Monday, March 10, 2008

March 10 newsstand: Walker, PT & other stuff

Mostly old news today, but ...

Silly season news
From Cavin's blog -- 7 to 10 entries from CC
Currently, 5 are at least semi-confirmed (KV-Servia & Power/NHL-Rahal & Wilson/Conquest-Perera). Cavin expects two entries from Dale Coyne for Brazilians Bruno Junqueira and Mario Moraes. Conquest had planned two cars, but a second car is still TBA. Minardi & PCM are still TBA, as well. PCM might team up with an existing IRL team (RLR, perhaps?) to run the road/street courses only (likely for Alex Figge). Minardi would likely bring Robert Doornbos.

More on Walker
He's gone, for now, but he is trying to keep his Atlantics team afloat and hopes to move it up to the IndyCar Series in 2009. He'll run Greg & Leo Mansell (yes, Nigel's kids) in the series.

Tagliani looking for a ride
KV is looking for a ride buyer with a bigger wad of cash than Tags can bring, so he's out right now. Translation: Craig Gore is bring Will Power over for Tags' ride.

What's going on with Atlantics?
AutoWeek tries to explore some of Formula Atlantic's questions


Official IRL news & notes
Today's release has a piece on ethanol, the Vision season preview, a piece on the college students' design project and a piece on Helio & DWTS.

Vitor looking ahead
He hopes Henri Durand will get him some Ws, according to IndyCar.com
Says Vitor: "We went to the first test and changed a lot of things on the car, which were all for the good, and it was the best test we had all year."

Houston gone ... completely
ALMS is gone, too, and the GP of Houston is completely kaput
Says promoter (and NHL co-owner) Mike Lanigan: “We are saddened and disappointed to have to make this decision, but we remain optimistic that we will have the opportunity to bring the American Le Mans Series and the Indy Racing League to Houston in 2009.”

Our boys down there
First, USA Today has a piece on how the new OW defectors -- Sam & Dario -- are struggling in stock cars. It's not just IRL headliners, either. Villeneuve is out of a ride, Carpentier isn't doing too hot, Allmendinger has DNQed himself into having Mike Skinner drive his car. Of course, they never mention Tony Stewart as a former IRL champion, either.

Speaking of Tony, he had some tire issues with Goodyear after yesterday's cab race.
Smoke gives a great comment for the IRL's official tire supplier: "I'm going home and taking everything that has Goodyears off and put Firestones on and feel a lot safer. It's a shame these teams that work so hard are being dictated by a company incapable of building tires fit for a street car."
This ESPN story quotes TS as saying "I guess that's why they got run out of Formula One, the IRL, CART and USAC, you name it. They couldn't keep up and provide a quality product."

Yikes. Goodyear, obviously, responds. "Goodyear decided to leave other racing series only because of the escalating costs of competition ... " (I'll let you provide your own translation).

And finally
If you've got a wad of cash, you can have a Dallara simulator

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