Category Archives: Motorsports

Getting ready for the 2014 Rolex 24-Hours at Daytona

Tomorrow — Saturday, January the 25th — is the unofficial official start of big time motorsports in the New Year with the 52nd running of the 24-Hours at Daytona. It will also inaugurate the new IMSA Tudor United SportsCar Championship after a merger between the two formerly competing US road racing leagues, the American LeMans Series and Grand-Am. Daytona’s unique hybrid banked oval/infield road course (aka “Roval) will be the first test of professional and gentlemen drivers across the newly reorganized 4 classifications (in descending order of technical and performance level): Prototype (P); Prototype Challenge (PC); GT Le Mans (GTLM); and GT Daytona (GTD). As you can tell by these names if you’re familiar with the class structures of the old series, there seems to be an uneasy merger between the exacting specifications of the French organization which controls Le Mans, the ACO, and the more free wheeling Grand-Am regulations. It should be interesting to see how the tension between these two visions for sports car racing play out as this first United SportsCar Championship season evolves and the different cultures are integrated.

Delta Wing Racing's New Coupe

Delta Wing Racing’s New Coupe

Nonetheless, familiar top competitors will still be players in the new league with teams such as Chip Ganassi, Wayne Taylor, Bob Stallings’ Gainsco, Michael Shank, Starworks and Action Express. And world-reknowned sports car pilots will still be driving for them, such as the great Scott Pruett, Alex Gurney, Ollie Gavin, Antonio Garcia and superstar-in-the-making Jordan Taylor to name but a few. And of course many of the world’s high-performance automotive leaders will be competing, like Corvette, Ferrari, BMW, Porsche, Mazda, as well as expanded programs by Astin Martin, Audi and SRT Viper.

 

But the most important factor to get the new series off to a good start and hopefully capture the interest of an even greater portion of the American public will be the racing down there in Daytona tomorrow afternoon. The grueling 24-hours kicks off at 2pm Eastern and can be viewed pretty much continuously, albeit only across multiple platforms that may or not be available on your cable or satellite provider.

Here is the broadcast and Internet schedule for tomorrow’s 24-Hours at Daytona (via Auto Week)– let’s hope for good weather and an exciting and safe race for all!

Saturday, Jan. 25

2-4 p.m. ET on Fox

4-9 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 2

Overnight (Jan. 25-26)

9 p.m.-7 a.m. ET on IMSA.com (includes live images, in-car cameras and announcers)

Sunday, Jan. 26

7 a.m.-3 p.m. on Fox Sports 1

F1 legend Michael Schumacher in critical condition after skiing accident

Michael_Schumacher

From France this morning comes the shocking news that Formula One legend and 7-time World Champion Michael Schumacher has sustained serious brain injuries in a skiing accident in the Alpine resort of Méribel. The 44-year old retired racer was skiing off-trail with his family and struck his head on a rock. Despite wearing a helmet, Schumacher was airlifted first to a local medical facility and then to a larger hospital in Grenoble, where his injuries were severe enough to require surgeons to place the German in an induced coma to protect his brain from further damage.

Along with his family, former Ferrari team manager and current FIA president Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, Schumacher’s technical director for his record-setting 5 consecutive championships with Ferrari, were said to be at the hospital holding vigil.

The full NY Times story is here.

We here at MFL would like to extend our hopes and prayers that Michael makes a full recovery from this ghastly incident. With his superior athletic conditioning, he has as good a chance as anyone to survive such an accident. It really does sound very severe but like racing fans around the world, we are hoping for the best for the great Schumacher and his friends and family.

*Update: You can follow Michael’s progress via the excellent Former F1 Doc blog where Gary Hartstein, an assistant of the late, great Sid Watkins and F1’s medical delegate from 2005-12, is discussing this sort of traumatic brain injury in detail. The Daily Mail in the UK also has excellent straight-up news coverage.

Cars we want — SRT Viper

2014-SRT-Viper-TA-front

Dodge’s legendary Viper comes stomping out of mothballs and gets back to the business of tearing up the asphalt at face-melting speeds with 3 new SRT reincarnations for 2013-14. Yes, you can call it a crude American muscle car. Yes, it’s a brutal answer to the more nuanced and larger production Corvette. And yes, it’s expensive with an MSRP of around $100,000 before the massive array of performance options that can make this street legal car a sinister and legitimate super car slayer. But with it’s relatively limited production run and defiant rebuke of smaller, turbo charged engines, the new Viper has “rebel” tattooed on its distinctive snarling snout. In fact, one could say that its awe-inspiring normally aspirated V-10, which delivers 610 horses and a brutal 600 pounds of torque, is not so much defiant of the trend towards smaller engines and improved fuel economy as it is a slap in the face and a challenge to a fist fight.

