Thru Noggles Goggles .::. October 15th
Bobby East of Brownsburg, Ind. is the 2012 TRAXXAS USAC Silver Crown Champion, dominating the final race in the series, leading all 100 laps of Saturday night’s “Sumar Classic 100” at the Terre Haute Action Track. East started second in the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian entry and grabbed the lead from pole starter Bryan Clauson at the start. The #17 RW/Curb-Agajanian entry driven to sixth by Clauson ended up as the 2012 TRAXXAS Silver Crown car entrant champion. Jerry Coons Jr. took second in Saturday night’s race and ended up second in the final standings. Russ Gamester came from 11th to take third at the checkered flag, with Bud Kaeding fourth and Tracy Hines fifth. East’s final margin of victory over Coons in the 100-lapper was 12.751 seconds.
TRAXXAS USAC SILVER CROWN CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES RACE RESULTS: October 13, 2012 – Terre Haute, Indiana – Terre Haute Action Track – “Sumar Classic 100”
QUALIFICATIONS: 1. Bryan Clauson, 17, RW-20.467; 2. Bobby East, 22, Stewart/Curb-Agajanian-20.480; 3. Robert Ballou, 63, DePalma-20.799; 4. Tracy Hines, 16, Lightfoot-20.965; 5. Jerry Coons Jr., 27, RW-20.975; 6. Kody Swanson, 33, Six-R-21.007; 7. Bud Kaeding, 29, BK-21.025; 8. Shane Hollingsworth, 20, Nolen-21.135; 9. Brian Tyler, 21, Six-R-21.376; 10. Dave Darland, 19, Six-R-21.419; 11. Russ Gamester, 51, Gamester-21.795; 12. Rich Tobias Jr., 39, Aqualini-NT; 13. Shane Cottle, 14, McQuinn-NT; 14. Tanner Swanson, 23, Six-R-NT; 15. Steve Adams, 500, 500 Motorsports-NT.
FEATURE: (100 laps) 1. Bobby East, 2. Jerry Coons Jr., 3. Russ Gamester, 4. Bud Kaeding, 5. Tracy Hines, 6. Bryan Clauson, 7. Brian Tyler, 8. Robert Ballou, 9. Kody Swanson, 10. Tanner Swanson, 11. Rich Tobias Jr., 12. Dave Darland, 13. Shane Hollingsworth, 14. Shane Cottle. NT
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**Adams flipped during practice and was transported for observation for a concussion. T.Swanson cleared the wall during practice.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-100 East.
FINAL SILVER CROWN SERIES STANDINGS: 1-Bobby East-412, 2-Jerry Coons. Jr.-400, 3-Kody Swanson-374, 4-Bud Kaeding-358, 5-Tanner Swanson-325, 6-Tracy Hines-310, 7-Brian Tyler-276, 8-Levi Jones-270, 9-Bobby Santos-253, 10-Russ Gamester-249.
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The Indianapolis Star’s Curt Cavin reports on women in racing who’ve lost family members:
At the St. Petersburg, Fla., IndyCar Series race, Holly Wheldon waves the green flag to start the race in honor of her brother Dan Wheldon March 25, 2012. / (Photo by Walt Kuhn)
Helio Castroneves is presented with the 2011 IndyCar Favorite Driver award by Dan Wheldon’s sister Holly Wheldon March 25, 2012 in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Photo by Scott LePage)
Dan Wheldon with sister Holly Wheldon. / (Provided by Holly Wheldon)
Male athletes often talk about their brotherhood, the group with shared experiences that bonds them. IndyCar has one, too, with a sister who’s part of the fraternity. Her name is Holly Wheldon. Holly wasn’t just the youngest sibling of the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner killed a year ago this week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. She was his most vocal and visible fan, especially in recent years.
She spread his message via social media, accumulating more Twitter followers — 11,708 as of Friday morning — than some of IndyCar’s drivers. She regularly attended her big brother’s races, although she often went unnoticed because of their 15-year age difference.
But the drivers who raced with Dan not only knew Holly, they engaged with her like the sister they had growing up. They were part of each other’s family, on and off the racetrack, dining together, laughing together, sharing experiences together.
When tragedy struck, everyone in IndyCar was affected. But in a classic case of caring, those working in the paddock looked out for more people than just Dan’s wife, Susie, and their two sons, Sebastian and Oliver. They remembered Holly, too.
“She’s one of us,” said Tony Kanaan, one of Dan’s former teammates and closest IndyCar friends. “We would take care of her anyway as we’re Dan’s friends, but she’s also been our friend. She’s someone we love. We always will.”
