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THE LEGENDARY BOBBY UNSER NAMED AS GRAND MARSHAL FOR THE MOBIL 1 PRESENTS
THE GRAND PRIX OF MOSPORT

BOBBY UNSER
BOWMANVILLE, ON - August 19, 2010
Motorsport legend Bobby Unser has been named as Grand Marshal of Canada’s biggest sports car race of the year, the Mobil 1 presents The Grand Prix of Mosport, August 26-29.

Bobby, the older of the two famous racing brothers (along with Al, Sr.), established the family name many years ago by winning three Indy 500 titles, in 1968, 1975 and 1981. Unser’s first career IndyCar victories came at Mosport when in 1967 he took the chequered flag in both the twin 100 mile races.

“Mosport will always have a special place in my heart. The 1967 Mosport IndyCar race became one of the most important events in my whole life because it was my first IndyCar win. So it’s a real honour to be the Grand Marshal of the Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport and to help the track celebrate their 50th anniversary season,” said Unser.

Unser will be at the famed 4 km road course throughout the race weekend, meeting fans and signing autographs. He will give the famous four word command to the drivers of the American Le Mans Series on Sunday afternoon at 3 pm, just prior to the green flag drop to start the two hour, 45 minute race.

The Albuquerque, New Mexico resident has compiled a extensive list of impressive accomplishments during his long and storied racing career, including 35 IndyCar wins (4th all time), 49 IndyCar pole positions (3rd all time), eight 500 mile IndyCar wins, two International Race of Champions (IROC) wins and a record of 13 Pikes Peak Hill Climb wins, just to name a few. He has been inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

“When I was young I was best known as a midget and sprint car driver, mostly on dirt tracks all over the USA,” he recalled. “But I really loved road racing as in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, which I won 13 times. My first big career win was at Mosport, one of the most challenging road racing circuits in the world and I’m very proud of that.”

The father of four has also served as one of the sport’s premier analysts and colour commentators. Unser worked as ABC Television’s chief analyst on the network’s Indy 500 telecasts, and partnered with Brian Williams on CBC Sports’ of the Molson Indy races in Toronto and Vancouver in the 1980s and ’90s.

Schedules for autograph sessions will be posted on Mosport’s website and at the track For more event information and to purchase tickets call the Mosport Hotline at 1-800-866-1072 or online at www.mosport.com, or email info@mosport.com.

For further information:

Ryan Chalmers, Mosport - ryan@mosport.com
800-866-1072 (office) - (519) 981-3394 (cell)

The Fort Erie regional planning committee supported an amendment application to its policy plan, allowing the Canadian Motor Speedway project to move ahead past another hurdle. The regional planning committee supported an amendment application to its policy plan, allowing the motor sports complex to move ahead to the next phase of the future zoning bylaw.

The proposal will come back to the regional council early next year for further discussion and a vote.

“I think it’s an important indicator to our investors that the Region recognize the project and they would like to see it move to the next process,” investor Azhar Mohammad, executive director at Emirates Consulting said after the Fort Erie planning meeting.
“And certainly, now is the time to roll up the sleeves with them to start dealing with some of the other issues, which we are confident that we will deal with, especially on the environmental noise side.
“I think we have to now understand, from an investment point of view, what is the quickest route to begin the return on the investment. That will be determined once we mitigate all of the concerns that the region has addressed in their proposal to us … and then the province also had some clarifications required, and we’ve already been working on those for the last couple of months.”

All indications show that the speedway is a go. The pro’s out way the con’s.

>>>>>Read all the latest CMS info in our RolfsRacing.com Page.

Fort Erie Town Council heard from close to 60 people in support or opposition to the proposed Motor Speedway on Monday night. The meeting went from 6 p.m. to 12:50 a.m. Tuesday morning when council voted unanimously in favour of the speedway. Instead of the Town Hall, the Council meeting was moved to the Leisureplex Banquet Hall due to the expected large turnout.

Hundreds of people attended the meeting Monday night, with close to 60 people taking to the podium to express their support or opposition.

The next step of the approval process now goes to Niagara Regional Council for a vote on Wednesday afternoon.

>>>>>Read more CMS info in our RolfsRacing.com Canadian Motor Speedway Page.

The IRL Series makes its final stop of the 2008 racing series at Surfers Paradise, Australia on October 25. Here is the entrants list. Quite impressive.

