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Score: 8.3 Great 90 votes

Grand Prix

Episode Number: 31    Season Num: 2    First Aired: Monday November 10, 2003    Prod Code: 207
A gas man is engulfed in invisible flames and dies during a qualifying race at the Grand Prix Americas.

Cast and Crew

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Writer: Michael Ostrowski, Steven Maeda
Director: David Grossman
Star: Rory Cochrane (Tim Speedle (Episodes 1-49)),  Emily Procter (Calleigh Duquesne),  Adam Rodriguez (Eric "Delko" Delektorsky),  Khandi Alexander (Chief Medical Examiner Alexx Woods),  David Caruso (Lieutenant Horatio Caine)
Recurring Role: Sofia Milos (Detective Yelina Salas)
Guest Star: Adam Ciesielski (Race Car Fan),  James Morrison (Charles Jeunet),  Lauren Holly (Hayley Wilson),  Wings Hauser (Ron Elner),  Scott Hampton (Ernest Mansfield),  Bennett Dunn (Chris Petrie),  Ethan S. Smith (Dr. John Leary),  Michael John Galvin (Paolo Dos Santos),  Jason Lewis (Jimmy Hutton)

Notes

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Music: Nothing at All by Rob Dougan
Sola Sistim by Underworld (edit)

Quotes

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Horatio: He was family, remember. (edit)
Ernest Mansfield: What are you, a shoe salesman? Shoo, you're boring me! (edit)
John Leary: Like I said, accidents happen.
Horatio: That's quite true, but so . . . so does murder. (edit)

Trivia

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There are many, many technical and sporting details wrong with the depiction of the the champ car series.

Most notably, they don't have pit stops or race each other during qualifying. Then as now, it's your fastest single lap in an hour of running that matters. In the situation depicted, Jimmy would have actually have wanted a slower stop as it's distracting to come out right next to another car, which could potentially slow you up. Additionally there would normally be cause to get out of the car and discuss the previous run.

Additionally, the depicted front wing angle would be utterly impossible to achieve via the standard adjustment methods. They are also adjusted symmetrically so the setup could not be one-sided as shown on the wind tunnel diagrams.

The pop-off valves are also much more tightly controlled than is implied and the effect of stopping one functioning would be very visible as increased engine speed on the telementary all cars beam back to the pits and often broadcast on TV.

The fire death would also not happen. While the technical details of methanol are largely correct, CART also has a dedicated safety team and damming up one extinguiser would not be enough to prevent the rescue of a crew member. He would certainly not have been left long enough to die.

The end of the episode is also largely impossible, while drivers may occasionally switch teams between races they would not be allowed to do so between final qualifying and a race except potentially in the case of a driver injury where a team may be allowed to subsitute a reserve. (edit)
Goof: Check out the uniform on the driver that is chatting up Calleigh (using the good old "would you like to ride my car" line) as she is trying to get oil/fuel samples from the pit crew. It changes several times between from yellow with red trim to yellow with black as the different angled shots cut into each other. (edit)

Allusions

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Community Reviews (4)

 
10.0
Perfect
Grand Prix
"Adventurous"
This episode BLOWS............
Continue » Posted Mar 12, 2007 10:41 am PST
9.1
Superb
Grand Prix
"Well written"
Grand Prix
Continue » Posted Dec 25, 2006 10:36 pm PST

tomcatkev
Report Abuse 1 user agrees
with this review
5.0
Mediocre
Grand Prix
"Silly"
Implausibly, a fuelman's hands catch fire, he recognizes he is on fire but fails to call for assistance. There is a fire hose nearby but no visible effort is made to use it, and he dies.
Continue » Posted Oct 1, 2006 11:02 pm PST

Entilzha37
Report Abuse 1 user disagrees
with this review
7.8
Good
Grand Prix
"Average"
Horatio and team investigates a death at a race track. The victim caught fire, but he was a good mechanic, and not likely to make that type of mistake.
Continue » Posted Mar 19, 2006 4:55 am PST
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Episode Vital Stats

 
Episode: Grand Prix
Season Number: 2
Episode Reviews: 4
Episode
Score:
8.3 Great 90 votes
Rating Statistics:
great: 35 (38.9%)
superb: 15 (16.7%)
perfect: 15 (16.7%)
good: 14 (15.6%)
Other: 11 (12.2%)
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