Scott Dixon and his wife, Emma, feel that way, too, which is why they uprooted their own young family in the weeks after the tragedy to be near enough to the Wheldons to provide help. The Dixons are including Holly in vacation plans in January, the surest evidence that she’s still part of their family.
Like the Dixons, Dario Franchitti and his wife, Ashley, want Holly’s story to come from her, but they are talking about spending part of the Christmas season together in Scotland, where the Franchittis have a home.
Holly’s IndyCar support group continues on from there, from Will Power to James Hinchcliffe to Marco Andretti to lesser-known people in the sport. Several of the lesser-knowns grabbed milkshakes with Holly at Steak & Shake near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 1:30 a.m. prior to this year’s 500.
“It’s like one big family,” Holly said from her home in England. “Dario and Dixon have just been amazing. They’re always texting me or giving me a call to see how we’re doing and how’s the (Wheldon) family. They’re all great guys, and I just adore them.”
Holly, 19, is an accountant for her family’s plumbing and heating business near the family’s longtime home in Emberton, a village of about 600 people located an hour north of London. She lives with her parents, Clive and Sue, who still have the picturesque home overlooking the 14th century All Saints Church, and she has three other older brothers.
Working in the family business affords Holly the chance to travel, and IndyCar is a large part of it. In the recently completed season, she attended the race in Dan’s adopted hometown, St. Petersburg, Fla., along with the Indianapolis 500 and the street race in Toronto.
She has already scheduled a return to next season’s St. Petersburg race, set for March 24. “I’ll be at the first race, definitely,” she said. “I’m looking so forward to it.”
Becky Brayton
Some might find it unusual that Holly would stay close to the sport of such danger — Susie Wheldon and her boys also attended the 500 — but those inside it understand the togetherness.
Becky Brayton lost her husband, Scott, during practice in 1996 at IMS. She ultimately stayed in the sport to help her husband’s team, owned by John Menard, promote the sponsors. After all, IndyCar felt like home.
“My feelings about what happened with Scott carried through to all my life, so it wasn’t any more of a big reminder to be there,” she said. “It was great for me to be there because you’re around the people that you’re friends with.”
Like Holly, Becky only knew life as it related to racing. Her father, Fred Rhue, ran PPG Industries, which became CART’s title sponsor in 1979. She began dating Brayton two years later. Becky knew how to help Brayton’s sponsors because she had worked with PPG’s program over the years. She also was a key figure in the coordination of CART’s race in Cleveland, her hometown.
Like Holly, Becky had people in the sport to support her: Menard, PPG’s Jim Chapman, Tony Stewart (Brayton’s teammate), Team Menard crew members, Buddy McAtee and Tony and Laura George.
“This sport is competitive, but it’s its own little world, and it’s very close-knit,” Becky said. “It’s a fraternity, for sure. I will admit it was difficult in some regards, but in some regards deciding to (return to racing) was deciding to carry on. A lot of people thought I was nuts. They had mixed views on that, but from my perspective, it worked out great.”
In 1999, Becky married another driver, Robbie Buhl. They have two daughters, Carly [Brayton] and Quinn. Becky stopped traveling with the sport when the latter was born, but IndyCar is still home.
“Whenever I go back, it’s like I never left,” she said. “Everybody treats you like they just saw you last week. It’s a nice thing.”
An ocean might keep Holly at a distance, but Twitter and email keep her close. As important, her involvement keeps others close to the brother they lost. “It’s mutually therapeutic,” said [TNG reader] Mike Kitchel, who coordinated Wheldon’s schedule at Panther Racing in 2009 and 2010.
Holly’s Twitter account regularly is dotted with well-wishers praising her strength. One called her a role model. She laughs at that. After all, she’s just one of the guys. “I’m lucky to have them,” she said.
And they her.
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Alley Talk:
I’d like to know what makes Tony George tick !
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Tony George needs to go away. This is the man that split Indy Car open wheel racing because he didn’t want a bunch of spoiled Indy Car team owners telling him & the Indianapolis Motor Speedway what to do. I supported him by attending many IRL races over the last several years. now he’s doing just what he was originally opposed to.
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How’s Jeff Bloom doing these days?
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Closer competition is better than just being faster.
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What’s happened to Bobby Santos, III lately ?
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I want to know why short track fans put up with poor lighting, no scoreboards, shaky grandstands, and/or terrible sound systems. No other sport I know has it so bad.
