RACER@25 Video: Scuderia Ferrari's 23 RACER covers

Thursday, 01 June 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VDLlVS0NWo
Scuderia Ferrari has graced the cover of RACER Magazine 23 times. Take a look back at Ferrari as presented through 25 years of RACER.

 

[h=2]RACER@25: The Speedvision era[/h] Friday, 09 June 2017


By Bill King

Continuing our series of stories relating key moments from RACER's first 25 years, this is the second chapter detailing the development and continuing evolution of RACER.com, as recounted by its founding editor, Bill King.

[HR][/HR] [h=3]Related Stories[/h] RACER@25: RACER.com V2.0


RACER@25: How RACEWEEK begat RACER.com


RACER@25 Video: Scuderia Ferrari's 23 RACER covers


RACER@25: Marshall Pruett on RACER's 25th anniversary


RACER@25: Greg Gill on RACER's 25th anniversary








In July 1999, RACER founder Paul Pfanner was approached by cable TV mogul Roger Werner, longtime president of ESPN who had left to launch Speedvision, a new motorsports-themed channel. The contract for Speedvision's Web site was up for renewal, and Werner asked if RACER would be interested in taking over the site management and content provision beginning in January 2000. In our first meeting, Werner said, "I hate my Web site, and I love yours." A deal was struck in early December – the only catch was that we had to be up and running by Y2K.
Somehow, founding publisher Bill Sparks had a new Speedvision.com ready to launch at midnight, Jan. 1, 2000. It incorporated the old RACER site under the Speedvision masthead, a TV schedule and promotions for upcoming programming, including the network's all-encompassing coverage of the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Monterey Historics – all of which we accomplished with a daily countdown featuring a year in the event's history by the brilliant historian Chuck Dressing. RACER.com, meanwhile, became a dedicated subscription service site in support of RACER magazine.
It was a happy marriage, but with little in the way of NASCAR stock car coverage on the network, both Speedvision and its Web site were missing a huge audience.
Enter an unlikely patron saint, Dale Earnhardt Sr., who singularly modified the viewer demographic of both Speedvision and Speedvision.com by sharing a Corvette with Andy Pilgrim, Kelly Collins and Dale Jr., in the 2001 24 Hours of Daytona.
We had an on-site Web team of John Gardner and Andrew Cotton and, with the broadcast crew constantly plugging us, both Web traffic and Speedvision viewership almost doubled that February weekend thanks to the senior Earnhardt. And it stayed there as the NASCAR fans soon discovered that Speedvision.com offered extensive race coverage and commentary from Gerald Martin and Ben Blake, two of the most eloquent and dogged reporters in the business.
We were flexing our muscles. Gardner did live F1 race reports plus post-race interviews with the F1 broadcast team – Bob Varsha, David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and Sam Posey – a precursor to the post-race shows of today. We were also on the ground at Le Mans with hourly reports and on-air crew follow-ups.
By the end of 2001, Speedvision.com had become the most visited general interest motorsports Web site in the world. There were some 30 regular columnists – one new column every day – and contributors from the full spectrum of the motor racing industry, including a weekly column by Brock Yates.
In addition to Blake and Martin, our contributor list included Gordon Kirby, David Phillips, Jeremy Shaw, Maurice Hamilton, Alan Henry, Chuck Dressing, Jon Asher, Dave Densmore, Drew Brown, Jeffrey Franz, Jeremy Hart, Andrew Cotton, Bill Oursler, Peter Brock, Bill Lovell, Steve Nickless, Steven Cole Smith, John Zimmermann, Jeff Olsen, Lewis Franck and Dave Argabright.
Then there were the photographers: Bob Harmeyer, Hal Crocker, Bryn Williams, Nigel Kinrade, Brian Czobat, Brian Cleary, Bob Chapman, Rick Dole, Dave Davies, Greg Aleck, Victor Newman, Kevin York, Hiko Amano, Geoff Hewitt, Dan Boyd, Michael C. Brown, Rich Chenet, Mark Weber, Bob Costanzo, Gary Gold, Art Flores, Don Grassman, Rick Graves, Ron Hussey, David Hutson, Dave Kommel, Russ LaBounty, Bob LeSieur, Ron McQueeney, Tom Riles, Regis le Fedure, Roz Rosintoski and Frank Ruch.
We got serious inquiries from race teams after being the first major media outlet to write about karting stars Danica Patrick and Scott Speed and young stock car shoe Brian Vickers. Every couple of weeks, we beat AP on a story. We broke the Ford/Jaguar/Stewart F1 story in 2000 thanks to The Guardian's Alan Henry, who often smoked Autosport by working past Brit pub time and having the private numbers of everyone in the F1 business. Stories he filed with Speedvision.com were up by 5:00 p.m. Eastern, well into the evening in London.
But changes were brewing. Speedvision was acquired in the summer of 2001 by FOX as part of its move to take over the NASCAR broadcast contract. After initially looking to void our agreement to run the channel's website, in a fateful meeting at Speedvision HQ in Bristol, Conn., on Sept. 17 – only six days after the 9/11 attacks – Roger Werner stood with us to defend our position to FOX execs and our deal continued. However, RACER's Charlotte office was closed down and the original RACER.com team broken up. Even as the original Speedvision faded, though, the RACER vision lived on.

