LOVE AND HATE

LEXINGTON, Ohio -- On the one hand, there's Brumos Racing, whose contributions to racing -- should anyone in racing have somehow missed their scope and magnitude -- have been considerable.

Of Brumos' prominent founders, the late Bob Snodgrass also was instrumental in getting the Grand American Road Racing Association -- now just "Grand-Am" -- off the ground at the tail end of last century.

Another who is deeply involved in both Brumos Racing and the Jacksonville, Fla., Brumos automobile dealership chain from which the team draws its soul, is entrepreneur Dan Davis, who was a well-established Floridian when Snodgrass (along with Mike Colucci) cars in knee pants watched race cars compete in downtown Watkins, Glen, N.Y.

Then there's yet another race-day member of the Brumos Racing "founding" cast, Hurley Haywood, who as a driver captured wins for "Brumos" in cars as diverse as 914-6's, 917's, 935's, 962's and a Porsche-powered FABCAR. Still, Haywood can be found wherever Brumos Racing may be, lending his brain if not his body to the No. 59's Porsche GT3 Cup car's effort.

Brumos Racing drivers Leh Keen and Andrew Davis -- both having developed championship forms before joining Brumos for 2011 -- admitted to understanding theirs would be a tough first year but, as Davis put it, "How can you not be a part of the Brumos team if you've got the opportunity?"

Many others -- from the doggedly handsome Don Leatherwood to "Peppermint" Patti Tantillo -- also "bleed" Brumos red, blue and white.

On the other hand, there's Autohaus Motorsports.

A relative "new kid" on the block when compared to Brumos, Autohaus Motorsports was founded by Robert Kirkland in 1999, yet, it isn't much of a stretch to believe that a guy who sold Mercedes-Benz cars for a living, just as has Brumos, knows a thing or two about sports cars and racing, too.

Whether "new" or old hand, though, doesn't much matter because people don't get into racing, whether at the ownership or driving level, not to win - if you catch the drift.

Also not interested in just tooling around tracks for fun is Autohaus driver Bill Lester.

Having scored a BS in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, Lester intellectually is on a par with some of racing's greatest names -- past and present.

Lester so loved racing he gave up a cushy job and left behind a whole bunch of stock options when racing's siren song successfully called him away from Hewlett Packard.

Lester's not done badly at racing, financially speaking, but who in racing doesn't think he could've done still better toiling in some dark, pizza-box and Coke Zero-bottle-strewn computer engineering lab?

As have so many others with their work lives; even their love lives, Lester gave up a lot to find that better line; that perfect apex.

The team's other driver is Jordan Taylor, one of Wayne and Shelley Taylor's offspring.

SunTrust Daytona Prototype driver Ricky Taylor, Jordan's older brother by just under two years, has been getting the lion's share of attention over the last year or so, but those who hang around racing know Jordan Taylor is far from a slouch.

Indeed, stints in Karting, Skip Barber and Formula Mazda notwithstanding, Jordan Taylor this year in Rolex Series GT was on pace to be the first of the brothers to win a national-level, major sportscar racing championship in that black-and-red No. 88 Autohaus Chevrolet Camaro.

On the Friday night prior to the Mid-Ohio race, it looked like Jordan Taylor would score that championship, too, though certainly nothing ever in racing (if not everywhere else, too) is certain.

The above cast of characters would be largely responsible for squaring the 2011 Rolex Sports Car Series' Grand Touring driver, team and manufacturer championships this past weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports car Course, all of it coming on the heels of a fifth championship-points lead change in a class within which seven different teams have won in 2011.

With Autohaus atop Brumos by just three points when the team transporters parked and disgorged their respective contents at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, each team needed to hit on all cylinders just to maintain the status quo or, perhaps, one to miss a cylinder or two to drastically change it all.

As Friday qualifying got underway the Brumos Racing team would hit on none of them. Not a one.

Try as it may, not a single cylinder of Brumos Racing engine's six cylinders would fire its fuel charge and without a qualifying time, it would be sent to the rear of the starting grid.

"I was pumped to get the pole," Davis said late in the day as he and co-driver Keen headed for the parking lot.

"We had some fast times in practice and I felt like I could get it."

When a Daytona Prototype is sent "to the rear," it goes to the head of the GT pack. Well kinda, sorta and not exactly. But it ain't the "back," as was found Chip Ganassi Racing's Memo Rojas in the No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley DP when, subsequent to a post-qualifying engine change, he on the race grid found himself at least preceding the Stevenson Auto Group's No. 57Chevrolet Camaro and Whelen Engineering's No. 31 Chevrolet Corvette.

In his Brumos Porsche, Davis, however, really was at the field's rear.

"There's a whole bunch of cars in front of you from there," Davis said in complete sincerity.

Winning the GT title suddenly had taken on a whole new dimension -- for everyone but Davis, who pledged to take the lead and did just that on Lap 27.

Talk about lonely: Sitting inside his idled Autohaus Camaro, one can only imagine the slow-motion silence Lester, must've felt just after a slippery track threw him from it on Lap 15.

For two laps Lester would sit, completely alone, between asphalt and metal barrier.

The silence must've been

deafening as he saw the championship fade from his grasp.

Frankly, Autohaus, Bill Lester and Jordan Taylor deserved better.

But so too did Brumos, Leh Keen and Andrew Davis -- and got it.

One race pretty well summed why this writer hates this sport -- and loves it, too.

Later,

EIGHT MID-O's DOWN; ONE TO GO

A look back and not-so-bold look forward.

June 28, 2003 - Round 7 of the 2003 Rolex Sports Car Series -- After losing the previous week's Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen race lead over the span of that race's two remaining laps, arising anew the following week at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course were eerily similar circumstances which likewise involved a late-race yellow flag, also occurred with but two remaining laps and left drivers Forest Barber and Terry Borcheller to wondering if life was but a series of replays wherein the locale may change but the script remained pretty much the same.

Whether attributable to lessons learned and differently applied or fate merely hanging a left instead of a right, their Jim Bell-prepared and managed No. 54 Bell Motorsports Chevrolet-powered Doran JE-4 found Mid-Ohio's Victory Lane.

Yet, in every case which involves those who snatch victory from the jaws of defeat lie those on the flipside of that coin: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as it were.

Borcheller was at the No. 54's Chevrolet-Doran's wheel when the engine of the No. 29 Ford Mustang of Eric Curran (at the wheel) and Stu Hayner could motor no more - the GTS-class Mustang having dominated the race, leading it for more than 50 laps of the 102-lap race before yielding.

Finishing second was David Donohue, paired with Mike Borkowski in the No. 58 Red Bull Porsche-FABCAR, after the driver slowly unwound an earlier, grass-mowing excursion, likely the only thing having prevented Bork and Donohue from occupying the podium's topmost step because, as is the case in life, all it ever takes is "just enough." In third was Tommy Riggins and David Machavern in the No. 48 Heritage Ford Mustang GTS.

Aug. 7, 2004 - Round 7 of the 2004 Rolex Sports Car Series -- The start of the 2004 season at Daytona brought with it a plethora of new Daytona Prototypes and by mid-season "new kid" Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates had become the bona fide monster of the Rolex Sports Car Series' midway - only there were two such monsters: Scott Pruett and Massimiliano Papis in the No. 01 CompUSA Lexus-Riley; Jimmy Morales and Luis Diaz in the No. 02 CompUSA Lexus-Riley.

After Papis led Laps 1 through 35 and Pruett Laps 39-96 (Wayne Taylor and his mean-ass-looking SunTrust No. 10 car was the only other race leader), at race end it the No. 2 Citgo Crawford-Chevrolet of Venezuelan Milka Duno and English hot shoe Andy Wallace, effectively drove a wedge between the two Ganassi monsters at the conclusion of the Mid-Ohio Road Racing Classic's finishing order. in a sign of the shape things to come, four additional DPs finished on the lead lap of the 96-lap race.

Aug. 27, 2005 - Round 10 of the 2005 Rolex Sports Car Series -- In a finish that saw the members of a half-dozen race teams all but fight each other for space in their respective pits so as to gain clear sight of the final, fleeting moments of the EMCO Gears Classic at Mid-Ohio, six Daytona Prototypes charged toward the finish line from the final three turns of the 2.258-mile, 13-turn course, the first and sixth-place finishers of which respectively book-ending the 61/100-of-one-whole-second spread which contained 'em all at race end.

The 94-lap, 225.6-mile race saw 22 Daytona Prototypes undertake the epic battle at race start; 17 DPs finishing at the head of the field's two-class race at its finish.

