Le Mans – A Tale of Three Minutes and Two F’s

Or “How I learned to love Le Mans and hate the ACO.” I have a ritual for watching the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Of course, I watch as much pre-race as I can (usually through a bootleg internet stream) and through the start. My favorite times are the “golden hours” at sunset and sunrise. Watching sunset isn’t much of a challenge, but I usually fail to see the sunrise, as I invariably fall asleep about an hour before sunrise. None of our readers care about my sleep habits.  You…

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PR – Everyone is Going Purple!

Royal Purple Synthetic Oil has been on a tear with partnerships lately.  First was the announcement at the Red Bull Global Rallycross Media Day that Royal Purple was renewing their partnership with the Red Bull GRC series and sponsoring an Olsbergs MSE Ford Fiesta GRC Supercar that will be driven by Steve Arpin.   Then last week Royal Purple announced a partnership with Subaru Rally Team USA.  The especially interesting point here is that Royal Purple is not just backing the SRT USA Global Rallycross Team, but also their Rally…

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Rally – Red Bull Global Rallycross Media Day

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadWow, what an incredible day.  I got the amazing opportunity to represent OpenPaddock.net at the launch of the newly re-branded Red Bull Global Rallycross Championship at their Media Day in Los Angeles, California.  The location for this media event was at the Port of LA, where after passing by mile after mile of shipping containers my route diverted me to a more scenic drive lined with palm trees and even passing by the historic USS Iowa battleship.  Finally at the end of the road…

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GRC – Overseas Recap

The Global Rallycross Championship returned to the United States this weekend.  Before I get into the drama of New Hampshire, here’s a quick recap of what happened overseas. First of all, I have been quite critical of the GRC organizers and their track designs, at least until now.  The first event was at X-Games Brazil, and the track consisted of 90% clay dirt and a single concrete slab used as the start / finish.  In Brazil the dust was a huge issue, so to combat that they added water to…

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IndyCar – Pole Day Results

I will admit that I was a bit skeptical when the IZOD IndyCar series decided that they were going to switch up the qualifying events for the Indianapolis 500. However, I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised with today’s proceedings. Helio Castroneves as well probably has no gripes as he has taken his fourth pole position for the greatest spectacle in racing. The day would start before the qualifying even began as Takumo Sato would crash his Lotus sponsored KV Racing technology car. Sato would be taken to Methodist…

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IndyCar – Sam Schmidt Motorsports Secures Townsend Bell for the 500

Sam Schmidt Motorsports announced today that it will be returning to the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race in partnership with Chip Ganassi Racing, a relationship that they continue from 2009. Best of all, they’ve secured Townsend Bell to drive the car! Bell has had a great run in the 500 the last couple of years with his best finish coming last year finishing fourth while running for KV Racing. This year he’ll be running the #99 car for SSM and hoping for an even better finish. While there are some who…

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IndyCar – Rahal & KV Name 500 TBA’s

Indianapolis media is reporting that KV Racing has named Townsend Bell to their #8 car for the Indy 500.  Townsend has not seen action since last season when he raced for Dreyer & Reinbold in a car he shared with Milka Duno.  Townsend did compete at Indy last year where he put up a strong 10th place finish.  He has competed off and on in the IndyCar series for the last four years, but never on a full schedule. Also reported is the addition of Oriol Servia in the #17…

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