Before you can finish first, you first have to finish!
Helio Castroneves
Despite a short season in IndyCars and losing it in Watkins Glen last weekend, Paul Tracy made a surprising leap forward during the Indy Car race in Toronto on Sunday with a podium finish within his grasp. But we all know Tracy – give him an inch and he’ll make it the width of his car. Now with Tracy running in 3rd place, team owner Jimmy Vasser had reportedly told Tracy to stay out of trouble, but looming up ahead along the ‘back straight’ a.k.a. Lakeshore Boulevard was Helio Castroneves. Castroneves was conserving fuel.
Paul Tracy
Tracy caught up to Castroneves at the tight right turn. Given the fact Tracy was coming up the inside, Castroneves wasn’t going to slam the door on Tracy but he wasn’t necessarily going to give up the position. After all, the two drivers were racing for podium positions. But as Tracy tries to go under Castroneves, wheels start to touch. At this point Castroneves’ car veered sharp right and Tracy’s car ended up being squashed against the wall. From an observer’s point of view, even after the replays, it would appear that Castroneves had rammed Tracy into the wall. Not so. Here’s an analysis of the incident.
Fact 1 – It’s never a good idea to bounce people out of the way. While one would think that the aggressor will prevail, with cars this fragile, one can never count on that being the case. For Castroneves to purposely push Tracy into the wall would have been plain stupidity. Sitting in second place with a handful of laps to go, there is everything to lose and very little to gain. And as it turned out, Castroneves did damage his car proving that bumping cars is never a good idea.
Fact 2 – the direction Castroneves took when he squashed Tracy against the wall was not the direction he needed to go. Even without Tacey’s car being in the way, Castroneves’ car was headed into the wall. It was only Tracy’s car that deflected it back in the right direction. Had Castroneves’ car headed up the track instead at Tracy, Castroneves would have been in a better position at turn 5 to ward off any further challengers of Tracy.
Fact 3 – people tend to judge things by what they ‘know’, but what they think they know doesn’t necessarily mean what they know is correct. While most people will agree an open wheel race car is nothing like a passenger vehicle, what most do not realise is that the steering ratio is complete different. Lock to lock is a mere 180 degrees or half of a complete turn of the steering wheel. What this means is, unlike an everyday passenger vehicle where the feedback from the wheels is ratio’ed down to the steering wheel, on a race car, any influencing force on a front wheel (such as that experienced while striking another car), can easily snap the steering wheel so hard and fast that the driver couldn’t possibly hold it.
The Bottom line was, Tracy had every right to go up the inside of Castroneves going into turn 3, however it’s a tight turn which means Tracy couldn’t possibly hug the wall all the way around. Those cars have a limited turning circle and with no place to go there was some bumping because the track is very narrow at that point. It was at that point when Castroneves’ front wheel was caught and snapped sideways driving his car hard into Tracy’s. So while the fans were disappointed that their home grown hero failed to finish, this was what’s racing is all about. Neither driver did anything wrong nor did they do anything foolish. It was just racing. However, the old saying is so very true – “Before you can finish first, you first have to finish!”
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