THE LINE

June 9, 2010

(Richard Prince/GM Racing Photo)
Le Mans, France.This year's 24 Hours of Le Mans marks the 50th anniversary of Corvette's first participation in the world's most prestigious sports car race. It also signals the start of a new chapter in Corvette Racing history with the French debut of the second-generation Corvette C6.R in the fiercely contested GT2 category. After six victories in the GTS/GT1 classification at Le Mans over the last nine years, Corvette Racing will take on Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, Jaguar and Aston Martin in GT2 at the 24-hour endurance classic this coming weekend (June 12-13). The entire Corvette Racing/Pratt&Miller Engineering operation can be seen here on the pit straight at Le Mans with Corvette Racing C6.R No. 63 drivers Johnny O'Connell, Jan Magnussen, and Antonio Garcia and No. 64 C6.R drivers Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta, and Emmanuel Collard. Doug Fehan, Program Manager for Corvette Racing is seen kneeling by the No. 63 machine while Gary Pratt is doing the same by the No. 64 car.

(Richard Prince/GM Racing Photo)
Flanked by Corvette Racing's current C6.Rs, Corvette's racing history is represented by Briggs Cunningham's No. 3 Corvette, the machine that finished first in the large displacement GT category and eighth overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1960. John Fitch, who co-drove Cunningham's No. 3 Corvette with Bob Grossman at Le Mans in 1960, will attend the race with Lance Miller, the current owner of the historic Corvette. Wearing traditional American white and blue racing colors, the immaculately restored Corvette will participate in a parade through downtown Le Mans on Friday and lead a ceremonial lap of Corvettes before the start of the race on Saturday.

(Richard Prince/GM Racing Photo)
Corvette Racing waits to begin scrutineering at Place des Jacobins in Le Mans.

(Richard Prince/GM Racing Photo)
The No. 64 Corvette Racing C6.R during scrutineering at Place des Jacobins. The race can be seen this weekend on the SPEED channel beginning at 8:30AM Saturday.

(BMW AG)

The No 79 Team BMW Motorsport BMW M3 "Art Car" designed by Jeff Koons, on track at Le Mans in preparation for the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans. The car will be driven by Andy Priaulx (GB), Dirk Müller (DE) and Dirk Werner (DE) in the GT2 class. 

(Ron McQueeney/IndyCar)
Ryan Briscoe (No. 6 Team Penske Honda-Powered Dallara) started from the pole and held off a very impressive Danica Patrick (No. 7 Andretti Autosports Team GoDaddy.com D/H/F) to win the Firestone 550K at the Texas Motor Speedway last Saturday night. Marco Andretti (No. 26 Andretti Autosports Team Venom Energy D/H/F) finished third for the second consecutive race and Scott Dixon (No. 9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing D/H/F), the 2008 race winner, finished fourth. It was Briscoe's first win of the season and his sixth career IZOD IndyCar Series victory. It was also Team Penske's fourth win of 2010 and its 39th win in the IZOD IndyCar Series. It was Patrick's first top-five of the season. "It was pretty crazy out there," Briscoe said afterwards. "There was also a lot of tire management too. I really had to work with the tools in the car to keep a good balance throughout the stint. That really made the race fun... Danica got by us and I didn't want to make any aggressive moves and block. I gained some momentum on the next lap, used the push-to-pass and was able to pass her out of Turn 4 and into Turn 1. She gave us a real run for our money tonight. It was fun racing side-by-side with her."

(Dan Helrigel/IndyCar)
Running with the lead pack all night and in serious contention for the win, Danica Patrick drove the race of her IndyCar career last Saturday night. A very impressive run. "I've been working hard all season, " she said afterwards. "It's just really nice to have a result to show how hard I've been working and how hard the team has been working as well." 

(Ron McQueeney/IndyCar)
Marco Andretti delivered another strong run as Andretti Autosport put four cars in the top-seven positions of the race with Tony Kanaan (No. 11 Team 7-Eleven D/H/F) and Ryan Hunter-Reay's (No. 37 Team IZOD D/H/F) sixth and seventh-place finish.

(Ron McQueeney/IndyCar)
With his fifth-place finish Dario Franchitti took over the lead in the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series point standings.

(Ron McQueeney/IndyCar)
Part of the fun of winning at the Texas Motor Speedway is that you get to wear a big-ass cowboy hat and fire-off six-shooters. Ryan is seen here enjoying the moment.

