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Join Shaun and Mike as they welcome back Doug from the fall semester! We talk about Ford signing a new deal and hiring Petter Solberg joining M-Sport. We also talk about the latest driver signings in WRC, F1, and the IZOD IndyCar Series! There is also a lot of discussion involving the upcoming schedule for the 2012 IndyCar season. Doug has your Mazda Road to Indy update and the next trivia question in our AcceleRace promotion! Thanks as always for the download and enjoy the show! Merry Christmas!
Only complaint about this week’s show (operating off of memory here, because it’s been a couple days since I listened; also, my memory might be compromised due to multiple 8%+ ABV beers I’ve had tonight, so apologies if this is wide of the mark) is that I don’t think anybody needs to worry a whole lot about the new DW12 only going 215 at Indy this year. From what I understand, it’ll do 215, like, right this second. Simply making it so that the drivers can go flat-ish (which can be achieved by adding ballast to the nose, which, while a little ham-handed, in the engineering department, will still work at the large ovals, because on those tracks, weight is far, far less of a factor in lap speed than HP and drag), should tick the lap speeds up to around the 220 range. Anybody who’s held a stopwatch and timed people doing laps on Carb Day (holding up my own, pimply, dorky hand) can tell you that a lift here and a lift there is worth some 3-5 MPH at Indy. Meanwhile, there are still 5 months for the teams, IndyCar and Dallara to further sort out the chassis’ problems. I firmly believe that we’ll see pole speeds (and here I go, on record right this minute) in the 223-224 range. Yeah, I agree that that sucks, and I’d prefer to see the car in the 230+ range, but we’ll live. As will the 500. And then, the aerokits will come on board for 2013, and we’ll have another year of engine development, and we’ll get above 228, or maybe even 230 again. And we’ll forget all of the rending of garments that happened from November 2011 to March 2012, same as we forgot all the rending of garments that happened with the Panoz DP-01 from September 2006 to March 2007, same as we forgot all the same with the Reynard 94I from December 1993 to February 1994…and on and on.
Other than that, good show, guys. I’m looking forward to a lot (IndyCar, rally, F1, etc.) for 2012.