May 16, 2022

In 1988, the Briggs and Stratton 200 Indy Car CART race was held at Road America. Danny Sullivan had the pole position but Emerson Fittipaldi won the race!

Road America looked a bit different back then, and I see the new media center was already built. Didn't think it was that old.

The short lived Porsche Indy Car was racing then with Teo Fabi. It was a beautiful car that never did very well and was only around a few years.

Must have been a combined weekend with the IMSA racing cars because I notice a photo I took of Walter Payton! Looks as if his #34 blew an engine in turn 5. He is standing next to it as it's smoking away.

Love the livery on Arie Luendyk's car!!!!

Enjoy a look back to 1988. Were you there that weekend?

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

The Briggs and Stratton 200 held at Road America in 1988 where Emerson Fittipaldi won.

March 7, 2022

The world is in a crazy place these days but the Indy Car season has begun!

It's great to see Scott McLaughlin win the first race of the year in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has a great future in Indy Car.

Last week was Mario Andretti's 82nd birthday and Sebastian Bourdais on the same day! Will Power's birthday was the following day. He had a strong showing in St. Petersburg. Will is trying to beat Mario Andretti for most pole positions with only one more to do it.

Here are a few photos of the Indy Cars through the years to get us in the mood for the season.

Good luck to all.  Last year's champ ,Alex Palou, has some competition this year. Colton Herta is my pick on his way to the championship!

Enjoy and be safe.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

March 22, 2021

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.

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

September 10,1989 at Road America with the great CART Indy Cars!

Danny Sullivan won it with Teo Fabi second and Rick Mears third.

The 1987 Milwaukee Mile CART Indy Car race.

June 1, 2020

A long time ago in 1987 I was sitting in the stands at the Milwaukee Mile watching the CART Indy Car race.  That was before I was getting access to pit lane and just having fun with the boys. Pardon the photos that are shot through the fence, which would be all of them!

I had to dig these photos up for someone doing an article on Arie Luyendyk's 1987 car.  Then I thought I'd put them in the system and write a blog about it!

It's fun to look at the cool old cars of Arie Luyendyk, Bobby Rahal, Roberto Guerrero, Rick Mears, Michael Andretti, Tom Sneva, Kevin Cogan and more.

Rick Mears had a bad day and had an accident during the race as you will see. Other than that, it was a great weekend.

Check the photos out and enjoy a look back in time.

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

November 7, 2016

Voted by People Magazine in 1992 as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World", Arie Luyendyk is also one of the fastest Indy car drivers ever.

He won the 1990 Indy 500 and I believe still holds the lap record at Indy. He has also raced in IMSA succesfully with A.J. Foyt, Danny Sullivan, Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson.

Starting in the Dutch Formula Ford series in the Netherlands in 1973, he finished second overall and won five races. Formula Three and Formula Vee were next and he moved to America in 1981.

In 1984 he made his Indy car debut at Elkhart Lake's Road America finishing eighth. He drove for Dick Simon Racing, Douglas Shierson Racing and moved to the Target Scotch Chip Ganassi Racing Team in 1992 where he had Morris Nunn as his main engineer. Mo Nunn is legendary and probably one of the best there is in the sport of Indy car racing.

His son Arie Jr. raced Indy Lights for a while with Dad as his coach. Great coach to have right??

Personally, I've always liked Arie because he was a local boy.  He lived around my wife's parents home in Brookfield, Wisconsin. We now live in that house. It's only about 5 blocks away from us and had an old Indy car in the garage!! His deadend street had a little oval and rumor has it that the car came out once in a while for a little warmup spin around the little oval! Wish we had lived here then because I would have been over to his house for sure! Arie and the family now live in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Anyway, take a look at Arie during a two day test session at the Milwaukee Mile on May 24 and 25 of 1993.

Enjoy a look at Indy cars when they looked great and the methanol smelled great!

Thanks,

Rich Zimmermann

Arie during a test day at the Milwaukee Mile in May of 1993.