Kansas is not as sexy as Talladega, I admit. It is not a Daytona, a Darlington, and it is no Indianapolis. I think having the race named after a series of sponsors instead of seeking a real identity might have something to do with that. Still, some big names have been among the 16 winners there since they first started up the engines back in 2001.
Jeff Gordon won the first two there, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, and Matt Kenseth all have a pair. Three years ago, Brad Keselowski made it nine victories for past or future kings of the clutch at the venue. Tony Kanaan won there in 2005, a year after claiming the IndyCar crown. Sam Hornish Jr, who was IndyCar royalty before trying his luck in NASCAR, won there in an open wheel contest. Both Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon have done it twice. Of ten IndyCar races run at Kansas between 2001 and 2010, the last six were claimed by one who was a champion.
In short, this track is a haven for racing’s blue bloods. Despite its lack of an identity, Saturday night’s NASCAR contest will be claimed by a driver who matters. In fact, of the last 21 Cup and IndyCar races run there, the only non-champions went by such names as Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, and Greg Biffle. That is a trio of pretty damned impressive names, if you ask me. Simply put, the winner this weekend is not going to be Danica Patrick. If she does, then I suggest we start watching her more closely and with an entirely different perspective.
A win at Kansas would do wonders for Stewart, who is sitting winless at 21st in the official standings. Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, and Martin Truex Jr could use the boost, as they are all mired well beyond the 16th and final Chase place.
As for determining simply the best this season, we leave the points untouched other than to reward a race winner 22 additional points. Wins and consistency both have value as we eliminate the need for gimmicks, such as the Chase. Kyle Busch remains out hottest on the year, though Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Joey Logano, and even the winless duo of Gordon and Kenseth are within 21 points of our leader after ten events. With the gap between first and second each week between 25 and 28 points, either of those latter two would vault to the front by just returning to Victory Lane this Saturday night.
As an American racing fan, be it NASCAR, IndyCar, F1, or just about anything else, you know racing really isn’t covered well at all by mainstream sports media.
Here in Southern Maryland, I may see a mention or two during Speedweeks or Indy month, but outside of that no mention on local TV. On ESPN I have to wade through NFL, MLB, NBA, and NCAA before maybe a mention of NASCAR or something with Danica Patrick. Fox Sports is basically the same. Now granted both sports groups have hour or half an hour long NASCAR shows (NASCAR Now and Race Hub) each day in season, but nobody watches them compared to SportsCenter or even Fox Sports Live (I think, but either way I doubt the FSL audience is 100% NASCAR fans).
The problem with this being, of course, that both sport groups air every single NASCAR race from its three National series with the lone exception of TNT’s six race summer series. I know what you may be thinking right now: “Well, that’s pretty dumb. Why not really promote something you’re going to air?”
Guess what? They aren’t being dumb, they’re being smart, because NASCAR simply isn’t accepted as a sport by the majority of the viewing public.
Even if you hate football and have never played it, I’m pretty certain that you can at least accept that there is athleticism and that it is a sport. Same with basketball, hockey, and baseball. Unless you’re a Yankees fan, I’m pretty sure you see it as throwing big money at cheaters but I digress. People generally go to college and throw all of their hopes into making it into the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, or XFL (In Vince McMahon’s mind).
Last time I checked, the NCAA doesn’t sanction a racing series. Sure, drivers have gone to college before but that’s primarily to have a back up plan if it doesn’t work out – only 43 drivers start in Cup races, so the chance to make it big is pretty darn low. Mechanics are a different story but they don’t receive a tenth of the credit the driver usually does.
If I wanted to go throw a football, I have a buddy who lives down the road who has an old football we can play with. I don’t have a buddy with two Sprint Cup cars along with a quarter mile we can play with. Herein lies one of the big problem with mainstream opinion on motorsports – they do not understand that there is a core difference between driving and racing, they simply believe it is one and the same. I drive every day to work in my Toyota, this is the only connection many have with motorsports, even though the only similarity between the two is controlling an automobile down a road for a distance.
Driving is to travel a distance to get to a location and something the general public does everyday. Racing is something most sane people will never get the opportunity to do outside of carney go kart tracks where half the karts don’t work and the green one is always the fastest (in my experience). Just because I drive everyday in a Toyota, which has AC in the summer, doesn’t mean I can hop into the #18 Camry, no AC in a fire suit in a 100 degree cockpit, and become the next Kyle Busch. It took Busch 20 years of racing to get where he is today. I haven’t had a minute of it.
When I watch football, when Aaron Rodgers is on an absolute roll I can see the fire in his eyes, just how perfect he is at throwing the football. On the flipside, when Jay Cutler is having a bad day, I can see the anger, the heartbreak in his face and in his body language, every bad throw. This is why Tim Tebow was such a big deal to the mainstream – he has emotion, charisma, and fire most athletes could only dream to have, just no talent. You do not see this in motorsport, especially NASCAR.
Unless you really watch at driver motions in the windshield, you can’t see through the car and watch Busch wheel a loose car from the back to the front. Thus, there I think might be the biggest disconnect of all, the perceived lack of emotion on display. Outside of the insane wreck or two, when do you hear about NASCAR in mainstream media? Post race, when the emotion and the fights, the heartbreak, and the joy are all on full display.
Finally, the short attention span of Americans today make it hard to watch things for extended periods of time on TV if you don’t know about those involved. If I were to watch Landon Cassill swap the lead back and forth with Aric Almirola, I’d be pretty happy and would be interested. To the average channel surfer, they don’t know or care about that and would leave in a few minutes if it is the same old same old. Compare that to football, within a few minutes different players are guaranteed to be on the field doing different things.
No matter how well the sport of racing is doing ratings or fan base wise compared to its contemporaries, there will always be a Donovan McNabb out there who obviously doesn’t understand it and demeans it. If baseball is relatively easy to follow and football hard to understand at first, racing might be the single most complicated of them all. And it might have the most raw emotion out of its fans- even during a bad race fans are never going to keep to themselves about it.
We are closing in fast on a very prominent day in the motorsports world. The Monaco Grand Prix will be held on Sunday, followed by the 97th edition of the Indianapolis 500, and the day will conclude with the longest race in NASCAR, the Coke 600. Whoever wins these races will forever solidify their position in racing lore as others aspire to replicate previous triumphs. The talk in the racing community includes picking favorites for the races, discussing qualifying results or recalling memories from past events, but I want to look at something a little bit different than all that. On this weekend of legendary races, I want to remember some legendary racers who lost their lives in pursuit of racing immortality, and their untimely death only helped to further solidify their position in time.
We all know the names Gurney, Petty, Andretti, Schumacher, and Foyt. All are obvious legends but that’s not who I will be focusing on here. We are blessed that these brave men are still with us today and are capable of telling their astonishing tales from when they strapped into race cars wearing blue jeans and blasted to speeds nearing 200mph with no fear, only desire. Instead, I am going to talk about the legends who can no longer tell their harrowing stories. I want to remember the ones that strapped into their cars with no fear of death but unlike the men mentioned above, never came back. I mean the men that paid the ultimate price and whose stories live on only in the voices of those who are willing to tell them. Today, I want to be that voice as I take some time to remember some of racing’s fallen heroes. These are all names every race fan should know, although some unfortunately do not. I can assure you that by the time you finish reading, you will surely know every single one of these remarkable men.
Jim Clark
Photo Credit: http://www.gzlpw.com/ 1936-1968
Jim was a Scottish born racer and was one of the more versatile drivers of his time. He won in sports cars, open wheel, touring cars and even tried his hand at NASCAR. In 1965, he succeeded in winning the Indianapolis 500 with help from the famous Wood Brothers pit crew. He thought he had it won again in 1966 before a scoring debacle that officially placed him 2nd to Graham Hill. Jim had a lot of Formula 1 success, winning 25 races and 33 poles in just 72 starts. He was also crowned champion in both 1963 and 1965. Clark won titles in British Touring Cars as well as in the old Tasman Series. Nothing could shake this man and he could not be forced into a mistake. Jean-Pierre Beltoise insisted on calling him a “demi-god” when asked about Jim’s superb driving ability. His fellow competitors recognized his extraordinary talent and respected him for it while the humble Clark rarely cared to discuss how good he really was, although he knew.
