
Power will lead on the restart. Lap 21 -- green. Tracy has driven from 14th to seventh. Tracy gets extendo air as he and Bruno battle for 7th. The Voice says that Tracy is a dark horse to win the thing.
Beisner. With the always-jovial Dayle Coyne. Coyne - Bruno's car went to a shaker rig and did some testing.
Lap 25 -- Power, Wilson, Bourdais, Rahal, Pagenaud, Tagliani, Tracy, Bruno, Servia, Doornbos.
Lap 27 -- Wilson is now in front of Bourdais. WTF? Bourdais passed and no air or replay? Power leads and Wilson is second. Rick relives Power going ass-first into the fence at Edmonton last year, causing a cameraman to have to dive off his platform. Champ Car LOVED that shot last year, but no replay here.
Down to Rick DeBruhl and the always-optimistic Craig Hampson. Hampson -- car OK. Pit stop was a tough deal. Great save on the radio telling Sebastien to hold up. Katherine was going to pile right into us.
Jan -- Katherine was doing everything right. Not her fault. In the right lane, headed for her pit.
Jan-Jan-Jan. Katherine obviously should have taken the wall or otherwise sacrificed herself like a samurai for Bourdais.
Mario Dominguez has smoke coming off the back of his car. It might be BLOWN UP, Sir. Going to park it in a safe place and abandon ship. Visor up. Getting out leisurely. Must not be on fire.
Lap 34 -- Doornbos is 10th, pushing Bruno. Lap 35 -- one hour to go.
Lap 40 -- Jani vs. Dalziel. Katherine is stopped in a run off. Visor up. It may be BLOWN UP, Sir!
Lap 41-- Doornbos is all over Serbia now.
Niel Mickelwright with Michelle. Niel -- major changes to Tracy's car overnight. Also to Oriol's car. Working better. Michelle -- can they win? Niel -- Be difficult to win it. Guys picked up three spots in the pits, so maybe pick up some more.
Wilson is reeling in Power.
Lap 43 -- Wilson is one second back. Has a major wiggle. Dirt tracking it.
Lap 45 -- Power, Wilson, Bourdais, Rahal, Pagenaud, Tagliani, Tracy, Bruno, Servia, Doornbos.
Lap 49 -- Power pits. Lap 50. Wilson pits. Lap 51 Rahal pits. Lap 52 Bourdais finally pits. Go mow the lawn. Bourdais is going about two laps farther than the second-place car. Going to take brain lock or an air stike to stop him from winning this one.
Speedy Dan goes flying through the grass. Driving all over the grass. Doesn't stall it. Gets back on the course without darting anyone.
Bourdais now leads by 11 seconds.
Michelle with Mario -- Mario don't know what happened. Something blew up. Gearbox. Not the engine. Had power. Better to park it. Don't want to ruin anyone else's race (by spraying crap all over the track or putting it sideways in front of them.) Good opportunity for me. I got to race.
Katherine Legge is about to get air. A thin crust of ice reported on the sun. Katherine -- this weekend was disaster. Stuck in gear. May be the "dif" (differential?) Same thing that caused her to go off twice before during the weekend. It can only get better for me. "The crew is working so hard, bless them, and I'm working so hard it's got to come together sooner or later." Katherine Legge now has about six times the air time she had all year going into the race.
Suspension cam. A hyper-interesting camera shot of a tire. My viewing is enhanced.
Video of Justin Wilson going carting. The World's Tallest Open Wheel Driver on a go-kart. His knees are around his ears.
Lap 59 -- On board with Justin. About 36 laps to go if it stays green.
Lap 60 -- Bourdais, Wilson, Rahal, Power, Pagenaud, Tracy, Bruno, Servia, Doornbos, Jani.
Tracy is trying to stay ahead of Bruno. Locking up the front left now and then. Rick -- Tracy gets his elbows up as well as anyone in this game.
40 minutes to go. Doornbos and Jani battle for 9th.
