Inside The Helmet – Team Viso at the Iowa Speedway

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWe had the amazing opportunity to speak with EJ Viso, driver of the #5 KV Racing Technologies machine in the IZOD IndyCar Series, Ricardo Juncos, Team Principal for Juncos Racing, and Diego Ferreira and Bruno Palli, drivers of the #57 and #15 Juncos Racing machines in the Star Mazda Series, about the Team Viso project. EJ Viso in partnership with Ricardo Juncos have started a recruitment program to bring young, talented drivers form Venezuela into the Mazda Road to Indy program. Diego and Bruno…

Read More

Indy Lights – Juncos Racing Joins Forces with Davey Hamilton Racing

Juncos Racing, joined the Star Mazda Championship in 2009 and instantly became one of the powerhouse teams fielding the winningest driver in Star Mazda history, Peter Dempsey, and in their second season they won the championship with Conor Daly. Last season they were 2nd in the team championship for the second year in a row. Not too shabby for a relatively new race team! Now, Juncos Racing is set to expand yet again and go racing in the Firestone Indy Lights series in 2012 fielding two cars for the full-season.…

Read More

Mazda Road to Indy – Preparing for the Ovals

All of the various series that are part of INDYCAR and the Mazda Road to Indy program have opened their seasons with road and street courses. Beginning next weekend, though, everyone switches to oval tracks! Racing on an oval is not as easy as going fast and turning left as those who attended the USF2000 Oval Clinic earlier this month learned. This past weekend, the Star Mazda Championship, in preparation for their coming sequence of three oval races, held an open test at the Milwaukee Mile. For many drivers in…

Read More

Inside the Helmet – Peter Dempsey

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWe were fortunate enough to have a wonderful conversation with the winningest driver in the history of the Star Mazda Championship, scoring a total of 9 wins over the 2008 and 2009 season, Peter Dempsey. Dempsey now drives the #36 Pulse/Microbiology car for O2 Racing Technology in the Firestone Indy Lights series. Last weekend in his first race, he led the first 11 laps of the race, and finished on the podium in P3. In our interview, Peter talks with us about his early…

Read More

Mazda Road to Indy Wrap-up: 2/6-2/12

Well, I mentioned it on the OpenPaddock.net Podcast Ep. 75, but I didn’t think things would happen so fast. We’ve had a lot of testing going on recently, and at this late date, testing isn’t solely for the cars, but is a genuine evaluation of driving talent. Think of these late pre-season tests as job interviews. With so much testing going on, it only stood to reason that we’d start hearing more and more driver announcements in the comming weeks. Well, we ended up with four just this week and…

Read More

Inside The Helmet – The Juncos Racing Quartet

Podcast: Play in new window | Download In this episode of Inside the Helmet – Mazda Road to Indy Edition, we talk with the four drivers for Juncos Racing’s 2011 Star Mazda Championship team: Tatiana Calderon, João Horto, Martin Scuncio, and Gustavo Menezes. All four bring a unique perspective to the Juncos Racing team, and to racing in the Star Mazda Championship. They also tell us about the very unique pre-season testing program that Juncos Racing put them through this year, a three-week “boot camp” in which they went to…

Read More

Mazda Road to Indy Wrapup: 1/29-2/5

There’s not been much in the way of announcements this past week from the Mazda Road to Indy teams and series, but there has been a lot of testing! Winning top prize for “Most Grueling Testing Program” is Juncos Racing which took their four-driver team on a three-week boot camp tour, testing at three very different tracks in three consecutive weeks. Not only does the non-stop testing give the engineers a lot of data and the drivers a lot of seat time, but it also, and more importantly, gives the…

Read More

Star Mazda – Juncos Racing’s Grueling Pre-Season Testing

The Juncos Racing quartet of Tatiana Calderon, Joao Horto, Gustavo Menezes, and Martin Scuncio completed a program of pre-season testing sessions in their 2011 Star Mazda machines at three very diverse tracks: Sebring International Raceway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, and Roebling Road. The testing session was done “boot camp” style where the team went from one track to the next in rapid succession without respite for the four young drivers. This forced the four drivers not only to become more focused on their own race craft, but also gave them the opportunity…

Read More