Under the sparkling lights of the Auto Club Speedway grandstand towers, Ryan Hunter-Reay broke through as one of racing’s great underdog stories to win the 2012 IZOD Indycar Series Championship over Will Power, becoming the fourth driver to bring home the title for Andretti Autosport. Hunter-Reay joins Tony Kanaan, Dario Franchitti and Dan Wheldon as drivers who have won the series championship for the fabled racing family, and the first for the team under the IZOD Indycar Series banner. Just a few short years ago, Ryan Hunter-Reay was testing a…
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IndyCar – Champion Ryan Hunter-Reay
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Read MoreUSF2000 – Pigot Forces Championship Battle to the Last Race
The 2012 USF2000 National Championship Presented by Cooper Tires Powered by Mazda won’t decide it’s champion until the final race of the season set to take place tomorrow at 9:15am EDT. All season long, the two Cape Motorsports with Wayne Taylor Racing drivers, #83 Matthew Brabham and #2 Spencer Pigot, have had a back-and-forth battle for the championship lead. After suffering a DNF in the second race in Baltimore, Brabham had a significant advantage over Pigot, leading by 41 points, 307 to 266. When the USF2000 drivers took to the…
Read MoreRally – Olympus Rally Sees Record 78-Team Entry List
The last round of the Rally America National Championship is almost here! Next weekend, 78 teams will take to the back roads in the mountains around Olympus, WA. That’s a record turnout for the Rally America Series! All season long, the Rally America events have been recording record entries and seeing record crowds come to enjoy rally racing. It all points to the rising popularity of rally racing and seeing competition between real cars. IndyCar racing is exciting, but the cars are nothing like anything you’d see in the showroom,…
Read MoreEpisode 155 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun, Mike, and Doug as they rehash the weekend that was Monza for the Formula 1 traveling circus. We also preview Rally GB and talk a little bit more about the ALMS/Grand-Am merger (buyout). This is it! Championship week for the IZOD IndyCar Series and also the Mazda Road to Indy for those title that have yet to be decided. Sit back and enjoy the show and as always, thanks for the download!
Read MoreIndy Lights – Team Viso’s Palli Will Compete at Fontana
Movin’ on up! The Team Viso Project is already paying dividends for Bruno Pally, driver of the #15 Juncos Racing car in the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear. With five top-ten finishes so far this year, Bruno will now move up to compete in the Firestone Indy Lights season finale in Fontana alongside J.V. Horto with Juncos Racing. This is exactly the type of graduation that the Mazda Road to Indy program was designed to foster, and it’s good to actually see it begin to happen more frequently. There’s…
Read MoreStar Mazda – Hawksworth is Your 2012 Champion
Sage Karam’s hopes of catching Team Pelfrey’s lightning fast rookie, Jack Hawksworth, ended in Race #1 of this past weekend’s double-header at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Hawksworth won the pole for Race #1, and as he has done so often this season, he took the checkers after leading every lap of the race. Karam started off the race on scuffed tyres which fell off more rapidly than expected causing Sage to run off course twice in Turn 6 on consecutive laps. Relegated to mid-pack, there wasn’t much else he could…
Read MoreIndycar-The Fight in Fontana
Will Power. Ryan Hunter-Reay. Helio Castroneves. Scott Dixon. These are the drivers that still (theoretically) have a shot at winning the Astor Cup as IZOD Indycar Series Champion at the World Championship to be held in Fontana, California on September 15. Of the four, only Dixon has previously won a championship. Power currently leads the standings with Hunter-Reay a tight second. Here’s a quick breakdown of the title fight contenders and scenarios. 1. Will Power (Verizon Team Penske Chevrolet) 3 wins, 5 Poles, 453 points. After knocking out three consecutive…
Read MoreEpisode 154 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and the rest of the paddock trio as they discuss the race at Baltimore. We also talk about our favorite F1 race of the year from Spa! Sit back and enjoy the show and don’t forget, you can catch us live on ETV Live every Tuesday night starting a 930pm central!
Read MoreIndy Lights – Won and Lost In the Blink of an Eye
It’s often said that winning a championship doesn’t happen in an instant, but is cultivated race after race over the whole season. Certainly, that’s true, but while a championship can’t be won in an instant, two contenders for the 2012 Firestone Indy Lights championship found that it can certainly be lost in an instant this past weekend on the Streets of Baltimore. Going into Baltimore, three drivers were battling for this year’s Indy Lights title, Sam Schmidt Motorsport’s drivers Tristan Vautier and Esteban Guerrieri and Andretti Autosport’s Sebastian Saavedra. Coming…
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