Didya ever notice that TV "news" leads with "Our top story . . ." but within the very same broadcast "sports" more often than not delays its high-importance story for a late or final segment.
Now, that's entertainment.
KNOWING WHEN TO SAY NUH-UH
"It's an issue bigger than my pay grade allows me the latitude to discuss. You're going to have to ask Bob Stallings about that one." - Jon Fogarty, in an on-air response to a question posed by an MRN pit-road reporter following the No. 99 GAINSCO Racing Corvette DP's early race hard right into the Rolex Series' Indy paddock.
VERY NEARLY SAILING INTO THE SUNSET
Bob Stallings' Official Take:
"We came here hoping to win the inaugural Brickyard Grand Prix; put a very strong effort into not only today but in the various earlier Indy tests. Our practice session today went well and qualifying went extremely well but during the race a variety of things did not go well. Some were self-inflicted wounds that prevented our drivers from getting the most out of what was very good car, but in addition to that there were some highly questionable officiating calls which contributed to our problems for the day. The team, car and drivers could have overcome these hurdles but we simply concluded, taking everything into consideration, we would be better off retiring the car and preparing ourselves for the final four races of the year.'"
Whew!
One wonders what might've occurred if Stallings had been aware of a quick pit-road survey taken of team principals shortly after the No. 99 Red Dragon took it to the garage (okay, "paddock").
When approached, fully one-half said either, "I definitely understand and would like to do the same" or "I don't understand but I still wish I could do the same" while one-third of the remaining respondents said "I don't understand but wish I could understand"; the next third of the last half (yes, one can do that) said, "Ah, hah, hah, hah, hah!" which left a final third of the one-half of the respondents to look at the questioner and reply, "Huh!?"
BUT ONE GUY BID ADIEU
Leaving behind all chances of scoring a darn fine bust of Jim Trueman (likely handing it to John Pew, who'll no doubt be angry because it was handed to him) Starworks Motorsport's "Sportsman" driver (a euphemism for "money man") Enzo Potolicchio made like a sewer pipe and got the crap out; made like a bird and flew; a tree and leaved; a ball and bounced; a cheese wheel and rolled; a mile of asphalt and, uh, er, well okay, that one didn't work . . . but you've probably gotten the idea by now, right?
"I tried just about everything I could to keep him in the series, man," Peter Baron said of Potolicchio, "But he was madder than heck over (co-driver) Ryan (Dalziel) getting run off the course by (Juan Pablo) Montoya.
"Enzo probably would've stayed had Grand-Am simply have conceded the situation could've been handled better. They didn't even have to say the 'M' word ('mistake'). But they didn't and (Enzo's) gone" (reportedly to another series).
FADE BACK TO RED
It's probably fair to say that more than one, or in this case, two things contributed to Stallings becoming so bummed that he'd pull the No. 99 at Indy.
Remembering Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás' admonition against forgetting the past, the GAINSCO team's on-track Rolex Series genesis came in 2005 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca but really didn't start firing on all cylinders until Stallings -- who really ain't too shabby with his own lead foot -- voluntarily unbuckled his No. 99 driver's harness for the last time after 2006's carrera Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, having co-driven with Alex Gurney to 13th-place finishes in each of that season's first two races.
Sometimes incorrectly credited with having instituted the "all-pro" DP driving team, Stallings instead was likely the first DP team owner to fully recognize an all-professional, full-season Daytona Prototype driving team was becoming necessary to claim championships; his farsightedness rewarded in 2007 and again in 2009 when the GAINSCO Express (with no intended slight to The Lizard) ran on rails and kicked bootie.
"It's not something I necessarily wanted to do, because I enjoy driving, but something based on recognizing what you've got to do. Sponsors like exposure and the best, safest way of getting seen is up front, winning," Stallings would later convey about the decision that ultimately led to Jon Fogarty getting into the car in Stallings’ stead (after Rocky Moran Jr. met an immovable object at Long Beach).
And yes, 'tis true, Stallings is very high on the GAINSCO corporate totem pole – at which lofty place he must also answer to a board of directors.
That those who race will mortgage souls for an acquisition of the "next-best" mechanical device, two darn good hot-shoe drivers are sometimes cheaper than forever chasing those hot new "go-faster" race car parts (the latter being a never-ending story) because, mainly, you'd still have an amateur, no matter how good, in the car at some point.
Believe it, professional race car drivers really are that much better (though Pew has yet to figure out that one, bless his pea-picking heart).
Nevertheless, Stallings understood a pro/pro combo was to a pro/amateur combo as the latter was to an amateur/amateur combination, especially in a series that at the time of Stallings' 2005 Rolex Series entry had 18 professional drivers who by that season's end had competed in each of its 14 races.
An additional five professional drivers in 2005 -- for reasons ranging from injury to suspension – missed only one of those 14 races.
When all was said and done, two amateur/professional driving combinations that year won just two of the 14 contested races (Milka Duno/Andy Wallace with Max Crawford atop the pit box at Mont Tremblant; Tracy Krohn/Nic Jonsson with TRG (Kevin Buckler) in the WGI Sahlen’s Six hour).