In 1968, Clark was riding a high after concluding the 1967 season with back-to-back victories. He continued the streak by winning the opening round of the season in South Africa. Little did he know that he would never get the chance to make it four in succession. In April of that year, he competed in a F2 race at the notorious Hockenheimring in Germany. During the event, he crashed into a group of trees due to what was thought to be a flat tire but that was never officially confirmed. No matter what caused him to wreck, all that was certain was that we had lost Jim Clark at the age of 32. Jimmy Clark is remembered for his uncanny ability to adapt to any kind of car and excel in it. He was a man of impeccable character who never showed fear. Jackie Stewart said following Clark’s death, “He was so smooth, he was so clean, he drove with such finesse. He never bullied a racing car, he sort of caressed it into doing the things he wanted it to do”
Evans grew up in Rome, New York. At the age of 16, he left the family farm to pursue a career driving race cars. The “Rapid Roman,” as many insisted on calling him, was the King of the Modifieds. He amassed nine titles in the series, including a record eight in-a-row, which the International Motorsports Hall of Fame calls “one of the supreme accomplishments in motorsports.” Along with nine championships in just 13 years, he also collected over 400 feature wins. His orange No.61 is just about as iconic in NASCAR as Dale Earnhardt’s black No.3 or the “Petty blue” No.43. If he wanted to, he could have gone and raced in NASCAR’s premier series but he was perfectly content doing what he loved and that was racing modifieds at local short tracks. He was certainly a character who loved to have fun but when he was on the track, Evans turned into a ruthless opponent that was near-infalliable. Everybody knew he was one of the greatest, he knew he was one of the greatest, but he never bragged on himself and frankly, he didn’t need to.
It was practically impossible to beat this man; he even won a race sliding on his side across the line after he and Geoff Bodine collided as they roared towards the checkered flag. His car owner said once that Richie didn’t know the words “it can’t be done.” He worked on his own cars from dusk till dawn and was a true grassroots racer. He would even help fellow competitors out with setups knowing that no matter how fast they made their cars, he’d still triumph over them in the end. In 1985, Evans clinched his 9th title with a few races remaining and was just out there to add some more trophies to his vast collection. During practice at Martinsville though, tragedy struck when the 44 year old Evans crashed heavily into the wall, perishing in the accident. His friends, family and fans were left in utter shock. After all these years, all these races, he dies in an accident during practice. Who knows how many more races and championships he would have accumulated but one thing’s for certain, what he had already accomplished was more than enough to secure him a spot in racing history. In 2011, he became the first regional racer of NASCAR to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, beating legends such as Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott and Tim Flock. He may be gone but because of the people that devoted their lives to keeping his memory alive, no one has forgotten about this true legend of NASCAR.
Fireball Roberts
1929-1964
Commonly referred to as NASCAR’s first superstar, Edward Glenn “Fireball” Roberts was one of the few men in the 1950’s and 60’s that could go wheel-to-wheel with the likes of Richard and Lee Petty and defeat them. Fireball was not only a talented racer, but also a pretty good baseball player. In fact, his fast ball is what earned him the nickname, “Fireball” Roberts. He never won a NASCAR championship but that is simply because he never felt like trying to. Only twice in his fifteen year career did he even run more than half the races on the schedule. In 1950, he just about won the title despite failing to start 10 of the 19 races that season. That’s how good this guy was. His 33 wins and 32 poles surpass the numbers of many NASCAR champions today including Matt Kenseth, Terry Labonte and Dale Jarrett. When the helmet was off, he was a fun-loving guy who liked to joke around but when he got into that car, he morphed into a very different man. Fireball’s highly aggressive, balls to the wall style of driving, struck fear into the minds of his adversaries and captured the hearts of thousands of fans.
Fireball was a very unique driver for his time in the fact that he was a college graduate and very articulate when he spoke. In 1962, he won the Daytona 500 in dominating fashion over Richard Petty. Fireball started the 1964 World 600 (now known as Coke 600) from the 11th position but only completed seven laps before he was involved in a vicious crash that also took out superstars Junior Johnson and Ned Jarrett. Roberts’ car flipped over and erupted into a fiery inferno. Ned was able to pull him from the wreckage and it seemed like he would miraculously pull through, despite his horrendous injuries, until he contracted phenomena. At 7:13am in room 3305 at Charlotte Memorial Hospital on Thursday, July 2, 1964, Fireball Roberts’ six week struggle for survival came to a tragic and unfortunate end, succumbing to blood poisoning and an incredibly high fever. Due to his death, NASCAR mandated that all drivers must wear flame retardant coveralls at all times and steel fuel tanks were replaced by rubber fuel cells.
Mark Donohue
1937-1975
The New Jersey native won the 1961 SCCA national championship, but his racing career really kicked into high gear when he met a man by the name of Walt Hansgen. He recognized the natural talent Donohue possessed and took it upon himself to give him a shot as his teammate in 1965. He edged closer and closer to a major breakthrough after finishing on the podium in both the 12 Hours of Sebring and 24 Hours of Daytona in 1966. Sadly, Walt was killed that same year while testing a GT40 in preparation for Le Mans.
The following year, Donohue and another racing genius (Bruce McLaren) were paired up for Le Mans and the two clashed over setups on more than one occasion. Mark Donohue is responsible for putting car owner Roger Penske on the map and it all started when he won the 1967 United States Road Racing Championship with Penske (Evolved into what is now the Rolex Sports Car Series),and they would hold that title for two consecutive years. The pair decided to take on Trans-Am where they also dominated, winning three titles in a period of four years. Along with multiple class wins at Sebring, Donohue claimed the overall victory in the 1969 24 Hours of Daytona. Penske and Donohue decided to tackle Indianapolis where they would finish 7th in their first attempt. Three years later, they found themselves in victory lane after winning this highly prestigious race by a hefty margin over Al Unser. It was the first of what would be many Indy 500 victories for “The Captain,” Roger Penske. Mark also tried his hand at NASCAR with backing from Penske and in just his 5th start, he took the checkered flag at Riverside over NASCAR HOF’er Bobby Allison. It was the first win in NASCAR for the now championship winning car owner, Roger Penske.
Donohue was asked by Porsche to test their new 917/10 in the early 70’s (aka the “Can-Am Killer”) and he was more than willing to help them try to suppress the stranglehold McLaren had on Can-Am at the time. They were successful but there were certainly some bumps in the road along the way, including Mark’s violent wreck during a test at Road Atlanta. Donohue recommended larger brake ducts in order to provide more efficient cooling, which would consequently, cause less degradation as a race wears on. They obliged him but the new brake ducts interfered with the bodywork closure pins which hold the bodywork on the car. The bodywork flew off at full speed, resulting in a terrifying airborne accident that left Donohue with a broken leg, but he was lucky to escape with his life. George Follmer was his replacement while he recovered and drove the car to the 1972 Can-Am championship before Mark returned to repeat Follmer’s performance in ’73.
The pressures of racing and the death of his friend Swede Savage in the Indy 500 pushed Donohue to retire, but he didn’t stay away long. When racing is in your blood like that, it’s nearly impossible to walk away from it. It’s a hunger that you must suffice. The desire to win supersedes the fear of what could go wrong. In 1974, Donohue dominated the inaugural season of IROC, taking the championship after winning three out of four races on the schedule. Roger coaxed him into competing full-time in the 1975 Formula 1 season but the unthinkable happened towards the end of the year. He crashed violently during practice for the Grand Prix of Austria which resulted in the death of a track marshal due to flying debris. Mark seemed fine at first, only complaining about a headache. It worsened though and he was taken to a hospital the next day where he lapsed into a coma from a cerebral hemorrhage and died. Mark Donohue is remembered as one of the most versatile drivers that ever lived and a true engineering genius who helped build Penske Racing into the powerhouse it is today.
This NASCAR pioneer lived a life style that isn’t one for the faint of heart. He loved to behave outrageously and do some pretty crazy things with best friend and fellow NASCAR legend, Curtis Turner. His antics earned him the nickname “The Clown Prince of Racing,” which he lived up to on more than one occasion. One of his favorite jokes was throwing a rubber snake at people who were of course, terrified of them. When he wasn’t busy pulling pranks on fellow drivers, he was kicking their butt’s on the racetrack. The 1953 NASCAR Modified champion won his first race at the Cup level in 1958 at Nashville Speedway.
In 1961, he teamed up with World War II veteran and NASCAR HOF’er Bud Moore and together, they won nine races, en route to a respectable 4th place result in the championship standings. He won the 1961 American Challenge Cup at Daytona International Speedway, which some people consider to be NASCAR’s unofficial first All-Star Race. 1962 was his year. After emerging victorious nine times during the year, he won the title by a massive margin over Richard Petty. Joe did something in 1963 that had never been done before or since; he won his second championship while driving for NINE different race teams! That’s a spectacular feat for any driver from any era and in any discipline. Weatherly was a stock car driver and he could care less about sports cars or open wheel. In fact, he described the American open wheel cars of the time as “cucumbers with hayraker wheels.” Between Cup, Modifieds and the NASCAR Convertible series, “Little Joe” had amassed well over 100 race wins in his career along with three championships.
