LCP

First off, the end of last weekend's Trans Am race from Long Beach featured perhaps the best final lap I'd ever seen in racing, with a 3-way battle for 1st place and multiple passes. Very good quality racing going on there.

Second, watching the IRL in Nazareth made me wonder if more than 1/4 of the IRL drivers have a clue. Do they really know how to race, in close confines, with other cars? I think not. Hell, most of their races are big ovals where the passes happen by one car seemingly going 15mph faster than the car being passed. As if the IRL is pretty bad, I really can't say CART is any better. Most of their drivers don't seem to do a good job of racing either. If CART dies, it won't bother me -- especially since they're trying to move toward more ovals (doesn't IRL & NASCAR have that covered?) and high-profile street circuits (where passing is difficult and you'll never get to drive there in your life unless you're really crazy one Tuesday night at 4 am).

Then I see parts of NASCAR at Talladega, and I have to ask myself, what is even the point of this? It looked like nothing more than driving in formation. I really couldn't figure this out. I'm not a NASCAR fan, but at least in the short tracks, there's lots of REAL door-to-door rubbin-is-racin going on. The Big Show at the superspeedways with restrictor plates just flat out doesn't make ANY sense to me.

As for what was not on this weekend, starting with F1: Great cars, best drivers, boring races. Pit strategy gets old, and cars that are so fast that it's damn near impossible to pass on track is not fun, nor is it fun when only 4 cars even manage to finish on the lead lap, and only 40% of the already tiny field even finishes the race. Nothing but a soap opera going on there in reality.

ALMS/Grand-Am: This is where the action is. Too bad the top level prototype competition is so thin. The multiple levels of cars on the track at the same time just makes it downright interesting.

Speed WC: More great racing here. No pit strategy to worry about. Resemblance to street cars makes the races interesting. The Touring Car drives really mix it up when they race. I wish we had more of this to watch.

Rally: Some of the stuff these guys do is unbelievable, but without the side-by-side competition, it's just missing something after you've watched several rallies, and the camera coverage this year is not nearly as good as it was last year.

leslie

And I know CART has been on the downhill, and I rarely ever watch their races on TV (except going every year to PIR) but last year we saw some great action. Christian Fittipaldi set up and executed two amazing passes in the chicane (in front of us) that were spectacular by any measure. The chicane is normally a difficult area to pass (but never devoid of action due to the preceding straight and restarts), so it was pretty cool. They've obviously suffered from the attrition of the best driver's to F1, but I still have found it enjoyable from what I've seen...

Liam in Montreal

I went to see a local one last week (quebec championship) and it was all-out nuts.

Basically, it was a time trial on a track with added cones and tire walls for spectator enjoyment (read cars hitting tires sidewise often), but instead of the usual Solo format, it was 10 cars at a time, full passing.

It didn't take long for cars to start rubbing mirrors..

What's better than a 400hp car going down the straightaway? How about a 400+hp WRC level car going down the (paved)straightaway......sideways.

regards,
Liam

ps. I watched the IRL race at nazareth...not too exciting to see all those rookie racing mistakes, but then again, without the crashing interest would be zero.

KJinDC

I will miss them if they go. Giving the drivers enough fuel to race though has been long overdue. I'm hoping it improves the show this year. God I'll miss the turbocharged engines next year though.

-KJ

PatS4

and increase the hp. Make for even more exciting race.

Doing 190 3 wide in a turn for 10 rows back... you do that for 500 miles. I like the talladega race.

How come F1 only races for such a short time? And there is absolutely no passing! Don't get me wrong, I like F1, I watch all three days. But the racing is getting so boring.