Friday at the track

Well, all things considered it was a pretty good day at the track. I’m not specifically talking results here, but more the overall mood of the series following the incident of last week. The day more or less kicked off with a press conference with Dr. Pinderski as well as Rusport President Jeremy Dale and while Cristiano continues to be unconscious, Pinderski stated that perhaps he’s doing better than what would normally be expected at this time. Of course, Robin Miller had to ask Jeremy about who is going to fill the number 10 car for the rest of the year and Jeremy said it’s a decision they were going to start thinking about after the weekend, within the next 7 days. From the sounds of things folks, don’t go banking on any of the Villeneuve or Carpentier rumors. As far as I could tell from today, they are completely unfounded at this point.

The track was slippery, even more so than last year it seemed and both the Atlantics and the Champ Cars were making it very evident. Again though, the run-offs proved very effective and saved time on red flags. Miss you breaking point, go in the run off, quick spin back in the proper direction, wait for traffic to clear (I’m talking to you Tracy) and then zip back on the course. To use my favorite Rahal expression “no harm, no foul”. Nevertheless, we did see the track record broken by Graham Rahal. No big surprise there considering the new Atlantic formula. But perhaps the biggest surprise was how far ahead he’s been from the other guys today. They have a lot of catching up to do. It’s interesting that he and Simon Pagenaud have yet to win on a street course this season. We know that the Champ Car World Series is all about street courses like Denver. They may have a harder time than we imagine making the jump. Having said that Graham is off to a very fine start and can erase all doubters with a checkered flag on Sunday. He’s only 25 points behind Pagenaud with three races left. It’s going to be a fight for the finish, no question about it. Only three races left??? Where the heck did the season go??

The Champ Cars were pretty sloppy out there, never really able to get a good run with the stoppage from the red flags. Its slippery, no question about it and the rain we had in-between practice and qualifying washed away all grip. It’s nice to see AJ get the provisional pole because he always makes things exciting on Sunday and it’s a shame that PT hit the wall because it could have very well been Tracy who got the provisional pole this afternoon. Tagliani is definitely the story, finishing the day in 3rd.

The autograph session this afternoon was nice because the drivers were loose and relaxed, which was nice to see. You may have read about the giant banner that Champ Car put out for Cristiano Da Matta which fans can sign. I’ll tell you, the banner is filling up very quickly with messages of encouragement and hope for Cris. What a nice gesture by the series. What nice comments by the fans. When Cristiano wakes up, I guarantee that banner is something he will cherish for the rest of his life.

All in all, it was a difficult day, but we all got through it. Personally, from my vantage point I wasn’t sure what to say and how to say it throughout the day. It’s a tough subject to talk about, but naturally it needs to be address. I hope I acted properly today, but I did the only thing I could, which was speak from my heart. It’s all I could do.