September 11, 2017
This blog is about a legendary car at Road America in 1973, the Shadow Can Am car driven by Jackie Oliver and James Hunt.
Don Nichols, the main man of Team Shadow and UOP (Universal Oil Products) Racing in 1973 just passed away a short time ago which is why these photos came to mind.
I dug these photos up a while ago for some people who were restoring the car. It recently sold for big money!
The interesting thing to me is that James Hunt is in the car in the one photo. I suspect he spent a fair amount of time at Siebkens that weekend back in May 1973!
Enjoy a look at a fantastic racing machine.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
August 14, 2017
Last weekend was a busy and fun weekend at Road America with some crazy weather!
Friday it poured and looked like rain the whole weekend.
Sunday's race was awesome as Pipo Deroni and his teammates in the Nissan Tequila Patron car won! Pipo did the win with an amazing restart of the race with about half an hour left.
Congrats to James French who clinched his championship in the PC category at his home track!
Thanks to the Final Inspection show at 105.7fm and check out the guy with the Michelin Bibendum mascot!
Enjoy a look at some of the 1400 photos I took!
I was on the starters stand for the start of Sunday's race and the flyover with the planes looks awesome with the contrasting, rainy sky!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
July 3, 2017
With summer here and life being so busy, I have started writing a blog every other week now. Indy cars last weekend and Summerfest this week, I'm too busy!
Here is a look at Friday of last weekend. The Indy Cars were at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI. It's such a beautiful track.
Colin Herta is going to be a great race car driver in the future and you get a look at him here. He is Bryan Herta's son, and being on the Andretti Motorsports team, this kid is going to go far. Fuel and turbo issues had him doing zero laps in the morning and then he came out to get pole position for race 2 of Indy Lights.
Enjoy a look and I have to gear up for Steve Miller tonight at Summerfest rain or shine!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
February 20, 2016
Last week I had some photos of Willy T. Ribbs at Elkhart Lake's Road America for my blog. This week, we look at Walker Racing and Willy T. Ribbs with his teammates, Scott Goodyear and Hiro Matsushita.
These were the good days of CART racing. I miss those high powered Indy cars!
A couple of these photos are from the team photo session on Sunday morning of the race weekend.
Enjoy and have a good week.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
February 13, 2017
Today's little blog is a look at Willy T. Ribbs at Elkhart Lake's Road America. These photos were taken in 1993 at the CART series.
He raced for a few years and next week we will look at some more from 1993 at Milwaukee.
Have a good week.
Thanks,
Rich
December 19, 2016
Winter is in the state of Wisconsin, finally! We have snow and the cold all at once it seems. It's really beautiful and the snow is very fluffy. It's easy to shovel. The snowblower is out for repair, but it worked great when I tested it a month ago! Hopefully we will get it back soon, more snow on the way.
Well, I am scanning the 2003 race at Road America lately and for a few more weeks that is what we will be looking at. The cars were so great then. They had so much horsepower and they looked really nice.
These were the days with different engine and chassis manufacturers. It was during the years when teams put blankets over the car wings, both front and rear, to hide their secrets for more speed.
Enjoy a look at Tiago Monteiro again, plus Rudolfo Lavin, Mario Haberfeld, Ryan Hunter Reay and Oriol Servia.
Time to keep working on our basement project. We finished the painting last week and I finished the floor tiles yesterday on a day off of work! Now it's time for the cove molding and then it's about done!!!!!
Have a great week. Don't shovel too much and stay warm.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
P.S. Thanks to everyone who bought one of my Rich Zimmermann Photography rock'n roll calendars! Sold out early this year!
November 14, 2016
In a continuation of my past couple of blogs, I'm focusing on May 24th and 25th of 1993. These were two testing days at the Milwaukee Mile for CART drivers.
Way back when in the old Indy car days, the guys would practice and test at the Milwaukee Mile in between the Indy 500 and the Milwaukee race that was traditionally the weekend after the Indy 500. Not anymore, but back then and for many years it was tradition to come up and test at Milwaukee. The guys couldn't practice at Indy and they were looking for something to do! You could say that they were a little itchy for some driving or practice!
Paul Tracy is pictured here with Rick Mears coaching him along with Teddy Mayer who both were Team Penske engineer wizards! Teddy Mayer worked at McLaren F1 with the legendary Bruce McLaren and many others.
The biggest thing I remember of this test session was Paul telling Rick Mears that "wait until Nigel Mansell gets here and feels the bump in turn one"! There used to be a big bump in turn one that caught everyone by surprise. The track has been repaved since then of course.
Paul Tracy was in his first full season of Indy cars in 1993 and was Rick Mears' replacement driver. He scored five victories and finished third in points. He also led the most laps, named most improved driver by his peers and won from pole position twice.
Enjoy a look at 24 year old Paul Tracy at Milwaukee.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann