IndyCar: Detroit Dual 1 Notebook

By May 31, 2014, 8:07 PM EDT
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It was just another one of those days for Justin Wilson. One of those ‘come out of nowhere and finish toward the front’ days.

The Dale Coyne Racing driver started 19th on the grid this afternoon, but ultimately charged 15 spots to finish fourth in the first race of the Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

That tied Team Penske’s Will Power for the biggest position jump on Saturday; Power started 16th but was still able to capture his second win of the season.

“We just had to be quick where we needed to be, save fuel when we needed to save fuel,” Wilson said. “Tough day, but you’ve got to play it how you’ve got to play it. From 19th to 4th, something was going on in that race.

“We were up and back and then up and back. The guys did great pit stops. We did quite a few of them. That gives us something to work with and we’ll come back tomorrow and try and qualify a little bit better and start close to the front.”

Also adding good vibes for DCR today was their Colombian rookie, Carlos Huertas, who netted an eighth-place finish for a new personal best in the Verizon IndyCar Series.

As we’ve written before, Huertas has been largely anonymous but still reliable. How reliable? Following today’s race, Nick Yeoman of IndyCar Radio pulled out a statistic that might surprise you:

Usually, when you’re in that sort of company, that’s a very good thing.

“The end was really tough because I had to save fuel and defend positions,” Huertas said. “I had to keep turning the engine down all of the time for less power and more fuel mileage and I was still not getting the numbers.

“It was difficult because I was running in the top five but that is what it is. I am hopeful we can improve on eighth place tomorrow.”

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After starting 14th, Josef Newgarden was putting together a Top-5 run at the halfway point of today’s race. But on Lap 37, he found the barriers in Turn 7 and was knocked out of the race with a 20th-place result.

The Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing driver took full blame for the incident, saying that he simply locked up the rear brakes before crashing.

“It’s a silly mistake that cost us today,” he said. “We had a great car and were doing a great job. We didn’t really have any complications so days like that you want to finish strong and do a good job overall. I feel like I let everyone down, I feel bad for everyone on our team.

“They’ve done a great job this weekend, especially coming off of Indy with the long stretch that they’ve had. They’ve been working flat out. I hope we have a good day tomorrow. We get another chance to qualify and race so hopefully we can do a better job there and I’ll try and do better for the boys.”

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Another competitor that had a strong day derailed was Jack Hawksworth, but instead of a wreck, it was a left-front brake rotor failure that relegated him to a 19th-place finish.

Hawksworth started third, but on the opening lap, he took second from James Hinchcliffe on the inside at Turn 3. He quickly pulled a gap on the Canadian while setting his sights on pole sitter and early race leader Helio Castroneves.

But as the yellow flew at Lap 15 for Mike Conway’s single-car crash, the aforementioned rotor broke on Hawksworth’s No. 98 Bryan Herta Autosport Honda.

The rookie was able to get the car back to the pits for repairs, but those ultimately knocked him four laps off the pace.

“Unfortunately, the front left brake exploded, so that was basically our day gone,” he said. “We did a few more laps of running and got a bit more of a feel for the track so we can have a better day tomorrow.”

Herta said he had never seen a “carbon disc failure” like what occurred on Saturday, and he hoped Sunday would bring a result more representative of their efforts.

“I feel bad for Jack and all the guys because yet again, they did not make any mistakes but somehow we still did not get a result,” he said. “I’m glad we have another race tomorrow and another shot.

“We’ve got a great car, great team, great driver. We’re ready for round two.”

Roger Penske vows new downtown Detroit GP will be bigger than the Super Bowl for city

By Jun 1, 2023, 2:00 PM EDT
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DETROIT – He helped spearhead bringing the town a Super Bowl 17 years ago, but Roger Penske believes the reimagined Chevrolet Detroit GP is his greatest gift to the Motor City.

“It’s bigger than the Super Bowl from an impact within the city,” Penske told NBC Sports. “Maybe not with the sponsors and TV, but for the city of Detroit, it’s bigger than the Super Bowl.