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Friday June 7th Lincoln Speedway, Lincoln, IL
Saturday June 8th Macon Speedway, Macon, IL
Sunday June 9th Belle-Clair Speedway, Belleville, IL
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Now that the entire Pike’s Peak Hill Climb course has been paved, many records have fallen. And talk about organization and planning ahead, look at this:
The 91st running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has been set for Sunday, June 30, 2013.
And for the first time in the history of the storied race, tentative future dates are being set for the event through 2017, each around the same time, which should make planning easier for competitors, the legion of fans who attend the annual auto and motorcycle showdown atop the 14,100-foot mountain just west of Colorado Springs and local businesses and services.
Additional planning and study is being coordinated for the actual full race week schedule, with an announcement to come. The annual Fan Fest, which drew more than 30,000 fans to downtown Colorado Springs, will be Friday, June 28.
The PPIHC Board of Directors has announced the future tentative dates:
2014——June 29
2015——June 28
2016——July 3 (100thAnniversary Celebration (1916) on Monday, July 4)
2017——June 25
“We felt that it was practical to establish similar dates for the future for many reasons,” said PPIHC Chairman Tom Osborne. “It gives the drivers, racers, fans, sponsors, suppliers and the many businesses and organizations that support the race a clear path to plan ahead for race week, and that can be helpful as the race continues its amazing growth.” The 90th running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb on August 12 this summer had it all for thousands of fans and the drivers and racers who came to Colorado Springs for the race, delayed from its original date of July 8 by the horrific Waldo Canyon Fire.
The 37-day delay brought fans of the nation’s second-oldest motor sports race everything they ever dreamed of, and more. It turned out to be the fastest of them all since it began in 1916. A total of eleven new records had been set by drivers and racers from 14 countries and the benefits of a fully-paved course were obvious, and so were the dangers and the speeds over the 12.41 mile, fully-paved course that includes 156 turns.
83 automobiles and 87 motorcycles were on hand at the start of a sunny, cloudless sky at the Rocky Mountain Ford Start Line, but by the end of a very long day, the summit of Pikes Peak endured snow, hail, rain and wind, with race officials shortening the course by almost 3,000 feet for the last pair of divisions. By then, the temperature on top was just 38 degrees. Two major crashes and a flurry of red flags delayed the program for more than two hours, but before those, the now fully-paved course was turning over records as fast as one could blink.
The first five motorcycle divisions produced course records, highlighted by the blistering 9:52.819 turned in by Ducati’s Carlin Dunne in the 1205cc field, the best ever on the mountain by a motorcycle. It wiped out the old record of 11:11.329 that Dunne established last year as a rookie. He needed the record because Greg Tracy was right behind him on his own Multistrada and ripped off a 9:58.262. That’s the stuff of legends, two bikes under ten seconds right away!
The stunner of the day came in the loaded Electric auto division, and it was a shock. Japan’s Nobuhiro Tajima, who had won the last six Unlimited titles and who was the defending King of the Mountain, roared off in search of another course record. But a fire in his engine forced him to the side early. He climbed out of his auto and walked back to the start line.
But that only set the table for the drama that soon was to unfold. French star Romain Dumas, winner of the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans, had entered the Pikes Peak Open as a rookie, but a rookie with worlds of experience and a great endurance performer. Veteran observers during the week noted his fast practice times and nodded. Buckled into his sleek Porsche GR3R, Dumas roared through his 156 turns and obliterated Tajima’s course record set last summer with a fire-and-ice clocking of 9:46.181 that reverberated up and down the mountain, and around the racing world on the internet. There he was, atop America’s Mountain, with the fastest time ever.
Now came Rhys Millen for the 18th time on the Peak, the son of famed Rod Millen and an eight-time champion who originally was entered in Unlimited, but switched to Time Attack in the spring. Mixed in a tough field with defending champion Brianne Corn, veteran Dave Kern and others, Millen had a goal – to return the record held by his father until 2011 to the Millen family in his familiar Hyundai Genesis Coupe.
No mechanical issues this time, no squishy brakes, no misses at all for the polished Californian by way of New Zealand. When he got the flag at 14,100-feet and unbuckled himself, people were running to him from the Summit House, and they were yelling “9:46.164!” Millen heard it and believed it, and his arms went to the sky.
The record was back in the Millen family by the narrowest of margins.
