Andretti. Michael Andretti. Brainfart, sorry. When he went over to F1, I remember a hoorah of mild types about how he had trouble fitting in the car. I remember Nigel had even more.
Without wanting to be too cloak and dagger about it, I’m afraid I do cos I signed a non-disclosure agreement which I’ve probably already slightly violated; F1 teams are seriously paranoid :). I think it’s a bit silly myself, and the software I wrote was certainly no earth-shattering development, but I’m erring on the side of caution.
GusNSpot, we’ve acknowledged that the weight penalty in F1 is considerably greater (although Indycars do still have the occasional street race, do they not?). I’ve only been referring to F1 to counter the assertions that the weight penalty doesn’t exist at all, and because it’s the series of which I have first-hand experience. It seems to me that everything you say about Indycars is pretty much true of NASCAR, however, and they do weigh car+driver. People want to see an exhibition of those attributes they find impressive within the context of racing. I find a fast car, quick reflexes and all that to be impressive. I don’t really care how heavy someone is, and would rather that it didn’t matter.
Bollocks. F1 weighs the driver and car together, but there is much more differentiation between the cars than in Indy racing. Teams that race at Indy don’t build their cars from scratch, they have a choice of two chassis, and three engine suppliers. (I have seen references to the Penske team being able to make or dictate some changes to their Toyota engines.) F1 teams build their own cars; some build their own engines and others team up with a supplier, usually a car manufacturer.
I’m sure the teams at Indianapolis have their own secret tricks to try to improve their own cars, but there’s a much greater variety of equipment in Formula One.
Another argument in favor of accounting for the driver’s weight in IRL is the fact that NASCAR does it, and their cars are more than twice as heavy as the IRL cars. Both series run predominantly on ovals, not road courses. (IRL has only just added a couple of road courses this year.)
So if driver weight has an effect worth accounting for in NASCAR, it must have an even greater effect in the lighter open-wheel cars.
That’s funny. Always knew Robby Gordon was an asshole, just didn’t suspect he was that big of one.
Have you ever seen these open wheel drivers (as in, IRL, F1, ChampCar)? They’re teeny. Michael Andretti stands what, 5’8"? Most drivers are small because the car is small. Hell, Christiano da Matta, the driver that won the CART world series a few years ago, is 5’4", 130 pounds. And it seemed to be common knowledge that he was only that 130 pounds in full gear and dripping wet - in reality, he probably weighed 120. That’s 25 pounds lighter than me, and I’m a 5’6" female. And no one made a deal about it, other than to note that he was a really small guy in a field of small guys.
Gordon’s got a problem, certainly, and it isn’t Patrick’s weight.
The fact that someone doesn’t MAKE the basket doesn’t mean he isn’t naturally at an advantage. The fact that she didn’t win the race Sunday proves that other factors weigh into the issue. There will always be an advantage for someone, whether it’s steadier steering, faster reflexes, weight, crew, or financing.
my 2c: Make up the weight by giving her 100# of extra fuel 
I am a race fan, but more NASCAR than IRL recently. The trend in NASCAR is towards smaller drivers, but Newman is one of the biggest and fastest on the track. There are several former football players in race cars. One of the problems they have is fitting in the car. Newman and M. Waltrip have both catapaulted cars in the past few years where the car has colapsed a few inches around them and prevented them from getting out. Major size disadvantage, but NASCAR, even with their new safety first mentality, isn’t going to make everyone drive bigger cars.
Is there a weight advantage? Sure there is. Towards the end of a race the crew puts in just enough gas to assure they finish the race so they don’t have to drag more weight around. However, as most of the fans here have commented, the minute advantage that the 50-100 pounds makes are entirely eclipsed by:
the car
the crew
the driver’s skill
the crew cheif’s skill
luck
the cars around you
the track
the weather
etc.
The only racing league I know of that takes all these variables away and leaves only driver skill is IROC. Who wins IROC? Usually NASCAR drivers who are most familiar with the race format since the IROC format and the NASCAR format are very similar. But good drivers still get taken out of the race when something breaks in their car or someone else wrecks in front of them, etc. Racing, like any sport, and like life, will never be fair.
Robbie Gordon is a putz. He is the next generation of Jimmy Spencer. He is everything that NASCAR tries not to be. He has no talent, he has no brains. This is why he has no ride. And, since he has no ride, he has nothing better to do than sit around and whine about how unfair life has been to him. The only thing he might win is a whine off. At least Jeff Gordon has a valid point when he get whiny.
Danica Patrick is a cutie. She seems to have raw talent and has a good ride for a good team. However, I think it might be a bit early to pass out a tiara and crown her the Indy Princess and dub this an historical moment that changed all of racing. I hope she does well, but I was really sick of hearing about her for 450 of the 500 mile race. OK! I get that the person leading the race lack external genitalia! There are 32 other drivers out there!
And to end my rant (BTW, my words are cheap and 2c gets you alot of them) people who equate NASCAR to wifebeaters and rednecks are just mad because daddy took away your polo ponies 
If you choose not to accept what many people who have provided expert testimony say, then so be it. You are wrong on this point and this is pretty clear to everyone who understands the physics involved.
I didn’t say Gordon or anyone else (around 200 lbs.) could lose 50 pounds. I said they could lose weight to compete with a man 50 pounds lighter. Losing 25 pounds would make the weight advantage less severe. I think most people could do that and remain physically fit. I suggest you improve your reading comprehension before you insult me.
So since nobody else complained, the argument is invalid? That’s not very logical. Neither is your argument that there has to be a correlation between people with a weight advantage and racing success. If Barry Bonds hadn’t hit 70 home runs, would his steroid use be any less unfair? It’s not the outcome of the race that matters, it’s that all competitors are competing on a level playing field.
This has been proven many times. You can’t plead ignorance forever.
goddamnit, racing isn’t fair unless EVERYONE PASSES THE FINISH LINE AT THE SAME FUCKING TIME.
these guys are just sexist assholes, plain and simple.
brickbacon
It would be nice if all athletes could compete on a level playing field but that’s not how professional sports function. Should we include a “hole in the floor hoop” for shorter basketball players to compensate for the height advantage of taller players?
Returning to auto racing, do all teams get precisely the same amount of money right down to the penny? No? I am outraged. Let’s stop this financial disparity immediately.
Going back a few decades, from what I understand, Janet Guthrie (remember her?) took a lot of shit from a lot of the Indy 500 drivers long before the day of the race. Is that a fair and level playing field?
Dead Badger mentioned his Formula 1 technical experience without getting into specifics. Well, in order to keep everyone equal, shouldn’t each racing team have the same knowledge and information as all the others?
Ah! A horseracing handicapper’s wet dream! Two-horse dead heats are uncommon but do happen. Triple dead heats are very rare indeed. Theoretically, in a perfect world, the weights assigned to each horse/jockey in a handicap race would adjust so exactly for the differences in ability that the entire field would finish in a dead heat.
Funny how that doesn’t happen. Could it possibly be that weight is only a tiny part of the winning equation, even when it’s believed to have such a pronounced effect upon the results?
By the way, did everyone see the picture of Danica Patrick arriving at the awards banquet?
Yow, she cleans up good.
Yeah, I got just a little tired of that, too. I feel bad for Danica’s teammate, Vitor Meira, who came in second, but didn’t get a quarter of the attention that Danica did. Or Bryan Herta, who came in third. We barely heard a word about either of them until lap 190 or so.
That said, I sincerely hope that all this attention will get more women involved in motorsports at all levels. It’s clear that there’s nothing about the sport that they can’t master, and that it’s mainly been cultural obstacles that have kept them out to date. (I have an ulterior motive: I’m involved in amateur motorsports, and I’m single. Up till now, it has been a remarkably bad way to meet women.)
BTW, did you catch the factoid they mentioned during the race: Danica is several inches shorter and several pounds lighter than the Borg-Warner Trophy!
If you ask me, she’s pretty hot in her driving suit!
Regarding the whole Robbie Gordon thing. I talked to a friend of mine today who knows more about cars and racing than anyone I’ve ever met or even heard about (the last part is an exageration but you get the idea). Robbie’s a little baby, he says. Does Danica have an unfair advantage I asked? He said nah, sure she may get a little more horsepower out of the deal but she also wont’ have the same downforce (I think that’s what he said). He didn’t seem to think she’d have any major advantage. He was also clear to point out that she isn’t just some hottie they plunked into a car, she was very successful on the circuit she was on before Indy.
Am I a fan of Danica? No but I don’t have anything against her either. I didn’t watch the Indy this year, i haven’t for 10 years or so. I’m just not that impressed with either Indy or Champ right now. I find my racing elsewhere.
How do IRL laptimes change as fuel is burned off during a stint? I seem to recall reading that those cars under green burn nearly a gallon per lap; that would mean, oh, 6-7 lbs/lap of weight reduction.
In F1, as has been mentioned, cars run noticeably faster near the end of stints, when they are nearly empty of fuel. As Dead Badger likely knows better than any of the rest of us here, the precise value of the weight penalty will vary from circuit to circuit.
