pokerface
06-14-2003, 06:24 AM
Jun. 14, 2003. 01:00 AM
Indy duel pits Gordon against Montoya
NASCAR champ shows his stuff F1 driver bested
in track showdown
NORRIS MCDONALD
The people who control road racing on this planet might know who can drive cars that turn right and who has the money to buy rides, but not a lot of them can recognize a real racer.
That is how big-league, open-wheel racing lost Jeff Gordon.
Back in 1990, Gordon was 19 years old and a champion of oval track midget and sprint-car racing. He was ready for bigger things. Being an Indiana-raised kid, Gordon had his sights set on the Indy 500. So he called all the owners in the CART series, which raced at Indianapolis back then, and asked for a ride. To a man, they either said, "Jeff Who?" or, "No, thanks."
So Jeff Gordon "went south" in 1991, to race first in the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series and then in the big Winston Cup stock cars. Two things happened as a result:
It's said that the seeds of the Indy Racing League were planted in Tony George's brain. The owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was infuriated that a rising young star from Sweet Home Indiana couldn't land a ride in the CART IndyCar series — and thus compete in the Indy 500
Jeff Gordon went on to show that he is one of the greatest racing talents on Earth. At last count, in 10 years of racing in Winston Cup, he has won the series championship four times, won the Daytona 500 twice, won the Brickyard 400 three times and has won a record seven NASCAR road-course races. He has won 60 Winston Cup races in all, started in more than 300 of them and has banked more than $50 million (U.S.) in prize money.
Just how good Jeff Gordon really is came to light at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday when he got the opportunity to slide into the cockpit of a BMW-Williams Formula One car for the very first time. In less than six laps, he was almost as fast as regular BMW-Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya, who took over Gordon's stock car in a car-swapping promotion called Tradin' Paint.
Gordon's feat had the assembled media shaking their heads in amazement.
This whole thing came about because of some good-natured bantering that went on a few years ago between BMW's North American CEO Tom Purvis and Rick Hendricks, who owns Winston Cup stock cars. What would happen if you put a Formula One star in a stock car and a stock-car driver in an F1 machine, they wondered? Which one would do better?
Actually arranging such an exhibition is not the easiest thing to do because of drivers' and manufacturers' contracts, as well as all the scheduling headaches.
Fortunately, this week Montoya was in the U.S. en route to the Canadian Grand Prix, and Gordon had an open day before going to Michigan to drive in the Winston Cup race there.
As Fred Nation, vice-president in charge of communications at IMS, explained, Tradin' Paint was "a great opportunity for us to promote our Brickyard 400 stock car race in August and the U.S. Grand Prix, which is here in late September."
Let me say right now that Gordon and Montoya had a terrific time. They met each other for the first time Wednesday, but were obviously instant friends. They talked a mile a minute, laughed a ton and made jokes at their own expense. It was all genuine, too.
Now, this was a publicity stunt — no two ways about it — but it was a terrific publicity stunt. The major TV networks in the U.S. were there, as were the cable channel SpeedTV, the newspaper wire services and the Formula One editor of Britain's Autosport magazine.
Nothing was at stake for the drivers, except maybe some bragging rights. It was a day for fun, and both Gordon and Montoya made the most of it.
It was not a win-win situation, though. It was a win — for Gordon — but certainly not for Montoya.
The reason? Gordon got into a Formula One car and drove that car as hard as he could on the Grand Prix circuit at IMS for six laps. There were benchmarks by which he could be measured: last year's pole time for the Grand Prix, for instance, and Montoya's time recorded earlier in the day when both drivers were on the track, "setting up" their cars for the other.
Gordon's Winston Cup car, when it is in competition at Indy, runs counter-clockwise around the 2.5-mile (4 km) oval at speeds approaching 200 mph (320 km/h). It would have been interesting for Montoya to have had a crack at running Gordon's Chevrolet Monte Carlo in its natural setting.
But it was decided that the Winston Cup stock car would also be run around the Grand Prix circuit. So there was no way anybody could tell whether Montoya was doing well, or not.
For the record, Gordon, during his setup run in the Winston Cup car, turned in a lap of one minute, 38.8 seconds around the 4.28 km IMS Grand Prix circuit. Montoya's best time during his six laps was 1:39.9.
