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IndyCar
MILLER: The Final Nail In The Coffin
In a season where Brian Barnhart has displayed more mistakes than usual, he applied the coup de grace Sunday.
If Will Power gets fined for flipping the double bird to Brian Barnhart, INDYCAR CEO Randy Bernard should gladly pay it because of all the media and internet attention that gesture created.
But the finger that really needs to be pointed at TGBB is Bernard’s thumb.
In a season where Barnhart has displayed more bad decision making than usual, he applied the coup de grace Sunday afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway by calling for a restart in a steady rain ON AN OVAL TRACK and then ruling it didn’t count after it triggered a pileup on the front stretch.
It was stupid, ridiculously dangerous, expensive and embarrassing.
And those two travesties should be the final nail in the coffin of a former parts changer who was given unlimited power by Tony George to play god with Indy car racing the past 16 years.
“This has got to be it, they cannot have the guy (Barnhart) running the show, he makes such bad calls all the time,” fumed Power, who actually benefitted from the second part of TGBB’s move since he wound up fifth instead of 15th.
“Shame on him, he put a lot of drivers in danger and we all begged him not to go green.”
Danica Patrick, who triggered the crash that collected Power and Ed Carpenter, said it was a “terrible” decision to go green while winner Ryan Hunter-Reay wondered: “how can we suddenly decide to race in the rain on an oval?”
The fact the command was given to go green was ludicrous since it was raining harder than it had been a few laps earlier when the yellow was ordered.
Every driver interviewed afterwards swore they were yelling in their radios not to try and restart the race, while their spotters and team managers echoed their concerns as well. Yet, Barnhart first said on ABC that he had no communication from any of the competition and he was relying on pit officials and track observers to make the call.
Really? The control freak who screams at drivers incessantly during a race didn’t have any way of hearing from them? Nobody in Race Control got any warnings from the teams? The spotters and team managers weren’t bitching? Nobody in Race Control looked at any of the in-car cameras to check the intensity of the rain?
By the time he got to the post-race press conference, Barnhart admitted he felt sick to his stomach because he had made a mistake but quickly added: “[When] you're counting on information from other people, it can kind of put you in a Catch 22 position."
He also had time to throw pace car driver Johnny Rutherford under the bus.
Then, he added that Race Control usually makes right call 99 out of 100 times.
Make that 98 out of 100 if you talk to Oriol Servia and Scott Dixon.
Because when the drivers got the command on their radios to go green, Hunter-Reay spun his tires and was quickly passed by Servia and Dixon.
“I heard them say on the radio that Car 2 is the leader when it went yellow so we won the race,” said Servia. “Then they decide to revert back and tell me I finished second. I’ve never seen them reverse the order and it’s maddening.”
Dixon declared: “Ryan deserved to win but if we go by the usual rules, Oriol won and I finished second. This isn’t a USAC dirt race, we don’t revert back to the last lap, but I wonder why we even have a rule book? I don’t know if I’m at a go-kart race or what because they make ‘em (rules) up as they go.”
INDYCAR cited a nebulous rule that states: “Laps completed will be scored, unless stated otherwise.”
What?
In other words, it’s sort of like the Brian Barnhart’s Decision Can’t Be Protested Rule of 2002, where Paul Tracy’s video evidence of his Indy 500 win was disallowed because King George determined that TGBB’s word was gospel and therefore could not be challenged.
“I feel like PT, I won the race but it won’t be in the record book,” said Servia.
Barnhart explained his latest ruling as thus: “It will be an aborted restart and it’s only fair to go to the running order before the restart.”
Hmmm, fair to whom?
But the finger that really needs to be pointed at TGBB is Bernard’s thumb.
In a season where Barnhart has displayed more bad decision making than usual, he applied the coup de grace Sunday afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway by calling for a restart in a steady rain ON AN OVAL TRACK and then ruling it didn’t count after it triggered a pileup on the front stretch.
It was stupid, ridiculously dangerous, expensive and embarrassing.
And those two travesties should be the final nail in the coffin of a former parts changer who was given unlimited power by Tony George to play god with Indy car racing the past 16 years.
“This has got to be it, they cannot have the guy (Barnhart) running the show, he makes such bad calls all the time,” fumed Power, who actually benefitted from the second part of TGBB’s move since he wound up fifth instead of 15th.
“Shame on him, he put a lot of drivers in danger and we all begged him not to go green.”
Danica Patrick, who triggered the crash that collected Power and Ed Carpenter, said it was a “terrible” decision to go green while winner Ryan Hunter-Reay wondered: “how can we suddenly decide to race in the rain on an oval?”
The fact the command was given to go green was ludicrous since it was raining harder than it had been a few laps earlier when the yellow was ordered.
Every driver interviewed afterwards swore they were yelling in their radios not to try and restart the race, while their spotters and team managers echoed their concerns as well. Yet, Barnhart first said on ABC that he had no communication from any of the competition and he was relying on pit officials and track observers to make the call.
Really? The control freak who screams at drivers incessantly during a race didn’t have any way of hearing from them? Nobody in Race Control got any warnings from the teams? The spotters and team managers weren’t bitching? Nobody in Race Control looked at any of the in-car cameras to check the intensity of the rain?
By the time he got to the post-race press conference, Barnhart admitted he felt sick to his stomach because he had made a mistake but quickly added: “[When] you're counting on information from other people, it can kind of put you in a Catch 22 position."
He also had time to throw pace car driver Johnny Rutherford under the bus.
Then, he added that Race Control usually makes right call 99 out of 100 times.
Make that 98 out of 100 if you talk to Oriol Servia and Scott Dixon.
Because when the drivers got the command on their radios to go green, Hunter-Reay spun his tires and was quickly passed by Servia and Dixon.
“I heard them say on the radio that Car 2 is the leader when it went yellow so we won the race,” said Servia. “Then they decide to revert back and tell me I finished second. I’ve never seen them reverse the order and it’s maddening.”
Dixon declared: “Ryan deserved to win but if we go by the usual rules, Oriol won and I finished second. This isn’t a USAC dirt race, we don’t revert back to the last lap, but I wonder why we even have a rule book? I don’t know if I’m at a go-kart race or what because they make ‘em (rules) up as they go.”
INDYCAR cited a nebulous rule that states: “Laps completed will be scored, unless stated otherwise.”
What?
In other words, it’s sort of like the Brian Barnhart’s Decision Can’t Be Protested Rule of 2002, where Paul Tracy’s video evidence of his Indy 500 win was disallowed because King George determined that TGBB’s word was gospel and therefore could not be challenged.
“I feel like PT, I won the race but it won’t be in the record book,” said Servia.
Barnhart explained his latest ruling as thus: “It will be an aborted restart and it’s only fair to go to the running order before the restart.”
Hmmm, fair to whom?
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