And For the Latest...

Aside from the chaos surrounding this author's life lately, our world of motorsports kept turning, and this past weekend was not without drama.
The IRL spent their Kentucky weekend on the concrete of Nashville Speedway, and Andretti Racing kept the motor rollin' with Dario Franchitti posting a long awaited victory. Reports held that Danica Patrick was fast again...
My man Tony "Smoke" Stewart put the pieces together for his third NASCAR Nextel Cup victory in four races Sunday at Loudon, New Hampshire. I loved the fence climb, and he rightly credited a very fast car.
Champ Car's inaugural race at Edmonton saw American AJ Allmendinger claim pole with his teammate at RuSport, Justin Wilson take 2nd. Sebastien Bourdais, however, benefitted from other's mistakes and took another victory and a 19 point lead on Paul Tracy halfway through the season. Oriel Servia drove Bruno Junquera's car to another podium, and Tracy finished third. Bruno will be fast as usual when he returns from a nasty Indy 500 wall ride. Justin Wilson is 9 points back from Tracy after Sunday's race.
The one race I watched, if you call not seeing the finish watching, was the American LeMans Series' timed race from Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. One of my favorite tracks (I can't wait until Indy cars take to it Aug. 28), sports car racing is in effect.
Four different classes race at the same time, and the GT2 category is the Porsche class.
No other car, pound for pound will ever equal the Porsche here, and Timo Barnhard and Romain Dumas drove away for their third straight victory. My man Wolf Henzler drove from the back to podium his Porsche.
In GT it's all about the Corvette's. And it was Corvette Racing's C-6R Corvettes No. 3 driven by Ron Fellows and Johnny O'Connel took their 24th career win together away from a faster No. 4 Corvette driven, through two spins and a dominant pass for the lead by Olivier Baretta and Oliver Gavin. It was the mis-handling that was the difference. The Saleen of Borchellar and Mowlem took third.
GT category is a more powerful production car category than GT2, which is lighter and less power.
P-1 and 2 are LMP's, or LeMans Prototype. The LMP 1 class is the elite of sportscar racing. The big sexy, open cockpit. With upwards of 800 h.p., LMP's are the most powerful sportscar out there, and Audi's various teams over the years have dominated this class.
Until recently, European Audi teams had dominated consistently, but USA's Champion Audi broke through this season, and are now the team to beat in the P-1 class.
Cris Dyson's Lola LMP was compettitive as usual, however a first lap fracas cost Butch Leitzinger's team a shot, and Emanuel Pirro and Frank Biela drove their No. 2 Champion Audi to victory again.
American LeMans Series has timed events, with this race timed at 2-3hours (I didn't see exactly how long and the network wasn't able to carry it in it's entirety). Once the timer reaches zero, the first place car in each class is the winner.
You should know 24Hours of LeMans is a timed, endurance race, as is 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring, long running traditions in the sportscar racing world, with 24hoers du LeMans being the ultimate it glamour and legend.
A similar racing series, Rolex Sportscar Series races at these same tracks, why they don't compete with each other is a mystery to me. But the racing is excellent, and stalwarts in these two series join together for the big one, 24 Hours of LeMans.
Clint Field and Liz Holloway drove their LMP2, Intersport Racing Lola to their 2nd win, with Indy 500 driver Jeff Bucknum and Chris McMurray taking 2nd. LMP2 class is, in power terms, equivelant to GT2 cars, however, can aerodynamically outperform them.
Finally, race-fans, we got aquainted with the upcoming A1 Grand Prix Series, an international competitive open-wheel racing series. Website at A1GP.com had excellent video of on-board shots and the car is a slightly smaller F-1 style. An adapted Pro Formula chassis if you will.
Till next time,


stay outta trouble!
-Katykarter