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[/13/Ален Шмит/]

Danas bi Ajrton Sena punio 57 godina da je sa nama.

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

https://www.topgear....ining-moments#1
 

Ayrton Senna's top ten defining moments
On what would have been his 57th birthday, TG pays tribute to the Brazilian F1 legend


162 Grand Prix entries, 41 wins, 65 pole positions, 80 podiums and three world championships. Staggering statistics for any F1 driver, but these extraordinary numbers aren’t even half the Ayrton Senna story.

The Brazilian legend tragically passed away following an accident at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994, his legacy cut cruelly short. Perhaps the most charismatic, complicated, absurdly talented driver ever to grace Formula One, Senna died far too young.

But what memories. Dazzling pole-to-chequered-flag victories; storming drives in catastrophic weather conditions; that duel with Alain Prost and the rivalry that shaped both men’s lives. Senna’s racing career was the ultimate Hollywood story (and indeed, has been turned into one of the best documentaries of all time).

Here, to commemorate his legacy on what would have been his 57th birthday, we’ve picked out the ten defining moments of an incredible life. Here’s to Ayrton Senna.

Monaco Grand Prix, 1984

Very few of F1’s greats tug around at the back of the field for season after season before finally getting a break. Perhaps they score big in a mediocre car, or defy the weather Gods in eye-popping style. Both, in Senna’s case. He’d tested for Williams at Donington, McLaren at Silverstone, and Brabham at Brands during 1983, but chose minnow Toleman because he figured he’d get the acclaim if he aced a race, and could blame the car if he didn’t.

In only his sixth Grand Prix, in Monaco, the rookie Senna qualified 13th, then set about making the rest look silly as the heavens opened on Monte Carlo. Senna’s reputation for finding grip where there seemingly was none was forged on this day in May ‘84. He was reeling in future nemesis and race leader Alain Prost by three seconds per lap when it was red-flagged. Job done.

Portuguese Grand Prix, 1985

His 17th GP, and only his second for Lotus. In conditions he later described as worse than Monaco, Senna again conjured grip and poise from the thin, cold and damp air around Estoril. He was more than 17 seconds clear at the end of lap 10, and 55 seconds ahead by lap 31, but it was Senna’s silky, sublime car control and economy of motion at the wheel of the Lotus 97T that really grabbed the eye.

“I was lucky to stay on the road,” he said afterwards. You’d never have known. “He had a God-given talent I haven’t witnessed anywhere else, a sixth sense for where the grip was before he turned into a corner,” Martin Brundle once said.

Monaco Grand Prix, 1988

“He approached qualifying like it was a religious experience,” McLaren’s team manager Jo Ramirez said. Only three races into his McLaren career, his skill and determination to outpace Prost raised Senna’s driving and commitment to an almost transcendental level, around the track in which his artistry would be most evident.

Lapping two seconds quicker than Prost, even he was spooked. “I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding… I was way over the limit but still able to find more.” Senna’s form in the race was equally majestic, until lap 67 when he slithered wide into the barriers at Portier and crashed out, handing Prost the victory. Senna hid in his apartment, while his cleaning lady fended off McLaren personnel.

Japanese Grand Prix, 1989

Scene of the infamous lap 46 collision, in which McLaren team-mates Senna and Prost tangled on the entry to the final chicane, providing the denouement to a competitive relationship that had plundered new depths of acrimony. Senna restarted his engine, and continued the race once a new nosecone had been fitted.

He won, but was subsequently disqualified, then handed a huge fine and suspended six-month ban. Now Prost was world champion. Senna came close to quitting F1, but when he returned to the circus he would add a streak of vengefulness to his other attributes…

Spanish Grand Prix, 1990

Manish Pandey, writer and producer, Senna:

“If you want the essence of Senna - the psychological, emotional and mental make-up of the man - then his response to Martin Donnelly’s accident at Jerez in 1990 tells you everything. Martin’s crash was huge, a 170mph impact that split his Lotus in two and left him lying unconscious and still strapped to his seat in the middle of the track [Donnelly’s car had suffered a front suspension failure].

“Senna watched it all unfold on his monitor, and it affected him profoundly. What he did next demonstrates the purity of his position. He already had pole, but he went out again and beat his own time. He had nothing to gain, and he certainly wasn’t taking advantage of the situation. He was setting his own targets in his own mind. He went out there and basically told the track, ‘you can’t do that to one of us. F**k you!’ It was just something he had to do.”

Japanese Grand Prix, 1990

Senna and Prost, now a Ferrari driver, collided again. Though on pole, Senna complained that it was on the dirtier side of the track, and lobbied for it to be moved to the cleaner one. The stewards initially agreed, but the cantankerous president of F1’s governing body, Jean-Marie Balestre, overturned it.

“Senna wanted to change sides, and because he could not he was blaming me and Balestre,” Prost said. “It was always his rules.” Senna determined to be in front by the first corner, by any means necessary, leading to the inevitable. With Prost out, Senna’s unassailable points lead saw him win his second world title. “There are people winning the championship in a chicane, now I won it in a corner,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport’s Pino Allievi. Unrepentant, you might say.

Brazilian Grand Prix, 1991

With seven laps to go, and with his gearbox falling apart beneath him, Senna had no option but to finish the race using only sixth gear, in rapidly deteriorating weather conditions.

He won - just - ahead of Riccardo Patrese and Gerhard Berger, but had to be helped out of his car, and almost collapsed on the podium. A win for Brazil, as much as for Senna, with more emotion than any man could bear.

European Grand Prix, 1993

His McLaren was firmly eclipsed by the Williams, and rain was hardly unusual in the Donington area. But once again Senna had to combine his talent with a feel for the machinery and the conditions to produce an opening lap that’s become the stuff of legend.

Having dropped to sixth at the start, he still ended lap one in first place, having overhauled Prost, Hill, and Schumacher. Sega sponsored the race, and Senna won a Sonic the Hedgehog-topped trophy for his trouble.

San Marino Grand Prix, 1994

Arguably the most haunted - and haunting - weekend in F1 history.

November 1994

Senna’s sister, Viviane, launches the Instituto Ayrton Senna, initially to help under-privileged children in Brazil, as per her brother’s wishes. Now one of the most respected NGOs in the world.

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Ayrton Senna's early days: five moments from five people
Senna, the early days remembered: five recollections by the people who were there
 

When he arrived in the UK in 1981, having cut his teeth karting in Italy, Senna entered all three of the separate Formula Ford championships that existed in the country back then. For a young Brazilian, not yet fluent in English and with a distaste for the climate in England, Snetterton in Norfolk was a considerable culture shock. But Senna was there to try the Van Diemen (pictured), the most competitive single-seater at the time.

Snetterton manager Peter Staymer later recalled: “At the time he was another of the Van Diemen rookies. He was very young, very shy: yet another Brazilian. We were a sort of clearing house for the good, the bad and the ugly when racing drivers came to Snetterton because we ran seven days a week and, if you had a Van Diemen FF1600, this was where you started. Van Diemen was run by Ralph Firman and it became a bit of a joke with Ralph when Ayrton was running because they would ask to keep the circuit open ‘just another lap. Just another lap! Ayrton’s got to see if this works.’ He would have lived in that car if he could.”
 

 
McLaren boss Ron Dennis offered to fund Senna’s 1983 F3 campaign, so long as he signed an option to drive for him in F1. Even then, Senna was so confident that he was reluctant to do so, in the event that it got in the way of a drive with another F1 team. According to Ron Dennis, “he made it apparent – not in a rude way – that he wasn’t interested. He felt he had the ability and he wanted to be independent. I didn’t exactly like that attitude – but I did respect it. I remember [at the first F1 test] that he was keen to gain an advantage, asking if he was going to have fresh tyres and making sure the car wasn’t damaged by other drivers… He was clearly impressive, but he was still young. You could see in him an ‘I’m always right’ attitude. He was a very principled individual but, if I’m perfectly honest, he didn’t appeal very much at first.”
 

 
In his last-ever start in F1, in the 1985 European Grand Prix held at Brands Hatch, John Watson was standing in for an injured Niki Lauda. He had a ring-side seat as Senna passed him during qualifying. “I witnessed visibly and audibly something I had not seen anyone do before in a racing car. It was as if he had four hands and four legs. He was braking, changing down, steering, pumping the throttle and the car appeared to be on that knife edge of being in control and being out of control. It lasted maybe two seconds. It was a master controlling a machine. I had never seen a turbo car driven like that. The ability of the brain to separate each component and put them back together with that rhythm and co-ordination – it was a privilege to see.”
 
 

“[He] had flawless balance in low grip conditions and a surreal feel for the very limit in changing track conditions. Also uncanny was his apparent total recall of everything that was happening in the cockpit. At the very edge of the performance envelope in the car, he could separate so completely the physical requirements of driving the car from the mental processes. Time and again he would astound the engineers by telling them exactly what was happening with the chassis or the engine before they had seen the computer printouts.”

Lotus team manager, Peter Warr, from his biography, Team Lotus: My view from the pit wall

 

The late, great writer Russell Bulgin had known Senna since his earliest days in the UK. For the November 1986 edition of the much-loved magazine Cars & Car Conversions, Bulgin arranged for F1’s rising star to sample several different rally cars, including Phil Collins’ Brooklyn Motorsport Ford Sierra RS Cosworth. The piece is now regarded as a classic of modern automotive journalism.

