17th August 2024 The 2001 CART Texas debacle

In 2001, the CART championship was heading to Texas Motor Speedway

for the very first time. It would be the 3rd race of the season after the
Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach which Helio Castroneves won for the
Penske team. The race was going to be held on 29 th April.

This race was to be the second attempt to run an open-wheel race on a

high-banked oval. Texas Motor Speedway, which opened in 1997, is
classified as an intermediate oval with a length of 1.5 miles (2.4 km). The
turns are banked at 24°. By comparison, the turns at Indianapolis Motor
Speedway are only banked at 9°, and those at Michigan International
Speedway are 18°.

The rival series of CART, the Indy Racing League held the DXC Technology
600 since 1997, along with an autumn race from 1998 to 2004. IRL cars
were slower than CART as the IRL cars had naturally aspirated engines
while CART had turbocharged engines. The IRL cars had more downforce
allowing them to handle the steep banking with relative ease. The cars
used by CART had less downforce which saw them take the turns much
faster than IRL.

There were concerns about the event. Specifically, the cars were going
dangerously fast for the oval because of their powerful turbocharged
engines. There were rumours that the race would have been shifted to the
infield road course used by the American Le Mans Series for the Grand
Prix of Texas.

CART driver Maurício Gugelmin expressed that the drivers would face a
challenge, but was confident that CART would find the solutions needed to
conduct the race. Gugelmin also noted that "stronger suspension parts will
be necessary because of the loading generated by the banking."

Testing was conducted on December 18th, 2000. Kenny Bräck was the first
one to take to the track as he had experience having raced at the venue
in IRL. Bräck did 100 laps with lap times topping at 221 mph. The second
private test took place on 21st February 2001. The entire week was
hindered by rain and cool temperatures. Patrick Racing and driver Jimmy
Vasser were the first teams to take to the track. There was a rain shower
which postponed the test to 11:30 am. He completed 100 laps, with his
best lap topping at 215 mph, and said that it was fairly easy to drive flat
out while noting that it felt somewhat bumpy.

Team KOOL Green took to the track on 22nd February with Dario Franchitti
doing 190 laps and his best lap was 225.7 mph.
Like Patrick Racing the day before, Team Green canceled their second
scheduled day of testing when they felt they had accomplished their
testing goals after only one session. Franchitti expressed reservations
about the track's roughness and reported pulling 3 Gs in the corners. He
also predicted that two-wide racing would be possible during the race.

PacWest Racing also tested at the track on February 22 with rookie Scott
Dixon and Maurício Gugelmin. In 55-degree weather, Dixon drove about
140 laps, with a top speed close to 225 mph. Gugelmin also reported the
ability to drive flat out around the track.

Also at the track on February 22 was Penske Racing with driver Hélio
Castroneves and Walker Racing with driver Tora Takagi. Castroneves had a
fast lap at about 226 mph.

Following the tests, very few changes were made to the cars leading up to
the race. The teams that participated reported satisfaction with the
information gathered during the tests. The primary concerns expressed
dwelled on the roughness of the circuit.

The track itself, however, underwent a few upgrades. Changes included a

concrete wall on the pit lane between the pit stalls and the grassy "quad
oval" area along the front stretch. The track's surface was also smoothed
in some areas, in response to the complaints.

The first practice session was held the morning of Friday April 27, 2001.
CART officials re-measured the track for scoring purposes, and utilized a
length of 1.482 miles. The first practice session saw no incidents. Tony
Kanaan turned the fastest lap at 22.845 seconds (233.539 mph), a full
second quicker than the fastest time reported during the test sessions.

The first crash of the weekend occurred during the Friday afternoon
session, when Maurício Gugelmin crashed in turn 3. His car got loose
exiting turn 2 and hit the inside wall at 66.2 g. His foot became lodged
between the pedals, and the car accelerated. The car slid down the
backstretch and hit the outside wall in turn 3 with a force of 113.1 g. The
car continued to slide until it reached the apex between turn 3 and turn 4.
Gugelmin claims to have blacked out during the crash, but he was not
seriously injured. Gugelmin was wearing the HANS device. He withdrew,
nursing bruised shoulders and ribs, and sat out the rest of the weekend.

Kenny Bräck topped the sheets of the day to 22.821 seconds (233.785
mph). Dario Franchitti logged the fastest single trap speed at the
start/finish line, at 238.936 mph.
During the day, some drivers remarked on the improvements made to the
surface, that various bumps had been smoothed out. Most called the track
very fast, and two-wide racing and drafting was observed. Bryan Herta
likened the track to a bowl, calling it "fast and fun." Paul Tracy also called
it "a fast track." Bruno Junqueira said it was the fastest track he had ever
driven. An awestruck Nicolas Minassian compared it to a riding a roller
coaster. Hélio Castroneves called the track "physical," due to the banking,
and Cristiano da Matta echoed the sentiment.

The first serious concerns about driver safety occurred on Friday

afternoon. CART medical affairs director Steve Olvey would later report
that two drivers felt dizzy and disoriented after driving their cars at over
230 mph (370 km/h) and that they felt they could not control their cars.
The identities of the two drivers were not disclosed, but Tony Kanaan and
Alex Zanardi later claimed they experienced the symptoms. Olvey later
recalled that Max Papis was unable to tell the front stretch from the
backstretch when his crew told him to pit. Adrian Fernandez also reported
to the media he was experiencing dizziness. Olvey said in his 25 years of
working in motorsports, it was a problem he had never experienced.

Later, chief steward Chris Kneifel recalled that he had also heard reports
about drivers feeling dizzy, with some saying they had lost their
equilibrium after getting out of their cars. CART competition and PR chief
Mike Zizzo said that the cars were going so fast that one could get dizzy
just watching them roar around the track.

On 28th April 2001, the morning session saw the fastest speeds thus far at
the track. Paul Tracy topped the sheets with his best lap time of 22.542
seconds (236.678 mph) to break the all-time track record from the
previous afternoon.

In qualifying on the same day of 28th April 2001, Kenny Bräck qualified for
the pole position at an all-time official track record of 22.854 seconds
(233.447 mph). Patrick Carpentier was second, and Oriol Servia third.
Twenty-four of the twenty-five cars were over 226 mph (364 km/h), and
the average speed for the field was 229.9 mph (370.0 km/h). During
qualifying, drivers were reporting 5 lateral g sustained for 14-18 of the 23
seconds per lap.

Olvey contacted Dr. Richard Jennings, a former flight director at NASA and
professor of aviation medicine at the University of Texas. They discussed
the known levels of human tolerance of vertical g-loads. Jennings replied
that the human body could not tolerate sustained loads of more than 4-
4.5 g. CART determined that the race could not be run at more than 225
mph (362 km/h) without raising safety concerns over g-force-induced Loss
Of Consciousness (g-LOC).

The night before the race, CART officials attempted to make last-ditch
efforts to curtail speeds by having the teams take downforce out of the
car and reduce horsepower. According to Zizzo, they felt that they could
not slow the cars down by more than three or four mph without risking
engine failure. One proposal, seriously considered, would have called for a
makeshift chicane of cones along the backstretch.

However, by Sunday morning, time was running out to make changes

necessary to hold the race safely. The morning warm-up session was
canceled. Two hours before the scheduled start, the race was postponed.
Over 60,000 fans were sent home. The move came after Kniefel and CART
president Joe Heitzler had a series of meetings with drivers, owners and
sponsors. All parties agreed that it didn't make sense to hold the race
under the circumstances