One of the many wild stories involving pugnacious Joe Weatherly was when he and Curtis Turner decided to race their rental cars back to the motel and the prize for being the first one there; well it was a bottle of Canadian Club Whiskey. The two slammed fenders as they raced down the road and this should sound oddly familiar to anyone who has seen the movie “Days of Thunder” and it should…where do you think they got the idea from? As the two neared the motel, Weatherly was hell bent on winning and applied the brakes too late, ending up in a swimming pool. Soaking wet and grinning from ear-to-ear, he stood triumphant as he gulped down that coveted bottle of Canadian Club. That’s Joe Weatherly for you.
In 1964, it looked like he would win his 3rd straight championship but all that changed when NASCAR visited Riverside. Early in the race, he crashed his Mercury and hit his head on the guardrail, killed him instantly. He never got a shot at winning three in-a-row and who knows if he could have won a 4th or maybe even a 5th championship, had he survived. He was the first death of many in 1964 which is considered one of the darkest years in NASCAR history. His death prompted NASCAR to institute better roll cages to keep drivers hands and head inside the car during wrecks. He was lost well before his time and I truly believe he would have put up numbers rivaling stock car racing’s best. 50 years later, he is remembered for being a wild, on the edge character that loved to take risks, could wheel a race car better than most and most important of all, he always lived life to the fullest.
Bruce McLaren
1937-1970
I’m sure you all know of that last name even if you don’t know the face behind it. Bruce McLaren is the founder of the famous McLaren Formula 1 team and European manufacturer of high performance vehicles. In 1959, he won the United States Grand Prix at Sebring, after a riveting last lap where he made a risky pass for the lead. In 1962, Bruce emerged triumphant in the Monaco Grand Prix; arguably Formula 1’s most important race. Bruce was the inaugural Tasman champion, a 2x Can-Am titlist as a driver and the winner of the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. Although he had a very impressive career as a driver, it’s what he put on the track that he’s best known for. His car designs won five straight Can-Am championships and even won every race on the schedule in 1969. During a test once, he noticed that the fuel filler access door was flapping up and down and common knowledge at the time said that it should be pressed more firmly in place. Well, he immediately pulled into the pits, ran to the tool box, grabbed some shears and started cutting the bodywork away from behind the radiator. When he went back out, he was turning much faster lap times and just like that, the “nostrils” were born; a key feature utilized by McLaren to this day.
On June 2nd, 1970, Bruce crashed during a Can-Am race when the rear bodywork came adrift, destabilizing the car. The 32 year old was killed instantly.He wrote this very eerie paragraph six years before his own demise when referring to the death of Timmy Mayer in his book, From the Cockpit. “The news that he had died instantly was a terrible shock to all of us, but who is to say that he had not seen more, done more and learned more in his few years than many people do in a lifetime? To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one’s ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone.” It was almost as if he was writing his own epitaph. His team is one of the most successful in F1 history winning near 200 races, 12 drivers’ championships, eight constructors’ titles and continues to win Grand Prix’s to this very day. McLaren was certainly an innovative genius, a gifted racer and his legacy will live on forever in the form of a car…fitting, isn’t it?
Dan Wheldon
Photo Credit: Michael Conroy / News Limited 1978-2011
This truly remarkable race car driver left his mark on the motorsports community in more ways than he could possibly imagine. Dan took up karting when he was just four years old. During his young career, he formed a rivalry with Jenson Button who went on to be a Formula 1 World Champion. In 1999, Dan made a decision that would change his life forever. He left Europe and moved to the United States. If he had found the funding needed to stay in the UK, he would have probably went on to be a Formula 1 World Champion but as fate would have it, he became an open wheel superstar on the other side of the pond. He quickly found success, winning the 1999 US F2000 National Championship before moving to Indy Lights in 2001 and then Indycar one year later.
In 2004, he won his first Indycar race at Motegi and ended the year as the championship runner-up to Tony Kanaan with three victories to his credit. In 2005, he obliterated the competition with six wins, as he captured his first Indycar championship. One of those wins came in the 89th running of the Indy 500 where he led 30 laps after starting 16th. In 2006, he won another historic race…the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. In Indycar, he tied Sam Hornish Jr. for the title but lost due to the series’ tiebreaker policy. When he returned to Panther Racing in 2009 after driving for both Ganassi and Andretti, he failed to reach victory lane and the two cut ties at the end of the 2010 season.
Wheldon did not have a ride in 2011 but managed to get a seat with Bryan Herta Autosport for the Indianapolis 500. It looked like Wheldon was going to finish 2nd in the legendary race for the 3rd consecutive year until race leader JR Hildebrand hit the wall just a few hundred feet from the line and no one, including me, could believe what we were witnessing. As he tried desperately to limp the car home in a shower of sparks, Wheldon blew by and stole the victory in spectacular fashion. Dan raced one other time that year…in the season finale at Las Vegas where he was hoping to win the $5,000,000 that Bruton Smith promised he would give to the winner if it wasn’t a full time Indycar driver. Obviously, that challenge set forth by Smith attracted a lot of ringers to the race and consequently, a lot of inexperience as well. The night prior to the event, Dan got his wife’s initials tattooed on his wrist and he recently found out that he would return full-time to Indycar in 2012 with Andretti as well as make his V8 Supercar debut in the Gold Coast 600 next weekend. Everything was going right for Dan Wheldon before it all went wrong on that Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas.
There was an intense feeling of trepidation among the drivers as they prepared for what was sure to be a wild race with a record number of cars entered. Just ten laps into the event though, disaster struck when two cars went spinning and half the field was wiped out in mere seconds. Fans and teams looked on in horror as car after car was launched into the air flying over one another at speeds upwards of 200mph. The lucky ones weaved through the debris field in shock and multiple drivers were injured in the vicious crash but none more so than Dan Wheldon. As cars slowed in front of him, he made contact with the rear wheel of I believe Paul Tracy sending him airborne for a few hundred feet. The car tumbled through the air before making hard contact with the wall and the catch fence causing the car to burst into flames and the commentators to cringe. Dan was killed instantly when his helmet struck a post in the catch fence. Like Dale Earnhardt, he lives on through a racecar. It’s called the DW12; the next generation Indycar that Wheldon helped develop and it was named after him in his honor. It is a safer, more durable car that will hopefully prevent another tragedy like what we had to endure on October 16th, 2011. Death may have taken the man but in its wake, a legend remains.
Ayrton Senna
Photo Credit: Formula1.com 1960-1994
Ayrton Senna…..the greatest Formula 1 driver that ever lived. Michael Schumacher may have twice as many wins and seven titles to his credit but numbers aren’t everything. The remarkable way Senna could handle a race car like no other is what sets him apart from the rest Senna and longtime McLaren teammate Alain Prost were engaged in one of the most controversial and legendary rivalries in motorsports history. Their first encounter was long before they were paired up at McLaren though. Ayrton was a rookie in 1984 and stunned everyone when he started 13th in the Monaco Grand Prix and charged towards the front in treacherous wet conditions. Prost was leading the race and I can only imagine what he was thinking when he realized a rookie, in an inferior car nonetheless, was running him down. Prost used hand gestures to signal that he felt the race shouldn’t go on (even though the conditions had gotten slightly better) and the stewards listened to him…or should I say Jacky Ickx (clerk of the course) who designed Prost’s engine ended the race without consulting the stewards. Prost was declared the winner, Ickx was suspended for making the call on his own and the soon to be legendary Ayrton Senna had made his presence known.
The two became teammates at McLaren in 1988 and it didn’t take long for their relationship with one another to dissolve and turn quite hostile. Some say that Alain felt threatened by Ayrton’s arrival and that their distinctly different personalities combined with their unwavering need to out-do each other led to their now infamous rivalry. Senna once called Prost a coward in a press conference and Prost stated on another occasion that “he never wanted to beat me, he wanted to humiliate me” referring to Senna. Their tumultuous relationship came to a head in the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix. While battling for the lead in a race that would decide which one would emerge as the 1989 champion, the two collided. Prost calmly got out of his car knowing that the title was his but to his and everyone else’s surprise, Ayrton got his car fired back up and took off. After replacing his damaged front nose piece, he drove like a man possessed, winning the race and the championship. Following the event though, he was disqualified after Prost pleaded with the stewards for what most call a bogus penalty…he was disqualified for “cutting the track” when he got back going but if you look at the video, there was no other logical route to take back onto the course and he obviously gained no advantage by it. When the team protested, the stewards suspended Senna and claimed he was a “dangerous driver.” Due to the penalty, Alain Prost won the championship that would have otherwise belonged to Senna. The bridge between Prost and Senna was withering before this race and with everything that went down in Suzaka, you could say that the proverbial bridge went up in flames.
