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Mike and Doug run amuck as Shaun enjoys time off and discuss all the silliness surrounding the IZOD IndyCar Series, the Lotus (Slowtus?) engines, and preview the Indianapolis 500, the Mazda Road to Indy races, WRC Rally Acropolis, and the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.
Listened to your podcast. As a Rally fan I have to point out a couple of things. First, I don’t think Loeb is a shoe-in for winning at Acropolis. Looks like qualifying to choose start position is going to be important once again. Dust is always an issue in Greece, however this year thunderstorms with moments of heavy rain is being forecast for Saturday and Sunday. Look at Loeb’s record on rain soaked gravel the last 2 years. Australia last year – rolled DNF. Rally GB – was hit by a spectator car in transit DNF. Portugal – Rolled. Since Loeb has driven the DS3, he has had bad luck in the rain. Granted RallyGB wasn’t his fault, but again bad luck in the wet stuff. Also, you said that Mikko didn’t seem as fast as you thought he should be in the DS3 in comparison to the Ford Fiesta RS WRC. You are forgetting that the Ford Fiesta homolugation for this year has proven to be more powerful than last year. I believe Ford has the speed advantage this year, they just need consistency from the drivers.
Second, the first GRC (Global Rally Cross) event is also this weekend at the Richmond NASCAR event. Even if you aren’t a huge fan of RallyCross, you should at least want to see the names of Block, Pastrana, WRC legend Marcus Gronholm, Tanner Faust, Dave Mirra, Rhys Millen, and European Rallycross champ Sverre Isachsen (and more). There will be manufacturer cars from Dodge, Ford, Subaru, and Hyundai. These cars have few limits so we are talking 650HP and 0-60 times of less than 2 seconds! Set your DVR for ESPN2 for Saturday night where they will do a 1hr recap of the event. If nothing else, it will be worth it to see the epic crash that Mirra is bound to have!
Cheers and I wish I was at Indy with you guys!
Mike (Oregonwings)
I forgot to add one more thing..
You guys are fans of young and up and coming drivers. Acropolis rally is Round 2 of the WRC Academy Cup, featuring America’s own Chris Duplessis (who unfortunately missed out on Oregon Trail Rally because he didn’t finish the build of his Fiesta R2 in time). One of the favorites to win is Australian Brendan Reeves who is in his second year of the Academy and is good friends with Will Orders who won the 2WD class at Oregon Trail.
I’m hoping the TV and radio folks give proper support to the WRC Academy drivers as they are more cash strapped than the WRC teams and any coverage they can get is a HUGE help in getting even the smallest sponsors to help them.
Mike (Oregonwings)
Mike and I anticipated Shaun being on the show this week, and so we kinda dropped the rally ball. 🙁