Group Lotus, Team Lotus, Lotus Racing, Lotus Motorsports, Lotus Cars, Lotus Engineering… we have a whole field of Lotus and its downright confusing to us fans! To add to the confusion Group Lotus is suing Lotus Racing over the rights to use the name Team Lotus. …er? what? Yeah, that’s how I felt at first to. It would be simpler if one group was the production car wing of the larger parent company and the other group the motorsports wing. However, that’s not exactly how it is. Group Lotus has…
Read MoreAuthor: Doug Patterson
Motorsports enthusiast since ...well... always. Grew up watching Mario and AJ, took my first lap around IMS in the tour bus in 1977, fell in love with anything that went fast.
Currently, I work as a professor of astronomy and physics at a college in the suburbs of Kansas City, http://staff.jccc.edu/dpatter/, and own a photography business, Patterson Prints, with my wife. http://www.pattersonprints.com/
IndyCar – One Freaky Friday!
So as we were sitting here just waiting for the season to end, we figured that most of the news bombshells would likely be waiting for after the Year-End Banquet. Well, we were wrong! There was a ton of stuff that went down yesterday, some of it not so good unfortunately. Here’s a quick rundown of yesterday’s events. Saavedra is Back After he jilted Bryan Herta Autosport on race day morning of the Firestone Indy Lights race at Chicagoland Speedway, it was assumed by most of us in the fandom…
Read MoreTV – Weekend Racing Schedule for Sept 24, 25, and 26.
Formula 1 is back on track! …well, such as the track may be. The Singapore GP is this weekend, and it really is a great spectacle, even if the racing action is junk. Being on the opposite side of the planet as the US is mitigated a bit by the fact that the race will be at night. The practice, qualifying, and race will be broadcast by Speed at sensible times of the morning. Cool! Formula 1 cars under the lights, even if the racing isn’t great, is always a…
Read MoreOpEd – Top Five Most Influential Racing Circuits
Previously, I posted a rebuttal to the Fast Lane Daily Top Five Most Influential Drivers, and we had a good discussion about it. That conversation got me thinking, though. Drivers weren’t the only ones to have a significant influence on the motorsports landscape. Many of the circuits upon which those five drivers battled with their fellow competitors have a life and history of their own that make a single driver’s career seem insignificant by comparison. Here’s my top five, and I post these in no particular order of importance, merely…
Read MoreRally – LDR Hoists Themselves Into Top 10 at Rallye Defi
Last Ditch Racing Press Release: September 14, 2010 Bangor, Maine USA Maine’s Last Ditch Racing, consisting of Driver John Cassidy and Co-Driver Dave Getchell, overcame significant adversity to crack the top 10 at the Rallye Defi in St. Agathe, Quebec Canada this past weekend. Finishing 10th of 36 starters was not as easy a task as they had initially hoped. The fourth round of the 2010 Canadian Rally Championship, the event is held in the Laurentian Mountains near scenic Mont Tremblant. Cassidy last competed in Canada at the 2008 Rallye…
Read MoreTV – Weekend Racing Schedule for Sept. 18, and 19
ALMS is still off until the Petit LeMans at the end of the month, and this is a travel weekend for Formula 1. The good news, however, is that MotoGP and the IZOD IndyCar Series are back on track. MotoGP is back in Spain at Motorland Aragon, and the IndyCars are off to Japan to compete on the asymmetric 1.5-mile oval at Motegi. The Continental Tire Sports Car Series will be on right before the IndyCar race, and on Friday, Speed is airing the Monterrey Motorsports Reunion which features a…
Read MoreOpEd – How important are aesthetics anyway?
Discussion of the DeltaWing concept has arisen once again, and also once again at the instigation of Gordon Kirby who wrote an article Rediscovering racing’s true self, and Peter De Lorenzo via his article IndyCar’s death warrant. In these articles, Kirby and De Lorenzo dote on the DeltaWing and its superior engineering concepts. When one talks with a typical race fan about the DeltaWing, however, what one hears most often is something along the lines of, “It’s a brilliant engineering exercise, but …well… it’s ugly isn’t it.” Is the look…
Read MoreDrifting – Gymkhana 3.2: Ultimate Playground
IndyCar – 2011 Schedule, Boon or Bust?
If you’ve read any of the IndyCar forums around, you’ll have noticed a lot of belly-aching about the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series schedule. Of course, no matter what the schedule was there would have been complaining. It is, after all, the #1 passtime of those of us on the net. I want to take some time and examine this schedule and compare it to previous schedules keeping in mind that the goals of the league, and the preference stated by many fans, are for a balanced oval/twisty schedule with significant…
Read MoreTV – Weekend Racing Schedule for Sept. 11 and 12
This weekend is MONZA! The Formula 1 circus hits the superfast Monza circuit and there’s lots of drama as usual, but this time its good drama. Technical drama. Racing drama. There are definitely two schools of thought regarding the clever ducting systems that have arisen this season. To F-Duct or not to F-Duct is the top question in the paddock, and teams used the practice sessions today to make their final assessments. Red Bull are running no duct and a thin slip of a rear wing, while Renault are using…
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