The following year, Senna would have his vengeance in the very same race. Like 1989, the politics of the sport were going against Senna and in favor of Prost. The two were once again battling for the title and started 1st and 2nd for the race. Ayrton went to the stewards because he thought hat as pole sitter, he shouldn’t be put on the dirtier side of the track. They initially agreed until FISA president and Prost’s fellow countryman, Jean Marie Balestre stepped in and rescinded the initial decision. Senna was not going to bow to the politics of the sport though. He vowed that he would do whatever he could to take the lead in the first corner, no matter the consequences. If they both were to wreck, Senna would clinch the title by the way. Surprise, surprise, the two crashed in the first corner and Ayrton Senna was crowned the 1990 Formula 1 champion.
Ayrton could put his car places that few would dare, and even fewer could pull off. Sennawas “a powerful combination of spectacular raw talent and sometimes terrifying determination” as BBC puts it. He seemed to enjoy to push the boundaries between absolute control and utter disaster saying once “On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, ‘Okay, this is the limit.’ As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.” Just one of Senna’s many famous quotes.
He took the car beyond its own limits and somehow made it work with both the finesse of Jimmy Clarke and the ruthlessness of the highly aggressive Michael Schumacher. One of his greatest performances came in a rain marred race at Brazil in 1991; his home track. He amazingly held on in the slick conditions with only sixth gear, pushing himself past the point of exhaustion, and he collapsed in agony after winning the race. He won over 25% of the races he entered in, captured pole position 65 times in 161 starts and finished on the podium in half the races he was in. The 3x Formula 1 World Champion won at F1’s most difficult track (Monaco) six times including five in a row between 1989 and 1993.
In the three races he competed in during the 1994 season, Senna captured pole position for every single event. The San Marino Grand Prix on May 1st, 1994 was the final time the world would get the chance to witness this man’s incredible ability before he would be taken from us forever. On Friday, there was a vicious airborne accident involving Rubens Barrichello who escaped the crash with only a broken nose. A day before the event, Austrian Roland Ratzenberger lost his life in a practice accident. When a tearful Senna arrived on the scene, Chief Medical Professor Sid Watkins suggested that Ayrton retire and go fishing which is a hobby the two men shared but Ayrton told him he could never quit racing. Everyone could tell that the usually cool and collected Senna was distressed and uneasy prior to the race commencing. At the start, a crash ensued at the finish line and debris flew into the grand stands injuring eight people. Perhaps all this was an ominous warning of what was to come.
On lap seven, race leader Ayrton Senna suffered a mechanical failure and his Williams hurled towards into a concrete barrier at 135mph. The right front tore from the car and a suspension arm pierced his helmet during the wreck causing fatal head injuries. When he was extracted from the mangled car, an Austrian flag was found that Senna had apparently planned to raise following the event in honor of the late Roland Ratzberger who had died just one day earlier. Erik Comas, who’s life was saved by Senna two years earlier after a scary crash, immediately withdrew from the race. This man who spoke so eloquently and drove so ferociously striking fear into the hearts of his competitors was gone just like that. Over 3,000,000 mourners showed up for the funeral which is considered one of the largest ever next to Princess Diana’s. Since that fateful day in May of 1994, not another Formula 1 racer has lost his life due to the advancement in safety following the loss of this legend. No one before or since Ayrton Senna in Formula 1 has showed the passion and raw talent that he possessed and I doubt we will ever get the chance to witness it again.
Dale Earnhardt
Photo Credit: TONY RANZE/Getty Images 1951-2001
Dale Earnhardt; to understand what made this man so incredible you must first know where he came from. While Ayrton Senna was solidifying himself as the greatest Formula 1 driver that ever lived, Earnhardt was doing the same thing in NASCAR. He came from very humble beginnings that started in Kannapolis, North Carolina. His father Ralph was widely considered the best short track racer in North Carolina but he didn’t want his son to follow in his footsteps. Dale dropped out of high school and ignored his father’s wish as he set his sights on racing. The thing that made Dale such a formidable opponent was not only the obvious fact that he could wheel a race car better than most, but that he was willing to do whatever it took to win. If he failed, he knew that he was going to have to spend the rest of his life working at that mill in Kannapolis, North Carolina and no way was he going to settle for that. He carried that mentality through his entire career; even when he was a multimillionaire. Dale’s story is one of perseverance, tragedy, hardship and tough love. Dale lost his father when he was still relatively young, forcing him to grow up real fast. His first wife left him because he couldn’t pay the bills and Earnhardt was basically broke.
He kept fighting though and made his NASCAR debut in 1975 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, finishing one spot ahead of a man by the name of Richard Childress. Those two had no idea at the time that they were destined for greatness with each other. In 1978, Rod Osterlund offered the young Earnhardt a one race deal at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Earnhardt exceeded all expectations, finishing a very impressive 4th which prompted Osterlund to give him a full time ride in 1979. Dale won the championship in just his second full-time season in 1980. The likes of Neil Bonnett, Dan Gurney and Buddy Baker were unable to win a single race for Osterlund, but somehow this kid goes out and wins the title just like that. He partnered with Richard Childress Racing in the early 80’s and quickly took this team that ran mid-pack for years and made them championship caliber. Drivers that can take sub-par equipment to victory lane on a regular basis are a rare breed. As Dale kept winning and the money kept pouring in, the cars got faster and Earnhardt got harder to beat. Dale won six more title in 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994.
He started off as the loud mouth kid with a cowboy hat, known as “Iron head” and quickly became the most feared competitor on the tracj, commonly referred to as “The Intimidator.” He claimed he could see the air and made moves that baffled all those fortunate enough to witness it. The final win of his career came in spectacular fashion at Talladega, when Earnhardt took a car that was beat all to hell, passed nearly the entire field in just a few laps and won the race. Another example of his extraordinary talent was when he got turned completely sideways and into the grass at 180mph during the 1987 All-Star Race but amazingly, he kept the car pointed in the right direction and in the lead. He went on to win the event in the move now famously known as “The Pass in the Grass.” His driving style was rough and merciless, never willing to give anyone an inch. He once said “The winner ain’t the one with the fastest car, it’s the one who refuses to lose”
Along with a NASCAR record of seven championships, he was a 4x IROC titlist and a runner-up in the 2001 24 Hours of Daytona. In 1994, tragedy struck close to Dale when his best friend Neil Bonnett was killed in a crash in turn 3 during practice for the 1994 Daytona 500; Dale would strangely meet a similar fate in the same spot seven years later. He won almost everywhere but ironically, the one race that eluded him was at the track that he won at more than any other; the Daytona 500. His 34 victories at Daytona is a record no one has even come close to but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t win the Daytona 500; NASCAR’s biggest race. He finished 2nd multiple times, ran out of fuel in the lead, blew a tire with ¼ of a lap to go, flipped over, and even hit a seagull. In 1998, a little girl in a wheel chair gave Earnhardt a penny for good luck and Dale decided to glue it to the dashboard of his racecar. Perhaps the lucky penny from that sweet little girl kept the bad luck that had plagued Earnhardt for so long here away. After 20 years of failed attempts, Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500 that year and in an unprecedented move by his competitors, every member from every crew lined up to congratulate “The Man in Black.”
Three years later, Dale owned his own team and was hoping to win another 500 after his 2nd place finish in the championship at the age of 49; not many people that age still had the ability to run competitively. It was a wild Daytona 500 and late in the race, there was a scary crash where Tony Stewart flipped over wading up nearly the entire field. The very first car to emerge from the carnage unscathed was the black No.3 of Dale Earnhardt. At the end of the event, the Dale Earnhardt owned cars of Michael Waltrip and Dale Jr. led the race with Dale Sr. following close behind. For the first time ever, Earnhardt drove defensively and showed no interest in going after the victory. In a very selfless act that proved costly in the end, he threw his chances of winning away and instead, intended to hold off the snarling pack of 15 drivers’ hell bent on taking the win for themselves. He succeeded; that is until the last turn of the last lap of the race. The field was spread out three wide behind him and as Dale came down to block Sterling Marlin just a few hundred feet from the line, he got hit. His car went onto the apron and Dale yanked the wheel to the right attempting to straighten it out but to no avail. He shot up the track and went head-on into the wall. During the impact, his seat belt snapped and he hit the steering wheel while wearing an open face helmet at 170mph killing this NASCAR legend instantly. The world was shocked and no one could bring themselves to believe it.
