Racer Magazine released an article today announcing that Kieth Wiggins through his HVM Racing team intends to field a prototype entry in the American LeMans Series in 2011. Already having a relationship with Lola that started back in 1997, the team plans on running a Lola chassis with an engine manufacturer that is yet to be announced. Apparently, they are currently in negotiations with an engine producer and are not yet ready to make an announcement regarding their potential partnerships until all the contracts are signed. Good thinking, if you…
Read MoreCategory: Sports Cars
Updates on sports car racing in European Le Mans Series, World Endurance Championship, American Le Mans Series, and United SportsCar Championship
IndyCar – Cross-Pollination Is a Good Thing!
Highcroft Racing, the team that has won back-to-back titles in the ALMS LMP2 class and still seeks an LMP2 class win at Le Mans, will be coming to the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2011! This first year, they will be competing at select events only in preparation for launching a full-season effort in 2012 when the new chassis and engine come to the series. This is fantastic news, if you ask me. Its exciting enough that we’re getting another quality team coming to IndyCar Racing, but seeing that team come…
Read MoreTV – Weekend Racing Schedule for Oct 2nd and 3rd
The event list for this weekend is pretty light, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t have hours of motorsport goodness! Saturday starts with the Mustang Challenge in the “Why We Race” series on Discovery HD Theater. Its not bad way to start a Saturday morning, and its certainly better anything else that’s on now that we have no quality Saturday morning programming like Kung Fu Theater or any number of Godzilla movies. Next up is THE sportscar event of the year in North America, the Petit LeMans at Road…
Read MoreOpEd – Will the real Lotus please stand up?
Group Lotus, Team Lotus, Lotus Racing, Lotus Motorsports, Lotus Cars, Lotus Engineering… we have a whole field of Lotus and its downright confusing to us fans! To add to the confusion Group Lotus is suing Lotus Racing over the rights to use the name Team Lotus. …er? what? Yeah, that’s how I felt at first to. It would be simpler if one group was the production car wing of the larger parent company and the other group the motorsports wing. However, that’s not exactly how it is. Group Lotus has…
Read MoreTV – Weekend Racing Schedule for August 27, 28, and 29th
FORMULA 1 RETURNS! MOTOGP RETURNS! INDYCAR OVAL RACING RETURNS! Its a great weekend to be a racing fan with access to cable TV. At long last, the Formula 1 returns from holiday to compete at one of the most epic racing circuits on the planet: Spa-Francorchamps! Spa is always a good show, especially if the rains come as forecasted. The shorter MotoGP break is also over and the riders return to Indianapolis. Sadly, I will be watching on TV this year, rather than being at the track. I’m gutted about…
Read MoreOpEd – 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 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 MoreALMS – Friday Practice and Qualifying Photos
These certainly aren’t all of the pics from today, but I only have my netbook with me and my photo editing resources are very limited. …ok, that’s an excuse. Real reason is that I’m completely beat and worn out! More ALMS photos tomorrow, and a lot of IndyCar photos as well as the IZOD IndyCar Series and the Firestone Indy Lights Series have their qualifications. ALMS Practice and Qualifying from Friday
Read MoreALMS – Drayson Racing Grabs P1
Drayson Racing has secured pole position for tomorrow’s race at Mid-Ohio. The Lola hit a top time of 1:10.034 with Jonny Cocker at the wheel. The team would take top honors by 0.932 seconds over the Dyson Mazda. Current championship leaders Highcroft Racing was able to secure the third position after being one of the quickest cars on track all weekend. Simon Pagenaud was the driver of the car that will look to just put up solid points as their main contender Cytosport will be out due to heavy damage…
Read MoreLeMans – Listen to Quals for the 24 Hrs Live
Its almost time for the greatest sportscar race in the world, the 24 Hours of Le Mans! If you’re not already familiar with RadioLemans.com, head over there right now! They broadcast each LeMans and ALMS race live including commentary, interviews, …the whole nine yards, really. Qualification for this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans will take place today, this afternoon in France and mid morning for us. Be sure to tune in and listen to all the action. We’ll have our thoughts on today’s qualification results and who our picks…
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