Full Throttle

As much as the Champ Car World Series is pumping out the spin over their new Panoz DP01 chassis’s “record setting” prowess one has to wonder why?

The why is easy, at least it is in this portion of auto racing’s punditry. CCWS doesn’t have much else to crow about.

The new Panoz DP01 was supposed to usher in a new era of competition and allow for a new generation of owners/drivers into the sport. A new and standardized chassis would allegedly create a cheaper environment to operate in and increase the size of starting fields in 2007.

That’s what they said. Then.

As of last week’s “Spring Training” at Laguna Seca field size barely broke into double digits at 10. To put that into perspective, 10 is about half the size of a “C” Main Event at your local bullring.

Or, in a double file start the entire field crosses under the green flag in about .000001 seconds. Not a good thing.

To counter that embarrassment CCWS PR mavens put a full court press on pimping Sebastien Bourdais’ “shattering” (their word not mine) the existing Formula One lap record at Laguna Seca.

And the pimping isn’t isolated to CCWS officials. Officials behind the Gold Coast’s Lexmark Indy 300 in Australia are singing the praises of CCWS and the Panoz DP01.

To be sure three-time Series Champ Bourdais did in fact set a new lap record. But it’s like a tree that falls deep into the Amazon, who the hell hears it hit the ground? (aside from the PR mavens)

To casual motorsport fans it sounds impressive. And besting a Formula One lap record, widely regarded as the pinnacle of the sport, by one half second does sound FAST!

To those of us that have been around the block (or lap) a time or two, not so much. The “old” record was set by F1 driver Ricardo Zonta at the wheel of Toyota’s 2006 TF106.

Zonta set the record last August during the Monterey Historic Races and was a demonstration run highlighting and putting an end point on many other Toyota race cars that ran that day. Toyota engineers set out to break the record and they accomplished that.

That is to their credit. But… somehow I doubt if the TF106 was set up to the standards of say, the Silverstone starting grid. It was only a demonstration run and thought up by Toyota’s PR mavens.

Zonta isn’t exactly the second coming of Schmi or Kimi. Or even Jense. At the time Zonta was Toyota’s Man Friday, their “third driver.”

And lets not forget the TF106 was consistently a couple seconds behind the Ferrari’s and Renaults in last years World Championship. Second tier is the phrase I’m searching for, and that description is being kind.

For the record, as the saying goes, the CCWS Panoz DP01 officially holds the track record at Laguna Seca.

Not in my “record book,” like a tree in the Amazon I never “heard” this record fall.

CCWS, F1, Panoz DP01, Laguna Seca, Sports, Champ Car, World Series, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle