Indycar - St. Petersburg

[DooberRoni]

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/IndyStPete.png
© images & logos property of their respective owners - graphic composition © Dooberville.com

Indycar Season Opener - Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg

This is it, Indycar fans, DooberVille's official St. Petersburg qualifying and race thread. Join us on the board for live posting during qualifying and the race. Bring your friends! Bring your foes! Complimentary beer & donuts served on Sunday. Stay tuned for the starting lineup and more!

[ÜberDoober]

Okay, so where's all the special shiat? Hurry up, man! J/k :winky:

I popped in to say I was just watching a new episode of "How the Earth was Made" on the History Channel and a rockin' commercial came on for Indycar on Versus. I was shocked and a little excited. I might have peed myself a bit?

[DooberRoni]

Courtesy indycar.com
http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/StPeteEntryList.jpg



Hmmm? A couple of TBA's and the schedule is dated yesterday?


This also from Indycar.com (http://www.indycar.com)

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing announced that IndyCar Series veteran Darren Manning will drive the No. 23 Honda-powered Dallara in the season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.


"We are excited to be able to put a deal together, even though it is last minute, to run Darren Manning at St. Petersburg," team co-owner Dennis Reinbold said. "He's a really talented driver that will be a great teammate for (rookie) Mike (Conway) and can round out our two-car effort as we continue to build for the 2009 season."

[LittleAlguy]

Hunter-Reay will be in the 2nd Vision car for the rest of the season.

I'm so stoked for this race. Also, the Indy Lights race should be great, too. The talent level for their race is pretty darn good.

[ÜberDoober]

Got any more on the Indy Lights race? Is it on TV or Indycar.com? When is it on. I'm super lazy and don't want to look it up. :blink: (Ok, dinner is on the stove and I can't stop to look it up right now)

I'm picking up my extra digital cable box tomorrow. Don't have a new TV yet but will borrow the one in the bedroom to watch the show on VS. I am pretty excited for the start of the season too!
:goRacing:

[LittleAlguy]

It's actually a doubleheader. One race is Saturday and the other on Sunday before the race (schedule Eastern Time http://www.indycar.com/schedule/pdf/2009_stpete_schedule.pdf). It should be on indycar.com. They'll show every Indy Lights race (or in this case races) on the Monday after the main race weekend on VERSUS except for a couple of live events (Indy and Homestead, IIRC).

edit: here is the link just in case you have trouble locating it- http://indycar.neulion.com/indy/console.jsp

[LittleAlguy]

Practice 1 results: http://www.imscdn.com/pdfs/timing_scoring/2009/reports/indycarseries/stpete/indycar-results-p1.pdf

Kanaan did not record a time.

Practice 2 is about to start. :coolshades:

[ÜberDoober]

Bah! I've been out all day. :mad:

So, I thought VS was showing qualifying live but apparently they aren't? I got an email saying it was 10:50 to 12:20 EST but VS says 2:00pm eastern?

What to do? What to do? Stay away from the interwebs and watch it on TV or do it online in real time? Hmmm?

[LittleAlguy]

I'd check it live and then just check in on the VS show to get a small feel on the production value for the race.

[LittleAlguy]

First Group in Q1 just finished. Power, Tagliani, Wilson, Franchitti, Kanaan, and Matos.

Wilson and Franchitti did not use a set of red tires.

Group 2 out.

Group 2 moving on: Rahal, Dixon, Briscoe, Manning, Wheldon and Conway but Conway binned it so he'll start 12th.

[LittleAlguy]

Wilson, Franchitti, Rahal, Kanaan, Briscoe, Power into the Fast 6.

Dixon's car looked evil through the 2&3 complex.

[LittleAlguy]

Graham Rahal wins the pole. Justin Wilson takes a front row start for Coyne. Great job by that group. :thumbup1:

[ÜberDoober]

Sorry I couldn't join you. As I mentioned (cried about), my Internet connection has been wildly unstable this morning. I've had this problem two days in a row now and it usually clears up in the afternoon and then is fine all day. It's been okay now for half an hour and I'm scrambling to catch up on the news and update the website and a couple of posts here.

I am hoping it stays up when I watch the broadcast on VS for the first time. I'm crabby as hell right now. I completely missed the first league sim race of the new Formula Nippon season this morning and man, I really wanted to race these cars as they are new to us and fun as hell to drive.

Anyhow, if I don't respond right away, you know why. I'm going to attempt to update our website while I'm able to get online and I'll be back around here soon. Hopefully.

[ÜberDoober]

The show is up on Versus! Lots of familiar faces and voices and some new ones! So far so good, almost. Here's a bit of irony for you, the new digital cable box that I picked up yesterday is a piece of junk! It keeps freezing for a second, then getting all pixelated then back to normal. It's watchable but I'm going to have to swap out the box. I have said some not nice words about Cox Communications today. :realMad:

Just checked, this POS box is dropping half the normal channels. Doesn't work on SPEED or ESPN. GAH!

[ÜberDoober]

Piece on Danica. What a slut! :winky:

[LittleAlguy]

That's too bad about the box. :( That happens to our cable from time to time in that it will go cattywampus and pixelate.

I finished watching the first Indy Lights series race. I won't spoil it for you in case you didn't watch but you'll like it.

The following will start on the blacks:
Kanaan
Franchitti
Dixon
Manning
Conway
Hunter-Reay
Carpenter

For some reason, the headline stinger said the reverse. Well, whatever it is, they'll be different from the others. (source: http://www.indycar.com/news/?story_id=13495)

[ÜberDoober]

I see that they will be showing the Indy Lights on VS on Monday. That's cool! It does look like a beautiful day in Florida and that I'm loving some of the new liveries and stuff.

As a side note, did you see the thread about I put up about my new racing league series? It's here (http://www.dooberville.com/forums/showthread.php?p=6383#post6383). I was so pumped then so bummed this morning.:o

[LittleAlguy]

Spectacular detail on that car. :eek:

I know the feeling. I'm a part of a fantasy auto racing league. I was so pumped and then what happened to you happened to me: my cable connection cut out the night before and didn't work until later that day after the draft was complete. My autodraft team was nothing special and subsequent decisions on my part have only made it worse. :mad:

[ÜberDoober]

The pre-race is on! We are online, which is amazing in itself, have VS up on the tube, lunch in the oven and are READY TO ROCK!

[LittleAlguy]

I like the pre-race so far.

[ÜberDoober]

My name is ÜberDoober and I am an addict.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/DVhq.jpg

I'll have Indycar.com up too. It's a sickness. I know it.

ps - My Internet is working fine now. Go figure?

[LittleAlguy]

Haha, that's devotion. I love it. :thumbup1:

[LittleAlguy]

Oh wow, young Jack Arute. :rofl:

Cool tidbit on TK's helmet. It's been 12 years since I've followed him and that's my first time hearing that. Wow.

[ÜberDoober]

Really nice to see Dario back where he belongs. He's off to a great start too!

[LittleAlguy]

Race Control looks so much more compact than it was last year. I approve.

[ÜberDoober]

I just loaded up the Race Control thing. First time I've seen it! Sure are a lot of ads for iRacing.

Minutes away from the command!

[ÜberDoober]

5 WIDE! Rahal around. :ack2:

[LittleAlguy]

Wow, that was pretty aggressive. He pulled that off perfectly.

TK touched Rahal. Unlucky.

[LittleAlguy]

Here comes Kanaan and Rahal.

[ÜberDoober]

Side-by-side!! That's great that they are doing that. It's something special about Indycar broadcasts and I'm so glad that it's still a feature.

Race looks great so far.

[ÜberDoober]

Lookin' good! :thumbup1:

Race Control is cool as heck but pretty useless. Timing isn't even working right. Oooo! That replay of the first turn schlemozzle froma different camera angle was cool.

Mutoh in for blacks.

[LittleAlguy]

Three-stoppers coming in now. Mutoh, Viso, Andretti have stopped. Two-stoppers ~28-33.

Meira in. Matos moves by Moraes.

[ÜberDoober]

I'm diggin' Versus. No side-by-side this break.

Pit stops should start coming hot and heavy pretty quickly now.

[ÜberDoober]

Great battle between TK and Rahal developing.

[LittleAlguy]

Two-stoppers (potentially) coming in now. Doornbos, Moraes, Tagliani have come in.

[ÜberDoober]

Looks like a crash! OH NOES!! FCY!

[ÜberDoober]

3 cars out! :willy_nilly:

[ÜberDoober]

That was a HARD hit. Glad everybody is okay but man, what a lot of action. :ack2:

[ÜberDoober]

What is going on in Dixon's pit? Whoa!

[LittleAlguy]

Yikes, what a crazy few laps. The DP-Matos crash, the Tag-Meira incident, and Mutoh-Moraes incident that nearly involved Wilson. Now Power-Dixon with a pit miscue.

[ÜberDoober]

Exciting restart! Some of the light transitions in those dark corners are as bad as Melbourne.

Great racing!

[LittleAlguy]

Marco in.

Wow, some restart. Clean, too.

[ÜberDoober]

Textbook pass by Wilson.

[LittleAlguy]

Definitely beautiful. This negates the edge Briscoe got on the previous FCY.

[LittleAlguy]

Lap 65 and they can make it the distance on fuel.

[ÜberDoober]

CRASH! FCY in the SbS window

[ÜberDoober]

Dixon is done. Another FCY. Some great racing today. Very exciting! :thumbup1:

[LittleAlguy]

Dixon brings out another yellow. Mutoh with the assist.

[ÜberDoober]

Standby for the 14 lap shoot out! :ack2:

[ÜberDoober]

Belay that last post. Another cock up so we'll only get a few laps of green. :realMad:

[LittleAlguy]

Yikes, there it went again. Let's hope for a green flag run to the end of the race.

[ÜberDoober]

Ah shoot!

I guess I somehow didn't know they didn't have reverse? With only about 3 to go, they may go green again? No big mess to clean up. I hope?

[ÜberDoober]

Briscoe wins!

Awesome race! Terrific show! I loved it! Good run by Dario in 4th and nice to see Wilson on the box. And what about that RHR?

Very cool!

[LittleAlguy]

Briscoe takes the victory. Good runs by Wilson, Hunter-Reay and Manning. 4th for Dario in his return. Manning solid 8th. Graham recovers to 7th.