Penske must win

[mbilek]

Basically, HCN must win on Sunday. Penske must switch to 2002 Chevy now. Clearly they did not have the HP to run up front. PIT STOPS CAN'T WIN YOU THE RACE ON THE 1.5 milers.

[IndyRob]

Helio ran up front all day, he finished 4th......I think their engine is fine. Hornish and Pather just have the superspeedways figured out. Give credit where credit is due.

[IndyIRLman]

Originally posted by mbilek:
<STRONG>Basically, HCN must win on Sunday. </STRONG>

Nope.

[Jim Wilke]

Robin reported that Penske tried to get Infinitis for the last 2 races but couldn't make the deal. I would think that Chevy IIs would be a better choice. I wonder if Roger's Toyota connections are making it hard for him to get his hands on Chevy IIs at this late date...

[Danny Noonan]

Hornish still has the finish the race and run up front. Which I'd say will definitely happen, but there is still a good chance HCN could win.

[mds24]

Helio tested the 2002 Chevy Ilmor in the last two weeks

As sent out to TSO subscribers on Friday I talked with Tim Cindric, the decision was they did not see the advantage to switching this late.

If they want 2002 Ilmor Chevy engines Ilmor would give them the engines.

They have chosen to stay with the 2001 Ilmor Chevy

[mario]

AUJ was running the 2002 engine built by Ilmor right? Whats the hang-up with Penske using that engine too? Can't they just drop a 2002 in there?

[IndyIRLman]

Originally posted by Danny Noonan:
<STRONG>Hornish still has the finish the race and run up front. Which I'd say will definitely happen, but there is still a good chance HCN could win.</STRONG>

You never know. Didn't Hornish finish Texas 1 around 16th or 17th?

[jmart]

Let's not forget, the class of the field for TX 1 was Tomas and Sam until they both went out. Neither Gil nor Helio ran up front at all, or at least for a minimal period.

Helio will not lead most laps with the Chevy I so there's two points given up to someone else. Assuming he figures out how to win the thing, Sam still must finish no better than 3rd for Helio to take the title. If Helio finishes 2nd, then Sam must finish no better than 5th. It gets worse as Helio finishes further down the the list.

The only way Sam loses is if he gets a DNF, has a horrible stop/2nd stop which costs him a lap or has some chronic motor problem, e.g., a bad injector, bad battery or something like that.

A very plausible scenario is that an Infiniti powered car or two takes 1st and 2nd, leaving 3rd on back for everyone else. In that case, if Helio takes 3rd, Sam could finish well back, maybe as deep as 10th and still take the championship.

Things ain't looking good for Penske. This is case where I think they are not in control of their destiny -- they need some misfortune to befall Sam also.

jmart

[step33T]

On his cool down lap, Helio said that he thought he had a parachute attached to his car.

When this was mentioned during the post race radio interview, Helio said "I feel like I tried to go into Afghanistan with a knife" (Paraphrased quote).

My math show that if Helio wins AND leads the most laps, we could have a TIE.

[HerbieIsHere]

You are all forgetting....Lazier and Cheever were running 3 mph faster than the leader!! Why do you think everyone was bunched up like they were behind Sam and Al?...Because a lot of the field was faster than those two at the end of the race....And Sam and Al knew it too.

[jmart]

You are all forgetting....Lazier and Cheever were running 3 mph faster than the leader!! Why do you think everyone was bunched up like they were behind Sam and Al?...Because a lot of the field was faster than those two at the end of the race....And Sam and Al knew it too.

Cars in the draft will always be able to run a bit faster, the question always is though, when they pop out to make the pass, do they have enough to pull it off and is there enough track to do so?

TX is a different animal though. It is big enough and wide enough that the fastest cars typically can find a way to the front. The chances for a two column log jam are reduced. HP does play a big role there, maybe TX is the most HP sensitive track on the schedule.

jmart

[IndyIRLman]

Originally posted by HerbieIsHere:
<STRONG>You are all forgetting....Lazier and Cheever were running 3 mph faster than the leader!! Why do you think everyone was bunched up like they were behind Sam and Al?</STRONG>

The draft my friend. The draft.

[DokterZ]

Something tells me that if that had been HCN and GDF running side-by-side the last 30 laps, there would be a different "post race analysis" by some.

[crispy]

Originally posted by HerbieIsHere:
<STRONG>You are all forgetting....Lazier and Cheever were running 3 mph faster than the leader!! Why do you think everyone was bunched up like they were behind Sam and Al?...Because a lot of the field was faster than those two at the end of the race....And Sam and Al knew it too.</STRONG>

I love this inane statistic.

Guys that are right behind the leader are running 3mph faster right? WRONG.

Maybe on a single lap they are. But in order to do that, they'd have to be (let's say) 100 feet behind the leaders one lap and then close it up to 10 feet. Okay, so that lap was faster. But wait! How did they get 100 feet behind if they're all right together for 30 laps? Oh that's right, the lap before they were 3 mph SLOWER than the leaders.

Sorry, if they were in front, Hornish and Unser would have right behind them.