“I know nothing about rallying. I’ve seen pictures in magazines, sometimes watched it on television. And I deliberately haven’t listened to anyone about rally driving. I want to find out for myself,” Senna said.

“Well you can see the talent of the guy within two-and-a-half miles. He made a right balls of the first corner, but you could feel the embarrassment coming down the intercom. Straight away he said ‘I’m so sorry’ and he realised it’s no good driving this car slowly, you’ve got to get to grips with it,” Collins told Bulgin.

“It’s much more exciting than in a Formula One car. Because here you don’t have the top, top speed, but you have a tremendous acceleration. Unbelievable acceleration – and it’s rough. It’s a much more instant emotion than it is in a Formula One car,” Senna concluded.

Bulgin noted: “Senna’s last try in the Cosworth is wonderful. He takes the final left-hander in three jolts of oversteer, running the car up the shale piled on the track edge to strengthen his exit. The engine note doesn’t waver, the hands pummeling the steering wheel. He looked like a rally driver: a brave rally driver.”

(For more, check out Maurice Hamilton’s excellent book, Senna, available from Blink Publishing)

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To some race fans, the racing season starts this weekend with a race Down Under.

Here at Classic Rewind HQ, we don't believe that, but we just smile and give the Wayback Machine a Vegemite sandwich to see what race it will give us. The result was Indy car's last visit to Australia.

The 2008 Nikon Indy 300 was a non-championship event as it was held about a month after Scott Dixon had won his second series championship. It marked the first race for Dario Franchitti with Chip Ganassi Racing (that worked out nicely) as well as the first races for popular drivers Dan Wheldon (Panther Racing) and Vitor Meira (AJ Foyt Racing) with new teams.

Will Power won a popular pole for what was his home race, but he made a mistake while leading and crashed out. Power's exit set the race on its ear and another Australian, Team Penske's Ryan Briscoe took control.

Briscoe, who started third in the No. 6 Team Penske car, took the lead for the final time on Lap 43 after the final round of pit stops and held off the Australian-born, but New Zealand bred Dixon as he dealt with traffic in the late stages of the race.

Dixon would come up short, finishing 0.5019 of a second behind Briscoe, who took home a popular win in front of his countrymen.

 

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

Posle Brajana Klausona, jos jedna megazvezda Sprintkar trkanja i povremeni Indikar starter odlazi na vecita nebeska trkalista...
 

USAC Silver Crown champion Steele killed in crash
Sunday, 26 March 2017
By RACER Staff / Image by LAT

 

Two-time USAC Silver Crown champion Dave Steele was killed Saturday night in a sprint car crash at Desoto Speedway in Bradenton, Florida. He was 42.

Steele was racing in the Southern Shootout Sprint Car Shootout Series when he crashed while trying to lap slower cars on the 3/8th-mile asphalt track, according to SpeedSport.com.

Desoto Speedway released a statement saying "Desoto Speedway owners and staff are saddened by tonight's passing of David Steele in the Sprint Car feature. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends who were all in attendance, to see him try to win his 100th Florida race."

Steele's résumé included back-to-back USAC Silver Crown championships in 2004 and 2005, three IndyCar starts, several ARCA and Busch Series races and a few in the Infiniti Pro Series. He won the 2001 and 2003 Turkey Night Grand Prix at Irwindale Speedway and earned 60 USAC feature victories.

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New IMS Museum Exhibit To Celebrate A.J. Foyt
March 29, 2017 | By IMS Museum


In celebration of the 40th anniversary of his record-setting fourth Indianapolis 500 win, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is proud to present a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit honoring auto racing icon A.J. Foyt, opening April 14.

Nearly three dozen cars that Foyt drove in competition will be on display, including all four of his Indianapolis 500 winning machines, the 1961 Bowes Seal Fast Special, 1964 & 1967 Sheraton-Thompson Specials, and the 1977 Gilmore Coyote.

"Everyone knows that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is my favorite track and that people wouldn't know me if it weren't for the Indy 500, but to have the Museum put on this exhibit there, well I feel truly honored," said the legendary Foyt. "This exhibit will give people a chance to see my winning Indy cars but also some of the other race cars I drove and won in over the years."

In addition to several of Foyt's IndyCars, many incredible machines representing Foyt's career in NASCAR, USAC and road racing will be on display, many for the first time, and visitors will also have the chance to see rare memorabilia from Foyt's personal collection.

"Based on the stuff we shipped to Indy, I think the Museum has a lot of personal memorabilia and photos that their visitors will like seeing" Foyt said. "I haven't seen some of the cars in many, many years so to be truthful, I'm looking forward to the exhibit too!"

"A.J. Foyt is perhaps the most iconic driver in the 108-year history of the Brickyard" said Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum Director & Curator Ellen Bireley. "We are proud to honor this incredible champion with an exhibit of memories and memorabilia that pays tribute to one of the most diverse and successful careers in auto racing history."

