Today, Belardi Auto Racing announced that Jorge Goncalvez would join Anders “The Viking” Krohn to round out their 2011 Firestone Indy Lights driver roster. Jorge has made it to the Firestone Indy Lights series through a somewhat unique route. While he has has some experience in karting, beginning in 2006, he also started racing cars that same year. He ran one race in the Formula Renault 1.6 Panam GP Series and made the podium! Not bad for your first time out. He then moved to Formula Renault Campus France in…
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The latest news from the IndyCar Series, Indy Lights, Pro Mazda, and USF2000!
INDYCAR – Wheels Fall Off for De Ferran Dragon
When the news broke a while back that Tony Kanaan had signed with De Ferran Dragon Racing, we here at the site were very excited at the variable that would add to 2011. TK is obviously a very talented driver who made charging through the field into a game last season. What would he be able to do in 2011 and for a team that had seen a best fourth position out of former driver Raphael Matos? It all ended on Tuesday night when Tony Kanaan was released from De…
Read MoreIndy Hump Day Report: Kanaan out for now, future could be “Own”
First driver to lose their ride in 2011; Tony Kanaan, four weeks before round 1. So the only bigger shock than Tony Kanaan being released by Andretti Autosport, TK being cut from de Ferran Dragon Racing, just a month before the season opener. They did avoid telling people who would be the sponsor when they announced this deal in December 2010. TK went to his native Brazil and was said to have secured some sponsors there. So if the de Ferran Dragon team is on the verge of collapse as…
Read MoreUS F2000 – New Incentives Offered to SCCA, FF, and F2000 Drivers
The Cooper Tires Presents the USF2000 National Championship Powered by Mazda is positioning itself to be the premier F2000 series in North America by reaching out to various amateur and semi-pro formula series throughout the country by offering scholarships to various SCCA, Formula Ford, and F2000 competitors to step up to the US F2000 National Championship. I understand that there’s some bitterness in the F2000 community about US F2000, but it is the first step on the Mazda Road to Indy program and the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development Ladder. That’s not…
Read MoreMazda Road to Indy Weekly Wrapup: 2/13-2/19
There’s not been a whole lot going on this past week in the Mazda Road to Indy Program, but we did get a couple of big driver announcements late in the week. The fields are starting to fill up, so in the coming weeks, we’ll be putting together a preview of the 2011 seasons for the Cooper Tires presents the US F2000 National Championship powered by Mazda, the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear, and the Firestone Indy Lights Series including a summary of driver/team combinations. For now, though, let’s…
Read MoreStarMazda – Nick Mancuso Joins JDC MotorSports for a Partial Season
The driver announcements keep coming! As we approach the open test for the Star Mazda Series down at Barber Motorsports Park, teams and drivers are rapidly finding accommodation and signing contracts. JDC MotorSports is back at it again this week with another driver signing with young sports car racer Nick Mancuso. Although he’s tested with JDC MotorSports previously, this season will be his first competitive run in a single-seater formula car. “Things have been coming together nicely for our team in the last few weeks and we are very excited…
Read MoreIndy Hump Day Report, On the bubble: National Guard Cash?
Could Panther be looking for a new sponsor in 2012? (All views expressed are those of Spike Rogan, and not that of OpenPaddock.net) If Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minnesota has her way, YES! Representative McCollum has proposed cutting the Department of Defense (DoD) spending on sponsorships. Mainly on auto racing. We learned last year that Panther has received about $30 million (over three seasons) of U.S. Tax Dollars from the DoD. We also learned that well over a million dollars was paid in salary to British Citizen, Dan Wheldon. Now the…
Read MoreStar Mazda – JDC MotorSports signs Tristan Vautier
The young French driver, Tristan Vautier, returns to the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear with JDC MotorSports. In 2010, Tristan drove for Andersen Racing and won the season opener in Sebring and Race #2 at New Jersey Motorsports Park before finishing 5th in championship points at the end of the season. “We are very happy to have concluded a deal with Tristan for the 2011 season. We feel that Tristan has the ability to run up-front and put our team back up in a championship position for 2011.” —…
Read MoreINDYCAR – OpenPaddock Remembers Tom Carnegie
There are a number of great articles out right now remembering and recalling the career of the great Tom Carnegie, Voice of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from 1946 to 2006, passed away this morning at the age of 91. For any fan of motorsports, today is a sad day as we lose one of the greatest announcers in sports history. Anyone who had been to the Speedway during his tenure surely can never forget his deep, rich, baritone, and how he could play the crowd like a fiddle, stirring up…
Read MoreMazda Road to Indy Wrap-up: 2/6-2/12
Well, I mentioned it on the OpenPaddock.net Podcast Ep. 75, but I didn’t think things would happen so fast. We’ve had a lot of testing going on recently, and at this late date, testing isn’t solely for the cars, but is a genuine evaluation of driving talent. Think of these late pre-season tests as job interviews. With so much testing going on, it only stood to reason that we’d start hearing more and more driver announcements in the comming weeks. Well, we ended up with four just this week and…
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