Notes taken during the ESPN-ish broadcast of Champ Car Grand Prix of Belgium, Zolder, Belgium, August 25, 2007.
Welcome to the Race Director version of Champ Car Belgium. It's 7 a.m. Central time, so the pressdog beer of the race is actually Millstone Black Onyx Organic coffee. Tasty. A day earlier I had a Wittekerke, authentic Belgian wheat ale, in honor of the race. Five percent alcohol by volume brewed in Bavikhove, Belgium (168 km east of Zolder! pressdog is a yahoo maps jockey!).
I have to watch via Race Director because I don't get ESPN Classic. Race Director coverage starts with a stunning shot of the lower half of a person sitting in a chair. Someone has obviously laid down a camera that is now live. Hope this person doesn't do anything nutty.
No audio. Someone picks up the camera. There's Bill Stephens who must have won the Budget Lottery and got to go to Belgium. Pretty sure booth guys Rick Benjamin and Jon Beekhuis are back in the US at a studio some place.
I think Stephens is about to talk to Tony Cotman. Probably about Speedy Dan Clarke getting mental in practice and getting banned from the race for it. I have no sound, though, so I can't tell what the hell they are talking about. Not even sure it's Cotman since my Bringer of the Law identification skills are still weak. No graphics on this feed either. Interesting.
Starting lineup: Sebastien Bourdais (another pole? What a shocker), Will Power, Robert Doornbos, Bruno Junqueira, Justin Wilson, Alex Tagliani, Paul Tracy, Neel Jani, Simon Pagenaud, Oriol Servia, Jan Heylen, Mario Dominguez (Champ Car's designated driver filling in for Speedy D), Graham Rahal, Tristan Gommendy, Katherine Legge, Ryan Dalziel, Alex Figge.
Now we're in-car with random people and still no audio. Justin Wilson pulls up to the line. I guess we are going to light this audio-less, camera-feed-screwed-up-candle. I guess we're green-green-green.
Now we're out the back of Power. Still no audio. I think I can faintly hear the director.
Lap 3 -- We got audio! Rick and Jon. Talking about Tracy going off. Still in car with Power though. I'm starting to feel schizophrenic. Rick/Jon are talking about the parade of engineers that have come to Forsythe to try and right that listing ship.
Bill Stephens talks about the chicanes here that are named for famous people. I can hear Jan and Rick.
Replay of Bourdais getting airborne in practice that I can't see.
Lap 10. Now we got the regular program feed (finally out of the in-car stuff) but no sound. Might be a long race.
Lap 11 -- Finally. Camera and sound. Still no graphics, but I'll take what I can get at this point. My alternative is to stay up until 1 a.m. for the replay or tape it and watch Monday.
Heylen, the home-town boy who grew up near the track, had his best finish (6th) last week.
Rick -- Heylen's team may grow to a two-car team next year.
Rick -- (talking about some of the goofy video, audio) -- one of those things that happen when you're using satellite communications all the way from Belgium.
Stephens -- Heylen has a logo that says "Wheels" on his car. That's his father's and uncle's restaurant nearby.
Lap 15 -- Bourdais, Doornbos, Power, Wilson, Bruno, Tagliani, Jani (master of the pan flute), Tracy, Servia, Heylen.
During the commercials I can hear Rick and Jon talking in the booth. They say very little. May know that they are going out on Race Director. Jon says he keeps losing Champ View.
Lap 15 -- yellow yellow yellow? This is during a commercial. Jon -- Why? Don't know. No video of a wreck. Shows the pace car with much enthusiastic French via loudspeaker in the background. Jon -- must have had a curb come up. I can also hear Bill Stephens talking to the pit guys. I start to hope they don't say something untoward.
Back on the air. Full course yellow for track damage in turn 5.
Rick reminds us that the teams are competing for the prestigious Phanos European Team Cup. This race and the next in the Netherlands. Best points for the team wins a handsome trophy and a 7-day stay at a Phanos resort for all team members. Not bad. Phanos is hoping hard that will be Dale Coyne since his team consists of about six people and a couple of unpaid interns.
