Posts Tagged ‘Virginia International Raceway’

197. The 2012 ALMS Field. Braselburg Schedule Still Unsettled. Bahrain, Baltimore Buh-by?

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Audi Advances

Audi  was running at Sebring this week. According to the best minds that analyze such things (Mulsanne Mike, for instance), the 2012 R18 really quite a different car than last year’s R18. Hopefully, the changes will improve the outward vision. A pal of a friend of the Bear drove the R18 a couple of months ago, and reported an “absolute blind spot out of the right hand side.” “It explains the McNish crash at Le Mans,” he said.

In other news from the Bear’s Chief European Correspondent, Romain Dumas is headed back to Porsche soon, there’s a big tug of war over Timo Bernhard, and Oliver Pla was quick at a secret Peugeot test.

Insiders in Europe believe ALMS will have Audi, Mercedes, and perhaps others not fully homologated by the ACO in some form of local GT class – but it’s unclear when that gets done. (more…)

186. Track Turbulence. Excited about Highcroft. Should Aston Martin have Built a Prototype?

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

Mid-Ohio Sold

Green Savoree LLC bought Mid-Ohio. The Bear doesn’t expect much change, but he’s not cheering, either. Mid-Ohio has seemed in the decade or so he’s been going there to be in good repair and have good crowds at events Murphy’s a fan of – principally the American Le Mans Series. It’s in more or less essential geography for that series and for IndyCar, being about equidistant between Cleveland and Columbus and not much further from Detroit. It wouldn’t be hard to drive there from Pittsburgh, and Murphy’s left there and taken his sweet time driving to Chicago, but he suspects the Chicago Cross-Roads Corvette Club could make the trip in less than the 6 hours Google estimate.  (more…)