It was just after midnight on a Saturday back in June when art editor Damon Cogman and I stood up on the steep hill that looks down on Steilstrecke, the right-hander that precedes the short blast into the famous Karussel hairpin. We were panting a little, having pushed our bikes up the grassy slope, but as we took a breather and turned to look down on the track, we knew the effort had been worth it. The magnificence of the Nordschleife, at night, during the madcap annual 24 Hours, is something to behold.

Memories of that night – complete with the fireworks, the higgledy-piggledy campsites, the heady aroma of beer and barbecues, the drunken Germans in various states of dishevelment – will always stick with me. And they came flooding back once again when we chose the cover shot for the October issue, taken 40-odd years earlier from exactly the same place on that hillside. Out here, away from the modern Grand Prix circuit, the Nürburgring hasn’t changed at all.

The trip to the 24 Hours was intended to offer some inspiration for this latest issue of the magazine. Well, that was the excuse anyway. In reality, you don’t need to go there to feel the spirit of the place. The glorious photographs from the archives and the heroic – and often mentally unhinged – stories the circuit has thrown up over the years catch the imagination every time. With the help of Vic Elford, who gives us his guide to the great track, we hope we’ve tapped into that magic in the October issue.

Fittingly, given that some of his greatest days behind the wheel came at the ’Ring, Jacky Ickx joins Simon Taylor for lunch this month. Simon has been chasing Jacky to add to his roster of interviews for years. Each time he spoke to Jacky, the urbane Belgian would always reply politely that he’d be delighted to meet Simon for lunch – but tying him down to a date and place proved challenging.

Fortunately, Simon is persistent! Eventually, Jacky invited him to his wonderful home for a lunch cooked by his wife. We always knew this one would be worth the wait, and so it has proved.

Other highlights of the issue include a fantastic McLaren M1B vs Lola T70 Spyder track test, a revealing interview with Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon and Nigel Roebuck’s insightful view of the Sky/BBC deal for Formula 1 TV coverage in 2012.

Looking ahead, we’re delighted to reveal details of our next reader evening. Following our highly enjoyable viewing of the Senna film in the company of Jo Ramirez earlier in the year, this time we’re delving into the sports car world – and for me, this one is extra special.

Truth in 24 is a fly-on-the-wall documentary following Audi’s successful attempt to win the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2008, in the face of a strong challenge from Peugeot. The film, which was never commercially released in the UK, is obviously a few years old now, but Nigel Roebuck and I only saw it for the first time earlier this year. We were both blown away by the film.

As an insight into life within a modern racing team, I’ve never seen anything as good as this. It shows the oh-so-human side of the Audi racing machine that is usually hidden from view behind the sheen of perfection they like to project. Personally, I think it’s at least a match for Senna as a must-see racing film.

Readers will watch the documentary in the company of Audi’s star drivers Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish, plus race engineers Howden ‘H’ Haynes and Leena Gade. ‘H’ ran Tom, Allan and Dindo Capello’s car to victory in that ’08 race and steals the show in Truth in 24, as we follow his story from the pitwall (I won’t give any more away here…). Leena was ‘H’’s number two back in ’08, but has stepped up since then and engineered the winning R18 in this year’s 24 Hours at La Sarthe.

The quartet will join Nigel Roebuck and I after the film for what promises to be an entertaining forum, as we discuss all things Le Mans and gain further insight into what it’s like to live and race within the crack Audi team. We will, of course, open up the discussion to the floor to take any questions the audience might want to ask.

The event takes place on Saturday October 8 at the stunning Audi quattro rooms, just off the A4 in London. Tickets cost £145, although there is a special price for subscribers of £125 – that’s a 14 per cent discount.

To book, call the office on 020 7349 8472 or e-mail at readersevents@motorsportmagazine.co.uk. If you are not a subscriber, you will be eligible for the special price if you take out a subscription when you book tickets.

The readers’ evening, run in association with Audi UK, will offer a golden opportunity to meet two legends of sports car racing in a fabulous setting. It should be a great evening.

A week earlier, on Saturday October 1, you can also join us at Brooklands for the Bill Boddy Tribute Day. The event, organised by former deputy editor Clive Richardson and the Brooklands Museum, will bring together a collection of cars associated with WB’s life and career, plus some special guests, too. What better place to honour our late founder editor? For a discounted admission price for magazine readers, e-mail info@motorsportmagazine.co.uk

I hope to see you at either – or even both – events.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The IndyCar Series has confirmed that it is delaying the introduction of its much-discussed aero kits for the new Dallara Indycar until 2013. The organisation made the decision after team owners told IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard that they couldn’t afford to develop their own aero kits.

Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon and Bryan Herta Motorsports began testing the 2012 Dallara Indycar a couple of weeks ago. Fifteen days of testing are scheduled through to the end of the September, but the new car will make its debut as a spec car with everyone running the same aerodynamic configuration.

“No one is more disappointed than I am that we’re not going to do [the aero kits],” said Bernard (below). “But we need to look at the long-term future of the sport and it’s important that we listen to the team owners on this one. We don’t want to see our car counts go from 26 and 27 down to 16 because of an aero kit. The manufacturers and team owners have told us it’s very expensive.”

