{"id":27486,"date":"2021-06-17T19:56:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T23:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=27486"},"modified":"2021-06-17T19:56:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T23:56:46","slug":"henry-payne-my-violent-roller-coaster-lap-of-belle-isle-in-an-indycar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/henry-payne-my-violent-roller-coaster-lap-of-belle-isle-in-an-indycar","title":{"rendered":"Henry Payne: My violent, roller-coaster lap of Belle Isle in an IndyCar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belle Isle\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 A lap around the Detroit Grand Prix\u2019s Belle Isle race track in an IndyCar is a violent experience.<\/p>\n

Sitting directly behind ex-IndyCar star Davey Hamilton (and ahead of the engine) in a twin-seat, Dallara racer,\u00a0the 700-horsepower rocket accelerates with blinding speed. Lightning-quick shifts punch me in the back. Serpentine turns whip my helmeted head from side-to-side. Instant braking throws me forward. Screwed to the earth at speeds up to 150 mph with 1,200-pound springs and front-rear wings, the car bucks like a bronco over the undulating, concrete public roads.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was just running at 75%,\u201d smiled Hamilton afterwards.<\/p>\n

Turn up the dial to 100% for 70 laps between concrete walls and you can understand why IndyCar drivers (and fellow IMSA Weathertech sportscar pilots)\u00a0say the Belle Isle track is one of the most demanding circuits on the schedule. And why accidents like Felix Rosenqvist\u2019s Saturday hit are so scary.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to be a little bit crazy\u201d to drive\u00a0here, said 20-year old\u00a0IndyCar phenom Rinus Veekay after placing second in Saturday\u2019s race. \u201cIf you don’t know the risks, you can’t give it your all. You will touch the wall a few times in the race, which I did. It gives you a lot of adrenaline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of her Saturday race, IMSA driver Katherine Legge, at the wheel of her Porsche 911 GTD missile said: \u201cI love it. It\u2019s like racing Sebring between concrete walls.\u201d Florida’s Sebring, built on\u00a0old, concrete military\u00a0runways,\u00a0is famously rough.<\/p>\n

\"Detroit<\/p>\n
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I, too, have raced Sebring in multiple cars and can attest to that. And I can attest that it\u2019s better to be in the driver\u2019s seat than in a passenger\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

Behind the wheel you’re in control. You know what\u2019s coming. In the passenger seat you’re always reacting to the driver’s inputs. Knowing that, the IndyCar Experience team strapped me tight in a five-belt racing harness for my Sunday morning Belle Isle lap. IndyCar Experience operates a fleet of five IndyCar twin-seaters which it takes from race to race. Ace drivers like Hamilton and Gabby Chevez and Spencer Pigot give team sponsors and media the ride of their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nine times better than Cedar Point,\u201d thrilled WDIV-Channel 4 reporter\/anchor Kim DeGiulio after her thrill ride.<\/p>\n

The Belle Isle course is unrelenting. Entering the very fast, 130-mph,\u00a0Turn 1-2\u00a0complex, I note\u00a0the first of a number of strategically placed tire\u00a0barriers (tires wrapped in rubber conveyer belts).<\/p>\n

Hamilton downshifts from sixth gear to fourth. Flick right, then left, than over the extremely difficult exit of Turn 2\u00a0that falls\u00a0away just as drivers get on the gas. GM President Mark Reuss \u2014 a race-licensed driver \u2014 famously spun into the wall here in 2018\u00a0when pacing the field in a Corvette. IndyCar drivers have struggled here, too \u2014 \u00a0like A.J. Almendinger\u00a0who clouted the wall in\u00a02013.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Turns 4-6 are tight,\u00a0technical, and crucial to launching the car onto the long back straight for the track\u2019s best passing\u00a0 opportunity\u00a0\u2014 as Pato O\u2019Ward proved in his race-winning pass on Josef Newgarden in Sunday\u2019s race. \u201cIt\u2019s my favorite part of the race track,”\u00a0Cadillac sportscar\u00a0driver Pipo Derani told me on a track walk Thursday.<\/p>\n

The section proved disastrous for O\u2019Ward\u2019s teammate, Rosenqvist, in Saturday’s race when his throttle stuck wide open going through Turn 6 at nearly 100 mph. Fortunately, another well-placed tire wall helped slow the impact of Rosenqvist\u2019s out-of-control car before it got to the concrete walls \u2014 though the impact was still so heavy that it knocked over the barrier.<\/p>\n

A sticky throttle is one of the most frightening\u00a0experiences in motorsport. I once had the throttle stick wide open on my Porsche racer at 150 mph at Georgia’s Roebling Road raceway. Luckily, it happened at the end of a straightaway with plenty of\u00a0run-off room, and a long spin through the grass helped the car scrub speed before I hit a tire\u00a0wall.<\/p>\n

Rosenqvist was not so fortunate, immediately going into the tire wall at Belle Isle. He didn’t suffer serious injury.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n
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Interestingly, my visceral IndyCar lap is not hard on the ears despite\u00a0the 700-horse monster behind my helmet. The engine is a twin-turbocharged V-6, not much different than the Chevy and Honda\u00a0mills in the single-seat IndyCars. The turbos (which recycle exhaust for more power) muffle sound despite the car\u2019s high revs.<\/p>\n

I did the lap without ear plugs, my ear drums tingling as we hit 150 mph on the back straight. By contrast, I wore ear plugs last week while riding shotgun in a Porsche GT race car (with racer Leh Keen driving at, ahem, 100%) at Road Atlanta. Its screaming, unmuffled, naturally-aspirated, 9,000-RPM flat-six would have rendered me deaf without protection.<\/p>\n

Shaken, but not deterred, I emerged from my IndyCar lap understanding why this track is so diabolical. It\u2019s a challenge for the best of drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of (simulator) work and nothing got me ready for the experience here,\u201d said IndyCar star Jimmy Johnson who was here for the first time this weekend. \u201cI was just floored how technical this track is, how rough it is, how little grip there is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Start<\/p>\n
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Every driver prepares differently. Derani said he and Caddy co-driver Felipe Nasr (a former winner here) benefited from a day of sim work ahead of Detroit. At his Saturday news conference, IndyCar\u2019s Veekay said the sim helped him, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose don’t do anything to prepare you for Detroit. What are you talking about?\u201d shot back O\u2019Ward.<\/p>\n

Said Veekay: \u201cNo, I felt like it really happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both drivers had podium finishes this weekend. Maybe I can thumb a ride with them next year.<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Belle Isle\u00a0\u2014 A lap around the Detroit Grand Prix\u2019s Belle Isle race track in an IndyCar is a violent experience. Sitting directly behind ex-IndyCar star Davey Hamilton (and ahead of the engine) in a twin-seat, Dallara racer,\u00a0the 700-horsepower rocket accelerates with blinding speed. Lightning-quick shifts punch me in the back. Serpentine turns whip my helmeted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27487,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27486\/revisions\/27487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}