Lap 65 -- Bruno goes around Tracy with a big slide job. Wooooo nelly, he goes way wide and Tracy comes right back under him.
Lap 66 -- Bourdais is 8.8 seconds ahead. His pit may radio him to slow down so second place can catch him since he gets ZERO air when he's up by 10 seconds. May actually be bad for his sponsor when Bourdais gets into beatdown mode since he gets no air. Champ Car is smart enough not to focus on a leader who is up by 10 seconds. Snoozer.
Lap 67 -- Power pits. Helmet cam. Something is wrong. Looking at the steering rack. When the pit guys get the allen wrenches out it's not good.
Lap 69 -- Yellow yellow yellow. Turn 1. Doornbos and Tag. Tag dives inside Doornbos and Doornbos closes the door. We got contact. Tag's suspension is trashed. Doornbos spins an stalls.
Pitting. Everyone will come in. Final stop. 28:40 on the clock.
Will Power has some steering issue. He's back out but dead last. Couple of laps down. Tag is out of the car.
Bill Stephens. Tag. -- Started to run out of fuel on the second stint. Got a lap down. Pushing hard. Doornbos shut the door. Had contact.
Lap 74 -- green. 18ish laps to go. Bourdais is back in Dominant Mode. Dressed in leather and chains. Got a whip out.
Lap 77 - Stephens with Will "Ricky Bobby" Power. Steering rack. Something broke. Couldn't turn right to well. Had to park it. Big kick in the guts for us after starting on the pole.
Lap 79 (ish). Jani has zero power to pass. (I admit to drifting off a couple of times here and having to go to the tape.) Apparently Jani stalled on a pit stop. First we have heard about it.
Lap 80 -- Bourdais, Wilson, Rahal, Pagenaud, Tracy, Servia, Jani, Bruno, Clarke, Heylen
Michelle with Jimmy Vasser of PKV. Really happy with everything.
Lap 83 -- Bourdais has led 52 laps.
Lap 87 -- If Pagenaud gets 5th or better than Team Australia wins the Canadian Triple Crown.
Eight minutes. Gripping video of Servia and Bruno for sixth. Jan -- If Servia doesn't make a mistake he should be good until the end.
Stephens says Rahal very excited to be at Edmonton. Loves the track.
Lap 91 -- again with the sixth place "battle" that features two cars following each other. Bourdais may already have finished and be taking a shower right now. Wait, he's up by just 6 seconds.
Last lap. (96) Bourdais set the fastest race lap just for good measure. Bourdais wins. Shocker.
Bill Stephens is on Bourdais before he can get out of the car. Let the guy get out and do the flag thing, Bill, sha. Bourdais -- great win. Great team effort. Bobble in the pits with Katherine wasn't a big deal for McDonalds's team. Car was great. Balance was spot on. That's what won us the race along with great pit stops.
Justin Wilson -- Long tough race. Will had the pace early on. Save more fuel and push as hard as I can. Pleased to get another podium.
Points update -- Bourdais is up by 21 over Doornbos, and by 27 over Power.
Team Australia pits. Pagenaud's third straight fourth-place finish means they won the triple crown.
Rookie of the Year race. Doornbos has 174 pounds, Pagenaud has 143.
Derrick Walker -- Two good results today. Fourth and the Triple Crown win. Gotta finish each race and get as high up as possible (Seriously, Derrick? That's the secret?)
Graham Rahal. Third. Lost radio contact. Had to use the pit board. Last stop he just followed the leaders. Happy with it. (He's just 18!)
Tune in on July 29, ESPN2. 6 Eastern. San Jose.
Another great write up PD. I think Robin Miller had it right when he said other than a pretty statue, what exactly was the triple crown. There was no cash prize!
Also are we about to see another Bourdais 8 wins in a row streak get started or is the DP01 reliable enough for any one team to do that right now?
Posted by: Johnny | July 25, 2007 at 06:45 AM