ENTRY LIST FOR SURFERS PARADISE, AUSTRALIA

                      IndyCar© Series
                      Nikon Indy 300
                      At Surfers Paradise, Australia

               10:30 p.m. (EDT) Saturday, Oct. 25, 2008
               ESPN Classic/IMS Radio Network/XM Channel 144 (Live)

NO DRIVER             CAR NAME                            ENTRANT
 2 A.J. Foyt IV       Lilly Diabetes/Vision Racing        Vision Racing
 3 Helio Castroneves  Team Penske                         Team Penske
 4 Dan Wheldon        Delphi National Guard               Panther Racing
 5 Oriol Servia       CDW/KV Racing Technology            KV Racing Technology
 6 Ryan Briscoe       Team Penske                         Team Penske
 7 Danica Patrick     Motorola                            Andretti Green Racing
 8 Will Power         Aussie Vineyards-Team Australia     KV Racing Technology
 9 Scott Dixon        Target Chip Ganassi Racing          Target Chip Ganassi Racing
10 Dario Franchitti   Target Chip Ganassi Racing          Target Chip Ganassi Racing
11 Tony Kanaan        Team 7-Eleven                       Andretti Green Racing
14 Vitor Meira        ABC Supply Co./AJ Foyt Racing       A.J. Foyt Enterprises
15 Buddy Rice         Dad’s Root Beer/DRR                 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
17 Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman Racing Team Ethanol Rahal Letterman Racing
18 Bruno Junqueira    Z-Line Designs                      Dale Coyne Racing
19 Mario Moraes       Sonny’s Bar-B-Q                     Dale Coyne Racing
20 Ed Carpenter       Menards/Vision Racing               Vision Racing
23 Townsend Bell      EMU Dreyer & Reinbold Racing        Dreyer & Reinbold Racing
26 Marco Andretti     Blockbuster                         Andretti Green Racing
27 Hideki Mutoh       Formula Dream                       Andretti Green Racing
33 E.J. Viso          PDVSA HVM Racing                    HVM Racing
34 Jaime Camara       Sangari                             Conquest Racing
36 Alex Tagliani      Conquest Racing                     Conquest Racing
02 Justin Wilson      McDonald’s Racing Team              Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing
06 Graham Rahal       Hole in the Wall Camps              Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing

                24 Entrants as of: Oct 13, 2008

See our INDYCAR Page for more on the IRL.

Besides a great acting career and a life of working for and giving to many charities, Paul Newman was also a talented race car driver and winning race team owner. Paul died at his home in Westport, Connecticut on Friday September 26, 2008, surrounded by friends and family. He lost his long battle with cancer at age 83.

Newman got the racing bug while filming the 1968 motion picture “Winning”, where he portrayed an Indianapolis 500 driver.

He had many success as a race car driver. 1972 was the year of his first win at Thompson, Connecticut in a Lotus Elan. In 1977 he came in fitfh at the 24 Hours of Daytona. By 1979 he co-drove a Porsche 935 to in the 24 Hours of LeMans and came in second.

During the 1970’s and 80’s Newman earned several SCCA National driving titles. At the age of 70 in 1995 he co-drove to victory in the IMSA GTS class at the 24 Hours of Daytona. He also raced in the Trans-Am and Can Am series.

In 1982 with his long time Can Am Series rival Carl Haas, he formed Newman/Haas Racing, which resulted in many championships in the IndyCar and Champ Car series.

Paul Newman is survived by his wife Joanne Woodward, five daughters, two grandsons, and his older brother, Arthur. Newman also had a son Scott, who died in 1978. He will be missed.

In Conquest’s new marketing brochure is a statement that says Conquest “will field two cars in the 2009 IndyCar Series. With Alex Tagliani, the team will have a wily veteran with the experience and commitment to continue moving the team forward. Joining Tagliani will be a driver of equal gift and grit to round out a balanced driver package.”

The Brochure also states that Conquest will run a 2 car team for the 2009 IndyCar Series. There is no mention of the fate of of the team’s present 2 drivers Enrique Bernoldi and Jaime Camara.

Congratulations to Alex, he achieved his dream of getting back into a major open wheel racing series.

See our INDYCAR Page for more on the IRL.

Andretti Green Toronto (AGT) announced today it has signed a multi-year agreement with Honda Canada for the title sponsorship rights to the company’s Toronto-based IndyCar Series event. The announcement was delivered at a media conference held today at the Direct Energy Centre, Exhibition Place in Toronto.

Scheduled for July 10-12, 2009, the Honda Indy Toronto will be part of next year’s 18-race IndyCar Series schedule and will also feature the Firestone Indy Lights Series as part of the weekend’s diverse activities.

The Honda Indy Toronto is the most-recent addition to Andretti Green’s event promotions business unit. The company began operating the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg in 2005 on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. That event recently received the distinction of being named as the 2009 IndyCar Series season-opener.

See our INDYCAR CAR PAGE for more info on the Series.

INDIANAPOLIS (September 4, 2008) Conquest Racing announced today that Alex Tagliani will be returning to the cockpit of the Conquest Racing machine as a replacement for the injured Enrique Bernoldi for this weekend’s upcoming race at Chicagoland Speedway. In addition, Conquest has elected to sign Tagliani for the final event of the season at Surfers Paradise due to his vast experience at the Gold Coast street circuit.

