The Champ Car series at the Milwaukee Mile on June 4, 2006.

The Road Runner 225 Champ Car race at the Milwaukee Mile on June 3, 2005 won by Paul Tracy.

January 29, 2024

Listening to the 24 Hours of Daytona IMSA Race as I write this and there is one hour left to race! Pulling for my friend Pipo Derani in the Cadillac who had the fastest pole position ever at the track and has led many of the laps. Team Penske Porsche with Pipo's old teammate Felipe Nazr is leading right now...

My blog this week is about one of our great Indy Car, CART and Champ Car drivers, Cristiano da Matta. He won the CART Championship in 2002 for Newman Haas Racing.

Cristiano drove F1, Indy Lights where he won the championship in 1998, F3, Formula Ford and more after starting racing in karts at 16 years old. His father was a 16 time Brazilian touring car champion so Christiano had racing in his blood.

On August 3rd in 2006 Christiano collided with a deer that ran across the track at Road America as he was coming up the hill to turn 6 during testing. Thankfully, Christiano survived but had a head injury that took him until September 21 before being released from the hospital in Neenah, Wisconsin. On September 24th he gave the command to start your engines at Road America for the Champ Car race.

Thanks to his great physical shape and a great safety team, he made it back to a race car in 2008 and then raced in 2009 and 2011 in the American LeMans Series.

The Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary (CARA) was formed years ago to help drivers and their families pay for medical services and other things.  Insurance for race drivers is like being a fisherman for a living. CARA has helped injured racers for years and had an auction with Autoweek magazine to raise money for the Christiano da Matta Recovery Fund.

I bid on a Firestone race tire signed by all the drivers and Paul Newman.  Surprisingly, I won it. I later had Mario Andretti sign it and that photo is on my Rich Zimmermann Photography Facebook page. The tire proudly sits in our race room/man cave.

Christiano is doing well now and so is his family. Did you know that he is a musician too?

Enjoy some photos of racer Cristiano through the years.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

April 4, 2022

In 2007 the Indy Car racing world was very divided. We had the Indy Racing League (IRL), formed by Tony George in 2003 with his Indianapolis Motor Speedway at the helm.  We also had the Champ Car World Series.

From 2003 through 2007 we had the IRL and Champ Car as two separate series. It was a mess and mistake by Tony George that Indy Car is just now recovering from. In 2008 it became one series again called Indy Car as it still is today.

I was photographing the IRL at the Milwaukee Mile and the Champ Cars at Road America each year for four years.

On August 12, 2007, the Generac Champ Car Grand Prix at Road America was held. Race driver Sebastien Bourdais won the race and end up winning his fourth straight championship at the end of the year. Seabass, as we call him, was fast everywhere then and still is now.

Dan Clarke finished second and a very young Graham Rahal finished third.

All of the Champ Car race cars were beautiful and fast looking with great paint jobs.

Enjoy a look at the guys and a young Katherine Legge racing around beautiful Road America.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

The Champ Car and IMSA series at Road America in 2007.

February 8, 2021

After doing last week's blog on race car driver Tiago Monteiro, I thought that maybe we should look at the whole race and the rest of the racers!

On August 3, 2003 at Road America, we got to see the race that almost didn't happen. Thanks to Mario Andretti's negotiating skills, we had a race. It almost didn't happen and without Mario's help, we would not have had that crazy race.

It was even called the Mario Andretti Grand Prix and it was a fun weekend with the exception of all the rain!

After the first lap the race was red flagged for twenty minutes. The second red flag came out for two hours and forty minutes on lap seven. After the restart the race got to lap 11 and multiple accidents happened involving Paul Tracy, Michel Jourdain Jr., Darren Manning and Roberto Moreno.

The race got going again but it was now starting to get dark. The scheduled race of 60 laps was shortened to 34 with Bruno Junqueira winning and Sebastian Bourdais coming in second. It was a great day for the Newman/Haas team and it's two drivers.

It was one of those races you just can't forget. I won't forget the race because at the second red flag crash, a little piece of Rudolfo Lavin's rear wing landed right next to me!! It is now signed and in my race room.

Enjoy some photos of the weekend and be safe.

Thanks,

Rich ZImmermann

June 20, 2016

Today I thought we would explore my huge interest in race cars. I really like Indy cars in case you haven't noticed.

These photos today begin in 1971 when I photographed Indy Cars on my television!  Cars from CART, Champ Car, IRL and even Mika Hakkinens F1 car that was at Elkhart Lake's Road America as a show car are shown here this week.

My favorite is from 1971 before the cars got their wings!  After that, I like the CART era cars, when we had big horsepower, with multiple engine suppliers that gave us great sounding engines! Plus, each car looked different, whereas today, the IRL cars look very similar if not the same other than sponsors.

Take a look at a few of them and tell me what your favorite race car was through the years.

Enjoy, and say hi to me at Road America this coming weekend where the Indy cars are finally coming back!!! It's going to be great!

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

August 30, 2015

Today, is Sunday, August 30, my birthday and I should be happy. I am happy but I'm saddened because of Justin Wilson's passing.  I am a huge Indy Car race fan and photographer and I have photographed Justin Wilson for years.

He passed away last week after an accident during the Indy Car race in Pennsylvania at the Pocono race track. Sage Karam crashed and the nose cone of his car became airborne and landed on Justin's head. Justin never regained consciousness and passed away on Tuesday.  His organs were donated and I heard that he saved six lives.

Justin Wilson was the nicest guy on pit lane.  He was one of three drivers of the Driver's Committee and would help anyone he could. Everyone liked him and I mean everyone.

Through the years of photographing drivers, I have traded my photos for their helmet visors for my collection at home. After I have their visor, I trade photos for their gloves, if possible. I have Justin's visor and a pair of his gloves from Milwaukee's race in 2007. During today's final race of the season at Sonoma Raceway, I think I will get those gloves out and look at them.

Attached here are photos of Justin through the years driving Champ Cars, IRL cars and having fun with Tony Kanaan on pit lane in Milwaukee. One photo that I really like is of his steering wheel from 2012.  One of his guys put "Badass Wilson" on the top of it!

Miss you Badass Wilson, and I will soon frame those gloves and display them in my race room.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

Justin Wilson, racing in Champ Car and the IRL.

September 1, 2014

First, thank you to everyone who wished me Happy Birthday on Saturday, August 30th when I turned 60!!! That was a big one and a great day thanks to all of you and my wife Claudia.

So, life goes on and we have a new IRL champ after the race last night in Fontana, California.

I was pulling for Helio Castroneves to win the championship. He has not won one yet and he has been trying for many years to become the IRL champion.

Helio, did not become the IRL champion, but one of his teammate's with team Penske, Will Power, did. Congratulations to Will. He too has been trying for many years to get the championship.

Here we look at some photographs of Will Power that I took in 2007, 2008 and 2014.

Enjoy and have a great week.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann