Below is an excerpt of the FIA Press Conference held on Thursday, July 8th. Of special note is the section about the use of Scalextric brand slot cars. Being a home slot car enthusiast I found this rather intriguing.
Q: Can I ask all four drivers about the new circuit. Have you had a look at it? What are your feelings about it?
Mark Webber: I think when they designed it they weren’t really planning probably to have a Formula One race here, so they were looking very aggressively towards making it more towards the bikes. I think then it was a bonus they got the cars back which we are all very happy about. The work the BRDC, Damon, everyone has done I must say it’s incredible how they kept their heels in the ground and kept the event here which is great for all of us. Back to the track itself they kept all the good stuff, the sections of the circuit that the drivers like I believe. It would still be nice if we had Bridge in there and some of the other corners were nice, but you can’t have everything when you have certainly a world class category in Moto GP here. They have made an adjustment and I think it is still good for both of us. I don’t think there will be any more overtaking than it was in the past. It was always a difficult track to overtake on and I think that will still be the case but that’s the same for most circuits around the world. So overall positive. A huge amount of effort has gone in and that needs to be applauded and hopefully we can have a good race this weekend.
Q: Fernando, have you had a look at it?
Fernando Alonso: I did some laps with a bicycle today. Nothing really more to add to what Mark said. We love to drive here. We love high speed circuits as this one. As Mark said I think overtaking will be difficult but no more difficult than it was in the past, so here we will enjoy this weekend a lot.
Q: I believe the McLaren duo have been practicing it on Scalextric. Is that right?
Jensen Button: Yes. It is very slippery at turn one, lot of oversteer. Apart from that the circuit was pretty good and I enjoyed it.
Lewis Hamilton: He was really quick on Scalextric, so watch out for him this weekend.
Q: He was quickest?
Lewis Hamilton: He lapped me, almost twice. I crashed quite a lot.
It's not every day that you see professional drivers commenting on their use of slot cars. Especially in the day of iRacing.com.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
NASCAR: Stewart's heating up the summer
This season, it also makes for another potential step back toward championship contention for Stewart, who as recently as two months ago seemed buried in points and with little hope of becoming one of the 12 drivers to challenge for the Sprint Cup title. Recent weeks, though, have seen a dramatic turnaround for the driver and owner at Stewart-Haas Racing, not exactly surprising given that the two-time series champion is typically at his best when the asphalt gets slippery and the temperatures tickle triple-digits.
We've seen this before -- both of Stewart's previous championship campaigns were fueled by strong summertime stretches, which the driver credits to the car control he learned while wheeling sprint and midget cars around greasy short tracks in the U.S. Auto Club ranks. While Stewart hasn't quite earned a place among the top title contenders this season, he's certainly placed himself on the periphery by knocking out top-10 finishes in five of his past seven starts, and climbing from 18th in points after the May 8 event at Darlington to ninth today.
Stewart actually had a streak of four consecutive top-10s snapped last weekend at Daytona, when his car suffered damage in one of the night's many accidents and wound up 24th. But because so many cars were taken out and so few drivers finished on the lead lap, he didn't lose any ground in the standings.
"You know, it is kind of weird how last year we started off the season really well, literally the first half of the year was right on pace with what we were looking for. Then four or five weeks before the Chase started, we started falling off and then really we were struggling during the Chase," he said. "It was kind of frustrating from that standpoint, and we couldn't really put our finger on what we were doing different and what we were doing wrong that was causing us to not have that kind of performance. It seems like this year, we got a slow start to the year, and it seems like we are picking it up, so hopefully we're having the polar opposite of what we had last year. We are going to start slow and finish strong this year."
That would be more typical of Stewart, whose most recent Cup championship in 2005 preceded Jimmie Johnson's unprecedented stretch of four straight titles. Last year, in his first campaign at the helm of Stewart-Haas, the driver of the No. 14 car defied all expectations by leading the points for 12 weeks before fading to an eventual sixth-place finish. The growing pains everyone predicted at last seemed to set in this year, particularly during a six-week span in the spring where Stewart went without a single-digit finish. Since then, the results have markedly improved.
"It's not just one thing. It's a lot of little things here and there. The engine department, they keep making gains. Our chassis are getting better," said Stewart, who gets engines and chassis from Hendrick Motorsports. "At our shop, our shock engineers, everybody has just really been digging deep. You don't have to find one big chunk to make a big gain like that. A lot of times it's very, very small details that each individual department will find that helps bring the whole performance of the team up."
There is still work to be done, of course. Two weeks ago at New Hampshire, Stewart matched his best finish of the season with a runner-up result, but he still hasn't won this year. The recent announced departure of sponsor Old Spice makes Stewart's ownership role more complicated, requiring him to find another company to fill the financing void on his car for the 2011 season. That makes the chance of him adding a third team for next year "probably zero percent," he said. On-track, though, things are clearly turning around.