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This week's Classic Rewind takes us to the LBC to watch the first win at Long Beach by one of the race's most popular winners - Alex Zanardi.

Alex Zanardi remains one of racing's most popular figures, so it's no surprise that Zanardi race wins are among the most popular episodes of Classic Rewind.

This week, the Wayback Machine heads back 20 years and to Long Beach for the 1997 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The third round of the 1997 season began with a bit of drama as provisional pole sitter Gil de Ferran crashed his primary car in the Saturday warmup, then sat in his backup car on pit lane as the rest of the field tried to best his time. He'd win the pole and lead the early portion of the race.

Zanardi took control around Lap 40 and he and teammate Jimmy Vasser held the lead for much of the race. One of them seemed destined for victory, but Vasser needed fuel late in the race and pitted, handing the lead to his teammate, who would win at Long Beach for the first time.

It was the fourth win of Zanardi's career and he celebrated with a donut for the fans in Turn 1.

 

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REAR VIEW: Scott Pruett's biggest investment
Monday, 03 April 2017
By Robin Miller / Images by Dan Boyd, Marshall Pruett


It was equal parts ballsy and crazy and probably couldn't happen today, but it led to a successful 10-year career in IndyCar.

In 1988, Scott Pruett was 28 years old and at a crossroads in his racing life. A world class go-karter, he'd captured the 1987 Trans Am title but wanted to be in open wheel – Formula 1 or CART – and knew the clock was ticking. He tested for the Larrousse team but realized there wasn't much of a future for an American in F1.

So he invested in himself.



"I took all the money I had in the world, as well as borrowing some, and offered $70,000 to Dick Simon to let me run the Long Beach Grand Prix," Pruett recalled with a chuckle. "I was young and dumb and too stupid to know any better, like I've been most of my life, but I felt like it was my one chance to try and show people what I could do."

Now making your debut at Long Beach is tough enough, but doing it without ever having sat in an IndyCar seems like double jeopardy. Yet the native of Roseville, California managed to finish in the top 10 on the first day of practice, then qualified 13th out of 26 cars in between Teo Fabi and Derek Daly. His car broke down in the race, but he'd proved his point.

"Andy Kenopensky of the Machinists Union called me to sub for Kevin Cogan after he got hurt that summer so I ran The Meadowlands and Mid-Ohio, where I qualified eighth," he continued. "That's all it took because then I started talking to Steve Horne and he signed me as the full-time Budweiser driver for the 1989 CART season."


Pruett at Detroit, 1989

In his first full season, Pruett finished eighth in the point standings to earn rookie of the year honors, but then missed all of 1990 after a breaking both legs in a testing accident when the brakes failed. In 1994 he was hired to test tires for Firestone, which was launching its IndyCar comeback in 1995 following a 20-year hiatus. He battled for the lead at Indianapolis in 1995 before crashing, but he came back to score a last-second victory over Al Unser Jr. in the Michigan 500.

He also won at Australia in 1997 and finished sixth in the 1998 standings before heading to NASCAR.

Today, at age 57, he's assembled one of the greatest sports car records in history with five Rolex 24 wins, one at Sebring and a class win at Le Mans in addition to 10 championships.

But no man ever believed in his own abilities and then backed it up like Pruett did almost 30 years ago.

"It could have gone either way," he acknowledges. "But it turned out to be a defining moment."

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40 years ago today: Mario Andretti wins Long Beach F1
Monday, 03 April 2017
By RACER staff / Image by LAT

It was 40 years ago today that Mario Andretti overhauled Jody Scheckter's Wolf in the closing stages of the Grand prix of Long Beach to win the second-ever Formula 1 race on the streets of the Soutern California city. Aside from giving a significant early boost to the Long Beach event – which will be staged for the 43rd time this weekend – the win foreshadowed Mario's world championship victory from Lotus the following year.

Enjoy the memories in this documentary video of the 1977 U.S. Grands Prix at Long Beach and Watkins Glen:

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The first week of April provided some significant moments to the legendary career of Mario Andretti. Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of Andretti's victory in the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Long Beach, and it was 24 years ago today that Mario took victory in the Valvoline 200 at Phoenix International Raceway. It was the 52nd and last IndyCar win of his illustrious career.

 

Enjoy the memories in the video below.

 

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Juce u 82. godini umro Majk Tejlor, vozac najpoznatiji po prezivljenom teskom udesu na VN Belgije 1960, jednom od najcrnjih vikenda u istoriji F1.

 

 

Rodjen 1934. godine, Tejlor se poceo takmiciti u nizim kategorijama polovinom 50-tih godina zabelezivsi zavidne rezultate u klasi sportskih prototipova do 1100 cm3 vozeci Lotus 11, da bi pred kraj sezone 1957. presao u F2. 1959. je sezona njegovih najvecih uspeha, u kojoj je uzeo nekoliko pobeda u F2 sampionatima a po prvi put se oprobao i u F1 kvalifikujuci se za VN Britanije ali ostavsi bez plasmana na trci nakon odustajanja zbog kvara.

