<cross-posting removed>
On 5/08/2023 8:51 am, a425couple wrote:
from https://the-race.com/indycar/too-slow-to-adapt-but-chadwicks-us-move-could-yet-pay-off/
‘TOO SLOW TO ADAPT’ – BUT CHADWICK’S US MOVE COULD YET PAY OFF
18 mins ago
By Jack Benyon
See comments
A pair of top 10s in a row mark Jamie Chadwick’s best Indy NXT results of the season so far.
That might not sound like the results you expect, but one of those 10ths was on an oval – no mean
feat – and as for the rest of the campaign, she’s learning a new tyre and a host of new tracks in a
way few others are doing.
I've watched all of her Indy NXT races this year (and will watch her this weekend) and this is my take:
Firstly you have to bear in mind that these are short races and the focus is almost always in the
top 10 so most of the time I'm actually watching back of shot or the timing tower.
In her first two races she qualified a fair way down (as you'd expect) and tried to make up ground
during the races. Indy NXT is a lot more lax than W Series (or other European races are) when it
comes to 'hip-checking' and contact and she was punted into the wall several times when trying to
pass or when being passed (with no penalties handed out to anyone).
Since then it seems like she's concentrated on getting the best from the car but hasn't put herself
in positions where she can be easily taken out. Because of that she's mostly only made up places
when others ahead of her get punted out or crash. Surviving until the end is an important part of
motor racing and is worth taking the time to get right.
She seems to be a lot more on top of the car lately and I'm hoping that, once she gets comfortable
with the (huge jump in) power and the tracks, that she'll then have more confidence and start
mixing it more with other drivers. She has made a couple of passes lately on drivers who the
commentators seem to think are promising (but oddly the passes haven't been talked about in
commentary).
I'm hoping that she either gets another year in NXT or gets a drive next year in a more...
regulated series. The former option would be my preference as I think that with experience of the
car and tracks she'll do much better.
As a side-note Jamie didn't do a lot of mixing it up in W Series. She usually simply qualified
close to the front and either ran away with it or sat close enough and applied pressure then
capitilised on mother peoples mistakes. That's not to say that she can't pass cars, just that she
never really needed to because of her speed and she often played the percentage game with good results.
--
Shaun.
"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification
in the DSM"
David Melville
This is not an email and hasn't been checked for viruses by any half-arsed self-promoting software.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)