“We’ve got to give back individually and collectively, and I think we as a company in Michigan and in Detroit, it’s something we know how to do. It shows we’re committed. Someone needs to take that flag and run it down through town. And that’s what we’re trying to do as a company. We’re trying to give back to the city.”

After 30 years of being run on Belle Isle, the race course has been moved to a new nine-turn, 1.7-mile downtown layout that will be the centerpiece of an event weekend that is designed to promote a festival and community atmosphere.

There will be concerts in the adjacent Hart Plaza. Local businesses from Detroit’s seven districts have been invited to hawk their wares to new clientele. Boys and Girls Clubs from the city have designed murals that will line the track’s walls with images of diversity, inclusion and what Detroit means through the eyes of youth.

And in the biggest show of altruism, more than half the circuit will be open for free admission. The track is building 4-foot viewing platforms that can hold 150 people for watching the long Jefferson Avenue straightaway and other sections of the track.

Detroit GP chairman Bud Denker, a longtime key lieutenant across Penske’s various companies, has overseen more than $20 million invested in infrastructure.

The race is essentially Penske’s love letter to the city where he made much of his fame as one of Detroit’s most famous automotive icons, both as a captain of industry with a global dealership network and as a racing magnate (who just won his record 19th Indy 500 with Josef Newgarden breaking through for his first victory on the Brickyard oval).

During six decades in racing, Penske, 86, also has run many racetracks (most notably Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also speedways in Michigan, California and Pennsylvania), and much of that expertise has been applied in Detroit.

“And then the ability for us to reach out to our sponsor base, and then the business community, which Bud is tied in with the key executives in the city of Detroit, bringing them all together,” Penske said. “It makes a big difference.

“The Super Bowl is really about the people that fly in for the Super Bowl. It’s a big corporate event, and the tickets are expensive. And the TV is obviously the best in the world. What we’ve done is taken that same playbook but made it important to everyone in Detroit. Anyone that wants to can come to the race for free, can stand on a platform or they can buy a ticket and sit in the grandstands or be in a suite. It’s really multiple choice, but it is giving it to the city of Detroit. I think it’s important when you think of these big cities across the country today that are having a lot of these issues.”

Denker said the Detroit Grand Prix is hoping for “an amazingly attended event” but is unsure of crowd estimates with much of the track offering free viewing. The race easily could handle a crowd of at least 50,000 daily (which is what the Movement Music Festival draws in Hart Plaza) and probably tens of thousands more in a sprawling track footprint along the city’s riverwalk.

Penske is hoping for a larger crowd than Belle Isle, which was limited to about 30,000 fans daily because of off-site parking and restricted fan access at a track that was located in a public park.

The downtown course will have some unique features, including a “split” pit lane on an all-new concrete (part of $15 million spent on resurfaced roads, new barriers and catchfencing … as well as 252 manhole covers that were welded down).

A $5 million, 80,000-square-foot hospitality chalet will be located adjacent to the paddock and pit area. The two-story structure, which was imported from the 16th hole of the Waste Management Open in Phoenix, will offer 70 chalets (up from 23 suites at Belle Isle last year). It was built by InProduction, the same company that installed the popular HyVee-branded grandstands and suites at Iowa Speedway last year.

Penske said the state, city, county and General Motors each owned parts of the track, and their cooperation was needed to move streetlights and in changing apexes of corners. Denker has spent the past 18 months meeting with city council members who represent Detroit’s seven districts, along with Mayor Mike Duggan. Penske said the local support could include an appearance by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer.

Denker and Detroit GP  president Michael Montri were inspired to move the Detroit course downtown after attending the inaugural Music City Grand Prix in Nashville, Tennessee.

“We saw what an impact it made on that city in August of 2021 and we came back from there and said boy could it ever work to bring it downtown in Detroit again,” Denker said. “We’ve really involved the whole community of Detroit, and the idea of bringing our city together is what the mayor and city council and our governor are so excited about. The dream we have is now coming to fruition.

“When you see the infrastructure downtown and the bridges over the roads we’ve built and the graphics, and everything is centered around the Renaissance Center as your backdrop, it’s just amazing.”