In the F1 car, Montoya turned a lap of 1:15.2; Gordon's best lap was 1:16.5.
To put this into perspective, Michael Schumacher's pole-winning time for last September's U.S. Grand Prix was 1:10.790. The slowest car in the field turned a lap of 1:13.8.
But remember: those were set after two days of practice, with rubber on the track and with the electronic timing system turned on.
"Oh my God," said Gordon, when he pulled himself out of the cockpit after his first few laps. "That was the most incredible thing I've ever done in my life."
He elaborated later at a press conference:
"I put my foot to the floor in that thing the first time and — whoa! — it got my attention. I could feel the blood go all the way to the back of my head! And then, the brakes are just incredible. You have to learn quickly that you can go a whole lot farther toward the corner before you have to put them on because when you do, you just stop."
Montoya was in good humour, but really had to wonder what he'd gotten himself into. He was gracious, talking about the power of the Chevrolet engine. But he made fun of the size of the steering wheel and discussed the difficulty of deciding when to apply the brakes in time to stop a stock car that weighs nearly three times as much as the car he's used to.
If anything, Gordon protested too much early in the day when he was asked if he would consider a switch to Formula One this late in his career.
"I'm very content and very happy where I am," he said. As the same question popped up again and again , Gordon's denial appeared to weaken somewhat. In fact, by the end of the press conference, he was suggesting that "I don't know ... if the right opportunity comes along ... " he might consider something other than stock cars.
I am no marketer, but I think it would be a safe bet to suggest that the major sponsor of the BMW-Williams F1 team, the U.S. company Hewlett-Packard, would perhaps like to see an American driving for that team. And if done properly, with a winter of testing behind him, Jeff Gordon would be the ideal candidate and could very well surprise a whole lot of people.
After all, he's conquered America with his racing talent, youthful good looks and charm.
Why not the world?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norris McDonald can be reached at nmcdona@thestar.ca
Additional articles by Norris McDonald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Distribution, transmission or republication of any material from www.thestar.com (http://www.thestar.com) is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. For information please contact us using our webmaster form.
Indy duel pits Gordon against Montoya
NASCAR champ shows his stuff F1 driver bested
in track showdown
NORRIS MCDONALD
The people who control road racing on this planet might know who can drive cars that turn right and who has the money to buy rides, but not a lot of them can recognize a real racer.
That is how big-league, open-wheel racing lost Jeff Gordon.
Back in 1990, Gordon was 19 years old and a champion of oval track midget and sprint-car racing. He was ready for bigger things. Being an Indiana-raised kid, Gordon had his sights set on the Indy 500. So he called all the owners in the CART series, which raced at Indianapolis back then, and asked for a ride. To a man, they either said, "Jeff Who?" or, "No, thanks."
So Jeff Gordon "went south" in 1991, to race first in the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series and then in the big Winston Cup stock cars. Two things happened as a result:
It's said that the seeds of the Indy Racing League were planted in Tony George's brain. The owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was infuriated that a rising young star from Sweet Home Indiana couldn't land a ride in the CART IndyCar series — and thus compete in the Indy 500
Jeff Gordon went on to show that he is one of the greatest racing talents on Earth. At last count, in 10 years of racing in Winston Cup, he has won the series championship four times, won the Daytona 500 twice, won the Brickyard 400 three times and has won a record seven NASCAR road-course races. He has won 60 Winston Cup races in all, started in more than 300 of them and has banked more than $50 million (U.S.) in prize money.
Just how good Jeff Gordon really is came to light at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday when he got the opportunity to slide into the cockpit of a BMW-Williams Formula One car for the very first time. In less than six laps, he was almost as fast as regular BMW-Williams driver Juan Pablo Montoya, who took over Gordon's stock car in a car-swapping promotion called Tradin' Paint.
Gordon's feat had the assembled media shaking their heads in amazement.
This whole thing came about because of some good-natured bantering that went on a few years ago between BMW's North American CEO Tom Purvis and Rick Hendricks, who owns Winston Cup stock cars. What would happen if you put a Formula One star in a stock car and a stock-car driver in an F1 machine, they wondered? Which one would do better?
Actually arranging such an exhibition is not the easiest thing to do because of drivers' and manufacturers' contracts, as well as all the scheduling headaches.
