I am soooooooo disconnected from Indy. It would be fun if every year the champions of Indy, Nascar, F1, WRC, IMSA, WEC, and maybe DTM/World Challenge/FIAGT.
All get together at Silverstone(or Circuit of the Americas) and swap cars to see who has the best aggregate time after driving each car.
They could call it The Race of Champions.
No no noooo...
Not race random cars but each other's car. So not Vettel versus Button in Xbow but Hamilton in a WRC car comparing times with Kyle Busch (had to google that one) in the same WRC car.
But then the logistics of fitting Kyle Busch into the Mercedes F1 car would be interesting.
Watching them drive equal prepped xbows in a stadium is ok. Just not as fun I think as watching a nascar driven by Hamilton through Maggots-Becketts.
They do drive a variety of cars head-to-head. The cars are chosen by lottery for each heat, I believe. For obvious reasons, F1 cars are not on the menu. But you've got just about everything else, including stadium super trucks.
http://www.raceofchampions.com/cars/
Go watch some of it and tell me you're bored. F1 drivers three-wheeling the hairy stadium trucks and NASCAR drivers in Le Mans cars.
They should put them all in IROC Camaros. :)
codrus wrote: They should put them all in IROC Camaros. :)
They did. That's where the name comes from. There was dodge card used as well.
I think it was all oval back in the day.
wvumtnbkr wrote:codrus wrote: They should put them all in IROC Camaros. :)They did. That's where the name comes from. There was dodge card used as well. I think it was all oval back in the day.
Started out with 911's, prepped, I think, by Penske, and raced on road courses. It degenerated into an oval series, then was dominated by Nascar guys, then died.
wvumtnbkr wrote: They did. That's where the name comes from. There was dodge card used as well.
The "I" in "IROC" was always a bit of a misnomer. There were no F1, WRC, etc drivers in it.
Also, I don't think they ever actually used the "IROC Z" Camaro, that was just a street car that was named after the series.
In the beginning, they did have drivers from all forums. Donahue drove in it. It started will 911s. The IROC Z was sorta based on a car they ran.
I think this is all of them... I'm pretty sure the later Camaros are really rare, because they got rebodied to create the Dodges. And as you may be able to tell from the names, it used to be a pretty wide ranging series.
Al Unser Jr. was able to mix it up with the Nascar guys pretty well. He used to have great races there back in the day, and at one point I think he had the most wins in the series.
I guess, to make this latest threadjack conform to the Formula 1 thread its in... Mario Andretti, Emmerson Fittipaldi and Mark Donohue all ran IROC. Wouldn't surprize me if Dan Gurney was involved early, too.
Streetwiseguy wrote: I guess, to make this latest threadjack conform to the Formula 1 thread its in... Mario Andretti, Emmerson Fittipaldi and Mark Donohue all ran IROC. Wouldn't surprize me if Dan Gurney was involved early, too.
While they are F1 drivers, they are all F1 drivers who were also involved heavily in domestic American motorsports. It's not like Lauda, Hunt, or Prost came to the US to race in it.
Streetwiseguy wrote: I think this is all of them... I'm pretty sure the later Camaros are really rare, because they got rebodied to create the Dodges. And as you may be able to tell from the names, it used to be a pretty wide ranging series.
Missing quite a few, actually. The 911 RSR was 74 only, then the 2nd Gen Crammit from 75-80, 3rd gen Crammit from 84-89, Dodge Daytona from 90-93, Dodge Avenger from 94-95, and the 4th-gen Firechicken from 96-06.
Daytona:
Firechicken 96-97:
Firechicken 98-02:
Firechicken 03-06 (no Pontiac or Firebird branding allowed at all, modified bodywork):
As for drivers, lots of F1 and sports car guys raced, especially in the early years. Fittipaldi, Denny Hulme, Jody Scheckter, etc.
codrus wrote:Streetwiseguy wrote: I guess, to make this latest threadjack conform to the Formula 1 thread its in... Mario Andretti, Emmerson Fittipaldi and Mark Donohue all ran IROC. Wouldn't surprize me if Dan Gurney was involved early, too.While they are F1 drivers, they are all F1 drivers who were also involved heavily in domestic American motorsports. It's not like Lauda, Hunt, or Prost came to the US to race in it.
The original IROC was really the way to go. Put the best drivers in the world in a notoriously tricky car. It would have been great when they got to the later turbo's!
I haven't watched Hungary yet, but I was just watching some of the highlights of the WEC race at the 'Ring. The #8 Audi pulled a total Rosberg as the #2 Porsche went to pass on the outside, refusing to turn in and driving the faster car off the track. No contact was made and both cars were able to rejoin the track, but it kept the Porsche behind. Guess that sort of behavior isn't restricted to F1.
A double edged question- How many points is Kimi willing to give up when he inevitably gets tired of Max and punts him off into the tulips, and, does Max know he's pushing the blocking envelope, but he's going to keep doing it because he's gotten no punishment, either from the FIA or Kimi's front wing?
