This past week has been quite a mix – happy things, not so happy things, but lots of emotion nonetheless. Starting last Sunday, on the good side, a SoCal racer named Charlie Kimball won his first IndyCar race at Mid-Ohio with an inspired drive in a back up car. Staying happy, another couple of SoCal racers had quite a battle in the GT class of the Grand-Am race at Road America on Saturday. Bill Auberlen in a Turner Motorsport BMW passed Patrick Long in a Park Place Motorsports Porsche late in the race to win the GT class. The Grand-Am – ALMS double-header at Road America was a great setup for sports car fans, and Sunday’s ALMS race was shaping up to have a fantastic finish across multiple classes, but a full course yellow with just under 9 minutes remaining left us with an anticlimactic finish under yellow. Not so good. But probably the worst part of the motorsports week was Sunday evening’s final broadcast of both Speed Center and Wind Tunnel as SPEED becomes Fox Sports 1 in the next week.
Motorsports Week – Charlie Kimball’s First IndyCar Win
In last Sunday’s Mid-Ohio IndyCar race, Charlie Kimball drove a fantastic race to take his first win in the series for the Ganassi Racing team. He passed Simon Pagenaud on lap 73 of the 90 lap race for the final lead change of the race. Kimball was on a different, and ultimately better strategy than his Ganassi teammates, Scott DIxon and Dario Franchitti. Dixon and Franchitti were initially on a two stop, fuel save strategy, while Kimball was clocking off great times lap after lap. He ultimately led 46 of the 90 laps. The whole story was all the more remarkable because Kimball was driving a backup car due to a severe crash on Saturday morning practice.
Motorsports Week – Grand-Am Road America GT Race
Road America was the site of Grand-Am – ALMS double-header this weekend, which was quite a spectacle for sportscar racing fans. In Saturday’s Grand-Am race SoCal’s Patrick Long and Bill Auberlen battled for the lead throughout the latter part of the race. With just over 16 minutes to go in the 2 hour, 45 minute race, Auberlen got a good run on Long off of Turn 3 in his Turner Motorsport BMW and passed him for good under braking into Turn 5. Long stayed close for the rest of the race, but ultimately finished second, still a great finish for his Park Place Motorsports team. Also in Grand-Am race, Brendon Hartley and teammate Scott Mayer took advantage of a relatively late full course yellow and notched their first win for the Starworks Motorsport Daytona Prototype team.
Motorsports Week – ALMS Road America Race
Sunday’s Road America ALMS race was shaping up to a fantastic finish with tight battles across multiple classes and several leading cars getting low on fuel when a bad wreck by a GTC car brought out of full course yellow with about 9 minutes to go. Unfortunately, as Johnny O’Connell said on the broadcast, ‘… I think they’re just taking too long here…’, and race control was not able to manage a return to green flag racing. The set up for a tremendous finish was missed. Even with a finish under yellow, Road America did not disappoint once again with a particularly tight battle in the GT class, which was ultimately won by the #91 SRT Viper driven by Marc Goossens and Dominik Farnbacher.
Motorsports Week – Farewell To SPEED, Speed Center, and Wind Tunnel
In both the bad and sad news of the week, SPEED broadcast their final weekend of racing, which also marked the end of Speed Center and Wind Tunnel, much to the chagrin of racing fans everywhere. We’ve known about the Death of Speed for quite some time now, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take. I must say that while I was watching the final episode of Speed Center and Wind Tunnel, I was both saddened and somewhat unbelieving that Fox Sports 1 decided not to continue these popular enthusiast programs. I’ll especially miss Dave Despain and his excellent guests and regulars like Robin Miller. I hope all those effected find even better opportunities in the near future. Thanks for the great fun and great memories!