Drivers slam decision to start race

Officials elected to start the Road America Champ Car race with a stream of water crossing the track at the exit of the Turn 11 kink.

The Elkhart Lake 'river' led to a slew of accidents and some angry pilots - mainly because they felt the race never should have been started in the first place. However, CART was under pressure to start to race because of a two-hour time buy on cable network ESPN.

"I called in four times about the river running across the track and said it wasn't safe," said Bryan Herta, who was eliminated in a chain-reaction accident when a car in front of him slowed for the inch-deep puddle. "The incident shouldn't have happened in my opinion. We were aquaplaning at 50mph."

Mauricio Gugelmin crashed his PacWest Reynard-Toyota heavily at the same spot on his out lap on slicks.

"99 percent of the track was fine, but there was a river there," Gugelmin said. "CART never should have started this race with the conditions the way they were.

"Red-flagging it was the right decision, but it doesn't help me or any of the guys who crashed in this mess. These are racing cars, not powerboats. The whole thing was ridiculous."

The decision to red-flag the race without closing the pits led to more acrimony. The four drivers (Helio Castroneves, Patrick Carpentier, Michel Jourdain Jr and Shinji Nakano) who hadn't yet pitted to change to slick tyres in the opening 14 laps were allowed under CART rules to make the tyre change as well as perform other work on the cars during the 48-minute delay.

"I think we got screwed on the red flag," remarked Kenny Brack, who lost the championship lead to Castroneves when the Brazilian finished seventh. "How can four guys who didn't pit for slicks get to change from rain tyres to slicks while sitting in the pits for the red flag? It's an unfair advantage.

"We made our decision to pit for slicks, and I guess CART made their decision," Brack continued. "They got the grace to change their tyres and we went from first to fourth."

Brack said his car was set up for the wet, but he felt he should have finished third.

"We were on the same strategy as Junqueira and Andretti, who finished one-two," he said. "Unfortunately, I got behind some traffic and lost a lot of time, and I slid off the track too."

Oriol Servia, who finished 10th in the Sigma Autosport entry, agreed, saying: "The cars should have been parked, like in a Formula 1 parc ferme, and not touched. I don't understand why you were able to touch the cars. Maybe people pitted before the red flag and lost their places and now everybody can refuel. It makes no sense."