IndyCar hopes that the addition of two new engine suppliers – Ilmor/Chevrolet and Judd/Lotus – to compete against Honda as well as the improved performance of the new car will attract much-needed fan and media interest in the flagging series.

“The simulations we’ve seen on road and street courses are that lap times will be three seconds quicker, up to 15mph faster,” said Bernard. “I think [the new car and engines] are all great stories that we need to get out, that this car is going to be fast and that the aero kit is going to be a great addition. But we don’t want to [introduce the aero kit] until it’s right. It will happen in 2013, I promise.”

Bernard expects that the new car will break Arie Luyendyk’s long-standing track record of 236.986mph set at Indianapolis in 1996. “We’ve made no secrets that speed is going to be important in this car,” he said. “We want to see it break the record at some point. Fans love to see track records. They want to see something that has never been done before. We’re about relevance, innovation and speed – three of our biggest brand attributes. It’s important for us to go back to that.”

Will Phillips, IndyCar’s vice-president of technology, said initial testing of the Dallara had gone well. “We proved that some of the base functions of the car – oil and water systems, clutch, interface with the gearbox, the brakes and all of that – went really well. It was a shakedown – we didn’t try to set a lap time. We only ran one set of tyres, for example. It was [about] proving the systems work.”

Phillips is convinced that the new Dallara will be considerably safer than the current car. “The incident that poor Justin [Wilson] had at Mid-Ohio [when he broke a bone in his back] we would not expect to happen with the new car. We can’t guarantee it, but the fact that [the driver] will be sitting on safety foam and have three inches of foam behind his back should prevent that sort of injury. The Xylon panels that are on either side of the car are more extensive. All those features should make the car safer.”

Thus begins IndyCar’s slow but steady attempt to recreate itself.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

This week I’m joined not only by Rob Widdows, but also Motor Sport’s editor Damien Smith. Not surprising really when there was such a dramatic Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500.

As always – let us know your thoughts and do post a question for next week’s show below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or, if you’d like top download it…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

This year’s 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500 turned into one of the most exciting races anyone has seen at the historic track. The outcome was impossible to predict through the closing laps as the field shuffled itself while fuel strategies played out. For a while it looked like Dario Franchitti and Chip Ganassi’s team had played their cards perfectly, with the Scot stopping for fuel under a late yellow and then moving towards the front as the leaders peeled in for their stops.

But then Franchitti started running low on fuel, and instead of assuming the lead had to make another visit to the pits. That left rookie JR Hildebrand to lead the chase and he looked set to score a surprising win before it all went wrong as he lapped Charlie Kimball’s car into Turn 4 on the final lap.

“Knowing that the cars in second and third were coming [on] pretty strong I decided that rather than downshifting to risk slowing the car down coming onto the front straight,” said Hildebrand. “It was a move I had used earlier in the race to get around some slower cars but I guess with the tyres worn there were a bunch of marbles on the outside. Once I got up there, there wasn’t a lot I could do.”

In a flash Hildebrand was in the wall (below), and as his car skated toward the start/finish line Dan Wheldon shot past to lead the race’s final few hundred yards. It was the first time Wheldon had led all day but it was the right time to be in front as he scored his second Indy 500 victory, crossing the line two seconds ahead of Hildebrand’s churning wreck.

Wheldon first won at Indianapolis in 2005 when he was driving for Michael Andretti’s team. This year the Briton found himself without a ride but was hired a few months ago by Bryan Herta to drive his car on a one-off basis at Indy. Wheldon may not be the world’s greatest road racer but he’s an ace on ovals, finishing second at the track the past two years. He qualified on the outside of row two for this year’s 500 and was in the hunt all the way, running third or fourth for most of the distance in company with poleman Alex Tagliani, Chip Ganassi team-mates Franchitti and Scott Dixon, and Oriol Servia in Newman/Haas’s lead entry.

In the closing stages Wheldon and Herta’s team, led by veteran engineer Steve Newey, played their fuel strategy perfectly. As the 200 laps ran out Wheldon was in second place, closing fast on Hildebrand, and when he crashed Wheldon was perfectly placed to score a popular victory for a small team with only one race in its schedule this year.

“With 20 laps to go they said on the radio, ‘You’re one of the guys that can make it to the end, but you’ve got to make sure you get everything out of the car that you possibly can’,” explained Wheldon. “So I said to myself I’m going to move the weight jacker every lap to optimise every corner and adjust the rollbars to maximise everything. I was able to catch traffic without having to lift and I started pressing the overtake button. On the last lap I was trying to deal with some lapped cars in turns three and four and in the corner of my eye I saw JR hit the fence. I just carried on by and at that point I knew it was mine.”

Dan Wheldon cools down with the traditional quart of milk after his Indy win

A great win for Wheldon then, and a jump-start surely for his stalled career. Former driver Herta says his plan is to concentrate on putting together a full season for Wheldon in 2012 rather than trying to add some races this year.

