Max Papis at Road America in 2003 and the Milwaukee Mile in 2000.

April 6, 2026

Hope everyone had a very nice Easter like we did thanks to my gourmet chef wife. I ate too much but it was the first day in about a week I felt close to normal thanks to chemotherapy making me sick again.

So my blog this week is on friend and racer Max Papis. He continues to be in Indy Car as the chief steward along with Arie Luyendyk.  Arie is another friend and an old neighbor of ours. 

I can't believe that I've never done a blog on "Mad Max" or even have photos of his racing career in my website. So here we go!

Max earned the nickname "Mad Max" after the drive he did towards the end of the 1996 24 hours of Daytona. He was a lap down in his Ferrari 333SP but got the lap back and almost won the race chasing Wayne Taylor. He even did a pit stop at racing speed and that changed the following year when you could no longer drive in on racing speed. Mad Max finished 64 seconds behind to finish second.

A true racer in just about all types of racing as he has been in Formula One, Indy Car, CART, Champ Car, IMSA, NASCAR and even Stadium Trucks. He started winning in go karts as a very young driver in his native Italy and in the CART Indy Car Series he won 3 races.

I've gotten to know Max and his family through the years. Married to Tatiana Fittipaldi they have two children that are racing now of course. Matteo and Marco have a great coaches with Max. Max even helps out his cousins Pietro and Enzo Fittipaldi in their racing careers.

If that isn't enough Max and Tatiana started Max Papis Innovations in 2009. They supply racing steering wheels and many more new racing products every day. Checkout www.maxpapisinc.com to see all their products.

I've photographed Max for years in Indy Car at Road America and  at the Milwaukee Mile.

Attached here are photos of Max at Road America finishing 4th in 2003 and the Milwaukee Mile where he finished seventh. I'll continue digging in the archives and add more photos of Max in the future.

Enjoy some photos from 2000 and 2003 and have a great week.

Thanks,

Rich

March 9, 2026

I am taking a look back at Michel Joudain Jr. racing in Champ Car in 2003.

Michel started racing in the Mexican Formula Junior series at 12 years old and in 1996 started in the IRL racing series. From 1997 to 2004 he was racing in Champ Car with 2 wins in 2003 for Team Rahal at Milwaukee and Montreal.

The Milwaukee Mile 2003 race was a night race and cold! I remember putting on a heavy coat, hat and gloves to shoot a few photos from the spotters stand on the roof of the main grandstand. 

It was a big weekend at the Milwaukee Mile for the Centennial 250 race on the tracks 100th anniversary of auto racing.

It was also a big weekend for me because I got a photo job with Fittipaldi Dingman racing and their driver Tiago Monteiro for Milwaukee and Road America. Still waiting to get paid for that and so is most of the racing team crew.

Michel Jourdain Jr. had a great race and his first win in the series at Milwaukee. 

A few photos here are from Milwaukee and Road America where it was a mess of weather in 2003 with a lot of rain delays.  I remember the race finishing finally at about 7 or 8pm.

He raced in NASCAR, WTCC, A1GP, Craftsman Truck Series and he now is still in the Super Copa GTM Series in Mexico for Andretti Jourdain Autosport where he was champion in 2020.

He's a nice racer and still racing in anything he can even having done the Baja 1000 in 2003 finishing sixth.

He placed second overall in a 1953 Studebaker in the La Carrera Panamericana in 2010.

Enjoy a look at some photos from Milwaukee and Road America in 2003.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

February 9, 2026

Sir Scott Dixon has always been a favorite race car driver since his early days in 2001 at Pac West Racing in the CART Indy Car Racing Series.

In 2002 he switched to Chip Gannasi Racing as Pac West Racing (1998-2000) folded due to finances. Scott continues race with Chip Ganassi Racing.

Stefan Johansen was helping Scott during his first days in 1998 and continues as his manager helping him secure his ride at Chip Gannasi Racing in 2002.

Sir Scott or Dixie as a lot of people call him, has won in about all divisions of racing he has entered since 1998.

He is also the nicest and one of the most humble guys in the paddock. He is married to an Olympic runner, Emma. They have a nice little family of 3 kids.

The Rolex 24 hours at Daytona has been a favorite IMSA race of his for years. He has won it 3 times.

At the end of this coming Indy Car season he will be knighted in England for all he has done during his racing career, hence Sir Scott!

A good example is that he is donating $300,000. to a young Australian boy who swam a long distance to save his mother in the ocean. She drifted away paddle boarding.

That boy has a great future in swimming and Scott's donation will help his swimming career.

Here are some photos of Scott's racing career.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

May 19, 2025

One of the best auto racers to ever drive an open wheel race car was Jacques Villeneuve who was born to race.

His father Gilles Villeneuve past away when Jacques was very young in 1982 driving for Ferrari.  That took the racing bug out of Jacques for just a little while.

By 1994 he was driving a CART Forsythe/Team Kool Green Indy Car.  In 1995 he was driving for Team Kool Green and won the Indy Car Series Championship and the Indy 500!

1996 he moved to F1 and won the F1 Championship in 1997 for Team Williams.

Seemed like he could win in anything and tried NASCAR, Sports Cars and more.

Born in Canada but moved to Monaco when he was 7 and was raised in a Swiss boarding school until the racing bug took over at 17.

I had the pleasure to watch him drive in the Indy Lights and then the 1994 and 1995 seasons in an Indy Car.

Enjoy a few years of some great memories of a great racer and beautiful race car.

Thanks,

Rich

December 16, 2024

Since June of 2023 our lives have here been a bit messy here with surgeries and non medical fun for my wife and me. A big Monday and Tuesday here this week but I hope and pray that we are on the right path now.

December 29th last year was really a bad day as all of us lost a great race car driver at just 56 and I think about him a lot. Gil de Ferran was a special racer and a prankster. Gil passed away last year of a heart attack on the Concours Race Track in Opa-locka.  Very sad day and he was having fun with his son that day at the track.

I did not know him very well but had some fun with him at the Milwaukee Mile and Road America.

So I feel the need to look and remember our friend as it's so close to a year that he has been gone.

Gil gave Team Penske it's 100th win and consecutive CART championships in 2000 and 2001.

The Milwaukee Mile put my photo of Gil in the Media Center at the Milwaukee Mile. It's also in one of the suites in the grandstand. It's a picture of Gil sitiing in his car giving a thumbs up. The photo was from 2001 and I've cherished it for a long time in my race room here.

In 2000 Team Penske almost had Gil de Ferran and future superstar Greg Moore who we lost in 1999 as teammates. Who knows what could have happened with Greg Moore and Gil together. Gil would have mentored Greg for sure but without Greg we got Helio Castroneves and Gil mentored Helio very well into the Spiderman!

Enjoy some photos of Gil through the years.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

May 20, 2024

The world's oldest race track is 15 minutes from our house here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I have been there often since my first visit in 1968 with my Polaroid camera at 14 years old. I still have three of those photos!

Since 1876 the track has seen hot air balloon races, horse races and ostrich carriage races!  Auto racing didn't start until 1903 with Indy Car/Champ Cars coming from 1933 to 2009. Then a little break and Indy Cars were back in 2011 to 2015.

Our Green Bay Packers played there a bit from 1934 to 1951 with the "Dairy Bowl" and in 1939 won the NFL Championship game 27-0 over the New York Giants. That had to be quite a game!

The July 17, 1933 race was rained out and Wilbur Shaw suggested a rain date for the following day. The term "rain date" was first used that day here in Milwaukee.

The track was dirt for many years and finally paved in 1954 which is the year I was born! Ha!!

Rock 'n' roll has been performed at the Mile and the Wisconsin State Fair for many years starting with the "Midwest Rock Festival" in 1969 with Led Zeppelin, Blind Faith, Joe Cocker and others. My father didn't allow me to go...but I still became a rock 'n' roll and racing photographer.

The old track has seen many improvements since 1876 especially in the last two years with many more to come.  It's looking better every day.  Recent improvements include a new concrete pit lane, new inner walls, a lot of fencing and new safer barriers are coming soon.

The crews are getting the track ready for Indy Cars coming back on August 31 and September 1, 2024. It will be the first time Indy Cars are racing at the Mile since 2015. I had the opportunity to see Will Power running the first laps October 18, 2023 in an Indy Car at the Mile. It was awesome to see and hear him running a Firestone Tire test.

Jim Trewtow of the "Racing Roundup" radio and television show and race promoter Bob Sergent had a press conference with NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series driver Tyler Ankrum a few days ago. They announced the sponsor for the LiUNA! 175 NASCAR CRAFTMAN Truck Series Race.

The plan was to run some RC cars around the Victory Circle but rain had us running the cars in the newly remodeled Media Center.

We also have the Father's Day June 16th ASA tour racing and the Menards ARCA Sprecher 150 with the Liuna 175 NASCAR CRAFTMAN Truck Series Playoffs on Sunday August 25th.

The crews are working very hard to get the track ready and they very much deserve our gratitude and thanks as well as the State Fair board and the State of Wisconsin.

Here is a peak at some of the improvements being done.  Come join us for some great racing at our awesome track, The Milwaukee Mile.

Time for this track to get rockin' again!

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

April 22, 2024

The weekend of September 11, 1994 at Road America, the CART Indy Cars raced in the the Texaco Havoline 200.

That was a big year of change in CART because of the formation of the IRL series starting up. It was trying to take over the series. That is a whole story in itself someday for another blog, book or movie, but 1994 was a great year of CART racing.

On that nice Fall weekend at Road America we got to see a Canadian in the front row with Paul Tracy in the pole position and a young superstar named Jacques Villeneuve right next to him.

Nigel Mansell was on his last visit to Road America and had the fastest lap of the race but Jacques Villeneuve won it that day.

Team Penske showed up with Emerson Fittipaldi, Paul Tracy and Al Unser Jr. who won the Indy 500 that year with the very secret Mercedes Benz 500I engine that had 1,100hp! Al would end up winning the 1994 championship.

Michael Andretti came back to CART after a year in F1 that didn't go so well. Michael came back driving for Chip Ganassi's new team and won the first race of the year. This was also the last year of Mario Andretti racing in CART and Indy Cars.

Some other great racers you will see here in my photos are Stefan Johansson, Raul Boesel, Arie Luyendyk, Teo Fabi, Adrian Fernandez, Willy T. Ribbs, Scott Goodyear, Mauricio Gugelmin and Bobby Rahal in his beautiful Miller Genuine Draft race car.

Nice to see and remember Dick Simon who was a great team owner for several years for multiple drivers.

Notice the top of Al Unser Jr.'s helmet full of tire rubber and someone else's oil leak!!

Enjoy a look and some beautiful sounding and great looking Indy Cars.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

On September 11, 1994 the CART Indy Cars raced the Texaco Havoline 200 at Road America. A young 22 year old Jacques Villeneuve won the race.

The CART Indy Cars at the Milwaukee Mile in 1994.