Jon -- every car will stop on this yellow. Jan -- If every car stops, it's going to be "hair 'em-scare 'em time!" Little tribute to the Double D, Derick Daly, there.
Entire field does pit. Bourdais in and out. Wilson and Power battling. Bruno in in fifth. Out in 15th. Ah, not so good. Not sure why.
Unseen video here of Bill Stephens being a front wheel changer. Can't see any of the taped-earlier stuff on the Race Director feed. I imagine my viewing would be enhanced. Sounded pretty good. Dominguez (driving for Speedy Dan) loses about four spots in the pits as well.
Mike Cannon, Bobby D Doornbos' pit boss. Car very very balanced. Everyone will wind up on pretty much the same strategy today.
Jon -- Bridgestone red sidewalls have higher grip (allegedly) but go off faster. Don't want the reds on a long run.
Lap 19 -- Green. Bobby D -- Unseen video. Talking about Zolder being where he got his racing license. Tore up daddy's car. That was seven years ago.
Rick -- seven years to get to the top level of motor sports, the Champ Car World Series. (You can almost here Kevin Kalkhoven throwing Rick a cookie).
Lap 21 -- Jani is working on Tagliani. Here I kind of piece together that Dan Clarke totally crushed Heylen's car during practice. That must have led to the ban. You FOR SURE can't smash the hometown draw's car and not get smacked. Cotman brought the law. (Unless, of course, you're Bourdais.)
Bruno and Mario lost about 10 spots on the last pit stop.
Rahal passes Heylen. He must not know Heylen is the hometown guy.
Lap 25 -- Figge into the dirt. It was only a matter of time. Yellow yellow yellow. Turn 1. Helmet cam! Super useless view. Rick insists it's a great visor cam from Jan Heylen.
Busy for Heylen. Unseen video of a mob scene at the Champ Car autograph session. Heylen grew up 20 miles from the track. Great to come back to Belgium and do a home race. Great to see all the fans come out.
Rick says Heylen is almost a national hero.
Helmet cam again. Still sucks.
Lap 26 -- Pitting. Tag, Tracy, Servia, Rahal, Junk and Dominguez pit. Leaders stay out.
Rahal's pit stop sign thing that he drives up to in the pit is an American flag. Nice.
Rahal got no new tires. Splash and out. Gets him out in 10th behind Katherine Legge who did not pit.
Lap 28 -- Green. Figge is back on the course. Bourdais has 30 poles in five seasons. Jan -- if there is a yellow in the next five or six laps it puts the people who just pitted in the catbird seat.
Rahal around Legge. Legge gets about two seconds of air. Cars go three wide in the back stretch behind the leaders, but the camera goes with the leader. Tracy around Legge. She's dropping like a rock. Servia also dropping. Down to 15th. Now up to 13th. May be a timing and scoring thing.
Heylen gets major air this race. Major. Legge begins to think of places in England Champ Car could race. During a commercial, Rick and Jon talk with some guy about when the pit window will open.
Jon to Rick during the break-- I know what's wrong with Champ View and I can fix it next time. I didn't give you the server change. (Jon apparently does his own IT work.)
Jon -- Man, he's (Bourdais) off to the races.
Lap 35 -- Bourdais up by 4.2 -- Bourdais, Doornbos, Power, Wilson, Jani, Pagenaud, Heylen, Gommendy, Dalziel (!), Rahal. Legge is back down to 16th.
Bourdais has led every lap so far. Jon -- Bourdais made a statement in qualifying. Now just stay consistent and make the fuel numbers.
Bourdais is up by 4.7. If Christ Returns Right Now graphic that shows the points if the race ends now, which it won't. I can't see the graphic, mind you, but I can hear them talk about it.
Bourdais is about to lap Figge. Rocketsports and RuSPORT will split back up again next year or soon, sort of.
Lap 39 -- Doornbos pitting. Bourdais goes one lap farther. Shocker. He's now up by 7.5 in front of Power who inherits second.