As Wheldon took the flag Hildebrand scraped home in second followed by Graham Rahal, Tony Kanaan and Dixon, while a deeply disappointed Franchitti was 12th, the last driver to complete the full race distance. Team Penske’s three cars were surprisingly uncompetitive with Will Power and Hélio Castroneves finishing a lap down in 14th and 17th and Ryan Briscoe eliminated in a collision with Townsend Bell.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

When Dario Franchitti first went to the Indianapolis 500, he tried to approach it like any other motor race. But as he admits during his lunch interview with Simon Taylor in the May issue of Motor Sport, he couldn’t help being affected by ‘The Brickyard’. The size and scale of the place, the buzz surrounding the town through the month of May, how much it mattered to everyone around him: he knew this was special, and for a driver with a rare passion for racing history and an obsession with Jim Clark, Dario couldn’t avoid the magical draw of America’s greatest race.

That it remains in 2011, despite the scars of the split that almost destroyed the sport of Indycars. The ‘500’ was the glue that kept single-seater oval racing intact in an era dominated by NASCAR. The race – the event – was quite simply too big to go down.

This May Indianapolis will celebrate the 100th anniversary of a yearly occasion that fired a nondescript Midwestern city into the consciousness of any true sports fan anywhere in the world. It is a landmark that we at Motor Sport felt compelled to celebrate – which is why we have dedicated a sizeable chunk of the May issue to the wonderful history of the race.

So why should a British magazine get so excited about an event in which 33 drivers only turn left around a four-corner rectangle for 500 miles? Read Robin Miller’s article on his own personal relationship with the Speedway to find out. The determination, strength and humour of the racing spirit is the oxygen that gives life to our magazine, and Robin’s piece is high on it! At the Speedway, it’s so strong you can taste it, as John Cooper, Colin Chapman, Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell, Dan Wheldon, Franchitti and many others from ‘over here’ found out when they travelled ‘over there’.

Britain’s relationship with the 500 has ebbed and flowed over the century, but it’s always existed. Take the Speedway’s great historian Donald Davidson: you wouldn’t know it speaking to him now, but he’s a Brit. But on his first visit to the Speedway in 1964, he knew he’d found his true home. As the locals found out, no one has more understanding and knowledge of the race, and he was the obvious choice to put a 100 years of racing history into context.

Now, that sounds like the subject of a doorstop-sized book, so how could we distil it into a magazine article? Donald thought long and hard. What he came up with – the greatest, most dramatic finishes in the 500’s history – does so beautifully. Even if you’re an Indy doubter, I’d urge you to read it.

The British theme continues via Ian Wagstaff, who has written a recent book on the subject. We’ve steered clear of the rear-engined revolution of the 1960s because so much has already been said, as any regular reader of Motor Sport will know. No, too obvious for us! So Ian tells the story of the second British invasion of Indianapolis that in its own way changed the shape of the race as much as the pioneering years of the mid-60s.

Add the interview with Dario and another with the Unsers – the first family of the 500 – and I hope you’ll find it does justice to 100 years of incredible speed and action.

Now, I know US oval racing is not everyone’s shot of bourbon. So as usual there is plenty more in the May issue to keep you reading for the month. Nigel Roebuck is typically forthright in his assessment of Formula 1’s recent entanglement in real-world politics, and as usual he puts the Bahrain debacle in context beautifully by reflecting on previous occasions when the sport has found itself on dodgy ethical ground. Then there’s his description of the Cuban Grand Prix – a race at which Juan Manuel Fangio found himself being kidnapped. Writing about it in 2011, it’s hard to imagine it actually took place. Fernando, count yourself lucky…

Nigel also sits down with Stirling Moss to revisit what many consider his greatest race, the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix – yes, another anniversary, this time just a mere half-century ago. We also print an edited version (God, he’d go mad at us for cutting his copy!) of Denis Jenkinson’s original race report for Motor Sport and reproduce some of his beautifully neat and detailed notes from the weekend when Moss beat the ‘Sharknose’ Ferraris.

Alan Henry talks to Ron Dennis about his formative years in team management, in Formula 2 during the early 1970s; Patrick Head recalls the breakthrough years of the Williams FW07; and Tiff Needell opens his personal scrapbooks to show us his collection of racing photos that he snapped from the spectator banks of the 1960s – when his love of the sport took hold.

And if that’s not enough, don’t miss our free supplement* on the Motor Sport Hall of Fame, in association with TAG Heuer, which took place in London during February. It seems like ages ago already. Before we know it, we’ll be heading back to the Roundhouse in 2012 for the next one…

*Available in the UK only

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Good news this week for Graham Rahal and JR Hildebrand (below). This talented pair of young American racers has landed quality IndyCar rides for 2011, which is a good thing not only for them but also for Indycar racing as a whole and US race fans too. Rahal will drive for a new Chip Ganassi team with Charlie Kimball as his team-mate, while Hildebrand replaces Dan Wheldon at Panther Racing. Rahal, 21, will lead Ganassi’s new team with sponsorship from Service Central and Hildebrand, 22, takes Wheldon’s seat in Panther’s National Guard car.

