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IMSA: Hurley Haywood GT3 Scholarship to offer career boost for young racers

Saturday, 01 October 2016
IMSA
The just-announced IMSA Hurley Haywood GT3 Cup Scholarship, which will be awarded to a young driver, offers a career-boosting package that includes a full season of Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama competition.
Aspiring racers between the ages of 16 and 25, with no previous full-time Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama experience, are eligible to earn the scholarship. Candidates will have a strong desire to compete in the series, outstanding previous results and proven on-track potential in junior racing categories, and the ability to build a compelling business plan for securing remaining funding needed to compete in a full season of the IMSA-sanctioned Single-Make Series.


"Hurley Haywood is a Porsche and sports-car racing icon, so it was a natural fit to name this scholarship in his honor," said David Pettit, IMSA vice president, marketing. "Drivers who win the IMSA Hurley Haywood GT3 Cup Scholarship not only will receive a significant boost to begin their career in the IMSA Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama, but also will forever have their name associated with the great Hurley Haywood. We expect a robust pool of candidates for this scholarship this year and for years to come as it continues to grow in stature."
A recipient will be chosen after a review of the finalists by a panel of experts. The IMSA Hurley Haywood GT3 Cup Scholarship winner will receive from IMSA, with support from Porsche and Yokohama, these rewards with a combined value of approximately $70,000: A full-season Premium Entry into the 2017 IMSA Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama; a set of Yokohama tires for each 2017 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama event; tool credit from Sonic Tools; a complete OMP driver suit and gloves, plus a two-page feature story in RACER Magazine.
The scholarship is named after legendary sports car driver Hurley Haywood, one of the most accomplished endurance racers in history. He earned five overall victories at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, three victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and two wins at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh from Florida – all in Porsches – during his remarkable driving career, which spanned five decades. He serves as the chief driving instructor at the Porsche Sport Driving School at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.
"I'm proud to lend my name to this scholarship," Haywood said. "I'm always thrilled when I get to help young people get their foot in the door in racing, and I think this is a really good way to promote that. It gives up and coming drivers a baseline to build upon, and that's always beneficial."
Drivers can apply for the 2017 IMSA Hurley Haywood GT3 Cup Scholarship by visiting www.porschegt3cupusa.imsa.com/scholarship. The entry deadline is Oct. 31, 2016.

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[h=2]Rossi enters kart race with first instructor[/h]



RACER Staff / Image by IMS Photo
Alexander Rossi and his first karting coach, karting veteran Matt Jaskol, will join forces to race for Italian team Factory CRG in this year's SKUSA SuperNationals in Las Vegas in November.


Jaskol, who met a 10-year-old Rossi and coached him in karts for a year before Rossi graduated to single-seaters, was selected to the Red Bull Driver Search program in 2003 and represented the Red Bull Junior Team in Formula BMW. He also made five starts in the Indy Lights Series in 2007. The two reconnected this May when Rossi invited Jaskol to the 100th Indianapolis 500, and the two decided to team up for the SuperNationals.


"This is where it all began and for me to give back to the foundation and roots of my profession is something I really look forward to," said Rossi, who will remain at Andretti-Herta Autosport with new race race engineer Jeremy Millessrace engineer Jeremy Milless in 2017. "Matt was and is an inspiration to me and a really big part of the reason I took the next step in racing. He's an incredible go-kart driver and champion and it's a huge honor to finally be racing with him and I'm very thankful we have the support of the World Champion Factory CRG team."
The pair will race in the KZ Pro and S1 classes – each driver running in two classes.
"It's somewhat unreal how this has come full circle," Jaskol said. "After coaching Alexander behind his first steering wheel nearly 15 years ago, to being in Indianapolis for the Indy 500 and toying with the thought of racing at the SuperNationals together hours before his 500 victory. It's an honor and privilege to race alongside Alex for Factory CRG.
"It's simply unreal that we've come back together in this capacity and the fact we'll be racing right in my home town of Las Vegas where I met and coached Alex for the first time! Stories like this don't come along very often and we look forward to a fantastic event."

Rossi won the 2016 INDY 500 first time out as a rookie.

