St. Petersburg Preview

Always fast at St. Petersburg, Will Power was also quickest in pre-season testing.  [John Wiedemann Photo]

The newly named Verizon IndyCar Series opens its 2014 schedule on Sunday, March 30, at the 1.8- mile, 14-turn street/airport course near downtown St. Petersburg, FL.

First contested in 2003 as a CART series event, the race has been an IRL/IndyCar-sanctioned race since 2005. Winners of past St. Pete events include three-time champion Helio Castroneves, while Will Power (2010), Ryan Briscoe (2009), Graham Rahal (2008) and James Hinchcliffe (2013) have each won once among current drivers. Power has been fastest qualifier the past four years and comes into the 2014 race on top of the speed charts after an abbreviated pre-season test at Barber Motorsports Park.

Changes are abundant in the series this season, starting with what promises to be a very active Verizon Wireless replacing a rather inactive IZOD as the new title sponsor.

Verizon’s multi-year deal is likely to bring upgrades in network TV coverage, upgrades in pit-area monitors, better fan connectivity at race sites and greater general awareness of the series through increased media advertising.

Verizon will also continue sponsorship of IndyCar’s P1 pole-winner award as well as full-season support for Will Power and an eight-race deal for Juan Pablo Montoya.

The starting grid in Florida will also look somewhat different in 2014 as several drivers and teams have made off-season changes.

Penske Racing will field a third entry for Montoya as he returns from runs in F1 and NASCAR. Mike Conway (road courses) and Ed Carpenter (ovals) will share an entry for Carpenter’s team. Russian driver Mikhail Aleshin will join Simon Pagenaud at Schmidt Peterson Hamilton Motorsports while Ryan Briscoe and Tony Kanaan will run a full season for Chip Ganassi alongside Scott Dixon and Charlie Kimball. Finally Englishman Jack Hawksworth landed a season-long seat with Bryan Herta Autosports.

Missing from the starting lineup for the Firestone Grand Prix will be Dragon Racing which will concentrate on its entry in the inaugural Formula E international series for electric-powered open-wheel cars. Finding herself without a ride in a competitive Verizon series entry, Simona de Silvestro has signed-on as a test driver for the Sauber F1 team and will likely not return to the Indy Car series.

Panther Racing lost an off-season legal tangle with Rahal Letterman Lanigan over the lucrative National Guard sponsorship and has not yet named its driver. Dale Coyne has Justin Wilson, who was second quick in open testing behind Penske’s Will Power, but the second Coyne entry is still open.

Andretti Autosport has switched to Honda power while Chip Gannasi’s cars will display the Chevrolet bow tie in 2014.

As of this writing there are 23 full-time entries for the season compared to 24 at most events last year. Jacques Villeneuve (SPH), Kurt Busch (AA), J. R. Hidebrand (Ed Carpenter) and Alex Tagliani (Sarah Fisher Hartman) will run the Indy 500 only.

Partial-season programs are planned for Oriol Servia (RLL) and Martin Plowman (AJ Foyt).

Getting off to a good start at the season opener has proved critical to winning the season championship. Three drivers: Paul Tracy, Dan Wheldon and Franchitti have won here and gone on to be the champ.

So, as we start the IRL/IndyCar’s 19th season, many issues will be decided on the track at St. Petersburg and beyond:

• Will the new Verizon Wireless series sponsorship attract greater interest in Indy Car events? TV ratings have been steadily declining for most events and at-track attendance, especially for ovals, has been lower than the series would like to see. Greater activation by Verizon could hold the key to future series’ success.

• Most believe that Indy Car would like to see 26 cars on the grid. With 23 signed for full season participation, will 10 more cars be found for the 33-car Indy 500? Could this be the first year in the modern era with a short grid at Indy?

• Will Ganassi and Andretti have success as they work with their new engine manufacturers? Ganassi had two teams (Dixon and Briscoe) in the top-five for Chevy in pre-season testing at Barber while Andretti’s Honda squad could do no better than placing Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe in the 7th and 8th spots.

• How will Kurt Bush do in his first open-wheel race at Indy and will his attempt to run both the 500 and NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte bring added publicity to both events? More cooperation between the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and NASCAR in scheduling both events could bring greater cross-participation in both events.

• It has been announced that winning all three 500-mile races at Indianapolis, Pocono and Fontana will be worth $1 million; winning two of the three will earn a driver $250,000. Points have also been doubled for those events. Winning at those tracks will go a long way toward a run at the series’ championship.

• Finally, the new road course event at Indianapolis on May 10th will be watched closely by the motorsports world. Will fans respond to a new race that will open track activities at a venue that is built on tradition? Qualifying has also been changed for the 500 and a successful opening race could be what the month of May needs to build interest for the 500. Will 40,000 fans make the event a success? IMS is hoping that it will.

The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will be shown live on ABC television beginning at 3:00pm, (ET).

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

racingnation.com

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