Rahal drove for Newman/Haas Racing in 2007-09, scoring his first IndyCar win in the St Petersburg street race in ‘08. Lacking sponsorship, Graham has worked through a patchwork season this past year driving for four different teams. He also spent the year working hard to find a sponsor and landed Service Central, a national tyre distribution and automotive service centre chain. Thanks to this backing Rahal has been able to broker a deal with Ganassi.

“Now the pressure’s on me to succeed,” said Rahal (above), son of CART and Indy winner Bobby. “What I look forward to most is when you’re with a team like Ganassi you don’t have to worry about anything but driving the car and going fast. I’ll be able to focus on having my head as clear as I can when I show up at the race track.

“I just can’t wait. There’s a tremendous amount of experience there. Between Dario [Franchitti] and [Scott] Dixon you’ve got five championships and three Indy 500 wins, and you know that Chip only does things in the best way possible.”

Rahal’s team-mate Kimball, 25, is the son of former Indy and F1 designer Gordon and is sponsored by healthcare company NovoNordisk. Charlie finished fourth in last year’s Indy Lights championship and in 2005 became the first American in 11 years to win a British Formula 3 race.

Ganassi’s new team will be run out of drag racer Don Prudhomme’s shop in nearby Brownsburg. “That’s primarily because we don’t have the room here,” said Chip’s IndyCar/Grand-Am managing director Mike Hull, who stressed it is not a ‘satellite’ team. “Our intention is to run it in the same manner that we run our other race teams and draw from the resources that we have here.”

Hildebrand’s move to Panther comes after he tested successfully for the team last week. He won the 2009 Indy Lights title and ran two IndyCar races last season driving for Dreyer & Reinbold. He also tested a Force India F1 car near the end of last year.

Panther has been looking for an American driver to replace Wheldon, who had driven for the team for two years. The Briton won the Indy 500 with Andretti-Green in 2005 and finished second to Dario Franchitti at Indy this year, but he has been disappointing in road and street races.

Panther team boss John Barnes has been searching for an American who can perform on all types of track and believes he has the right man in Hildebrand. “We knew by lunchtime on the first day of our test that we’d found our next driver,” he said.

These signings are great news for Rahal, Kimball and Hildebrand, but they’re also very good for IndyCar. American open-wheel racing desperately needs some top-class home-grown talent to help draw crowds and media interest. Everyone hopes that with solid teams and sponsorships behind them these three drivers will be able to produce the goods.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Dario Franchitti kept his IndyCar title hopes alive by finishing fifth at the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway last Saturday night. The Scot edged closer to championship leader Will Power, who led for more than 80 laps but finished eighth after almost hitting the wall late in the 300-mile race. Power and Franchitti were among those who had to stop with only a few laps left for a splash of fuel, allowing Hélio Castroneves through to a smart win. Castroneves stalled while trying to leave the pits during his last stop, but Penske team boss Tim Cindric then advised him to save fuel so that the Brazilian made it to the finish without stopping again.

Castroneves thus scored his second win of the year, while Ed Carpenter was second in Kentucky after employing a similar fuel-saving strategy. Carpenter drove his first race since the Indy 500, teaming up with Dan Wheldon and Panther Racing, and surprised many people by taking pole from Power and his team-mate. Carpenter is former IRL boss Tony George’s nephew and an oval specialist who finished a close second at Kentucky last year. He again showed his stuff last weekend, heading the first 10 laps and running with the leaders all the way.

Wheldon also ran well, leading half the race until having to make an eleventh-hour stop for fuel with five laps to go. He rejoined to finish third ahead of Tony Kanaan and Franchitti. The 2005 Indy 500 winner and IRL champion is hoping for similar strong runs in IndyCar’s remaining two races – he will be replaced next season by Graham Rahal and is looking for work.

IndyCar’s remaining races are at Motegi, Japan on September 19 and Homestead-Miami Speedway on October 2. As it stands Power leads Franchitti by just 17 points, 552 to 535, with Scott Dixon (469 points) and Castroneves (448) in third and fourth.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas became the first major American racing champions of the year when they scored their eighth win of the year in the Grand-Am race at le Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal last Saturday driving Chip Ganassi’s Riley-BMW. Pruett has now won a total of 30 Grand-Am races, but this was the first time he or Ganassi enjoyed winning in Montreal.

Pruett, 50, took his third Grand-Am title and Ganassi’s fourth in the past six years but this was the first time they’ve done it with BMW engines. Pruett/Rojas beat defending champions Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty’s Gainsco Riley-Chevrolet by barely a second in Montreal, wrapping-up the title after eleven of the twelve races. Pruett/Rojas and Gurney/Fogarty have been the stars of the Grand-Am in recent years, trading the championship back and forth since 2007.

On the same day at Mosport three hundred miles to the west Conor Daly won the Star-Mazda championship in style as he took his ninth pole of the year and then scored a runaway victory, his seventh this year, to wrap-up the Star Mazda title with one race to go. Eighteen-year old Daly is the son of former F1, Indy car and sports car racers Derek Daly (below with Conor). Conor won the Skip Barber National championship in 2008 and also scored an excellent win that year in the rain in the Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford race at Silverstone. Conor will test a GP3 car for Status Racing at Silverstone next week and hopes to race next year in Europe.