With the benefit of retrospection and, especially, end-of-season points reports, the best season for the pro/am driving combo came in the Daytona Prototype's first (2003), when Texan Forest Barber teamed with Terry "Pool Cleaner" Borcheller in a Jim Bell-managed Chevy/Doran JE4 DP to take home six wins in that season's 12 races -- and absent from two of which, resulting in a win and a second-place for Borcheller, was Barber altogether absent.
In 2004 the Rolex Series got GASR (Ganassi And Sabates Racing. Of course, "GASR" isn't the organization's true moniker -- it still being "Chip Ganassi Racing With Felix Sabates," a title just as unwieldy today as when introduced in 2001 over the fence in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Yet, beyond economy of words and space, GASR's got potential, like, "GASR and go!" and "He's a real GASR!" or, even, "GASR passer").
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE NOW PAST
Pairing Scott Pruett and Massimiliano Papis in the No. 01 CompUSA Lexus-Riley, Pruett made clear the team's focus at the conclusion of the season's second race, during which Jan Magnussen and Papis banged doors severely and repeatedly enough to end any chance of either claiming high, race-end finishes.
Visibly angry as he walked to the GASR hauler, Pruett was very, very clear in his disgust: "We're here to win championships and we're not going to win any if we keep finishing at the back because of a lack of emotional control."
A reminder is in order: Folks, Pruett's thoughts were expressed at the 2004 season's and GASR's second Rolex Series race, held at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
(It was at the very next race that Pruett became the team's "permanent" sprint-race closer, by the way. It was only at Indy just past when it looked as though maybe, for the first time since, Pruett wouldn't close but still did so.)
Another of Stallings' issues coming to a boil at Indianapolis were frustrations over Grand-Am officiating in general -- not just those unloaded at The Brickyard Grand Prix.
Bless his heart, Stallings tends toward stoicism and probably not the type of guy with whom one would care to play much poker.
However, life nevertheless has its "straws" (a.k.a., "hay," Zube, and not the thing through which one sucks).
On the flip side of that stoic coin, however, is "Vesuvius."
Patented by Kevin Doran's long unchallenged mastery of the pit-box frustration eruption (even though his practice of such has since considerably waned, supposedly attributable to Doran's adopting "Zen Golf"), all humans are prone to letting 'er rip when maximum snootfulls have been reached -- the main difference from one human to the next being the degree of tolerance and/or amount of annoyance encountered over various time periods.
Largely freeing his mind in 2006 of solely focusing on a driver's primary goals of "Go Fast" and "Then Go Faster," Stallings had the opportunity to think.
No, such isn't intended as a slap nor, even, hinted as a "bad" thing; Stallings long ago proved he could capably put mind to work and succeed.
Still, it's likely his "thinking too much" is that which drove Mrs. Stallings to send Mr. Stallings to a race-car driving school where Mr. Gurney was met, fast friendships followed and, well, the product of which today is in the pits.
If nothing else, in the intervening years Stallings felt he demonstrated exemplary public control of feelings while, for sure, the behind-the-scenes action wasn't nearly as cheery.
Stallings has long worked for changes within Grand-Am's business plan -- those which he thought best, of course -- but stayed with Grand-Am even when others within and soon without chose different paths.
On the racing side, the No. 99 GAINSCO Automobile Insurance car was the only real hope in the Rolex Series paddock that countered the juggernaut known as GASR, but which began to falter after its 2009 championship, falling ever shorter in the pursuit of a third Rolex Series championship.
Following their 2009 championship season, 2010 wasn't exactly an unexpected "off" year" for the Red Dragon squad, at least from this onlooker's present day retrospection, given that champions for whatever reason rarely repeat.
Other than a lack of wins going into 2010's ninth race at New Jersey Motorsports Park, where it would claim its first 2010-season win, the No. 99 team nevertheless was a top-10-finishing model of consistency despite one mid-April,13th-place bobble at Barber Motorsports Park.
(All things needing to be squared: In the 2010 championship Fogarty would finish third in the championship, Gurney fourth due to their 13th-place BMP finish, a DNF, at the end of which Gurney was denied points equal to that of his starting co-driver because Gurney fell short of getting a then-required "30-minutes driving time" as specified under Grand-Am General Sporting Rules 10.5 -- an inequity later deemed subject to modification by one of two exceptions presently listed in the rules section, but just one example of many rules that, well, didn’t seem quite right to Stallings in the first place.)
By 2011's ninth race (a 12-race schedule, as was 2010), the team had scored six top-five finishes, among which were five podiums and one win. Sitting third in points the team eventually finished fourth in the championship, despite a DNF at the final of three 2011 WGI races.
All in all not that bad . . . except if one expects only to win, win and win.
An odd thing, having thought of those two seasons as "poor," but to instead see that they were good enough that still others, having finished lower still, would've gladly accepted.
Arriving at Indy -- the ninth race of the current season -- Gurney, Fogarty and GAINSCO had beforehand this season only thrice finished in the top five and sat 10th in points. Safe to say the GAINSCO team wasn’t, hasn’t been terribly thrilled with the season as it went into Indy.
