[Dan Wheldon is shown testing an early version of this year’s Indy car last fall. The chassis has been named the DW12 in his honor. / Greg Griffo / The Star file photo]
A test or a gauge? Maybe both today for the product the Izod IndyCar Series hopes to deliver for next month’s Indianapolis 500. Specifically, the head of the sport’s technical group wants to see how the car new for the 2012 season handles at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and if the nine participating teams can reach a certain level of performance.
“If they don’t get to 220 mph, I’m going to be asking what the next step is,” said Will Phillips, IndyCar’s vice president of technology. Speeds in that range this week will transfer to the appropriate May level of 225 mph, Phillips said. That has been the target all along, and Phillips believes it’s attainable. Last year’s pole speed was 227.472 mph by Alex Tagliani.
The DW12, as the new car is called, has come a long way. Dan Wheldon struggled with the prototype in August, citing a weight imbalance that made cornering unpredictable. Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan experienced the same imbalance in fall testing of an early version of the car. When Franchitti and Kanaan couldn’t exceed 216 mph at IMS, concern rumbled through the paddock as well as the fan base. Since then, IndyCar and its teams have tested the car extensively on road courses and a couple of oval tracks, and they have raced it twice on road courses, including Sunday’s wildly entertaining race at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Ala.
When the new rear wheel guards for Indianapolis were delivered Monday, Phillips said IndyCar now has “the last piece of the (aerodynamic) puzzle.” The guards go behind the rear wheels. Now the fun begins, and Phillips will watch as Helio Castroneves, Scott Dixon, Tony Kanaan and others turn a full day of laps.
“We’re not going to dictate an aero (specification); it’s up to them now,” Phillips said of the competitors. “We want to know how the car handles, and we want to know what speed it can run.” Teams are likely to test with race setups, which explains why lap times will be lower than they will be in May when the speed chase begins in earnest.
There will be five Chevrolet drivers and four representing Honda. There will be no Lotuses, according to Claudio Berro, director of Lotus Motorsport. The driver lineup also includes Marco Andretti, Mike Conway, JR Hildebrand, Ed Carpenter, Justin Wilson and Takuma Sato.
The test is set to run from 9 a.m. to noon and 1-5 p.m., with free spectator viewing at the south end of the track.
Castroneves is excited for his first oval test with the new car. “I don’t know the purpose of the test,” he said, “but I think certainly we’re going to work together with other teams so we can see how the car runs in a pack.”
If you go about 12:30 today, look for Barry Hindman, Paul Powell, Tom Rollings, Chuck Burns, and Jon Noggle in the stands.
When he was just sixteen, he became the youngest motorbike rider to race in a National Championship and in the motocross 500 CC leading category, and the year after he won eighth place in the Continental Trophy for this engine capacity category!!
During a race he had a serious accident, and had to give up motocross, but against the doctors advice, Alex decided to work towards the queen of motorbike racing: Speed !!
Without any experience at all in this field, he participated in an Italian Sport Production Championship race (1987) in the over 750 class, with a Suzuki GSXR 1100 paid for in installments, on the Monza circuit. The result was obvious, recovery in the hospital from a fracture to his hand. He returned to the circuit immediately, as he wanted to demonstrate that Monza was only a mistake and not a defeat, he did this in his own way, with fourth place on this circuit.
In 1989 he met Enzo Mancin, an expert trainer in Motorbike Gran Prix and with him, he started his adventure among the Seniors of the Italian 250 GP, first on a Honda RS, which had been used years before by Stefano Caracchi, and thanks to the excellent results gained in this way, the following year he went over to the Riccione Jarno team with Mancin as Head Technician and the important support of the Leardini family.
In 1991 he got a semi-official Aprilia and the support of the sponsor Maxicono Motta to race in the European Championship, but had yet another accident, and the victory that year was taken by Max Biaggi. After a lot of physiotherapy and treatment, Alex returned to the circuit on a Ducati 888 in the Superbike Championship. Unfortunately, the Ducati caught fire on the Lesmo curve, but that very day marked a turning point in his life; meeting Luigi Pezzoni, a great motorbike racer and discoverer of young talent.
A very close friendship emerged. Alex Pignone raced on a Kawasaki of the Parma RB team and following that, still on a Ninja, with the Pecost team in the Superbike and Open Championships from 1993 to 1999!! They said he had great talent but lacked motivation. In fact, the results were full of ups and downs. Pignone has a fascinating and difficult character, but a wrong choice, as happens to many of us, in the form of a mistake in his private life, changed him. He had to get back up again and wanted to do it his own way, racing and surprising everyone.
Humbly (a word that was unknown to Alex until then), he started training again in secret, and was almost embarrassed if recognized. This he did with a Yamaha R6 Supersport that was provided by the rider Fabio Faelli and the ever-present Luigi Pezzoni. In 2001 he decided to take the plunge. He asked the Ex-World Champion 500 Marco Lucchinelli for advice and left for the United States, where he tuned up at the qualifying for the National USA Superbike on the legendary Daytona circuit, with a Suzuki and the Scott-Louisiana team.
At that time in Alex Pignone’s baggage was a mixture of desperation, pride, plenty of imagination and distinct lack of money, a cocktail that allowed him to write one of the most amazing pages in the world of racing and riders!! He had the sixteenth fastest time in Daytona and a contract with the Scott-Louisiana team that permitted him to ride a Suzuki in the two most difficult and dangerous championships in the world, West Coast and East Coast Superbike. But not to fear as he was awarded the “Rookie of the Year, West Coast” at the Beverley Hills end-of-season awards banquet.
At Daytona in 2003, he suffered serious injuries in an accident and has undergone years of extensive physical therapy in recovering from those injuries.
Alex Pignone, thanks to his extreme driving, above all on oval circuits, and his way of coping with life, became an almost unprecedented American icon. In Florida he was considered the home rider and amazed his American friends on the circuits of Road Atlanta, Sears Point, Laguna Seca, Daytona etc. He also decided to sign up for a race that he had always dreamed of since he was a child, the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man and he was very fast in qualifying, but unfortunately due to bureaucratic reasons, he didn’t participate in the race. However, he made up for it shortly thereafter by getting third place on the Las Vegas oval!!
Vittorio Rollero also wrote a book on Alex’s life whose title is Follow My Lead.