Luczo Dragon Racing released a statement today revealing that LDR and de Ferran Motorsports will join forces for the 2010 season. This is great news for the former Indianapolis 500 champion’s suddenly ailing team. Last year, Gil announced that 2009 would be his last year in the cockpit of a racecar and he was going to focus on being a team principal fielding both an ALMS prototype effort and a two-car effort in the IZOD IndyCar Series. As the season ended, and we got deeper into the off-season, it became…
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 – The Lola Project Revisited
Today, Lola followed their initial press release which revealed their intent to bid for the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series chassis contract with a second, more fulsome press release including sketches of their proposed chassis. It must be said that the outward appearance of the chassis is rather uninspired and stale. There’s nothing genuinely new, innovative or modern about the looks of the chassis. Lola does bring some very interesting concepts with their bid that could lower costs, and bridge the equipment gap between the IZOD IndyCar Series and the Firestone…
Read MoreOpEd – Beauty Pageant or Racing Series?
The interwebs have been all a buzz over the release of the chassis concepts for the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series from Dallara, Swift, and especially the much anticipated Delta Wing. There’s been much commentary offered for and against all of the designs, but none has received more discussion and more scorn than the extremely radical concept car from Delta Wing, LLC that was revealed last Wednesday at the Chicago Auto Show. We’ve gone over various aspects of the proposed concepts here, as have many others, and there are certainly a…
Read MoreIndyCar – The Delta Wing Project
Yesterday, some photos were leaked of a version of the Delta Wing chassis designed by Target Chip Ganassi Racing’s Ben Bowlby. Mr. Bowlby is certainly not new to chassis design having spent a very successful stint with Lola creating very fast chassis with a wide setup window. The photos we saw yesterday posted ever so briefly at 16thandGeorgetown.com, were in a word hideous! The most common statement amongst the IndyCar fan community was, “How the heck is that thing supposed to turn?” This is in reference to the front wheels…
Read MoreIndyCar – The Swift Project
Just after Lola released their minimal thoughts on the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series chassis, Swift Engineering released a deluge of information regarding their project including several renderings of three different variations of their design. The exciting aspect of the Swift release is the level of technological innovation the company is bringing to the table. If Swift is able to accomplish even half of what they propose in their press release from today, then IndyCar is in for one hell of a ride! American race car company, Swift Engineering, Inc. is…
Read MoreIndyCar – The Lola Project
Today, both Lola and Swift announced their design concepts for the 2012 IZOD IndyCar chassis. First, lets examine the Lola statements. We’ll look at the Swift statements and concepts in the next article. Lola released no design concept rednerings with their announcement today, but stated that they might be publicly available as soon as the end of the week. Lola is certainly no stranger to IndyCar racing, having been a regular manufacturer during the CART era, and they have had lots of on-track success to back them up. However, their…
Read MoreIndyCar – KV Rumored to Expand to Two Cars With Sato
Word from Grande Premio of Brazil is that former Super Aguri Formula 1 driver Takuma Sato has signed with KV Racing Technologies. While its not too surprising to hear that Sato has come over to IndyCar racing, it IS a bit of a surprise that he signed with KV. Here at OP, we were pretty much convinced that if he were to make it to the series, it would be with Gil de Ferran’s team. The article also goes on to say that Sato is the second driver for KV…
Read MoreIndyCar – The Dallara Project
Perhaps in response to all of the DeltaWing buzz, and in an effort to take some of the thunder away from the DeltaWing reveal on February 10th, Dallara has revealed images of three concepts for the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series chassis. The three concepts center around three different design philosophies: one a traditional evolutionary design, one a conservative but evolutionary design, and one more radical evolutionary design. Let’s examine each one separately in light of the recently revealed, but not surprising, new chassis objectives: Safe, Raceable, Cost-Effective, American Made Less…
Read MoreIndyCar – Rallying the Masses
We interrupt this website to bring you this important announcement. Dear Vision Racing Fans, We cannot tell you how much your words of support and encouragement have meant to all of our team members in the past few days. We want you to know that we are working hard to get past this speed bump and get our team back to the business of building race cars & IZOD IndyCar & Firestone Indy Lights racing. Many of you have asked what YOU, as fans, can do to help. Well, we…
Read MoreIndyCar – Randy Bernard Accepts IRL CEO Position
Its not a real surprise, but its now official. Randy Bernard, former CEO of the Professional Bull Riders Inc., recently accepted the position of Chief Executive Officer of the Indy Racing League. The official word from the league is set to come out sometime next week, but if Curt Cavin says its so, that’s certainly good enough for us here at The Paddock. Many have deep reservations about Mr. Bernard’s qualifications as a CEO of the league given that he has no motorsports experience. Not only that, but he’s never…
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