Brazilian Stock Car is going through a rough patch of nasty accidents lately. When driver's Tuka Rocha's Hyundai sponsored Chevrolet (?) caught massively on fire, the only solution was to bail. Rocha was up on his feet making victory signs immediately after his dramatic "tuck and roll" but collapsed soon after.
In the end, despite the seemingly chaotic rescue efforts, he was fine and probably requiring only a good dose of oxygen with a fresh set of underwear.
Come to Lime Rock this Friday and Saturday, for ALMS but also for the IMSA GT3 Challenge races. That's right, there are two GT3 Challenge races on Saturday, one at 10 AM and one at 5PM. (tickets available online)
Find up in the Paddock, drop by to say hello and maybe purchase one of the new Axis T-shirts and stickers, now finally availabe (woohoo, finally).
And please, do send us your best shots of the Axis GT3 for the blog!
In the mean time have a look at this clip, Lime Rock in 2010 narrated by Patrick Long of Flying Lizards. Nice pass Pat!
Pretty extraordinary onboard camera shot from Juan Pablo Montoya's car at Infineon last week. Amazing the amount of talking the spotter does, a long way from the "C'mon Felipe, baby" of F1!
In this other clip, ever resourceful teams break new frontiers in sponsor sticker placement: Kevin Harvick's crew has them on the steering column.
Advance the above clip to 0:54 secs and you will get to the new start/finish position for the British GP at Silverstone. It's the culmination of a multi year renewal plan which has included a madification to the layout first seen in 2010 and completed this year with the opening of the new pit and paddock complex on the opposite end of the track.
So no more 180 mph Copse after the start, the new turn 1 is Abbey but all the first lap action will potentially be in the "new" Arena section turns: Village, Aintree and then after the Wellington Straight into the Luffield loop.
It should be nice improvement and it's great to see investment being made in a classic racing facility like Silverstone. The British classic has worked hard to expand beyond just the Grand Prix and into a full fledged "experience".
Silverstone now offers a complete rage of "experiences" ranging from single seater driver to "hot laps" to car control clinics and racing schools. find more at Silverstone.co.uk.
Also at Silverstone is iZone Racing, a driving training facility with services for racers ranging from simulator to media to mental training. Below is a clip of their simulator. You can ride it for about 60 Euro per hour and apparently even Michael Schumacher got motion sickness the first time he tried it!
Some readers seemingly got a bit bent out of shape when I said F1 bores me at times. What I had in mind is best illustrated with this video from the very, very wet start of the inaugural Porsche Carrera World Cup at the Nürburgring, the same week end as the Nürburgring 24 Hours and the Valencia GP
You are riding with 25 year old British Porsche Supercup star Sean Edwards in the Team Abu Dhabi Gt3.. You will notice, there was no safety car start for this race as there was for the far less wet start of the Montreal race....
After the jump, have a look at a video from the N24. This time you are riding with Sergio "Sergini" Negroni in a 3.6 GT3 Cup. Despite being in the same class as the overall winnner and competing with 3.8 GT3 cups like the one Chris Harris was driving, (and losing their driving lights...)Sergio and his mates managed a 6th in class and 38th overall.
