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Introduction to Champ Car Racing

For those of you in the San Jose area, you might have noticed all these flags announcing the San Jose Grand Prix which happens this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (July 29-31) in downtown San Jose. At the last blogger meetup, I asked if anybody was going, and just got laughter in response. I’m not sure exactly why, but I assume partly because it will be a tremendous inconvenience for locals when there’s a ton of tourists in town, and also because auto-racing conjures up images of NASCAR and rednecks.

Let me clear up that misconception and hopefully provide a good primer to Champ Car and auto-racing in general.

First of all, I’m an auto-racing fan and I’m probably the furthest thing you could get from a redneck. Secondly, the San Jose Grand Prix is part of the Champ Car World Series (aka Champ Car or CCWS, and formerly known as CART), and there are some huge differences between Champ Car and NASCAR.

The various auto-racing leagues.

You see, auto-racing is very fragmented, unlike most of the other major sports. This can be bewildering to many people, and is probably one reason it isn’t as mainstream as the other sports. So here’s a quick overview to clear things up.

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is easily the most popular form of auto-racing in the United States. It uses stock cars on oval tracks. Stock cars basically look like ones you and I normally drive on the street, and oval tracks are what they sound like. Its best-known race is the Daytona 500. NASCAR drivers include Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Past drivers include Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt.

Formula One (F1) uses open wheel cars instead of stock cars. These are cars that are designed entirely for racing, with room inside for just the driver and tires that stick out from the body. In addition, F1 is run entirely on road courses, which, in contrast to ovals, feature both left and right turns of varying tightness. F1 also features the most technologically advanced cars and is thus considered the pinnacle of motor sports1. F1’s best-known race is the Monaco Grand Prix, and F1 drivers include Michael Schumacher, Jacques Villeneuve, and Juan Pablo Montoya. Past drivers include Mika Häkkinen, Alain Prost, and the late Ayrton Senna.

The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) uses sports cars, and its best-known race is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is, as it sounds, an endurance race. Frankly, I don’t know very much about it.

The Indy Racing League (IRL) also uses open wheel cars (sometimes called Indy cars), but primarily on oval circuits, most prominently the Indianapolis Motor Speedway which hosts what is probably the most famous race in America, the Indianapolis 500. It’s such a big race that racers from many other leagues (including Champ Car) will come to race at it. The IRL formed by splitting away from CART (Champ Car’s predecessor), so there is a long acrimonious history between the two leagues. You can read more about that history here, but note that this split is a big reason NASCAR is much more popular than open wheel racing. The most well-known driver in the IRL right now is probably Danica Patrick, mostly because she is the most accomplished female driver in racing.

Of course, it’s tough to identify famous drivers for IRL and Champ Car because the two leagues have long competed for the same teams, drivers, and sponsorships. Thus, many drivers have switched between the two, like Michael Andretti, Gil de Ferran, and Al Unser, Jr.

But this brings us, finally, to…

Champ Car racing and why should you watch it

In a nutshell, Champ Car is open wheel racing primarily on road courses, with a couple of ovals. It was formerly known as Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), but CART went bankrupt a couple of years ago (primarily due to the split with IRL). Although its survival seemed doubtful at the time, it has re-emerged under new ownership as Champ Car, and seems to be undergoing a resurgence lately, featuring a better television package and again attracting some of the top driving talent in the world (many had been jumping ship to IRL shortly before CART’s bankruptcy, but now the tables seem to be turned).

Road courses rule!

I think one of the main reasons it’s been doing well despite the split is that it has a better format that combines the best of both worlds in racing. Unlike NASCAR and the IRL, it uses primarily road courses instead of ovals, and I think the racing on road courses is much more challenging and interesting to watch. It’s a much more demanding test of both the driver and the car, and also provides a lot more variety for the viewer. Doubly so in Champ Car, where many of the courses (including San Jose) are on temporary street courses with rougher surfaces and more unpredictable conditions, so you can visibly see the drivers fighting to maintain control of the car in every single corner.

I could go on for a long time explaining the differences between ovals and road courses, but I think the quickest way to understand it is to try it out yourself, say on a videogame. Auto-racing is not mindless. On the contrary, it’s quite a technical feat just to calculate the fastest path (or line) through a turn (more that here), and I often find parallels between auto-racing and skiing in that both can be an enjoyable struggle to find “the perfect turn.” A real good game to try is the Ferrari F355 video game, which you can find at Dave & Busters at the Great Mall in Milpitas. At the highest difficulty, it’s a rather accurate simulation of race driving, and you can pick from several courses, including an oval and several road courses (try the Long Beach course, which is a fun and challenging Champ Car race).