IndyCar. Editor-in-Chief's Note: The Indy Racing League, the sanctioning body of the IZOD IndyCar Series, issued the following statement regarding the response to the oil fire in Simona de Silvestro's car during Saturday's race at Texas Motor Speedway: "First and foremost, we make the safety of our competitors a priority when on the track. The primary hose on the series' safety truck malfunctioned, so the safety team had to go to the backup of the bottles. All equipment is checked prior to going on track before every race.  We are examining why the hose malfunctioned to ensure this equipment failure will not happen again. Our Safety Team consists of approximately 24 highly-trained safety personnel with a minimum of 14 attending each event - 2 trauma physicians, 3 paramedics and 9 firefighters/EMTs. Team members have an average of 20 years of experience in their respective areas. The safety team is recognized for its high standards and high performance and this problem will be addressed." 39 seconds to get the fire out. 39 SECONDS? No matter what the explanation - and I don't doubt that IndyCar's safety personnel are fist-rate trained professionals - what happened last Saturday night was completely unacceptable. - PMD

 A.J. Foyt. IZOD IndyCar fans voted four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt as the greatest Indy car oval driver. Fans selected Foyt as the honoree for the oval championship trophy with 43.6 percent of the vote through a poll on indycar.com, the official website of the IZOD IndyCar Series. Rick Mears was second with 30.1 percent of the vote. Other nominees were: Mario Andretti (18.8 percent), Bill Vukovich (6.4 percent) and Ted Horn (1.1 percent). "This is an honor that I really appreciate for a couple reasons," Foyt said. "I've always liked ovals more than road courses -- the Indy cars didn't run that many road courses when I won most of my races. Second, it was voted on by the fans so that makes it pretty special to me. I like the challenges of the ovals -- you have to have everything right: the driver, the car and the team. If you make a mistake on a road course, you can make it up in the next corner or two. Make a mistake on an oval and you end up in the wall. Ovals are a lot less forgiving. I think the Oval champion will be the driver and team that make the fewest mistakes. To have my name on that trophy is pretty cool any way you look at it." The IZOD IndyCar Series will announce the honoree for the Road/Street trophy at its next road course event at Watkins Glen International in July. Up next for the series is the Iowa Corn Indy 250 presented by Pioneer at Iowa Speedway on June 20.

(Courtesy of the Ford Racing Archives)
A.J. Foyt Jr., one of racing's all-time greats.

Editor-in-Chief's Note: Pretend you're there and check out Michelin's excellent coverage from Le Mans. Go here. - PMD

Editor-in-Chief's Note: With interest waning for major league open-wheel racing at an alarming rate, the sport needs a car - no, make that a breakthrough - that will say "new" to both hardcore enthusiasts and the casual, one-or-two-races-a-year, fair-weather fans alike. And I strongly believe that the future IndyCar machine needs to be a dramatic departure from F1, too, so that when people think "Indy car" they immediately think futuristic and compelling. We need to press the "re-set" button for racing. We need new thinking and we need machines that are relevant in terms of developing the advanced technologies that will help shape our future production cars. And I believe the Delta Wing concept presents us with the best opportunity to accomplish that. Read Gordon Kirby's latest on the subject here. - PMD

(Panoz Auto Development)

The Panoz Abruzzi “Spirit of Le Mans” was introduced today (June 8, 2010) at the Circuit de La Sarthe, in Le Mans, France. “This is culmination of equal parts time, effort and dreams,” said Don Panoz, founder of the Panoz Motor Sports Group. “The Panoz brand always has prided itself on hand-building and delivering an exotic automobile and experience to our customers. Our new offering takes this to a completely new level.” The Abruzzi “Spirit of Le Mans” from Panoz Auto Development, based in Hoschton, Ga., will be offered as a strictly limited edition. Only 81 Abruzzi “Spirit of Le Mans” vehicles will ever be produced, corresponding to the number of Le Mans 24 Hour contests between the inception of the race in 1923 and the race to be held in 2013. The hand-built Abruzzi “Spirit of Le Mans” is a front-engine, rear-transaxle and rear-radiator super sports car, road-legal in Europe and many countries of Asia, the Middle East and South America. The powertrain will deliver 600-plus HP with 590 ft.-lbs. of torque. The car is said to break new ground in environmental design and construction starting with the unprecedented implementation of the R.E.A.M.S.® - Recyclable Energy Absorbing Matrix System - body system that offers environmental, performance and structural advantages never used before on any road-going automobile. The multi-layer composite system is lighter than carbon fiber yet equally strong. Unlike carbon fiber however, it is dent-resistant, shatter-proof and recyclable. Abruzzi also introduces TRIFECTACOOLING® technology. In addition to a normal high-efficiency radiator, there are stage two and stage three systems that lower coolant temperature on both the inflow to and the outflow from the radiator. “These are advancements that will open up a new era of automotive design,” Panoz said. “Dating back to our first road car – the AIV Roadster – PAD has been a believer in efficient construction and design. This philosophy continues with our Abruzzi.” The Abruzzi “Spirit of Le Mans” will be delivered to its owners at the famed Circuit de la Sarthe, shipped directly there from the Panoz factory. Each automobile will be linked to a specific Le Mans 24 Hour race, with the chassis number also containing that specific race date and the initials of the winning drivers and the history of that year. Professional drivers will instruct owners in driving the car on the Bugatti Circuit at Le Mans. Service and repairs also will be attended to at the ACO facilities of the Circuit 24 Hours of Le Mans. And we'd like to add: Bring lots of money - just under $500,000 - although it's apparently not available in the U.S.

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