& Clubman Notes

17/06 July 2011 $8.00 LOTUS:11 & Clubman Notes The Official Magazine of Lotus Club Victoria, Lotus Club Queensland Features: Centenary Indy 500 Le Barge Mt Cotton Lotus Type 79 Was Lotus at the Indy 500 this year? Yes they were, and for a while it looked like Tony Kannan could pull off an upset win for the KV Racing/ Lotus team. He finally finished fourth. Lotus will have a bigger presence next year; but I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's the full story. We had arranged our USA holiday to finish at the 100th anniversary of the Indy 500. We flew from Chicago and went straight from the Indianapolis airport to the Speedway on the Friday before the race. This is still, somewhat anachronistically, called 'Carb Day', a throwback to the days when the cars had carburettors. INDIANAPOLIS 500 We paid $20 at the gate and we could go almost anywhere we liked, and that pretty well LOTUS WAS THERE. summed up the relaxed atmosphere at Indy. We walked through the tunnel into the in-field. It is impossible to describe the sheer size of the Speedway; it is truly awe-inspiring. Even though I had visited the track once before (not for a race) I was still staggered by the enormity of the place. A 2.5 mile oval has a lot of space in the middle, and accommodates a golf course, a lake, the F1 infield track, the museum, all the garages, parking for hundreds of cars and, of course, all the infield stands, shops, and medical facilities - and still there is room to spare. After a fuel stop for a hot dog, we headed to the pit straight and found ourselves seats right behind the scoring tower, looking down into pit Page 10 Lotus & Clubman Notes July 2011 lane. That's when I saw the Lotus badges on one of the fuel rigs. I discovered that Lotus has a technical relationship with KV Racing Technology and the Lotus badge and colours are prominent on the equipment, car, and all the merchandise. The cars are painted green and yellow. Next year Lotus will be one of three engine providers to teams in the IZOD IndyCar series, Honda and Chevrolet will be the other two. This year all the cars were Honda powered. We'd just got settled when the IndyCars took to the track for their final, one hour, practice session before the race on Sunday. The grid positions had been decided in the preceding two weeks through the complicated system that the Speedway uses. The big news of the week had been Team Andretti doing a deal with A J Foyt for their driver, Ryan Hunter-Ray, to replace Foyt's driver, Bruno Jonqueira, who had qualified 19th. Hunter-Ray had failed to qualify and this reportedly left Andretti with a serious sponsorship commitment dilemma. So he threw lots of dollars at A J and bought the drive. Weird, but lots of weird things happen at Indy, like the fastest car not necessarily being on pole. Catroneves was the quickest man during the month with an average of 228.611mph, but Tagliani was quickest at the right time and secured pole with a 228.327mph average. Castroneves was 16th on the grid - no I'm not going to try to explain that. Forty-four cars had tried for the thirty-three grid positions. Four women were among the thirty-three that roared out of the pits in front of us: Simona De Silvestro, Danica Patrick, Pippa Mann and Ana Beatriz. Kiwi, Scott Dixon, stayed on top of the times for the hour. With the cars in race trim, 225mph was the quickest average for a lap. Alex Tagliani nudged out reigning champion Dario Franchitti for second fastest. It was interesting to see the crude pit arrangements, the garages are all located away from the track behind the stands; pit lane is just a hotchpotch of little shelters and equipment behind a low concrete wall. And members of the public were wandering around the pit area during the practice session, which I found surprising. Lotus & Clubman Notes July 2011 Page 11 Needless to say there is no end of memorabilia and souvenirs there are the drawings of each winner, the trophies, the display of old available, and as this year was the 100th anniversary of the race, Tee timing equipment, the film... You can spend hours in this place. shirts and hats were selling fast. We found the prices to be reasonable On Friday night we went to St Elmo's steak house, which is the place at around $20 to $25 for a commemorative Tee. Generally we got the for steak in Indianapolis. We had booked months ahead as reservations impression that the memorabilia was sensibly priced. here are hard to get on race weekend. We got talking to the people next An Indy Lights race was on the programme after the practice session, to us. I asked the old guy. but before that there was powerful rendition of the Star Spangled 'Do you come each year?' Banner; the large crowd was completely silent, and most stood with a His reply, ' I haven't missed a race in sixty-four years.' hand on their heart. The Yanks do patriotism well. His was the highest number of years of attendance that we came For the Indy Lights race we located ourselves between turns one across during the weekend, but forty-odd years was not uncommon. On Saturday we had a choice of going back to the track for the driver introductions and autograph sessions with all the legends attending the centenary, or the downtown parade. We opted for the parade, which proved to be great fun and attracted a crowd of a couple of hundred thousand people. Think Moomba with a racing theme and more marching bands. Every one of the thirty-three drivers was in the parade, being presented in rows of three, as per their grid positions, all in open Camaros. Ahead of each row was a huge inflated balloon in and two, in an open stand on the little hill. It is perhaps a sign of the the shape of a crash helmet with the grid row number on it. Try getting tight economic times in the US that many of these cars were devoid a field of F1 drivers to turn up and do that. Lots of past champions were of sponsorship. Indy Lights circulate at an average of around 180mph. also involved including Andretti, Foyt and Unser. Most of the small field of 18 cars were rookies, and it showed. This was Sunday was race day and with it the first of this year's hot weather like a very fast formula ford race, eight managed to destroy themselves, after the tornados; the forecast temperature was for low thirties. We most of them in front of us. Twenty-two of the forty laps were run under were up early with a plan to catch one of the first shuttle buses. The yellow flags and the race finished behind the pace car, but by then we plan worked and we got to the track by 8.30. We wandered around the had given up and gone to the museum. displays, found a TV showing the Monaco GP and eventually made our No matter what you think of oval style racing there is no escaping way to our seats on the inside of the track at the start of pit lane. the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the museum is a By midday there were more than a quarter of a million people at the great place to soak up that history. It is worth visiting even when there track. No, that is not an exaggeration, the speedway can accommodate is no motor race happening. This year a special effort had been made to more than 300,000 spectators and for this event it was close to full. It gather an impressive array of winning cars from the last 100 years. Then is an impressive sight. By the time we had watched the stealth bomber Page 12 Lotus & Clubman Notes July 2011 fly over, then stood up and taken our hats off for 'Back Home in Indiana', On Monday night the presentation awards ceremony took place. We 'America the Beautiful', and 'The Star Spangled Banner' I was wondering watched on TV (our invitations must have been lost in the post). Once if the race would ever start, but then: again every driver was present, along with team owners and numerous 'legends'. The respect that everyone has for Indy, and the Holman-George 'Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!' family who own it, borders on reverential. This whole scene is so different AJ Foyt led the Indy 500 once again, this time driving the pace car. from the bitching and politics of F1 that it is truly refreshing. There were Actually that's not quite true. What looked like a regular Indy car had no snide remarks, no grizzles or excuses and no one sticking a digit in the roared out of the pits ahead of the pace car and did a full flying lap. It air claiming to be number one. Every driver spoke after they received their turned out that this was a two seater driven by Mario Andretti with cheque and all were positive, complimentary about their fellow drivers some lucky war hero in the rear seat. and thankful for their opportunity to run in the 'greatest' race.

Load more