[h=2]RACER@25: Issue No. 160 - Danica Mania[/h] Wednesday, 19 April 2017


By RACER staff







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This might have been the most controversial cover of RACER, as much for who wasn't on it as for who was. Issue No. 160 covered the events of the 89th Indianapolis 500 but the winner of that race, Dan Wheldon, was eclipsed on the cover by Danica Patrick, who finished fourth. But by demonstrating front-running pace all month – and leading the race until Wheldon claimed the lead for the final time with seven laps to go – Patrick had created a sensation at Indy like no other female racer since Janet Guthrie and caused a massive boost in mainstream media attention at the 500, which had suffered from a lack of it since the IRL/CART split of 1996. And the attention paid off in TV ratings which, at 6.5, were the highest seen since '96.
In response to it all, Jeff Olson's cover story chronicled Patrick's Month of May in the context of asking whether "Danica Mania" was the long-term answer to open-wheel racing's promotional prayers. While this choice of cover subject rankled some readers (not to mention Wheldon himself!), we noted that RACER articles aren't intended to be "race reports" in the traditional sense but features aimed at providing insights into the key issues of the day.
Change was also in the wind in Formula 1 that season as someone, finally, had risen to the formidable challenge of beating Michael Schumacher and Ferrari. That someone was Renault sensation Fernando Alonso, who had battled the German ace – winner of the last five consecutive F1 world championships – hard through the opening races. Maurice Hamilton's profile of the Spaniard gave American audiences one of their first in-depth looks at the man who would go on to displace Schumacher as F1's grand master.
Elsewhere in the issue, David Phillips chronicled a similar story from the opposite viewpoint. Paul Tracy had been dethroned as champion of Champ Car by newcomer Sebastien Bourdais, and Phillips profiled Tracy's efforts to get to grips with the Frenchman, with whom he was already developing a fierce rivalry. Bourdais, of course, was just beginning to establish a Schumacher-like stranglehold on the Champ Car side of the American open-wheel ledger, and would go on to win four straight crowns.
Along with the heroic aspects of the sport, RACER continued to shine a light on issues some would rather not contemplate. Like fear. Could a racer feel it and still excel? Andy Hallbery explored this taboo topic through discussions with drivers who had felt the pain of heavy accidents and yet battled back to success.

 

[h=2]RACER@25: Issue No. 145, May 2004 - Power & Influence[/h] Monday, 17 April 2017


By RACER Staff





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RACER Issue No. 145 was the 12th anniversary issue of RACER, aptly titled Power & Influence, as it was Laurence Foster's first as editor-in-chief after twice serving as editor-in-chief of U.K.-based Autosport.
The May 2004 cover featured an evolution of the magazine's design by the very talented Allan Muir, who had been with the company since Haymarket took a majority ownership position in early 2001. The pop-art cover featured Dale Earnhardt Jr. – who had achieved pop culture icon status by this time – to illustrate RACER's annual power and influence rankings.

David Phillips and Foster turned our series on its head by listing the 12 most influential figures in U.S.-based racing, examining their impact beyond the confines of the sport itself as well as the power they wielded within it. No. 11 on the list was a fiery Canadian who would (and continues) to play a key role in open-wheel racing ...
From the ashes of CART's bankruptcy emerged a new Champ Car Series, and a clever feature lead leveraged defending champion Paul Tracy's playful reputation to position David Phillips' insightful feature on the reborn series.
Maurice Hamilton's "Aces in the Pack," profiled a rash of young talent in Formula 1. Would the likes of Juan Pablo Montoya, Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Kimi Raikkonen and Rubens Barrichello create a sea change amid years of Michael Schumacher domination?

Foster's feature on the 12 Shrines to Speed took RACER's readers on a tour of the world's greatest circuits, while Tim Scott looked at the long shot-to-success story of the 30th Long Beach Grand Prix, which also gave birth to RACER 12 years before.

