Last night, sandwiched between two lengthy NASCAR announcements, Texas Motor Speedway President and promoter extraordinaire Eddie Gossage announced plans for the 2011 IndyCar event at his facility in Dent County, TX. The good news is that Texas will again be the first event after the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race but with a week break between them. This is a much needed break for both the teams and the fans as the Month of May as exciting and enjoyable as it is, is also very exhausting. The questionable aspect of the…
Read MoreCategory: INDYCAR
The latest news from the IndyCar Series, Indy Lights, Pro Mazda, and USF2000!
OpEd – Blocking in Modern Motorsports
The Blocking Problem Blocking is certainly nothing new in motorsports, or racing in general for that matter. As soon as two people raced each other on foot, I’m sure that the leader blocked the person behind and probably violently. In various types of horse racing, we see blocking and crowding a competitor against the rail, and given that automobile racing is simply an extension of horse racing, its no surprise that we see blocking in modern motorsports. The challenge of the various sanctioning bodies of modern motorsports series is to…
Read MoreIndyCar – Welcome Back, Mr. Cotman
This past weekend, the Indy Racing League officially hired Tony Cotman to be the league’s technical director in charge of developing all of the rules and regulations pertaining to the construction and operation of the new chassis and engine packages for 2012. It’s certainly not a new role for him. He was Vice-President of Operations of the Champ Car World Series where he oversaw the development and production of the extremely competitive and cost-effective Panoz DP-01 chassis. Can he do the same thing here in the Indy Racing League? Probably,…
Read MoreTV – Your Weekend Racing Schedule
I’m going to try something new here at OpenPaddock. To be honest, this is really driven by a selfish motivation to be more organized about my TV viewing/recording after realizing that I’ve been missing the SCCA World Challenge races on Versus. Grr! Every Friday, I’m going to try and have a listing of the racing being aired each weekend with all times in Eastern. I’ll focus just on those forms of racing we cover here, so you NASCAR fans are on your own. Sorry. Also, I cheated a little by…
Read MoreOpEd – Lessons Learned: Attending a Race at Mid-Ohio
This year was my third year attending the ALMS and IndyCar races at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and for the third year in a row I had a blast. Each year, I’ve picked up a little bit more insight about how to attend, what to avoid and what to enjoy. This year, it was a little different for me in that in addition to a spectator ticket I also had a photo badge which gave me great access to the track and the pits, but it also limited my…
Read MoreThe Road to Indy – An Interview with Jason Penix
IndyCar – Kansas Gets 2nd Cup Date, IndyCar Certainly Out
Well, its officially official. The Kansas Speedway has been approved for a second NASCAR Sprint Cup race for 2011. In addition to their early October date, the Kansas Speedway will also feature a race the first week of June. Its not official that Kansas is off the 2011 IndyCar schedule, but this announcement really makes it unlikely that open-wheel racing will return to Kansas City any time soon. Kansas Speedway and International Speedway Corporation (ISC) announced today that NASCAR has approved ISC’s request for realignment and beginning in 2011, Kansas…
Read MoreIndyCar – Photos from the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
Here are some of the better pics from this weekend’s Firestone Indy Lights and IZOD IndyCar Series events at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. I ended up with a TON of pics from the weekend, and these are just the ones that I picked out after a first cursory glance. Keep checking our photo gallery throughout the rest of the year, and especially during the off-season. One of the things that keeps me going through the winter is going back through my photo archives and searching for images I missed…
Read MoreIndyCar – Lotus Jumps on for 2012
The first manufacturer has jumped into the 2012 body kit fray. Lotus which had indicated that they would think about creating a kit for the series has confirmed that they will develop a kit for purchase when the new rules come into affect. Lotus brass cited this as a continued evolution of the brands involvement in the sport. The team has given a large amount of financial backing to KV Racing Technologies and even put their name and logo on the car piloted by Takumo Sato. This now means that a…
Read MoreOpEd – Selling 2012 IndyCar aero kits, can it really be profitable?
Ever since the Indy Racing League’s much anticipated announcement sketching out the strategy for the 2012 IndyCar chassis last Wednesday, the IndyCar community has been split. …again. …still. …whatever. There have been many that claim that the recipe of having a spec rolling chassis from Dallara and open development of the aerodynamic elements of the body work by teams and third-party manufacturers would lead to great innovation and involvement. Then there are those that think this is the worst type of policy that could have been proposed giving Dallara a…
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