Out front were Butch Leitzinger and Official Old Guy Grand Pooh-Bah Elliott Forbes-Robinson in their No. 4 red-on-black Boss Snow Plow Crawford-Pontiac, followed closely in second place by Scott Pruett and Luis Diaz in their No. 01 CompUSA Lexus-Riley. In third were Wayne Taylor and Max Angelelli's No. 10 SunTrust Racing Pontiac-Riley, now tamed in its more sanguine and now-familiar SunTrust blue.

June 24, 2006 - Round 9 of the 2006 Rolex Sports Car Series -- While the No. 12 Lowe's Fernandez Racing Pontiac Riley might've started last among the Daytona Prototypes, co-drivers Mexican racing god Adrian Fernandez and Brazilian Mario Haberfeld nevertheless found the means and determination to drive their No. 12 Lowe's Fernandez Racing Pontiac-Riley through the field to earn their first - and last - Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series overall victory.

Compared to 2005's close conga-line finish, all but a yawner was Fernandez' 3.089-second winning margin over Krohn Racing's second-place Ford-Riley, driven by Colin Braun and eventual 2006 champion, Jörge Bergmeister. Finishing third, paired for only their fourth race, were Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney in the GAINSCO Auto Racing's No. 99 Pontiac-Riley.

In what has become Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates' definitive worst-ever Daytona Prototype finish, Luis Diaz and Scott Pruett crossed the line 36th, some 14-laps in arrears to the leaders, after the No. 01 CompUSA Lexus -Riley tangled in Turn 9 of the 13-turn course with brothers Burt and Brian Frisselle, one of whom having driven the No. 8 Synergy Doran-Porsche DP, essentially to the junk pile, but which set up a resultant funky but frightening crash involving driver Joey Hand.

Driving the No. 21 Matt Connolly Motorsports BMW M3, Hand and Paul Edwards, in the No. 64 TRG Pontiac Pratt & Miller GTO.R , were two among a nearly inestimable pack of GT drivers longing for a win and being handed such opportunity when, on Lap 97 of the race's 99 laps, the Mid-O track went from full-on, no-passing yellow to go-get-'em green.

In a scrum much akin to a pack of greyhounds chasing a warm, fuzzy fake rabbit, just about each of the cars were battling for the race's GT-class win when Edwards made contact with the rear of Hand's car, forcing the No. 21 machine off and eventually into a series of bumps, jumps and flips - or maybe that should've been jumps, bumps and flips - that, in turn, drew hundreds-of-thousands of YouTube hits.

June 23, 2007 - Round 7 of the 2007 Rolex Sports Car Series -- With an air similar to that of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's march across The South, Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty took the look of a team possessed with rolling over and crushing their competition in one of 2007's handful of Daytona Prototype-only races.

In earlier qualifying Fogarty put the blood-red, Bob Stallings-owned No. 99 Pontiac-Riley on the EMCO Gears Classic at Mid-Ohio pole – the team’s fourth pole and its seventh consecutive front-row start by that point in the 2007 season. The pair soon afterward also scored its third victory of the 2007 season, at the time becoming the sole DP team to have won more than one race thus far in the season.

Well into their cool-down lap, breaking loose were howls of non-official but nonetheless vociferous protests nip, nip, nipping on the No. 99 team's heels faster than the "best of the rest." Thirty seconds and what may as well have been miles behind in second place were Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas in Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 01 TELMEX Lexus-Riley. In third were Colin Braun and Max Papis in the No. 75 Krohn Racing Pontiac-Riley.

June 22, 2008 - Round 8 of the 2008 Rolex Sports Car Series -- In what was becoming an apparent tradition of domination that included an unmatched combination of pole positions, front-row starts, podium and first-place finishes, Jon Fogarty, Alex Gurney and the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Pontiac-Riley team again showed a mastery of the 2.26-mile, 13-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, even though not quite as great of a mastery as that demonstrated in 2007.

Given Gurney and Fogarty tend toward being cerebral, gentlemanly types disposed of Victory Lane celebrations having a touch of solemnity, arising in that special area where solemn accolades sometimes flow was a veritable nuclear meltdown - coming from a Brumos Racing camp who suddenly again realized, "Yes, we can!"

Having finished second, defined by some as the "First of the Losers," drivers David Donohue and Darren Law and the team's No. 58 Brumos Porsche arrived at race end to its first podium finish in a monkey uncle's age. Unrealized at the time was an impending success that ultimately led to a 2009 season during the first of which every force situated outside the camp would seemingly work against the team to keep its drivers from winning a championship, collaterally collecting the No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche-Riley sister car, in which drivers J.C France and Joao Barbosa had finished fifth at Mid-O, driving the team apoplectic with its dual top-five finish.

Almost anti-climatically, in third place was Matt Plumb and Gene Segal's No. 7 Rum Bum Racing BMW-Riley DP effort, which sadly by season's end would end.

June 21, 2009 - Round 6 of the 2009 Rolex Sports Car Series -- Just as has been the case nearly innumerable times since the driver climbed aboard his first kart, Scott Pruett relishes in "reigning" time and again upon any competitor's coronation parade - the GAINSCO Gang being Pruett's principal focus in things Grand-Am mainly due to the things the GAINSCO Gang themselves did . . . like "win."

Joined for a third-straight EMCO Gears Classic at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course race with Pruett but yet to break the mold cast for himself, Memo Rojas again played understudy to the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing w/ Felix (y José) Lexus-Riley's Top Dog.

In the 2009 version something had to give way between the two red, white and blue Daytona Prototypes (think about it) and the TRD "Lexus" engine would do just that when, in a pre-race announcement, was Toyota's North American marketing arm's decision to make like a horse and trot from the series at season's end.

First, though, a race and a championship was to be won.

Seizing the "last" Mid-O Toyota poignant moment as would have Shakespeare a sonnet, Pruett reminded the world that he, too, was of longstanding California stock, even though the genes directly preceding his helped make Levi jeans famous in the '49 Gold Rush instead of those who would rush to race-car finish lines.

Breaking entirely from tradition and making a green car (as in "color") do what it wasn't supposed to do were Niclas "Nic" Jönsson and Ricardo Zonta, the two sharing the No. 76 Krohn Racing Ford-Lola that had begun to field a fine but soon-to-be stilled set of racing legs.

Yet, from Pruett's perspective, like a bad dream not at all inclined to simply "go away" were fellow Californians Alex Gurney, Jon Fogarty and the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet-Riley fellows, generally otherwise linked to Texas, who placed third.

June 20, 2010 - Round 7 of the 2010 Rolex Sports Car Series -- Memo Rojas, finally establishing himself as a competent driver in his own right and among Mexico's best, put the No. 01 TELMEX BMW-Riley on pole and Pruett would end it there. Quietly establishing itself as the team to actually beat, the TELMEX duo combined to lead 64 of the race's 107 total laps, yielding to only four others (Nelson Philippe, 18 laps; Michael Valiante, 14; Mike Forest, 8; Buddy Rice, 3).

Mike Shank Racing's No. 60 Crown Royal XR Ford-Riley scored its second podium thus far in 2010, John Pew having qualified the car 10th and Ozz Negri bringing the car home second. In third was AIM Autosports' No. 61 Pacific Mobile/Bio sign Ford Riley with Burt Frisselle and Mark Wilkins at the wheel, the former having qualified right where the latter brought it home.

Sept. 17, 2011 - Round 12 of the 2011 Rolex Sports Car Series Season?

One thing is clear going into today's EMCO GEARS Classic at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course: Pruett and Rojas need only to drive complete, 30-minute segments apiece to walk with the 2011 Rolex Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype driving championship. Should the pair prevail at race end, it will amount to Pruett's fourth and Rojas' third win at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course since the Daytona Prototype first started competing here in 2003.

Perhaps all the more remarkable is the sheer dominating nature of the Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix (y José) Sabates team at the track since it first competed at Mid-O in 2004.

Already testing its 2012 version of the Gen 3 Daytona Prototype at its top-secret coast-down tunnel, one might as well expect to see the TELMEX team continue its roll.

Later,

DC

“CAN YOU SAY, ‘ADIEU, OH CANADA?’”

MONTREAL – Since first coming here (coinciding only with the first Grand-Am race here), this most recent north-of-the-border trip uniquely produced a first: Ol’ DC climbed aboard “The Metro” and got where he needed to go. On a first attempt, yet!.

It also may be his last, whether willingly or otherwise.