In another 30-year leap, Scott also wrote an insightful profile on Indy Racing League sensation Tomas Scheckter, who was in the early stages of following his F1 World Championship-winning dad Jody from wild man to title contender.
By this time RACER's relationship with Speedvision had evolved into a new relationship with SPEED Channel, then owned by FOX. Steve Nickless profiled motorsports talk show icon Dave Despain and gave us a frantic behind-the-scenes look at "Wind Tunnel" as a team undertook a 12- to 14-hour day, ever day, to pull off the live 10 p.m. show.



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RACER's NASCAR reporter, the late Ben Blake, looked at how NASCAR teams were becoming more like full-works efforts with deeper manufacture ties, as Ford had convinced Jack Roush, Robert Yates and the Wood Brothers to pool engine know-how. While NASCAR teams were forming alliances, Gary Watkins dove into the brave new world of the American Le Mans Series' GTS class, on the cusp of a new wave of racers that would include Maserati's MC12, a new Chevy C6-style Corvette and the possibility of an entry by Porsche.
And a year removed from a devastating crash at the NHRA K&N Filters Supernationals at Englishtown, New Jersey, Top Fuel's Brandon Bernstein and his legendary father Kenny recounted the harrowing events of that day and the talk that determined his son's future in racing.
The next eight years would be the most challenging in the company's history, but with Laurence Foster on board as editor-in-chief, the foundation for RACER's survival and its future was now in place.

 

[h=2]RACER@25: Issue No. 247, Winter 2012 - Technology Issue debuts[/h] By RACER Staff
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RACER's popular Technology Issue theme debuted with a stunning cover, featuring a thermal image of a Ganassi Racing Dallara DW12-Honda Indy car shot by Michael Levitt with digital enhancements by illustrator Paul Laguette. This is the first thermal image of a racing car to appear on the cover of any magazine, and it conveyed the profound impact that modern technology has on contemporary racing. RACER's loyal readers told us that they love technology, so the issue was a big hit with our audience and our advertisers. Issue No.247 stands as the largest we've produced to date at 140 pages and was full of insightful stories that explored all aspects of technology's influence on the sport.
Our esteemed editor-at-large and legendary racer/engineer Gil de Ferran's issue theme-setting essay argued that technology isn't boring and in fact has a rightful place in the man-and-machine equation. Gary Watkins' feature "Blessing or KERS" explored the fascinating development of energy recovery systems for Audi's and Toyota's LMP1 Hybrids.

Marshall Pruett turned his technical focus onto Dyson Racing's American Le Mans Series LMP1 experiment with the relatively affordable Flybird Automotive KERS system for non-factory sports car teams.

Renowned F1 writer Mark Hughes examined what Formula 1 might have been without the numerous technical restrictions that have reigned in speeds over the years in the name of safety and cost control.
Edd Straw previewed the upcoming Turbo V6+KERS "power unit" era of F1, which promised to create new relevance for auto manufacturers in comparison to the popular V-10 era but ultimately ended up gutting the emotion appeal of the sport via muted engine sound while dramatically driving up costs. The feature "Revolutionary Road to Nowhere" recounted cars like Tyrrell's imaginative six-wheeled P34 F1 design that failed to deliver any meaningful technical steps forward. John Oreovicz celebrated the groundbreaking cars and the oddball wonders of Indy in "Innovation 500."

Issue No. 247's cover story, "The Heat of Competition" by Marshall Pruett, looked at the intense battle for IndyCar power between Chevy and Honda. A photo-driven feature titled "Secret Service" by respected photographer Tony Di Zinno took readers behind closed doors of the top-secret Honda Performance Development facility in Santa Clarita, California, where Honda Racing's engines are designed, developed and assembled. Straw dove into the Formula 1's digital realm with "Virtual Reality." A new feature titled "Road 2 Racer" debuted with insight into how RealTime Racing transforms an Acura TSX road car into a fierce Pirelli World Challenge GTS contender.

