Indycar School Video #2

Indycar made simple. 

By kids.

 

Part 2 in our video series.

 

In this 'class' learn more of the basics

of the super exciting and competitive Indycar series.

 

 

(Be sure to watch for Alex's shout out for her favorite driver Josef Newgarden)

 

Road To Indy Series

The 'minor league' of Indycar
The Mazda Road To Indy is a series that prepares drivers for the Verizon Indycar Series.


There are three series.

USF2000
- Drivers first time in competitive open wheel cars
- Drivers first proper race team
- The car is the lightest with small wings
- The top speed is 140 MPH
- Youngest current driver is 14 year old Colton Herta


The champion of USF2000 goes on to:




Pro Mazda
- First experience with traction control
- Top speed 160 MPH
- Heavier wings



The champion of this series goes on to:

Indy Lights
- Bigger wings and tires
- Excess of 200 MP
- Drivers get a feel of what Indycar is like

- The winner gets a 1/2 million to 1 million dollar scholarship to race with an Indycar team the following season.

- They will run 14 races on 10 different tracks in 2014

- Past champions include Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon, Townsend Bell, Scott Dixon, JR Hildebrand, Josef Newgarden!!!, Tristan Vautier and our hometown guy, Sage Karam.

- Sage Karam is the first driver to compete in all three series and was the youngest Indy Lights Champion at 18.



Some other information
-Drivers come from all over the world
-They're ages range from about 14 to 25 depending on series
- They race on many of the same tracks as the Indycar series

All Three Series will be racing on the Road Course at Indianapolis the weekend of the GP of Indianapolis.

 

 We can't wait to see them all.

2013 Indycar Season

Can't believe the season is over.  

We miss it already. 

 

We miss...

 

 The cool race cars

 

 

and Pace cars

  

 

 and snails???
 

 

 

  The teams working on the cars

 

  

Seeing drivers up close (Really close)

 

Getting driver autographs

 

Super nice drivers

 

 

Shhh. 
No one tell Josef his #1 fan was getting
another driver's autograph.

 

 

We miss all the drivers

 

 

  Cool Flyovers.

 

 

The thrill at the start of the races!!

 

 

The excitement at the end of the races!!

 

 

 

 

Cool bikes the drivers ride around on.

 

 

Fun Fanfests!

 

 

 

Meeting Legends

 

 

 

And the #1 thing we'll miss this Indycar offseason...

Seeing Josef all the time.

(Alex made us write that.)

 

 

 

 

We want to go to the GP of Indy!

Do we want to go to the Grand Prix of Indy?

What a silly question! Of course we do!
 

 

Why do we want to go?
 

You might want to sit down for that one, it might take a while.

 

1.  If it's half as good as the Indy 500, it will be a race worth remembering!

2.  We can't wait to see the Indycars driving the 'wrong way' on the IMS track.

3.  The Month Of May is back!!!

4.  We love road/street courses!

(Big breath)

5.  Josef is in it!! (Alex made us put that)

6. All the Mazda Road to Indy Series will be competing that weekend.  Lots of racing is always good!

7. 2.4 Miles.  14 Turns.  Very Cool!

8.  It will be the first GP of Indy ever, and we want to be there to see history made

(Big breath)

9.  More time to run around one of our favorite places in the world.  The Indianapolis Motor Speedway!

10.  We bet there'll be a ton of action, just the way we like it.

11.  We want to extend our annual Indy 500 trip to two weeks and get to see two Indycar races and Indy 500 qualifying for the first time!

12.  We want another chance to do a race countdown.

13.  It's a lot more fun than doing schoolwork those days (but don't worry, Mom and Dad, we learn lots of math and science while we're there)

(Big breath)

14.  It's something to tweet, blog and video about

15.  Josef is in it!! (um, please excuse the repetition, but Josef is the reason Alex wants to go to/watch any Indycar race)

16.  We can get more Indy stuff when we're there!

17.  Well, don't you want to go?

And that is why we want to go to the first ever, Grand Prix of Indianapolis!

Behind the scenes in Indycar

We've been doing our blog since April, and we've started to notice how many people work 'Behind the Scenes' to keep Indycar going.

 

 

We wanted to learn more about what kind of work people do, and when we researched, we found out that there's...

 

Engineers

Journalists

Mechanics

Welders

Sponsors

Track workers

Trailer drivers

Photographers

People who run Fan Fest...

and a whole lot more!

 

And... since we found it really interesting, we've decided to  start an Indycar interview series!
 

We can't wait!

 

Now we just need to find some people to interview so we have something to write about. 

So far in our 'Indycar journey' we've already met some really nice people like journalists, drivers, track owners, crew members and even drivers, so we're hoping we'll be able to gets lots of really great interviews and interesting stories to share on our blog.

 

So Stay Tuned
as we hope to take you

Behind the Scenes in Indycar!

 

Tricky's Kit Kamp at Pocono

 

Tricky's Kit Kamp is a playground to keep little kids busy at the track.

 

It was the first thing our little sister ran to when we entered by the grandstands at Pocono raceway.

 

 

Stop by!

Your kids will love it just as much as our little sister did!
 

Foxes and bunnies and bears, Oh My!

 

Pocono Indycar Testing - Special Access!

We can't believe Indycar testing is over already!

We just got back from Pocono, where we had special access to the pits, media center, and the garages!

 

 

Thank you, Pocono Raceway C.E.O Brandon Igdalsky

 
and

Kevin Heaney

 for the personal tour.

