Other Motorsports (merged)

[Troy Ament]

It depends on the race. I hear Sao Paolo, Iowa, and Long Beach gets good crowds. But places like Milwaukee and New Hampshire are really low.

IDK Indycar needs to do something different cause it's getting better but not really fast enough atm. So I welcome the new regs even if the cars look a little weird

IndyCar is kind of shooting themselves in the foot, they charge the tracks $1.5 Million in sanctioning fees, require a large portion of hospitality area for themselves for free, and routinely ask tracks to give them large amounts of tickets to give out for free. One example is at Milwaukee IndyCar was asking for 10,000 tickets to hand out for free, which is a problem because Milwaukee only holds 40,000 so they would lose 25% of their ticket sales before anything has even happened.

And from what I've heard the New Hampshire race was ridiculous, *Spoiler Alert*

Spoiler

who in their right mind would restart a race while it's still raining and everyone is on slicks?

 

[Scott Webber]

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

http://www.racedepartment.com/content/1505-video-ken-block-gymkhana-four.html

 

[Günthar Rowe]

Join the read on Facebook

A very good online read!

 

[Nick Brooke]

Kimi could be at Le Mans next year according to this press release.


2007 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen will travel to Spain’s MotorLand Aragón circuit in order to test Peugeot’s LMP1 Le Mans car on Wednesday, according to Finland’s Turun Sanomat.
With the test likely to be a direct assessment of Räikkönen’s capabilities, he is being linked to a possible Le Mans 24 Hours outing with the French marque next year.
The Finn’s management team was unavailable for discussion when contacted by GPUpdate.net on Monday morning.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

Actually this isn't meant to be a troll thread But after doing some research I recently found out that Lake Speed was put into the American Hall of Fame recently. I knew he was a NASCAR driver but I didnt know that much about him so I did some research... and what I found made me laugh.

In 1978 Lake Speed was actually a very strong Kart racer. He's 6-time United States Karting champion and this got him into the 1978 World Karting Championship. Which he won on his first try. The person he beat that year? Ayrton Senna.

Now lets look at the facts:
1. Speed was 30 when he competed in 1978 so he was pretty old already
2. Senna was only 18 so he was quite far from being a developed driver.

However, after Speed won that 1978 championship. He was at a crossroad. CART and NASCAR teams approached him and a few F1 teams had some interest as well. After taking advice from Charlotte Motor Speedway's organizer, Speed decided to go into NASCAR where he became the Jean Alesi of NASCAR. Only 1 win, no championships but a lot of top 5s and top 10s. When asked why he didnt just roll the dice in F1 years later he said that the big teams didn't want him because he was American. Which is extremely ironic because the only reason why Scott Speed got into F1 was because he's American. Lake Speed is from Mississippi, he is not related to Scott Speed (ironically again), and he's the only American to have won the World Karting Championship. Speed retired from racing in 1998 after a near fatal crash hindered his twilight years of his career.

So... did the world just missed a talented American who could have potentially been good if not great in F1? I mean we all know how Michael Andretti did right? Or was did the Karting win over Senna didn't mean much? Thought it would be interesting to hear some thoughts on what could have been a good American F1 driver

 

[TheHemps]

With a name like that, he was always gonna be a racing driver wasn't he. From the day he was born haha.

 

[Luke McVicar]

Are you saying a guy From the south BEAT senna at what he called the most pure form of racing?

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

His full name is Lake Chambers Speed... I guess his parents just like naming their son after random nouns . I'm more surprised he isn't related to Scott Speed. I think its a shame he didnt get a proper go at F1 Edit: yes luke he was a lot older than senna but he still won the world karting champ

 

[William Levesque]

That's impressive

 

[My993C2]

When asked why he didnt just roll the dice in F1 years later he said that the big teams didn't want him because he was American. So... did the world just missed a talented American who could have potentially been good if not great in F1? I mean we all know how Michael Andretti did right? Or was did the Karting win over Senna didn't mean much? Thought it would be interesting to hear some thoughts on what could have been a good American F1 driver

Finishing ahead of Ayrton Senna in a race tell us that Lake Speed had skill, but one race in Karts is only one race.

