July 12, 2021
Last week, I focused my blog on the Vintage Indy Reserve cars. This week, I'm showing you the Indy Cars that ran that same weekend at Road America.
Included in this blog are some Indy Lights, USF2000 and Indy Pro 2000 race cars and drivers.
The Indy Cars are my favorite race cars of all. They never cease to amaze me with what the drivers can do with them! Takuma Sato is a wild driver and his car shows it as the race went on. It will need some bodywork!
After two days of practice and qualifying, it seemed Joseph Newgarden had things under control for the pole and the race. Well, he got the pole position and led a lot of the race but did not win.
Joseph really seemed to have it done until the last few laps when his gearbox had other ideas. Alex Palou won the race and Colton Herta was close behind in second. Will Power finished third followed by Scott Dixon and the Formula 1 racers Marcus Ericsson and Romain Grosjean.
It was interesting to watch NASCAR Champion Jimmie Johnson trying to handle an Indy Car. It's going to take some time for him to get up to speed.
Not so for Formula 1 veterans Marcus Ericksson and Romain Grosjean. Romain really is fast and has adapted very well to Indy Car and is having fun being very competitive. Marcus and Romain will be winning soon I believe.
Check out the photos and enjoy the HOT brake photos taken near the end of the race. One actually looked like it was on fire! Unfortunately I missed that shot though..
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
May 3, 2021
It is the month of May and that means it's Indy Car time and the Indy 500 is coming up on May 30th!
Time to practice for the greatest spectacle in racing as they say. Most of the month is dedicated to practice and setup of the cars.
Indy Car has had two races so far and it's been interesting with both races. The young drivers are moving up and really stepping it up. Colton Herta won the St. Petersburg race and Scott Dixon, the old master, won the first race in Texas. Pato O'Ward won the second race!
Felix Rosenqvist, Pato O'Ward, Colton Herta and more are very aggressive and ready to pounce for a victory. Veteran driver Scott Dixon will be trying for another Indy 500 win and moving for his seventh championship as well.
Here we look back at Road America last year where it was a great battle between Felix and Pato lap after lap. During the final ten laps they were a few feet apart from each other with Felix taking the win!
Get ready for some action with the Indy 500 and for Road America Indy Car June 17th through June 20th! The Vintage Indy Car series will be joining the Indy Cars at Road America again which is very cool to see and to hear those old cars.
Very sad to learn we lost Uncle Bobby Unser last night... One of the greatest old school Indy Car drivers around and all around nice guy. RIP Uncle Bobby...
Enjoy a nice month!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
July 20, 2020
What a great weekend at Road America on July 11th and 12th!!
The Vintage Indy Car Registry brought about twenty cars from the 1930's to 1990's. They basically do exhibition laps without any racing because the cars are so valuable.
Indy Car had two races to run just to catch up for missed events due to the COVID-19 virus. There was one race Friday afternoon and one on Sunday. It was a full 48 hours or more of work for these teams.
They were great Indy Car races for both Scott Dixon and Felix Rosequist!!
The new aeroscreen for Indy Car is good to see but it makes photographing the guys a little more challenging! It's worth it though to keep these guys safe.
Enjoy 92 photos of the fun!!!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
May 4, 2020
Being ordered to stay at home because of the COVID-19 virus, we are all starving for some real racing, at least I am! The iRacing events with drivers using simulators in their homes is interesting, but it just won't do.
Both the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby have been postponed this year. That has not happened since WW2. I suspect we will all remember this time period for the rest of our lives. The children will most likely remember the home schooling on personal computers.
For a blog this week, let's look at Arie Luyendyk through the years. I don't have photos of Arie during his IRL days here because my IRL files are buried in the closet and in time I will put them on my website. Here though are some good examples of Arie and his early days in CART and Indy Car.
At the time these photos were taken, I was a contributing photographer for Indy Car Racing Magazine. The magazine office was less than a mile away from the Milwaukee Mile track. The photos are from the Milwaukee Mile and Road America. See if you can figure out the year of each car for fun!
I like the style of these cars so much more than our present day Indy Cars. For sure they were not as safe as the current cars but wow, they were fast and good looking race cars!
Stay safe everyone and let's hope we have Indy Car back in action at Road America in June, with social distancing of course.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
September 23, 2019
I have been retired now for 20 days and I'm tired!!! I have been catching up on chores I've wanted to do and have a ton more to do. I'm not complaining though!
Yesterday was the final race of the Indy Car season and it was an awesome race!
Colton Herta at 19 years old won the race from pole position and Joseph Newgarden won the championship! Personally, I was pulling for Scott Dixon for the race win and championship but it was not meant to be. Scott's previous two races with mechanical issues really put him out of the championship hunt. He tried very hard though starting and finishing yesterday's race in second place.
Here are a few photos of the guys from Road America this year and now we have to wait a whole year before we see them race again!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
July 22, 2019
Wow, summer is here and it's HOT and I'm soooooo busy!!! Lot's going on these days in the photo world of mine! That's a good thing I guess. It's fun and I do enjoy it.
Here are some photos of the Millers at Milwaukee event at the Milwaukee Mile last Friday and Saturday.The Millers, by the way, are vintage Indy Cars that dominated championship racing in the 1920' and 1930's. Saturday night I photographed Pat Benatar and Neil Geraldo at Gathering on the Green.
Enjoy a look at last weekend. Sorry that I can't share the Pat Benatar photos, but you get to see a shot of me at work!
Thanks,
Rich
June 24, 2019
What a fun and busy weekend with Indy Cars at Road America! I even ended up on the radio at 105.7fm, The Final Inspection show on Saturday!! Check it out at radio.com in the "on demand" section.
Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi were the stories of the weekend. Colton at 19 years old won the pole position for the Indy Car race!
For the race, Colton only led the first three turns and then it was Alexander Rossi all day to win the race!
I let the photos tell the rest of the story.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
June 3, 2019
Finally it feels like summer today!! We have had crazy weather everywhere around the U.S. it seems. I will mow the grass for the third time this week and try to get our rain soaked grass back to normal and pretty.
Also, it seems like summer because we have some great Indy Car racing going on. The Indy 500 this year was one of the best in a long time other than all the commercials that is. I watched the whole race and most of the F1 Monaco race. Indy was by far much better racing!
The Indy Car guys had a good Race 1 in Belle Isle Saturday and the Sunday race 2 I'm about to watch. I think we have some of the best Indy Car racing going on in a long time. The crowd counts are up and television viewing is also up.
Nascar, that other series, is going further down every race with fewer fans and a bad show. They just don't get it on how to do a race weekend! It confuses me trying to follow it!
In a few weeks we have Indy Car coming back to Road America where last year we broke crowd records and it was an awesome weekend of racing.
Come on up and have a brat and a beer and watch the guys race at the best race track in the world!! That's my opinion but a lot of racers agree and compare it to Spa in Europe.
Here is a little look at last year's race as we get the cameras ready for Road America!!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann