pressdog's Guide to Watching Road/Street Races

OK, peeps. This is better late than never, I guess, but it's come to my attention that many Ovulators could benefit from sage tips on how to watch a street/road race without losing consciousness. So here we go.

The big four of road races (note to the anal, I'm using "road race" to cover all non-oval races on temporary street circuits or permanent road course circuits. Simmer down.):

1) Starts and restarts

2) Pit stops

3) Pit strategy

4) Circus Music Moments (also know as Crazy-Ass Shit).

And the Guiding Principle (GP) of Road Races: It's hard as hell to pass on the track.

Keep those four and the GP in mind, and here are some tips on how to watch, maybe even enjoy, street races.

First, the Guiding Principle. If it's hard to pass on the track, you gotta take advantage of those precious few opportunities or pass in the pits.

Let me break the race down for ya:

1.) The start and restarts. If there's going to be circus music in this race, the start is the most likely place. Why? Because it's so hard to pass on the track. The start represents a rare opportunity to pass on the track, and that's like waving red meat in front of starving dogs -- at least some of them are going to do some goofy stuff to get it. Often this resembles slamming your car into a tiny hole in the traffic, gritting your teeth and hoping for the best.

So, lots of potential for tiny clown cars to appear and circus to roll into town on starts and restarts. There's tons of chances that a Festival of Carbon Fiber (trashed cars all over the place) will beak out as well. So much so that the Fun Haters at Champ Car went to a standing start, which greatly reduces the chance for craziness on a start.

The Indy Racing League, however, sticks with the "flying" start, which you need to watch simply because it has been so unspeakably ugly lately. Cars are supposed to come across the start-finish line two-wide and then sort it out at turn one. LOL.

Lately it's been single-file and the IRL don't mind that at all since single-file greatly reduces the chance of goofiness at the start. So the beginning of the race is a great place to make fun of the league for allowing such a heinous-looking start to occur. Ya don't want to miss that.

Same deal for restarts. Again, it's another rare chance to pass on the track so you'll see drivers do some goofy-ass shit. This happens on ovals as well. At Iowa it was basically impossible to pass for the lead on the track, so you saw people going five wide on restarts which lead to the Festival of Carbon Fiber, especially since the league refuses to wave off any start, no matter how ugly it is.

2). From the start, we proceed to the Fuel Mileage Phase. If you're ever going for beer, now is the time. You might even want to leave the house and drive to the store for that beer, because between the start and the first pit stop it's going to be a Lockstepathon. Here's where all the drivers kind of settle in, figure out what is what, get used to the course during race conditions, maybe make some personal calls on their cell phones.

The goal here is to not be passed (Tony Kanaan demonstrated how easy that is when you put your mind to it at Snorenoma. Z-z-z-z-z-z.) and Make Fuel. Making Fuel means going as fast as you can but still saving fuel by coasting in the right spots, being a little slower to get on the brake and gas, etc. Sebastien Bourdais of Champ Car is the MASTER of making fuel.

Eventually, we'll come to the third phase of the race ...

3.) First pit stops. Be sure to be back from your beer run in time for the first pit stops. Pit crews are the real stars of road/street races. Because of the GP (it's hard to pass on the track), passing in the pits becomes a golden opportunity. That means awesome lap times coming into the pits, a freakishly fast pit stop and an awesome out-lap (the first lap after a pit stop).

Here's where some oval-foreign strategy comes into play. Teams can choose to "short-fill" which means not fill the tank entirely with fuel in order to cut the pit stop time and get out in front of a competitor. Teams that are hanging with the leader probably won't short fill in the first stop, but a road race has maybe three or four stops, so keep your powder dry. Teams that are a bit more desperate to pass (if they have pig cars) may short fill just to get "track position" (pass some cars).

If you short fill, you're going to have to pit earlier than the competition in the next round of stops. Generally bad in a road race. BUT, if you short fill and get a yellow, you could win the lotto. Yellows let you get awesome fuel mileage, pit and lose fewer places, and you can pack up after you pit, so it's better.

Short filling and yellows bring us to ...

