Welcome to the newest column at Openpaddock.net! As the rally season takes its short break they call an off season, the Sunday Service Park will be my time to give some opinion on the week’s news and address rumors within the WRC and Rally America blogs. This week has seen the driver market get kicked up a notch and Petter Solberg is trapped in the middle. Petter Solberg Last week during the podcast I had made the argument that Petter would be a reasonable fit at the Prodrive MINI operation.…
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Pre-Turkey Indy Hump Day Report, On the bubble: Your third cousin Lee Roy
Well for us American IndyCar fans the gluttony of Holidays is here. Tomorrow we will load up on dead birds, potatoes, beer, green beans, cranberries, awful NFC teams on national TV, and being annoyed by our nit witted family members we only have to sit near three times a year. For our non-American fellow fans tomorrow is just Thursday. (Or Friday if you’re in Asia.) First I would like to list what I am Thankful for as an IZOD IndyCar series follower: That Randy Bernard is now the man in…
Read MoreIndy Hump Day Report: On the bubble Spec Engine Racing
Proper attire at Penske Racing requires Bow Ties Well my predictions for who would be the first teams on the new Chevy party boat was wrong. (in that Ganassi & Dreyer Reinbold were not part of the Friday announcement, yet many agree Chip is still very likely between his NASCAR success with Chevy, and the monkey see, monkey do mentality of Ganassi/Penske.) When I was a guest the other night on The Inside Line, I addressed the issue of how great this is for American fans. Yes, obviously it is…
Read MoreF1 – Ferrari Succeeded in 2010
As headlines ring around the world hailing Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel on his world championship, there have been some very vicious headlines as well regarding Ferrari and their strategy that lost the title for Fernando Alonso. While I have distanced myself from Ferrari and latched on to Mercedes (Schumacher), I still think these attacks are ridiculous after you compare 2009 and 2010. For that very reason alone, Ferrari should be praised and their season should be viewed as successful. look back at 2009 for just a second. Felipe Massa…
Read MoreF1 – Our Thoughts on Abu Dhabi and the 2010 Championship
Well, the long 2010 Formula 1 season has finally come to an end. Ultimately, it has come to the end that we sort of expected toward the beginning of the year, but given the results of the last few races, there was some serious doubt regarding the final outcome of the drivers championship. Red Bull Racing lead out the season strong taking pole position in the first seven races. With a bit of foreshadowing, the team would only realize victory in three of those first seven. In fact, the eventual…
Read MoreWelcome to Indy Hump-Day 2010, on the bubble is Edmonton
I would first just like to thank the crew at Open Paddock for brining me on board. This is one of the best places for Motorsports Consumption of the IZOD IndyCar Series, F1, and Rally. Check the site every Wednesday for my off season Indy Hump-day Reports. Edmonton, is it really gone? You would think the race in Edmonton is dead, heck the series pulled it from the 2011 schedule, and issued an inverted pyramid declaring as much. However why did the event that went viral with Helio’s meltdown fail?…
Read MoreOpEd – Indy Downforce Banquet Exceeds Expectations
Every year in October, after the end of the IZOD IndyCar Series season, the official fan club of the league, Indy Downforce, has their year-end banquet and celebration. Every year that I’ve been a member of the club, I’ve read the comments by others about how much they’ve enjoyed the banquet, but unfortunately I was never able to attend. Well, this year I made it a priority to go, and wow did I ever pick the right year. This year’s event was much more than just an evening banquet. INDYCAR…
Read MoreOpEd – Top Five Most Influential Race Cars
In keeping with the Top-Five series of posts, we now turn our attention to the cars. What do you think were the top five most influential race cars throughout motorsports history? We’ve taken a stab as some we think were true game-changers in their time. Lotus 38 Being a life-long fan of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, I might be a bit prejudice, but the Lotus 38 that Jimmy Clark drove to victory in 1965 changed how Americans viewed race cars. Prior to the Lotus 38, the cars that ran…
Read MoreOP-Ed – Raikkonen Acts Ridiculous…Boullier Impressive
I have been very happy out of what Eric Boullier has put on display during the Kimi Raikkonen potential of 2011. We all know that now it is not going to happen, but what was most shocking was Kimi’s childish reply to the team. Earlier this week we had mentioned Kimi was not going to Renault and was very upset with the Renault team boss for even using his name. He accused Boullier and Renault of using his image to further the team commercially. I was shocked at the response…
Read MoreFAIL – Charlotte Gets That Sinking Feeling
Apparently the Charlotte Motor Speedway was built in part on top of a landfill! A LANDFILL!! Now, I’m no civil engineer but it seems to me that fill would not make for a suitable base for a permanent structure, and even less suitable for a roadbed that will have a varied and intensive dynamic load placed upon it. …well, it isn’t suitable. You can see more pictures from WSOC TV’s article, Sinkhole Forms at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Wow. How does this happen? Now, even if the speedway does fix this…
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