Furthermore, though, “NASCAR” in whatever form may not return at all to Montreal – or so proclaimed numerous NASCAR “gear” vendor signs greeting those offing the Metro (works for me because “disembarking” doesn’t), reading “ADIEU NASCAR!” and “80-percent off!” the idea being the vendors would rather now take a hit on already absurdly priced products than sell none whatsoever in the future, evidently not yet learning of this thing called “The Internet.”

The issue boils down to bragging rights, according to “The Guys Having Connections,” (TGHC) a.k.a., “informed sources,” because Québécois want it all: a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

Anyone who knows anything about everything knows the difficulty in getting a Sprint Cup date.

Just ask Kentuckians, who were a part of or witness to the travails of Kentucky Speedway lawsuits (involving NASCAR), a buy-out (by O. Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports Inc.) and a race/date/site shift (from Atlanta; another SMI site).

From track construction to date shifts, all told getting a Kentucky Sprint Cup date probably cost somewhere just north of $1 billion when such was finally consummated earlier this year.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Quebec, governmental, travel or “somebody’s” authorities are withholding a $500,000 contribution toward advertising, thinking such will force NASCAR into scheduling a Circuit Gilles Villeneuve NSCS date.

Such even has left one of Quebec’s greatest native sons, Jacques Villeneuve, greatly consternated.

“They are a proud people,” said one of the TGHC’s in reference to the Mexi . . ., er, Canadian, er, Mont Royale standoff.

Just for the heck of it: 2,000 $500,000 units comprise $1 billion.

Chump change, huh?

Do the Québécois in charge really think the $500,000 being held hostage will move mountains?

Interestingly, a $250,000 provincial Quebec grant and $225,000 from Ottawa (Canada’s functional equivalent of Washington, D.C., in the U.S.) were okayed for next weekend's Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières – a motorsport event which draws far more from within the province than without, especially when it doesn’t have a Patrick Dempsey to offer.

Then there’s the road-course aspect .

For some odd, perhaps quaint reason this poor soul has yet to grasp (and, all told, may never grasp), NASCAR clings to holding only two road course events annually for its most vaunted series where drivers proudly proclaim themselves, if no one else, as “the best.”

Without any intention whatsoever of making light of skills involved in oval track racing, one still ain’t gonna git Ol ‘ DC to trash talk road-course racing by comparison.

But he will bash the idea of holding two races among the 36 “officially scheduled events” on the NSCS calendar.

Add a Daytona qualifier here, a “Winston Million,” there, and before long one realizes fewer than 5-percent of Sprint Cup’s annual calendar is devoted to turning in any direction other than just “left.”

Recently, Jimmie Johnson said he’d like to see more road course races on the Sprint Cup schedule while Matt Kenseth expressed disdain for such, his seeing the NSCS as being “rooted” in bull rings scattered throughout North America.

One is just left wondering which of the two drivers have had the greater road course racing success, huh? Take a guess.

In a Thursday, after-dinner happenstance meeting outside of “Vargas” in downtown Montreal, NASCAR Nationwide Series director Joe Balash affirmed that doubtful would be he and his NNS crew hanging at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve beyond the scheduled Sunday race date, unlike last week’s Sprint Cup race at The Glen which spilled like a rainstorm runoff from Sunday to Monday.

If more frequently made were the point that road-course types tend to run a show as originally scheduled – and therefore go home on time – perhaps more “Left Turn Traditionalists” (LTTs) might willingly accept more road course events.

Yet, the boys getting the glory largely are clueless, what with “private” aircraft and personal valets (some would say “go-fers’) abounding who “handle” life’s little hassles.

Noting much is to be said for experiencing those little hassles, even a single unexpected additional day’s worth of on-the-road lodging, local transportation, food (as many as three more meals per day for each team member; 16 for Tom Seabolt) and even better, being told “there is no more room at the inn” – such otherwise regularly happening to anyone and everyone else, fans included, who suddenly learn a race has been postponed.

You know, it’s not like a hotel can cancel all the rooms it booked for still other folks or that commercial air carriers like Delta can or will just show up at an airport with a few extra but empty aircraft alone reserved for delayed team members, fans, media and other workers.

Yep, a delayed race really can put a crimp into a whole bunch of well laid plans, as the gods have attempted at Montreal for many of the NNS dates run there so far but which, as noted, still holds the show as scheduled.

Yet, with all its positives – not the least of which would be proving that NSCS drivers are “real men” – such ain’t gonna happen with the Sprint Cup teams and, if it were, likely wouldn’t happen at Montreal anyway, especially now that the provincial gov’ment has decided to, um, cajole NASCAR’s cooperation.

Having been a part of racing for many decades, this writer has yet to see the equal in ancillary race attendance – that is, family and friends who accompany team members – as those who will come to Montreal for this race.

Husbands and wives find romance; a father – as did this one – will introduce children to a truly cosmopolitan North American city having few equals worldwide.

Do the hard math with the available numbers, e.g., “team members from two North America racing series” (NASCAR’s Grand-Am and Nationwide series) and then reasonably, even conservatively extrapolate the numbers of those who accompany team, media, or fans coming from all over North America, along with international origins, and it soon is easy to see how that $500,000 is easily “repaid” many times over.

“Proud” has its place.

This one is misplaced.

Later,

DC

POST NJMP, PRE-WGI-2

BUMPING AND GRINDING

Practiced nearly without fail at nearly every race, the guys from Chip Ganassi Racing w/ Felix (where’s José?) Sabates No. 01 TELMEX BMW Riley will store their car and head for the barn (“hotel” to you, Gary) when just about every other team still is thrashing on this or that for whatever race may be on the weekend’s schedule.

Not so at New Jersey.

Situated in one of NJMP’s main garage’s 10 spaces the TELMEX team worked well into Thursday and Friday’s late-afternoon hours, alternately changing suspension and gear components – ultimately allowing Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas to clinch their first NJMP victory on Saturday.

Still, the race hardly was a cruise for the TELMEX squad, which was penalized a “stop-and-go” for having rear-ended Ricky Taylor (celebrating a birthday this week, BTW) and his No. 10 SunTrust Chevrolet-Dallara.

“I felt bad about that,” Pruett said Sunday while at Indy (more on that, later). “I’m not sure what happened, but I didn’t get into him intentionally.”

HOT, HOT, HOT

Race car drivers get the lion’s share of well-deserved recognition for skills and fortitude absent of mere mortals, yet racing remains a team sport, as was demonstrated in the No. 40 Patrick Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8’s final pit stop.

A fresh Charles Espenlaub dumped the car’s clutch and roared away from the Dempsey Racing pits as a dumbfounded crewmember stood holding a desperately needed fresh recharge for the car’s cool-suit apparatus.

The cool suit easily will turn into a “hot” suit without the means to keep cool the water circulating through its veins, potentially leaving a driver’s cardiovascular system stressed beyond recovery, especially in a 130-degree cockpit.

Though admittedly an editorial shot in the dark, that inability to cool Espenlaub may well have contributed to a Lap 44 incident in which the No. 31 Whelen Corvette of Boris Said was “door-slammed,” as co-driver Eric Curran later put it. A winner just weeks earlier at Road America, Said’s Corvette had clawed upward through the New Jersey pack to eighth place when the car’s suspension was irreparably damaged by the “slam” and exited the race.

Meanwhile, the team’s No. 41 Global Diving sister car, driven by James Gué and Dane Cameron scored that driving duo’s first podium in 2011. Gué and Leh Keen, now paired with Andrew Davis at Brumos Racing, teamed for a 2010 race win in the No. 41 Mazda at The Glen.

The Brumos pair, driving the No. 59 Porsche, sit atop the standings by but a single point over the No. 88 of Jordan Taylor and Bill Lester – that single championship point as likely as not a courtesy of crewmembers Sean Mabry, Sean Murphy and Adain Murawski, who despite fire suits, helmets and a 139-degree pit road asphalt repaired a broken drive (aka, “accessory” or “fan”) belt on the compactly contained, complexly belted Porsche flat-six engine.

The broken belt drew a lot of attention from Porsche factory representatives, who surmised something, perhaps a bolt, was propelled into the engine compartment at just the wrong moment, wedging between the belt and a pulley, quickly stressing and snapping a belt pushed beyond the limits of a belt tensioner.

At New Jersey, Davis and Keen finished 12^th, while Lester and Taylor finished fourth, the former seriously putting a dent in the latter’s previous 10-point championship points lead.

Presently within 20 or fewer points of the leading Keen and Davis are another nine drivers beyond the aforementioned No. 88 Autohaus Chevrolet Camaro pair, all having a legitimate shot at winning or influencing the championship in the Rolex Series’ three remaining 2011 GT races.