TRACK OUT
About the time the now-defunct Lola Daytona Prototype was nearing production, Jeff Hazell looked to build a better mousetrap, euphemistically speaking of course, and have it at the ready for the new DP.
In the simplest of explanations, car windows "fog," Hazell wished to defeat such.
Put another way: Water vapor condenses on a surface separating two dew points, whether that surface is on the interior of a windscreen (as those speaking the Queen's English would recogniz . . ., um, "recognise") or atop a bonnet, where one might place, say, a cold beverage, Hazell wished to defeat such.
Well, he probably didn't much care about the cold beer can -- unless atop his Ferrari Daytona 250 GTO, that is -- but he did wish to give his team an edge in a car-racing class where one needed to gain or at least retain every possible millisecond.
His work would later prove itself at a wet 2009 New Jersey Motorsports Park race when Krohn Racing drivers Nic Jönsson and Ricardo Zonta won going away -- in a car whose windscreen did not fog, even once -- by more than 44 seconds over the second-place SunTrust car of Max Angelelli and Brian Frisselle (man, if anyone wishes to talk about a darn good driver without a ride, try either of the Frisselle brothers). Already noted as being well behind, the race's three second-through-fourth DPs were covered by fewer than 10-seconds. Zonta’s margin of victory remains among the largest as yet seen in Daytona Prototype racing.
Surely, Jönsson and Zonta had the ability to drive in the wet -- as one is sure does also Gurney and Fogarty -- but seeing the road course helps, like, big time. No?
Frankly, it blows the mind that others haven't since beat a path to Hazell's door for his magic but humans undertake still more confusing behavior in matters of even greater importance.
In the driver's seat at Indy during one of the race’s various downpours, Gurney could hardly see beyond his car's windows when he realized his position relative to then pit-in entrance and dived for a pit road he'd been seeking and leading to his pit, ironically having a principal thought to rid his car of the vision-obscuring fog and making safer his windows. So, in the middle of a downpour, with windows fogged and literally in unfamiliar territory, Gurney erred and gave a few folks, including those watching, a pucker-up moment. But’s that’s all; “Pucker-up buttercup.”
Thus incurring penalty No. 1 and, inasmuch the second followed the first, penalty No. 2 and, inasmuch as it followed penalties Nos. 1 and 2, Bob Stallings ire.
There always being three sides to every story -- yours, mine and the “whole darn truth” -- someone needs to recognize that each side has a gripe. That each side's gripes now have been exacerbated by years of an ever-building number of gripes held by sides having solely heard their side and no one really, ardently or earnestly listening to the “other” side nor, even, a third angle's whole darn truth.
Like a marriage counselor who from one of the partners hears "he leaves hair in the sink" but knows the true difficulty lies elsewhere and is far deeper, each side in this matter will be best served by understanding that the now-manifested difficulties won't be superficial in understanding nor simply solved in their resolution.
But resolved they must be.
ANOTHER DOOR OPENS
"It's pretty amazing, but evidently there are enough people out there who think highly enough of us that we've been able to scrape together enough money to be at The Glen this weekend," Peter Baron said Thursday before the race.
Burning the telephone lines and email servers for the last couple of weeks, enough of the right folks learned about Enzo Potolicchio leaving Baron's Starworks Motorsport that the team owner has been able fund at least one more race for Scotland's best, Ryan Dalziel.
Who knows with whom he'll co-drive (Sebastien Bourdais or Lucas Luhr would make it a heckuva team, huh?). But even otherwise a chump, clearly established back in the days when Dalziel won at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca with co-driver Henri Zogaib was Dalziel’s capability of successfully following a poor “opening hand.”
Beside Zogaib's clear lack of being able to speedily drive, Dalziel was able to take to the front a lapped car when he jumped in.
Insofar as Potolicchio is concerned, Baron insists the Venezuelan isn't in same sub-league as Zogaib.
"He (Potolicchio) was really bummed and angry over the Indy thing. I mean, I can understand because I'm still bummed over it," Baron said. “It’s really pretty tough to be mad at Potolicchio.”
"He and Ryan (Dalziel) had a legitimate chance at winning the North American Endurance Championship as well as the Rolex Series DP championship but those balloons were pretty well popped when (Juan Pablo) Montoya ran Ryan off the road."
"Enzo went out taking care a couple of full-season expenses” (which Baron felt he wasn't at liberty to specify) but Potolicchio couldn't or wouldn't cover all of them.
"I've been in similar situations so many times over the years that, you know, I pretty well know what to do," Baron said somewhat dejectedly but a moment later perked up with, "But it's really cool that people have jumped in to help in all sorts of ways that I didn't imagine would happen. That really touches me deeply."
Later,
DC
tested his first Daytona Prototype about a year ago at this time at Virginia International Speedway, the rap on the driver after the test was entirely positive.
Papis (pictured left, with helmet-holding Bellarosa), the reader might recall, made such a name for himself – "Mad Max" – in the 1996 Rolex 24 At Daytona’s waning hours that the event became, as Wayne Taylor once put it, "The only race ever in which a second-place finisher (Papis) is probably better known than the first-place finisher."
was getting exposed to a lot of informational chunks, for sure, including when he was to go fast and slow.
