RacingLine. Honda Smoking Its IndyCar Rivals

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1 THE NEWSLETTER OF Honda INDYCAR RACINGVOL.11 NO. 3 RacingLine Honda Smoking Its IndyCar Rivals As the IRL reached the halfway point in its 2004 season there were two distinct voices: Honda's battle cry and the wailing of its competition. After losing the season opener, Honda-powered drivers and teams reeled off nine consecutive wins, eight pole positions, six 1-2 finishes and led an astounding 1,703 out of 2,055 laps. "I'm obviously very happy with how things are going and I'm very proud of the people at Honda Performance Development," said Robert Clarke, vice president and general manager of HPD. "Everyone has put a lot of work into this program and our results bear that out." Tony Kanaan, Buddy Rice and Dan Wheldon held the top three spots in the drivers championship following the Michigan race on Aug. 1 and appear to be main combatants for the '04 title. Kanaan and Rice have both won three times so far this year, while Wheldon owns a pair of wins and Dario Franchitti made the other trip to Victory Lane. "What can I say? Honda is just so impressive," said Kanaan, who has two seconds, a third, a fourth and a fifth in addition to his trio of triumphs in the 7-Eleven Dallara/Honda for Andretti Green Racing. "Honda has done a great job but they're making it tough on me because the guys that are second and third in the championship both have the same engine. So it's making my life a lot harder. "But, you know, I'm always proud of those guys. They were a big part of my decision when I came to this series." Rice backed up his Indy 500 win with victories at Kansas City and Michigan to pull within 57 points of Kanaan heading for Kentucky in mid-august. "We've got the perfect package with Honda and G-Force and I haven't felt this kind of confidence since I won the Formula Atlantic championship," said Rice, who drives for Rahal Letterman Racing along with Vitor Meira. "We've had a couple of unfortunate incidents that cost us two more wins but we're just going to keep trying to win races and see what happens." Wheldon went right to the top of Honda's popularity list by winning at Motegi, Japan and then took first at Richmond, Va. "This is the toughest, most competitive series in the world right now and thankfully, I've got the best engine and the best team," said Wheldon. Franchitti scored his initial IRL win at Milwaukee in July and Meira has led 150 laps but been deprived of Victory Lane by some bad breaks. After chasing the Honda at Michigan in his Chevy, Tomas Scheckter seemed to echo the sentiments of the IRL paddock. "There's no substitute for power and right now Honda is untouchable," he said. "They've done their homework and you have to give them credit." And more room at HPD for all those first-place trophies.

2 Driver-Engineer Relationship Key to Race-Track Success Tony Kanaan and Eric Cowdin have been together for most of the past eight years while Buddy Rice and Todd Bowland are only in their eighth month as a team. Adrian Fernandez and John Ward are like an old married couple that occasionally go separate ways, yet always seem to end up back under the same roof. The working relationship between driver and engineer is easily the most critical to the success of any IndyCar team, but there's no set formula for how long it takes to establish the needed chemistry. "It takes time to get on the same wave length and to learn each other's style but I think Todd and I have developed a nice chemistry in a short time," said Rice, who had never worked with Bowland until last January and then was in Victory Lane at Indianapolis four months later. "Our personalities are similar. He's very laid back, and we joke around a little bit and work well together. Especially considering we had never met until last winter." While Rice and Bowland are still a work in progress, Kanaan and Cowdin are practically brothers. "When I came to the United States in 1996 I spoke zero English and could only say four things: 'I'm hungry. Where's the bathroom? Oversteer and Understeer,'" laughed Kanaan. "But I began rooming with Eric that year in Miami and I learned English from him, plus plenty about race cars. "I won my first Indy Lights race with him and we won the Indy Lights championship together. When Morris [Nunn] started his team in CART, he signed Eric and me. Now we're together again in the IRL. I'm godfather to his daughter and we've just had a great partnership." Cowdin chuckles at the memory of his old roommate's early days. "Like he said, he only knew four words that Rubens [Barrichello] told him and he studied them on the airplane. He and Helio [Castroneves] lived on my couch and on the $20 a day they got in per diem from Indy Lights. "Obviously, he's come a long way since then." Fernandez, who at 41 is the IRL's oldest driver, spent three years with Ward ( ) at Patrick Racing in Champ Car before re-uniting with him in "We've won a lot of races together and have a great friendship," said the personable veteran from Mexico City, who started his own CART team in 2001 before moving to the IRL this season. "My only regret is not working with him in the first year of Fernandez Racing. "But we still had that friendship and he came back to our team last year and that was very nice." Like Rice, Dario Franchitti is in his first year with his engineer but Allen McDonald and the Scotsman are proving quick learners, as evidenced by their triumph at Milwaukee in July. "It's a learning curve for both of us because this (IRL) is all new," said Franchitti, whose back injury knocked him out of all but three races in "When I was in

