Q: Have you ever seen a Can-Am documentary titled “Circuit”? Internet searches indicate it was filmed in 1981. I’m curious if you know who funded the project? Paul Newman and his team are featured throughout, which leads me to believe it might have been charged to his credit card.
I never had a chance to see any of Can-Am Version 2.0 in person. I was deployed overseas during that time and the series came and went before I returned to the States.
The Formula 5000 conversions look wicked fast, even by today’s standards. Some of the footage from Riverside is downright scary. The season’s final race was filmed at what I believe is the old F1 track in Vegas.
Yes, there is some cringe-worthy inappropriateness (it was the 1980s), but there are also some great interviews/conversations with the likes of Danny Sullivan, Bobby Rahal, Al Holbert, Teo Fabi and PLN. One the best scenes shows Bobby pounding a Budweiser (from one of those little brown bottles) after a hard-fought race. No scientifically designed rehydration products in those days.
Jonathan and Cleide Morris, Ventura, CA
MP: I have! One of my favorites, in fact. Frey Racing, a Bay Area racing parts store and racing team, had their shop in San Jose, and in the lobby, they had a display case with a deep selection of racing video cassettes for rent, and Circuit was among them. I did that 60- to-90-minute roundtrip drive more than once as a kid in the late 1980s to rent that sucker. Later, I bought my own copy and still have it in a crate somewhere. I always assumed Garvin Brown, whose family founded Jack Daniel’s whiskey and ran Danny Sullivan, was the money behind the film.
Q: Sick of seeing the compulsory driver pictures of them putting in their ear buds with a mean look on their face. Why not a nice happy face? They are among the very few lucky enough to race at the highest level. These pictures are almost as bad as calling race drivers “athletes,” which Robin squelched in the Mailbag a while back. He said calling them athletes made him puke. These earbud pictures are about to make me do the same. Just sayin’.
Big Possum, Michigan
MP: The ear-touching photos are a specialty of IMS Photo and I kid them about it, but that’s their go-to shot. Robin was wrong. In his day, yes, you’d have been an idiot to call most drivers athletes, but you’d be an idiot to say today’s professional drivers aren’t. Stock up on barf bags.
Q: Over at Meyer Shank Racing, two former champs are at the bottom. [ED: Helio’s never won the championship, but he’s come close enough times that we’ll let it slide]. Is it the car, or — heaven forbid I say this since they’re a decade younger than me — did they lose a step?
Shawn, MD
MP: In their first full season together at MSR, Simon was 15th in the championship and Helio was 18th, which disappointed everyone. But their technical partners at Andretti also had a down year; Rossi was their best in the standings in ninth. So if you look at that, and realize Simon was only six spots behind Rossi, it wasn’t the end of the world.
Returning for their second season together at MSR, and as Andretti made significant gains, the gap has expanded with Helio and Simon being near or worse than 20th in the standings. A lot of deficiencies have come to light throughout the year as well, and as a team, MSR bears plenty of responsibility.
But to your point, we’ve also seen Helio hit that stage where a lot of elite drivers who raced into their late 40s and early 50s admitted upon retirement: It’s not that you lose the physical or mental ability; it’s the inability to summon the same KILL-KILL-KILL mindset that fuels the next-generation stars on every lap.
The desire to take the same crazy risks that got you that race win when you were 25 and single isn’t the same when you’re 45, married, and have kids at home. It just isn’t.
That’s why, at times, you get glimpses of former glory from older drivers, but it doesn’t happen often enough to make them regular contenders for podiums, wins, or titles. At 48, I’m celebrating Helio for being 39 points behind Graham Rahal and 40 behind Rinus VeeKay in a car that’s certainly no better than theirs from race to race. His current station of 20th in the championship could easily become 15th if he has a strong close to the year and those right in front of him hit turbulence. But is he beating Herta, Kirkwood, and Ericsson (or whomever next year) in the championship next year if he was signed by Andretti? No, but an Indy 500 win is possible.
At 39, Simon has many years left.
For Pagenaud, his issue isn’t new or based on age. He’s been unstoppable when the right setup is found, but if it’s off, the results haven’t been what he or the team wants. He’s put in some gritty drives at times where he’s taken an ill-handling car and delivered an impressive finish, but those are runs to 14th or 16th when eighths and 10ths are what’s desired. Some drivers, like a Lundgaard or an O’Ward, are fazed by nothing and almost always go forward. That hasn’t been Simon’s story for a while, and that just makes it harder to deliver top results because the car needs to be close to perfect to do so. That also puts a lot of pressure on a team to deliver at crazy high levels.
There was a hope that the ex-Penske teammates would recreate some magic at MSR, and it hasn’t been their reality. Simon would be a great mentor for Blomqvist, and if that’s the direction the team goes, 2024 could be a good one for MSR.