 

Sezonu 1960 otvara serijom podijuma u F2 vozeci Lotus 15, ali Tejlor je zeleo u elitu i kupuje Lotus 18 F1 bolid. Prvi izlazak na stazu bio je u trci van sampionata za Medjunarodni trofej Silverstona, gde odustaje zbog problema sa paljenjem. Sledeca trka je trebala da bude VN Belgije.

 

Za ovu priliku organizatori su odlucili da duzinu trke produze sa 24 na 36 krugova, prakricno na predratnu Granpri distancu od 500km. Vikend je od samog pocetka krenuo naopako, tokom subotnjih kvalifikacija Sterling Mos u fabrickom Lotusu 18 dozivljava tezak udes koji ga salje u bolnicu na nekoliko meseci i od cijih se posledica nikada nije potpuno oporavio. Tek sto su redari zbrinuli Mosa i pospremili stazu, i Tejlor dozivljava udes - lom letve volana i izletanje sa staze u sumu, Tejlor biva izvacen iz bolida i svojim telom je pokosio jedno drvo zadobivsi pritom visestruke prelome rebara i ostao delimicno paralisan. Crni vikend u Spa-Frankosanu je u nedelju na trci odneo i zivote Krisa Bristoua koji je nakon izletanja sa staze zavrsio u bodljikavoj zici koja mu je nanela zaista gnusne povrede, i Alena Stejsija u jednom od bizarnijih udesa u istoriji auto-sporta nakon sto je licem u otvorenoj kacigi udario pticu u letu.

 

Nakon udesa, Tejlor je tuzio ekipu Lotusa - i ostaje zabelezen u istoriji kao jedan od retkih koji je na sudu uspeo da dokaze da mu je isporucena falicna oprema (var na letvi volana nije bio uradjen kako treba - podseca li vas ovo na jos jedan tragican vikend nekih 3 ipo decenija kasnije?), i da dobije odstetu. Naravno, povrede koje je pretrpeo su znacile i kraj takmicarske karijere na najvisem nivou, a Tejlor se nakon nekoliko godina naporne rehabilitacije oporavio u dovoljnoj meri da vodi normalan zivot i cak se krajem 60-tih vratio voznji ali u reliju. Najznacajniji rezultat mu je trece mesto na Maratonu London - Sidnej 1977. vozeci Sitroen CX.

 

Edited by Rad-oh-yeah?, 05 April 2017 - 21:13.

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Tim Parnell 1932 - 2017
Wednesday, 05 April 2017
RACER Staff / Image by LAT


Former Formula 1 driver and team owner Tim Parnell has died at the age of 84.

Born into racing blood – his father Reg was also a driver and achieved considerable renown as a team manager – the Brit's two F1 starts came in the 1961 British and Italian GPs, both in a privateer Lotus 18.

But it was in management that he really made his mark. He took over Reg Parnell Racing following his father's death in 1964, and later headed the BRM team from 1970 until 1974, a period that included Grand Prix wins for Pedro Rodriguez, Jo Siffert, Peter Gethin and Jean-Pierre Beltoise.

Later, he was appointed vice-president of the British Racing Drivers' Club, and remained a regular fixture at the British GP and historic events in the U.K.

Pedro Rodriguez celebrates with Parnell after winning the 1970 Belgian GP at Spa.

 

Redz Parnel Rejsing je bila jedna od znacajnijih privatnih ekipa tokom 60-tih godina (takmicili su se 1959.-1969.) i tokom svog postojanja su za njih vozila mnoga velika imena koja su kasnije slavu nasla u fabrickim timovima - Dzon Sartis, Kris Ejmon, Majk Hejlvud, Piter Revson, a takodje karijeru zavrsavali stari asovi Moris Trintinjan, Roj Salvadori, Masten Gregori...

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Rear View: Vasser's 1992 Long Beach splash
Thursday, 06 April 2017
By Marshall Pruett / Images by Dan R. Boyd


Twenty-five years ago in Long Beach, IndyCar fans got their first proper introduction to Jimmy Vasser. The Californian open-wheeler, fresh off a breakthrough season in the Toyota Atlantic Championship with Genoa Racing, was drafted into the new Hayhoe/Cole Racing team to drive a year-old Lola powered by an older generation A-spec Chevy engine.

Compared to the powerhouse teams—the Penske, Newman/Haas, and Galles/Kraco organizations, in particular, the tiny, underfunded Hayhoe/Cole outfit should have been buried at the tail end of a packed field. Especially with a rookie left to find his way in cast-off equipment. Although his car and engine were far from special, Vasser would quickly learn the team that surrounded him more than compensated for any vehicular deficiencies.



