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CHAMP CAR: Power Surges at Long Beach
Written by: David Phillips
Senior writer, RACER Magazine   http://www.racer.com/speedtv
04/20/2008
Long Beach, Calif.
 
Power put the final spin on Champ Car's era at Long Beach. (LAT photo) » More Photos

The decal on Will Power’s KVRT Panoz-Cosworth nearly said it all: Smart & Final. The Aussie drove a smart race to win the final Champ Car event of his (and his competitors’) career in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, leading all but two laps en route to a five second victory over Champ Car debutant Franck Perera and an impressive Mario Dominguez.

About the only thing missing from Power’s decal was something about starts. Because a typically smart start propelled the Aussie Vineyards Cosworth-Panoz past pole-winner Justin Wilson, Alex Tagliani and Franck Perera into the lead by the first turn.

“I knew it was important to get a good start, because if not I was going to get hung up behind people,” said Power. “I know it’s tough to pass around here.”

Although Wilson gave chase, he was destined to coast to stop with a blown engine after 12 laps, leaving Tagliani to head the chase of Power.

Tagliani had arrived in Long Beach as something of a sentimental favorite. Like Tracy, Tagliani has found himself unemployed in the brave and newly unified world of American open-wheel racing before reprising his ’05/’06 relationship with Walker on this one-off weekend.

For his part, Walker was in similar straits after seeing former partner Craig Gore take the Team Australia program (along with his Aussie Vineyards sponsorship) to the KV Racing Technologies team . . . along with his former driver, one Will Power.

Tagliani and Walker’s skeleton crew responded with a magnificent effort, topping the practice time sheets on occasion and missing out on pole to Wilson by 0.182sec. Ironically, this occurred in a car tailored to Power.

“We developed the car to take advantage of Will’s strengths last year,” said Walker. “Having worked with Tag before we were also aware of his strengths and weaknesses and so we’ve been coaching him to drive as much like Will as possible, in order to make the most of the car. For example, Alex is more of a late braker than Will, who prefers to roll off the brakes onto the throttle on the corner entry. We’ve been urging Alex to do that more, going over the data sheets
from last year and comparing his corner entry with Will’s and so on.”

Power and Perera both had problematic qualifying sessions, with the Frenchman suffering a fuel pressure problem Friday and the Aussie hampered by a malfunctioning differential on Saturday. Nevertheless, the fact that he was just 0.3sec off Wilson’s pole time gave him confidence that he had speed to match anyone in race conditions.

“We had problems all weekend and didn’t get the most out of the car,” he said. “So I knew we’d be competitive if we could just get a good start.”

Having accomplished just that, then seen Wilson vanish from his mirrors after a dozen laps, Power turned his attention to Tagliani.
Power's getaway put him in prime position; Wilson's pole didn't last long. (LAT photo) » More Photos

Like most, they started the race on Bridgestone alternate tires and, together, had pulled out a two second gap on Perera, with Montagny and St. Petersburg winner Graham Rahal in tow. Although Tagliani quickly closed onto Power’s gearbox, the Aussie was nonplussed, able to manage the gap at around a second with little difficulty.

“We were both saving fuel,” said Power. “It was game on. He was very quick, quick in qualifying but I wasn’t that worried because I knew we had more car than we showed in qualifying.”

Tagliani looked to keep up the pressure after the first round of pit stops when both drivers switched from the Bridgestone alternates to primaries. But the French-Canadian found the balance of the primaries very much to his disliking and in the course of 10 laps the gap ballooned from 0.4sec to nearly four seconds.

Thus Tagliani and the Walker team opted to fit another set of alternates for the final stint, only to find the balance -- and consistency -- no match for the first set of alternates.

“On the first stint with the alternates we were saving fuel and the balance and consistency of the tires was very good,” said Tagliani. “Then we put on the primes and the balance was not so good, so we went back to the alternates for the final stint. But then I was pushing really hard, not saving fuel and the balance was not as good and the performance went away after a few laps.”
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