8 Days till Pocono 500

8 Days till one of our local drivers,
Sage Karam,

gets a chance to win at his home track
 in Long Pond, PA at the ABCSupply 500!

 

It will be the first Indycar start at Pocono for Sage driving the #8 car for Chip Ganassi Racing.

He finished 2nd in Indy Lights there in 2013.
 

 

Can he best his first podium, a 3rd place finish at Iowa?

Can he catch Gabby Chaves in the Indycar Rookie of the Year standings?  He is currently 49 points back, but with Pocono and double points at Sonoma maybe he can still pull it off.

 

Sage Karam in Indycar's GP of St. Pete

Sage Karam will start the season opening Grand Prix of St. Pete driving for Chip Ganassi Racing this weekend.
He won at St. Pete in the USF 2000 series in 2010 and has also raced there in the ProMazda and Indylights series.

 

Hopefully enough funding will be found that this super talented 20 year old can run the entire season after spending a year as Ganassi's Developmental driver and doing a great job running in some sports car races for Ganassi.

Meanwhile, the young, American driver has kept busy promoting Indycar leading up to the start of the season.
Sage celebrated at Mardi Gras on a float with several others drivers to promote the inaugural GP of Nola.

He also certainly enjoyed himself (and made quite a good showing) at the football combines at Lucas Oil Stadium in February.

we hope you like the

videos as much as we do.

After injuring his hand in a crash while testing at Barber Motorsports Park in March, he didn't get in as much testing as he hoped.
However after such a great showing at the Indy 500 last year in his first Indycar race, and with driving such a cool looking car for St. Pete, we're watching for him to do great things this weekend.

GO SAGE!!!
 

Sage Karam's 2014 Indy 500

Sage Karam was in his first Indy 500!
and he finished 9th!

To see his Indy 500 post race Banquet interview check out the 1:42:30 mark in the video

Stats:

* Was the biggest mover (moved up the most positions) in the race

* Moved from 32nd to the top ten and than fell back after a yellow came out just after a pit stop, then he worked his way back up and finished 9th.

* He restarted 12th after a red flag which is when he moved up to 9th in just the final 6 laps

* He got 2nd in the pit stop competition.

* We thought he was going to get a top 5!

* He finished the race in 2 hours, 41 minutes and 51 seconds

He's gotten really popular around here in the Lehigh Valley, and even threw out the first pitch for the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs (the Phillies AAA team).  And there was a lot more Indy 500 coverage in our local paper thanks to Sage.

Wish he were running in his 'home' race at Pocono in a few weeks.

 

'500' Week at IMS Carb day

There are lots of neat events on Carb Day
(Carb is short for Carburetion and even though they haven't used carburetors in the '500' since 1963 the name has stuck)
 

The last practice for the Indy 500:

(the whole reason for carb day is the teams/drivers get one more hour to perfect their cars for race day.)

We sat in the Gasoline Alley seats at the South end of the front stretch and it was great watching the cars come down the front straightaway. All the teams took full advantage of the session and seeing everyone coming off pit lane at once with their engines roaring is so exciting.

Alex, of course, spent her time watching for only one car, Josef Newgarden's, and she loved watching his pit stops (which was easy since we were sitting just above his pitbox...no coincidence there).

The Indy Lights race:

(Our second favorite part of carb day.  Seeing the up and coming Indycar drivers racing 40 laps on the IMS track. It has previously been won by guys like Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden)

This year's race was fantastic with plenty of passing and a close finish for the second year in a row!

One of the most exciting Indy Lights race we've ever seen. The top three drivers were swapping back and forth most of the race and winner Gabby Chaves and Matthew Brabham crossed the line almost side by side winning by only .005 seconds!!!

 

 

 

The Pit Stop Challenge:
(IMS plays really loud music and drivers & crews compete two by two against one another until only one team is left.)
We were really excited when rookie Sage Karam got in the finals, and even though Scott Dixon won, we still think he did really good.  (Alex was not really interested in it that much because Josef was not competing)

 

PLUS
There was a
vintage car display
Stadium Super Truck Races
and
2 Music Concerts including Sammy Hagar

Oh, and one more thing...
This was the cool FREE pin that Firestone
gives out on special days at IMS.

Free Carb Day Pin 2014

 

 

 

Sage Karam Indy 500 Rookie

Sage Karam is a rookie in the Indy 500.
He won the Indy Lights championship in 2013.

He will start 31st in his first Indycar race.

Pretty neat watching them work on the car on the opening day of 500 practice.

It's really cool that we have two local guys,

Sage and Marco Andretti,

running in the Indy 500 because it means there are more Indycar articles in our newspaper!



 

On track Indy 500 Opening Day Practice.



In the pits getting ready to complete his Rookie Orientation Program.

 

Thanks Sage for getting a picture with us!


GOOD LUCK in the INDY 500 SAGE!!!
We'll be there rooting for you.

 

Sage Karam in the 12 Hours of Sebring

 

Sage Karam,

our great local racer,



 is racing in the 12 hours of Sebring today
with Scott Dixon and Tony Kanaan
after having done a great job at the
24 hours of Daytona in January.

Other Indycar drivers we'll be watching include
Simon Pagenaud, Sebastien Bourdais,
Tristan Vautier, Katherine Legge, Alex Tagliani,
Ryan Briscoe and Ryan Hunter-Reay, Martin Plowman.

 

Good Luck Sage. 

Keep impressing them so we can see you 
in the Indy 500 this year!!!

 

Sage Karam in Rolex 24 at Daytona

 

We hope our hometown driver Sage Karam does great in his first Rolex 24 at Daytona!

Sage Karam will be racing with

Chip Ganassi Racing

with

 Scott Pruett

 Jamie McMurray

and

 Memo Rojas

 

 He will also be cheered on by us throughout the whole race!

 

Here's an article about Sage, 'Test Of Endurance' , that came in our local paper.

 

A little background:

Sage Karam won the Indy Lights championship with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports

in 2013.  Hopefully this ride in Daytona helps him to get a ride for the 2014 season

 

 

Go Sage!!

 

Sage Karam Indycar 2014?

This weekend there was an Indycar article in our local paper, the Morning Call.

Around where we live here near Nazareth PA you can guess that our family goes back to the 60's as Andretti fans.  Mario, Michael and now Marco make for at least some Indycar coverage in our local paper.

But lately there's another driver making more and more of an appearance in The Morning Call sports pages.  

 Sage Karam.

We've followed him since he drove for Michael Andretti in the Star Mazda Series and watched him race at Indy and Pocono this year on his way to winning the Indy Lights Championship.

We sure hope Sage had a great Christmas and gets a ride in Indycar for 2014!

 

We'd love to see another local driver racing in the Indy 500!!!

Indycar End of Season

 

 

Will Power wins his third race of the season.

 

Scott Dixon wins his third Indycar Championship.

 

Only 8 cars finish the race due to accidents, blown engines and who knows what else.

 

It was exciting!

 

Carlos Munoz won the Indy Lights race and

 

18 year old Sage Karam won the Indy Lights Championship

in his rookie season.

 

Can't wait till next season!

Indy Lights Championship

Exciting to see Zach Veach win his first Indy Lights Pole at the season finale in Fontana.

Congratulations Zach!

 

 

We met him in Baltimore and he seemed super nice.

 

 

And we'll be rooting for our hometown guy, Sage Karam, to win the Indy Lights Title today.

 

 

 

 

 

Go Sage!