2011 Round of Indianapolis qualifying races

Race one
Barton Sandy had problems right off the bat and pitted coming to the green. He joined the race on lap 4 and to his credit didn't fall any further back while all by himself. The first half of this race can be described as a cure for insomnia, as all passing was monotonous draft shuffle. Brian Sendack and Juho Kivela (unwisely) led the green flag pit stop cycle by a good two laps. While leaving the pits, Paul Rothstein's Gessler quits on him, a shame since he was very quick in pole qualifying.

Here's where the racing went from bad to epic.

So we had three packs after the pit stops. The first pack was Michael Madrigal, Greg Woodard, and Kevin Monroe, three longshot drivers. Woodard and Madrigal in particular came VERY close to timing their way into the field on speed in their debuts... however Woodard has the privateer Lycoia Brute and has an in-house engine, whereas Madrigal has the Nemoto engine in polesitter Tom Delgado's car. Robert Dorian was also in the lead pack, and he was using teammate Scott Hamilton's setup... and the Xenos cars really turned up the heat for this race after being garbage for most of the season. Damn good battle up there for the lead until the end of the race. This group had such a huge lead that there was no way they were going to be caught. Still fun to watch though! The second pack of cars comprised of Ashby, Kingston, Kivela, and Pulyakov, however they were quickly caught by Hunter Downs, Everett, Riggs, Plissken, and Krikorian. However, they wasted a lot of time squabbling with each other.

A couple cars were strung out by themselves and then you had the third pack, headed up mostly by Ian Cooper, Arto Kekkonen, and the two Volpis, with Nosova and Lucas Sweeney at the back. This group did not mess around, and it was this group that made the transfer spot battle awesome, because unlike the second group, this group stayed in a line, gobbling up LaTerza, Sendack, Mummert, Hesso, and Fox, who funneled to the back of the pack. They made up nearly 6 seconds and caught the second pack with just four laps to go! However, Hunter Downs spoiled the party by blowing up and throwing things into disarray, getting his car off the track but it did split things up a bit.

Azuma Kazeyama's pit crew dropped the ball on the pit stop, and the aforementioned Kivela and Sendack had to pit again with two laps to go. Everyone else made it. To be fair, neither Kivela or Sendack would have made it into the field ANYWAY judging on their track position...

Nils Tolonen was also dreadfully slow in the pitlane, as were Bob Stephans, Allie Riggs, and Rachel Rainsford.

Someone at Power Steering Incorporated will be losing their job because the 16 crew didn't get all the fuel in, forcing Plissken to pit with one lap to go...

Arto Kekkonen and Zach Duff dodged a huge bullet. HUUUGE bullet.

Race two
Leon Keniston in 19th place got a horrible start. When I mean horrible, I mean it was such a slow start that it gave Mika Tervo in 18th enough room to put a semi truck in the gap he left. Which is what Tervo did, however, Keniston had a great run into turn 1 and got on the inside, putting the Finn in a three wide situation with Keniston and Anthony Griffith, who frankly didn't help this mess either.

Tervo did his best to avoid disaster, but Keniston's car was hooked and smashed into the wall head first at around 160 miles per hour. Arturo Ortega, Anthony Griffith, and Franz Redlich were all involved. All but Ortega received damage of some kind. The German arrived late to the party and sustained minor damage.

Under the yellow, Brenda Riggs nearly rams into Chris Johaanes, and after nearly wrecking Carlos Donzelo in the pits, she calls it a day. Spongy brake pedal in the pits equals bad things, so perhaps a smart move from an experienced driver.

The restart was significantly cleaner, until we hit lap 11. (OOC: I would have made a video of this if one part of the crash didn't look like it was straight from Driven. Regardless, I will recount every bit as clearly as possible.)

Bobby Porteau and Jacob Eichholtz were racing hard for position coming off of turn 4, when Eichholtz pushed up the track and hit Porteau. Porteau and Eichholtz went down onto the apron, where Eichholtz spun. I'll get back to Eichholtz in a moment.

Porteau saves his car, but he's in the pit entry lane at 170 miles per hour. In front of him are the two Gutierrez cars (Martinez leading Ortega), with Matt Taylor's Fortner behind Ortega. Porteau hammers the back of Taylor's car right before the pit entrance before smashing the pit barrier with the right front of his car. Taylor's car careens into Ortega, knocking Taylor out and making Ortega's stop much longer than originally intended.

Back to Eichholtz, who spins up into the wall. Yellow is out. Leigh Gruell has nowhere to go and clips the 231 car, sending Gruell for a spin and lightly hitting Porteau, who is in the pit wall. Troy Griffith doesn't use the brakes and smashes his right front into Eichholtz's rear end at around 220. The Tonare Thunder skids into Gruell's left rear. Griffith's car kicks the Eichholtz car up into the air just a bit...

