In the Pits…

Sunday’s Grand Prix of San Jose is being described as one of the best Champ Car World Series races we’ve televised this year. Robert Doornbos defied the odds to somehow overcome an opening lap disaster and come away with his second win of the year.

As our ESPN2 telecasting team spent the better part of two days prior to the race talking to drivers, crew chiefs, owners, and representatives from Bridgestone leading up to the race–not to mention the conversations we had on race day before, during, and after the event–we banked a pretty hefty selection of interesting background stories including…
· Sebastien Bourdais’ wife, Claire, and their 7-month-old daughter, Emma, have become familiar attendees of most of the 2007 CCWS events. Justin Wilson’s wife, Julia, rarely attends the races and usually watches the events on television. This weekend, just the opposite was true for both drivers. Claire and Emma were not in San Jose while Julia was in the house all weekend. Sebastien was candid in admitting that he definitely missed having his wife and daughter accompanying him to the west coast race while Justin and Julia could be seen throughout the weekend strolling hand-in-hand through the paddock and obviously savoring their time together.
· Alex Figge’s mother, Jennifer, is an accomplished long-distance endurance swimmer and has successfully completed numerous marathon swims in well-known bodies of water the world over. In the not too distant future, expect an announcement for an upcoming endurance swim that Mrs. Figge has been planning for a long time. You’ll be impressed.
· Graham Rahal has definitely got it going on for an 18-year-old recent high school graduate. He’s handsome, easy to talk to, a very talented racecar driver, and undoubtedly a future champion. Back home in Ohio, he has some genuine hardcore performance automobiles sitting in his garage including a Chevy Corvette Z06, Audi RS4, and a 1964 Mini Cooper he restored as part of his high school shop class project. Now, he reveals that he has a brand new Porsche 911 GT3 on order–a green one–to match the orange one that his famous dad, Bobby Rahal, will soon be taking delivery of.
· There was some fairly animated exchanges going on between Paul Tracy and the VP of Operations for Forsythe Racing, Neil Micklewright, on their two-way radios during Sunday’s race–and many fans in attendance in the grandstands monitoring scanners were able to eavesdrop on them. When Paul ran out of fuel while he was putting together a pretty strong run in a racecar that had been anything but a factor for most of practice and qualifying, Paul felt his team had neglected to tell him he should pit to refuel. Neil contended the word had gone out but Paul hadn’t heard it. Things escalated from there and for several moments, Paul and Neil were chewing on each other pretty heavily because of the miscommunication. Both men are seasoned professionals and are considered two of the most skilled and capable members of the Champ Car community. But having said that, there are clearly instances when the lines of communication can get crossed up in the heat of battle.
· Finally, covering the Minardi USA pits on Sunday was a real roller-coaster affair. Robert Doornbos’ crew chief, Michael Cannon, is one cool customer, but I have to admit that his emotional circuit board went through some real stress testing during the race. Within the span of several minutes as Robert gained the lead, lost the lead to Neel Jani, only to regain the lead again and hold onto it to the checkered flag, Michael was alternately shaking his head in disappointment and pumping his fist with elation. When he said on our telecast that I was becoming his good luck charm, I was flattered–but also apprehensive of Robert losing the lead again and suddenly being labeled a jinx!

And there were other interesting and intriguing stories throughout all of the Champ Car World Series community in San Jose I’d love to pass along but I’ve run out of space. After the race at Road America in two weeks, I’ll pull a few more of them together and share them with you here.

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