Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Turn 4 fence

Scott Goodyear once remarked that the beginning of the end of his racing career happened one day as he stood outside the Turn 4 fence at Michigan and watched as the other drivers barrelled past. Goodyear had just been in a serious crash and was sidelined for several weeks recovering from injuries. Standing at the fence, he saw the danger in a way he never experienced before. It seemed like every car, every one, was on a collision path with the fence, but caught traction at the last moment and went past.

This year's racing season is barreling towards us, at breakneck speed, and it seems that it surely will crash right into us where we're standing, and actually, it will crash on us, one series already has.

Rolex Grand American Series' 24 Hours of Daytona took place over last weekend. Plenty of drivers from other series competed, and it was a Daytona Prototype driven by two Indy Racing League drivers and owned by Chip Ganassi that took the overall win. Scott Dixon drove to victory, but Dan Wheldon, new teammate in the IRL drove earlier stints, and the two combined with a great car took the field by two laps. Randy Pobst led his Porsche to victory in the GT class.

Formula 1's disappointment that Team Super Aguri wont compete this year due to technical restrictions (they didn't have the proper paperwork filed on time), is tempered somewhat to find that the team is moving forward and principle owner Suzuki Aguri is preparing for the 2007 season. Recently, Aguri signed several key members of his teams management and mechanical staff. Already signed were the corp of drivers: Takuma Sato, Sakon Yamamoto and Friday driver Kosuke Matsuura. Team Super Aguri will field the formerly Arrows chassis with Honda power.