Lap 40 -- Bourdais in.
Lap 41 -- Legge in. May be an extendo pit stop. About here is usually where her car blows up.
Bourdais back out in 9th. He'll run everyone down anyway. Even before they pit. Rahal leads due to his second-yellow pit stop.
During the break, Rick says to Jon -- Maybe lightning will strike. You never know.
Basically sums up the reason to keep watching since Bourdais is going to win this barring freakish fuel mileage or some other lame win by someone else.
Lap 45 -- Tracy's car maybe smoking. Jan says Champ View keeps crashing. These open mics make me nervous. Seriously. Rick and Jon are doing well to keep from saying something goofy.
Lap 47 -- Rahal in. 36 minutes to go. Lap 48, Bourdais leads again. Order restored.
We got a rear wheel running free on the track. Run free little wheel, run. Yellow Yellow Yellow. It's Mario's wheel. He's pulled over on the side of the track, sans wheel.
Talk about Katherine Legge losing a wheel twice during the morning warm up. This fits exactly with her year from hell.
Lap 50. Leaders pit. 28 minutes to go. Pagenaud didn't stop. Jon thinks there was bad radio comm there because now he can't make it to the end. (Later confirmed by team boss Derrick Walker.) How long will Pagenaud lead? I predict Bourdais leads again in seven laps.
Lap 52 -- we are green. 23 minutes to go.
Heylen visor cam. Still useless. Rahal now sixth behind Bourdais.
Lap 54 -- Bourdais puts a ballsy move on Bruno. How do you say "giant set" in French? Bourdais comes underneath Bruno. Bruno got way fishy and had to get on the binders. Could have been bad.
Rahal is now working on Bruno. Jon says there are reports of a few drops of rain. Much discussion of how the pit for rain tires thing would effect everything.
Lap 56 -- Power gets a couple of tires off. Dirt flies.
17 minutes to go. Paneaud leads.
Lap 57 -- Pagenaud, Heylen, Gommendy (all have to pit for sure), Bourdais, Bruno, Rahal, Wilson, Power, Servia, Doornbos.
Lap 58 -- 15 to go. Rick says there is a packed house in Zolder today. Bourdais around Gommendy. Not waiting for him to pit. Wilson gets a two for one! Around Bruno and Rahal. (Possibly Gommendy and Rahal. My notes are fuzzy here.) On the power to pass. Tries to get by Junk. Gets way squirrelly and has to give the two spots back up. Insane. But pretty ballsy to go for it there. Now Wilson loses another spot.
Lap 61 -- 11 minutes to go. Bourdais is second. Gommendy pits. Pagenaud will have to pit soon and then Bourdais will be GONE.
Lap 63. 9 minutes to go. Pagenaud pits. Bourdais leads. Say good-bye.
Bruno in second place. May be able to make it on fuel. May not. Big question mark. This is The Drama for this race. Bourdais is gone. He'll be showered and into his second beer by the time the rest of the field finishes.
Gommendy is done for the day. Not sure why. Bourdais now leads by TWELVE SECONDS. Jon says Bruno is probably saving fuel in second and stacking everyone up which lets Bourdais basically leave town.
Stephens -- Bruno had a lot of top ten cars this year. Racing for a team that can't compete in terms of budget.
Lap 66 -- Four minutes to go. Bourdais now leads by 13 seconds. Jon -- Pit is telling Rahal that Bruno can't amke it on fuel.
Lap 67 -- three minutes to go. Rahal looks inside Bruno. Bruno "defends." Not so illegal in Champ Car, apparently.
Lap 68 -- Rahal may be radioing in wondering when Bruno will pit. Not going to now. If you go this far, you finish or run out of fuel. Either or.
Jon -- Everyone behind Bruno may not be confident on fuel either so they'll have to pick a spot carefully if they want to pass (without using up all their fuel).
Lap 68 - If Bruno hangs on it will be the best finish for Dale Coyne racing. They had a couple of thirds before.