4.) Alternate pit strategy. The standard strategy is lead the race, full fill at each pit stop and win. That assumes the race is all green. When there are yellows involved, then we can get "off strategy" and that may just screw faster cars. Paul Tracy won a Champ Car race this year that he probably shouldn't have by getting on an alternate fuel strategy and the streeeeetttching fuel to the end. Bruno Junqueira used an alternate pit strategy to get second in a Champ Car race last week. Marco Andretti won the IRL race at Sonoma last year on an alternate pit strategy.

Example:

• Car A isn't the fastest car, but the race strategists roll the dice and bring Car A in to pit on lap, say, 15.
• Then the rest of the field pits on lap 21. Car A stays out and leads.
• Round about Lap 28 we get a yellow.
• Car A pits, full fills and comes out. The leaders stay out because they just pitted seven laps ago.
• Now Car A sitting 10th, but he's full of fuel and the leaders have 9 laps burned.
• That means Car A can stay out probably 9 more laps than the leaders.
• If this scenario plays out late in the race, and we get some yellows that let Car A conserve fuel, he could make it to the end on vapor while faster cars finish behind him.

You can see how it becomes interesting to see if the dice roll will work out or come up snake eyes. When there are several yellows in the race, the strategies take on about a trillion wrinkles. Very cerebral stuff. Do you pit now and pray for a yellow? Stay out and hope the track stays green? Pit now, make fuel, hope for a strong tail wind, make yourself wide and steal one?

If the race stays green alternate pit strategy goes out the window. The fastest car will cycle to the front. But if a festival of Carbon Fiber breaks out, strategy springs up like weeds in an unkempt lawn.

With pit strategy and pit stops ruling the day, we throw in the spice of:

5.) Circus Music Moments (AKA Crazy-Ass Shit). Again, everything goes back to the Guiding Principle. Since it's hard to pass, and the speeds are relatively low, you'll see drivers try some insane stuff to get around people, or push so hard they spin and stall. That causes yellows which feeds into the Pit Strategy above.

So, when to pay attention? At minimum: Starts and restarts and scheduled pit stops. Be sure and focus from the last pit stop to the end of the race, because that's when we find out of any alternate pit strategies are going to pan out. Also, stay alert for yellows since they can touch off some alternate pit strategy that adds interest. And, always have at least one eye on the race in case of Circus Music Moments. Besides being entertaining, they set off a Festival of Strategzing.

Give it a try. Street/road races aren't so bad. Kind of like soccer, which I love to watch ... they require watching in a different way. Once you're onto it, you might just find yourself entertained. Seriously.

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Comments

[thingsthatexplode]

Substitute Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" for "Circus Music", and I think you've got this one positively nailed shut. Well done!

[Johnny]

6. Ensure all racing vehicles have 2 wheels.

[mmack]

"So much so that the Fun Haters at Champ Car went to a standing start, which greatly reduces the chance for craziness on a start."

Pressdog, from what I saw at Road America, all a standing start does is move the carnage from turn 1 to further down the track.

[ramblinman]

Well done pressdog. God, how I long for the superspeedways and 500 mile races. Pocono is long forgotten, California bit the dust and now we lose Michigan. Since Indy is the cornerstone of Indy Cars, we get one chance to see Indy Cars do what they were designed to do. I think the IRL would be wise to promote the Triple Crown, which would require the above mentioned race courses or perhaps a couple of the big tracks down south. Pay a million bucks for winning the Triple Crown. That would give us the race at Indy, the race for the championship and the race for the Triple Crown. I know, it's only a dream. But dreaming is about all one can do during these freaking ass boring road courses. Leave Belle Ilse and such for go karts and put the big boys and girls on the big tracks. Thank God for Chicagoland.

[oldcartfan]

Good job, pressdog.

It's articles like this that keep me coming back. ;)

[Mark in Bowmanville]

Maybe if one paid attention to the fact that NASCAR puts on better races on the road courses, than they do the ovals, you might learn something. Like take off the freaking wings so guys can get close to each other going into and out of corners?

Road racing is a lot more than what was stated here, with guys gaining or losing time and it effecting when you bring guys in. Maybe the odd pass for the lead, which would happen more often, if again, the governing bodies of open wheel, CCWS and IRL took the damned wings off the cars or reduced their effect.