Fans loved him because he was a good ‘ol boy and drivers admired and envied his incredible abilities. Even when he was making millions, he decided to spend his days away from the track hunting and working on his farm. He was the real deal, nothing fake about him. One week after Daytona, Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver Steve Park won at Rockingham. Two weeks after that, rookie Kevin Harvick who took over Earnhardt’s seat won at Atlanta. Five months later when NASCAR revisited Daytona for the first time since that tragic day, Dale Jr. took the victory with none other than DEI teammate, Michael Waltrip 2nd. Dale Earnhardt affected NASCAR in so many different ways and the sport has never been the same since Black Sunday. Hans Devices became mandatory, the Car of Tomorrow was developed and safer barriers were mandated at every track that sanctioned a NASCAR race. Since his death, not a single national touring driver has lost his life and we can thank Dale Earnhardt for that. When people think of the word NASCAR, they instantly think of the name Earnhardt because he was the face of NASCAR; always was and always will be.
Epilogue
These are just nine of the many men that have paid the ultimate price, in the endless crusade to capture the checkered flag. Drivers such as Tiny Lund, Neil Bonnett, Gilles Villeneuve and Peter Brock are some that I was forced to leave out of this story due to time restrictions but they are certainly legends in their own right. Some were taken from us outside the race car too, such as Graham Hill, Tim Richmond, Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki and Colin McRae. I hope you learned something from this article and that it helped you better understand these fantastic racers and who they really were. Please share this piece so that others may know about these brave men and what they did.
There are drivers that win a lot, others that make it into Hall of Fames all across the motorsports world, but there are a select few that reach a heroic level of immortality. These nine made it to that point; they will never be forgotten and will always be missed. They race on and I’m sure it’s quite a sight up there with Earnhardt and Senna dueling wheel-to-wheel, neither giving an inch as they battle for racing supremacy. Turner and Weatherly are most likely looking on and fighting over a bottle of Canadian Club Whiskey. I bet Jimmy Clarke and Graham Hill are reminiscing about their many battles as Bruce McLaren looks over some new car designs. Mark Donohue is probably close by, trying to tell Bruce what he’s doing wrong and bragging about how the Porsche 917/10 stopped the McLaren domination in Can-Am. The Rapid Roman is certainly searching around for a short track race to dominate while Dan Wheldon looks down on his family as he waits for the day when they will be reunited. I’d like to end this with a famous quote that I think best describes these nine racers…”Heroes are always remembered, but legends…legends never die.”
“The winner ain’t the one with the fastest car, it’s the one who refuses to lose” –Dale Earnhardt
“If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.” –Ayrton Senna
“We’re far from having too much horsepower…my definition of too much horsepower is when all four wheels are spinning in every gear.” –Mark Donohue
“I’m a racing driver, always was, always will be” –Bruce McLaren
“You got to be mentally tough, you got to physically tough, you got have good endurance…it’s all part of being an Indycar series driver. It’s that kind of element of fear that makes it so exciting to watch….lose the fear, win the race.” –Dan Wheldon
With another chapter in the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series Championship complete we are now beginning to see the final stages of the campaign draw even closer.
Ryan Briscoe capitalized on a great opportunity Sunday afternoon at Infineon Raceway to earn his first win in over two years. Will Power dominated the first half of the race, but on lap 64, things went amiss. As Power was in the pits, a caution flew for a collision with Josef Newgarden and Sebastian Bourdais. The pits remained open under caution and Briscoe was able to pit the next time by. Due to an unknown mishap in Powers pit stop, Briscoe exited his stall and beat out his Penske Racing teammate to the blend line, inheriting the lead.
[media-credit name=”indycar.com” align=”alignright” width=”250″][/media-credit]From then on, Briscoe held off a charging Will Power for two more restarts, enabling himself to enter victory lane for the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma.
“It feels so good to win here in Sonoma. I got my first ever pole here back in ’05 and I’ve been so close the last sort of 4 years, 5 years and finally to get the win. It was a good battle at the end there with Will and Dario.” Briscoe stated after the race.
Power’s #12 Verizon Wireless Chevrolet might have come across the finish line second after spending most of the day in the lead, but the Australian racer still heads to Baltimore on a positive note. Coming into the Sonoma round bearing only a 5 point lead over Ryan Hunter-Reay, Power exits wine country with a 36 point advantage over Hunter-Reay.
“It was a good day for us, points wise. I feel bad for Hunter-Reay, he obviously got taken out. That definitely hurts considering he had such a good drive up to third place.” Says Power.
While Power leaves Sonoma with momentum, Hunter-Reay enters Baltimore in desperate search of it with only two rounds remaining in the championship.
Since Hunter-Reay’s summer hot streak of three consecutive wins, the Andretti Autosport driver has posted a best finish of 7th in Edmonton. Of the three races since his last win (Edmonton, Mid-Ohio, and Sonoma) two of them have been DNF’s. Hunter-Reay has seen his 34 point lead in the championship completely reverse course, he now trails the lead of Will Power by 36 points.
The frustration was very evident on Hunter-Reay’s face after the race.
“I can’t tell you how frustrated I am after the engine problems last week. I ran so hard all day, I pushed so hard to get from seventh to third. We had a great car for the end and it’s just usual Tag, he’s thinking right in front of himself rather than 10 feet, 15 feet ahead. ”
Alex Tagliani was not hesitant to stand up to the events that took place on track when questioned about it after the race.
“I take full responsibility. You know, I’m out there racing and I had a good run on Dario…It’s not that I’m not thinking about it (the championship) but I’m not going to lift either just because I don’t want to pass anybody and I’m afraid, and then get passed!” Tagliani said.
The series now heads straight to the east coast for the Grand Prix of Baltimore around the streets of Camden Yards this weekend, September 2nd. Two weeks after that will be the season finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California with the MAVTV 500.
Will Power will be the man everyone is watching this weekend as he looks to claim his first IndyCar Championship. The main storyline to follow in the coming races will be if Power can shake the monkey off his back. Recall, in 2010 and 2011 Power finished second in the points behind Dario Franchitti. In 2011, the deficit was 18 points. In 2010, a mere 5 points separated Power from his first title. Both the previous two seasons Will earned two more victories than the eventual championship winner, Franchitti.
On July 31st, it was announced that Sonoma Raceway will undergo three slight modifications to its track layout before the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. The changes made to turns seven, nine, and eleven were conducted with the intent to create more overtaking throughout the race weekend.
[media-credit name=”indycar.com” align=”alignright” width=”250″][/media-credit]Ryan Briscoe of Penske Racing traveled to Sonoma at the end of July to speak out on the changes made to the California circuit.
“As drivers, we should all be excited with the track configuration as it will help open up more areas for passing. With the new turn 7, it is going to be a slower corner with heavy breaking and later turning, which will become an added passing opportunity. Turn 11 will also create a new challenge with a longer chute leading to carry more speed into the start/finish line. I certainly welcome the new changes because they added to the beauty of driving the circuit,” Briscoe tells racer.com.
With these new changes made to the track, the IndyCar teams have decided to test in Sonoma on Friday, August 17th. The teams will look to gain vital practice and data acquisition in preparation for the Grand Prix on August 26th.
The day long test will be open and free to the public.
A driver of note that will make an appearance at the test is Sebastian Saavedra. The Columbian racer will be a fourth entry for Andretti Autosport/AFS Racing. Saavedra last competed in the IZOD IndyCar Series throughout the month of May for the Indianapolis 500. Sebastian started 24th and finished 26th in the Greatest Spectacle in racing.
Following the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, the IICS will have two races remaining. The Grand Prix of Baltimore will be 2:30 PM ET on September 2nd and the season finale will be in Fontana, California on September 15th at 8:30 PM ET for the MAVTV 500.
[media-credit name=”indycar.com” align=”alignright” width=”250″][/media-credit]Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course was the sight of some fast IZOD IndyCar’s today. Will Power, who led yesterday’s practice session, put his Penske Racing machine atop the speed charts with a lap of 1:05.647. Power’s lap equates to a speed of 123.825 mph, demolishing last year’s pole speed of 119.405 set by Scott Dixon and setting a new IndyCar track record at Mid-Ohio.
This is Power’s third pole of the 2012 season and his first since Brazil back at the end of April. Starting up front has proved vital in IndyCar’s history at Mid-Ohio. Since first sanctioning a race at the Lexington, Ohio road course in 2007, four out of the five winners here have come from no further back then third on the starting grid.
Advancing to the Firestone Fast 6 at Mid-Ohio were Scott Dixon, Alex Tagliani, Will Power, Dario Franchitti, Simon Pagenaud, and Ryan Briscoe. Power turned the most laps out of all six drivers, completing five laps in the final session and claiming pole for tomorrow’s Honda Indy 200. Following in second was Franchitti, who posted a 1:05.895.
