Indycar Happenings sept 30

 

Five more days till they go back racing
at the Grand Prix of Houston  
but lots of other stuff going lately!
 

 

* Woo-Hoo!! Indycar will be racing on the Indy road course next May! 
Any suggestions on how we get our parents to take us out there for the whole month of May?  (It's a 10 hour trip so there's no driving back and forth.)

* Rumor has it that 2013 Indy 500 winner Tony Kanaan is going to be racing for Chip Ganassi Racing next year, though no official announcement has been made yet.

*  The Texas Motor Speedway race will be bigger and better next year with an extra 20 laps for the June 7, 2014 event.

*  George Bignotti, a really great race mechanic when our mom was growing up died this week at age 97.  He had 85 Indycar wins and his cars won the Indy 500 7 times with five different drivers including 4 time winners A.J. Foyt and Al Unser, Sr.



George Bignotti with Wally Dallenbach
1973 California 500.

A.J. Foyt 1961 Milwaukee Mile Program

In honor of the great A.J. Foyt making it to a racetrack for the first time since his hip surgery in July, we're throwing it back to the 1961 Milwaukee Mile race program featuring the 1960 USAC Big Car Champion.

 

 

 

 

The official entrant list enhanced by our pappy's notes.

 

 

Josef Newgarden and Alex

 Have we ever mentioned that our little sister loves Indycar driver Josef Newgarden?

 

You know Josef, the 22 year old second year Indycar driver from Tennessee, who pilots the 67 car for Sarah Fisher Hartman racing.

 

Well, we finally gave in to Alex's nonstop begging and here we are doing a whole post about Josef
(although we don't actually give you info about Josef,
just how Alex adores him)
 

 

Here are some of Alex's favorite 'Josef Photos'.

 

Josef's 1st time meeting Alex since
she started E-mailing and mailing him. (Indy 2012)
(We think this look meant, 'wow, you're the kid who keeps sending me so much stuff!')
 



Josef's car in Baltimore 2013.
 (We spent embarrassingly too much time outside his garage in the paddock, but at least it was air conditioned.)

 

She's even met Josef's mom and dad.
(and they knew her and mentioned how they saw her in Josef's Indycar 36 episode from Indy.)



Josef finishes second in Baltimore.
(Which was really cool.)

 

Yep, she even likes photos of Josef's wing.

No, this is not Josef. 
Therefore, he is not worthy of being on this post.
(Sorry, Hinch)

This is Indy Lights driver Zach Veach.
He is allowed to be in this post because he told us his engineer was Josef's engineer when he was in Lights in 2011.

  

The meeting that started it all...
Indy 2012.
(and how dare our mom block Alex in this historic photo)
 

Josef said she's as light as a Bumblebee.
(So now she likes to be called bumblebee.)

Alex? In Josef's garage at Indy 2013?

(wear 'Josef' gear, look cute enough

& a crew member may just let you in too.)

 

 'Josef's elevator' at our hotel in Indy 2012.
(You won't believe how much time we spent waiting for that elevator to come, and Alex was disappointed she didn't get to take the poster home when we left)

  

 Josef being introduced (not that we needed it) at his first Indy 500 in 2012

 

This is where we all shouted 'Josef' so he'd look.
(Alex insisted it)

Don't get us started on her Josef wardrobe.



Josef themed 5th and 6th birthday parties

The Josef Halloween costume.

And of course Josef inspired birthday presents.


We hope Alex is happy now.
And we promise we won't do another post on Josef until he wins a race....or Alex threatens us again.







 

Juan Montoya's Indy 500 Win

 

With Juan Pablo Montoya in all the Indycar news this week
signing with Penske Racing for 2014
we dug around our mom's old Indystar newspapers and found this:

 

 

 

Indycar Happenings

Wonder what's been happening in the world of Indycars?

 

Look below!

*  Juan Pablo Montoya, 1999 CART Champion and 2000 Indy 500 winner, will be returning to Indycar after years in F1 and Nascar.  He will drive a third car for Penske Racing joining Helio Castroneves and Will Power.

*  Tire Testing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last week. 

*  Graham Rahal and Ryan Briscoe tested on the road course at IMS in anticipation of a possible Indycar road race there in 2014.

*  Jack Hawksworth, winner of the most recent IndyLights race at Baltimore tested for Rahal Letterman racing today.

*  Boo Hoo.  The Grand Prix of Baltimore will not be back in 2014 or 2015.   We loved this race and were so looking forward to going back!

1966 USAC Yearbook

If you've looked around our blog you may have seen some of the really neat old Indycar stuff that belonged to our pappy that we have posted occasionally. 

 

Since there is so much of it,

and it's all really cool,

we thought we would post something each week

for Throwback Thursday.

Since this week marked the 35th anniversary of Mario Andretti winning the World Championship in 1978,

we thought we would throw it back to 1965 when he won his first Indycar Championship at the age of 25.

Why we love Indycar. Fun Zones!

 

One of the reasons we love going to Indycar races so much is all the other stuff to do when the cars aren't racing.

 

 

Here's just some of the extra fun at Indianapolis, Pocono and Baltimore this year.

 

Go-Karts (for little kids and big)

  



Racing Games,



Slot Cars,

 

 Carnival Rides

 

Climbing Thingies and
Super Bounce Houses,

 

 a Few New Friends,

Slides,

Zip Lines,

Games,

Goofiness,

Racing Games!!!!



 and Entertainment.


So if you're going to a race,
take the kids (not us, yours),
and spend the weekend at the track having a blast!

 

 



More from The Grand Prix of Baltimore

Other Stuff from around the GP of Baltimore.
 

Makenna and Alex were thrilled their favorite drivers,
Tristan Vautier and Josef Newgarden
were starting side by side in row 3.

 

 

Our first 'Behind the Scenes in Indycar' interview. 

Krystin Wiggs, the PR person for Simon Pagenaud's winning team (Schmidt Peterson Motorsports) sat down with us the Friday before the race to answer some questions.

 

 

 7 Indianapolis 500 wins in one place.

Rick Mears ('79, '84, '88, '91) and Castroneves ('01,'02,'09) 

talking in the paddock.

 

Indycar invades Camden Yards.

 

We spent lots of time in the Paddock.  

 Lots to see and it was air conditioned.

 

Almost ran into Power and Castroneves on their scooters.

A map on the sidewalk. 

We wished we had our mini Indy cars along!

 

Lots of great places to watch all the action!

 

 

 

 Did we mention,

 

WE LOVED THE GP OF BALTIMORE!!!

 

 

Pagenaud Wins Grand Prix of Baltimore

The top 6.

 

Pagenaud (his second win), Newgarden (his highest Indycar finish ever), Bourdais, Justin Wilson, Simona De Silvestro, Kimball.

During the race there was no way to predict who would be where since there were so many crashes.

 

 

Second Place Finisher, Josef,  pre-race. 

(Josef is looking at us because, as always, we shouted his name really loud).

 

Pagenaud, Justin Wilson, and Josef. 

 

Josef Newgarden's first podium in Indycar. 

Alex is watching intently.

 

 

 

Josef's #1 fan ecstatic he finished 2nd.

 

 

A tough day for some of the championship contenders, like Ryan Hunter Reay. 

Helio increased his lead to 49 points over Scott Dixon and Pagenaud moved into third, 70 points back, with 3 races remaining.

 

 

The GP of Baltimore won't be back on Labor Day weekend in 2014, but hopefully they can get in on the schedule somewhere.

 

WE LOVED THIS RACE AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE WEEKEND!