2012 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb Results
Automobile Classes
Time Attack: Rhys Millen, Huntington Beach, CA……………………………9:46.164 (Course record)
Pikes Peak Open: Romain Dumas, Basel, Switzerland………………………..9:46.181 (New Record)
Open Wheel: Spencer Steele, Denver, CO…………………………………. 4:13.240 @
Super Stock Car (Modified):Layne Schranz , Birmingham, AL)………………4:21.290 @
Super Stock Car: Clint Vahsholtz, Woodland Park, CO…………………….. 4:36.870 @
Vintage Auto RMVR: Jess Neal, Colorado Springs, CO………………..…. 12:03.858 (New RMVR Record)
Unlimited: David Donner, Colorado Springs……………………………..… 10:04.652
Electric Auto: Fumio Nutahara, Hokkaido, Japan…………………………. 10:15.380 (New Record)
Exhibition: Rick Knoop, Laguna Beach, CA………………………………. 10:56.240
@ Shortened course/weather
Motorcycle Classes
250cc: Jason Archuleta, Colorado Springs, CO…………………………….11:41.015 (New Record)
450cc: Travis Newbold, Montrose, CO ……………………………..…….11:06.618 (New Record)
750cc: Gary Trachy, Orange, CA………………………………………….10:40.753 (New Record)
1205cc: Carlin Dunne, Santa Barbara, CA…………………………….…9:52.819 (New Motorcycle Course Record)
Quad Modified: Steve Tutt, Platte City, MO………………………………11:40.521 (New Record)
Sidecar: John-Thomas Wood, Victorville, CA …………………………………11:41.406 (New Record)
Vintage: Marc LaNoue, Houston, TX………………………………………..12:39.782 (New Record)
Exhibition Powersport: Doug Siddens, Austin, TX ……………………….10:40.669
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Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel may have had some tire-wear problems toward the end of Sunday’s Korean Grand Prix at Yeongam, but from outside the cockpit it looked like yet another walk in the park for the defending champion as his third victory in a row moved him into the lead of the world championship fight by six points over Fernando Alonso.
On a damage limitation day, the Spaniard brought his Ferrari home third behind Vettel and his Red Bull teammate Mark Webber. It was the first time that any team had finished one-two this season. It was the fourth victory of the year for the two-time defending world champion.
“I think it was a perfect day for me and the team,” Vettel explained. “It was important to get a good start. I was able to out-accelerate Mark and get side by side, I had the inside for turn three and a good exit, which meant I could stay ahead for turn four. I was in the lead, but we have seen before that it doesn’t always stick.
“My one mistake today was a lock-up going in to turn three, but with the tires it was marginal for everyone. You couldn’t push so much and my front right didn’t look too happy from the inside many times. We were able to pull away in the first and second stint and hold it for the third. We will have to do our best to remain where we are now. We have to just keep it simple and do our job.”
Webber’s pole counted for nothing as Vettel sped down the inside into the first corner, just as Alonso was likewise depriving Lewis Hamilton of third place. Further back, Sergio Perez hit Jenson Button’s McLaren before his Sauber teammate Kamui Kobayashi did the job properly, walloping it twice and sending it into immediate retirement with right-front suspension damage.
Vettel owned the race, controlling Webber easily. “I had a bit too much clutch off the line, which was disappointing. I put up a fight on the back straight with Sebastian, as it wasn’t all over,” Webber explained. “I tried to make a move, but once I pulled out of his slipstream, both of us were on the same speed. After that I was going quite well in the first part of the race. I couldn’t use DRS, due to the yellow flags and after that it became a tire battle. The second stint wasn’t so good, as I went a bit slower to conserve the tires, but that made the degradation a bit worse. The last stint was the strongest, but it was too late by then.
“Congratulations to Sebastian on the win and it’s great for the team that we got a one-two, especially for the Constructors’, but I have mixed emotions. It was a good result, but of course, I wanted to get the top result today.”
Further back, Alonso kept them honest but no more than that, and was lucky that it was teammate Felipe Massa who rode shotgun all the way to the flag after another good race for the Brazilian in which he had greater pace than the Spaniard. “I think we have to be happy with the performance today, we finished third and fourth, just behind Red Bull that at the moment are difficult to beat,” said Alonso. “So, it was a good day for the team, for Felipe, for me, and I think we also overtook McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship, which is something that maybe we didn’t expect two or three races ago, so definitely we are moving in the right direction. We just need a little last step to be as competitive as Red Bull and I think it will be a beautiful last four races to the end.”
Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen was a lonely fifth, while a great drive by Nico Hulkenberg realized sixth place for Force India after a gritty battle with Romain Grosjean in the other Lotus.
The result puts Ferrari ahead of McLaren in the constructors’ stakes, 290 points to 284, as Red Bull’s great day brought their score to 367.
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