Bourdais is now up by 13.5 seconds.
Lap 68 -- 2:35 to go. That's a couple of laps, maybe. Can Bruno make it? He's going to stay out and either make it or run out of gas, one of the two.
Bourdais wins. 13.65 seconds ahead of Bruno. Rick -- we assume that Bruno got second. Part of the magic of calling a race that's happening on the other side of the world.
Finish -- Bourdais, Junk, Rahal, Power, Wilson, Servia, Doornbos, Pan Flute, Tag, Tracy, Legge (11th! I think that's a season best), Pagenaud, Local Hero Heylen, Figge, Dalziel, Go Mindy!, Mario.
Mrs. Bourdais is in the house! Gets some hugs from the team. During a commercial Bill Stephens says that Bill Howard (whoever that is) said to Wilson "I don't know how he made it."
Bourdais does a little burn out. Not sure if the others have even finished yet.
Bourdais with Stephens. Bourdais -- Three for three in Europe. Going really well. Another pole and win for the McDonald's team. Pass on Bruno -- Bruno was having to save fuel and I now Bruno is very fair and I got inside him and he didn't close the door. (Yeah, huge props to Bruno for that. Bourdais got him fair and sqaure and Bruno didn't hip check him.)
Bruno -- Keeping Rahal behind me and getting great mileage was very hard. Dale played strategy and it worked out very good. Second place for the team is best ever. Happy.
Jon says Rahal may have had opportunities to make a move on Bruno if he didn't think Bruno was going to run out of fuel.
Rahal -- When we didn't have to save fuel we were moving through the field. Bobby is apparently there, although I can't see dick.
NHL takes the lead in the Phanos Cup with their first and third.
Tune in at 7 a.m. Eastern Sept. 2 for the Bavaria Champ Car Grand Prix at Assen, Holland, the Netherlands. ESPN Classic. Better load up on some Bavaria beer for that one. Re-air on Friday, 1:30 AM Eastern on ESPN 2.
Pressdog,
With your one column you have neatly summed up everything that's wrong with CART/OWRS/CCWS/Well, F1 is on at 7:00 AM in the US so don't give us crap. Overseas races run at 0 dark thirty in the AM in their primary market shown on ESPN Classic (which was taken OFF Comcast in the Chicago market) and a third rate Race Director site that misses all the action.
You know what, the Three Stooges should just give Bordais the championship trophy now and save themselves the time and money.
Posted by: mmack | August 27, 2007 at 08:59 AM
Funny, I read your take on the block party in Sonoma, and this little shindig in Belgium, and I have come to a few conclusions;
1) Racing broadcasting for the IRL and Champ Car just plain sucks. I am sure if you had the regular TV feed, there still would be enough silly crap in there to make you nuts. That said, in this case, I don't think Benjamin and Beekhuis are that bad...they obviously could torpedo a few careers including their own if they really said what they thought.
and 2) The management of both series is sometimes hit and miss, but give me Cotman over Barhart any time, for as bad as CCWS is, they have no problem giving drivers real discipline and explaining the punishments to the public. Cotman's rules on blocking have worked very well, and I notice you say very little on blocking, so I must think it didn't really occur....or was that just TV missed any blocks?
The tv sucked, but other than Bourdais running away, it doesn't sound like it was a bad race. Maybe I missed something in the translation...in your assertation.
Posted by: Mark in Bowmanville | August 27, 2007 at 10:53 PM
I gotta toss in a somewhat off-topic comment on the Champ Car race (and yes, the coverage just *sucked*).
Poor beleaguered Katherine Legge, although she made her usual laments, actually improved her performance a lot. She finished the race with her car in one piece, she finished on the lead lap, and her position didn't end in "-teenth".
From rumors, apparently her old car was not repairable after the pit fire, and she is now driving the one Bruno Junquiera had, with Bruno in a new car. Better equipment = better results. Now we'll see if she can improve on that at Assen.
Posted by: Jahuti Rhys | August 28, 2007 at 06:02 PM