Junior Strous, who was currently fourth in the Indy Lights championship, has decided to race at Zandvoort this weekend in the Dutch GT4 championship rather than in his Indy Lights car at the Milwaukee Mile. There are a couple different rumors circulating in regards to his decision. The most probable, per a comment on planetlemans.com, is that his Dutch sponsors wanted him to run at home. I’m sure Strous and everyone involved in his racing this season are disappointed in his recent Indy Lights results, after such a promising start to the year—where he swept the opening rounds at St. Petersburg. That said, it would be odd to see them drop Indy Lights so early in the season. Hopefully, his GT4 stop is a one-off and we will see him back in the #18 Lights car soon.
At Zandvoort, he took the pole positions in Q1 and claimed Q3 for Race 2. You can follow his results this weekend: here.
The Stars of Karting staff wrote a nice piece on series alumni—“Where are they Now?”. Definitely worth a read…
Anyone who followed the Indy Lights series this year was surprised when Andrew Prendeville announced a premature end to his open wheel efforts for 2008. In a statement to the press, Prendeville announced that his reason for departure revolved around “other opportunities”. Many (including myself) thought the announcement was just another unfortunate example of an ill-funded driver being sent home, regardless of his or her talent…. Which it very well could have been, however Prendeville was back in an Indy Lights car just over a week ago; working with HVM Racing to develop their Indy Lights program.
Earlier today, ECO Racing made an announcement defining Andrew’s previous statement about “other opportunities”. The 27 year old driver will be traveling to Laguna Seca in October to drive a environmentally sound LMP1 race car for ECO Racing. Prendeville will be driving in the American LeMans Series with Japanese driver Hideki Noda, who has experience in both single seater and sports cars.
ECO Racing is developing a car for the duo that has a production based-turbocharged V10 engine which is run on bio-diesel (created from a Jatropha curcas tree). According to a release from the team, Jatropha has many advantages over other bio-fuel crops, as it requires less water than most plants, is hardy, and does not need to be grown on good-quality agricultural land. ECO’s efforts align perfectly with the ALMS efforts to “go green”.
This seems to be a great opportunity for Andrew, hopefully we will seem back in a car for 2009, even if it’s a sports car.
Atlantic Championship driver Greg Mansell has his eyes set on the World Series by Renault for 2009. The 20 year old spent Tuesday testing Ultimate-Signature’s WSR car at Snetterton and thoroughly enjoyed himself. There have also been rumors of GP2 aspirations for Greg, but those are likely a step or two down the road. Greg could use another year in the Atlantic Championship if he plans on staying in the U.S. If he decides to head back overseas, the World Series by Renault would be an excellent choice for the British pilot.
Greg’s older brother, Leo Mansell, is eyeing the sports car world in the United States after completing a test in a LMP car earlier this year. Personally I think it would be nice to see both back in the Atlantic Championship for one more year of development.
Indy Lights driver Daniel Herrington will make his return to the sports car world this weekend, driving a Mazda RX-8 for Racers Edge Motorsports at Miller Motorsports Park. The 22 year old will be balancing his role as a engineering student (North Carolina State) and a race car driver as he co-drives with Jose Armengol this weekend in the Rolex Grand Am Cup.
Atlantic Championship driver, Jonathan Bomarito also drove a RX-8 for Racers Edge earlier this year.
In an effort to stay sharp, Herrington joins many fellow “single-seater” drivers pursuing career enhancing opportunities in a tin-top car. Hopefully we will see him driving for Anderson Racing in the Indy Lights series again in 2009.
F2000 front runner Kyle Marcelli decided to try his hand at racing a car with fenders last weekend. Marcelli was selected by John Lockhart, team owner of JL Racing, to run their Saab 93 at Mosport in the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship. Marcelli may be part of a growing trend of open wheel drivers looking to expand their careers into the sports car world….should this be the case;… Marcelli showed quite well. The young Canadian drove from the back of the field Saturday to finish a solid 4th in his debut. He followed up Saturday’s performance with a podium run on Sunday, concluding the day in 2nd. Let’s hope the youngster stays in the open wheel ranks, but either way he has a bright future ahead.
Firestone Indy Lights championship leader Richard Antinucci, will try his hand at prototype racing this weekend at Watkins Glen. Antinucci will join series veteran Burt Frisselle in the Doran Racing car. Based on Richard’s comments in the interview, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see him pursue this side of racing. Which is becoming a fairly common occurance for open wheel drivers.
He is a proven winner in the formula car ranks so it will be quite interesting to see him get behind the wheel in the Rolex series. Make sure to catch the event on SPEED.
A few familiar names took part in the Playboy Mazda MX-5 cup series opener at Road Atlanta last weekend. Steve Welk and Brett Smrz brought their karting and formula car experience to the fender world by running the Mazda MX-5’s over the weekend. Welk also brings quite a bit of sports car experience after spending the last few season racing spec miata’s with SCCA. Unfortunately, neither driver had much success in the Final. Smrz was quite fast in both practice sessions running in the top 10. The duo ran fairly close all weekend. Despite driving for separate teams, they managed to qualify right next to each other. Smrz qualified 14th and Welk crossed the stripe with the 15th quickest time. The two drivers were separated by a mere 2/100ths of a second.
Another 90210 celebrity has decided to make a run at the racing world. Ian Ziering was in the field, following in the footsteps of ex co-star/racer Jason Priestley. Priestley pursued racing until a serious crash in a Infiniti Pro Series car put him back on the sidelines in 2002. Ziering did run the MX-5 cup last year, making a guest appearance with Frankie Muniz and Patrick Dempsey. Ziering failed to finish in the opener this weekend.