CHANGING GEARS?

The Mazda RX8 appears to be heading toward the end of its production line, if the rumblings prove correct. One might consider scoring a Patrick Dempsey autographed version ASAP. For sure, this writer could do it but, how such might impact Mazda-associated Rolex Series teams remains to be seen.

Originally scheduled for an introduction at the Aug. 13 (a great date if one isn’t superstitious) Rolex Series short-course race at The Glen, it appears an announcement of the new Generation-3 Chevrolet “Corvette” Daytona Prototype (officially, “DPG3”) will come at a later date.

With the NASCAR crowd in full force at Watkins Glen during its originally scheduled date, it was believed to be the best possible date for an announcement by some within the automaker’s upper ranks. Still others, though, for unspecified reasons, felt it should come at a later date.

Conspiracy theorists have seen anything and everyone, from the EPA to other sanctioning body principals, as having had undue influence on the Chevy guys – even to the possible extent of canceling the project.

Interestingly, Chevrolet is into the Rolex Series unlike ever before. Really into it.

SUGGESTED READ

Gordon Kirby is someone this writer once “wanted to be” upon “growing up.”

No, it wasn’t that Kirby is that much older than yours truly, it’s just that he started pursuing his love of motorsports writing much sooner, relatively speaking, and in ability still is light years ahead of this correspondent.

Kirby, who has written for a just about any and every English-language motorsports-centered periodical published over the last four decades, also has impacted the sport as have few others of his ilk.

One of this writer’s earliest memories of Kirby is encountering him in the late 1980’s in Road Atlanta’s now long gone media center. To say it was an “intimate setting,” particularly when IMSA was in town, is an understatement of considerable proportion.

Already an AutoWeek “rock star,” Kirby would notably later ply his incredible talent at Racer, as well as authoring seven motorsports-related books.

And he’s still at it.

Suggested, then, as recent commentary published by Kirby: The Way It Is/ Struggling for an identity.

INDY DEMO

On hand for a Sunday static display at Indianapolis Motor Speedway were the No. 01 TARGET/TELMEX BMW-Riley out of the nearby Chip Ganassi Racing w/ Felix Sabates shop and Doran Racing’s No. 77 Office Depot/MacDonald’s/Freescale/HP Ford-Dallara, from slightly farther away (Cincinnati).

Pruett was joined by a small squad of TELMEX Racing’s elite crew at Indianapolis Motor Speedway Sunday, staging a pre-race “demonstration” that showcased NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR Grand-Am Rolex Series cars which took a three wide one-lap pass just minutes before this year’s Brickyard got underway.

The Rolex Series’ DP and GT cars, along with the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series, will start the three-day smorgasbord of racing, officially billed as the “Super Weekend at The Brickyard.” For exacting information, check out the countdown clock at right, which will be adjusted when the actual scheduled is published.

With at least a few major questions remaining – not the least of which is the IMS road course’s exact configuration – a September start of IMS road-course tire tests is slated, apparently to be followed by at least two others prior to the 2012 Super Weekend.

One can catch footage of Sunday’s “demonstration” at

Billed as the opening act for the, it’ll be a busy 27 July, 2012 for the Continental and Rolex squads, the latter of which on Friday will practice, qualify, race, celebrate in Victory Lane and then make like a sheepherder and get the flock out.

INTO THE FUTURE (Watkins Glen 2)

Media types, among which occasionally found is yours truly, who dabble (have hard cards, especially) in multiple series deal with hundreds of “press releases” just about every weekend. Indeed, “vacation time” comes in November, when just about everyone in racing chills to a large extent. The email doesn’t stop, for sure, but the number does fall, gratefully.

One from Ryan Dalziel kinda caught the eye:

“THE PLOT: Ryan Dalziel could be forgiven for being sick of the sight of Chip Ganassi Racing duo Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett.

The flying Scotsman has spent most of the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series campaign looking at their exhaust pipe.

But, as he heads into New York for the Watkins Glen 200 this weekend, August 12-13, Ryan is determined to give the Fort Lauderdale-based Starworks Motorsport team a vital shot in the arm.” (Italics added)

Dalziel is one of the most talented Scottish racers around (methinks Dalziel actually will appreciate that distinction more so than, say, “among the world’s best”) but the wrong things seem to happen at the wrong time for the personable chap – such as Henry Zogaib (whose travails soon are to be fodder for an update, herein).

Dalziel’s Starworks team, headed by the ever resourceful Peter Baron – who squeezes pennies as well anyone – recently bought a couple of Penske Porsche-configured Rileys for a reasonable price (can you say “fire sale?”) and first deployed one of the acquired cars at Road America.

Dalziel and co-driver Alex Popow (darn near unknown outside of his native Venezuela and neighboring South American countries, Popow’s very, very capable) need only to get a handle of the car to do as well as the team-wide talent reflects and it may well come at the Glen, where keeping the revs up is a rewarding experience.

This weekend at the Glen is gonna be busy, what with NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide, Rolex Series and others hanging around.

Kind of provides a preview of The Shape of Things To Come.

Later,

DC

NIGHT SONG GONE

DAYTONA BEACH – “Consciousness streaming,” as was ol DC’s writing style once characterized by one dear friend, (yes, Ol’ DC actually has such; one or two, anyway). That is, when his style is unconstrained by the narrow pillars and conventions of journalism, the AP Stylebook and social mores.

(Surely, given the state of American education, someone out there thinks the, um, plural for “more” is entirely misplaced, above.)

For sure, the reader is about to enter another dimension of sight, sound, thought and time; you’re about to enter Ol’ DC’s mind (with coincident “Thanks” and apologies to Rod Serling) – about the only thing that causes Jon Fogarty great pain. Well, that and anyone other than himself holding a race lead.

Now, on to the Rambling Prose (a great Nat King Cole song?):

To be quite frank, the new Grand-Am Ferrari Italia, or “458” or “maybe both,” that tested Tuesday (and today) at Daytona International Speedway is a letdown. Big Time.

Then again, perhaps still adversely affected, this Prancing Horse admirer still is recovering from his visit to New Jersey Motorsports.

(When NJM truly has a facility that is a park, a la Birmingham’s Barber Motorsports Park, then “Park” will herein become a regularly featured part of NJM.

(Until then, it’s just another Sebring - absent a racing heritage that allows toleration of The Zoo. And, yes, Sebring once actually was a U.S. Army Air Forces base, too. No, it didn’t manufacture thunderbolts. It had ‘em and still has ‘em; plus oranges. Lots and lots of oranges that also were vital to the war effort – for should a pilot have scurvy, he didn’t fly.

(In faraway Daytona Beach – from Sebring, not NJM – it, too, had an airbase, and a naval hospital and a beach with lots of scantily clad beautiful women, for the attention of whom even non-pilots claimed to fly.

Furthermore, July heat and humidity are an Alabama staple, so the recent heat wave that hit New Jersey Motorsports’ neighborhood was a relative lightweight, being only a big deal to those unfamiliar with 100+-degree heat indexes.

Why, with NJM heat so great, one woman, apparently bereft of reality, carried a fully deployed chartreuse umbrella, evidently expecting a hard rain instead of harsh sunshine.

If not heat nor recovery from such, perhaps, then, the Ferrari Italia held unmet expectations.

Yes, Ol’ DC does remember watching Pedro Rodriguez piloting a Dino – a name which most Americans associated more with Sinclair Oil’s dinosaur-mascot caricature instead of Enzo Ferrari’s much-grieved lost son – and most especially, the 312P, born of a time when a great battle had been joined between a previously spurned suitor and the object of his passion.

Bottom line, though: During that time period Ford Motor Company as often as not won on the sportscar front.

Beyond the obvious differences in language and styling were beliefs of how cars should be geared and powered, four speeds for the throaty Americans (two for Chaparral); five speeds for the screaming Italians.

As night settled on the world’s sportscar endurance tracks rarely did one see light coming from anyone, anything other than the competitors – whether a car’s or its driver carrying a “torch” so as to affect a fix of it.

And while one could often ascertain a car make through the front or rear lights’ positioning, one also had to risk his retinas doing so.

As much as any dance anywhere, an endurance race has a rhythm which changes with the hour, ranging from the bold brashness of the daylight to the settled rote of night.

By the wee dark hours of a race most fans were and still are disposed of being anywhere but a racetrack’s stands, which then are left to channel and shape the sound going through its bleachers as would gently swaying wind chimes in a breeze.