"When I was racing in the Atlantics for Genoa in '91, we met Jim Hayhoe through Rick Galles who was going to the races as their guest," Vasser (pictured in '92)  told RACER. "And Jim just started saying, 'Let's see if we can put an IndyCar team together.' He was very entrepreneurial that way. So he had the help of Jim McGee and at that race in Long Beach. Mike Hull was team manager. Bill Pappas was the engineer. George Klotz was a mechanic. Jeff Grahn was a mechanic.

"My board man was the famous artist and painter Ron Burton. Dennis Weaks was my fueler. We had a legitimate cast of all-stars. It turned out to be all-stars, but at the time, people probably thought we were more like the Bad News Bears. I was fortunate to have my first IndyCar races with that caliber of professional racers."

Against Bobby Rahal, Mario and Michael Andretti, Rick Mears and Emerson Fittipaldi, Al Unser Jr and Danny Sullivan, and other living legends, Vasser was a complete unknown. During his first two races at Surfers Paradise and Phoenix, a pair of 15th-place finishes did little to pique anyone's interest, but with CART's visit to Long Beach – a track he knew rather well from Atlantics – Vasser used Round 3 to make a statement.

Dressed in the Stars & Stripes livery arranged by Hayhoe with the America's Cup program, Vasser pushed the No. 47 Lola-Chevy to 13th on the grid in qualifying. In a field with 24 cars, the midfield run left him within reach of the heroes he openly worshipped.

"I was definitely pleased with that qualifying session," he said. "Those were the times when you were leaving pit lane as a rookie in IndyCar, and the rear wing in front of you is Mario Andretti or Rick Mears. You're just going out for practice and thinking, 'God, that's Rick Mears' rear wing. Jesus, that's Emerson Fittipaldi!'"

Vasser's qualifying performance thrilled his team and also caught the attention of one of his idols.

"I remember clearly, our transporter was pitted across the way, nose to nose with Penske," he said. "And I remember Emerson came over and said really nice things about my qualifying and stuff. Those kinds of things from a superstar to a young driver really get emblazed in your mind."



If things went well for Vasser and the Hayhoe crew in time trials on Saturday, fortune was definitely waiting to smile on the No. 47 team during Sunday's Long Beach Grand Prix.

"I do remember that, racing with Rick Mears towards the end, and trying to get by him," Vasser said with a laugh. "I mean, you don't go into a race at that point in your career thinking Mears...Penske car...let's go around them at a street race. He ended up finishing right in front of me in sixth and I was seventh. You get out of the car and look at the names of the guys ahead of you and it's Mears, Scott Goodyear, Little Al, Emmo, all the biggest stars of the day. For a rookie, it was crazy to come right after those guys."

That seventh-place finish would stand as Vasser's best in 1992, and in two more seasons with the Hayhoe/Cole team, he'd get his first podium in '93 and capture a handful of top fives in 1994. With the little team running low on money and preparing to close, Vasser's mighty efforts with an underdog program came close to going unrewarded.

That was, until, his former team manager Mike Hull – who'd moved to Chip Ganassi's burgeoning IndyCar effort – lobbied his boss to give the California kid a shot in 1995. One year later, the Target Chip Ganassi Racing outfit had its first of many IndyCar titles.

"It was only four years after we worked together at Hayhoe that that we won the championship with Chip," he said. "It seemed like it took a lifetime to go from Long Beach in '92 to getting the championship, but four years, as you get older, goes by so fast. It's a great trip down memory lane to think about how everything took off 25 years ago for us."

 

Dzimi Vaser pre jedno 3 godine sa nekim cobanom, budalom :

 

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Edited by Rad-oh-yeah?, 07 April 2017 - 01:00.

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Rear View: Sullivan's Long Beach spin and win
Friday, 07 April 2017
By Marshall Pruett / Images by Dan R. Boyd


Danny Sullivan became known as Mr. Spin and Win after his incredible rotation and recovery drive to earn victory at the 1985 Indy 500. Seven years later, at the Long Beach Grand Prix, Sullivan put his nickname to use in a most unique and unfortunate way, and was duly met with rage by half of his Galles/Kraco Racing team.

On the 25th anniversary of Sullivan's penultimate IndyCar win, it's worth taking a trip back to Long Beach 1992 with Sullivan to get the inside story on tipping his cherished teammate into a spin and out of the lead, and the immediate fallout that came from spoiling Al Unser Jr..'s quest to win five consecutive Long Beach races.

The 1992 race should have ended with Michael Andretti atop the podium. His Newman/Haas Racing Lola T92/00-Ford/Cosworth was the fastest car in the field, beat Sullivan to pole position, and went on to lead the first 44 laps with ease. The old Andretti Curse made sure Michael's charge ended on lap 44 with gearbox failure, and with Unser Jr. trailing in second at the time, the lead was passed from one famous second-generation driver to the next.

