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

Paul Tracy testing at the Milwaukee Mile on May 24th and 25th of 1993.

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

Teo Fabi at a test day in Milwaukee in May of 1993.

October 16, 2016

It's been five years since we lost Dan Wheldon... Five years ago on a nice Sunday in Las Vegas we lost a great racer, great father, and a comic who started racing with karts in England at age 4. He came across the pond to the United States in 1999 and started open wheel racing with Formula 2000 and kept moving up in the ranks of racing.

Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan, Bryan Herta and Dan were all famous for pulling pranks and jokes on each other. I've heard about a lot of the pranks they have done to each other all for fun. They would hide or move rental cars, motor homes and motorbikes or their keys and even throw pies in each others faces.  These guys had fun.

Today, we are remembering all of that and his Indy 500 wins in 2005 and 2011 in addition to his IRL Championship win in 2005.

I still have his helmet visor in my race room that he traded with me for a photograph. When I saw him a couple years later and asked for a visor with new sponsors on it for my collection he said, "for $100 mate", because that was what a lot of people were now doing.  People were getting a free visor from a driver and then selling it somewhere for $100 or more.

Never did get that visor.

Miss you Dan. Miss ya mate.

Thanks for the fun.

Rich Zimmermann