Many years ago, I decided that I would buy any record on which Pat Metheny played, even if I didn’t know anything about the other artists involved. Sometimes the results are solid (Wish), sometimes they are frustrating (Sign Of Four), and sometimes it’s a really sexy Eastern European girl singing over what sounds like a chorus of little people from “It’s A Small World” (Upojenie). In general, however, the rule has served me well.
The same is true for autojourno Alex Nunez; even when he’s writing for soul-sucking blackholes like Autoblog, he’s still a great read. This past weekend, Alex noticed an interesting story coming out of the Speedvision, er, Speed, er, Pirelli World Challenge race at Miller. Warning: race spoilers ahead if you click the jump.
On the face of it, Sunday’s World Challenge race sounds like a cross between a Hollywood script and a LeMons blog. Tristan Herbert’s Jetta GLI had suffered an engine failure on Saturday, leaving him with two DFL finishes that day and a back-row qualifying spot for the Sunday main event. Overnight, the team pulled the engine out of a local race fan’s Beetle Turbo and tossed it in the GLI. When the flag flew, Herbert stormed to the front of the pack, making a big move on race leader Michael Cooper and taking the overall race win. (As a former Compass360 driver, I am not quite contractually obligated to note that two C360 Civics passed Michael in the final laps and took the other steps on the podium.)
I mean, COME ON! This has Hollywood written all over it. The Jetta GLI is new to WC competition. The odds were against them. They pulled an engine from a street car. If somebody made a movie about this, every racing fan in the world would grumble all the way through about it being unrealistic. And yet, here we are.
Pirelli World Challenge and its Bizarro World Grand-Am-operated twin series, Continental Tire Challenge, are exactly what everybody always says they want to see in American racing. Real production-based cars going tooth-and-nail, denting fenders, on all the same road courses we use for our untimed lapping days. You can’t deny it makes for great storylines and great television.
Unfortunately, part of that “great television” is created through ruthless and arbitrary competition adjustment. The reason Herbert’s GLI carved so effortlessly through an entire pack of experienced racers in fully-prepped cars? Simple: he’s “under-adjusted”. The people who run the Pirelli and Continental Challenges are fully aware that new teams need to show results in order to keep their sponsorship intact. Over the course of time, cars are “adjusted” in all sorts of ways. The C360 Civics, for example, have to run stock brakes, which usually require pad changes halfway through the longer races. The “adjustments” can run from the subtle to the bizarre: the original World Challenge CTS-V had a “dropped” unibody which was effectively four inches or so shorter than that of the street cars. It really fixed the tall, tippy look of the CTS and it led to multiple Cadillac victories. It also infuriated all the tax attorneys and orthodontists who had dropped a half-million bucks on a GT3 or Viper ACR only to find themselves repeatedly lapped by a nonchalant John Heinricy.
You could say that Herbert was on “easy mode” in that race, but that isn’t really a fair way to describe a team that suffered a blown engine and came back to win. The best thing to do would be to watch the race and judge for yourself. Unfortunately, you will have to wait for the air date: NBC Sports, Sunday, May 27th at 11PM-1AM EST. Check it out, and don’t forget to check Alex out while you’re at it, okay?
Yup. I was at an ALMS event, which I will not name, and asked a team mechanic about why his GT car, which I will not name, was running so little wing compared to the other guys. He explained that his brand were down on power compared to another competitor, and that the engine management algorithms were delivered from the manufacturer(read this in a German accent). I guess race organizers get that race wretches want to watch something competitive, but competition needs some honoring as well.
“Thanks, APR and local fan”. However what is the poor guy going to do after the “adjustments” are made to his car, when he has stock engine electronics back in the thing?
While Pat Metheny may be the man who ruined jazz guitar tone forever, I will agree the Pirelli World Challenge is a fantastic series to watch, especially on NBC Sports which I actually get.
I CANNOT HEAR YOU OVER MY GR-300 SAWTOOTH PATCH
Which tone don’t you like, rwb? His fat, heavy guitar synth, or his umpteen-string polyphonal Pikasso acoustic? The delicate nylon-string Manzer acoustic, or his signature Ibanez electric (which often sounds a lot like anybody else’s jazz guitar)? Or how about the fretless acoustic-electric guitar he developed and used for just one song, Imaginary Day?
Pat’s probably working on some other new tone right now. How you can criticize Pat Metheny for his tone is a mystery to me. Do you just think every jazz guitarist from now on must sound just like Wes Montgomery or Charlie Christian?
