• Home
• Blog
• Podcast
• Forum
• Speed Shop
• Archives
• About Us

Subscribe

• Channels:
• Formula 1
• IRL
• NASCAR
• Motorcycles
• NHRA

INDYCAR Barber Test Day 1 Combined Times

INDYCAR is in Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park this week for an open test in preparation for 2011.   And while it is early in the week, and only a test, two things are clear:  Will Power is wicked fast, and James Hinchcliffe has earned his stripes.

Imagine this, after the Indy Car-Champ Car “merger”, Will Power didn’t have a full time gig, and only got a shot to drive for Penske as a super-sub for Helio who was forced to sit out and face tax charges in court.   Two years later, Power is now full time at Penske, and is the de facto favorite at all road courses to win. Impressive.

I’m enjoying seeing James Hinchcliffe at the top of the charts.  Hinch has waited patiently for a good drive in Indy Car after paying his dues in various ladder series, and the dedication has paid off.  Hinch was P5 on the day at his first full Indy Car test.  Impressive; most impressive.

Iceman, Scott Dixon was second fastest, followed by Justin Wilson and Helio.

The field is tight as usual with the top 18 times all within 1 second of Will Power’s best time.

Link: PDF -Monday combined test times from INDYCAR.com

IMAGE: 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) // Michele Ursino

INDYCAR news - 26 car fields, lucky dogs, Bourdais, and more

There’s some nice bits of INDYCAR news floating around the web this week, so here is the latest edition of short-shifts.

• The definition of “full field” was redefined this week by Randy Bernard, as INDYCAR announced that fields will be capped at 26 entries (except at Indianapolis and Las Vegas). After years of short fields, it sure is nice that INDYCAR had to deal with the possibility of too many cars showing up.
• Newman/Haas Racing has yet to announce a 2011 driver line-up, but from the outside it sure looks like James Hinchcliffe and Oriol Servia will be in their cars this year.
• Curt Cavin is all over the Sebring testing, and is tweeting that Sebastian Bourdais is testing with Coyne again. Where there’s smoke, there’s either fire or some French guy doing donuts.
• Lucky what?! Curt Cavin set Twitter on fire today when he posted that INDYCAR will have a “lucky dog” rule in 2011. What’s next? Digger?

• Indy - Firestone To Exit Indycar Racing After 2011 Season - Ring. Ring. That’s the sound of the phones ringing at the offices of Michelin and Hoosier. And don’t forget Cooper tires. They made tires for the Atlantic Series (RIP) for a while.

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeof

Indy Car Headlines: Ana Beatriz to Dreyer and Reinbold, VERSUS live Indy Lights package, Testing news from Texas and Barber

In today’s Indy Car “rock block” of stories, the top headline is news that Ana Beatriz has signed with Dreyer and Reinbolt for 2011. And if this is a trade for Milka Dunno to keep three ladies in Indy Car, this is a big trade up. Beatriz is the real deal with three Lights wins and a third place finish in the FIL points.

I have mixed feelings about this, because I think it is fantastic that she has landed a decent ride, and congrats to her. At the same time, neither Tony Kanaan and Paul Tracy have yet to find a chair to sit in, and nobody is sure if the music has stopped or not. Hopefully not.

Link: SPEED: Ana Beatriz Set To Join Wilson At DRR

–

Indy Car announced this morning that VERSUS is going to carry eight Indy Lights races live. In their release it says:

Eight Firestone Indy Lights races will be broadcast live this season by VERSUS. Additionally, the inaugural event in Quebec will be taped for broadcast at a later date.

The IZOD IndyCar Series window on VERSUS will expand to include the live broadcasts of Firestone Indy Lights events at Barber Motorsports Park, Streets of Long Beach, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Streets of Toronto, Edmonton City Centre Airport, Streets of Baltimore and Kentucky Speedway. The Firestone Indy Lights standalone event – the Streets of Trois Rivieres in Quebec– will be taped for broadcast at a later date.

This isn’t exactly huge news, but nice to know that VERSUS is stepping up and giving the support series some air.

Link: IndyCar.com Firestone Indy Lights races live on VERSUS

–

In testing news, Pippa Mann drove in a test with Conquest Racing at Texas Motor Speedway, and the report from RACER magazine is that it “went well”. No reports of lap times were released, but Eric Bachelart praised the young Brit:

“Pippa quickly got up to speed and was setting competitive lap times early on – and that isn’t always the case for someone turning their first laps in an Indy car. She did a really great job and provided really good feedback to the team, which helped us to make some changes and make the car even better balanced and faster.”

Meanwhile across the Gulf, PKV, Penske, and AJ Foyt Racing were joined by Charlie Kimball in his new Ganassi-2 car. Again, no test times were released, and nobody demolished a Dallara.

