Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Two Ndinjas was replaced before the previous race in the World Series by Renault (I think they have 1 left). I haven't heard anything about his plans for next year.

Everyone has probably heard about PT. Though I still expect that the race in Mexico City will be the best of the year. Hopefully, guys like Ranger and Zwolsman will be able to push the Lola's as hard as they can without worrying about accident damage. 3Pm this Sunday on Speed.

As I wrote earlier the hiring of both of Fernandez's IRL engineers by Dreyer and Reinbold suggested Ferandez was done. According to Tom Anderson (part owner of the team) they have 0 chance of running next year at this point.

What I didn't write was that DRR has not said whether or not they will run in the IRL next year and they have been looking at the new Champ Car Panoz. Both of Fernandez's engineers were with the team while he was still a one car operation in CART. Regardless, my assumption that they will go to a two car operation in any series seems to be wrong.

My assumption that Foyt would go to two cars is also wrong. Panther is going to two cars with Matuura (Super Aguri Panther). Rahal Letterman is going down to two cars with Scott Sharp driving one of them. It looks like Tony George will have to go to three cars with Vision and keep funding Marty Roth to make 18 (assuming DRR isn't leaving but rather extorting money out of Tony George). Tony did just sell his share of Chicagoland to ISC to fund "improvements to IMS" (AKA fund 33 cars for this year's I500).

Paul Stoddart(fmr Minardi) is buying a existing Champ Car team (Robin Miller says RuSport). KK says Champ Car will have 22 cars next year. Good Enough.

Champ Car and Grand Am both announced they will be releasing (seperate) PC based video games this year at their respective season openers.

Daytona November Test Days just finished today.

Teams were testing the standard Bosch ECU that everyone has to use for next season. The Porsche power plants had big problems with them forcing Brumos to go home on Monday since they had none of last years ecus with them. Other teams did not even try the new ones.

Michael Shank racing will have Helio and Hornish on board for Daytona with Oswaldo and Mark.

Ganassi tested Carlos Padro to replace Luis Diaz who is ALMS bound with Fernandez. They plan on running a second car but have not said anything about drivers for either car except Scott Pruett.

Carpentier with Milka in the Citgo car.

The Infiniti G35 was on the track.

Howard Boss has lost Boss so now it is just Howard Motorsports. They have also lost Danica... so sad. I guess she was afraid of Katherine Legge.

Alhadeff and Auberlan will be in the Sigalsport car which is trying to add a second car.

Team Sahlen will run at least one of each of the following in the 24: Corvette, Porsche, and GTO. I believe they have seven Nonnamakers lined up to drive the cars, plus Joe Sahlen.

Grand Am announced the new chassis specs for '08. Current cars will still be eligible and Sabre will be added to the list of manufacturers, current manufacturers will be able to sell there spots to other manufacturers if they wish. Also Engine manufacturers will be allowed to pair with chassis manufacturers. Manufacturers, manufacturers (manufacturers)

Whatever, Daytona Prototypes will still be ugly.

Zanardi and Glock will be testing the BMW F1 car. Remember, Zanardi has no legs.


That's all for now.

Paul

Oh... IRL is running all ethanol next year. For the enviroment. Or maybe it's for marketing? Same thing anyway, sounds good.

1 comment:

Paul said...

Reason number 114 to go to the Rolex 24. Hornish and Helio.