“My passion is Formula One,” Conor says. “That’s what I want to do and to be in Formula One you have to race in Europe. The goal is to be racing in Europe next year.”

Last Saturday night’s IndyCar race at the Chicagoland Speedway was won by Dario Franchitti who kept his championship hopes alive with a brilliant tactical win. Franchitti was mired in the pack for most of the race but beat everyone out of the pits from the last round of stops by not taking on fresh tyres. Dario then drove superbly to score his third win of the year, beating Dan Wheldon and Marco Andretti across the line. This was Dario’s twenty-sixth CART/IRL win and it moves him into a tie with Rodger Ward on the all-time IndyCar winners list.

Championship leader Will Power battled for the lead most of the way but had to make a last-minute stop for fuel, tumbling to sixteenth at the finish. As a result defending champion Franchitti has pulled to within twenty-five points of Power with three races to go so that Dario has a chance of winning his third IndyCar title in four years and Ganassi has a shot at taking three straight IndyCar championships.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

After the usual two weekends of qualifying the 93rd Indianapolis 500 takes place on Sunday. This year’s race looks like being another Penske versus Ganassi battle, but with everyone aboard roughly similar Dallara-Hondas there’s sure to be a long line of cars in the hunt. And, of course, almost anything can happen in a 500-mile oval race with an inevitable multiplicity of full-course yellows.

Team Penske has three cars in this year’s 500, with Hélio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe starting first and second and Will Power on the outside of row three. Penske’s cars are very strong and the team is chasing its 15th win at Indy to compliment its 15th pole earned by Castroneves.

The Brazilian is in his 10th year with Penske and is looking for his third 500 victory. He scored back-to-back wins in 2001-02, and Hélio is highly motivated following his acquittal on federal tax charges. Team-mate Briscoe is in his second year with Penske’s Indycar team and this will be his fourth 500. The 27-year-old Australian has won on ovals and has the experience and equipment to chase victory.

Countryman Power makes his second start at Indy and his first with Penske. At this stage, having been hired to fill Castroneves’s seat while the latter was occupied with his tax case, Power will not race again in this year’s IRL after the 500. So the taciturn but talented Power will be eager to do well on Sunday.

Chip Ganassi’s team is as strong as ever with the 2007 and ’08 Indy winners, Dario Franchitti and Scott Dixon, starting from third and fifth on the grid, while 2007 Indy Lights champion Alex Lloyd starts from row four in a third Ganassi satellite car run by Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

Franchitti and Dixon were slightly off the pace in qualifying but are sure to be in the thick of it on race day. Both have the experience, speed and are race-savvy, while team manager Mike Hull and team owner Ganassi are equally as good as Roger Penske and his racing chief Tim Cindric at playing the strategic games required as the race and yellow flags unfold. So Castroneves, Briscoe, Franchitti and Dixon are equal favourites to win this year’s 500, with Power on slightly longer odds.

The IRL’s third big team is Andretti-Green Racing, winner of the 500 with Franchitti in 2007 and Dan Wheldon in ’05. But the four-car AGR team has looked second best at Indy this year, with team leader Tony Kanaan struggling for speed in his car and resorting to a back-up in qualifying. Still, Kanaan starts from the outside of row two and is a racer who’s entirely capable of stealing his first Indy win.

The odds are longer on AGR’s three other drivers – Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick and Hideki Mutoh, who will start the race respectively from eighth, 10th and 16th. Young Andretti came close to winning in 2006 but has been less impressive over the past 18 months, struggling in the midfield on most road circuits and in street races. Marco is at his best on ovals, Indianapolis in particular, and needs a solid result. Patrick is also at her best on the big speedway and will be trying hard for a good result in what many believe will be her last 500 before switching to NASCAR next year.

Newman/Haas/Lanigan’s Graham Rahal is most likely to cause the biggest upset of the day. The mature Rahal, 19, has done an excellent job in his second year at Indy to qualify fourth, splitting Franchitti and Dixon. I’ve known Graham since he was a kid, so I’m prejudiced, but I believe he’s the most talented, disciplined and most complete of today’s young American open-wheel racers. With any luck he’ll show all those strengths on Sunday.

New NHL team-mate Robert Doornbos had a rough initiation, crashing twice after looking good through the opening days of practice. He recovered well to record the fastest qualifying run on the second weekend and starts 23rd.

Who else might figure in the 93rd 500? Paul Tracy is an obvious choice. He will make his second Indy start in 14 years from 13th, in the middle of the field. Paul finished an unhappy second to Castroneves in 2002 and is trying to salvage his career with Kevin Kalkhoven and Jimmy Vasser’s KV Racing team.

Other dark horses include Brits Justin Wilson and Dan Wheldon, who will start 15th and 18th, and Brazilian Mario Moraes, who makes his second Indy start aboard a KV Racing entry from the inside of row three. Neither Wilson nor Wheldon are with first-class teams, but the unheralded Moraes looked good in practice and qualifying and may surprise on race day.

Also worth watching are fastest rookie qualifier Raphael Matos, who starts from the outside of row four, and Champ Car veteran Oriol Servia, who qualified Bobby Rahal’s car after minimal practice. He starts from row nine.