3 Champ Car I knew exactly what I wanted in my car but we're learning all the time about this car. "But we're getting there and next year we'll get better and better." Even so, nothing can replace lap after lap of experience. "In the early days I would make a change and if it was faster, it was faster because Tony drives at the limit every time he leaves the pits," said Cowdin. "It was more trial-and-error back then. "But today, the big thing for me is eye contact. When I step over the pit wall, all I can see are his eyes and that tells it all. I know what he's going to say before he says it. "It takes time for you to understand each other. It's not only what he wants, it's how you give it to him and what is the magnitude of change? Tony understands what things do and what his butt tells his brain and I interpret what he tells me." Kanaan is leading the point standings at mid-season and credits Cowdin with much of his success. "Eric knows what I like and what I don't like in a race car. Is he the best engineer in the paddock? I don't know, but I do know he's the best engineer for me." Fernandez feels the same way about Ward. "We know each other so well and we both get nervous before qualifying," he said. "John doesn't believe in making radical changes and he's always very professional. His strength is his general knowledge and he's also very good at motivating our team." Ward, who has also designed winning cars during his 35 years of service, enjoys the "old shoe" feeling of his relationship. "Adrian and I have developed a good chemistry over the years and that makes things so much easier. We don't spend much time arguing." Franchitti believes McDonald shares a similar strength. "Allen is easy to work with; not a lot of dramas. But I think the key is that we're both very honest with each other when things aren't going well." To which McDonald replies: "Dario is very pragmatic. He's a thinker and very professional in his approach." Of course every now and then the engineer has a little fun with his driver's feedback. "It's only happened once with Tony," relates a grinning Cowdin. "He came in and told me he'd gone full stiff on the rear bar and that had really helped. But the [darned] thing wasn't even hooked up." On most oval tracks, the setup dictates the results. Drivers cannot handle Phoenix, Milwaukee, Richmond, Nazareth or Nashville without a savvy race engineer. "You can't carry a car on an oval," declares Rice, whose four pole positions and three victories have him in the thick of the title chase. "It's either on or off and you can't make it happen. It's like a light switch. "And your engineer controls that switch."

4 Today's Steering Wheels Do Much More Than Turn Car Left What costs $10,000, lights up like a pinball game, gives out more information than IndyCar historian Donald Davidson and is closer to a race driver than anybody on his team? That would be the high-tech, high-buck steering wheels on an Indy car. "They do everything but drive the car," says veteran Adrian Fernandez. "They are amazing," declares Tony Kanaan. "They're like a GameBoy," says Dave Popielarz, chief mechanic for Dario Franchitti. Besides turning the fate of every competitor in the IRL, these space-age wheels have become a veritable information center that is also capable of making changes in the car at speed. In the old days, the dashboard provided the oil and water temperatures plus the RPMs, while the wheel simply carried a kill switch. But today's steering wheel is part computer, mechanic, road map and pit board. "I can always see my lap time and my revs and we've also got a track distance map," said Kanaan, the point leader at mid-season in the 7-Eleven Dallara/Honda for Andretti Green Racing. "Say you go out to qualify and you know the pole is 22.2 (seconds), or roughly 215 mph, so you've got a reference point. You can see your time and speed pop up, so it either makes you push harder or sometimes try too hard. "But you always know where you stand." The wheel itself carries one button for the Pit Limiter, which controls the maximum pit-lane speed so a driver won't be penalized, and another button on the Hondas for Overtaking. There is also a Fuel Reset button, which a driver hits following every pit stop, and a pair of Fuel Mixture switches so a driver can regulate his mileage. There are also three pages available to the mechanics, engineers and drivers to check data Race Page, Mechanics Page and Practice Page. But the most popular button is probably the Weight Jacker. Drivers can adjust it anytime to try and keep the balance of their chassis. In the old days, it was a small bar that drivers pushed forward or pulled back. Nowadays, it's simply a flick of the finger. "It used to be a rod and now it's in the electronics and that makes it so much easier because you don't have to take your hands off the steering wheel," commented Kanaan. "The weight jacker is very critical and very powerful because you can change your car without having to wait for a pit stop. "You can use it to your advantage; like if you wear out your tires and you've got options for oversteer and understeer. Next year we'll probably have traction control and I'd love to see a paddle shifter like Formula One has on our steering wheels. That would be real cool." But even though the wheel does everything but tell the driver what's on the menu back in hospitality, it's not always readable. "When we're at Richmond, you don't have time to look at anything except maybe a lap time in qualifying," said Kanaan. "But at Michigan, you've got enough time to play a video game. "If you're out in front, of course."