With those sounds came the ability to identify a car, a team, a winner-to-be and, often with its silence, a loser, too.

While there are few grunts to be found equaling that of an American V8, Ferrari was king of the night’s song – one missing from the also-beautiful Prancing Horse of the last two days.

“That’s treatable,” offered a Grand-Am type, known forever herein simply as “Nine Lives.”

And that’s exactly what Ol’ DC most wanted to hear – for now.

Later,

DC

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

 

MILLVILLE, N.J. – Let’s just get straight to the point, courtesy of reporter Jason Mazda and the Press Of Atlantic City:

“Driver Max Angelelli said the economy and the new cars are poor excuses, though. He blamed Grand-Am management, and specifically director of competition Dave Spitzer, who was not at the track Friday and was unavailable for comment.

“’I feel like he is responsible for this,’ the always outspoken Angelelli said. ‘Before he came on board (in March 2008), we had 15, 20 DPs. Now he's on board, and we have eight. It's a coincidence, or he's doing something bad. My opinion, it's not a coincidence, because the economy was bad and now it's recovering, and we can see other championships growing. We can see IndyCar growing. We can see part of the (American Le Mans Series) growing. But we're losing cars.’”

Think th-th-th-th-that’s all folks? Hah!

Same reporter; same publication; different mouth:

“His team owner, Wayne Taylor, said one of the big problems is a rule limiting most teams to only five sets of tires for an entire weekend. Since three sets are generally needed for a race, it often leads to teams skipping practice sessions because they don't have enough tires. But designated teams with either new drivers or "pro-ams" - for whom driving is a second career - get an extra set, and thus more track time.

“’It's not really exciting when you spend all this money and all this effort on the track and on the cars, and you're sitting in the pit lane (unable to practice),’ Taylor said. ‘I'm just sick of it. Really, it's just ridiculous.’”

“’It makes no sense whatsoever. It is just absurd. And I just don't know how much more one can go and sell something when before you get to the racetrack you know you can't even get out to run.’”

REALLY, THEY AIN”T DUMMIES

Beyond the once high-octane world in which they live, Max Angelelli and Wayne Taylor are enmeshed in business ventures throughout the world, driver management (Penske Racing’s Ryan Briscoe among those represented) and are a closely knit “family” all but lacking common “bloodlines.”

For the most part, Angelelli has been Ricky and Jordan Taylor’s mentor, both having access to the thoughts and talents of not just one “great,” but two when father Wayne Taylor is considered.

It’s little wonder the two already are forces with which to be reckoned.

IS BREAKING UP HARD TO DO . . .

. . . or just appears so?

For months rumors have swirled that Taylor , who has denied such, would take his SunTrust sponsorship and undertake IndyCar racing, which Taylor Racing already has to some extent, having embraced the Indy “Light” series.

So, then, like lovers having seen different lights at the end of their tunnel of love, Taylor and Angelelli have actually addressed the same subject, they’ve just taken different tacks.

It’s kind of interesting to note, however, that for all of Angelelli’s criticism of Grand-Am’s David Spitzer, he could likewise have criticized his business partner, as well as hisownself, for Spitzer being there in the first place.

Yes, Spitzer is qualified, but who hasn’t seen qualified people – from race car drivers to engineers – otherwise lack a job largely owed to who they don’t know?

Taylor, Angelelli and Spitzer were first an item when they teamed on the Cadillac prototype program, where Spitzer served in a variety of functions, all upper-management level. They evidently liked him just fine, then, and afterward, when Spitzer scored the Grand-Am job after Taylor put his name in nomination.

Yet, by the end of Spitzer’s first season that support was fast dwindling.

Where and how this’ll all play out isn’t now known, of course.

Later,

DC

CHILL, MAN, CHILL

 

THE PITS . . .

. . . Which, in this case, the meaning is more akin to “bad news” or “at a low point” than that stretch of asphalt on which are found defined areas for servicing a race cars temporarily at rest.

Never before has this scribe climbed aboard two airplanes in which race car drivers have been more bummed.

From Daytona Beach and it’s infamous northerly “transfer station to everywhere,” Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International - where still more grumbling sorts were added – drivers are bummed that their weekend was to be spent in Millville, New Jersey’s New Jersey Motorsports Park. (Below image courtesy of NJMP)

Surprisingly, especially given past hassles at the track, the drivers’ attitude had more to do with being in a car at NJMP rather than being at the track, itself.

Mostly centered on “heat issues” – National Weather Service temperature predictions say the thermometer’s ambient readings will reach 100 degrees Saturday and Sunday – drivers predicted cockpit temperatures would easily climb into the 140-degree range.

At Lime Rock Park, GAINSCO Auto Insurance’s Alex Gurney (at left, with Jon Fogarty in hat, at Miller Motorsports Park in 2009) all but poured forth from his No. 99 Chevrolet-Riley Daytona Prototype, so exhausted was he after a fourth-place finish.

Dehydrated far more than even he realized (which is a commonly occurring aspect of the condition) the two-time Daytona Prototype championship-winning driver, most recently victorious at Laguna Seca (with capable assists in all above categories from Fogarty, of course) was on the tail-end of his recovery when he arrived in Watkins Glen for the Sahlen’s 6 Hours at The Glen three days later.

It was a relatively hot Lime Rock Park race for everyone – especially given the humidity readings after morning storms drenched the area – but at Lime Rock it was Gurney’s cool suit that delivered the knockout blow.

“As a whole, I’m concerned for my drivers,” GAINSCO’s “brains’ on the pit stand Kyle Brannan (left) said Thursday in the NJMP paddock between tweaking the “Red Dragon’s” settings for Friday’s first Rolex Series practice.

Brannan suggests one principal improvement: “Move the radiator from in front of the drivers.”

Failing such, for years an evidently intractable position within the series, “then allow us more air channeling” within the driver’s compartment, Brannan insisted.

While Gurney’s coolsuit failure can be blamed for aggravating the situation, then would it have been needed at all had Lime Rock’s temperatures been far lower? (The coolsuit shown below is offered by FAST Racing Products, long a leader in offering driver-safety products. It was not the coolsuit worn by Gurney, by the way).

“Yeah, in the 30’s, maybe,” one driver sarcastically offered.

“I’m not interested in playing follow-the-leader with anyone in anything,” said a race-winning Rolex Series’ GT driver, who like many drivers quoted herein wasn’t interested in repercussions possibly arising from “shaking the tree,” and thus shall remain anonymous.

“But the series needs to adopt a policy of assuring cars run cooler in the cockpit. They’re gonna have a serious accident that’s attributable to either heat (exhaustion) or (too-high) carbon dioxide levels – if they haven’t already,” the driver continued, hinting that Gunter Schaldach’s Road America flight of the No. 07 CoolTV Chevrolet Camaro might’ve been carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide related.

Another driver, separate from the above discussion, spoke of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) having mandated maximum in-cockpit temperature readings and that Chevrolet has for years been working on a now-successful race-car air conditioning system. The ACO rule requires all closed-cockpit cars, prototype to touring, be fitted with air conditioning systems which maintain a temperature of no more than 32-degrees centigrade (89.6-degrees Fahrenheit).

“If we could just get better airflow through the car, maybe that’d help,” said still another driver whose race car is well known for hitting the highest of the upper-level heat ranges in the Rolex Series.

“Right now, I’m jumping into a sauna that gets hotter than the one I’ve got at home,” he said.

“The biggest problem for transportation of any sort is the efficiencies that are lost to throwing a mass at an atmosphere. And the faster you attempt to travel, the more exponentially significant air-mass resistance becomes.

“The way we’ve overcome that condition, to only a given extent though, is through aerodynamics. A more aerodynamically efficient car allows for greater top-end speeds and fewer BTUs expended in getting there.

“The downside is that aerodynamic efficiency quickly channels air around and away from the car. Make a car more aerodynamic and the car consequently also becomes hotter because airflow into a car creates drag, which creates a whole new set of circumstances to overcome insofar as a race car is concerned.”

While a cool suit failure can be blamed for what has happened to Gurney and others, if interior car temperatures were a tad more bearable no one would have to wear cool suits that too often fail when a failure of just once in a racing car could lead to a conflagration of considerable proportion.

In an ESPN.com report, a 23-year-old Motocross rider died earlier this month after suffering a heat stroke during the RedBug National in Buchanan, Michigan.

According to the story, Bill Lichtle, older brother of the deceased rider, Josh Lichtle, said, "He got overheated, basically, and by the last laps he was practically passing out on the bike. He just wouldn't quit."

