Street Racing

A relatively calm crowd accompanied the A1GP opener, but anticipation of this event grew strong as the field of predominantly Japanese and a few U.S. drivers pulled up to the pits. Anyone waiting to have a shirt signed or a photo taken with their favorite driver did so now because every key figure, from Taniguchi and Kazama to U.S. favorites Rhys Millen and Tony Angelo, attended the event. The previous day’s drivers search brought many hopefuls in an effort to boost the strength of U.S. competitors, but even those selected had a tough and controversial time advancing against the dominant Japanese. No doubt this weekend had plenty of action in store for those who came out.

Some big drivers, however, didn’t attend this latest U.S. A1 event. Crowd favorite Katsuhiro Ueo was noticeably absent. All sorts of rumors floated around the pits as to why the ‘02 A1GP Series Champion and first A1 U.S. winner wasn’t back at Irwindale. The word from Keiichi Tsuchiya was that he just didn’t make this trip. Top Secret driver Ryuji Miki, who retired his infamous Top Secret S15 that carried him to the ‘04 A1GP Championship, replaced Izumida behind the wheel of the ORC/Top Secret Z33. And Chunky Bai, Signal Auto’s most consistent driver to date, was also missing in action. Mad K replaced Chunky with two new drivers, Yukinobu “Bonny” Okubo and Tsukasa Kamiya. Okubo didn’t make the cut, but Kamiya busted into the top 32. However, he couldn’t put a clean run together, sending him back to the pits early.

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Qualifying Sessions and Drivers Search

Qualifying got off to a very early start on Saturday, just hours before the main event. A press conference announced rule changes for 2006 (see course layout on page 126 for details), A1’s debut in two countries, Singapore and England, and the testing of DriftBox, a GPS system that A1 officials are hoping to use in future events to analyze race lines from a variety of angles. Also, drivers who placed in 11 through 16 would be awarded one point each for doing so. More than 50 contenders came out with hopes of being able to pass “Go” and face off with the top seeded drivers, but most either crashed, broke down, or did not find the right line on the redesigned course.

The new course’s appetite for destruction showcased superior driver’s talent and punished those not up to the task. The slight configuration tweaks proved to be a handful even for drivers with experience at Irwindale.

Judges required drivers to initiate their turns much earlier on the Turn 3-4 banking that starts the A1 course. Cones placed on the banking of Turn 4 kept cars up on the wall for as long