Conference terri::cars_uk

    
    Well I'll kick this note into life.
    
    Sky Sports have obviously decided that not everyone watching Satellite
    TV is a football fan and have purchased the CART and NASCAR rights for
    1992 (here in the UK, anyway).
    
    They intend to show every CART and NASCAR race this season (some live)
    and kicked off yesterday with the Surfer's Paradise CART opener from
    Australia.
    
    CART, in case anyone doesn't know, is the premier American single
    seater championship. The cars are bigger than F1s (50% heavier at 750
    kg) and have turbo charged engines. They run on methanol and as the
    races are usually longer than F1, they have pit stops for fuel. These 
    are the cars which run in the Indianapolis 500 mile race, which is part
    of the championship.
    
    Sky Sports did a pretty good job, I thought, with a knowledgeable Lola
    director providing studio support (and some sensible questions being
    asked of him) to the US ESPN commentators (Ummmmm.)
    
    The race was fairly exciting (an accident usually leads to a yellow 
    flag period, rather than a stopped race - the cars follow a pace car
    slowly - so some may call the excitement contrived, but it's the nature
    of the beast) with a late shower (downpour!) leading to a number of
    spins and some very brave late breaking to give the win to Emmerson
    Fittapaldi from Penske (cars built in Poole) team-mate Rick Mears,
    followed by Al Unser Jr. Michael Andretti (last year's champion) led
    for over half the race before retiring when his exhaust mainfold broke. 
    
    Later in the day I watched the GP, but the CART race was much more
    exciting than the GP ever got and I, for one, will be following the 
    CART series on Sky Sports (Not sure about NASCAR though, that is a 
    mighty dull series and I _like_ touring cars!, too many ovals I suspect).
    
    Mark

    Mark, 
    
    - are all the CART races on oval circuits or do they vary? Apart
    from the US how many other countries stage the CART events?
    
    -Roy

    
    The only non-US CART races are Surfer's Paradise (Australia) and,
    usually, 1 or 2 races in Canada (I'm not sure if or where this year).
    
    There's a mixture of road and oval circuits, with a split of about 
    60% oval to 40% road. The ovals vary too with tri-ovals, one mile and
    half mile ovals. Some of the road circuits are beautiful (Laguna Seca,
    for example, and one which is near (I think) Atlanta).
    
    Mark

    I was disappointed to see Unser Jr. and Danny Sullivan's cars  fall 
    back rather suddenly after the switch to rain tires, as well as being
    fairly amazed that they continued racing in the rain. 
    
    On U.S. oval CART races rain means race stoppage.
    
    The Galmer (Galles/Merton) chassis seems rather promising on its
    first outing.
    
    Terry

More on CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams):

The PPG Indy Car Championship series has 17 races.  Surfer's Paradise, just
held, was the first.  Here are some of the venues (can't remember them all,
or the precise order):

  Surfer's Paradise, Australia (temporary street circuit)
  Phoenix International Speedway, Arizona (1-mile oval; 200-mile race)
  New Hampshire International Speedway (1-mile oval; 200-mile race)
  Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indiana (2.5-mile oval; 500-mile race)
  Michegan International Speedway (2-mile tri-oval; 500-mile race)
  Nazareth, Pennsylvania (1-mile oval; 200-mile race)
  Toronto, Ontario, Canada (temporary street circuit)
  Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (temporary street circuit)
  Road America, Wisconsin (permanent road course)
  Laguna Seca, California (permanent road course)
  Cleveland, Ohio (temporary street circuit)
  Portland, Oregon (permanent road course)
  Mid-Ohio, Ohio (permanent road course)

Most of the differences between F1 and Indy Car racing relate to two factors:
endurance and cost.  Indy Cars must be built to last through a 500-mile race
at up to 230 miles/hour (top speed at Indianapolis), and do so safely.  This is
a faster speed over a longer period than F1 ever sees, and it is the main
reason why the cars are heavier and have (limited) undercarriage aerodynamic
aids.  Indy Car racing is not run on a no-holds-barred basis, money-wise, the
way that F1 is.  There are conscious efforts in the rules to help contain costs.
Thus turbo-charged engines (cheaper to design and build than 3.5 liter aspros), 
restrictions on body composition, etc.  Indy Car teams also don't have to be
constructors, and in fact most aren't.  Compared to F1, there are a very
limited number of chassis and engine suppliers:

Chassis: Lola (predominant chassis supplier)
	 Penske
	 Truesports (doesn't supply any other teams)
	 Galmer (used only by Galles/Kraco team)

Engines: Chevrolet (Ilmor with a Chevy nameplate)
	 Ford (Cosworth with a Ford nameplate)
	 Buick

Judd and Porsche have supplied Indy Car engines in the recent past, but have
pulled out.
	