Rushed to Saint Joseph’s Medical Center just across the state line in Mishawaka, Indiana, Josh Lichtle was placed in an induced coma in an attempt to reduce his core body temperature and save vital organs subject to failure when overheated. Nevertheless, the rider was pronounced dead early the following morning.

The high temperature recorded at nearby South Bend Regional Airport on the day Lichtle died?

93 degrees.

That’s at least seven-degrees cooler than the predicted ambient temperature for this weekend’s Rolex Series and Continental Tire races.

It was Josh Licktle’s “wouldn’t quit” attitude that so closely reminds one of Gurney – and just about every top driver ever seen.

Perhaps one can make the argument that such is a common but undesirable trait; maybe it’s the difference between a champion and a loser.

How about an argument that these types of drivers are needed, both in terms of entertainment (“door-to-door, wheel-to-wheel racing excitement!”) and marketing the series (“poster children”) and that they, in having such importance, should actively be preserved?

It seems, then, not killing-off drivers as a result of too much heat is of as great importance as any HANS device, fire extinguisher or five-point seatbelt harness.

Later,

DC

MOVING ON UP, QUICKLY

 

Leh Keen and Andrew Davis, driving the No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche GT3 scored their second win in three races Saturday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, in the process posting a 10-point lead over second place in the Rolex Sports Car Series GT-driving championship.

In arrears by four championship points to the No. 88 Autohaus Chevrolet Camaro’s Bill Lester and Jordan Taylor as the series arrived on the Left Coast, Keen and Davis had a veritable Sunday drive when the Autohaus Camaro was “ticketed” for malfunctioning brake lights and sent to the pits for a repair – and a lap deficit when the dust settled. Taylor, more or less, was left to manually signal his use of brakes. Really.

One wonders the big deal. Had everyone just followed one car length for every10 mph in speed, all would’ve been well. Then again, that particular mandate is in the Florida Drivers Handbook and, perhaps owed to its lack of funds, perhaps California opted to leave it out of their counterpart so as to save some ink costs. Ink money gets big when one talks tens-of-millions of books.

Still in the championship’s top-3 is Turner Motorsports’ Paul Dalla Lana, now alone in third place after Bill Auberlen went elsewhere to race elsewhere.

Raphael Matos was tabbed to render assistance to Dalla Lana in Auberlen’s absence but a needed strong run eluded the team, whose No. 94 BMW M3 finished eighth.

The really bad news is that Auberlen, who raced at Lime Rock Park, is fourth in the ALMS’ GT championship, having about half-as-many points as does first place (Joey Hand, Dirk Mueller) in the ALMS GT championship hunt.

Dropping like a rock in the Rolex Series GT championship points – wherein the team stood in first just four races ago – in one Saturday race absence, Auberlen went from equal standing with Dalla Lana to ninth in the points.

It’s a decent bet that contractual obligations and all that goes with such (primarily: hand tying) caused Auberlen’s “no-win” scenario.

Too bad; Auberlen’s a helluva driver well worthy of gaining even more driving-championship crowns and one suspects he’s wearing a long face about now. So, too, Turner Motorsports, who also is a quality outfit.

Meanwhile, reversed are the long faces worn earlier this season by the boys in the red, white and blue No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche.

Extra credit is given for their tenacity, too.

WHAT GOES UP . . .

Falling steadily over in the Daytona Prototype championship points chase are the dual-Action Express Racing (sorry, couldn’t help myself with the hyphen’s use) cars of Darren Law and David Donohue, in the No. 5 AER Porsche-Riley, and the No. 9 AER Porsche-Riley driven by J.C. France, Terry Borcheller and Joao Barbosa.

A look at the latest Rolex Series points chart shows the teams as being among the more consistent in the series, the biggest problem being theirs is on the lower rungs of the “top-performing” teams ladder.

As unabashedly stated earlier this season by this observer, the winning of a championship by any other than one of the AER teams would be on a road on which cars would have to first pass through AER.

Donohue and Law have pretty well stayed in the standing’s fourth and fifth-place vicinity after a ninth-place Rolex 24 at Daytona season-opening start – their worst finish to date in 2011! A win would have and may yet still bolster the team in the championship fight, but it needs to come soon.

So, too, must the No. 9 AER car pick up its performance, which has gone from offering a credible fight for the championship’s top rung to slipping one below their fellow drivers’ fourth-place standing.

Scoring a win, two podiums and three top-5’s at season’s start, the No. 9 AER team has since slowly spiraled downward, posting one sixth, two sevenths and an eighth-place finish in the last four races.

And the drive-through team?

The same team which in 2005 arrived at their first Laguna Seca Daytona Prototype race with a borrowed red Shelton Ferrari hauler.

“Finally,” one journalist thought to himself, having nearly countless times seen Shelton cars at IMSA v. 1.0 races, “Ferrari has arrived!”

Nope.

Then a “Gurney” was mentioned.

“Dan?”

Nope.

“With a Ferrari Red hauler, Riley DP and shirts, okay then, what’s the deal with this Blackhawk Racing operation?”

While Jon Fogarty had yet to don a black-and-red firesuit, Alex Gurney, Bob Stallings, Terry Wilbert and the rest of the No. 99 GAINSCO team had arrived.

Stallings – largely unrecognized as having thrown the gas on a simmering DP “pro-driving-duo” fire – would soon learn he needed to replace himself with a pro (Fogarty) to drastically improve the odds.

Of course, after scoring championships in 2007, 2009 and fighting like heck for a 2010 repeat, this year fans, and even those disinclined of such, wondered, “What the heck happened to GAINSCO?”

(Oh, to be of such recognition that only two syllables are needed for speaker and listener to know of what is meant; the first to be known as simply as is GAINSCO and TELMEX today was “Red Bull,” a.k.a., the No. 59 Fabcar-Porsche of drivers David Donohue and Mike Borkowski, the latter giving way in 2004 to a former Picchio DP-driving Darren Law.)

Well, it’s about time the GAINSCO guys really showed up (coinciding with Mrs. Stallings’ return, too, BTW).

For the Red Dragon team the Grand-Am Daytona Prototype racing season didn’t exactly start well, in four races tallying only one second-place (some teams would love to have one podium; just one) along with an eighth, a 10th and 12th-place finishes.

Compiling an ordinal a 4-3-2-1 finishing streak over the last four races, “They’re ba-ack!”

But it might be too la-ate.

Nevertheless, having finally punched their way out of whatever bag had previously contained them, one just knows the team is again having fun and everything’s better when it’s fun.

VIR CANCELS AMA PRO RACE

What’s a motorcycle race story doing in Cold Pit?

Below (in part) is a 2 + 2 story, because no matter how you add it, the final tally looks to be the same.

“DAYTONA BEACH, FL (July 11, 2011) - It is with deep regret that AMA Pro Racing is forced to announce VIR's cancellation of the Suzuki White Lightening Nationals, Round 8 on the AMA Pro Road Racing season calendar. Despite AMA Pro Racing's efforts to preserve the originally scheduled August 12-14 event, VIR staff notified AMA Pro Racing late Monday, July 11, of its final decision not to host or promote the race weekend.”

Answer: A 2012 Rolex Series Race at VIR just became improbable, no matter how you add it. Think about it.

Later,

DC

CORPORATE SPEAK

DAYTONA BEACH – Now back on hallowed ground – well, at least in the same neighborhood, give or take – just about the only thing remaining to churn is rumor and innuendo, not that Ol’ DC would resort to conveying either, of course.

BETTER WATCH OUT

Ah, life in, around and near the corporate world is what many embrace and some disdain.

It’s got some positives, assuredly, and especially for those willing to sacrifice or consciously stifle that unique human quality of creativity,  living on the edge or, put yet another way, “thinking outside of the box.”

Mostly, it’s a culture of fear that quashes the latter, ultimately leading one to speak or do what he thinks the boss wants to hear or believes the boss wishes to do – thus caught in a self-constructed crossfire of confusion that causes one to hold a tongue or, even, refrain from even seeking a boss’ opinion, rote’s mediocrity then reigns.

Oddly, such generally results in the promotion of an ideology diametric to that which the boss desires, “the boss” having gotten where he is through innovation, quick responses to given situations and not going where today’s non-entrepreneurial corporate guy would even think to go.

And what has prompted such rant from Ol’ DC, perhaps making proud one Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, (assuming she was still alive)?

"Kentucky Speedway regrets the traffic conditions . . ."

Such statement being issued late Sunday evening after an undetermined but evidently substantial number of fans failed to even gain entrance to Kentucky Speedway’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race before being ordered to return to from whence they came.

