U.S. Grand Prix 2005

Overall, I had a great time in Indy. Got to hang out with old friends and make some new ones in the process. The weather was spectacular the whole time. Joel and I headed out Thursday morning and hooked up with Carol and Steve for the drive up - us in a Nissan Titan and them in a big GMC. Around 8 hours later we were pulling into our hotel parking lot.

Bright and early Friday morning we headed to the BMW corral - a large blue and white tent with food, drinks, tables, chairs, video games, etc. for members to enjoy. Got some breakfast snacks and walked 2 blocks up to the track where I *almost* bought a current Honda team uniform shirt but suprisingly, I exercised some restraint. I actually only bought one thing... a Red Bull Racing cap. I made my way to the seats next to the end of the pit area to set up for pictures of the cars coming out. Ah... the glorious sounds of F1 machinery at full throttle... I got some good shots from there. Spent the rest of the day checking out the other cars and shopping around. Also got a chance to meet drivers from the Formula BMW racing program. Still open-wheeled cars but with a limited amount of modifications each team can make. This series focuses more on the driving aspect of things rather than all-out performance to teach these kids (they are all in their teens) to hone their skills. I also was able to tour their garages in the famed Gasoline Alley.

Saturday saw more people out there. Things were really starting to get hoppin'. F1 practice went well despite some tire failures for the Toyota team. That afternoon after F1 qualifying was over - a whole bunch of us went downtown to monument circle to look at a bunch of older and classic cars. VERY cool stuff. Took some nice pics there too. Went back over to the corral later for a sumptuous meal. There was an entertaining time with the annual auction and then after that, it was bedtime again.

Sunday we were at the track bright and early. Watched this guy named Reed race in the Formula BMW race (I had met him the previous day) which was pretty cool. Also watched the Porsche Supercup race as well. Lots of excitement.

Time for the main event! Everything looked all set to go - all cars were on the track, everything normal. I had heard that there might be some drama over a tire issue but didn't think much of it. The drivers fired up their cars and started around for their parade lap before taking their starting positions... then then Michelin shod cars pulled into their pits and switched their cars off.

The race started with 6 cars on the grid: 2 Ferrari's, 2 Jordan's and 2 Minardi's. All Bridgestone runners. The crowd went bananas!!! This was a bad thing for F1 here in the States.

I kind of got part of the inside story on what happened. Michelin did advise their teams that the tires they had were not safe and not to run them unless certain conditions were met (they weren't). What happened was that the track was resurfaced prior to the Indy 500 race a few weeks ago, the one where Danica Patrick came in 4th. Well, when the resurfacing was finished, Michelin came out and tested the surface so that they could build a suitable tire for it's F1 teams to run. After all this, the Indy cars started practicing on the track. They were sliding around on the track so to alleviate that, they put small grooves in the track surface. The Indy cars all run Firestone Firehawk tires. Firestone is owned by... Bridgestone. There is speculation that Firestone passed their tire information and the groove "situation" to Bridgestone so they could adjust their tire construction. Michelin did not find out about the grooves and subsequently, their tires were getting ripped up by the track.

Anyway, this is all speculation at this point. We'll see what ultimately shakes out of this.