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Dirty pool tactics by GM in Speed GT

PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 12:17 pm
by MVZ944T
I thought the tactics played out at Laguna Seca by GM so they could get the manufacturers championship were blatantly unfair to Porsche and Wolf Henzler. Seems like they did that last year too. SCCA needs to slap some wrists but I doubt they will, GM money in the series no doubt plays a big part in how it is run.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 6:52 pm
by Chris Benbow
Agreed,
It's pretty frustrating to watch how the Porsches got worked in that series. Earlier in the year Robin Liddel was literally pushed off the track by Max Papis in the last lap while leading the race.
It's an absurd notion that ANY Cadillac could even stay close to ANY Porsche on ANY racetrack but that is the impression that this SCCA series provides.

PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:04 pm
by Tim Comeau
I, too, was upset when the "out of contention" other car(a GM product) was used to hold Wolf Hensler in the Porsche, to a very long outside line in turn 2 so that the Cadillac could get by underneath. Shameful. That's way beyond team tactics. It's a conspiracy and should be severely punished.
Having an extremely large sense of fairplay and wanting to have seen a great race, if I were the race director, I would have given stop and go's to both offending cars. :evil:
They robbed the fans of a real race.
I'm calling Dave DeSpain on "Wind Tunnel" right now!

Re: Dirty pool tactics by GM in Speed GT

PostPosted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 11:03 pm
by Greg Phillips
MVZ944T wrote:I thought the tactics played out at Laguna Seca by GM so they could get the manufacturers championship were blatantly unfair to Porsche and Wolf Henzler. Seems like they did that last year too. SCCA needs to slap some wrists but I doubt they will, GM money in the series no doubt plays a big part in how it is run.


I was there and had the same feeling. Wolf took the lead from the standing start on lap 1 and pulled out a lead until the crash in turn 2 on lap 2 which was a full course yellow. On the first restart Lou Galati (?) jumped the start and passed everyone on the straight from 4th (?) and stayed in front for a couple of green laps until another accident. The marshals decided that he had jumped the start by then and he was supposed to take a stop & go penalty, but he stayed out through the second restart and held up Wolf and allowed the Cadillac to take the lead until the next accident and on the third restart Wolf was taken out by I think the second Cadillac and allowed the other Cadillac to drive on to victory. :twisted:

While the race was on the SPEED track announcer had said that if Wolf finished in second Porsche would win the Manufacturer's championship and that they needed a car to get ahead of the Porsche. They did by shunting him in turn 2 and finished him for the day.
It was not much of a race by any standards. Because it was a timed race as SPEED was live, because of all the yellow flags it was very shortened and I doubt if even 50% of the laps they did run were under green flag :evil:

Greg