Verizon IndyCar Series Firestone 600 Preview

Ed Carpenter is the defending champion of the Verizon IndyCar Series Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway.   [Andy Clary Photo]

Indy cars will take to the 24-degree banking of the Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday, June 6, as master promoter Eddie Gossage presents the Firestone 600 Verizon IndyCar Series race: the 27th since the open-wheelers opened the 1.455-mile track back in 1997.

The 600 kilometer-361-mile race, the ninth of 16 series’ races on the schedule, brings Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya to the high-speed Ft. Worth oval as the points leader, 21 markers ahead of 2014 Verizon champion Will Power and 63 up on Scott Dixon.

Last week on Belle Isle’s street course, Carlo Munoz (Andretti Autosport Honda) and Sebastien Bourdais (KV Racing Technology Chevy) split the two races as rain and fuel played a part with many teams guessing wrong on their race strategy.

The 2014 Texas contest was won by oval-maser Ed Carpenter who held off Power after choosing not to pit during a late race caution. Power, who overcame a drive-through penalty, put on fresh Firestones and passed Montoya for second, but didn’t have enough time to catch Carpenter.

Twenty-three cars/drivers come to Texas with Ryan Briscoe again replacing the injured James Hinchcliffe at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda and Pippa Mann returning to Dale Coyne Honda.

Several drivers had breakout runs at Detroit. Race One saw Marco Andretti (2^nd) and Carlos Munoz (1^st) score their best 2015 finishes, while in Race Two Graham Rahal had yet another podium finish (3^rd) and Takuma Sato (2^nd). Winner Sebastien Bourdais scored his 33^rd career Indy car win in Michigan, putting him eighth all-time, just one behind Al Unser Jr.

Sato has to be considered as a dark horse to do well in Texas after his success in Detroit. If he can keep out of trouble and pace himself during the long evening event, no one is better on high-speed tracks than the Japanese veteran who has a theory about what to expect during the race.

“Texas used to be all about how we minimize the friction, but since we have a huge reduction in downforce to avoid pack racing, now the focus is to have very good mechanical grip. It’s not enough downforce to go flat for the whole stint anymore-even with the maximum wing angles allowed by the regulations, so we focus on strong stability in the traffic,” explained the AJ Foyt Racing Honda driver.

Beside changes in the rear wing angle, Sato and the others must also deal with the addition of closure panels on the rear wheel guards which are designed to limit air flow, thus preventing lift if/when the car should travel backwards during a spin or crash.

Helio Castroneves has captured four wins here, while his Penske Racing team has won eight times and must be considered a favorite to put one of their drivers into victory lane.

Speed records have been broken at several events in 2015 and Texas will likely be no different as the Aero Kits have increased speeds; especially on road courses.

Gil de Ferran holds the single-lap qualifying record here at 222.864 mph (2003), while Buddy Rice set a race lap mark of 222.501 mph in 2002.

TEXAS NOTES:

• Will Power has won the pole in the previous two Texas events.
• “Indy Cars” raced at a 1.25-mile Arlington horse race track from 1947-1950 and at the 1.5-mile paved oval in College Station from 1973-1979.
• Honda has two wins this season vs. six for Chevrolet.
• Six different teams have won at least one race so far this season: Penske, SPM, Chip Ganassi, CFH, AA and KV.
• TMS is just the second oval on the 2015 schedule with Fontana, Milwaukee, Iowa and Pocono remaining.
• Ed Carpenter won the 2014 Texas race by 0.52 seconds over Power.
• Eleven Honda-powered cars and 12 Chevrolets are entered.
• TV: Qualifying-NBCSN, Friday, 6:00pm ET/ Race-NBCSN, Saturday, 8:00pm ET.
  Radio: Sirius 212/XM 209

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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