The only practice session this week is Friday’s ‘Carburetion Day’ followed by an Indy Lights race and pitstop competition. The 200-lap, 500-mile race takes the green flag on Sunday at 1pm EST.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Hélio Castroneves and team-mate Ryan Briscoe traded the top spot back and forth during the six hours of Pole Day qualifying at Indianapolis last Saturday. On a windy afternoon nobody could challenge the Penske pair, with Castroneves eventually edging his team-mate by half a second over the four qualifying laps. Hélio averaged 224.864mph to Ryan’s 224.083mph.

Briscoe was faster than Castroneves on their first qualifying runs early in the afternoon, but both went quicker later in the day after withdrawing their original cars and speeds. This is Castroneves’s third Indy 500 pole and the 15th time that one of Roger Penske’s cars will lead the field away at the Brickyard.

“The car was too comfortable on our first run,” said Castroneves. “We worked together and made the cars a little more on the edge, a little quicker. It’s a lot of fun when you push the limit and everybody works together to do it. This is a team effort and this team is the best.”

Added Briscoe: “The cars were so good straight off the truck and that gives us a lot of confidence to really trim out the cars for qualifying. It’s been exciting and it’s such a great feeling knowing we’re going into the Indy 500 with very strong cars.”

Castroneves was acquitted on federal tax evasion charges last month and is delighted to once again be a free man able to pursue his chosen profession. “I feel at home here at Indianapolis,” he said. “I just have to thank everybody for the warm welcome I’ve received. It’s like a big family. Racing is my life – it’s what I love and I have to thank all the fans. It means a lot.”

The biggest challenge to Penske came from Chip Ganassi’s cars. Dario Franchitti completed the front row with a run at 224.010mph while last year’s winner Scott Dixon was fifth fastest, just 0.1sec slower than Franchitti over the four laps.

“It would have been nice to be on pole,” said Dario. “But we’ve won from third on the grid before, so hopefully it’s a good omen. Honestly, that was most of the speed the car had in it today. We got hit by a couple of gusts of wind which cost us, but we just didn’t have the speed to match the Penske cars. Those were definitely the craziest qualifying laps I’ve driven here. With the wind and everything, we were hanging it out today.”

Graham Rahal qualified an impressive fourth, splitting the Ganassi pair for Newman/Haas/Lanigan. Rahal had to scrub his original qualifying run because the team wanted to run a slightly different configuration for the race, and he was without a spare car after team-mate Robert Doornbos crashed two – one on Friday and the second on Saturday morning. As a result Doornbos will have to qualify next weekend.

“The car was really nice,” said Rahal. “It had maybe a bit too much understeer. But we got through our run safely, which is what we needed to do. It says a lot for the work this team has done and how much we’ve improved the car over the last year.”

IRL points leader Tony Kanaan was the fastest of Andretti-Green’s four cars. Kanaan qualified sixth and will start the 500 on the outside of row two. Team-mates Marco Andretti and Danica Patrick will start from the third and fourth rows respectively. Also among the first-day qualifiers was Will Power, who put Penske’s third car on the outside of row three.

Fastest in Sunday’s qualifying was rookie Raphael Matos, who lapped his Luczo-Dragon entry owned by Roger Penske’s son Jay at 223.429mph. Matos starts the 500 from 12th on the grid. Paul Tracy was second fastest on Sunday at 223.111mph and will start the race from 13th. Tracy made a couple of qualifying runs on Saturday but was bumped from the top 11. He made two more runs on Sunday before he was satisfied.

Justin Wilson was fourth fastest on Sunday at 222.849mph, qualifying behind Vítor Meira. After making the field on Saturday, Wilson was disqualified for being underweight. Justin re-qualified in good order on Sunday and will start from 14th place in the middle of row five. Also among Sunday’s second-day qualifiers was 2005 Indy winner Dan Wheldon, who crashed on Saturday. Wheldon came back to qualify at 222.777mph and will start from the outside of row six.

The final 11 places in the 33-car field will be determined next weekend, and the race takes place the following Sunday on May 24.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Chip Ganassi (above with Franchitti) announced on Tuesday that Dario Franchitti will replace Dan Wheldon in his Indycar team next year. Ganassi had decided to drop Wheldon (below) after a disappointing year and move Franchitti from his NASCAR team to his IRL squad. Wheldon sealed his fate by qualifying in the middle of the field at Detroit last weekend, then crashing out of the race. Wheldon will move to the Panther team next year where Vítor Meira is team leader.

Franchitti has endured his own struggles this year in his rookie NASCAR season but when Ganassi looked around to consider who the best choice was to replace Wheldon, the answer was obvious. Ganassi first tried to hire Tony Kanaan, but the Brazilian used the approach to help negotiate a new five-year contract with Andretti-Green Racing where he is the clear number one driver. Kanaan’s move left the door wide open for Franchitti to make the decision to return to Indycar. Dario visited last weekend’s IRL race at Detroit and spent most of his time with Ganassi’s team, so his move back to open-wheel racing seemed imminent.