Fortunately, this week Montoya was in the U.S. en route to the Canadian Grand Prix, and Gordon had an open day before going to Michigan to drive in the Winston Cup race there.
As Fred Nation, vice-president in charge of communications at IMS, explained, Tradin' Paint was "a great opportunity for us to promote our Brickyard 400 stock car race in August and the U.S. Grand Prix, which is here in late September."
Let me say right now that Gordon and Montoya had a terrific time. They met each other for the first time Wednesday, but were obviously instant friends. They talked a mile a minute, laughed a ton and made jokes at their own expense. It was all genuine, too.
Now, this was a publicity stunt — no two ways about it — but it was a terrific publicity stunt. The major TV networks in the U.S. were there, as were the cable channel SpeedTV, the newspaper wire services and the Formula One editor of Britain's Autosport magazine.
Nothing was at stake for the drivers, except maybe some bragging rights. It was a day for fun, and both Gordon and Montoya made the most of it.
It was not a win-win situation, though. It was a win — for Gordon — but certainly not for Montoya.
The reason? Gordon got into a Formula One car and drove that car as hard as he could on the Grand Prix circuit at IMS for six laps. There were benchmarks by which he could be measured: last year's pole time for the Grand Prix, for instance, and Montoya's time recorded earlier in the day when both drivers were on the track, "setting up" their cars for the other.
Gordon's Winston Cup car, when it is in competition at Indy, runs counter-clockwise around the 2.5-mile (4 km) oval at speeds approaching 200 mph (320 km/h). It would have been interesting for Montoya to have had a crack at running Gordon's Chevrolet Monte Carlo in its natural setting.
But it was decided that the Winston Cup stock car would also be run around the Grand Prix circuit. So there was no way anybody could tell whether Montoya was doing well, or not.
For the record, Gordon, during his setup run in the Winston Cup car, turned in a lap of one minute, 38.8 seconds around the 4.28 km IMS Grand Prix circuit. Montoya's best time during his six laps was 1:39.9.
In the F1 car, Montoya turned a lap of 1:15.2; Gordon's best lap was 1:16.5.
To put this into perspective, Michael Schumacher's pole-winning time for last September's U.S. Grand Prix was 1:10.790. The slowest car in the field turned a lap of 1:13.8.
But remember: those were set after two days of practice, with rubber on the track and with the electronic timing system turned on.
"Oh my God," said Gordon, when he pulled himself out of the cockpit after his first few laps. "That was the most incredible thing I've ever done in my life."
He elaborated later at a press conference:
"I put my foot to the floor in that thing the first time and — whoa! — it got my attention. I could feel the blood go all the way to the back of my head! And then, the brakes are just incredible. You have to learn quickly that you can go a whole lot farther toward the corner before you have to put them on because when you do, you just stop."
Montoya was in good humour, but really had to wonder what he'd gotten himself into. He was gracious, talking about the power of the Chevrolet engine. But he made fun of the size of the steering wheel and discussed the difficulty of deciding when to apply the brakes in time to stop a stock car that weighs nearly three times as much as the car he's used to.
If anything, Gordon protested too much early in the day when he was asked if he would consider a switch to Formula One this late in his career.
"I'm very content and very happy where I am," he said. As the same question popped up again and again , Gordon's denial appeared to weaken somewhat. In fact, by the end of the press conference, he was suggesting that "I don't know ... if the right opportunity comes along ... " he might consider something other than stock cars.
I am no marketer, but I think it would be a safe bet to suggest that the major sponsor of the BMW-Williams F1 team, the U.S. company Hewlett-Packard, would perhaps like to see an American driving for that team. And if done properly, with a winter of testing behind him, Jeff Gordon would be the ideal candidate and could very well surprise a whole lot of people.
After all, he's conquered America with his racing talent, youthful good looks and charm.
Why not the world?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norris McDonald can be reached at nmcdona@thestar.ca
Additional articles by Norris McDonald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FAQs| Site Map| Privacy Policy| Webmaster| Subscribe| My Subscription
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home| GTA| Business| Waymoresports| A&E| Life
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Distribution, transmission or republication of any material from www.thestar.com (http://www.thestar.com) is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. For information please contact us using our webmaster form.