--PSW

RE: .9

Your note apparently didn't make it all the way (it says "note is being
written"), but judging from the title, you were pointing out the fact that
Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) just recently changed the name of its
racing and marketing arm to Indy Car, Inc.  Hence the championship is now
the "PPG Indy Car World Series", not the "CART/PPG Indy Car World Series."


RE: .7

I made a couple of mistakes on my venues.  The race in Wisconsin is at the
Elkhart Lake permanent road course.  Road America is in Ohio, and that is
where the Mid-Ohio race is held.  Other race venues for Indy Cars:

	Detroit, Michegan (temporary street circuit, same one that used to be
		used for the U.S. F1 Grand Prix)
	Denver, Colorado (temporary street circuit)
	Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1-mile oval; 200-mile race)
	Long Beach, California (temporary street circuit?  not sure about
		this one)

I think that along with the ones in .7, that's the full 17 venues.


Some other Indy Car racing context:

o The Indianapolis 500 is the oldest and most prestigious of the Indy Car
  races.  It is the race that gives its name to the formula as a whole.  It's
  run on the largest and fastest oval.  The other 500-mile race, the Michegan
  500, is on a 2-mile, unbanked tri-oval.  Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a
  2.5-mile, banked, square oval (4 distinct corners, two long straights, 2
  very short straights).  The extra length and the banking result in much
  higher speeds at the Indy 500 than anywhere else.  Qualifying speeds are
  typically 220+ miles/hour.  Average speed for the race is usually well over
  200 miles/hour.

  The Indy 500 is run differently from the other races on several counts.
  First, it has a different sanctioning body.  The United States Automobile
  Club (USAC) used to sanction all Indy Car races.  Somewhere in the 1970s,
  there was a dispute between the team owners and USAC similar to the FISA/FOCA
  split in F1.  The owners founded CART and started sanctioning their own
  races.  USAC eventually lost all the races except the Indy 500.  USAC rules
  are almost identical to CART rules, but there are some differences.  The most
  notable is that concerning so-called "stock-block" engines such as the Buick
  V6.  In both CART and USAC, these are allowed more turbo boost than engines
  purpose-built for racing, such as the Chevy/Ilmor or the Cosworth.  However,
  the difference is greater under USAC rules than CART.  That is why many teams
  in the Indy 500, which is definitely a power track, run Buick engines (the
  other reason being cost).  Still, the Chevy/Ilmor has won the last several
  Indy 500s.

  The other oddball thing about the Indy 500 is the qualifying.  They drag this
  out over the entire month of May.  There are 4 separate qualifying sessions
  held over two separate weekends.  Cars go out on the track one at a time and
  do 6 laps, two warm-up laps and 4 laps at speed.  The qualifying time is the
  average over the 4 laps at speed.  The team or driver has up to the moment
  that the car takes the checkered flag at the end of the last lap to either
  wave off the qualifying attempt or to accept it.  If they wave it off, they
  can make another attempt later.  The grid is formed from the top 33 cars
  that register qualifying times.  However, the additional catch is that
  all cars that qualify on the first day appear on the grid before those who
  qualify the next day, and so on.  Thus, pole position goes to the fastest
  qualifier on day 1, but that might not be the fastest qualifying time.  That
  happened last year where rain late on the first day's qualifying meant that
  the fastest time was set on day 2, but the driver who recorded that time
  was in the 6th row of the grid.  It's also important to realize that at the
  Indy 500, it's cars, not drivers, that are qualified.

o One of the news items this year in Indy Cars is that Nelson Piquet will be
  driving a Buick-powered Lola for Team Menard at the Indy 500.  The Buick
  engines have a way of blowing up before the end of the 500 miles, but if
  anybody can take advantage of that extra turbo power without over-stressing
  the engine, I'd say it's Piquet.

o The Galles/Kraco team now have their own chassis, the Galmer (named after
  Galles and Mertens, the "M" of March).  It had its debut at Surfer's Paradise
  and Al Unser, Jr. put it on pole.  It looked very impressive throughout the
  race--both Little Al and Danny Sullivan did well with it.