Little Al's streak of four straight Long Beach wins with the team owned by Rick Galles and Maurice Kraines was the obvious headline to follow, and with Andretti's sudden retirement, the chance to extend that record to five became an unexpected possibility.

Unser Jr., in the prime of his career, took charge and led through lap 78 of 105, and even managed to overcome a slow final pit stop to pass Sullivan on cold tires and retake the lead before the end of the lap. Only the oft-maligned journeyman driver Hiro Matsushita, a slight bobble on the backstretch by Unser Jr. to pass the reviled "King Hiro," and Sullivan's optimistic dive to the inside of today's Turn 9 could thwart Little Al's "Drive for Five."

"[Bobby] Rahal and Emerson [Fittipaldi] I think we were catching us and we got held up by Hiro – King Hero," Sullivan said. "I'm watching my mirrors coming down the back straightaway...and Al had gone down the inside. That is how we got past Hiro.

"I was right behind him, and so I'm watching my mirrors – I'm keeping an eye on where those guys were holding. They weren't quite close enough to make a pass, but they were within striking distance."



With the 1992 version of the Long Beach circuit, drivers entered the back straight through a section of the city streets that are no longer part of the track, yet offered a faster launch and higher top speed before arriving at the current Turn 9. The back straight was also wider than it is today, which gave drivers multiple lanes to try and pass in the braking zone. With those speeds and options in mind, Sullivan tried to use Matsushita as a "pick" to pull off a pass for the lead as the corner approached.

"And Al brakes earlier than he normally brakes," he continued. "Admittedly, we were more over inside than the regular line, but this was quite substantially more than where we brake. And I was, 'Oh, s••t!' and I jumped on the brakes and I tagged him. And I didn't bump him out of the way."



The relatively mild meeting of Sullivan's left-front wing endplate and Unser Jr.'s right-rear tire was enough to tip Little Al into a half spin as his teammate, Rahal and Fittipaldi streamed by with four laps to go. The fault laid squarely on Sullivan, but he bristles at the suggestion it was intentional.

"First of all, it wasn't the last lap," he said, "and to bump somebody in an IndyCar, you've got to be pretty sure you don't have far to go because you can damage the front suspension, the wing. This isn't a Cup car. It is a delicate deal. And I hit him...anyway, the rest is history, I went on to win. But [the team was] pissed that Al didn't win because it would've made five for him or something like that."

Sullivan would score the first victory for the Galmer G92 chassis funded by Galles and built in a partnership with designer Alan Mertens. Despite applying the "Spin and Win" formula to Little Al at Long Beach, Sullivan and Unser Jr. would eventually reconcile the matter. Although Sullivan has fond memories of his Long Beach win, his time spent with the Galles/Kraco program from 1992-'93 lacks the same reverie.

As a newcomer to the team after Bobby Rahal left to start his own team at the end of 1991, Sullivan soon learned his past success – including the Indy 500 win and the 1988 CART IndyCar Series championship – with Roger Penske meant very little. With four seasons spent with his fellow New Mexico native Rick Galles and the 1990 CART title to their credit, Unser Jr. was like Albuquerque-bred royalty within the program.

Coming off two fruitless seasons with the Alfa Romeo IndyCar project, Sullivan was not treated with the same regard that might have been offered if he came straight from Penske Racing. Any notion of being considered an equal, Sullivan says, was quickly dispelled during a pre-season Galles/Kraco gathering.

"We had a meeting where everybody was sitting with their sponsors and everything, and Al Jr.. said, 'You don't understand: this is my team. Everything is for me,'" he revealed. "And, by the way, he was correct."



The following year at Detroit, where Sullivan earned his final IndyCar win, produced another heated response that only widened the considerable divide between the two camps.

"At Detroit, Al cost himself that race," he said. "And I will tell you why. I was leading [and] I had a turbocharger problem. Well, at Detroit there's not much of a straightaway. And we'd been told repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, go down the back straightaway and you have that left and right, and if you go through the cones you are considered off-track and it is a penalty."

Under pressure from behind by Unser Jr., Sullivan was a bit of a sitting duck, but wasn't going to surrender the lead without offering some resistance.

"I'm fighting for the win too," he added. "So you go in deep and stuff like that, but Al, there was no way I was going to hold off Little Al, he was too good of a racer. There was no way with my turbocharger issue I was going to hold off Little Al. It wasn't going to happen. But he out-braked himself and went through the cones, so he got penalized. I went and held [everyone] off and won the race."

Like Long Beach, Sullivan's crew was plenty pleased, but the elation stopped there.

