Tag: Goncalvez

IndyLights – New Hampshire Beat Down

Doug Patterson

The Firestone Indy Lights race at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway can only be described as a beat down by Josef Newgarden (@RacerOfTomorrow) who was the ONLY driver to finish on the lead lap. That’s right. He lapped the entire freakin’ field! He might have done it twice if not for the yellows. The three primary Sam Schmidt Motorsports cars of #11 Newgarden, #7 Esteban Guerrieri, and #77 Bryan Clausen (@BryanClauson) were in a completely different class during qualifying. During practice, Josef, Bryan, and Esteban posted times of 147.457, 145.749,…

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IndyLights – Andretti Autosport Strikes Back

Doug Patterson

So far the 2011 Firestone Indy Lights Championship has been dominated by Sam Schmidt Motorsports. In past years, Andretti Autosport, when they were in partnership with AFS Racing, had fielded back-to-back championship winners with Raphael Matos (2008) and J.R. Hildebrand (2009). Up until the Toronto race, SSM drivers had won five of the six races, only losing the Barber race to Team Moore’s Victor Garcia (who may have been running with an illegal suspension). While there’s no doubt that the SSM staff is extremely talented, and they have been working…

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IndyLights – Iowa Wrap-up, and a Soap Opera Update

Doug Patterson

The Firestone Indy Lights series heads north of the border this weekend to race on the Streets of Toronto as part of their three-event Canadian Tour. Before coming to Toronto, though, the Firestone Indy Lights series was in the middle of corn country at the Iowa Speedway for their last oval race until the middle of August in Loudon. There’s been quite a bit happen in the Firestone Indy Lights series since the Iowa race, some good, some not so good. Let’s recap the Iowa weekend first. Iowa Sukup 100…

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Indy Lights – Milwaukee Wrap-Up

Doug Patterson

Discord and dissension plagued this weekend’s Firestone Indy Lights event. The minimal car count on Saturday for qualification got smaller still on Sunday as Peter Dempsey pulled off the track refusing to take the green flag in protest to what he and his team, O2 Racing Technology, feel is favouritism shown to some teams by INDYCAR by ignoring technical violations found in post-race and post-qualifying inspections over the past years. In a release issued by the team later Sunday evening, it was revealed that not only were team officials and…

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