On the human side of motorsport, "Material Benefits" examined how technology impacts the design and manufacture of contemporary Formula 1 safety wear while Richard S. James' "Survival of the Fittest" conveyed the physical challenge of the Lucas Oil Motocross Series.
The one-year anniversary of Haymarket Media's approach to RACER founder Paul Pfanner saw the team at Racer Media & Marketing still grappling with the negative consequences of the prior seven years under Haymarket ownership and the global economic crisis. But real progress was being seen in circulation and social media growth as well as ad sales. The next big challenge would be revamping and revitalizing RACER.com in 2013. An unexpected turn of events would see the Speed Channel and Speed.com, which were once closely aligned with RACER, cease operations in the late summer of 2013. This resulted in Robin Miller and Marshall Pruett engaging fully in both RACER magazine and RACER.com and the fortunes of the RACER brand changed for the better by the fall of 2013, and the site has continued to grow since to become the number one racing media site in the USA, according to Alexa.com.
Note: Subscribe to RACER magazine in either print or digital versions and you will receive full access to RACER's digital archive, which extends back to issue No. 232, August 2011.

 

[h=2]RACER@25: Issue No. 121, May 2002 - America's Greatest Driver[/h] Monday, 10 April 2017


By RACER staff








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We'd left 100 issues in the rear-view mirror a couple years before, but another milestone for RACER arrived in 2002 with our 10th Anniversary Issue. A lot had changed in 10 years, including the rapid growth of new media forms competing for the public's attention with traditionally published works, yet RACER had not only survived but prospered. Reaching such a significant date deserved to be commemorated with an appropriately momentous – even provocative – cover story. Our choice: Who is the greatest American racecar driver of all time?
It was hardly a new question, of course – bench racers have been debating it since the invention of the wheel – but we thought we could get an authoritative take on it by canvassing the opinions of a wide variety of experts including current and former drivers, team owners and racing media members. Somewhat to our surprise, the tallied ballots delivered a clear top choice. Hint: He's the only driver, let alone American, to have won the Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500 and Formula 1 world championship, to name just a few of his accomplishments.
For an appropriate complement to the discussion of the greatest American racer, our Formula 1 spotlight that month focused on Michael Schumacher, whose meteoric rise had reached a level of almost inevitable dominance that no one else in the modern era of grand prix had been able to achieve. Yet for all that, few in or outside F1 seemed to understand Schumacher – what made him so great, and how did he sustain the motivation to keep up that tireless quest for supremacy? Maurice Hamilton dug deep for those answers in another of his incisive interviews.
Looking back over the first 10 years of racing as RACER related it, editor Andy Hallbery was struck by how so many of the most significant moments of that time chosen by our F1, IndyCar and NASCAR writers revolved around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. From The Split to the Brickyard 400 to the return of the United States Grand Prix, Indy and its influence had been at the center of many hot-button issues for the magazine's first decade.

Further exploration of Indy's lasting influence came in our historical feature for Issue No. 100, focusing on the dramatic if anti-climactic tale of the awesome STP Turbines. Specifically, John Zimmermann recounted the STP-Paxton Turbocar gas turbine with which Parnelli Jones utterly dominated the 1967 Indianapolis 500 before being thwarted by a mechanical failure. Politics and cost concerns would help to ensure that the turbine would soon be legislated out of existence – not the first or last time that technical innovation would prove a double-edged sword at Indy.

 

[h=2]RACER@25: Issue No. 138, Oct. 2003 - Road Not Taken[/h] Friday, 14 April 2017


By RACER Staff







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Corvette's 50th anniversary took center stage as RACER celebrated some of the most iconic racing moments in the brand's history. But the cover story focused on the moment that could have been – Dale Earnhardt racing at Le Mans.
Famed Corvette photographer Richard Prince exposed the secret few knew: Following his expected retirement from Cup Racing, the Intimidator intended to run a full Corvette C5-R season to fulfill a quiet dream, testing his skills against the best sports car drivers in the world while seated in Chevrolet's factory Corvette squad. Enraptured by the Pratt & Miller-built GTS Corvette, Earnhardt – who was testing sub-two-minute laps at Sebring prior to the 2001 Rolex 24 at Daytona – and Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished fourth in GTS, a mix of disappointment and "the neatest thing he'd ever done."
Earnhardt's 2003 was supposed to include all American Le Mans Series events in North America and the Vingt-Quartres Heures du Mans. "It was stirring to say the least," Earnhardt's widow Teresa said. "After all of the plans he had made to retire at the end of 2002, he had changed his mind."
Corvette expert D. Randy Riggs took a break from his role as editor of Vintage Motorsport magazine and wrote the centerpiece for the Corvette 50th anniversary tribute section. From the hiring of Zora Arkus-Dunov in 1953 to the 12 Hours of Sebring GTS class win by Ron Fellows, Johnny O'Connell and Oliver Gavin, Riggs brought "The 50 Magic Moments in Corvette Racing History" to life, while RACER founding editor John Zimmermann profiled Corvette ace O'Connell, an open-wheel hopeful who found another road to the top and challenged Hurley Haywood as the United States' top active endurance racer.

