We had three great races, races really deserving of the term “Classics”, this weekend with the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indy 500 and the 600 at Charlotte, all of which have been on the racing calendar for some years. Continue reading
Filed under: F1, Indycar, NASCAR | Tagged: autoracing, F1, formula one, Indy500, Indycar, NASCAR, racecar | Leave a comment »
#F1 Interesting that Red Bull’s owner thinks that the start to the 2012 season with 5 different winners in as many races might put people off; the opposite was reckoned to be the case when Schumi was winning everything in sight and being accused of making the show boring. We’re very happy here that the results have been so varied and that we have such a competitive series (we’d be happier still if JB was waltzing off into the distance with 5 wins out of 5, but that’s just us). Continue reading
Filed under: F1, Indycar, NASCAR, Tin Tops | Tagged: autoracing, DTM, F1, formula one, Indy500, Indycar, motorsport, racecar | Leave a comment »
News that the diminutive one is up for more races in the US seems a but strange given that he has been willing to turn his back on such a large market for the last few years.
But never mind, things are looking up a bit with the prospect of having two GPs in the US soon, a bit like the old days of the US GPs East and West.
The problem that we have is in the venues; Monaco is Monaco, but other city street races are a bit of a nonsense. Valancia and Singapore are not really that good, the Aussies make do, but if we want to run on a decent track down under why not Bathurst? (OK we have our tongue in cheek a bit there, but at least it’s a good circuit).
The US has some cracking venues; the Indy GP circuit is a bit of a mishmash maybe, but it is Indy, and then there are Road America, Sears Point, Laguna Seca or Road Atlanta all of which are good tracks. Heck, we could even take the US GP back to its old home in Sebring! Any of those would be better to watch than plugging away around the grid road system of a US city (remember the lunacy of the car park grand prix?).
Toggle and I would love to see F1 back in the US, but if we truly want to grow the market surely we have to present F1 at its best, and scrabbling about the back streets is not the way to go. F1 is at its best on flowing circuits with a couple or three decent places to pass. We can’t let them have Spa perhaps, but, with the exception of Sebring, all of the US tracks named above do have elevation changes and a good range of corners.
For Bernie to be talking about having the Manhatton skyline as a backdrop is all very well, but we want people watching cars.
Filed under: Circuits, F1 | Tagged: autoracing, F1, formula one, Indy500, motorsport, racecar, US GP, USGP | Leave a comment »
There’s a link below to a NASCAR item on Andy Granatelli, legend of the Indy 500, STP Oil Treatment, Studebaker, Paxton Products, Grancor and more. The man is a fantastic character and it’s great to hear that he is still with us and as irrepressible as ever.
Stories about him are legion (and he maybe wrote most of them), but as a salesman, promoter, innovator and all round showman the world of motor sport would have been a lot less fun without him.
The feeling of excitement when I first saw the pictures of his 1967 STP Paxton Turbocar is with me still. It was an awesome device, and, like the innovations from Midland, Texas in Can-Am, you somehow knew that a ban would come. It did, but not before further efforts to castrate the beast had yielded the 1968 Lotus 56 STP Turbocars that also almost pulled off the win. A great shame that both of these cars never made winner’s circle, and somewhat ironic that the 1969 STP Lotus entries were pulled so that Mario Andretti had to start in his back up car, and won!
The Italian connection of Andretti and Granatelli had some rotten luck at Indy, and their one win between them is that 1969 race in the second string car. Never mind, they tried. Boy did they try. Happy memories.
Filed under: Cars, Circuits, Drivers, F1, Indycar, NASCAR, Teams | Tagged: autoracing, F1, formula one, Indy500, Indycar, lotus, motorsport, NASCAR, racecar | Leave a comment »
So Dan Wheldon picks up a second Indy win after JR slaps the wall at the final corner. Not really the result I would have expected, but differing strategies contrived an unusual looking results table.
After all the fun of pole and carburation days,with quick people bumped, old rivals teaming up to get one of the latter into the race (imagine that it F1), the race unfolded with what looked like a fairy tale finish for Panther, but, running on fumes, the car got away from JR within sight of the flag and Dan picked up his own fairy tale result for Bryan Herta’s team. Quite reminiscent of Jack Brabham at Monaco back in 1970 is many ways with a last corner call on where to take a back marker.
The magic of Indy, still strong 100 years on.
Good also to see Tony pick up a good fourth; the guy deserves to still be full time in the series. As for the championship trail, all of the top guys finished poorly, so back to regular action soon at Fort Worth where, probably, normal service will resume.
Filed under: Circuits, Indycar | Tagged: autoracing, Indy500, Indycar, NASCAR, racecar | Leave a comment »
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