“It is going to be very exciting to have Dario in one of our Indycars next year,” said Ganassi. “I have always admired his competitive spirit when he raced against us and have really grown to see more of what he is about this season while he raced in NASCAR. When there was a possibility of an opening on our Indycar team, the only person I thought about was Dario. This is going to be a great move for Dario and for our team.”

Franchitti said: “Part of the reason that I signed with Ganassi last year was because of how many options that Chip has at his disposal for a driver. You can do almost any form of racing that you want. With unification and the new [Indycar] schedule having more road and street courses, it made me think about this more and more. I have really enjoyed this last season in stock cars and have not completely closed that chapter of my professional career, but the opportunity that arose was just something I could not pass up. I am really looking forward to getting behind the wheel of one of those Target cars and being a team-mate to Scott Dixon. Target is a tremendous sponsor and they and Chip always give you everything you need to win.”

Next season will be the 20th year that Target Stores has been the primary sponsor of Ganassi’s multi-faceted race team. With former Indy 500 winner and IRL champion Franchitti returning to Indycar racing beside this year’s championship hopeful Scott Dixon, Chip’s Indycar team should enjoy a high-profile role in celebrating Target’s anniversary. And for both Dario and Indycar racing as a whole, the ’07 Indy 500 winner’s return to the series should serve as a healthy shot in the arm.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The 92nd running of the Indy 500 takes place on Sunday with Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon favoured to score Chip Ganassi’s first win at the ‘Brickyard’ since Juan Montoya turned the trick in 2000. Dixon and Wheldon will start from the pole and the middle of the front row with Penske driver Ryan Briscoe on the outside. Penske team-mate Helio Castroneves starts on the inside of row two with Danica Patrick beside him and Tony Kanaan on the outside of the second row, and this year’s 500 is expected to be a three-team race between Ganassi, Penske and Andretti-Green.

Meanwhile, I had the great pleasure to sit beside four-time Indy 500 winner Rick Mears at the Speedway on Wednesday afternoon as we signed copies of my new book, ‘Rick Mears – Thanks, the story of Rick Mears and the Mears Gang’. Rick was one of the finest oval track racers of all-time and more than a few respectful fans congratulated him on being, ‘the best driver I ever saw at this place.’

Rick Mears and author Gordon Kirby sign copies of the new book, “Thanks. The Story of Rick Mears and the Mears Gang”

In fifteen starts at Indianapolis between 1978-92, Rick won four times, finished second once and come home third two times. He also took six Indy poles and led 492 laps in all. Rick deliberately used his natural inclination to be as silky smooth as possible to keep pushing the limit.

“I always tried to be smooth and I think that helped on the faster tracks, on the speedways,” he says. “By not being erratic you can run closer to the limit more consistently without stepping over it. If you’re erratic, you’ve got to give yourself more of a cushion, so your average overall isn’t going to be as quick. If you’re smooth and run closer to the limit, lap after lap, it adds up. I think that was more my natural style.

“The cars talk to you and you have to listen to them. If you don’t listen to them, you’re going to step over the limit.”

Incredibly, Rick did not spin a car during his first five years with Penske. “It was making me nervous that I hadn’t spun one because I saw other guys doing it, and I thought, ‘What am I leaving on the table?’ I knew I was going to spin sometime. Obviously, I didn’t want it to happen. Back then, if you spun, they frowned on it. Today, they frown on it if you don’t spin once in a while. That’s the difference in the competition level today and the mindset, which is if you don’t do something wrong once in a while you must not be trying hard enough. But back then; it was the other way around.

“So I didn’t want to spin and when I did finally spin it, I realised that I had been very, very close a lot of times, a lot of times! I was just fortunate it hadn’t happened. That was when I realised I wasn’t leaving a lot on the table.

“That’s what this sport is all about and always has been,” he adds. “It’s a continuous learning curve, no matter how long you’ve been doing it. If you quit learning, that’s when it’s time to get out.”

Which is what he did in the middle of 1992 when he realised he was losing the desire to push to the maximum. Mears made the decision to retire from racing at the height of his powers, an uncommon and sage decision from one of the greatest oval racers we’ve ever seen.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

This weekend should be quite a thrash at Indianapolis as everyone who failed last weekend to make the field for this year’s 92nd Indy 500 tries to take one of the remaining twenty-two places in the starting line-up. Chip Ganassi’s drivers and team put on a great show last Saturday to beat Team Penske and Andretti-Green Racing to this year’s Indy 500 pole. Scott Dixon (below) and Dan Wheldon qualified one-two with a pair of mid and late-afternoon second attempts which pushed Ryan Briscoe to the outside of the front row ahead of team-mate Helio Castroneves who will start the race from the inside of row two.

This was Dixon’s eleventh IRL pole but his first at Indy and the first time a Ganassi car has been on the pole at Indy since Bruno Junqueira (below) turned the trick in 2002. The team’s one-two sweep also was a bit of redemption for Ganassi’s team after enduring an unhappy pole day last year.

