From our friend’s at Open Wheel Racing Modeling.
Hi everybody, this is a car I started 20+ years ago and put it up while life happened. I just finished it. The starting point is the AMT Kraco car. I made the decals on a office copier, and from the Kraco sheet. The road wings are cut down monogram with .010 sheet styrene end plates.
[Source: Open Wheel Racing Modeling]
May 13, 1989|By Cooper Rollow, Chicago Tribune.
INDIANAPOLIS — Jim Crawford, the genial Scotsman who posted the second fastest speed of the day in the final practice for Saturday`s Indy 500 pole dash, said he feels he has “as good a chance as anyone for the pole.”
Crawford, whose speed of 225.960 miles an hour in his Mac Tools Buick was just a shade behind Rick Mears’ historic run of 226.231 m.p.h. Friday, said he and his crew began to think seriously about winning the pole two months ago.
“We thought to ourselves, ‘We can do this!’ We laid out a plan, went through it, and here we are,” he said.
“It’s really difficult to label someone a favorite for the pole position. Anything can happen and usually does here. It IS good to know that we have an engine, chassis and a team capable of putting this car in the front row. I wonder if the driver is up to it?”
– Al Unser hit 225.723 miles an hour in the Marlboro Penske shortly before Mears’ blazing run. “The car feels real good,” Unser said. “Between Rick and I, we hit on some real good things and definitely made improvement.” Emerson Fittipaldi, who was fifth fastest at 224.494, said, “I ran on brand new tires. I think it`s going to take 224-225 to take the pole.”
– Mears said he can tell the difference in his car when it is going 226 m.p. rather than 225-honestly.
“When you spend all week driving a car, tinkering with it and studying it, there are a lot of little indicators that tell you exactly how you are doing,” Mears said.
“You can tell by the RPMs, for one thing. But more than anything else, you get a certain little feeling each time you go up another mile an hour. It`s a never-ending learning curve.”
Mears said he isn’t “really interested at this point” in the $160,000 in cash and prizes the Indy pole is reputed to be worth.
“Maybe I’ll care about that after it`s over,” he said. “But right now, tonight, I’m just feeling the normal pressure that comes with pole qualifying. I would try my best to win it if I was doing it for nothing.”
Is racing still fun for Mears?
“Absolutely,” he said. “This is fun. I love every minute of it.”
Mears said he will be “not surprised, but disappointed” if he doesn’t win the pole. “There are a lot of good drivers and cars out there, and anything can happen.”
– It took two blown engines, but Steve Saleen passed the final phase of his rookie test and is now clear to attempt to qualify his Saleen/Auto Express this weekend. “It was touch and go,” Saleen said. “We got our new engine in the car early this morning.”
March 26, 1989|By Robert Markus, Chicago Tribune.
Among the seven new teams in the PPG-CART Indy-car series this year is one owned by Antonio Ferrari of the famous Italian racing family.
Euromotorsport will not make much of a splash this year with its year-old Lola (purchased from Dick Simon) and a Cosworth engine.
“We’re looking for a very good European engine package for 1990 and beyond,” says team manager Dave Thomas. “This will be our learning year. We’ll stick with the tried-and-true Cosworth in order to reduce the variables while we establish the team.”
Thomas says the team has spent $500,000, “and we haven`t turned a wheel yet. That’s a little unnerving for a newcomer.”
The team is hoping to cash in on CART’s popularity in Europe and will make a series of sponsorship appearances on the continent after the `89 season.
“The demand for these cars in Europe is tremendous,” says Thomas. “Mr. Ferrari is certain he’s the first of a wave of Europeans who will jump into Indy-car racing in the next few years.”
Swiss driver Jean Pierre Frey, who drove two races for Simon last year, will be in the cockpit.
Other new teams and their drivers: Bayside Motor Sports, Dominic Dobson;
Dyson Racing, James Weaver; Mann Motorsport, Gary Bettenhausen; Protofab Racing, John Jones; Saleen Autosport, Steve Saleen; and Stoops Racing, Steve Butler.
Jones was rookie of the year last year but was replaced on the Arciero team by Didier Theys.
– Theys drove only the road courses for Simon last year, so when he tested at Phoenix recently, “it was the first time I had been on an oval since the ARS race at Nazareth a year and a half ago,” he says.
He got some help, he says, from an oval-track master, Rick Mears. “Rick is a very nice guy and he showed me how to work on my left-foot braking on ovals. I now know why he is the best on those tracks. We went quicker immediately.”
– Oddly, Mears was once known as a road warrior. He still holds the CART record for consecutive road-course victories (four), “but now I’m teamed up with the fastest road racer in the business (Danny Sullivan),” he notes, “so all of a sudden I`m not a road racer.”
Mears confesses he does prefer the ovals. “I’ve always preferred the ovals more as far as working with the chassis and the aerodynamics,” he says. “At the speedway, you’ve got to make the car carry you, not you carry the car.
“I like both, but if you said pick one, I’ll take the oval.”
– Dale Earnhardt still leads the Winston Cup points chase after finishing second at Atlanta, but he hasn’t won a pole in two years. If he hasn’t won one by May 20, he’s got a great shot to end his drought in qualifying for The Winston, NASCAR’s all-star race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That’s because qualifying for the race is determined by a unique format that requires a stop for right-side tires during the three-lap qualifying run. Earnhardt`s pit crew is a four-time winner of the Unocal 76 pit crew world championship.
“The difference in speed among all those great cars will be less than a half-second,” says Alan Kulwicki, who won four poles last year. “The difference in the pit crews could be five seconds. It`s more a race for pit crews than cars.”
– Wonder if Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One czar, has ever been in Phoenix in June? Ecclestone pulled the Formula One cars out of Detroit and will hold the U.S. Grand Prix through the streets of downtown Phoenix on June 4.
The average high temperature on that date is 104, and it often gets to 110 or more.
“They can drive in that heat,” says Sullivan, who drove the Formula One circuit and raced in Brazil, “but I don`t know how many people want to come out and watch it.”
