On September 10, 1989, the CART Indy Car show came to Road America.
I was just getting back into racing photography after some years of commercial work, rock and roll photography and having fun participating in BASS fishing tournaments.
For this race I only took a few photos and actually attended for the race itself. Now, I'm usually up at Road America for the full three days of competition. I travel back and forth each day from home so I can see my wife and download the day's work.
The cars in 1989 were awesome looking and sounded even better! They were powered by methanol. It is a nice, unique smell in the morning with Indy Cars in pit lane!
The race had the now famous Porsche Indy Car with driver Teo Fabi. Teo and his Porsche won only one race in the history of Porsche Indy Car racing with a win at Mid Ohio in 1989. Here at Road America, Teo Fabi finished second. Considering all the problems with the Porche racing program in Indy Car this was very good.
Danny Sullivan won the race and Rick Mears finished third. Wisconsin favorite Arie Luyendyk finished fourth.
Miss those great high horsepower cars and wish I had taken more photos of them in 1989!
Enjoy a look the photos and imagine the smell of methanol fuel.
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.
Today we look back at the first racing team I worked with in Champ Car, Fittipaldi-Dingman Racing with driver Tiago Monteiro in 2003 at the Milwaukee Mile and Road America.
These photos are from the Road America Champ Car race weekend. The race itself was red flagged twice because of rain and was shortened because of darkness.
Tiago had Emerson Fittipaldi as a coach and mentor. You can't get much better than Emerson for sure to help you out!
The team only lasted one year and James Dingman didn't really help anyone by not paying them.
Tiago would go on with his career in racing with Formula 1 in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
He still is racing in Europe in touring cars and has won the Nurburgring 24 Hour the past two years in a Honda TCR.
I love Emerson Fittipaldi's motorcycle you see here. Sargento Cheese at this 2003 race weekend made a cheese head sculpture of Emerson!! Where else but in Wisconsin can you get that?
Enjoy a look back at 2003 Road America where Tiago finished 11th after two red flags because of the rain.
The weekend of August 26th,1973 at Road America was the Can-Am Championship race. Some of the fastest cars ever made were running and Roger Penske had a new car that was taking race win after race win!
Mark Donohue was Roger Penske's driver and a great engineer. The car they had was the McLaren beater with the help of Porsche and Audi and was called the Porsche 917/30TC. McLaren had dominated Can Am racing for a few years until Roger and Mark brought the Penske Racing Sunoco out to play!
Mark Donohue won this race and the championship at the end of the year in the beautiful blue and yellow car!
The Shadow cars of Jackie Oliver and James Hunt were breaking down a lot. James is seen here driving Jackie Oliver's car. James' car blew a fuel metering gasket and Jackie blew an engine.
Jody Scheckter and George Follmer finished second and third in Porsche 917/10TC's. The McLarens finished fourth and fifth.
Hurley Haywood had another Porsche 917/10TC but did not finish because of a tire puncture issue.
I always thought that the first race I photographed at Road America was in 1973. After doing some digging in the files for something from 1972, I found some black and white negatives of the 1972 Can-Am race at Road America on August 27, 1972! That was three days before my eighteenth birthday!
It's interesting to look at what Road America looked like in 1972!! It was quite different but the pavement is in the same place. Road America is a beautiful race course with a rich history.
About a month ago, I was with George Follmer at Road America for the Shadow Racing car 50th reunion. Wish I had known that I had these photos to show to George! I will be sending him a few copies this week of this race he won for Penske Racing in a Porsche 917/10 TC.
The George Follmer car is the #6 car. The #22 car of Francois Cevert finished second. The #59 car of Peter Gregg finished third.
David Hobbs raced the #1 car but did not finish. Others that didn't finish were Peter Revson in the #4, Denny Hulme in the #5, Carlos Pace in the #101 Shadow and Jackie Oliver in the #102 Shadow.
The McLaren cars had been dominating the Can-Am series but Porsche and Audi were starting to make a nice move in winning with their beautiful cars.
The Indianapolis 500 was a bit different this year because there were no fans and it was not held in the month of May. August 23, 2020 was the day of the great race with Marco Andretti securing the pole position!!
It became a unique race with Marco Andretti on the pole and Mario and Michael Andretti leading him to the green flag in the two seat Indy Car. Sadly, Marco didn't lead a lap, I believe.
Scott Dixon dominated the day except for the last 33 laps when Takuma Sato took the lead. Takuma is now a second time Indy 500 winner.
Congratulations to Takuma and teammate Graham Rahal who finished third. Great day for Bobby Rahal and his team that owns both cars!
I was really pulling for Marco, and then Scott Dixon if Marco couldn't get it done. Rinus Veekay was a rookie I was pulling for also. He survived a scary accident during the race with Spencer Pigot.
You just never know who will win in the end. That's racing!
Very disappointed at how NBC handled the television coverage for the great race cutting it short.
On another note, I turned 66 years old on August 30th!! Been retired for a year now and busy as can be!
Next project among others is a book on my father Carl Zimmermann! Been working on it for a while and it's a ton of work with lots to do yet.
Enjoy a look at the Indy 500 leaders. These pictures were taken almost two months ago at Road America.
IMSA racing at Road America is such a fun time. This year we had rain coming down so hard at times. It was just crazy!! I've photographed in the rain before but nothing like this.
The race was red flagged I think twice because of the downpours. My favorite photo might be of corner worker Nate Kosak. He was waving the red flag in turn five with the Whelen Cadillac. The Cadillac had a broken nose and there was one other accident that was enough to call for a red flag to stop the race for a bit. Cars were flying everywhere and hydroplaning if they could see at all because of the rain.
In between the rain storms I had a chance to run to my Acura and drive it from turn five to turn eight. The good thing about both of these turns is they have little platforms with a wooden roof to hide in from the rain! I actually was fairly dry other than my tennis shoes! I wrapped the Sony camera in a towel to shoot through and it worked out well.
There are a ton a photographs to look at here.
Crazy race on Sunday! Congratulations to Helio Castroneves who got the win! He deserved it for leading most of the day and really being chased by the Mazda team and a couple of Cadillacs.
The Corvettes had a great race finishing one and two with a pass of the BMW in the rain!! Love the side by side in the rain Corvette photo!!
Aaron Telitz our Wisconsin guy put his Lexus on pole but the crazy day had him finish third. Next time Aaron!!