A disappointed Andretti-Green team couldn’t hit the right combination for qualifying but the team’s four cars will still start fifth (Danica Patrick – below), sixth (Tony Kanaan), seventh (Marco Andretti), and ninth (Hideki Mutoh). With last Sunday’s rainout only the first day’s eleven qualifiers are set for the 92nd Indy 500. The other three are Panther Racing’s Vitor Meira in ninth, Vision’s Ed Carpenter in tenth with Luczo-Dragon’s Tomas Scheckter completing the first day’s qualifiers. Only eight other drivers made full, four-lap qualifying runs on the rain-shortened opening weekend at Indianapolis and despite the unification of Indy car racing it will be a struggle to fill the field with thirty-three reputable cars and drivers.

Meanwhile, Ganassi’s team appears in good shape to make a serious run at winning its first Indy 500 in eight years, since Juan Montoya dominated the race back in 2000. Dixon was second last year, of course, and Wheldon finished fourth in ’06, his first year with Ganassi’s team. Ganassi’s managing director Mike Hull (below with Scott Dixon) compares the working partnership enjoyed by Dixon and Wheldon to the team’s great days ten years ago with Alex Zanardi and Jimmy Vasser.

“Zanardi and Vasser were meant for each other at that point in time, and I think Dixon and Wheldon are meant for each other at this point in time,” Hull remarked. “They aren’t anything alike, except for one common thread – they both want to be better today than they were yesterday. They haven’t lost sight of where they came from and they don’t feed off each other. They learn from each other. Their diversity in approach is probably a benefit. That’s certainly helped us in the past, like with Zanardi and Vasser.

“The more unselfish you can be as a team-mate, or for that matter, a team member, the more your eyes are open each day to learning. And that’s what Scott and Dan have in common. If they can continue down that path, no matter what they do with their lives, they can look back and say they achieved a lot, and that’s where they are as two people racing for us today. Their driving styles are a bit different, but they’ve learned to compare their styles to understand how to help each other.”

Hull says Dixon and Wheldon (above) have learned to drive their cars loose with the tail out in qualifying.

“In order to achieve a really fast lap at Indianapolis it takes a lot of experience,” Hull observes. “You can give somebody the setup that Chip Ganassi Racing had on Saturday afternoon and the driver may be able to drive the race car, but can he drive the car across the short chutes the right way to get the speed that he needs? Scott and Dan have got to the point in their careers where they can do that and they’re doing it together and that compounds your ability to get to the next level.”

As Dixon, Wheldon and the other top eleven qualifiers prepared this week for May 25th’s 500-mile race, the rest of the field – all the former Champ Car teams included – have been preoccupied with simply finding the speed necessary to make the race. Don’t expect any of them to come close to challenging the established IRL teams at Indianapolis this year.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

The opening weekend of qualifying for this year’s 92nd Indianapolis 500 takes place this weekend. Favourites for the pole must be Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon who have been the men to beat on oval tracks so far this year in Chip Ganassi’s pair of Dallara-Hondas. Other pole contenders include 2001 and ‘02 race winner Helio Castroneves and new team-mate Ryan Briscoe with Team Penske, and Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti (above) and Danica Patrick (below) at Andretti-Green Racing.

Thanks to the unification of IndyCar racing thirty-four drivers are entered at Indianapolis this year and the field is a little stronger than in recent years. On the other hand, the previous two winners Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish are missing from the field as they have moved their careers, for better or worse, to NASCAR. The only previous winners entered this year are Wheldon, Castroneves and Buddies Rice and Lazier.

Five Brits are entered – 2005 winner Wheldon, Darren Manning, Justin Wilson, Jay Howard and Alex Lloyd. Wilson, Howard and Lloyd are rookies, although Wilson has some oval experience from his four years in Champ Car and is the number one driver of course, at Newman/Haas/Lanigan, replacing Sebastien Bourdais in the team’s McDonald’s car.

This has been a tough week for Newman/Haas/Lanigan because the team’s most experienced and respected man Davey Evans was brutally murdered in an Indianapolis bar last Saturday night. Evans, 63, had worked for Carl Haas’s race team for forty years, going back to the original Can-Am and Formula 5000 series. Born in Sudbury-on-Thames, Evans started his working life in 1959 as a teen-aged engineering apprentice with HWM Motors. He moved on to Maranello Concessionaires before finding work at Lola Cars and then becoming a key man in America in Haas’s Can-Am and Formula 5000 teams before the creation in 1983 of the Newman/Haas CART team.

For many years Davey worked at Lola during the winters building Haas’s cars. Evans was an old-school artisan who could construct almost anything. He was not only Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing’s most experienced crewman, but also probably the longest-serving man in the contemporary IndyCar garage area.

“I have a tough time accepting it and I’m sure everyone else feels the same way,” Mario Andretti commented. “It’s such a waste of a wonderful life. For some meaningless human being to take another life that meant so much is a total travesty. There are very few people that I’ve known in my life who you could say, ‘I don’t think this guy had an enemy in the world.’ All the years that I’ve known and worked with him, whether it was with Carl’s Can-Am team or through Formula 5000 to all the years with Newman/Haas, Davey was always there with a smile, always kind. What can you say? He was a friend for life.”

Two memorial services were held in Indianapolis this week for Evans as many who knew him paid their respects to one of the sport’s most-liked men, fated to lose his life in deeply tragic circumstances.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine