Bill Dearborn

We think we are going fast when we turn a 2:09 or 2:19 lap at the Glen take a look at the IRL was doing in practice. This is almost as fast a pace for the 3.4 mile long course as Jeff Gordon's lap of the 2.45 mile short course. They were flying from Turn 1 through the esses to the Bus Stop. I picked this up from the track's web site tonight:

Record Breaking Day At The Glen
June 16th, 2005

One thing was learned from today’s test session – we can expect that the IndyCar Series cars will continue to challenge today’s historic, record-breaking day when they return for the Inaugural Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix presented by Argent Mortgage on September 25th.

During the Indy Racing League’s Open Test, the track’s fastest lap record was officially broken by Target Chip Ganassi driver Ryan Briscoe in his Toyota Panoz, who recorded a lap of 1:31.7200 (132.272mph). Briscoe’s Toyota beat the record lap previously held by Formula 1 driver Bruno Giacarmelli, set in 1980. In 1980 the track was similar in length but had a slightly different configuration. Briscoe’s record lap also beat Andrea Montermini’s 1997 record lap of 1:38.573 (124.17mph), recorded on the current Watkins Glen International layout.

Check out the testing Photo Gallery

Briscoe commented on his successful day, “ I had a good day. It’s amazing and fun to drive on this fantastic racetrack. It’s so fast and challenging. You’re full throttle from Turn One all the way down the back straight. I think we’ll be even faster in the race because of the slipstream”.

Team 7-Eleven driver Tony Kanaan was also at the top of the charts for most of the test and set the second quickest lap of the day with a 1:31.7204 (132.272mph). “ I was impressed when I got here today. It’s very physical, very difficult, and very demanding. It’s everything you want to have in a good racetrack”, said Kanaan.

Nineteen Indy Car drivers, including Indy 500 champion Dan Wheldon and rookie sensation Danica Patrick, tested the twists and turns of The Glen collecting valuable data about their cars while giving fans and media members from far and wide an opportunity to view these racing machines up close. All 19 Indy car drivers recorded laps less than 1 minute, 38 seconds. It was a day for the record books at The Glen.



Eight events are featured at WGI this year including the highly anticipated NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the Inaugural IndyCar Series events. This year the NASCAR Busch Series will join the NEXTEL Cup weekend, for the first time at WGI during the annual SIRIUS Satellite Radio at The Glen, August 11-14. Open wheel racing also returns to the famed road course, during the Inaugural Watkins Glen Indy Grand Prix presented by Argent Mortgage on September 23-25.

Bill

John Shiels

The track was changed for IRL so it may have helped them get the record, but it is still cool.

Don Keefhardt

John - the track hasn't changed at all. The gravel trap at T1 is gone, and some of the blue bushes have been pushed back, but the track itself is unchanged from the past few years.

Bill Dearborn

There are a couple of changes that may help the lap time. In the esses the curbing has been removed at the apexes and replaced with a scalloped surface that you can run on. It gives a few inches more space. In the Bus Stop the big bumps that were put in place to keep people from cutting the corners short have also been replaced by the scalloped surfaces that get progessively worse as you go further onto them. The old bumps would have probably knocked the front spoilers off the IRL cars so this definitely gives them about a couple of feet more at the apexes. Going through the carousel turn (# 5C) the turtles out near the left guardrail have been replaced with the scalloped surface. I think they did the same thing on the exit of 6 but cannot remember for sure, I will have to look at my last video. They moved the guardrail back and put in the same scalloping as you come through the off camber left onto the NASCAR straight. The changes may add up to only a few tenths of seconds but that is what breaks records.
Bill

Don Keefhardt

IMO, the new Esses curbing is less car-friendly (I race an open-cockpit 'sports racer', as well as an assortment of production based race cars). The left-hand curbing used to be a very shallow smooth section, and now it's rough 'dragons teeth'. It spit me about 2' further right than I am accustomed to, as I crossed the tunnel.

The old curbing thru the Bus Stop was bi-level - you could rail off the lower '1st step' without upsetting the suspension, but now it chatters the shocks and effectively narrows up the track. To me, it's slower.

While the changes to walls on the outside of T11 (onto the front straight) are welcomed, they're removed the old "Launch Pad" at the exit and replaced it with more 'dragons teeth'. Formerly, you could count on the Launch Pad to stop a big slide on the way out, as it was steep and wouldn't upset the car much, but now...baaah...it just 'narrows up' the track.

IMO.

I like what they've done with the walls (and I've hit most of them, at one time or another), but I hate the new curbing.

rbeckham

I may be wrong; so please correct me if so. I ran the track last month and the track photographer for the event had a nice big overhead shot of the track stretched out in the garage. I was talking to folks about what the IRL cars would run, and I was told that first of all they skip the bus stop (as of course does NASCAR), plus the whole boot (i.e., they go straight down the back straight after the esses without the bus stop jog, and then skip the four turns in the heel, toe, and laces of the boot). This would shorten the course by at least a mile, and looking at the map, makes it look much more like an Indy-style oval with three 90-120 degree turns thrown in (only one left hander except in the esses). So I'm pretty sure neither the times or the speeds are comparable to any full course numbers.

Bill Dearborn

I know the NASCAR guys run the bus stop and they wouldn't have put those changes in there if the IRL guys were going to bypass them.

If the IRL cars were running the short track their times would be much less than the Cup cars and right now they are about 10 seconds longer around the track so they have to be taking the long course.

I did forget about the launch pad coming out of 11. I did miss it the last time I was there. However, I found the dragon's teeth as they were called above to be fairly smooth for my Z. I tried the one at 3 with no problem and hit all of them in the bus stop with no problem. One of my students got a little more into them and they were definitely rougher once you moved over more.

Bill

Scooter70

They are running the boot. Did anyone else watching the 6 Hours of The Glen notice that they cut down a bunch of the trees on driver's right as you're coming along the laces of the boot? I wonder if they're going to put grandstands down there?
-Matt