2013_srt_viper_gts_r_race_car_alms

All you have to do is add up the minuscule gas mileage that the Viper achieves in trade off for all that available performance — a puny 12 mpg in the city, 19 on the highway — and the lack of creature comforts for anyone who does not spend all day turning fast laps at the track — it does not come in an automatic and is as stiffly sprung as a Springfield rifle — and you have the definition of “acquired taste”. But if that taste runs to pure unbridled speed and power on demand, the Viper’s massive power train and minimum available weight of just under 3300 pounds will satisfy that craving in spades. Do the math on that power-to-weight ratio and you come up with 0-60 in 3.1 seconds in GTS trim a top speed of 206 mph. This beast is designed to do one thing: blow away any street car you care to put up against it. That sounds like good fun to us.

After a very good second half in the final season of the ALMS series, the Viper will get its chance to take on all comers on the track, including Ferrari, Porsche & Corvette, in the maiden season of the Tudor United Sports Car Challenge in 2014. It is also highly likely that SRT teams will compete again at next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, where they will look to improve on last year’s results and return to their glory days of dominance at that legendary race.

For bonus gearhead grins, here’s the previous generation ACR-X bitching it around the Nurburgring in 2011 and setting the lap record (since broken by an $800k Porsche 918 Spyder–not exactly apples to apples in MSRP):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e48df97st2s

For more on the rebirth of the SRT Viper check out this classic and laugh out loud funny take from Ezra Dryer at the New York Times. Also worth a read: this LA Times review by Aaron Bragman.

IndyCar’s Dario Franchitti calls it quits

(Photo via Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)

Four-time Indycar Champion Dario Franchitti has decided to retire from racing on the advice of doctors after a horror shunt during the second GP of Houston on October 6, where his Target Chip Ganassi car was catapulted at high speed into the catch fencing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjA8k5WeGk

The Scotsman, a 3-time Indy 500 winner, suffered what was termed a “significant concussion”, as well as a broken back and badly fractured right ankle, which required multiple surgeries to repair. The back and head injury were of the most concern to doctors in advising him to quit racing.

The 40-year old walks away from the sport as arguably the most successful open wheel racer in United States history and with his matinee idol good looks and loquacious personality, Franchitti would seem to be a perfect fit in the broadcast booth going forward. It’s probably also a sure thing that he will remain involved in IndyCar in either an official or semi-official capacity. While Franchitti never really got to terms with the Dallara DW12 chassis used in his last two seasons, Dario’s exploits prior to that compare well with any driver in a major motorsports series during any time period. There is no word on who will replace Franchitti in the Number 10 car for Ganassi next year.

F1 News & Notes

As we prepare for the United States Grand Prix at the wonderful new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, here are some quick hits that you may have missed in a busy week of F1 news.

  • Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen will miss the last two races of the season, although not because of a pay dispute, as had been threatened. The Ice Man had season-ending surgery to correct a recurring back problem that had bothered the Finn over the last several races. Bypassing their official 3rd driver, Davide Valsecchi, Lotus plucked another Finn from his unwilling retirement: former McLaren and Lotus/Caterham veteran Heikki Kovalainen will man the seat on Sunday and in Brazil. Valsecchi was understandably less than thrilled with being passed over but Kovalainen posted very respectable times in Friday’s Practice sessions after not having a drive for nearly 2 years.
  • Sergio Perez is out at McLaren for next year. In a surprise move, McLaren have chosen young phenom Kevin Magnussen to replace the 23-year-old Mexican as Jenson Button’s teammate. Magnussen, the son of 4-time LeMans winner Jan, was this year’s Formula Renault 3.5 champion.
  • Departing Ferrari #2 Felipe Massa will join the Williams F1 team next season to partner young Finn Valtteri Botas, leaving Pastor Maldonado temporarily out in the cold. But Maldonado, who brings bags of Venezuelan oil sponsorship money to wherever he may land, should be able to find a drive among the cash strapped teams despite a lackluster season in a poor Williams chassis.
  • Russian teenager Daniel Kvyat earned his Formula 1 Super License and participated in Friday Practice in Austin. Kvyat, a 19-year old GP3 champion, will join Jean-Eric Vergne at Torro Rosso for the 2014 season, which not coincidentally should feature the first-ever Russian Grand Prix. Kvyat replaces Aussie Daniel Ricciardo, who is moving up to the senior Red Bull team upon Mark Webber’s departure to sports cars and the new Porsche Le Mans prototype program.