(What was that old adage: “Go where you want to go; do what you want to do?” Conditionally speaking, that is.)

IN A WORD

Kentucky Speedway general manager Mark Simendinger on Sunday evening issued that statement, sent through email and posted on the track’s website, in which used was the aforementioned “regret,” most likely in an attempt through nuance to appear as though he was apologizing without directly apologizing. Likely feared was that an actual “apology” most likely would’ve opened a “liability door” through which the corporate guys are loathe to pass.

Like an attempt to stand rigid on the beach against an approaching tsunami, the lack of a clear mea culpa was akin to an attempt to quell a fire with petrol.

On Monday, with flames higher than an elephant’s eye, Kentucky Speedway officials, joined by counterparts from “corporate,” Speedway Motorsports, Inc., issued actual apologies along with compensation offers.

THE RIGHT WAY

Early in the summer of 1969 a group of race car drivers gathered, among them Cale Yarbrough, Bobby Allison, David Pearson and Richard Petty, to form the Professional Drivers Association (PDA).

A “line in the sand” was to be later drawn on Sept. 14, 1969, at Alabama International Motor Speedway, known today as “Talladega.”

Seizing upon supposed tire issues on the day before a race for which 60,000 tickets had been sold and after squabbling with NASCAR head Big Bill France, a drivers-only meeting went late into the night, afterward resulting in Petty and a race-field’s worth of teams loading up their trailers, making like tires and rolling on down the road.

At the ready, William Henry Getty France instituted Plan B and the crowd had its 30-some-odd-car race, albeit empty of the drivers it expected, save one PDA member who crossed the line: eventual winner Richard Brickhouse.

Aware the fans on hand were probably disappointed, prior to the race Big Bill rolled up in a loudspeaker-equipped truck, grabbed a microphone and, standing before the crowd, acknowledged their disappointment, additionally telling them their tickets would also be honored at the following Daytona 500 at  Daytona International Speedway, as well as the next Talladega race.

“It was a gutsy thing for him to do,” the founder of IMSA, John Bishop, said to this journalist.

“It was one of the gutsiest things I’ve ever seen. Mr. France was kissing his profits goodbye. Just like Daytona (International Speedway), he’d been running on a shoestring at Talladega. He literally was depending on that money to keep the company (then “Daytona Speedway Corporation”) alive. But Mr. France was a man of immense integrity and he knew that the most important thing was the fan. I learned a lot that day.”

Bishop also learned a few days later the result of Big Bill “making good” would end direct France-family funding, if not other help, for his young International Motor Sports Association. But that’s another story for another day.

Also running deep was Big Bill’s appreciation for the drivers and teams who nevertheless participated in that 1969 Talladega race, as Richard Childress, who finished 23^rd that day, will surely attest today.

Evidently also running deep were the fans’ appreciation of how Big Bill handled the matter: quickly and using the most correct corporate speak of all: “fan first.”

Big Bill showed he really meant it, not mouthed it.

Thus coming to conclusion is today’s lesson.

Later,

DC

IN THE YEAR 2525

LAGUNA SECA, Calif. – With the sea fog all around and Monterey Peninsula temperatures dipping so low that the area was being cited among the coolest, if not “coldest” in the U.S. of A. over the July 9-10 weekend, why not delve into the 2012 schedule?

Yes, Ol’ DC’s kinda running a tad late on the discussion, others having grabbed a seemingly fumbled ball. In the grand scheme of things and 1.5 billion years from now, though, who really will give a darn?

But wait, there’s “but first” . . .

HALLOWED GROUND

Anyone who has any serious connection to racing has heard of “Indianapolis” or, to many, just plain “Indy.”

Daytona International Speedway figures pretty doggone prominently in racing. So, too, Sebring International Raceway, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta and Road America.

Whether conversationally or in print, those familiar with racing often use a shortened “Daytona,” “Laguna” or maybe even “’Bring,” and yet be understood.

(“Daytona” actually doesn’t exist, by the way, “not officially” at any rate. The cities of Daytona Beach, Daytona – no beach, just mainland – and the Town of Seabreeze merged in 1926 to form Daytona Beach.)

Arguably, though, no motorsports facility of abbreviated name will produce anything like a near-universal instant recognition like that of Indy’s mention. It, after all, doesn’t also compete with :”The World’s Most Famous Beach” (I don’t make them up folks; just repeatedly mouth that which marketers have worked to ingrain).

For decades organizations like AAA, USAC, CART, NASCAR and IRL have at one time or another been integral in providing the fans an Indy show. Now, NASCAR’s“Grand-Am” (and Nationwide) can as well.

Whatever the reason, however the end realized, the reality now is that should anyone (outside of those having special connections) wish to race a sportscar on Indy’s hallowed ground, that” road” exclusively runs through Grand-Am.

Fairly easy to realize, too, is that Grand-Am, “a NASCAR Company,” likely wouldn’t have gotten its Indy date had big-brother NASCAR not first gained a toe-hold there, starting with 1994’s The Brickyard 400 – the first race at Indy not solely devoted to open-wheel race cars.

The idea of conducting yet another form of racing at The Brickyard began simply enough in a casual January 2009, boardroom brain-storming session of the same nature that brought Formula One and MotoGP racing to IMS.

Still, the matter was made only more difficult when an IMS family squabble broke into the public domain and altogether shifted IMS’ power dynamics, albeit it since having been at least partially reconstituted.

The deal-sealer, though, came when NASCAR added its Nationwide Series to the mix, allowing for near-continuous Thursday-through-Sunday action at IMS (when included is the Thursday, July 26 Rolex Series and Continental Tire practice day that opens the racing weekend).

The Rolex Sports Car Series, Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, Nationwide and Sprint Cup’s “Brickyard 400” made for a three-day race event (four when added is a Thursday practice session) that is expected to give attendees one whale of a bang for the buck.

Thus born is the IMS-named “Super Weekend at the Brickyard.”

Perhaps one of the more important aspects of the 2012 schedule is that it is being scheduled at all – at least at this time of year.

No, the Rolex Series isn’t on the verge of going away.

Rather, Grand-Am president Tom Bledsoe is aggressively pursuing the 2012’s schedule completion and, should  last-minute curve balls absent themselves from the process, it’ll be concluded sooner than any in recent memory.

More importantly – again presuming corporate-type curveballs are held at bay – it’ll be a an upgraded schedule in which Indy, while still a standout, will be among rarely seen venues, at least on this side of the sports car fence.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Thus, if released earlier than has been the past case, team owners will have new, exciting venues to pitch and a reasonable timeframe in which to present that package to potential sponsors.

Corporate-year budgets generally run from October 1^st of a given year and thus are largely “closed” by mid-September of any given year.

Implementation of a corporate budget and past late releases of Grand-Am schedules has made it tough for team owners just to make a pitch to potential sponsors, much less endure a process that can take weeks, if not months, from the time of the first pitch to inking a contract full of particulars that at times seem only to be quibbling fodder for gleeful attorneys.

Though certainly not the only key in opening sponsorship doors, it’s a big one for team owners - if not the series, too, as a result.

THE UPGRADE

Treasured in the world of frequent flyers is being on the receiving end of a “bump.”

Having nothing to do with being physically jostled, it instead means the difference between flying in style – “up front” in a commercial air carrier’s first-class “cabin” – or “riding in the back of the bus” along with the chickens, pigs and various other farm animals.

Usually excitedly discussed among small groups of allied corporate types who gather in little groups facing a nearby flat screen, “The Bump” is a highly desired “ticket to paradise” – especially for transcontinental flights.

Supposedly among an airline’s means of “thanking” its most devoted, well-traveled pigeons, er, passengers (generally a corporate type), The Bump also provides the means by which to increase revenue in moving one passenger to the front and then selling his former, more affordable seat yet another passenger.

A cheap, cheap, cheap  Ol’ DC, disinclined of needlessly spending money for anything short of a Porsche, books trips well in advance of his actual travel date so as to (hopefully) score two things: a “poor-man’s first class” seat (exit-row) at an inexpensive, non-refundable price.

Though Ol’ DC quite strongly starts each “new flying year” with many bumps to first, such ground is quickly lost as his more expensively ticketed brethren start racking up their points with later-bought tickets.

But by a season’s midpoint this frequent flyer usually is just one or two below the coveted cut line.

While girding for the customary gate-scrum ritual for a recent flight, Ol’ DC found himself at line’s rear and alongside James Guè, of Patrick Dempsey Racing driving fame.

