By Patrick Stephan As usual, this no editing race report is likely to have typos, so please forgive those! The ambient temp was 76, the track at 98 and humidity at 60%. We have nearly complete cloud cover over the track. The green flag waved with the field very tightly packed as they ran down...
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By Patrick Stephan A little more on today’s race strategy. Only three driver’s have elected to start the race on the Firestone “red” alternate tires, and they are James Hinchcliffe (10th), Marco Andretti (13th) and Sebastien Bourdais (24th). I quickly asked a strategist for a reasonably fast car that is starting outside Top-10, why they...
READ MOREBy Patrick Stephan Good afternoon from the middle of Ohio farm country, and the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The weather is still pretty nice here somewhere between Columbus and Cleveland, though it’s not going to match the “spectacular” label from yesterday. at 12:40pm it’s 75 degrees out, with a significantly cloudy skies keeping the track...
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By Patrick Stephan and Steve Wittich Time to wrap up a beautiful day at the Mid-Ohio Sports Course where preparations for the Honda Indy 200 are now complete. All we’ve got left for tomorrow is the race. In fact, if all you care about are “races” then tomorrow is the day for you! No warm-ups,...
READ MOREBy Patrick Stephan (@TSO_Patrick) The first qualifying group rolled out under partly cloudy skies and with the track still at 106 and the air temp at 72. Earlier today Cara Adams from Firestone told me to expect a bigger than usual delta between the Primary and Alternate tires, she’s expecting it will be at least...
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By Patrick Stephan Have I mentioned how nice the weather is here? We are getting some clouds, but they are of the fluffy spread out variety that frankly is only making things better. At 1:00pm, the air temp is 72, the track is a relatively cool for 106 (thanks to having older/light colored pavement) and...
READ MOREBy Patrick Stephan (@TSO_Patrick) Lately, we’ve seen a couple social media incidents, where other series (ok, NASCAR) tried to claim that they were the most fan friendly on Twitter (Stewart Haas Racing and then New Hampshire Motor Speedway, both did this), and well, INDYCAR (and IMSA, NHRA) fans shot that down spectacularly. One reason is...
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By Patrick Stephan Ok, real quick open because I’ve been messing around this morning making the 1 hour drive from the hotel in New Albany, eating breakfast, and otherwise not being exceptionally productive. The weather today (and yesterday) is perhaps the best for any race I’ve ever attended here. This morning it’s 67 outside as...
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By Patrick Stephan A relatively quiet day (for me) at the track ended with a USF2000 champion being crowned, a couple kids in the media center, and a 300 race starter talking a bit about his long career and the run toward a potential fifth championship. We’ll start with Scott Dixon who was 8th quick...
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By Patrick Stephan The second Verizon IndyCar Series practice session got started at 2:35pm. The one hour session didn’t stay green long though as Zach Veach spun about 7 minutes in over at the exit of Turn 5. He didn’t hit anything and just looped it in to the grass and got “high sided” until...
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