May 17, 2021
Got some sad news with the passing of Uncle Bobby Unser a few weeks ago. Uncle Bobby, as we all called him, had been in ill health for quite some time. We will miss him but it's OK knowing that he is upstairs in the ultimate Winner's Circle now.
This made me think of Al Unser Jr. and how Uncle Bobby supported him and his whole family of racers.
Al Unser Jr. will be driving the Mini Cooper pace car for the Vintage Indy Car Registry at Road America in June with the Indy Car weekend. It's a little smaller and not as fast as the car shown here from 1991 at the Milwaukee Mile.
Check out this very fast car from the CART racing days at the Milwaukee Mile along with two photos of Uncle Bobby.
Al Unser Jr. won the CART series championship in 1990 which is why he has #1 on his car here in 1991. He also won the Indy 500 twice. First win was in 1992 and then in 1994 he won again.
Enjoy and hope to see you soon at the race track!!
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.
February 8, 2021
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.
Enjoy some photos of the weekend and be safe.
Thanks,
Rich ZImmermann
June 22, 2020
My blog today is a shout out to everyone to please say a few prayers for racer Alex Zanardi. He had a very bad accident hand cycling on Friday in Italy. He required several surgeries. Let's hope and pray that he can recover from this tragedy.
Alex Zanardi is one of the strongest people I have ever had the pleasure of photographing in and out of an Indy Car. He is strong physically and is not the kind of person to give up on anything.
After losing both of his legs and about 75% of his blood in a bad Indy Car crash in Germany in September of 2001, he came back to racing! He became very good at hand cycling to the point of winning an Olympic medal and several other races through the years.
Last year he competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona in a BMW that was modified for him with hand controls. He shared the BMW with two other drivers that used the pedals and a normal racing steering wheel. They were very competitive in the race. The guys didn't win that day but just the fact that Alex was racing a car again was amazing.
So please keep Alex, or the Pineapple as some people have called him, in your thoughts and say a few prayers for him.
Wishing you a speedy recovery Pineapple!
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
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
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
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.
October 31, 2016
Happy Halloween everyone!! The little beggers should be knocking on our door today at 5pm! It's fun to see the kids and we give them each a little bag of assorted candy. It's good size and they like us for that. Maybe they will be nice to us to as they grow up, right?
My next three blogs look at a test day that was at the Milwaukee Mile on May 24 and 25 of 1993. Today's blog photos are of Teo Fabi, one of the three drivers of this test session.
Teo Fabi came from Italy to the CART Indy car series after a few years in Formula 1. Prior to that he did everything from motorcycles to winning the European karting title in 1976 and flying helicopters, Sportscar racing, Formula Ford, Formula 3 and in 1989 he won the only victory for Porsche in CART at Mid Ohio.
He is a nice little guy that has done it all it seems!
Enjoy a look at Teo in a car that has the colors of Rick Mears and later Helio Catroneves. It was dubbed the yellow submarine and made famous by Rick Mears and Team Penske.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