Come March 14-15, it’s an all-skate at Barber when Indy Car holds a series-wide open test leading up to the season opener in St. Pete.

Links: Racer.com has more on the Barber and Texas tests.

Indy Car releases info on buy-one-get-Vegas-free offer

I don’t know if it gets much better than this. Randy Bernard has put out a pretty sweet offer to Indy Car fans: Buy a ticket to an Indy Car race in 2011, and get a ticket to the Las Vegas Grand Finale for free.

Folks, we aren’t talking about a free Slurpee with the purchase of an order of large nachos at the local QuickieMart. This is flippin’ 220 mph, heart-pounding oval racing in Las Vegas for zero, nada, zilch……for free.

It might be true that beer is only free “tomorrow”, but come October, a lot of people are going to have their butts in a free seat at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to see if anyone can claim the $5 million bounty.
Read more

Sam Schmidt’s new FAZZTer, full time Indy Car team

Sam Schmidt Motorsports announced today that they have acquired the FAZZT race team, and will be running Alex Tagliani in a full time ride this year.

My first reaction is happiness for Sam Schmidt who has to be proud to have reached the status of full-time contender in Indy Car. Sam has run a great program in Indy Lights for years, but now is his time to step up to the big cars.

My second reaction is relief. No longer will I have to wonder how to pronounce FAZZT, or wonder why the chose such a strange spelling for a race team.

But seriously, congrats to Sam Schmit and Alex Tagliani on entering the fray full time in 2011.

Link: Sam Schmidt buys FAZZT Team

This post can also be read at http://motorpundit.com/?p=1212.

Justin Wilson putting up big numbers in Indy Car Toronto practice

The IZOD Indy Car Series heads north of the border this weekend for the Honda Indy Toronto, a tight and super-fast street course that separates the men from the boys. And this weekend, Justin Wilson has been “the man”, posting either the first or second fastest time in all three practices conducted on Friday and Saturday. And in the latest session today, Wilson was almost three-tenths faster than EJ Viso and looks to be the favorite to grab the pole during the Firestone Fast Six session.
Read more

Graham Rahal - the super-sub of 2010

If you paid any attention to CART/Champ Car in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, you know that Roberto Moreno seemed to be the dude that car owners would tap whenever they needed a substitute driver. Eventually Moreno became known as the “Super-Sub“.

But fast-forward a decade to 2010, and a new super-sub of sorts has appeared in the Indy Car paddock: Graham Rahal.

Since finding himself on the outside looking in for the 2010 season after a drive for Newman-Haas racing fell through, Graham has been able to put together a few runs, including the Indy 500 two weeks ago. He’s driven for Sarah Fisher Racing, Rahal-Letterman Racing, and next week in Iowa he will make his debut with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing as a sub for Mike Conway who was roughed up pretty bad in a crash at Indy.

Read more

Briscoe keeps his cool while others boil over in the Texas heat

Now *that* was an Indy Car oval race. The Indy Car Series exchanged the flat track of Indy for the 24-degree lunacy of Texas, and put on one heck of a show. Ryan Briscoe won from the pole, giving a boost to the Penske team that had a less-than-spectacular race at Indy. And for a guy who was hired by Roger to drive Porsche prototypes in ALMS, Briscoe has unexpectedly become a force on the 1-1/2 mile tracks like Kansas, Texas, and Homestead.

As the race unfolded, the main challenge to a race that Briscoe had controlled most of the night came from Danica Patrick. Patrick started eighth, but moved up into the top five early in the race. Danica even held the lead for a brief moment after she and Briscoe made their first stops. In the end, she just didn’t have the kind of car that Briscoe had, and she finished second.
Read more

Briscoe keeps Penske pole streak alive at Texas

Ryan Briscoe rebounded from his crash at Indy to take the pole for tonight’s Firestone 550K at Texas Motor Speedway. Briscoe’s run gave Team Penske six poles in a row since the streak started in St. Petersburg. Briscoe, in particular, has taken a liking to the mile-and-a-half high banked tracks, taking the pole at Kansas last month and now at Texas.

Read more

Memorial Day Weekend Racing Review

Dario Franchitti dominates to win second Indy 500

The 2010 Indy 500 won’t go down in the history books as a race for the ages, but it did have some interesting story lines and one terrible crash. The big story was the absolutely destruction of the field by Dario’s Target car which seemed to have a gear nobody else had which enabled him to lead 155 laps.

Unfortunately for the fans, no only did Dario’s domination make for somewhat of an uneventful race at the front of the field, but the race turned into a fuel mileage marathon at the end. In fact, Franchitti may not have made it to the end if it were not for a terrible crash that involved Mike Conway and Ryan Hunter-Reay in the closing laps.

In post-race celebrations, Ashley Judd once again displayed her love for attention, and made sure the world knows that her man is “the man”. We know, Ashley, we know.
Read more