Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team ended today’s demanding opening leg of Rally de España in second and third places. Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila hold second in a Ford Fiesta RS World Rally Car, while team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen lie 23.6sec behind their fellow Finns in a similar car on the final step of the podium. Hanging dust created severe visibility problems in the still morning air, but Latvala’s pace carried him into the lead of this 12th and penultimate round of the FIA World Rally Championship…
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WRC – Update After Day 1 for Rally Spain
Just a brief recap here of the events of day 1 for Rally Spain. Keep it to OpenPaddock as the teams post indepth reviews of their first day for the penultimate round of the championship. Conditions were the name of the game for the gravel stages today. Loeb would start first on the road and usually that is an issue, but conditions actually favored the French ace as dust would cause the cars running behind massive problems. The gravel stages were very dry and there was not much of a…
Read MoreUFS2000 – JDC MotorSports Already Making Deals for 2012
During the off-season, its always fun to see what new racers will be coming to the Mazda Road to Indy. Typically, though, deals aren’t done and driver announcements aren’t made until late November or December at the earliest, and are more often finalized just a month if not a couple of couple of weeks before the beginning of the season. JDC MotorSports got a head start on the field with their first official 2012 driver announcement, naming Scott Hargrove as newest driver in the Cooper Tires presents the US F2000…
Read MoreIndyLights – That’s a Wrap!
The season finale for the 2011 Firestone Indy Lights series took place this morning at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and there was no lack of excitement! Although Sam Schmidt Motorsports had long since wrapped up the team championship, and the team’s primary driver, Josef Newgarden, had secured the drivers’ championship at Kentucky, there was still a fierce battle to be had for second spot in the drivers’ championship and there were some new drivers looking to make a mark as they work on plans for 2012. Andretti Autosport’s Stefan…
Read MoreSpike Day: Wag of the Finger, and Vegas predictions
So this week allow me to steal a bit from Stephen Colbert, Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger! First, Wag of the Finger to: Dollar General! So we got a great treat two weeks ago from Ed Carpenter, Sarah Fisher Racing (SFR) is for real. Then we got the worst news minutes later from owner Sarah Fisher, Dollar General is leaving to just focus on NASCAR. I can’t say I am shocked by this move, it has NOTHING to do with SFR. It has everything to do with the…
Read MoreIndyCar – New Images of the 2012 Chassis and Rear Diffuser
We have some new photos of the 2012 Dallara IndyCar chassis, IR12, in both the Honda and Chevrolet livery thanks to our photographic partner, Tom Turk, from Piratical Photography. One of the interesting things Tom ran into was a reluctance by Chevrolet to allow him a view of the rear diffuser. Odd since it should be the same exact underwing! Either they were just being overly protective, or something fishy is happening. I’m chalking it up to an overzealous engineer. We were able to get some shots of the rear…
Read MoreIndyLights – Las Vegas Preview
The final round of the 2011 Firestone Indy Lights Series takes place this Sunday at the Las Vegas Motorspeedway, but the calamity from Kentucky has left a few cars and one driver on the sidelines. David Ostella, primary driver for Jensen MotorSport, is out. The team was not able to repair his car in time for the transport out to Las Vegas leaving the team with only one entry, newcomer Oliver Webb. This is a pretty brutal situation for Ostella who has scrapped and fought well for Jensen MotorSport all…
Read MoreEpisode 108 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and Mike as they talk about Formula 1 from Suzuka and Vettel’s title. They break down the race that was the always amazing Japanese Grand Prix. The boys also look ahead to the INDYCAR World Championship from Las Vegas and ask the question…will this be a real race? How will race control influence all of the events that will be going on? Is race control positioned for world domination? Where they the ones who secretly plotte dthe assasination of the Saudi ambassador?…
Read MoreEpisode 107 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and Mike as they recap the events from WRC France and the IndyCars from Kentucky. We talk a bit about the 2012 schedule or lack there of and look ahead to the season finale in Las vegas. As always, thank you for the download and enjoy the show!
Read MoreIndyCar – Kentucky Weekend in Photos
Our IndyCar photographer, Joe Ferrall, was at the Kentucky Speedway and brought back some really great shots of both the IZOD IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights events. Enjoy! You can view the rest of our IndyCar photos from this year and back to 2009 by clicking on the Photo Galleries tab above and selecting IndyCar.
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