All the planets must align for a driver to make it into F1. Either that or they need to have the basic skills and be backed with a lot of $$$. I know Allen Berg. Allen is a retired race car driver and he currently runs a racing school where I live. For those who don't know the name, in 1983 Allen finished in 3rd place in the British Formula 3 Championships behind only Ayrton Senna and Martin Brundle. In 1984 Senna was given his shot at F1 and we all know how well that went. Brundle was also given a shot at the F1 ranks in 1984 and while Brundle's career was not as good as Senna's, Martin did prove that he belonged in the world's elite motorsport racing series. The 3rd place finishing Allen Berg was left on the outside without a ride and it wasn't until 1986 when he got a shot at racing in F1. But only for 1/2 a season and in the crappiest car you could imagine where he was hardly given any practice time on race weekends. Now nobody is saying Allen was as good as Aryton Senna, but Allen did have the skill to be an F1 driver. Unfortunately Allen lacked a sponsor in the 1987 season and all the teams looked elsewhere to fill their seats with people who could bring in more money than Allen could. I am sure Lake Speed and Allen Berg had a few things in common when it comes to the F1 world. It may seem unfair, but it is what it is.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

I agree. I'm not making an outcry. I personally doubt that Lake Speed was as good as Ayrton Senna. I just found it interesting that he did show flashes of talent (6-times US champion and WKC) and all that happened to him was become a semi-obscure NASCAR driver. Back then CART cared a lot about sponsorships too and being from the South, he had a better time fitting in to NASCAR than CART. I remember Ken Schrader (another long time NASCAR driver) said he actually would have preferred if he became a CART/IndyCar driver but he was passed up because no one in CART wanted someone without a single shred of sponsorship.

It is rather unfortunate that talent alone won't really get you to the top but hey. That's life. You do have to wonder tho if Lake actually got a legitimate chance in F1 how history would have changed

 

[Yann Laprevotte]

When asked why he didnt just roll the dice in F1 years later he said that the big teams didn't want him because he was American.

Hmm... A bit odd considering that this great shame didn't stop Andretti from being Lotus' n°1(at the point of getting favored massively over Peterson... the rest is history), or Cheever to get a Renault drive... During the same era.

Anyway. If you base yourself on karting, then Pantano is the best racing driver of his generation.

 

[Juen-Jen Wang]

Hmm... A bit odd considering that this great shame didn't stop Andretti from being Lotus' n°1(at the point of getting favored massively over Peterson... the rest is history), or Cheever to get a Renault drive... During the same era.Anyway. If you base yourself on karting, then Pantano is the best racing driver of his generation.

It is odd but I don't think andretti got a ride cause he was American but more because of who his father is. Also Pantano was considered a massive talent before his venture in f1. After all he did win gp2 by a big margin over Bruno Senna, Lucas di Grasi, Vitaly Petrov and Pastor Maldonado.

 

[Yann Laprevotte]

Also Pantano was considered a massive talent before his venture in f1. After all he did win gp2 by a big margin over Bruno Senna, Lucas di Grasi, Vitaly Petrov and Pastor Maldonado.

I agree, massive waste of talent. Rumours say he might get an IndyCar drive next year, hope that's true so he can finally show some pace in a decent championship. He deserves it.

 

[Adam Eggbeer]

It is odd but I don't think andretti got a ride cause he was American but more because of who his father is.

His father was a farm administrator before they moved to the US and had no idea he was racing. When he did find out he wasn't happy about it.

 

[Ondrej Kapal]

Big crash done by Lucas Betti on the shakedown.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=cs&sl=cs&tl=en&u=http://www.ewrc.cz/ewrc/show.php?id=17633

 

[Luke McVicar]

i think he might be thinking of Micheal there.

 

[Yann Laprevotte]

It is odd but I don't think andretti got a ride cause he was American but more because of who his father is.

Odd I didn't notice this straight away. I was refeering to Mario, not to Michael.

 

[Rob Musgrove]

I went in to Manchester today because a little known driver who likes CAKE.. Popped in and have a driver around..

and

OMG OMG OMG..

Amazing is just a little understatement..

To get a 10th of what I felt. Turn your speakers FULL blast and put them on your chest.. That again maybe a 10th of the power you feel when your near these.

Camera pics were a little tricky on a normal digital camera with the speed he was moving..

Changed location after he did 3 runs of the 2 he was only supposed to do... Then as everyone was leaving, we hear.....

"Errr Don't move... (EVERYONE froze on the stop) Jensons going to do another run !!"

So everyone ran back to get a place at the barrier again..

So pics are Jenson on the move..

Again.. WOW - AMAZING - UNREAL and everything else like that.