Only 8 one-thousandths of a second behind Franchitti was Simon Pagenaud for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. After subbing in for the injured Justin Wilson last year, Pagenaud has been looking for a stable and structured weekend at Mid-Ohio this weekend. The Sam Schmidt driver seems to be doing exactly that, before qualifying third for tomorrow’s race Pagenaud finished the first two practice sessions P4 and P2, respectively.
Alex Tagliani posted a 1:06.004, good enough to start fourth tomorrow, however after an unapproved engine change yesterday, Tagliani will have to start 14th on the grid. Following Tagliani was Scott Dixon, with a best lap of 1:06.096. Dixon has three victories at Mid-Ohio and has won from 6th on the grid before. Scott will look to win again tomorrow at a venue he has been so dominant at in the past hermes outlet and improve his chances at a third IndyCar Championship.
Rounding out the Firestone Fast 6 was Ryan Briscoe, completing 4 laps in the final session and turning a best time of 1:06.200.
The Honda Indy 200 from Mid-Ohio can be seen on ABC tomorrow beginning at 12:30 pm.
[media-credit name=”sportsnet.ca” align=”alignright” width=”266″][/media-credit]After the IZOD IndyCar race in Mid-ohio on August 5th, the series will have but only three races left. Auto Club Speedway will host the finale this year in mid September, ending the season months before both NASCAR and Formula 1. With the season coming to a close more rapidly than expected, top drivers are entering the climatic stages of the season where every point earned will be crucial to who wins the 2012 IndyCar Championship.
Realistically there are four drivers in the hunt for the championship this season (note that IndyCar awards points even for finishing last in a race). Ryan Hunter-Reay has earned 362 points thus far, leading the standings by 23 points over Helio Castroneves. Will Power is close behind his Penske Racing teammate, 26 points out of the lead. Lastly, Scott Dixon is currently fourth in the championship with 301 points, 61 points out of first. With our focus on these four drivers and the four remaining tracks on the schedule, an interesting title fight is in the works.
August 3rd – 5th the IICS is at the Mid-Ohio course in Lexington, Ohio. Looking at the statistics from all five races IndyCar has held at Mid-Ohio since the 2007 season, Hunter-Reay, Power, and Castroneves have average finishes at the sports car course of 6.8, 6.6, and 7.8 respectively. Scott Dixon possesses a statistical advantage at Mid-Ohio by accumulating an average finish of 2.2 throughout the five races he’s contested there. Theoretically, if all four drivers continue to finish close to their average finishes this weekend, Dixon will make up considerable ground on his competitors, therefore squeezing the top four drivers in the standings closer together.
After a three week break, the IICS will be back in action at the Sonoma Raceway for the GoPro Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma. As with most road courses, Will Power has excelled at Sonoma the last two years, winning the 2010 and 2011 races. Ryan Hunter-Reay however, has had different fortunes in wine country, earning an average finish of 14.6 in five starts. Castroneves and Dixon both have one win a piece in Sonoma. RHR, the current points leader, has had the least amount of success at Sonoma among the top four drivers in contention for IndyCar’s crown this year. Thus Sonoma will see an extended effort by him to either go for a win while he’s got the momentum in hand from a great season so far or be on the defensive all weekend, trying to leave with minimum damage in the points race.
The climatic point of the season could come with two races remaining, at the Grand Prix of Baltimore. The streets of Baltimore serve as a wildcard for the championship, IndyCar has raced there only once, the circuit is also undergoing three changes to its layout in an attempt to promote more exciting racing around Camden Yards. With limited data and experience at the venue, the playing field for the weekend will be leveled slightly. Qualifying will be as important as ever, with the wrong set up, any of our drivers could find themselves starting in the back of the pack on a tight street course that may be difficult to overtake on. Look for Baltimore to produce some plot twists in the quest for the 2012 title, Josef Newgarden of Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing visited the venue recently and discussed his thoughts on the inaugural Baltimore event last year.
“Baltimore was the most physical event last year. It’s really bumpy on half the circuit and really smooth on the other, which made it really difficult to drive the car.” Newgarden also stated how the changes to the circuit layout will “make for good competition” in this year’s event.
With Baltimore being one of the most difficult circuits on the calendar to drive as well as additional changes being placed on the track for more passing opportunities to arise, look for any of the title contenders to either create momentum and thrust themselves to the top of the standings, or make a mistake under the rough conditions, eliminating them from championship contention.
Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California will play host to the IZOD IndyCar World Championships on September 15th. The IICS hasn’t held a race at the venue since 2005 and of all the drivers currently in the IndyCar Series, only Dario Franchitti has gone to victory lane in Fontana. Racing on the 2.0 mile oval for the first time in seven years with the brand new DW12 chassis will present many unknown variables to the teams, setting the series up for a climatic final round of the season.
IndyCar has had success ending the season on ovals in the past. In 2007, Scott Dixon ran out of fuel on the last lap of the Chicagoland event, while his future teammate Dario Franchitti cruised by to take the win, and the 2007 championship.
[media-credit name=”indymotorspeedway.com” align=”alignright” width=”240″][/media-credit]In 2009, the series shifted the finale to Homestead-Miami Speedway. Dixon, Franchitti, and Ryan Briscoe emerged as title favorites heading into the last race, with the three of them being separated by just 8 points. Dixon and Briscoe were dominating the field, lapping everyone but third position, Franchitti. Franchitti who himself was under threat to go a lap down, won in dramatic fashion due to Dixon and Briscoe being forced to pit with only a few laps to go.
Two road courses, a street course, and an oval present a diverse set of venues to decide who will ultimately be IndyCar’s 2012 Champion. Amongst the four drivers mentioned, all have seen varying results at Mid-Ohio and Sonoma in the past. With the possibility of those events bringing the contenders closer together in points, the unknowns that are present in Baltimore and Fontana will surely make for a great championship fight for the history books.
[media-credit name=”Photo Credit: IndyCar.com” align=”alignright” width=”250″][/media-credit]If you don’t know him yet, Sage Karam is the young phenomenal driver competing in the Star Mazda Championship for Andretti Autosport. The Nazareth, Pennsylvania native has amassed numerous accomplishments throughout his young career and has his sights set on a successful future in the world of open-wheel racing. Karam won nine races throughout the 2010 USF2000 Championship and graduated to the Star Mazda Series in 2011. In his rookie season in Star Mazda, Karam won two races and earned the Rookie of the Year award.
The youngest winner in USF2000 and the Star Mazda Championship has six top-five finishes in his sophomore season thus far and will be competing August 4th and 5th at one of his favorite venues on the schedule, Trois-Rivieres. With this list of credentials, the world needs to know one of open-wheels future stars. The Andretti Autosport driver took a few moments to interview with me and provided some great insight on who he is and what makes him a great race car driver.
What attracted you to racing?
“The Andretti’s are my neighbors and my parents were fans of Michael. I guess I was always exposed to IndyCar racing since I was very young.”
What’s your favorite track on the Star Mazda Championship Series schedule?
“That’s a tough question because the series is so diverse. I love the atmosphere of competing at Lucas Oil Raceway during the Indy 500 weekend – that’s huge! From a driver’s standpoint, Toronto brings out the best in you. But the fans at Trois-Rivieres know their racing and pack the stands. I guess it’s difficult to narrow it down to just one! Sorry.”
You were rookie of the year in Star Mazda in 2011, what’s the next big feat you would like to accomplish?
“Well, I am not closing the book on the 2012 Star Mazda Championship yet. We are really hot right now and I am more confident than ever in the car. The Star Mazda series really took my driving to the next level. I know I am prepared for Indy Lights, but if I am forced to stay another year in Star Mazda, I am prepared to do that too.”
Driving for Michael Andretti puts you in an environment with many successful people, how are you able to utilize this to your advantage?
“The expectations at AA are extremely high for every driver and employee on the team. Michael has me in that seat for a reason, if he didn’t believe in me, I wouldn’t be there. With that in mind, I never want to let him down. Everybody kept asking why I was so upset with getting two 2nd places at Edmonton over the weekend, and my response to that is my expectations are higher and my team deserves better. The resources on our team, for a young driver are plentiful. For example, I watched in-cars of RHR and Hinch when we rolled into Edmonton last weekend. Hinch then also took the time to review my in-car at the end of the day on Friday. The chemistry on the team is awesome and everybody works together. Marco always finds time to stop by on race weekends to check on me too. If I do well, he is one of the first people to send me a text or Tweet. It’s a pretty big deal when the Lights team engineers and mechanics stop by to watch your qualifying or race. Michael is at almost every session to observe. I always want to impress him and it probably takes my driving to the level too.”
What is your most cherished memory of your career to date?
