IndyCar Series, Go Uri! Opciones

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Luego de varios años de desavenencias que provocaron la división de el más importante campeonato de monoplazas estadounidense, finalmente se llegó a un acuerdo para fusionar este año la Champ Car a la Indy Racing League (IRL), acuerdo en el que sin duda se beneficiaran los aficionados a estos bólidos.


Los dirigentes de las series de automovilismo de monoplazas estadounidenses Indy Racing League (IRL) y Champ Car anunciaron un acuerdo para fusionar ambos circuitos con vistas a la temporada 2008, 12 años después de haberse separado.


Video: Rueda de prensa de la unificación 27/02/08

El acuerdo se encamina a incorporar tres carreras de la Champ Car al itinerario original de la IRL, que contaba con 16 pruebas, con los grandes premios de Long Beach en California, Surfers Paradise en Australia y Edmonton en Canadá. El resto del calendario de Champ Car fue cancelado. A comienzos de la década de 1990, la serie CART, que luego cambió de nombre a Champ Car, era un destino habitual para pilotos europeos y sudamericanos, y tenía gran respaldo de los aficionados.

La CART fue fundada en noviembre de 1978 por Roger Penske, Pat Patrick, Dan Gurney y otra serie de dueños de escuderías.

La IRL comenzó a operar en 1996, con intención de dar espacio a los jóvenes pilotos estadounidenses, y CART tomó su propio rumbo hasta que se declaró en bancarrota en enero de 2004.

George realizó la mejor oferta por las acciones de CART, pero un juez se las otorgó a Kalkhoven, Forsythe y Paul Gentilozzi porque el comprador había mostrado intenciones de clausurar la serie, lo que hubiera dejado a muchas personas desempleadas.



Monoplaza.

Los coches de las series IndyCar son monoplazas de al menos 1525 libras de peso y 192 pulgadas de longitud, con chasis monocasco y construidos con fibra de carbono y composite. Son coches con cambio de 6 velocidades secuanciales por palanca (no por levas) y sin dirección asistida.
Los equipos pueden elegir entre 2 modelos de distintos fabricantes, bien sean los italianos Dallara o los americanos Panoz.





El Motor de 3.5 litros V8 turboalimentados desarrollados por Honda (y construidos por Ilmor Engineering, compañía constructora de los motores Mercedes-Benz en F1 hasta 2005), capaces de transmitir más de 650 CV usando como combustible Etanol-Metanol.







Los neumáticos son gomas son slick, con una grosor de la goma como el deaproximadamente 2.5 milímetros de espesor. Las dimensiones son 25.8 las delanteras pudiendo llegar hasta las 28 en las ruedas traseras. Los anchos: 28 centímetros alante y 38 atrás.

Cada piloto dispone segun el tipo de circuitode 8 sets para Urbano/permanente y 7 sets para Ovales. En Indy 500 dispone de 35 sets.



Street Tire / Race Tire



Hay dos tipos de Frenos dependiendo de si corren en un óvalo o en un circuito urbano. En el caso del óvalo, los frenos son de carbono con cuatro pistones, y son más bien pequeños. En el caso del circuito urbano, los discos son de acero, más grandes y de 6 pistones.









IndyCar Series. Puntuación.

1st - 50
2nd - 40
3rd - 35
4th - 32
5th - 30
6th - 28
7th - 26
8th - 24
9th - 22
10th - 20
11th - 19
12th - 18
13th - 17
14th - 16
15th - 15
16th - 14
17th - 13
18th>24th - 12
25th>33th - 10


Se otorgan 3 puntos extras a aquel piloto que consiga el mayor número de vueltas en cabeza durante la carrera.


Repostajes.



Las paradas en boxes son también obligatorias en las IndyCar Series. Sin embargo, no se podrán realizar cuando la condición de la pista esté en "peligro", es decir, haya banderas amarillas y un coche de seguridad en el circuito, salvo que el dirigente de la carrera de la orden de "Pits Open". Todo aquel que haga una parada en esta situación será penalizado.

En una parada de boxes podemos encontrar a 11 mecánicos. 4 se encargarán de sustituir las ruedas, 2 de ayudarles, uno sujetará el "chupete" o cartel de indicación de estado, 1 del respostaje junto a su ayudante y 1 mecánico se encargará de elevar el coche.
El último, quizás el más curioso, es el que hace de "apagafuegos". Tras un respotaje, una vez retirada la manguera, él inyectará un chorro de agua sobre la boca del depósito para aplacar las posibles llamas. Recordemos que el metanol se apaga con agua y su llama es completamente invisible (de ahí que se realice siempre este procedimiento, tanto si hay llama o no).


El Volante

1. OVERTAKE BUTTON: Changes the fuel map to 100 percent rich for a set amount of time, allowing the engine to produce the extra power needed to complete a pass or hold off another driver.

2. PI DASH: Displays warning lights and information the driver needs during the race. That information includes lap times, oil, water and gearbox temperatures and fuel mileage.

3. RPM SHIFT LIGHTS: LED lights that go from green to red and indicate engine RPM. When the red lights are on the driver shifts gears.