5 2005 IndyCar Schedule Includes Road Racing for First Time In a move applauded by most of its drivers and hopefully by many fans, the Indy Racing League is branching out and staging its first-ever road races in After nine years of ovals only, Tony George's series will diversify and add Sonoma, Calif. and Watkins Glen, N.Y. to the mix, with a possibility of an additional date at St. Petersburg's street circuit. Honda, which won six consecutive drivers championships in CART's melting pot of motorsports from , welcomes the challenge, as does its drivers. "Bring it on," said Dario Franchitti of Andretti Green Racing. "Obviously, I'm very excited to see the IRL go road racing it's a direction I was hoping to see them go in. It will complement the series very well, and I hope there are additional road races to follow. "And we're going to two tracks I've never driven, so I'm excited in that respect." IndyCar championship points leader Tony Kanaan figures it's the best for everyone. "Let's face it, 90 percent of the field is from a road racing background, so we are all welcoming it with open arms," he said. "It puts a bit of variation in the series and it's great for the fans. I'm definitely looking forward to it, as I'm sure most people are." Robert Clarke, vice president and general manager of HPD, said he's been pushing for road racing since Honda first started talking about joining the IRL in "I'm very happy and I think it's a natural progression," he said. Infineon Raceway, a 10-turn, 1.9-mile course located north of San Francisco, hosts NASCAR every year but hasn't had an IndyCar race since Watkins Glen, one of the most storied race tracks in America and longtime site of the U.S. Grand Prix, hosted CART from and is NASCAR's other road race each season. "Road racing is important for a number of reasons," said Ken Ungar, IRL senior vice president of business affairs. "We're excited to be at a point of maturity where expanding beyond ovals is a possibility. It's a real breakthrough for the IRL because it helps us access markets we can't reach because they don't have an oval track." Negotiations are also continuing for the possibility of a street race at St. Petersburg in early April. Besides the new venues, there are also two deletions the second race at Texas and Nazareth, Pa. Beyond that, the season continues to open at Homestead, Fla. (March 6) and will now close at Fontana, Calif. (Oct. 16). There will be three night races (Texas, Richmond, Nashville) and Phoenix will be moved to a Saturday day race to accomodate national television. March 6 Homestead March 19 Phoenix April 30 Motegi, Japan May 29 Indianapolis June 11 June 25 July 3 July 16 Texas Richmond Kansas City Nashville July 24 July 31 Aug. 14 Aug. 21 Milwaukee Michigan Kentucky Pikes Peak Aug. 28 Sept. 11 Sept. 25 Oct. 16 Sonoma Chicago Watkins Glen Fontana

6 2004 IRL IndyCar Series Schedule August 22 Pikes Peak Intl. Raceway Colorado Springs, CO 1.0 mile oval ABC August 29 Nazareth Speedway Nazareth, PA 0.9 mile oval ABC September 12 Chicagoland Speedway Joliet, IL 1.5 mile oval ABC October 3 California Speedway Fontana, CA 2.0 mile oval ESPN October 17 Texas Motor Speedway Ft. Worth, TX 1.5 mile oval ABC *Saturday night race 2004 IRL IndyCar Series Championship Standings (through Aug. 1) 1. Tony Kanaan Buddy Rice Dan Wheldon Helio Castroneves Sam Hornish Dario Franchitti Vitor Meira Bryan Herta Scott Dixon Darren Manning 216 Racing Line We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions. Send them to: Editor, Honda Racing Line American Honda Motor Co., Inc. Mail Stop 100-3C-2A Torrance, CA HPD Looks Forward to Return to Road Courses When the Indy Racing League goes road racing for the first time in 2005 it will make at least one manufacturer very happy. "We've been pushing for road races since the day we first met with the IRL in 2002," said Robert Clarke, vice president and general manager of Honda Performance Development. "I told them we were definitely interested in road racing and asked if it was on their plate and they said yes. "I think it's great because I love the mix of ovals and road courses." Honda's domination in CART from (four Manufacturers Championships, six straight drivers titles) was a rewarding experience, but Clarke doesn't feel like it's going to give the company any advantage over Toyota or General Motors. "Because of the nature of the IRL rules there's not a whole lot we can do because the engine fundamentals are fixed," he said. "But we'll be looking for driveability. That's what we excelled at in our CART program." Asked what areas HPD will concentrate on, Clarke replied, "The induction area. Trumpet lengths, and we'll play around with throttle cams. From the top of the heads up whatever you can play with. And we might change cam profiles, depending on the circuit. "The other thing is engine mapping and electronics. Obviously, traction control will be very important." Clarke understands the challenges of making the 3-liter, normally-aspirated engines pull their weight, so to speak, on road courses. "We lost a lot of torque in changing from the 3.5- liter to the 3-liter [engine]. It's not a very responsive engine to begin with and it's a very heavy car, so I'm sure that's a concern of the IRL. "After we have our first test at Homestead, we'll look and see where we are." The simple suggestion would be to raise the RPMs, or so it seems. "That's what a lot of people probably think, but to increase the RPM sounds easy except that it has a knockoff effect on all the moving engine components. You know that when everything is re-designed for 2007, the engine needs to be properly sized because it's way too large for what it is. We designed the parts heavy to make minimum weight [requirements]." Clarke is confident that the IRL and road racing will be a good match. "The only concern is when you start comparing them to some other series, but I think the cars will be fine and they'll put on a good show. That's what counts."