By October 2003 Andy Hallbery had left as editor and was replaced by OnTrack Magazine's founding editor Steve Nickless. It was full circle for Nickless, who had previously served as publisher for Pfanner Communications and was part of the original team that developed the RACER concept back in the late 1980s and early 1990s prior to the magazine's launch in April 1992. So RACER had come full circle back to an American editor involved in its creation.

Nickless' chosen theme for the issue was leadership. So it was no surprise that Roger Penske and his new team boss Tim Cindric were the topic of an expansive feature on Team Penkse's new look and approach by Jeff Olson.
Legendary Cobra Daytona Coupe designer and BRE Datsun team owner Peter Brock provided the story and the photos on the Nurburgring 24 hours titled "Die Grüne Hölle" (The Green Hell). If you look closely at the type font used for the RACER logo of the time (and today), you'll see it was inspired by the font used regularly by Brock during his Shelby and BRE days.
NASCAR correspondent Ben Blake and F1 writer Maurice Hamilton compared what Kevin Harvick and Jenson Button had in common as they came of age in their respective sports – meteoric rises for the kart racer with four Cup wins in his first three seasons, and the wealthy "new generation" F1 star who shot his way through Formula Ford and Formula 3.

Champ Car correspondent David Phillips explored the challenges of Derrick Walker's life as a team owner balancing competitive fire with business sense. Phillips also profiled Swift Race car designer David Bruns, who was by then no longer involved in the company he helped create years before. Bruns' remarkable record of building cars that won first time out from Formula Ford to CART Indy cars was celebrated, as was the can-do spirit of the enterprising group that re-wrote the record books. An interesting footnote is that RACER founder Paul Pfanner's career in racing began in 1972 in the same building in which Swift was founded, working with same team that would go on to launch the company. Pfanner designed Swift's original logo and handled their advertising as he was also beginning to publish SportsCar for the SCCA.

The RACER In Focus by Rick Graves featured two cars in the studio: the BMW M3 and Audi A6 contenders in the GT category of the Speed World Challenge (now know as the Pirelli World Challenge). RACER was an associate sponsor of the series through its relationship via publishing SportsCar for the SCCA. Leading off road writer and historian, Marty Fiolka profiled Ivan "Iron Man" Stewart and his Protruck racing future.
The CART IndyCar series was the foundation of the first decade of RACER, but by this time the series was teetering on the brink of collapse after eight years of civil war with Tony George's Indy Racing League. As the racing world headed toward winter, CART would soon head to bankruptcy court and a new drama would begin.

 

