Rain cuts IndyCar spring testing short at Laguna Seca
IndyCar teams were out at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Friday preparing for the series that starts next month.
It has been 15 years since the IndyCar Series has been at Laguna Seca, and drivers and fans all came out to do a little spring testing on the track, but the weather had other plans.
The rain came pouring faster than an Indy Car coming out of The Corkscrew, leaving fans who came out to watch drenched.
“Yeah, it looks like it may have shut things down for the day, but that’s all right. I got here early enough to see the cars in action,” said Bill Ihle, who was visiting from San Jose.
Rain flooded portions of the track prompting raceway officials to call off what were supposed to be an extra four hours of driving. But luckily, the 23 teams who came out for the preseason testing got some track time in before they had to escape the downpour.
“On the race weekend, we’d be racing in it. But because we have to turn around and go to a test in Austin two days from now, I don’t think many people would be putting their cars at risk,” said Ryan Hunter-Reay, who won the IndyCar Series in 2012.
Hunter-Reay says driving this type of car, which runs a V6 twin turbo engine, is kind of like flying a plane close to the ground.
“You’re trying to get every little hundredth of a second out of it,” he said. “This series is so competitive. In the corners, we’re doing four Gs and it’s just a very physical lap around Laguna Seca.”
IndyCar teams visit tracks in the spring to test their cars and adjust the vehicle’s characteristics.
“So we’re trying to optimize all that around Ryan’s comfort level, what he perceives to be fast, but also what the track wants,” said Ray Gosselin, who is the race engineer for Hunter-Reay’s team.
That is why it is important to practice, and the fans seem to be enjoying the action as well.
“You can see they… just kind of… getting on the power and just kind of right on the edge of breaking loose, which is a lot of fun for a race fan like me to watch,” said Ihle.
“One of my favorite race tracks, and like I said, this is one of my favorite places on earth, just the Monterey Peninsula,” said Hunter-Reay.
The IndyCar Series consists of 17 races across North America. It begins in March and concludes with the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey at Laguna Seca in September.