"Here is how toxic the situation was," he said. "Galles, because they were all going back to New Mexico, they had a pretty good system that one team, meaning Al's team or my team, would stay and load the truck and get everything and go back the next day. The other team would leave and catch the early flight and go home that night – and they would rotate it. Anyway, it was Little Al's [team's turn], and I get to Detroit airport, and I carried the trophy back with me. And I was walking through and I saw [Little Al's] guys in the bar. So I go in to buy them drinks.

"They were rude as can be; they didn't want to talk to me. They were pissed. Al hadn't won the race. And I said, 'You know, guys, you realize Little Al is going to be gone next year.' And they denied it. And I didn't know for sure, but everybody pretty much knew that Little Al was going to go to Penske.

And I said, 'Look, I'm your f***ing driver; the guy is going to dump you. If you guys want to be that way, f••k you, guys.' Literally, I said, 'F••k you, guys, I got the trophy, and I'm out of here.'"

Sullivan was fired just before the start of the 1994 season – too late to find a decent ride – and returned in 1995 with the new PacWest Racing team where he spent his 12th and final year in CART. The ensuing lawsuits with Galles aside, time has softened Sullivan's views on his Galles/Kraco days, and he and Little Al remain friends a quarter-century after their internecine fight.

"There's good camaraderie," he said. "We fought wars. It was a fiercely competitive group. There were some times where we all wanted to come to blows. But I look back on it with real fond memories."

[Rad-oh-yeah?]

Foyt, Gurney, Fittipaldi honored by RRDC
Friday, 07 April 2017
By RACER Staff / Images by Marshall Pruett, Paul Pfanner


A.J. Foyt has been honored with numerous awards for the accomplishments from his legendary racing career. He received another Thursday night. The four-time Indianapolis 500 winner and current Verizon IndyCar Series team owner was presented with the Spirit of Ford

Award in a ceremony at the Road Racing Drivers Club dinner held in conjunction with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

The Spirit of Ford Award is Ford Motor Company's highest honor in auto racing, recognizing lifetime achievement and contribution to the industry both on and off the racetrack. Foyt becomes the 26th recipient, joining an international list of honorees from all forms of racing and racing media.

"It's a great honor and Ford has always been good to me," said Foyt, who was on hand for the dinner along with Dan Gurney as part of an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the duo's victory at the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans, the first and only Le Mans victory by an all-American team featuring all-American drivers.

"After 50 years, who would have thought that Gurney and I would be around to be honored?" said Foyt, 82. "It means an awful lot. It's a big honor for Ford to do this for us."

Foyt, the only driver in history to win the Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500, 24 Hours of Le Mans and 24 Hours of Daytona, was presented the award during the RRDC dinner by Edsel B. Ford II, great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford and a member of the company's board of directors. He and Gurney were also given a lifetime membership into The ACO's Club de Pilotes for legends of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

"A.J. was one of my heroes in racing when I first followed the sport," said Ford. "When looking back at his magnificent career, the question isn't what did A.J. drive, but more what didn't he drive and win in? His passion for driving and his commitment to the sport since his retirement have made him more than worthy for all the halls of fames he is part of."

Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi was the featured honoree at the RRDC event that drew luminaries from around the racing world. As Gurney said, all the notables "were here to see Emmo." The Brazilian legend told stories about how his love of racing was evident throughout his career. He included stories of his 1989 Indy 500 win, his Indy car debut in a pink car and racing suit and stories from his championship-winning career as a Formula 1 driver.

Earlier Thursday, Fittipaldi was inducted into the Long Beach Motorsports Walk of Fame. The Brazilian raced at Long Beach 13 times from 1984-96 with a best of finish of second twice (1985, 1990). He also raced on the streets of Long Beach five times in F1 from 1976-80. He and Mario Andretti are the only Indy car and F1 season champions to race at Long Beach in both series.

Fittipaldi won the 1972 F1 and 1989 Indy car season championships. His 22 career Indy car wins include the two at the Indianapolis 500 (1989, '93) and tie him for 20th on the all-time list with Tony Bettenhausen.




Fittipaldi was honored for career that took him from being the youngest F1 World Champion at age 25 to the third-oldest Indy 500 winner 21 years later.
 
Ford commemorated its historic 1967 victory at the 24 Horus of Le Mans by reuniting AJ Foyt and Dan Gurney with their winning Ford Mark IV, 50 years after their record win.

Previous honorees include Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Roger Penske, Jim Hall, Brian Redman, Mario Andretti, Bobby Unser and George Follmer.

The event marked RRDC's ninth annual banquet, which honors auto racing's most influential leaders and champions.

Proceeds benefit RRDC's young driver initiatives, including its SAFEisFAST program and the Team USA Scholarship.

 

Mario Andretti  @MarioAndretti

This is what it's like when I'm with @emmofittipaldi

8:53 AM - 7 Apr 2017