Better yet, try kart racing. Malibu Grand Prix is okay, but the cars are slow and sluggish. If you want something really fun, try SpeedRing in Santa Clara (alas, Barnaby James reports that SpeedRing closed down a few months ago). The karts are much faster, going over 40 mph. For those of you who don’t consider auto racing a real sport, just see how your muscles feel after twelve minutes at SpeedRing (now multiply that by the higher G-forces exerted by the speeds in professional racing for a much longer time than twelve minutes).

The engines are also much more responsive, meaning that so braking and accelerating for each turn becomes very important (vs. Malibu, where you can get decent times by keeping the gas all the way down through the whole lap). Indeed, since they’re rear-wheel drive, you can try advanced things like powersliding or four-wheel drifting through turns.

But best of all, you get to pass and be passed on the track.

The passing is less common, but more exciting

And that’s the primary attraction of road courses over ovals. Passing is an art that is very difficult to master. On ovals, you draft and then power by on a straight. In a road course, there’s a variety of techniques you can try2, all of which require a good deal of skill, tight control, and a lot of guts. Passing may be less common, but it’s as exciting as hell, especially if you see two cars fighting side by side through several turns (and note, this means one or both of them are forced to take a suboptimal line).

Also, Champ Car seems to strike a nice balance between too much and too little passing. In NASCAR, passing is happening practically all the time, making it a commonplace occurrence. More of a good thing isn’t always better (contrast the excitement level between a basket in basketball and a touchdown in football). F1, on the other hand, is at the other extreme. Each team constructs their own car with its own engine, resulting in some cars being much faster than others, which can spread out the field and greatly reduce the amount of back and forth (this year of F1 has been more competitive than the past couple, but the championship is already pretty much sewn up with still seven races left on the schedule). But in Champ Car, the cars are all pretty equally matched, which makes the outcome much less certain, and means that driver skill plays a much bigger role than in other auto-racing.

Other cool Champ Car features

In addition, Champ Cars feature a push-to-pass (or Power 2 Pass) button that drivers can use to temporarily increase the horsepower on the car. But each car is only allotted sixty seconds of it in each race, so drivers must carefully choose when to use it and when to save it for later, adding another element of strategy to the race. On top of this, each team is allotted a limited amount of fuel per race, which means teams must constantly balance speed vs. fuel conservation (and like all auto-racing, must also choose carefully how many times they want to pit to refuel during the race — fewer pits means fewer delays, but results in a temporarily heavier car).

And if that’s not enough, each team gets two kinds of tires. Normal tires and faster “option” tires, marked with red bands on the sidewalls3. Tires in auto-racing don’t last very long, so teams also have to choose carefully when to use the red tires, and this in turn will also affect the pit strategy as well as the decision on when to use the push-to-pass button.

And from what I’ve heard, each race is surrounded by a fun festival atmosphere with a variety of activities. And if you get the Gold or Silver Grandstand pass, you can even go into the paddocks (these are the garages where teams work on the cars)! Frankly, this whole event is a unique opportunity that you just don’t get everywhere. With the future of the IRL coming into question with the loss of some of their manufacturers, Champ Car looks poised to re-emerge as the leading open-wheel racing series in America, especially after the sterling turnouts at Toronto and Edmonton. Hopefully San Jose will continue that trend.

Oh, and did I mention that the winning driver does donuts? :)

Hopefully I’ve convinced you to check it out. Now so that you can follow what’s going on in the race, let me introduce you to…

The major players

There are currently twenty drivers and ten teams (two drivers per team), and there’s both a championship for the drivers and for the teams. But note, some of them are only there for advertising purposes and are not very competitive. These are the ones to keep an eye on (the photos are from the Champ Car World Series website — note, you can click on the images for a larger view):

Sebastien Bourdais (website). Bourdais is the defending champion and is currently the points leader and the driver to beat (coming out of nowhere to win the last race in Edmonton). He’s a 26 year old Frenchman, and won the Champ Car Rookie of the Year title in 2003. He drives the red McDonald’s car for the Newman/Haas team. Oh, and the Newman in Newman/Haas is Paul Newman, by the way (photo of Bourdais’s car by Dan Streck, USA LAT Photographic).

Paul Tracy (website). This 36 year old Canadian is a grizzled veteran who won the championship in 2003, has a ton of race victories under his belt, and is currently running 2nd, trailing Bourdais by 21 points (a margin that could be made up in a single race). In addition, there is a lot of bad blood between Tracy and Bourdais after the two have had several notable collisions and have exchanged some nasty words through the press (and it seems to me that Tracy is the one taking the high road while Bourdais comes off as being petty and immature). Their rivalry is definitely one of the more interesting things to watch in Champ Car right now. He drives a blue Indeck car for Forsythe (photo of Tracy’s car by Michael Levitt, USA LAT Photographic).

