At long last, the long, dark off-season is nearly over! This weekend, the Cooper Tires Presents the US F2000 National Championship Powered by Mazda joins the American LeMans Series Presented by Tequila Patrón at the historic Sebring International Raceway. The race at Sebring is the first of the seven-stop, nine-race USF2000 season. While the official entry list for the event is still forthcoming, we at least know who’s signed up with the series for the season. Here’s the official list of teams and drivers entered for the season so far.…
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IndyLights – Newgarden Signs with Sam Schmidt Motorsports
We already knew that Josef Newgarden, @RacerOfTomorrow on Twitter, had made the bold move of declining his invitation to the FIA Young Driver Excellence Academy after his 2010 season in GP3 in hopes of securing a ride in the Firestone Indy Lights Series. Well, it seems that Newgarden’s gamble paid off big time as it was announced yesterday that he’ll round out the Sam Schmidt Motorsports Firestone Indy Lights full-time squad joining Victor Carbone and previously rumored, but not yet officially confirmed, Esteban Guerrieri. Bryan Clausen and Conor Daly will…
Read MoreUSF2000 – Belardi Signs Two Former Formula Car Champions
Belardi Auto Racing wrapped up their Firestone Indy Lights roster late last month, and now they’ve secured two former formula car champions to be their drivers in the Cooper Tires presents the US F2000 National Championship powered by Mazda, Wayne Boyd and Cole Morgan. Wayne Boyd, a Belfast native, started racing in the Super 1 National JICA Championship where he had mixed results. After moving to cars, his results improved dramatically, winning the 2007 Northern Ireland Formula Ford 1600 Championship. He continued his winning ways the following year winning the…
Read MoreEpisode 78 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadJoin Shaun and Mike as they talk this weeks hot INDYCAR news. Texas Duels, FAZZT/Schmidt race team, and all the rest! We also briefly recap the 100 Acre Wood Rally and preview Rally Mexico. The crew makes their fantasy Rally championship predictions and the all important country queen comes up for grabs again. So sit back and enjoy the weeks important motorsport news!
Read MoreINDYCAR – Pastrana Answers the $5M Question…
So earlier this week we had the Vegas announcement talking about a five million dollar prize to a non INDYCAR driver. So what type of drivers would that bring out? Openpaddock.net’s Doug Patterson caught up with the rally champion at a special one off rally this weekend as part of the RallyCar series. The 100 Acre Wood rally in Salem Missouri is one of the bigger events on the Rally America schedule and Pastrana left straight from a NASCAR race on Thursday to compete. This is what he had to…
Read MoreIndy Lights – Belardi Auto Racing Finalizes Driver Roster
Today, Belardi Auto Racing announced that Jorge Goncalvez would join Anders “The Viking” Krohn to round out their 2011 Firestone Indy Lights driver roster. Jorge has made it to the Firestone Indy Lights series through a somewhat unique route. While he has has some experience in karting, beginning in 2006, he also started racing cars that same year. He ran one race in the Formula Renault 1.6 Panam GP Series and made the podium! Not bad for your first time out. He then moved to Formula Renault Campus France in…
Read MoreINDYCAR – Wheels Fall Off for De Ferran Dragon
When the news broke a while back that Tony Kanaan had signed with De Ferran Dragon Racing, we here at the site were very excited at the variable that would add to 2011. TK is obviously a very talented driver who made charging through the field into a game last season. What would he be able to do in 2011 and for a team that had seen a best fourth position out of former driver Raphael Matos? It all ended on Tuesday night when Tony Kanaan was released from De…
Read MoreEpisode 77 – OpenPaddock.net Podcast
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Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWe are joined this week by Todd McCandless from Formula1blog.com to discuss Bahrain and all things F1 off season. We get into the Las Vegas announcement and all of the hot INDYCAR news. Doug hits us with his weekly Mazda Road to Indy topics and we prepare for the 100 Acre Wood Rally. GREAT conversation on the show and a must download for sure!
Read MoreUS F2000 – New Incentives Offered to SCCA, FF, and F2000 Drivers
The Cooper Tires Presents the USF2000 National Championship Powered by Mazda is positioning itself to be the premier F2000 series in North America by reaching out to various amateur and semi-pro formula series throughout the country by offering scholarships to various SCCA, Formula Ford, and F2000 competitors to step up to the US F2000 National Championship. I understand that there’s some bitterness in the F2000 community about US F2000, but it is the first step on the Mazda Road to Indy program and the MAZDASPEED Motorsports Development Ladder. That’s not…
Read MoreMazda Road to Indy Weekly Wrapup: 2/13-2/19
There’s not been a whole lot going on this past week in the Mazda Road to Indy Program, but we did get a couple of big driver announcements late in the week. The fields are starting to fill up, so in the coming weeks, we’ll be putting together a preview of the 2011 seasons for the Cooper Tires presents the US F2000 National Championship powered by Mazda, the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear, and the Firestone Indy Lights Series including a summary of driver/team combinations. For now, though, let’s…
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