“Fortunately, I have a lot of great memories. Some of them include being the first driver to get Michael his first win as owner of the rebranded Andretti Autosport (USF2000 St. Pete 2010). Winning the USF2000 title in the manner we did was awesome too. We set a lot of tracks records in USF2000 and Star Mazda which is always cool. Being the youngest winner of the Skip Barber shootout, and youngest winner in both the USF2000 and Star Mazda series is a milestone too. But probably the thing I take the biggest pride in is back in 2011 when we took a new driver in me, a new car (Star Mazda) for the Andretti Autosport team, and developed the car and driver to a respectable level without a teammate. I was the youngest driver in the series, turning 16 just two weeks before the first race.”
Who is your all time favorite driver and what do you admire about him?
“I grew up watching Michael Andretti and always enjoyed the confidence he demonstrated on the track. I love watching vids of Senna’s races and admire his passion to be the best. Both of these drivers commanded attention.”
A great sportsman never gives up, after starting in the back of the field in the 2nd Toronto race you drove like a man possessed to finish 3rd. Where does your motivation and drive for success come from?
“I guess I am just hardwired for this. We (my sister) were always taught growing up that nothing matters after first place. But we also were taught the value of sacrifice and hard work. I was angry in Toronto we didn’t have another lap so I could win the race. I woke up that Sunday morning (Toronto race #2), and I was looking to my dad for advice. He gives me advice whether I want it or not (haha). I asked him where he thought I’d finish the race since I was starting in last? He knows I am a student of the sport, and he said, “What would Senna do if he were in your shoes?” I knew immediately what my assignment was. Racing means everything to me. It is an everyday thing for me, not just something I do on the weekends or part time. Some drivers want to be a champion today, some tomorrow, for me, it’s an everyday thing. It’s all that I think about. My family has made great sacrifices to get me to this point. My manager and sponsor, Michael Fux, has put a lot of faith in my talent. So, to go out and race without passion and a true desire to win, is senseless to me.”
What is a typical week like for you during the season?
“Every morning, without exception, I meet my dad at the gym and we strength train hard. Then he takes me through a cardio workout of swimming or some type of running. He is my trainer and our relationship actually works out really well. He was Michael Andretti’s trainer when Michael competed. He has trained other drivers and probably the best guy to get you in serious shape. I workout very hard, because I never want to get in the car knowing any other driver outworked me. The very least you can do as a driver, even if you are not that talented, is to show up on race weekends in top shape. After training, I hang with my friends and we usually go fishing four or five days a week. I tried to get a part time job this summer, but nobody would hire me because of my racing schedule. I will be going into 11th grade this fall so my schedule will revolve around academics, tutors, wrestling practice and trying to fit time in for my friends. I usually wash my car once or twice a week and I enjoy keeping it looking sharp. I go on iRacing a couple of times a week to train at upcoming tracks too. I always have to complete a pre-race and post-race report for my engineer from my home computer.”
[media-credit name=”indycar.com” align=”alignright” width=”250″][/media-credit]Graham Rahal will be returning home this weekend to compete in the Honda Indy 200 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. On August 5th the IZOD IndyCar Series will take to the track in Mid-Ohio for the sixth time, with 2007 being the first year IndyCar sanctioned a race at the venue. The Columbus, Ohio born racer will be looking to have success on a track that has been a place of bad luck for him in the past. In his four visits to the track, Rahal has landed only one top-ten finish (8th in 2009).
Rahal however is coming off a 4th place finish at Edmonton, a result that is tied for his second best finish of the season to date. The #38 Service Central Honda driver is looking to use that momentum from two weekends ago to translate into a great performance at his home track.
“It feels good anytime you can build momentum at any point in the season. Particularly for us at this point, of course going to Mid-Ohio, which is my home race, a place that’s always kind of stumped me. I’ve never really had a great result there,” Rahal says when speaking to IndyCar.com.
The Rahal family knows what success feels like at Mid-Ohio with Graham’s father, Bobby, winning the event in 1985 and 1986. Graham looks to mimic part of his father’s career and win at the road course in Lexington.
“I love the racetrack. There’s a lot of history there in Indy car racing. Certainly with the Rahal family.”
Like any other sporting event, a driver always wants to win on his home turf. Take Aryton Senna’s glorious victory in his home country of Brazil in 1991. The tremendous roars from the crowd that day can only be derived from the hometown hero coming away the victor. Or Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 British Grand Prix victory in the wet where he finished a whopping 68 seconds ahead of second place. “It is definitely and by far the best victory I’ve ever had,” stated Hamilton in regards to winning his home race.
Looking to the weekend, there can be more comfort found for Rahal than just the enthusiasm and luxury of being at home. Of the five IZOD IndyCar races at Mid-Ohio, Rahal’s owner, Chip Ganassi, has won four of them. He has a three-time Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio winning teammate in Scott Dixon and he has recently tested at his home track on July 26th.
Graham Rahal has got momentum, experience, and a team capable of producing a successful result in Mid-Ohio. At a track he loves and a venue he would embrace winning at, maybe this weekend Graham will etch his own history at a place already rich with the Rahal name.
Nicole Briscoe wasn’t working last weekend at the Daytona International Speedway. She got paid to be there. She again hosted NASCAR Countdown on ESPN for the Nationwide Series Friday night.
But it wasn’t work. At least, she doesn’t consider it to be. She’s simply doing what she loves and having a blast in the process. Briscoe, who started hosting the Countdown show full-time just last season, repeatedly smiled and tried finding words to express how much she loves her job.
Or at least the part of her job that has her at the track. Getting there’s a different story and Briscoe didn’t hesitate to say she could do without airport delays and TSA checkpoints.
“I feel like I’m kind of lucky because I really have fun and I work with a great group of people and I enjoy the challenges that come with it,” said Briscoe Thursday in Daytona. “It’s not that I find them challenging in a frustrating sort of way, I find them challenging in a fun and new environment.
“I’ve always said I don’t find my job difficult. I find it fun and entertaining. What I find difficult is the sacrifices you have to make in your personal life to make it happen. I get paid to do that kind of stuff. Miss out on family reunions or miss out on holidays. You miss Father’s day, you miss Mother’s day. You get stuck in airports, 200 nights a year away from your family.”
According to Briscoe that’s the hard part, the part that drains on motorsports professionals the most. For her, she’d love to be able to live in a vacuum, away from those challenges. That way she’d be a happy camper or at least happier than she already is.
“Fun,” she said of her job. “There are fans that pay to come here and pay to get to see what I get to do. I get paid to do this. This is my job. I think if everyone had as much fun doing what they do as what I do, the world would be a happier place. There isn’t a Countdown that I have done – and it hasn’t been that long – that I finished the show, looked to my left at the guys, whoever it is, and smiled and left.”
Take Daytona for instance. She flew in Thursday morning and immediately headed for the track. Her day was mostly prep work; meeting with producers and those she’d be working with. At some point there’d be a get together with the other analysis on the Countdown show, this week Rusty Wallace and Ricky Craven. What were their thoughts for the weekend?
Afterwards she’d take time to walk around the garage and get a feel for the weekend before going back and meeting with her producer. That’s the time to toss around ideas and other bullet points they think need to be in the show.
It’s during that time Countdown starts to take shape. If there’s a need to meet with NASCAR about questions or concerns, that’s the time to do it. Thursday is the short day.
Friday’s the big day. A bigger production meeting takes place with every individual who will be involved in the broadcast.
“Countdown, you know in advance in theory the topics you want to discuss,” said Briscoe. “You have it in outline form and you go into the race broadcast with that at least. You’re going to start with ‘Hi, hello,’ we’re going to show the anthem at this time. Those things are scripted and then it goes to hell from there.”
There’s no scripting a live race. But at least you can be prepared for it. There’s meetings, talking, writing and talking some more. Talking to people in the garage and those on the track. Then there’s the rehearsal for what’s called the traveling circus. Just to make sure everything is working and ready for when the lights come on.
It’s not all about NASCAR for Briscoe, but it is about speed and racing. Married to IndyCar star Ryan Briscoe, she’s never far from a track. On Thursday Nicole headed for Daytona, Ryan to Toronto for his next race. Work first for her then shed head to Toronto to be with Ryan.
“This is my last IndyCar race that I get to go to this year,” she said. “Probably the last IndyCar race I’ll even get to watch. Most of the time, they’ll be on the air and we’re on the air.”
It’s nothing new for Briscoe because as she makes it known, she had her job and career before she met Ryan. While sometimes it can be hard to keep up with it all, she reveals, “When I get to go there and I’m there, it’s like that’s the treat. That’s the special occasion. And it’s actually more relaxing.
“The only time it’s hard is when he’s on an oval. Then I get worried and I’m a little more nervous.”