 

[h=1]The Magazine for Racers[/h]RACER magazine has paved the way in motorsport coverage of Formula 1, IndyCar and Sports Cars with world-class writing and photography that tells the stories of racers in a way that is unlike any other publication. If you’re passionate about motorsports and insist on both style and substance, RACER is an essential read.


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[h=2]Why We Still Publish a Print Magazine[/h]RACER magazine is an old-school analog product. It's printed by skilled American artisans in a factory with big machines with lots of moving parts. We import our paper from Finland. It's bright, smooth and heavy and it takes ink beautifully.
RACER is expensive to make and expensive to mail, but we believe it's worth the extra cost to provide our customers with a product of permanence and beauty. It's not for everyone, but if you appreciate the heft and feel of a premium product, RACER magazine is an affordable luxury you should experience for yourself.

 

[h=2]Loved Le Mans? Then don't miss Lone Star Le Mans[/h]
American sports car racing fans get their chance to see the most advanced racecars on the planet go head to head at COTA, Sept. 15-16. That's when the space-age, 1,000hp-plus, hybrid LMP1 prototypes from Porsche and Toyota battle it out in the FIA World Endurance Championship's fifth visit to Texas.


Lone Star Le Mans, COTA's twist on the world's greatest endurance race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, features six hours of high-speed WEC racing action as well as fan-friendly entertainment. Once again, the race features day-into-night action and finishes under the stars.
As well as the high-tech LMP1s, the WEC features nonstop action from the LMP2, GTE Pro and GTE Am classes. COTA is the sixth out of nine WEC stops, so with the various title battles heading to a climax, the competition is bound to be intense and flat-out from start to finish.
Race fans love the unique atmosphere of Lone Star Le Mans, and the WEC's drivers look forward to it, too.
"COTA for me is the most beautiful of all the new circuits because it has such a great mixture of challenges," says Porsche LMP1 driver Timo Bernhard. "Sector one is especially interesting. After the steep start-finish straight, the first left-hander is a blind corner, followed by flowing esses. If you make a mistake there, you suffer from it for a long time. I'm always looking forward to racing in the U.S. I love the track and I think the sports car culture in the States is great."
Set in the rolling hills just outside of downtown Austin, COTA has hosted the biggest names in racing, action sports and music since 2012. At its heart is a 3.41-mile racetrack designed to challenge the world's most exacting competitors, while providing a thrilling spectacle for fans.
The 20-turn, counterclockwise circuit takes advantage of the naturally undulating landscape, including a steep and intimidating 133ft climb at Turn 1 that has to be seen in person to be believed.
Then add a 1,000hp-plus WEC LMP1 prototype into the picture, or a squabbling pack of Pirelli World Challenge GT3 machines all aiming for the same piece of real estate, and it's sensory overload time.
COTA's all about delivering the total fan experience, so it doesn't end at the breathtaking on-track action. Paddock access, autograph sessions and grid walks bring fans and drivers together and, this being Texas, delicious food and great music and entertainment are guaranteed.
Here's how you can enjoy the Lone Star Lowdown:
Two-day tickets ($79) access open seating in COTA's premium grandstands (MainGrandstand, Turn 1 and Turn 15) as well as all General Admission areas, paddock and grid walks. OR get the same access for one day with a Friday or Saturday pass (from $49). Children 12 and under are free with a ticketed adult.