In comes Charlie Waters, also flying in at 220 and refusing to understand the concept of a brake pedal, with nobody even close to him on the track. Waters hammers Eichholtz's car, the right rear meeting Waters's windshield.

No word on the condition of Charlie Waters, but I wouldn't expect him to be back any time soon... ((OOC: Sorry ant! >_<))

Eichholtz's condition is also unknown, however his injuries are not suspected to be very major, making him the luckiest driver in quite some time. Troy Griffith earned a trip to the Steward's Office for failing to use the brakes at all.

After a long red flag, the race resumed with Yamino Tenchi in the lead. Two laps into the restart, Marcos Leonard and Leonid Roderick tripped over each other and put each other in the wall, however neither car was damaged severely. The race went green until the end, the only events of note being Vitaly Karpenko and Mika Tervo both blowing up before the end of the race.

Tenchi won the race over Daytona winner Jose Luis Martinez, Adrien Devereux, and Elina Varjo, with Carlos Donzelo in last year's Omecha coming home 5th.

Race three
Race 3 was less chaotic. Significantly. One thing you will notice is that I forgot to put Jason Teller, Jr. at the back of the field. He started 28th of 33 cars, which is close enough to the back anyway... however, those penalties proved ineffectual in the race.

Ike Durbin was leased a backup car for this race, and he performed by putting it P6 on the grid. Granted, it was a pretty good car... Scott Bates put his #88 car on the pole but he never led a single lap. Bates quickly abandoned the front of the pack after things got a bit too dicey too early. Kevin Dwyer led lap 1 and then went further down the order.

Rene Recarmier was running strongly before his Gasnier gave up on him. The first caution as on lap 22 when the lapped car of Shane Lake, who had pitted early for a flat tire, pretty much took himself and Gordon Kim into the wall, leaving yours truly speechless. Lake was invited to the Steward's Office for that...

Pierre Eiffel and Vijay Pushanda both had mechanical failures almost simultaneously, however, Pushanda's brought out another caution. In what appeared to be frustration of how bad his day had been going, Gordon Kim plowed into Ike Durbin under the yellow, eliminating Ike and earning himself a trip to the Steward's Office... can't imagine Ike Durbin was happy about that...

During the pit cycle, Grant Papp and Kevin Dwyer had a good fight for the lead.

The last few laps were pretty good, with Tony Durbin poking his head out of seemingly nowhere and stealing the win from Danny Savin and Alan Hodges in a THREE WIDE PHOTO FINISH YEAH BUDDAY!!!

Main qualifying race
The race had a very anonymous start, with many lead changes in a rather dull draft shuffle. ZzZzZzZzZz... until lap 12, when Pedro Soares and Jacques Bouvier pulled off a very unique stunt -- simultaneous mechanical problems! Bouvier's car stopped on track and brought out the only yellow of the race. He and Soares were the only retirements. Both led a lap during the draft shuffle.

The restart was clean and tidy. Then came lap the pit stops on lap 20. Mike Whitmore, who had been running near the front beforehand, was dumped by Morgan Hamburg in the pitlane. Any long-time TM Master Cup Series fan can tell you that pit lane collisions do not sit well with officials, especially ones that appeared intentional. Therefore, Morgan Hamburg easily takes out Reject of the Race and earned himself a big fat DSQ. It also marks the second time in three races that Mike Whitmore has been run into on the pit lane. Whitmore sustained enough damage to delay his pit stop and sent him way down the order. Despite this, he caught Scott Steudler's draft but still finished last.

About Steudler, his race went from bad to worse when he was jammed up behind the Whitmore/Hamburg collision and jammed on the binders to avoid colliding with Elina Varjo. However, I can't say I was surprised that he missed the race...

Varjo turned some heads with an impressive showing, however a terrible pit stop cost the Finn her first TM Master Cup Series start on an oval track. For someone who never started on an oval, much less one of the most challenging ovals out there... pat on the back.

Avery Holtzmann was lucky to escape prequalifying. However his performances ever since Karjala have not reflected those of a man currently third in the points standings. Franz Redlich's apparent lack of team leadership skills have not helped the British rookie. Gessler in general has been in trouble ever since Karjala, with the team sliding down the grid. The team had better figure something out if Holtzmann is to become a legitimate title contender instead of someone just holding a huge number of points without being a serious contender. Despite his win in his homeland, Franz Redlich's season hasn't been all that impressive, showing the same frustrating inconsistency that got him booted out of Volpi.

Grant Papp did not show any of the speed he did in prequalifying, instead, he looked fairly out of his depth despite a strong 12th place on the grid. Papp dropped to the back early and for the most part stayed there.

Now, about Mikhail Pulyakov, missing the race by .01 of a second. That kind of describes his entire season, especially considering that he dropped out of the Karjala Grand Prix before it started. So close, but yet so far. Reports are that Pulyakov may be replaced for Michigan onwards, but if the issue is performance, Katzev may want to think twice.