Justin Wilson. This 25 year old Brit for RuSPORT is the hard-charging up-and-comer right now, finishing 2nd in the Rookie of the Year competition in 2004, and is currently 3rd in the standings, just a single point behind Tracy after scoring his first ever Champ Car victory two races ago in Toronto. Don’t underestimate him, as he has F1 experience, and was only dumped by Jaguar because they needed a driver who could bring sponsorship money to the team. He’s the driver I’m probably going to root for at San Jose. He’s sponsored by CDW/RuSPORT, but his red car is more easily identifiable by the Intel logo (photo of Wilson’s car by Anthony Kent, USA LAT Photographic).

Wilson’s teammate is A.J. Allmendinger, who is one of the brightest young American stars in open-wheel racing, winning the Champ Car Rookie of the Year for 2004. The 23 year old has yet to win a race, but has been one of the fastest drivers as of late. He won his first pole position at Edmonton and was leading late in the race before clipping the wall and retiring. It remains to be seen whether he can harness his obvious talent and put it all together for an entire race. He drives a yellow Western Union car for RuSPORT, although for San Jose, he instead drove a red CDW car (photo of Allmendinger’s car by Leland Hill, USA LAT Photographic).

Other drivers of note include are Bourdais’s teammate, Oriol Servia, a very consistent driver who was an injury replacement for Bruno Junqueria (an elite driver who was injured at the Indy 500), as well as Alex Tagliani and the well-respected Jimmy Vasser.

Most of the cars look very different, so it might be helpful to check out the spotter’s guide, which has a side-view picture of each car with its associated driver, along with their nationality and team.

Anyhow, I’m definitely excited about the race, and hope maybe I’ve piqued your interest as well. And note, I am in no way affiliated with Champ Car or the San Jose Grand Prix, and nobody is paying me to write any of this. I’m just a die-hard racing fan, hoping some of my excitement can rub off on others.

Anyway, here are some links you can go to for more information:

• The Champ Car World Series website, where you can see the current point standings and read more about the individual drivers and teams.
• The San Jose Grand Prix website.
• The San Jose Mercury News now has a section all about the San Jose Grand Prix.
• This aforementioned Detroit News article recounts the history of the IRL split from CART/Champ Car.
• HowStuffWorks has some more interesting tidbits on the cars.
• GrandPrix.com has a detailed explanation of the differences between F1 cars and ChampCars (although it’s a bit out-of-date).
• For those attending the event, you’ll want to take photos. Here’s a good site with tips on photographing auto races.
• SpeedTV has some more discussion of the push-to-pass and red “option” tires.
• Speaking of which, if you have any questions, I’ve found the folks at the SpeedTV forums pretty knowledgeable and helpful.

Of course, you can also comment below as well. I know more about F1 than Champ Car, but I’m pretty good at tracking down answers.

Update 8/17/05: Well, things didn’t go all that smoothly, and it was very clear that the planning was rushed, largely due to the fact that the course route was changed very late in the process — originally it was going to go around the HP Pavilion (where the Sharks play), but it couldn’t work due to some construction on one of the overpasses. And the resulting course was not conducive to passing at all, making the race rather boring. Still, I had a lot of fun just experiencing the raw speed and sound of the ChampCars (which is more of what these things are about anyway when you go in person vs. watching it on television), moreso during practice and qualifying on Friday and Saturday, when it was also less crowded and had fewer obstructed sightlines.

I would expect most of these issues to be resolved next year, so hopefully those who had a bad experience will give it a second chance. Oh, and I have a ton of photos from the event. Yeah, I still need to weed some of these out, but nowadays I’m busy taking even more photos.

¹ Although F1 is probably the most popular auto-racing in the world, its reputation in the U.S. has been hampered by the fact that there are no prominent American drivers (although Scott Speed could possibly change that in the future), and that, for a long while, there wasn’t even a F1 race in the U.S. Furthermore, now that there’s a U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, that has often been marred with controversy, including this year’s tire fiasco. But perhaps F1’s loss can be Champ Car’s gain. Return.

² One basic passing move is, during the straight before a turn, positioning yourself on the inside of your opponent (meaning the side that’s in the direction of the turn). Then you outbrake your opponent, meaning you wait a little bit longer than them to hit the brakes, enough to put yourself at least a half of a car-length ahead entering the turn. This means you’ll have to brake a little longer, going through the turn slower than optimal. However, since you’re on the inside, you should now be blocking the optimal line for them towards the apex, forcing them to slow down and fall in behind you. It’s pretty difficult to pass on the outside of a turn unless it’s a chicane (where a turn in one direction is followed immediately by a turn in the opposite direction), which can lead to pretty interesting tussles. Return.

³ The red tires are made from a softer compound, which means they have more grip on the track surface. The more grip you have, the faster you can go around a sharp turn. But the softer compound also means the tires don’t last as long, which could mean you might need to make your next pit stop earlier. Return.

July 24, 2005 11:37 AM in Sports | Permalink