o Cosworth has a new Indy Car engine this year, the XB, to replace their
  venerable DFS, which was once the hottest thing in Indy Cars but lost out
  over the last 5 years to the Chevy/Ilmor.  The Newman/Haas team (Michael and
  Mario Andretti) are running the Cosworth XB.  Another team (Truesports, I
  think) is also using this engine.  Michael Andretti was leading the Surfer's
  Paradise race with it until he retired, due, he said on ESPN, to a broken
  exhaust header, not an engine failure.  However, there was an awful lot of
  smoke for a broken header and many (myself included) suspect that real cause
  of the retirement is that the engine blew up.  Still, it displayed an
  impressive amount of horsepower while it lasted.  The XB is lighter and
  smaller than the Chevy/Ilmor.  Newman/Haas will be running a special version
  of the Lola T92 chassis that takes advantage of this, but it's not yet
  available and they're running the standard T92 for now.

o Ilmor are not letting grass grow under their feet.  The Penske team (Rick
  Mears and Emerson Fittipaldi) are running a new version of the Chevy/Ilmor
  engine (called the Chevy A) in their car.  The other Chevy teams are running
  the older Chevy/Ilmor, now called the Chevy/Ilmor B.

o Both Penske and Truesports have new chassis for 1992 that incorporate
  polyhedral front wings similar to those used in F1 by Tyrrell, Jordan,
  Williams, and Footwork.

Courtesy of the IndyCar (trademark of CART for its racing series) advertisement
in the latest AutoWeek, here is the complete schedule for the 1992 PPG IndyCar
World Series:

22 March	Daikyo IndyCar Grand Prix, Surfer's Paradise, Queensland,
		Australia:  181.545 miles, 65 laps of 2.793 mile temporary
		road course

5 April		Valvoline 200, Phoenix International Raceway, Phoenix, Arizona:
		200 miles, 200 laps of 1 mile oval

12 April	Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Long Beach, California:
		158.65 miles, 95 laps of 1.67 mile temporary road course

24 May		Indianapolis 500, Indianapolis Motor Speedywa, Speeday, Indiana:
		500 miles, 200 laps of 2.5 mile oval

7 June		ITT Automotive Detroit Grand Prix, Belle Isle Park, Detroit,
		Michegan:  length and laps of temporary road course to be
		determined

21 June		Budweiser/G.I. Joe's 200, Portland International Raceway,
		Portland, Oregon:  199.89 miles, 104 laps of 1.922 mile
		permanent road course

28 June		Miller Genuine Draft 200, Wisconsin State Fair Park Speedway,
		West Allis, Wisconsin, 200 miles, 200 laps of 1 mile oval

5 July		New England Grand Prix, New Hampshire International Speedway,
		Loudon, New Hampshire:  200 miles, 200 laps of 1 mile oval

19 July		Molson Indy Toronto, Exhibition Place, Toronto, Ontario, Canada:
		300 km/183.34 miles, 103 laps of 2.87 km/1.78 mile temporary
		road course

2 August	Marlboro 500, Michegan International Speedway, Brooklyn,
		Michegan:  500 miles, 250 laps of 2 mile oval

9 August	Budweiser Cleveland Grand Prix, Burke Lakefront Airport,
		Cleveland, Ohio:  201.365 miles, 85 laps of 2.369 mile
		temporary road course

23 August	Texaco/Havoline 200, Road America, Elkhard Lake, Wisconsin:
		200 miles, 50 laps of 4 mile permanent road course

30 August	Molson Indy Vancouver, Pacific Place, Vancouver, British
		Columbia, Canada:  266.75 km/165.29 miles, 97 laps of
		2.75 km/1.705 mile temporary road course

13 September	Pioneer Electronics 200, Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Lexington,
		Ohio:  199.3 miles, 89 laps of 2.25 mile permanent road course

4 October	Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix, Pennsylvania International
		Raceway, Lower Nazareth Township, Pennsylvania:  200 miles,
		200 laps of 1 mile oval

18 October	Toyota Monterey Grand Prix, Laguna Seca Raceway, Monterey,
		California:  185.98 miles, 84 laps of 2.214 mile permanent
		road course

The above 16 races count towards the PPG IndyCar World Championship.  There
is one other race in the series that is a non-championship race:  The
Marlboro Challenge, a 100-mile race held on 3 October at Pennsylvania
International Raceway.  It is an All-Star event open only to IndyCar drivers
who earned either a race victory or pole position during the previous year
of competition.  Although it's not a championship event, it has a large purse
and a lot of prestige, so it's hotly contested amongst the top IndyCar drivers.

--PSW