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IndyCar
MILLER: Sao Paulo Samba
Take away the slippery surface that postponed qualifying, the opening lap melee in the dust storm and heavy rain, last Sunday’s IZOD IndyCar series opener had some redeeming value.
Robin Miller  |  Posted March 16, 2010  
Tony Cotman responded quickly to a number of pressure-packed situations at the Sao Paulo street circuit. (LAT)
If you take away the slippery surface that postponed qualifying, the opening lap melee in the dust storm and the 45-minute delay for heavy rain, last Sunday’s IZOD IndyCar series opener had some redeeming value.

Like four on-track passes for the lead and 95 total passes for positions during the inaugural Sao Paulo 300 – almost unheard of numbers for a street race.

And, when Will Power dove inside Ryan Hunter-Reay to snatch the victory with only a couple minutes remaining, all that other stuff didn’t seem quite as catastrophic.

The patient crowd of 46,000 saw some good, hard racing and a fellow Brazilian (Vitor Meira) on the podium.

“Obviously, it wasn’t perfect and the track was too slippery and bumpy in spots,” said Tony Cotman, who designed and oversaw the construction of the 2.5-mile course during the past two months.

“But once we got racing, I thought it was a damn good show. It’s not very often you have a pass for the lead and then you pass the guy right back. I thought the track would be racy and it was.”

What Cotman didn’t count on was a 60-yard patch of painted concrete (used for Carnivale) creating havoc with cars trying to get traction on the city’s busiest street.

It was so bad that qualifying was called off and moved to Sunday morning while the trouble spot got a makeover.

“The concrete was way too slippery and would not rubber up and I knew halfway through that first practice session we had a problem,” said the former chief steward of Champ Car who still runs race control for Indy Lights.

“After looking at the throttle traces and data from a couple teams, it was a no-brainer to cancel qualifying. So I called the city for help and an hour later they were at the back gate with a grinding machine. Turns out it was the only one in South America.”

Crews worked until 3 a.m. and then veteran Davey Hamilton drove the IndyCar 2-seater onto the track at 4 a.m. to test the fix. He reported full throttle on back-to-back laps and went back to bed while the crews started spraying water until 6:30 a.m.

It wasn’t the first time Cotman faced and solved a crisis (the street show at San Jose in 2005 had no runoffs, a chicane that barely accommodated one car at a time and a surface that didn’t like the sun) but that was not his layout or construction.

Brazil was the first project of NZR (New Zealand Race) Consulting and the former team strategist for Michael Andretti drew heavy criticism from Tony Kanaan in the local media after Saturday’s slip up.

Kanaan said, among other things, that Cotman had never driven a race car and never listened to anybody else’s opinion.

“I’ll take full responsibility for what happened but when you build a track from scratch in two months, there’s no room for error,” said Cotman. “I’ll never do that again.

“I don’t think you have to be a race driver to design a track and I always solicit people’s opinions. Every driver had walked the Sambodromo prior to the race and I did not get one comment about the surface so I can’t have been the only one who was surprised. The top priority is always driver and spectator safety

“I want to build a track for the fans, something which puts on an entertaining show, and I think we did that here.”

The long straightaway leading into the spacious corner that kicked everybody back onto the front straight proved to be the primo place to pass.

It was kind of like the first turn at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport – wide and inviting.

And even snaking into Turn 1 left some overtaking opportunities.

Cotman remains in Sao Paulo until Friday while going over the plusses and minuses while planning for 2011.

“The teams were well taken care of and that was also a top priority,” he said. “They were treated well and the city has a lot to be proud of. It will be even better next year.”

NOTES & QUOTES

Sunday’s first-lap pileup was reminiscent of so many of the old CART days at Portland, Cleveland, Toronto, Edmonton and Long Beach. That’s until Cotman insisted on Champ Car going to standing starts in 2007 and that year there was no mayhem at any of those places. The launch was still spectacular (Will Power went from sixth to second at Portland for instance) but that combination of separation and slower speeds were just enough to eliminate that domino affect. IndyCar needs to adopt standing starts for its road races – immediately…..New IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard will be preparing for his initial Indy 500 on May 20 but he’ll also have one eye on the Sports Business Journal’s annual awards because the circuit he revamped and brought to life, the Professional Bull Riders, has been nominated for the sports league of the year along with the NFL, NBA and baseball…. Joe Leonard, the two-time USAC national driving champion and perennial good guy, is recovering nicely from his quadruple by-pass surgery and should be going home by the end of the week. Pelican Joe was pleased to learn that the doctor encouraged him to drink his favorite Napa Valley red wine because it contains healthy ingredients …. Longtime car owner/sponsor Jim Hayhoe, who brought Bruce Walkup and Jimmy Vasser into Indy car racing and also partnered with Art Pollard, lost his battle with cancer on Monday….After making a strong return (third) to the cockpit following his injuries last May at Indy, Vitor Meira also delivered the best quote of the weekend, Asked by Jack Arute if he was near tears at the finish, Meira smiled and said: “There is no crying on this team, because A.J. (Foyt) would kick my butt.”

Robin Miller became an Indy-car junkie in late 1950s and stooged for his hero, Jim Hurtubise, at the 1968 Indy 500. He went on to work as a vent man and board man on Indy pit crews from 1971-77. Miller bought a Formula Ford from Andy Granatelli in 1972 and raced it in SCCA until 1974 when he purchased a midget from Gary Bettenhausen, competing in the USAC midget series from 1975-82.

Robin flunked out of Ball State College in 1968 and began working at The Indianapolis Star sports department in 1969, covered motorsports there from 1969-2000.

In addition to his broadcast work. Miller's also covered IndyCar racing for Autoweek, Autosport, Car & Driver and On Track magazines over the past 35 years.

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