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Ford captures Grand Sport championship 2016



CTSCC: Ford captures Grand Sport championship

Friday, 30 September 2016



IMSA

Billy Johnson took the lead in the No. 15 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Shelby GT350R-C with 13 minutes remaining and went on to win Friday’s IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge season-ending Road Atlanta 150 – giving Ford a sweep of the driver, team and manufacturer championships in the process.
Scott Maxwell – who won his sixth TOTAL Pole Award of the season in Thursday’s qualifying – wrapped up the individual titles by meeting the minimum 45 minutes driving time needed to score points. Multimatic Motorsports took its third team championship by starting the race. Johnson then put an exclamation point to the season by locking down Ford’s fourth manufacturer’s crown in the closing minutes with the team’s sixth win in 10 races.
“It was the longest 45 minutes of my life,” Maxwell said “The car was fine, it was just about going around and not get into trouble or anything. It was all going to plan and then the yellow came out [at the 23-minute mark]. We stayed out knowing that I was coming in at 46 minutes. Then I was just a sitting duck out there when everyone came out on sticker tires. So it was kind of scary for me for a bit.”
Mired in the pack after the pit stop, Johnson found himself back in contention when the second and final caution waved at the one-hour, four-minute mark.
“We got on the same page with the rest of the field making one more stop,” said Johnson, who scored his series-leading 23rd career victory and first championship. “We got all four new tires. That was absolutely the perfect call. Just like all year, we made the right strategy call and we came away with the win. There were a lot of stressful moments during the race, but to come away and win the race and win the championships for teams and manufacturers, this is such a great day.”
Marc Miller placed second in the No. 33 CJ Wilson Racing ONE Capital Management/MotorOilMatters.org Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport started by Danny Burkett, 4.668 seconds behind.
Charles Espenlaub and Charles Putman finished third in the No. 09 Automatic Racing Invisible Glass/Rogue Engineering Aston Martin Vantage. Espenlaub led twice for five laps and was running in position to deny Ford the manufacturer’s crown with 30 minutes remaining before Johnson’s late charge.

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A Christmas story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLNThtadsxs

Christmas time is about family, and for one storied drag racer, a metal toy log truck.
Sixteen-time NHRA champion John Force opens his heart about a five-year old's Christmas, and the challenges of growing up poor in the 1950s. This 20-minute video will tug at your heart, and if you are not careful, will have you shedding a tear or five.
A very emotional video where Force talks about his youthful lesson of learning the real meaning of Christmas.

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[h=2]Legendary rockers KISS STOP mid-concert; liberals lose their minds over why[/h] [h=4]By Michael Cantrell[/h]
While crybaby millionaire athletes opt to disrespect the land that provides them the incredible opportunity to play a game for a living by sitting during the National Anthem, legendary rockers KISS are taking a very different approach.
Arguably one of the best rock bands in the history of the genre, KISS is currently on their “Freedom to Rock” Tour, which they fittingly launched on July 4th, making it a point to show our country and the men and women who are sworn to protect her the respect they so richly deserve.
During one particular concert, the band stopped in the middle of the show and decided to do the Pledge of Allegiance.


Truth Revolt is reporting Currently, Kiss is on their “Freedom to Rock” tour, which launched on July 4th, and as they’ve done before, Kiss put their patriotism and love of our military in the forefront by giving Hiring Our Heroes $150,000 and selecting a current member of the National Guard or Reserve in all 32 cities of the tour to be a roadie for the day to work backstage with the crew and prepare for the evening’s concert. In addition, Kiss partnered with Veteran Tickets Foundation which offers discounted tickets to veterans. To top it all off, the band also gave $125,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project.
But it gets better. At a recent stop in Worcester, Massachusetts, this week, Kiss brought its roadie for the day onstage, along with other members of the military past and present, and led the entire arena in the Pledge of Allegiance, something the band has done before. However, this one had a bit of a special message to a particular NFL player — a not-so-subtle knock to the recent shenanigans by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, lead singer Paul Stanley said:
“You should remember, patriotism is always cool. Loving your country is always cool. Standing up, respecting and honoring our military is always cool. So, to show some respect between pick-throwing, we’re going to put our right hands over our hearts and why don’t we say the Pledge of Allegiance.”

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[h=2]Last concert of 2016[/h] A big Tampa Racing Thank You to Ferman Chevrolet of Tarpon Springs
for sponsoring this 2016 series of free concerts.