“I decided that I would buy any record on which Pat Metheny played, even if I didn’t know anything about the other artists involved.”
I would agree wholeheartedly with that one, as Pat rarely puts out a stinker.
“The people who run the Pirelli and Continental Challenges are fully aware that new teams need to show results in order to keep their sponsorship intact…”
That would explain the uber-underdog Kia Racing(?) team in the Conti series, going from worst to getting its first win during the course of last year’s season.
I generally like these races/series, but last year’s focus on the Kia effort was a little too obvious…
Adjustments for the sake of leveling the playing field, or adjustments for the sake of good TV and brand competition?
Perhaps apocryphal but back in the day when a small racing team could stay in business racing in NASCAR’s top series as a back marker, one of those underfunded teams blew an engine in practice at MIS. Not having a spare, they checked around, found a police duty big block at a junkyard, did the swap and was able to start the race and collect enough purse/appearance money to make it to the next race.
I’d think you could “adjust” in a straightforward enough way with just an intake restrictor.
At least then you can build a proper race car (and skip the brake pad silliness) and just deal with the effects of being down on power.
I like that idea. I lost interest in this sort of racing when I found out that everyone was playing by different rules.
the World Challenge CTS-V isn’t anything close to the production car, nor are the Volvos or others in the GT ranks. at they weren’t the last time I bothered to attend a race – they’re sort of poor man’s Rolex GT cars. IIRC the year the CTS-V was serious overdog Cadillac had become the “official car of the SCCA” or somesuch payola. big surprise there.
World Challenge Touring (which has bifurcated into a lower tier where the VW races and the mid tier where there are Mustangs and Camaros) was always a far more “stock” class, but I think it allowed more modifications than Grand Am Cup ST. World Challenge would be interesting if there were actually more than a few manufacturers involved, but without the ability of the rich guys to get on the podium by paying for a good fast guy, the series won’t grow enough to be any more viable or promoted than it is now.
You’re my kind of jazzhead, Jack. Metheny’s a genius inventor of musical instruments, a fine composer and bandleader and the most fluid, expressive guitarist I know. Still, his long career seems at a lull, and his reputation less than it could be.
Metheny’s wayward output seems calculated to shed his once-huge fan base. In the past decade, Pat’s lurched from straight-ahead quartet sessions into noisy grunge (Sign of Four), improvisational cheese (What’s it all About) and my favorite, that futuristic contraption of solenoid-driven, computer-controlled sidemen called the Orchestrion. Many have an opinion about his work, and most of them are outdated or mistaken. Meanwhile, collaborator Lyle Mays remains a missing person, and their large ensemble, the Pat Metheny Group, hasn’t toured or recorded in seven years, which is a cryin’ shame. Most of his concerts are overseas, where jazz audiences are more open to jazz that isn’t safely traditional, Wynton-approved, horn-tootin’ genre music.
I won’t even try to bring this one back to cars. Maybe this is of interest only to Baruth and myself, but hey, I’ve endured page upon page of Panther love, fast-car bluster and meanderings through junkyards, with faint interest. Thank you for letting me take my turn on the “he’s-too-into-it” stool…
For what it’s worth, I’ve seen both the Orchestrion tour and his recent tour with what’s-his-name, the prodigy bassist.
Metheny, by all accounts, has simply grown too difficult to work with. I mean, he fired Mark Ledford for showing up to practice late… Led absolutely *made* the We Live Here tour great and the guy DIED right afterwards, so presumably he had a few reasons to be late. He also was notorious for telling Wertico how to drum… not that Wertico didn’t occasionally need the instructions.
The Orchestrion probably just represents his desire to work alone and pursue his vision.
For me, the all-time best PMG moment was watching him, Sanchez, and Richard Bona play BSL from a third-row seat in Georgetown.
If so, that’s a shame, because Pat’s best work usually comes in a collaboration. Did you hear him ofnCharlie Hayden’s “Rambling Boy,” covering Country and Irish folk music? Or Marc Johnson’s “Sound of Summer Running,” which paired Pat and his funky Americana avitar, Bill Frisell?
All his perfectionism must have a cost. The Orchestrion video was promised, but never released. I wonder if the economics of touring with a nine-member group are beyond him. That’s what happened to the big bands, they say.
Sorry for hijacking this car blog, but you started it. You can’t find full & frank discussion of all this on PM’s own
website forum, BTW. I must be flagged there- every time I raise a hint of criticism or career speculation, my post vanishes. Do you think there’s any audience for an unapproved Metheny blog?
I could start one. Hmm….