 

 It was the best day ever!!
 

 

 What we learned.
 

 

* Lots of drivers and teams ride scooters everywhere.

 

* The cars are really, really loud when you're right next to them...

  and they're even louder when they squeal and smoke their tires pulling out of the pits.

 

 

 

* All the drivers and team members go to their trailers for lunch AND,

* You get to see almost all the drivers, if you get your 'tour guide' to let you stand in the garage area long enough.

 

 

 

* Mario hangs out on Marcos pit box, to make sure he is getting the fastest time.

 

 

*  There are pace cars sitting in the garages all ready for race day.

 

* Victory Lane is really cool.  Who will be here Sunday afternoon?

 

 

 

* They have lots of extra nose cones and new Firestone tires by the pits.

 

 

 

* Team members hold umbrellas over the drivers in the cars when it's hot. 

 

 
 
 
 
 

And the number one thing that we learned today was that Indycar race control does not allow kids to lean over the pit wall, (we got our tour guide in trouble for allowing us to do that.)

 Sorry Kevin. 

 

Indycars at Pocono are amazing!

 

Be there Saturday for qualifying and Sunday for raceday!  We will be!!!

 

 

 

Countdown to Pocono-8 Days

 

We know it's only 8 more days, but we can't wait that long, so we'll be going to the open testing on July 4th, and to qualifying and the  Indy Lights Race on July 6th.

Iowa Corn Indy 250

Saturday Heat Races!

 

 Sunday the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at 2:30 on ABC!

 

 

 

* Heat Races!!   Three 50 lap heat races on Saturday will determine the lineup for Sunday's race.  You can watch the heat races on the Official Indycar Website.

 

* Don't blink or you'll miss the action.   The cars come around every 17 seconds because the track is less than a mile long.

 

* The Indy Lights race will be held Saturday night following the Indycar Heat Races.

 

* Get James Hinchcliffe's amusing overview of Iowa as he blogs for the Des Moines Register for race weekend.

 

* Not sure where Iowa Speedway is (like us), it's about 425 miles Northwest of Indianapolis, near DesMoines ,which is the capitol of Iowa (but we didn't know where that was either...geography lesson anyone.)

 

*Iowa Indy past winners are:

2012: Ryan Hunter-Reay

2011: Marco Andretti

2010: Tony Kannan

2009: Dario Franchitti

2008: Dan Wheldon

2007: Dario Franchitti

Mario fan

Are you too hot at the race track?

 

Are you a Mario fan? 

Then let Mario Andretti help cool you off with your very own 'Mario fan'.

 

 

 

(We even got ours signed by Mario himself at Indy.)

Josef & Alex on Indycar 36?

 

 

Yes, the new Indycar 36 episode on NBC Sports is about Josef Newgarden, which we're fine with, however, much to our dismay, our little sister Alex is actually shown on the program. Twice.

 

 

 

Now we'll never hear the end of it. 

It's already all Josef, all the time with her and now that she met him and is on a tv show about him.

 

Ughh.

 

No offense Josef, we all really like you and root for you but Alex doesn't shut up about you, and it's getting kinda old.

 

 

 

 

Indycar 36 on NBC Sports

Alexandra is so excited, her favorite driver, JOSEF (Newgarden), is featured on a new episode of Indycar 36 on NBC Sports tomorrow night at midnight.  It was taped in Indianapolis a few weeks ago.

She's watched the episode shot last year at Fontana about Josef many, many times.

Problem is that she thinks she's staying up to watch the show at midnight. 

Wait till mom breaks it to her that she'll have to wait to see it till Saturday.

 Indycar 36 follows drivers for 36 hours leading up to a race.

 

You can view past episodes of Indycar 36 on Youtube.

Tony Kanaan at 2012 St. Petersburg

Graham Rahal at 2012 Alabama

Ryan Hunter-Reay at 2012 Long Beach

JR Hildebrand at 2012 Indy 500 Qualifying

Helio Castroneves at 2012 Indy 500 Race

Charlie Kimball at 2012 Texas and 2013 Long Beach

Ed Carpenter at 2012 Iowa 

James Hinchcliffe at 2012 Toronto

Simon Pagenaud at 2012 Mid Ohio

Will Power at 2012 Sao Paulo

Oriol Servia at 2012 Baltimore

Josef Newgarden at 2012 Fontana

Simona de Silvestro at 2013 Sao Paulo

1963 Indianapolis Yearbook

We're a little late with this since the 50th anniversary of Parnelli Jones' win at Indy was a few weeks ago, however we just stumbled upon this book in Pappy's stuff today and couldn't pass up sharing the photos from the front and back cover.

Congratulations Simon Pagenaud

Winner of the Second Dual in Detroit.

Simon Pagenaud scores his first Indycar win in Detroit.

So far, in 7 Indycar races this season there have been ...

6 Different Winners from

 

6 Different Countries on

 

5 Different Teams and

 

3 of them have been *First Time Winners in the Indycar Series!

*James Hinchcliffe (Canada) - Andretti Autosport

Ryan Hunter Reay (USA) - Andretti Autosport

*Takuma Sato  (Japan) - A.J. Foyt Racing

Tony Kanaan (Brazil) - KV Racing

Mike Conway (England) - Dale Coyne Racing

*Simon Pagenaud (France) - Sam Schmidt Motorsports

Can't wait to see who wins at Texas on Saturday night!

 

 

2013 Indy memories

 

 
 
 

 

 
 

 On to Detroit...

If Giant Chickens Invaded the Indy 500