LE MANS SPIRIT CLUB
Experience the pinnacle of endurance racing in the lap of luxury. At the LeMans Spirit Club,you'll be on top of the action from an air-conditioned loft above the paddock and pit lane. Enjoy exclusive programming, food and beverages including beer, wine and liquor, access to multiple grandstands, and more.
CAR CORRALS
With a Car Corral package, you'll score exclusive COTA swag, dedicated parking with your favorite manufacturer, a parade lap of the circuit and admission for both days of racing action.
GEICO RV and CAMPING
GEICO Premium Trackside RV Parking is located on the fastest section of the track and includes all the necessary hook-ups. COTA also offers GEICO Dry Camping, located a very short walk to the Turn 3 pedestrian bridge leading to the heart of the circuit, the Grand Plaza.
PARKING
Come and go as you please throughout the race weekend with on-site parking. Two-day weekend parking is available online at a discounted price. Single day parking will be cash only.
Click here for tickets and additional information.

 

[h=2]RACER Magazine: The 2017 Great Teams Issue[/h] Monday, 10 July 2017


By Laurence Foster, Editor-in-Chief

Adversity can be a great teacher, but it's often an enigmatic one. Motorsports provides plenty of proof of that.
Wood Brothers Racing has seen its fair share of difficult times, if only by virtue of being the oldest existing team in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
Its years of winning almost at will, exemplified by David Pearson's 11 victories from just 18 starts in 1973, eventually gave way to an extended fallow period while the little team from Virginia scrambled to keep pace with broader changes taking place across the sport.
The two constants during all of those years? Unswerving loyalty to Ford, and its quiet dignity, regardless of where the famed No.21 was finishing. As Eric Johnson relates, starting on page 56, those admirable traits played into the Wood Brothers' gradual revitalization, and help to explain why Ryan Blaney's drought-breaking win at Pocono in June was so well-received across the paddock.
It's safe to expect a similarly universal hug to be directed toward Toyota if the Japanese marque finally wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans next year. We already know it will be there: Toyota president Akio Toyoda confirmed it in the emotional statement he issued immediately after this year's quest for redemption could only deliver more heartbreak following the infamous near-miss in 2016. Toyota's pain is evident, but even before the bruises have faded, so is its resilience.
Takuma Sato knows something about that. When his best shot at winning the Indianapolis 500 ended in the Turn 1 wall after a misjudged last-lap move on Dario Franchitti in 2012, Sato took a disaster and used it as a learning opportunity. This year, those lessons paid off.
There's a lot to be learned from how teams and drivers respond to success. But as the Wood Brothers, Toyota and Sato have shown, it's even more instructive to see how they respond to failure.
Meanwhile, for 2017, our feature Great Team hails from a small town in Wisconsin that have been the most prolific winners in Pirelli World Challenge history. RealTime Racing, and there enduring 30-year partnership with Acura have combined to score 14 different championships and over 90 race wins. Our four-part feature takes a look across the team’s success and even gets behind the wheel of the Acura NSX GT3 that RealTimeRacing was instrumental in developing.
Take a video tour of the new issue:
The 2017 Great Teams Issue of RACER is on sale now. To subscribe now at a special discount rate, click here, or to buy The Great Teams Issue online, click here.
RACER is also available digitally for Apple and Kindle Fire devices. RACER Digital has the complete content of the magazine's print edition formatted for mobile viewing. With RACER Digital, you'll have access to your RACER content all the time, wherever you are.
The RACER app can be found by searching for "RACER Magazine" in the Apple or Amazon App stores. The app is free and includes issue previews and the RACER.com newsfeed. Individual issues can be purchased for $1.99 and an 8-issue annual subscription is $9.99. Back issues are also available.