[h=2]RACER@25: Issue No. 109, May 2001 - A new era begins[/h]By RACER staff


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The May 2001 issue relaunched RACER with a dramatic new look and feel to supplement the magazine's mission of incisive writing and evocative photography. Company founder Paul Pfanner and new majority owners Haymarket Media collaborated on the planning of the new issue and format, which was executed by new editor Andy Hallbery and designer Allan Muir. Haymarket further demonstrated its commitment to the project by investing significant new resources in the magazine, including an increase in the number of pages and upgraded paper stock. The new-look issue was revealed at the RACER ninth Anniversary party in Long Beach, where Pfanner noted that Autosport – Haymarket's signature UK-based racing magazine – had been the original inspiration for RACER, so it was a natural step for the two companies to have joined forces.
RACER's relaunch came amid a challenging time for American motorsport, of course, as the shockwaves continued to reverberate from the death of Dale Earnhardt in the Daytona 500. Ben Blake's NASCAR feature for the issue spotlighted both the urgent questions over safety that hung over the sport as well as the uncertainty over how to move forward in a post-Earnhardt era.
Amid all the angst, though, NASCAR's overall popularity didn't seem to miss a beat. As had been the case for F1 after Ayrton Senna's death, even the harshest mainstream attention in the wake of tragedy served to expose the sport to more people, resulting in another boost to attendance and TV audience. How far could it go?
A new beginning in IndyCar was underway for Team KOOL Green in CART, which had expanded to three cars with the addition of Michael Andretti in an affiliated team that would evolve into the Andretti Autosport squad that holds a predominant place in the sport today.
In 2001, of course, IndyCar racing was still in full Split mode, but David Phillips detailed in our cover story how the combined Andretti and Green teams would have a foot in both camps, with Andretti competing at Indy as well as CART while Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy continued to focus on the latter. It was interesting foreshadowing of the converging interests that would, if painfully slowly, bring American open-wheel racing back together. Andretti's subsequent purchase of the team and its move to the IRL would prove a significant part of that process.
Another grandiose makeover was ongoing at McLaren, which was then trying to revive its fortunes in Formula 1 after Ferrari and Michael Schumacher had dethroned the team the year before. But the team's spectacular new headquarters, while providing an awesome backdrop for Maurice Hamilton's interview with team boss Ron Dennis, would prove a triumph of style rather than substance: The team slipped into a period of decline while Ferrari and Schumacher cemented a grip that would be maintained for five straight years.
Regardless of how its individual series contests played out, though, motorsports seemed well poised for a long period of ascendancy, and that confidence about the future was reflected in RACER's grand redesign of May 2001. No one could have guessed that a terrible day loomed in September that would shake all assumptions and create new challenges to be overcome.

 

RACER@25: Issue No. 165 - Transition zone

Friday, 21 April 2017


By RACER staff
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The 165th issue of RACER came in a time of transition, starting with the arrival of the new Porsche Spyder RS that also marked the return of the German manufacturer to prototype sports car racing in North America with a factory-backed team after a long absence. As Rich Conklin related in our cover story, excitement over Porsche's return was tempered by concerns over a potential upset of the delicate competitive balance of a category that had often run aground over the years following the appearance of a dominant player.
That concern was raised all the more considering the team involved was Penske. Long a superpower in Indy cars, sports car fans also remembered the last time Penske had teamed up with Porsche in Can-Am, resulting in some of the most spectacular racecars ever seen but also such a degree of dominance that it literally killed the series. Would history repeat itself?
Transition was also a theme in the Indy Racing League, where Dan Wheldon had completed the evolution from promising newcomer to ace, managing the rare double of an Indy 500 victory and series championship in the same year in 2005. Ahead of the new season, Jeff Olson profiled the influences and insights Wheldon had gained from his Andretti teammates and what prompted him to move to Ganassi for '06 despite his title-winning campaign.
Jeff Gordon wasn't going anywhere for 2006, deep into his career-long stint with Hendrick Motorsports in NASCAR. But it was still a time of change for one of stock car racing's most popular stars. After a worst-ever 11th-place finish in the point standings, Ben Blake related how Gordon was working to relaunch himself and cope with the challenge of teammate Jimmie Johnson, who had replaced him as Hendrick's wunderkind.
Change was in the air at RACER, too. No. 165 marked the final issue for RACER founder Paul Pfanner and publisher Bill Sparks, who opted to leave the company they had created but had sold majority ownership in to Haymarket Media in 2001. But their departure also would prove to be only a transitional phase...

 

THE RACING MOVIES ISSUE

 

2017 MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR SPECIAL
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[h=2]RACER@25: RACER.com V2.0[/h] Monday, 12 June 2017


By Andrew Crask

ABOVE: Derek Daly interviews Stefan Johansson for a SPEED telecast of a Champ Car World Series race in 2003 (image by Dan R. Boyd/LAT)

Continuing our series of stories relating key moments from RACER's first 25 years, this is the third chapter detailing the development and continuing evolution of RACER.com. This time the story is taken by its executive editor, Andrew Crask.