“I’m surprised you’re not up front” Ol’ DC said to Guè, who easily compiles more frequent-flyer miles in a week than does yours truly in a month.

“I was, but I wanted a seat next to my girlfriend,” said Guè. “So I gave mine up” and thus was self-sentenced to the bus’ rear. To add “rearness” to his self-inflicted injury, Guè placed himself directly between the MD-88’s two engines where any “sweet-nothings” conversation becomes a shouting match by necessity. Nice guy, he, still the same.

Having advanced to the line’s head, the ticket-scanning machine whirred, its lights flashed and bells sounded: Ol’ DC’s ticket had hit the “The Delta Lotto!” and spewing forth was a last-moment reprieve from the chicken-carrying section.

Onward to the aircraft and walking the plank (oh, the gangway nowadays has been given all manner of “nice” names, but flying on Delta of late seems ever more like a potential date with Captain Bligh or, rather, a flight-attendant wannabe), Ol’ DC wondered aloud as to the seat Guè had sacrificed for love, surrendering a sometimes provided pre-flight beverage service (a “chance” being better than “no way”).

“1-D,” Guè answered.

One and the same “winning number” Ol’ DC carried – with great appreciation.

Later,

DC

MIXED BOWL

SALINAS, California – Called hereabouts as “The World’s Salad Bowl” it doesn’t take much of a drive outside of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca to understand that about which the chamber of commerce speaks.

RINGIING THE BELL

Shout Joe Foster’s name from behind him in the Laguna paddock and he’ll whirl 180-degrees on one of his shoe heels because turning his head really isn’t a option right now.

“It’s pretty stiff,” Foster said, while doing nothing physically to belie his words.

While Gunter Schaldach was able to stroll up the hill on the outside of Road America’s Turn 1 after he launched from atop the gravel pit (he darn sure wasn’t actually IN it), Foster and his No. 40 VisitFlorida.com Mazda RX-8 was left to writhe in pain while awaiting rescue.

Well, maybe not “writhe.”

“I don’t remember a thing between the time I was hit and my first memory afterward, which was in the helicopter on the way to the hospital,” Foster said.

“I really had my bell rung.”

The recorded data (derived from a technology that Grand-Am cars aren’t supposed to have, by the way) showed Schaldach’s No. 07 CoolTV/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Camaro plowed into the rear of Foster’s Mazda having a 52-mph speed differential.

“There was nothing wrong with the front of the car. It was the rear clip that was just flattened,” he said.

I didn’t get the stiff neck from hitting the barrier. It came from getting hit in the rear, before I left the track.”

Foster’s so-called “stiff neck” is owed to a dislocated vertebra, one hopefully returned to the order in which it had long maintained until the wreck.

“All that you see me doing in the in-car (post-wreck) video, moving around; talking to the corner workers, I don’t remember a thing about it.”

Foster said the car’s remains already are undertaking repair at the Riley Technologies’ Mooresville, N.C. shop.

“Pretty much the entire rear will be new,” Foster said. “It’ll get over the hurt before I will.”

HERE TO ETERNITY

“Four tenths-of-a-second is pretty much an eternity,” No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance Chevrolet-Riley driver and second-fast qualifier Jon Fogarty said after another race in which the resurgent Dragón Rojo is fast enough to stake a front-row claim, but still fell short of a total field domination (it’s kinda like “world domination,” Mark) of the kind it has enjoyed previously, especially in 2007.

So, who and what dominated?

“I’m not overstating it when I say that the Dallara makes me look good,” SunTrust Racing’s Ricky Taylor seriously said after claiming his – not just the Dallara’s – fourth straight pole in the No. 10 Chevrolet-powered Daytona Prototype.

Uh-huh, but seriously, folks . . .

TOP DOG, AGAIN

Wayne Nonnamaker did it again: a front row.

Too bad Wayne ain’t “Joe.”

Though once performing well in the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series, the team has languished by comparison after stepping up a couple of seasons ago into the Rolex Series’ Grand Touring category.

Now hitting on all cylin . . . um, rotors, Nonnamaker cited changes made to the team’s personnel structure as being key to Sahlen’s return to rarified air.

“Jay Chapman is our team manager, who really worked at getting the team organized and put together,” Nonnamaker said after his topmost qualifying run Friday at Laguna Seca, powered by Mazda.

“Then we’ve got Kate (Kathryn) Crawford Wallace, who is our engineer and who has done just a superb job in getting us a very driveable car, improving what is already a great Mazda platform.

“I think the last piece we had to put into place was John Edwards. He and I are a perfect fit, in terms of what we do for set-up, how we drive.”

More from and/or about Laguna,

Later,

DC

ON THE ROAD TO INDY

The faithful among us will remember that indeed it was Ol' DC who first put the word out regarding Grand-Am scheduling an Indy race.

Of course, he was a year short the first time and, in one of those moments every writer loves (read with great sarcasm), soon thereafter retracted it.

It's kinda, sorta funny now (and sure to get funnier as the years pass) but I'll likely not forget my landing at Atlanta one year past, heading for some race somewhere, and my phone being alight, um, vibrating with messages far beyond the usual count. So much so that had I been elsewhere and with a certain other . . .  oh, never mind.

Each of the messages concerned my piece on the Indy date (scheduled for 2011; incorrectly so, of course). Some were congratulatory (as if I did a darn thing to get it scheduled) while others were just shrieks of joy from owners like Mike Shank, who could hardly contain himself.

Shank's racing heritage, especially in the cockpit, is open wheel. At one point, he was named "Toyota Atlantic Owner of The Year" or something to that effect after he climbed from the cockpit to the top of a pit stand. So standing on a real Indy race grid with one or more of his cars in the field was an end Shank had pursued for as long as he'd been consciously aware.

Feeling pretty darn good, I worked my voicemail, arriving at Grand-Am president Tom Bledsoe's message.

Playing voicemail tag with Mr. Bledsoe wasn't all that unusual but when I got to his succinctly stated, "DC, we've got to talk," it sent a shot across the bow that'd make proud any Coast Guard cutter gunnery crew.

Dutifully dialing Mr. Bledsoe's number, believe me, I already was clear on one thing: whatever he was to say such wasn't going to be congratulatory.

"Maybe he's giving me a heads up on JJ O'Malley getting fired," I thought to myself. "Maybe Mark Raffauf finally got some good-smelling cigars."

It was neither: Raffauf's cigars still stink, as does JJ, who every morning takes a 5-mile jog before work. (Remember the Peanuts charater who had a "dirt aura?" JJ has an aura of another kind, if you catch my drift.)

"DC, we've got a problem with your Indianapolis piece," he said as my heart sank to my stomach and my stomach went somewhere else. I honestly have no idea exactly where, but it darn sure went.
And the "Delta Jet" hadn't even arrived at the gate. Somewhere on the ATL tarmac today is my stomach.

Moments later, ensconced in my "away office" (Delta Sky Club, and to me it's worth every doggone cent) Ol' DC quickly hacked his retraction.

Today, it seems, bloggers take liberty with journalistic principals, if they even are aware of their existence. I started learning them while a high school sophomore, who scored a cherished job on the newspaper staff. (Actually, I wasn't so inclined to write as I was to goof off, and the newspaper staff was supposedly very good at that. Little did I know.)

Thus, erring factually is tough, mentally and emotionally. And that's what I did; I had erred. Did I mention embarrassment?

Perhaps wrongly so, I imagine most of today's blogger's really don't give a darn if they stretch facts or, even, if they use facts at all.

The scary part? I perceive such attitude as slowly sneaking into today's newspapers and periodicals.

The "Indy Incident," as have others of similar nature, wore heavily on this journalist's heart. It just wasn't the best fun I'd ever had, even though I had incorrectly stated only one material fact: the year in which the Indy race was to occur.

Inasmuch as "negotiations" were in a "delicate phase," this writer chilled, completely so, and the topic was self-deemed verboten in his own space until the appropriate letters had been crossed and dotted between Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Grand-Am and NASCAR.

Indeed, some of those letters had yet to be dotted and crossed when a certain open-wheel reporter weeks ago said that done was the deal.

So, as this writer today heads to Indianapolis Motor Speedway (writing this in one of Hartsfield-Jackson International's Delta Sky Clubs, BTW) now that the T's and I's have been appropriately inked and such has dried above the signatures of all involved, he can accurately say: "I told you so," even if a year out of kilter. (And what in heck IS a "kilter?")

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, the rest of the 2012 schedule, should it come together as now proposed, will be a mindblower. Finally.

Later,

DC