Last year during the Chase, Briscoe and ESPN were in Dover while Ryan was racing at Kentucky. A fast, mile-and-a-half track where the action’s normally a big pack in tight quarters. Just like Las Vegas and Texas. Briscoe said she and even Rusty Wallace were keeping one eye on their job and the other on Kentucky. And even though she couldn’t watch what Ryan was doing or where he was, she knew he was safe.
“If that makes any sense,” Briscoe said. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens [this year]. I think we’re in Chicago and they’re in Fontana. We’ll see.”
It’s not as hard as one thinks for Briscoe to split her time. She has yet to find herself in a position where she’d rather be with Ryan than working. But that doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen.
“If it was Indy. I won’t miss Indy,” she said. “Indy is too cool, Indy is like the track, the race. I can’t – that was hard. I missed it one year and I won’t ever do that again.”
While Daytona, Richmond and the Bristol night race are on her list, the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway is Briscoe’s favorite track. For good reason: it’s played a major part in her life.
Indianapolis was the track where she hosted Countdown for the first time as its permanent host. Something she was more nervous about than anything she’s ever done professionally.
That’s when it became her job, when it became her seat. It was exciting, new, a little bit scary with a hint of don’t mess it up. There were thoughts of wanting people to like her, to like the broadcast. Being the new person fearing being the weak link. All those emotions wrapped into one.
“Indy hands down is my favorite racetrack,” she says. “I love Indianapolis for everything that place is because I think one, that was my introduction – my true introduction into American motorsports. And everything that place is, it gives me chills.
“When I was working at Indianapolis you’d get there for a race morning to do the five o’clock broadcast and you’d get there at three o’clock in the morning and it’s quiet and the pagoda is all lit up blue and purple and it feels like you have to whisper and tip-toe around because you’re walking on hallowed ground.
“The track is coming to life and you have to be respectful of everything. And so much has happened there that effects what we see today. Not just what we see on the racetrack, but the cars we drive. That’s where it started. So I love that track.That’s the track that’s aaahh”
There’s no stopping her from getting to Indy. For both herself and Ryan.
“That’s a really important part of his life and when you’re in a relationship you have to be able to share those important things and be apart of that person’s life,” said Briscoe.
“It’s also helpful because he’s stressed and there’s a lot of things going on and there’s not always family that can go. You want to be able to be there for each other and that’s the one.”
Something Briscoe never thought would happen. As she, or her mom could tell the story with a laugh, her career never took the path she expected. At 11-years-old she had a fascination with needing to know what was going on in the world around her.
So everyday she’d come home from school, do her homework then pull out her bright pink beanbag chair and plant herself in front of the TV. She’d watch “Nightly News” with Tom Brokaw and absorb all she could. That was her thing, back before the 24-hour news cycle and the ever-evolving Internet. And no newspaper she said, because her house didn’t get it.
In collage her life quickly found the fast track. A professor told her to immediately go find an internship. Figure out what she liked and if it was going to live up to expectations. Her internship led to a job, then another. All while she was still in school.
Then came a job in another city. Then she had an interview in another city and an eventual move to Indianapolis and switch to motorsports. That’s where Briscoe’s life changed forever.
“I was never a race person before I moved to Indy,” she said. “I had seen a racecar on the track before when watching a NASCAR race on TV. But my family was stick and ball like football, basketball, and baseball.
“Racing was never a part of our lives. So I moved to Indianapolis and when you move to Indianapolis in the month of May, [you get sucked into it]. And it happened to be the time the Pacers were playing the Heat in the playoffs and my boss wanted to go to Miami and hang out on South Beach and so he was like, let’s send the rookie [her] to the track.”
A classic case of everything happens for a reason. One things leads to another and Briscoe has experienced it her whole life. Something she’s grateful of and can now look back and laugh about.
“If you would have said to me 10 years ago, ‘You’re going to be working in racing,’ I would have thrown a bulls— flag at you,” she said with a wave of her hand and chuckle. “I would have said there’s no way, I don’t know anything about it, it didn’t even make sense.
“Now it’s crazy how much it’s so much apart of my life, both personally and professionally that literally I would have hoisted the flag, I would have saluted it. No way in hell would I have believed you.”
Now, as close as Briscoe is to racing there are still those unbelievable moments. She admits racing at Daytona and Talladega freak her out because of the unpredictability and dangers.
Talking to Briscoe though about those topics and many more is easy. She’s open and willing to talk. She gives well thought out and honest answers. When the discussion turns to Dan Wheldon and his death last October in Las Vegas in the IndyCar Series it doesn’t take long for Briscoe to become emotional.
It hasn’t even been a year yet and it’s still tough. It will most likely always be tough. Made tougher by the fact that just a week later she and the rest of her ESPN cast went on air at Talladega. It was during that time Briscoe delivered a heartfelt sendoff to Wheldon.
She becomes quiet, puts her head on her hand and glances off. The emotions coming back to her and she seemed to be fighting them.
“I can tell you now, it’s a blur a little bit,” she finally said about that weekend. “Ryan went to Australia right after the Vegas race to do a race that he had been planning on doing. I had to fly home alone. My best friend is getting married that weekend. My best friend is getting married, like my sister, the highest of the highs. But on the other side the lowest of the lows.
“I drove overnight after my friend’s wedding to Talladega. I left my friends wedding at eleven o’clock at night and arrived at the racetrack in the morning to do the broadcast.”
Briscoe pauses as she relives the memories. Having been much closer to the situation than most, it’s not surprising how much it affected her and still does.
“That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in terms of my career,” she said of the broadcast. “I just wanted to say the right words to honor his wife and his kids and to honor him. I was so afraid – I wanted to get through it, I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to cry because I didn’t want my emotions to get in the away of what I was hoping to do and to achieve.
“I think Brad Daugherty said something like, the drivers compartmentalize. They go out there and that’s their job and that’s what they do, it’s all they know. And it’s not scary for them because it’s what they do; it’s what they know. It’s scary for the people who watch and I think I pointed it out because that’s the part everyone else forgets about.”
Something Briscoe clearly remembers from Talladega is what took place during the race. When there was a crash fans cheered. Even from inside the pit studio in the infield, she heard those cheers.
“People were applauding for an accident and that bothers me,” Briscoe said. “It would have bothered me before Vegas in IndyCar. It bothers me. I remember being really, really uneasy with it that day. It was hard.”
Even harder was Briscoe talking about Wheldon. She talked about his life, his career and said his greatest gift was his legacy in the family he left behind. Many watching applauded Briscoe for the courage and strength she had of getting through the 1:15 second piece.
It was touching, it was appropriate and it well said. It was something that when asked about the idea Briscoe quickly put her hand to her heart but said it was a team idea to include it in the broadcast.
“He was a champion, he was an Indy 500 winner, he was an amazingly talented, gifted driver,” she said of Wheldon. “He’s going to go down as one of the legends in IndyCar racing. When something like that happens, the motorsports family – something happened in our family and it was natural to acknowledge it.
“What I said was something that came from me. I write what say; it comes out of my own mouth. So, I said that. I wrote it. But it was a group decision to do something about him.
“Look at what happened here eleven years ago [Dale Earnhardt’s death]. That’s a part of this sport that we can’t go out there and see what we see on a weekly basis without the dangerous sides of it and when something, whether it’s absolute tragic or someone just gets hurt like Eric McClure, things come out of it.
“The sport gets better and sometimes it takes a really awful thing to get there but you learn from it, you learn from those mistakes, you learn from those tragedies. IndyCar did, IndyCar’s still learning. NASCAR is still learning. But that’s what good about it too.”
Added Briscoe, whether she was back at the track at Talladega or somewhere else, it still would have been hard. It was still fresh. The emotions were still flowing.
Yet, for as much as Briscoe still thinks about Wheldon and his family, she and the rest of the motorsports family race on. There’s plenty of work to be done and things to watch for. On the NNS side, Briscoe has been impressed with the “emotional roller-coaster of the points battle.”
From Elliott Sadler and Ricky Stenhouse to Austin Dillon and Sam Hornish climbing into contention. It’s Hornish who Briscoe is particularly interested in watching. She calls him “a freaking legend in IndyCar, he is awesome” who came to NASCAR and was knocked down from the perch he had been on.
Now he’s back up, fighting for a NASCAR title. On the other hand, Dillon, a rookie, isn’t making very many mistakes or wrecking cars. He’s completed every lap this season. It’s making all four drivers a great storyline, each fighting and looking to prove something.
However it plays out, Briscoe feels certain about one thing, it’ll go down to Homestead. As will she, sitting in her chair in the ESPN studio covering not only the NNS but soon the NSCS, starting of course at Indianapolis on July 29.
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