By Steve Zongker

As I was watching my fill of racing this weekend as well as the 2016 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions, the song “Highway Star” from Deep Purple was stuck in my head. Not to complain about it, but it certainly was appropriate for this past weekend.

Could anyone else be more excited for the Michael Shank Racing overall IMSA win at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca than our own Vickie Miller? I’m sure she was jumping up and down wherever she was at the time, cheering her favorite driver on to a well-deserved win.

On the opposite side of the fence, my heart sank as the Mazda/ Speedsource racing team fell out of contention after dominating the first half of the race. They have been busting their tails in hopes of getting back on the right side of the win ledger, and they came so excruciatingly close this race.

It’s great to see that IMSA is starting to open their collective minds a bit regarding new classes, as laid out in their “Future Strategies” e-mail which was sent over the weekend. It will be interesting how the landscape looks in the next 12-to-18 months.

Yet again, it seems that there is ongoing issues with the IMSA digital platform, as the amount of angry Tweets came flooding in at the start of the first race on Sunday. As an IT nerd myself, it hurts to see when fellow IT folks have issues regarding their craft. I’m sure with a little hard work and maybe a load balancer or two, they can fix their woes soon enough.

There has been much debate going on in the Interwebs regarding the new Daytona Prototype international platform for 2017 and the integration into the Automobile Club de l’Ouest rules. The main sticking point seems to be the adaptation of the Cosworth Electronic Control Unit, whereas IMSA this year had required the P/ P2 teams to carry the Bosch ECU. Without going into a deep dive regarding ECUs and what they bring to the table, the Cosworth ECU is a more top-end type device (which by default), makes it much more expensive for the teams to implement. At first, I was in the opinion that everyone should play in the same sandbox. After giving it some thought, and some nerdy pixie dust, I actually feel that IMSA has a legitimate concern. Teams spend mounds of money to implement electronics into their cars. First to spend in excess of $5000 one year, and then have to spend the same, if not more on another ECU unit. Let’s hope that the brain trusts in both organizations can come to an amicable solution.

Some closing and humorous thoughts to close out this week:

  • Who wouldn’t want to be in Townsend Bell’s shoes over the next month or so? (Indy, Detroit, LeMans)
  • Is there anyone even remotely enthused about Nico Rosberg’s historic run? Kudos to friend of the show @mark_whitlegge for smashing the trolls on the Interwebs tossing out conspiracy theories about Lewis Hamilton
  • Has anyone considered a drinking game for the amount of times Calvin Fish corrected Greg Creamer during the TV broadcast?
  • Someone needs to take a serious look into how NBCSN has revived their floundering coverage and implement that into the IMSA Fox Sports broadcast.
  • If you do not follow the Circuit of the Americas Twitter feed @circuitamericas you MUST do so immediately.
  • I’m beginning to think that the person who has the coolest job in motorsports is the person who runs the “Christmas Tree” lights in NHRA.
  • Handing out the healing vibes to Ryan Dalziel’s Dad, and Erin Lainey, both of whom have had recent health issues/ surgery.

Until next week….”wherever you go, there you are”