Lewis Prost did a heck of a job today, too.
I think Kimi got told to back off by Ferrari. 5th is better than DNF. Still, Kimi pulled a really nice move when Max tried to go around the outside after his pit stop - it was the elegant version of Rosberg's clumsy one. No contact, nobody forced off the track - just impossible for Max to get past.
This is the third race where I was surprised that Verstappen didn't even get a verbal warning about his terrible defense skills. No Charlie saying "You are only allowed one move." The moves this time were rather clear and blatant to me. Classic illustration of why they have that rule as Kimi had no where to go after Max's illegal block. Should have been a drive through and points on his license or at least a 5 second penalty. But nothing! ugh.
The whole event just spoiled my view of the FIA/FOM/Event Stewards. There have been bad event rulings but this event seemed to create more safety concerns rather than sporting concerns. So their is Max's dangerous behavour then, Rosberg gets pole despite double yellow flags. This is the same kind of stuff that eventually led to behavour that killed Bianchi. The point isn't that the data shows he slowed. The point is that he was not doing what was safest for all of the people that work the track who want to go home that night. Disgusted by that one. Somehow they think a failed brake pedal shouldn't be talked about to Button. I guess their view is he should have made the decision to just stop the car on his own. Palmer, jeez! from the angle of the camera his reentry deserved a full drive through and points on his license.
@ Streetwiseguy - Yes I think we need someone for Verstappen like Montoya was for Schumacher. Just punt him off track when he tries some illegal junk. Regardless of your race. Kimi was too nice a guy.
I think that Verstappen was blocking a couple times with double moves and I also noticed that Ricardo was weaving on the straight. I think the Renault engine is still lacking.
Perez silly season rumor that he will move to Renault Potentially, I am assuming he would replace Palmer. I think his hopes of Ferrari, Redbull, or Mercedes might be out of the loop with another move (or perhaps he already thinks that). Renault even as a factory team I think will always be behind RedBull and maybe even TR. The engine is still down on power and they haven't been able to put out a decent chassis since Alonso's championship run 10 years ago. No offense to Kmags or Palmer as the car is complete garbage, but unless they get Newey, it might be at best a lateral move.
On one had, with no intervening from the stewards, we do get some rather entertaining radio conversations with Kimi. Which tend to me a lot more interesting than racing at Hungary.
On the other- it sucks that Kimi is getting damaged.
One interesting note of the stewards- penalizing Button for being told that he needed to back down due to hydraulic failure. Or was it- stay out call to figure out what's going on? Brake failure seems like a good thing to talk about. Crud- we have heard many time calls about brake temps.
Crazy.
(and I see we are talking about it)
As for the two guys in front- for once, Rosberg got a pretty poor start. And some great driving between he and Riccardio made for a very fun first two corners. That was cool.
In an interview with Channel 4, Button mentioned that he'd been told the brake problem was a sensor failure and the fix was a change in mode. That conversation wasn't broadcast, but I'll bet it's why he got the penalty. David Couthard told everyone to write to Jean Todt and get rid of the stupid radio rules.
Button sure sounded stressed when he reported the brake problem. Bad day, but he kept it on the track.
The train behind Hamilton at the start was pretty wild. Can't believe that stayed clean, Rosberg just got squeezed out and for once decided not to take someone with him. Nice try by Danny to get in front, but the Mercedes powerplants were just too much for him.
I think the radio rules might be settling down to something reasonable. The mechanics are allowed to work on the car in the pit lane, therefore it makes sense that they should be able to tell the driver things about how to operate the car in the pit lane. Thus, if you want to tell the driver how to fix the car, have him drive through the pits and tell him then. If you have an emergency situation out on track where the car might not make it to the pit lane, tell him immediately and then do a drive-through penalty to balance it out.
I'm not generally a fan of the radio rules limits, but this is something I could live with. It retains the "driver is driving the car by himself" thing they're so keen on, but cuts out the stupid situations where cars get retired because the driver couldn't figure out which button to press.
Ok about the racing.
I thought it was a great race. The start into Turn 1 through T3 was great. Both MB cars going through graining or some dip in tire performance in the softs was interesting. Hamilton was going a little too slow. He is in just tire and engine saving mode until the end of season. Ricciardo was closing strong on the two of them. RB should have let Ricciardo go longer on the softs.
Raikkonen had a great race from the back to the front. Alonso is holding up his end of the contract. The Ferrari seemed to get strong at the end of the race. Just not enough to pass the RBs.
Sainz Jr. has some solid performance from a B team. Just can't get the press to hype him like his red bull codrivers. Even Kvyatt gets more hype. All the top seats are taken.
Palmer is showing some skill now but needs to be carefull. Bottas is solid so maybe Massa will be out next year but who wants to go to Williams? The 2017 car n3ds to be awesome!
You'll need to log in to post.