"Every week we're just learning a little more about what to do to get the feel in the car that I like," he said. "It's been working out ... We weren't happy where we were at in the points. I'm still not really comfortable where we're at in the point standings right now, but we're definitely making gains, for sure."
Grand-Am: Andy Lally wins big in luge competition
Lally, the defending ISGA world champ in classic luge, missed the "King of the Hill" race due to competing at Daytona, where he won his third GRAND-AM Rolex Series race of the season. He had to start on the outside due to missing qualifying for the luge races, but went on to score easy victories in all of his heats and then beat the favorites in the finals.
At Daytona, Lally admitted that he would be lucky to take a third due to the strong depth of competition in the meet. He drafted past Matthias Lang in the closing yards to score a close victory in Street Luge - denying Lang his third consecutive victory - after beating Louis Bouchard in Classic Luge.
"It was two really wild finals," Lally said. "I knew I had a good chance of making it to both of the finals, and I did. I made the final six in both. I thought I had a pretty good chance in the spec class (Classic), but picked myself for third in the unlimited class. I made a few changes to my luge to make it better in the corners, but I paddled off fourth. I sat in the draft and saw the leader slip, and when he did that we went three-wide at 50 mph into the final corner. I got the inside line and held on. It was amazing to pull it off. Second had his feet on my head at the finish."
Now, Lally is thinking about taking on a new challenge - stand-up downhill skateboarding. "There were 194 competitors in that class, and it was a good time watching them," Lally said. "That's my next goal - to try the stand-up stuff and see if I can get in the top 50."
Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge driver Ryan Eversley competed in Street Luge, where he made it to the consolation but had a massive wipe out in the final turn.
Despite running second in the GT championship, Lally is still looking for a ride in the upcoming Rolex Series race July 18 at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
"I'm working hard to hopefully make it pay off with a championship at the end of the year."
Kerry Earnhardt to Drive Dad’s No. 3 Brickyard 400 Winner at Goodwood
The Richard Childress Racing No. 3 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Monte Carlo that the legendary Dale Earnhardt drove to victory in the 1995 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway will be driven by his eldest son, Kerry Earnhardt, in this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in England.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed, July 2-4, is one of the world’s premier historic race car events. The event has been held annually since 1993 on the grounds of Goodwood House, West Sussex, England . Race cars past and present participate in both demonstration and competition runs up the nine-turn, 1.16-mile hillclimb circuit.
This is the second consecutive year RCR has participated in the Festival of Speed. Last year, Taylor Earnhardt, Dale’s youngest daughter, drove the black No. 3 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet her father earned his 76 th and final NASCAR Cup Series victory in, on Oct. 15, 2000, at Talladega ( Ala.) Superspeedway.
Dale Earnhardt qualified 13 th for the second running of the Brickyard 400. He drove the famous black No. 3 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet to the top spot on lap 133 and led the final 28 laps to beat Rusty Wallace to the checkered flag by 0.37-of-a-second.
“It was an honor to again be personally invited by Lord March to enter one of Dale’s No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolets in this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed,” said Richard Childress, president and CEO of Richard Childress Racing. “Winning the 1995 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was one of Dale’s, and RCR’s, proudest moments.
Both last year’s car and this year’s entry were prepared by and will be cared for at the Festival of Speed by former No. 3 team crew members Danny Lawrence and Rich Burgess. Lawrence is the assistant head engine builder/trackside manager for Earnhardt-Childress Racing Engines and Burgess is the shop manager for RCR’s No. 31 Caterpillar team in the NSCS.
“It’s going to be an awesome experience for me to drive the car my dad won the Brickyard 400 in,” said Kerry Earnhardt. “Dad winning that race was a pretty big deal because it’s such a special race. I’m honored to be driving it at all, but doing it at the Goodwood Festival of Speed makes it that much more special. Taylor (Earnhardt) drove one of Dad’s cars last year at Goodwood and she told me it was a lot of fun and there were a lot of great people there.”
For General Motors, the automaker behind the GM Goodwrench brand proudly carried on the hood of the car, it is a chance to celebrate the history of the partnership with Dale Earnhardt, Inc. and the legacy of Dale Earnhardt as a champion.
“Chevrolet is honored to see the famed No. 3 GM Goodwrench Monte Carlo once again participating in the Goodwood Festival of Speed,” said Jim Campbell, U.S. Vice President, Chevrolet Marketing. “The legendary black No. 3 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing and Dale Earnhardt teamed together to form a powerful combination that changed the sport of NASCAR – both on and off the race track.”
A daily blog of the eight-day adventure (June 29-July 6) will be posted on SPEED’s website (www.SpeedTV.com) and linked to the Richard Childress Racing website (www.rcrracing.com).
NASCAR.com: The Preview Show - Chicago
Two-time winner Tony Stewart helps Beau Estes and Marty Snider break down Chicagoland.
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