IndyCar: An odd Friday on tap, with no practice occurring - MotorSportsTalk

SONOMA, Calif. – This Friday is a bit weird for the Verizon IndyCar Series, because teams are parked, but there won’t be any on-track activity.

A rare two-day session on a road or street course is on tap here at Sonoma Raceway, for the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma. Usually the two-day shows are reserved for ovals, but this for IndyCar is similar to the races in Brazil – now off the schedule – which operated only on a two-day schedule.

Friday’s sessions will see all three of the Mazda Road to Indy divisions – Indy Lights, Pro Mazda and USF2000 – for practice, qualifying and Pro Mazda/USF2000 races and additionally two Pirelli World Challenge practice sessions.

Meanwhile IndyCar will have two 45-minute practice sessions Saturday (10-10:45 and 1:15-2 PT) before qualifying at 4:35 p.m. PT (live at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN). Sunday will feature a standard 30-minute morning warmup before the race.

The one-week gap in-between the Milwaukee and Sonoma races has meant a shift in when teams have arrived.

Those not based in Indianapolis – Team Penske and A.J. Foyt Enterprises – opted to come straight from Milwaukee to the west coast.

Per Team Penske president Tim Cindric to MotorSportsTalk, the extra day means more to Indianapolis-based teams because they’d be able to go home, while for those not in Indy, it just made sense to prep for the west coast trip in advance.

So Thursday, teams were still arriving at the track because of the extra day gap in the schedule.

As for the pit lane, the front half of pit in – from the hairpin to pit entry through the curve to the second half of pit lane – has recently been repaved.

The 22 pit boxes on the second half will see 14 cars slotted, with the remaining eight in the back. This should provide more pit space given last year, pit entry/exit was in the crosshairs when Scott Dixon of Target Chip Ganassi Racing contacted a crew member from Will Power’s crew exiting his pit stall. It was Dixon, however, who was penalized.

The race car count is down this year from 25 a year ago, 27 in 2012 and 28 in 2011, so there will be more available pit space this go-around compared to previous years.

Here’s a few pics to explain the changes and pit assignments:

Pit lane is being repaved with fresh paint going down #indycar #goprogp pic.twitter.com/pgTLmiuP4g

— Tony DiZinno (@tonydizinno) August 21, 2014

For reference, there's 22 pit boxes on front half and 14 cars in this space. Should be more spread out #IndyCar pic.twitter.com/ZJEnRvbBT6

— Tony DiZinno (@tonydizinno) August 22, 2014

#IndyCar pit assignments for this week. 14 in front half, 8 in back half. #GoProGP pic.twitter.com/vYvvhkcCT4

— Tony DiZinno (@tonydizinno) August 22, 2014

Follow @TonyDiZinno

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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