The weight penalty is probably smaller on an oval - I think there’s general agreement on that. Somebody feeling inspired could probably pore through the data from Sunday’s race and come up with an average value for the Indy oval and IRL cars. Has this been done, to anyone’s knowledge?
Fneh? No, of course not - racing ingenuity is an interesting way to win a race. Being a skinny bastard isn’t, and I say that as a skinny bastard. What’s not to understand about this? Nobody is saying that every factor should be equalised, people are saying that those factors which have a large effect but aren’t conducive to interesting racing should be factored out. Weight, for me, is one of them. This is starting to remind me of the Vonnegut short story about the Handicapper General…
Who said pronounced? Quote a single person saying that, or expressing a similar opinion.
The whole point is that it’s a small advantage based on a factor that has nothing to do with a driver’s skill, a car’s engineering, or a team’s strategy/ability. Since those are the only three factors that should matter in racing, and driver weight is not one of them, driver weight should be removed from the equation despite it not being the be all and end all of advantages.
When a person argues that “since she didn’t win, it’s not an advanatge”, they do a disservice to critical thinking in general. This is the worst logic that can ever be applied to sports. The same argument is forced to conclude that Trent Dilfer (whom you likely have never even heard of) was a better QB than Dan Marino, since Dilfef beat the Giants to win a Superbowl in 2000, and Danny Boy never got a ring. Every single little advantage doesn’t translate directly into victory. What it translates into is a biased playing field that takes some of the fun out of the sport.
Having said that, I damn near lose my mind when I read arguments about how height is the same kind of advantage in basketball. I have new for you: no it isn’t. Let me try to be as clear as possible.
Who said pronounced? Quote a single person saying that.
The whole point is that it’s a small advantage based on a factor that has nothing to do with a driver’s ability, a car’s engineering, or a team’s strategy. Since those are the only three factors that should matter in racing, and driver weight is not one of them, driver weight should be removed from the equation despite it not being the be all and end all of advantages.
When a person argues that “since she didn’t win, it’s not an advanatge”, they do a disservice to critical thinking in general. This is the worst logic that can ever be applied to sports. The same argument is forced to conclude that Trent Dilfer (whom you likely have never even heard of) was a better QB than Dan Marino, since Dilfer beat the Giants to win a Superbowl in 2000, and Danny Boy never got a ring. Every single little advantage doesn’t translate directly into victory. What it translates into is a biased playing field that takes some of the fun out of the sport.
Having said that, I damn near lose my mind when I read arguments saying height in basketball is the same type of advanatge. If that were true, the lower the basket, the higher the shooting percentage would be. Do you really think that lowering the basket by 4 feet, a half a foot at a time, would increase every NBA players shot % incrementally, across the board, without fail, with each step lower producing a higher percentage than the previous step? Because that is the effect that reducing weight has in car racing.
drm
I stopped watching the Indy 500 about 10 or 12 years ago myself. (That’s when half the USAC drivers didn’t race for whatever reason it was. It’s been screwed up like that ever since).
Dead Badger
To some extent you and I agree. (I was just exaggerating some of the arguments.) Sometimes it is good to introduce an “unfair” advantage. That makes an interesting race. Hey if somebody’s team has got more money, well someone else’s team has a “skinny” driver or maybe someone else’s team has a clever engineering wizard.
If nothing else, one thing is for certain - I think there was a tad more discussion about this year’s Indy 500 than last years. (I wonder if the ratings were somewhat higher this year too.)
I know others have remarked about Danica being a cute “babe” and let’s face it, females have done a lot for promoting sports. How about Anna Kornokova (sp?) and the Williams sisters for tennis? How about those Olympic Volley Ball players? I could go on but I think you get the idea.
wtf? That was odd. The post I intended to make begins with the second quote box. Sorry for the confusion. (I wouldn’t mind if a mod trimmed out everything before the second quote box.)
They are likely misinterpreting my words to mean exactly that, when in fact I strongly believe the opposite. Competitive balance (parity) and a level playing field are basic concepts to a sports fan. Previously I thought it was a universal concept, but this thread has convinced me that non-sports fans may have trouble grasping it.
PTI reported it was up 40% from last year, and outdrew the NASCAR race later that day.
Without question. Since women aren’t very interested in watching other women (or anybody) compete in sports on television, women’s sports are dependent on male viewership. Thus, it is no surprise that the hotter the stars, the more guys tune in. I’ll watch any hot chick play tennis, but don’t ask me to care about who wins the majors, because I just don’t. I only care about who is best, and the women ain’t it. Unlike tennis, racing appears to be a truly gender-unbiased sport.