IRL Toyota. Powered by - Honda?
06-08-2003, 10:55 AM
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IRL Toyota. Powered by - Honda?
I went to the IRL race last night at Texas Motor Speedway with some friends. (Never been before, but while I'm not into left-turn-only racing it was pretty cool to see the cars at 220mph.) While they were setting up the grid, each team had a tool cart next to the car. Directly in front of us (we were in row 7) was one of the Toyota powered cars. I was vastly amused to find on that cart a generator made by none other than Honda. Looked just like this one:
(We use the 1000W version to power our autocrosses, and damn is that thing nice.)
(We use the 1000W version to power our autocrosses, and damn is that thing nice.)
06-09-2003, 09:25 AM
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Pretty ironic. Probably no Toyota scooters in the pits either.
I've never been to Texas. Also missed the race on TV. Love the IRL and I've been to Indy, WDW, Richmond & Charlotte. Tell me more about the race! Heard it was another "right to the wire" finish.
I've never been to Texas. Also missed the race on TV. Love the IRL and I've been to Indy, WDW, Richmond & Charlotte. Tell me more about the race! Heard it was another "right to the wire" finish.
06-09-2003, 09:46 AM
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Yeah, it had quite a few spectacles.
First there was the pit fire. From what I can tell, the refueling guy had trouble detaching the nozzle from the car, but the front right wheel guy only saw that he was pulling on it so assumed it was okay to send the car out. Fuel sprayed out of the hose when it got snapped off the car, caught fire, the refueling guy fell down and caught fire also. I think he saw the fire and tried to get out of it, but didn't realize he was on fire himself. So all his teamates tackled him to the ground and rolled him around. Lots of fire extinguisher stuff hit him. The paper the next day said he only got a very minor burn on his neck. Good thing they're required to wear full Nomex and helmets. Wasn't it only recently that NASCAR started requiring pit personnel to helmets? And it doesn't matter what sort of helmet - I remember seeing guys wear hockey helmets.
The second thing happened when car #10 (again) was heading into turn 2. All I could tell was that it suddenly stopped turning, left a straight trail of sparks out the back, smaked the outside wall, and came back down and nearly flipped when it hit the inside wall. If I had to guess, I'd say a suspension piece failed and the car started dragging hard bits on the track.
Finally, one of the Panasonic cars tried to go three-wide through turns three and four by diving down on the inside. He ended up bumping into the middle guy who got tangled up with the outside guy - both those ended up in the wall. At the end of the race when the car pulled into the pits, a couple of the other cars revved their engines as they drove past - a sign of disaproval, I assume.
They track people got that last wreck cleaned up with only two laps before the checker - so it was the ultimate sprint race to the finish. The second place car could get a nose out, but never was able to get a clear lead. So #31, who lead pretty much since the previous leader #10 dropped out, took the win with just a tiny margin.
Would have been more exciting if I had an emotional involvement with any of the teams, but it was still pretty fun to watch.
First there was the pit fire. From what I can tell, the refueling guy had trouble detaching the nozzle from the car, but the front right wheel guy only saw that he was pulling on it so assumed it was okay to send the car out. Fuel sprayed out of the hose when it got snapped off the car, caught fire, the refueling guy fell down and caught fire also. I think he saw the fire and tried to get out of it, but didn't realize he was on fire himself. So all his teamates tackled him to the ground and rolled him around. Lots of fire extinguisher stuff hit him. The paper the next day said he only got a very minor burn on his neck. Good thing they're required to wear full Nomex and helmets. Wasn't it only recently that NASCAR started requiring pit personnel to helmets? And it doesn't matter what sort of helmet - I remember seeing guys wear hockey helmets.
The second thing happened when car #10 (again) was heading into turn 2. All I could tell was that it suddenly stopped turning, left a straight trail of sparks out the back, smaked the outside wall, and came back down and nearly flipped when it hit the inside wall. If I had to guess, I'd say a suspension piece failed and the car started dragging hard bits on the track.
Finally, one of the Panasonic cars tried to go three-wide through turns three and four by diving down on the inside. He ended up bumping into the middle guy who got tangled up with the outside guy - both those ended up in the wall. At the end of the race when the car pulled into the pits, a couple of the other cars revved their engines as they drove past - a sign of disaproval, I assume.
They track people got that last wreck cleaned up with only two laps before the checker - so it was the ultimate sprint race to the finish. The second place car could get a nose out, but never was able to get a clear lead. So #31, who lead pretty much since the previous leader #10 dropped out, took the win with just a tiny margin.
Would have been more exciting if I had an emotional involvement with any of the teams, but it was still pretty fun to watch.
the future of too many IRL drivers.
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