We will resume again in February 2017.

NOV 3

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Congratulations to Team USA!


TEAM USA: Askew, Kirkwood shine in wet Walter Hayes Trophy final

Sunday, 06 November 2016
Team USA Scholarship

Oliver Askew and Kyle Kirkwood performed magnificently during Finals Day of the 16th annual Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford 1600 event at Silverstone, finishing second and fourth behind dominant Irishman Niall Murray. The pair couldn't quite match the feat of previous Team USA Scholarship Walter Hayes Trophy winners Conor Daly (200, Connor De Phillippi (2009) and Tristan Nunez (2012), but they certainly provided many of the talking points during a typically frenetic weekend which drew almost 120 entrants.

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Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson



NASCAR: Johnson battles back for seventh title
Sunday, 20 November 2016
Jimmie Johnson joined NASCAR's most exclusive club on Sunday, winning the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway to claim his seventh NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, putting the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on par with icons Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt.

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"I died on the operating table twice.":
SportsCar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) Group 4 sprint champion Susan Patterson



[h=2]SVRA: 'Savage Suzy' finds life’s light in racing[/h] Friday, 04 November 2016


Mark Dill / Images by Dill, Bob Pengraph

When SportsCar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) Group 4 sprint champion Susan Patterson says, "Racing is the light of my life," you might think it sounds like sweet sentiment from an impassioned racer. That's until she adds: "I died on the operating table twice."

"Exceptional" is wholly inadequate to describe the life challenges and triumphs of Susan Patterson.
True, it is exceptional that in 2016, her first full year of organized racing competition, the native-born Texan not only earned the SVRA rookie of the year award but moreover the Group 4 sprint racing national points championship. It's just that "exceptional" doesn't do justice to the plain, flat-out over-the-top astonishing fact that the woman still walks the earth.
She has prevailed over three life-threatening health crises where her survival was probably about as likely as a high school kid in a gym hurling a basketball full-court for three successive swish shots. First, in 2003, came her heart condition that necessitated a titanium heart valve replacement. During the procedure the surgeon fought on even after he was certain she had passed. After she was out of danger he told her, "Really, honestly, we lost you for some time. You're a miracle."
In 2009, a different but no less deadly opponent emerged in her body: Stage 4 breast cancer. Extreme surgery was her best chance and a double mastectomy was performed. Again, at one point during the dangerous procedure she dangled over the metaphorical abyss between here and afterward. Coming back from the precipice once more, her prospects improved and appeared increasingly brighter as she approached her fifth cancer-free anniversary.
Then, with six months to that finish line came more troubling news. Her doctors discovered a new, rare, more deadly form of cancer, again in her chest. They gave her 90 days to put her affairs in order. They also offered her the long-shot prospect of massive radiation and chemotherapy, which they admitted was unlikely to produce any benefit and would certainly make life unpleasant. She went for it.
In the meantime, Susan did set about putting her life in order – but not in conventional fashion. Three things popped into her head. She wanted to own a camel, a kangaroo and drive a racecar at 200 miles per hour. Having grown up on a Texas ranch where she and her family converted Volkswagen Beatles into dune buggies and proceeded to speed them beyond the bounds of good judgment, she probably had a better understanding of the racecar idea than the animal ownership.
A woman of tremendous faith, Susan has no doubt that it was more than coincidence that soon after her near-death experience she spotted a camel along the road when she was out driving. Slamming on her brakes, she changed direction and marched to the ranch house to knock on the door and ask to purchase the creature. The owners refused but kindly pointed her in the direction of an exotic animal auction where circumstances led her to purchase not just a came,l but also a baby kangaroo.
When asked by members of the exotic animal ownership network what she knew about caring for such animals her answer was simple: "Nothing." People came forward with advice and a new world opened up to her. Her ranch population now includes 13 kangaroos, two camels and also a zebra.
Meanwhile, she pursued her racing ambitions through driving school and renting racecars to prove her mettle to observers in vintage racing through the Montgomery, Texas-based Corinthian Vintage Auto Racing (CVAR) club. She showed pace and promise and came into her own to enter her first full-fledged vintage race at the SVRA vintage racing national championships one year ago.

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Congratulations to Tony Schumacher winning 10th Career US Nationals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3eJoFBuzhQ