 

Great Teams Issue video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4QvZ1o1fg

 

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In RACER Magazine: Green Light

Wednesday, 19 July 2017


By Paul Fearnley / Images by LAT archive
A Churchillian figure, blimpish in stature and occasionally attitude, Britain's Guy Anthony "Tony" Vandervell – GAV for short in print, but "The Guv'nor" to his hardworking mechanics – was a patriot with a global view, an overbearing bearings tycoon capable of acts of great thoughtfulness.
Having been a staunch supporter of the post-WWII BRM V16 grand prix project, he became the convoluted program's sternest critic. Instead, although weary of "those bloody red cars!" from Ferrari and Maserati, he would join them before beating them; for six years he ran a sequence of open-wheel Ferraris so heavily modified that even Enzo, a customer of his, didn't bleat about their Thin Wall Special nomenclature.
This enlightened despot who gave Britain's racing revolution the green light – without providing its blueprint, exactly – was a doer with an intuitive technical grasp. He stubbornly oversaw every aspect of his beloved Vanwall racecars and the well-drilled team that built and operated them. His heart and soul came at a cost, however. On doctors' advice, he throttled right back just as he had Ferrari by the throat, the lingering death of team driver Stuart Lewis-Evans in the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix having already caused him to question the value of his quest.
This was indubitably cruel, yet timely. The young thrusters and their like-minded associates, men who'd played key freelance roles for Vandervell's organization, were about to turn Formula 1 front-to-back, and make obsolete its traditional ideas and methods. The toolmaker-fit-and-finish Vanwall – the very best of British (and Europe where deemed necessary) – would have been swarmed by the ugly-bug machines of Cooper Car Co. and Colin Chapman's Lotus. But it was Vandervell who'd showed them how – and simultaneously how not – to do it, who'd convinced catalyst Stirling Moss that his long wait for a British winner was over, and who'd proved that it could be done.
Moss had almost given up: "HWM, the team I started with in 1950, had achieved commendable things, but never had the budget to go to the next level. And BRM had ruined everything, got industry and the public very excited, spent a fortune and got nowhere. There really was a feeling that a British car would never win a [world championship] grand prix."
Moss's first run in a Vanwall came when he tested its Cooper-designed version – with more than a passing nod to Maserati's 250F, but based around the Ferrari suspension, steering and transmission that the team knew well – in late 1955. He was impressed by the handling of its conventional tubular ladder-frame chassis, but insufficiently so by its four-cylinder engine to warrant the passing up of a works Maserati for '56. He was, however, happy to drive the car in its new and distinctive teardrop form – the work of de Havilland and Lotus aerodynamicist Frank Costin – in May's International Trophy at Silverstone. Its spaceframe chassis and suspension now benefiting from Chapman's input, Moss qualified it on pole and won at a canter. In his wake were the Lancia-Ferraris of Peter Collins and world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, as well as Britain's other great green hopes, BRM and Connaught.
Get the complete version of this story in the 2017 Great Teams Issue of RACER, on sale now. To subscribe now at a special discount rate, click here, or to buy the 2017 Great Teams Issue online, click here.

 

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Nissan's Electric Arc

Electramotive Engineering's IMSA GTP program was an epic failure when it appeared in 1985. Faced with immediate disappointment, its paymasters at Nissan USA wanted to kill the project, with haste.

A stay of execution was arranged by Nissan's new motorsports manager, R. W. "Kas" Kastner, upon his arrival in 1986, but more GTP embarrassment followed. Two seasons in, the mothership – as in, Nissan Japan – came calling and wanted to scuttle the little Californian team for good. Read more at RACER.com[/TD]
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Order a copy online
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