4. PIT LANE SPEED LIMITER: Used on pit lane by the driver to activate the engine control program limiting the cars speed to the pit lane speed limit, which is usually 60 miles per hour.

5. PULL-TO-TALK (BEHIND THE CARBON): Activates the microphone in the drivers helmet so he can communicate over the radio.

6. RESET: Used during the race. During a pit stop the driver pushes this button to reset the fuel reading on his display.

7. FUEL MAP SWITCH: Allows the driver to adjust the fuel mapping of the engine to increase fuel mileage or to increase power. There are a number of settings available including full rich, where the engine produces maximum power but uses more fuel. There is also a lean setting which uses less fuel but produces less power. During caution periods the drivers will switch to the leanest mixture to increase fuel economy.

8. DASH SCROLL: Allows the driver to scroll through the different pages available on the dash board, including the race page, qualifying page and practice page.

9. WEIGHT JACKER: Adjusts the cross weight on the car from left to right. The weight jacker allows the driver to make fine-tuning adjustments as the car begins to handle differently during the race.

10. DRINK (BEHIND THE CARBON): Allows the driver to get a drink of water during the race. It activates a pump connected to a water bottle on the car which pumps water through a hose installed in the drivers helmet.

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Kanaan claims Richmond pole

By Jeff Olson and Matt Beer Saturday, June 28th 2008, 00:28 GMT
Tony Kanaan will lead teammate Marco Andretti in an all-Andretti Green front row in Saturday night's Richmond round of the IRL IndyCar Series, after a welcome change of luck for the Brazilian driver.

Kanaan, whose season has been filled with misfortune, took advantage of the luck of the draw to beat Andretti by just 0.03 seconds over four laps of the 0.75-mile oval.

By the time Kanaan got on track, the sun had set and the 98-degree heat had settled into a less beastly temperature range.

"It's an advantage to go out that late, for sure, but it's also pure luck," Kanaan said. "It's the number you draw. If you wanted to talk about luck with me this year, I think I deserve a little bit of the good kind."

The effort knocked Andretti from P1, but also came with his help. After Andretti's run, Kanaan's crew made changes suggested by Andretti's crew, then took the pole from him.

"We made an adjustment right before we went out based on the feedback we got from Marco," Kanaan said. "We've been working very well together, and we had the exact same set-ups. I was able to make my car a little bit quicker than his."

With the track washed clean of rubber by an afternoon storm but conditions becoming increasingly conducive to fast times as the weather cooled, the evening qualifying session saw a number of surprises - including Graham Rahal grabbing third for Newman/Haas/Lanigan on a day when his teammate Justin Wilson, who had been much earlier in the order, only managed 23rd place.

"We made changes and it got cooler," Rahal said. "We're so happy that it finally came together for us."

Championship leader Scott Dixon held provisional pole for much of the session before being edged back to fourth as others benefited from the improving conditions.

"We think we left a lot on the table," said Dixon, who has now qualified in the top four for eight of this season's nine races. "With the track cooling off, it got better."

The Ganassi driver will start just of the highly-impressive Buddy Rice, who earned a giant-killing fifth place for Dreyer & Reinbold. The result was Rice's best qualifying performance for nearly three seasons, and helped make up for the frustrations of Iowa a week ago, where he was classified 22nd.

"It was disappointing last week," Rice said. "This is a place that's an equaliser. We left stuff out there. Hopefully we can rebound here."

Dixon's teammate Dan Wheldon completed the top six, ahead of AGR's Hideki Mutoh and Vision's AJ Foyt IV, with Bruno Junqueira also producing a star underdog performance to earn ninth for Dale Coyne Racing.

While several unlikely names starred, Penske were among those who struggled, with Ryan Briscoe and Helio Castroneves ending up only 11th and 18th respectively.

Ryan Hunter-Reay (Rahal Letterman Racing) fared worse: a technical problem preventing the morning practice pace-setter from even attempting a lap.

He will be joined at the back by Enrique Bernoldi, whose Conquest Racing team narrowly failed to get his car repaired in time after his practice crash.

Pos Driver Team Speed
1. Tony Kanaan Andretti Green 167.876
2. Marco Andretti Andretti Green 167.795
3. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 167.250
4. Scott Dixon Ganassi 167.120
5. Buddy Rice Dreyer & Reinbold 166.804
6. Dan Wheldon Ganassi 166.768
7. Hideki Mutoh Andretti Green 166.518
8. AJ Foyt IV Vision 166.126
9. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne 166.032
10. Oriol Servia KV 165.815
11. Ryan Briscoe Penske 165.643
12. John Andretti Roth 165.275
13. Ed Carpenter Vision 164.963
14. Danica Patrick Andretti Green 164.396
15. Marty Roth Roth 164.326
16. Will Power KV 164.321
17. Vitor Meira Panther 163.844
18. Helio Castroneves Penske 163.353
19. EJ Viso HVM 163.170
20. Mario Moraes Dale Coyne 162.566
21. Townsend Bell Dreyer & Reinbold 162.517
22. Darren Manning Foyt 160.616
23. Justin Wilson Newman/Haas/Lanigan 159.652
24. Jaime Camara Conquest 158.884
25. Ryan Hunter-Reay Rahal Letterman
26. Enrique Bernoldi Conquest