USF2000: Cape Motorsports Adds Petri Suvanto for 2011

Cape Motorsports adds Petri Suvanto to their driver line-up for the 2011 US F2000 National Championship season. Suvanto competed with Josef Kaufmann Racing as the 2010 Formula BMW scholarship winner. In the 2010 season, he had eight top-ten finishes and ended up eleventh in points. Not bad for his first time running cars instead of karts. Prior to his Formula BMW experience, he raced karts in Europe and in his home country of Finland where he won the championship in the ICA Junior class in 2006. “Everyone at Cape Motorsports…

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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…

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Garage 36 – Liza Markle and the New INDYCAR Nation Fan Club

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Liza Markle, INDYCAR’s new Director of Fan Engagement, joins us for our third episode of Garage 36 where we bring you the news and happening of the INDYCAR Nation, The official fan club of the IZOD IndyCar Series, Firestone Indy Lights, and the Mazda Road to Indy. 2011 brings some significant changes and new personnel to the fan club formally known as Indy Downforce. For this up coming season, all members will enjoy exclusive access to news, videos, photos, and interviews throughout the…

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Mazda Road to Indy Wrapup: 1/15 – 1/28

Not a lot has happened since my last update. Not much until this week, that is. A lot of things have started coming together for a variety of teams and drivers, and I’m expecting February to be extremely busy for US F2000, Star Mazda, and Firestone Indy Lights news. Also, in the coming weeks, we plan on having some chats with a variety of drivers and teams about their 2011 plans beginning early next week with Anders Krohn of Belardi Auto Racing. Anders has a very remarkable story, and I…

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Road to Indy – Weekly Wrapup: 12/6-12/10

Once again, we had a jam packed week of mostly cool news for the now Mazda Road to Indy program. Yes, I said MAZDA. They’re now the official title sponsor of the program, and they bring some other benefits as well. However, I say mostly cool news because there was one downer for the week. Dan Andersen’s racing operations via Andersen Racing will cease in 2011. Andersen Racing had fielded entries in both the Star Mazda Championship and the Firestone Indy Lights series. Andersen will still run the US F2000…

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Road to Indy – Weekly Wrap-up 11/29-12/3

Given the blossoming of weekly features we’ve seen here at OpenPaddock.net with Spike’s Indy Hump Day Report, and Shaun’s Sunday Service Park, I’ve decided to join in the fun. Every Friday (or Saturday morning) I will try to have a wrap-up of the weeks headlines from the Road to Indy. There’s been a lot of things happening so far this off-season, which is rather surprising given that a lot of driver/team combinations typically aren’t agreed upon in most ladder series until a month or so before the beginning of the…

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Star Mazda – An Introduction and Brief History

Introduction The Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear will return to the O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis to again be part of the Night Before the 500 event. This time, the series will appear as an official part of the Road to Indy program along side the US F2000 National Championship presented by Cooper Tires and powered by Mazda. The USAC Midgets will also appear, but expect the fastest times to come from the Star Mazda cars. Already in testing last week, Conor Daly was a full two-tenths faster than…

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