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If nearly 30 years in the motorsports news business has taught me anything, it's that change is constant, inevitable and ultimately positive – even if the positive aspects can initially be well hidden. This series of articles detailing the history of RACER's first 25 years has related countless challenges that had to be to overcome; the best part is, the company has consistently rebounded stronger than before, applying the lessons learned at each step along the way.
I joined RACER from On Track, a bi-weekly racing news journal that was, one might say, the 1980s equivalent of today's RACER.com, with race reports and news from across the motorsports world, along with features and analysis from some of the top beat reporters in the business. While the superior graphics and editorial sweep of RACER took things to a whole new level in 1992, the magazine's monthly production cycle made keeping on top of breaking news all but impossible, so the RACEFAX news service was introduced to bridge the gap beween issues. As Bill King related in the last two chapters of this story, that service soon evolved into our first venture into the World Wide Web, RACER.com – and into a internet partnership with the Speedvision channel.
Speedvision's sale to FOX in 2001 led to its rebranding as SPEED Channel and, although FOX had initially intended to go its own way with the channel's Web site, RACER was in a position to bring synergies of its own to the table that helped persuade FOX to continue the association. Following RACER's sale to UK-based Haymarket, the publishers concluded a deal to share content from Autosport.com in the UK with the rebranded SPEEDtv.com, alongside key contributors from SPEED including Robin Miller and Marshall Pruett.
As SPEED, the channel continued to provide rich levels of motorsports coverage from Formula 1 and Champ Car to ALMS, Grand-Am, SPEED GT (now known as Pirelli World Challenge) and more, while the Web site profited from that exposure and the insights of both the on-air talent and its beat writers. As well, what had initially been an arms-length relationship between SPEED's base in Charlotte and RACER's in California soon evolved into a effective partnership. I was able to see that first hand when I was invited on RACER's behalf to join other key members of the SPEEDtv.com creative team to assist in the relaunch of the site for 2008 aimed at improving the user navigation experience through all that wide-ranging content.
Changes, though, continued behind the scenes that would alter that content flow. As corporate owner FOX continued to look for ways to maximize its investment in NASCAR programming and to monetize both the channel and the Web site, non-NASCAR related motorsports programming began to be squeezed out in favor of reality-based content that, whatever one's view of its merits, had little in common with the channel's origins. That process inevitably reduced the footprint of RACER on SPEEDtv.com, until the association ended in 2009. SPEED would go on to be transformed into FOX Sports 1 in 2013.
Yet with change, once more came opportunity. As RACER separated from SPEED, a revitalized RACER.com – still augmented by reports and analysis from Autosport – came back online.
Haymarket's sale of RACER back to its founding owners in March 2012 – and the subsequent sale of the Autosport group of companies into new ownership – brought our content-sharing partnership to a close. But that change, too was a catalyst for growth:
In August 2013, following the shutdown of SPEED, Racer Media & Marketing added Marshall Pruett and Robin Miller – both longtime contributors to RACER magazine – back into the Web site mix, bringing their unique blend of insight, news reporting, reader Q&A and audio/video reports that build on the experiences and lessons learned during the SPEEDtv days and enabling RACER and RACER.com to present a united front. RACER.com has quadrupled its traffic since that time as Autosport-sourced stories have been replaced by our own exclusive reports and analysis from the likes of Will Buxton, Chris Medland, Kelly Crandall, Stephen Kilbey and Richard S. James.
While Autosport alumni remain onboard in Editor-in-Chief Laurence Foster and Editor Mark Glendenning, alongside myself and Associate Editor Alison Sneag, RACER.com is now clearly charting its own course. The site's record level of traffic for the month of May solidified our position as the top sports media website in the country devoted exclusively to motorsports. Our social media footprint also has expanded significantly, particularly since a new, mobile-friendly site was launched in 2014.