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Read MoreMRTI – Highlights from St. Pete and Barber
Category: INDYCAR
The latest news from the IndyCar Series, Indy Lights, Pro Mazda, and USF2000!
Indy Lights – Triumph and Tragedy for Belardi at the Freedom 100
The 12th running of the Indy Lights Freedom 100 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway took place yesterday on Carburetion Day, and the 100-mile, 40-lap sprint was the magnificent race that I’ve been raving about for years. As we came into the Month of May and started with the Indianapolis Grand Prix, Andretti Autosport’s Zach Veach and Belardi Auto Racing’s Gabby Chaves were leading the championship having split the victories in the first four events. The grand prix weekend didn’t go as planned for either of the two drivers, as they…
Read MoreIndy Lights – Freedom 100 Qualifying and the New 2015 Chassis
Media Day is a pretty dead day at the Speedway from a fan attendance standpoint. There were some people there, but not many. For that matter, there weren’t many media folk there either! It’s unfortunate, because the Indy Lights drivers had a great practice and a fun and exciting qualifying session. In addition to the three hours of practice and the qualification session, the new 2015 Indy Lights chassis, the Dallara Automobili IL-15 was unveiled. It was a great day of preparation for today’s Freedom 100. Press releases are below…
Read MoreIndy Lights – Freedom 100, Can We Expect Another Close One?
Last year we were treated to the most spectacular finish in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the Indy Lights drivers Carlos Munoz, Gabby Chavez, Sage Karam, and Peter Dempsey ran four-wide down the front stretch and across the yard of bricks. Every year, I try to convince people that as much fun as the 500 is, and in recent years as good of as the racing has been, that the best racing action at the Speedway is really seen on Carburetion Day when the Indy Lights Series…
Read MoreIndyCar – Indianapolis 500 Qualifying Recap
Fast Friday This weekend’s qualifying for the 98th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race started with questions, albeit not the usual ones. The new format did away with the traditional Pole Day and Bump Day. And lets not forget the points for qualifying and the Fast 9, making starting position mean far more than pit selection. When IndyCar turned up the boost for practice on Friday, Tony Kanaan and Ryan Hunter-Reay both posted laps in the 231mph range and Marco Andretti laid down a 232.2mph lap. Of those, only Hunter-Reay’s was truly…
Read MoreIndyCar – Road to Indy Well Represented in 500 Field
The Mazda Road to Indy has been a very successful program since it’s inception. We’ve certainly done our best to document that here at OpenPaddock.net and to follow the progress of many of the drivers that have come through the Road to Indy, but admittedly, we’re fans and a bit biased. There is objective evidence of the program’s success, and it can be seen in the list of the 33 drivers who will contest the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. Although the formal program has only been…
Read MoreIndyLights – Newton-John Returns to Indy (No, not Olivia)
This year will see the return of Emerson Newton-John to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as he replaces Vittorio Ghirelli in the #22 Team Moore Racing machine. Ghirelli did not compete at the Indy GP last weekend, and the team has been looking for a solid driver to place in their second car. Zack Meyer will continue in the team’s #2 machine. It’s been a while, two years to be exact, since Newton-John has been in an Indy Lights car, and he performed very well in 2012 even if his last…
Read MorePR – Everyone is Going Purple!
Royal Purple Synthetic Oil has been on a tear with partnerships lately. First was the announcement at the Red Bull Global Rallycross Media Day that Royal Purple was renewing their partnership with the Red Bull GRC series and sponsoring an Olsbergs MSE Ford Fiesta GRC Supercar that will be driven by Steve Arpin. Then last week Royal Purple announced a partnership with Subaru Rally Team USA. The especially interesting point here is that Royal Purple is not just backing the SRT USA Global Rallycross Team, but also their Rally…
Read MoreFrom the Pocono Pulpit: Spare me the praise of Kurt
So this view is mine, and only mine. It is not on behalf of all of Open Paddock. With that being said, let me unload. A few months ago, some IndyCar fans got rather upset on some of my views. I was called a, “jerk” among other things. Lots of snide remarks were made about me on backchannels to others from the world of IndyCar. I guess they never thought I would hear that. I now can’t help but laugh. When some of these very same people…
Read MoreIndy Lights – The Year of the Veterans
The 2014 Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires championship is underway and has it’s first two races are in the books. The series started with a increase in participants over the last season with a total of twelve entrants at both of the opening street races. I know it’s not a large of a field as we’d like to see, but it’s an improvement over the single-digit fields of last season. As usual, there are a number of European drivers coming over from the multitude of formula series that abound,…
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