While Bernoldi was hoping to be back behind the wheel of the Conquest car for this weekend’s PEAK Antifreeze and Motor Oil Indy 300, the ligaments in his left hand, injured at Sonoma two weeks ago, are not healing properly and rest seems to be the best medication.
“Unfortunately Enrique’s injury is not healing as fast as we thought and would’ve liked, and with Alex doing such a great job last weekend it was an easy decision to keep him in the car for Joliet,” explained Conquest team owner Eric Bachelart.
“We also elected to keep Alex for Australia since he has so much experience at that track. We’ve been looking for strong results all year and we saw what he was able to do in Detroit. Bringing Alex to a track he knows at Surfers and with more time behind the wheel, I think we will be able to fight for a win and end the season on a high note.”

Tagliani, the 35 year-old driver from Lachenaie, Quebec who now resides in Las Vegas, has 29 oval starts under his belt from when he was racing in the Champ Car World Series. However, this will be Tagliani’s first start at Chicagoland Speedway. His best oval performances include three pole positions (Milwaukee 2003, Fontana 2001 and Rio de Janeiro 2000), one second place finish in Japan in 2002 and a third place at Fontana in 2001. It will also be his first oval start since 2005.

“I’m honored that Conquest has called on me again this weekend to drive for them,” expressed Tagliani. “It was such a satisfying feeling to be working with such a professional group of guys last weekend. We came in at the last minute and made so much progress in so little time. We had a top five car on race day and that is proof just how good these guys are. As for this weekend, it’s been a while since I have done ovals but I’m not worried about getting back into it. Once again I want to help the team as much as possible. I can’t wait.”

See our INDYCAR CAR PAGE for more info on the Series.

Here is the IndyCar (IRL) schedule for 2009 every one is waiting for:

April 5     — St. Petersburg, Florida (street)

April 19   — Long Beach, Calif. (street)

April 26   — Kansas Speedway (oval)

May 24    — Indianapolis 500 (oval)

May 31    — The Milwaukee Mile (oval)

June 6      — Texas Motor Speedway (oval)

June 21    — Iowa Speedway (oval)

June 27    — Richmond International Raceway (oval)

July 5       — Watkins Glen International (road)

July 12     — Toronto, Ontario, Canada (street)

July 26     — Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (street)

Aug. 1       — Kentucky Speedway (oval)

Aug. 9       — Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (road)

Aug. 23     — Infineon Raceway (road)

Aug. 29     — Chicagoland Speedway (road)

Sept. 6      — Belle Isle Park, Detroit (street)

Sept. 19    — Twin Ring Motegi, Japan (oval)

Oct. 11      — Homestead-Miami Speedway (oval)

More to come after the official release at 11:00 Am this morning.

Nashville Superspeedway officials announced today that they will not hold an IRL open wheel event in 2009.

“We’re disappointed for all of the fans and sponsors of open wheel racing in middle Tennessee,” said Cliff Hawks, Vice President and General Manager of Nashville Superspeedway. “Regrettably, the IRL has chosen to structure their sanction fees at such a level that we had no choice but to re-evaluate whether they fit into our plan. Regardless, we believe the IRL had no further interest in the middle Tennessee market. We are very grateful to Firestone and their support of the Firestone Indy 200 for the past seven years,” Hawks said.

Nashville was the only concrete track on the IndyCar circuit, and drivers had been unhappy with the grip on the 1.33 mile oval for some time.

Dover Motorsports, Inc. had already ceased running IRL races at two of its other venues, Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis and Dover International Speedway in Delaware. The Nashville event is to be replaced with the Andretti Green Racing owned Toronto Grand Prix.

According to an Edmonton Sun report the 2009 IndyCar schedule will be released this Wednesday (July 30th). The schedule is expected show that Toronto will host the IRL cars on the weekend of July 10, 11 and 12 of 2009. The Nashville race normally run on this weekend will be cancelled.

The Edmonton Indy will take place on the same weekend as this year and it will have a normal Friday to Sunday schedule. This year the race had to be held on Saturday due to a TV scheduling conflict.

The series will feature 10 oval and eight road race events with 12 Indy Racing League tracks and four of the old ChampCar tracks in 2009. The Long Beach race and Surfer’s Paradise in Australia will be included next year.

This was Dixon’s fifth IndyCar victory of the year and extends his lead in the overall points standings to 505, that’s 65 more than second place Helio Castroneves.

“My team did a fantastic job. We were struggling at the start of the weekend. We were at best about 11th. To come through and win here was definitely not what we expected,” said Target Chip Ganassi driver Scott Dixon.

Canadian driver Paul tracy came in 4th.
“I’m extremely excited. It’s been a long time coming,” said Tracy, who hopes this good showing will lead to a permanent ride in the IRL.

Toronto’s Marty Roth, in the Edmonton-based Quickcard sponsored #25 car, finished in 21st. place.

See our INDYCAR Page for more details

POS NAME                NO   SPEED     TIME
 1  Ryan Briscoe         6   116.955   1:00.7311
 2  Helio Castroneves    3   116.753   1:00.836
 3  Oriol Servia         5   116.710   1:00.8584
 4  Scott Dixon          9   116.710   1:00.8585
 5  Will Power           8   116.410   1:01.0154
 6  Justin Wilson*      02   no speed    -0.0001
 7  Bruno Junqueira     18   115.871   1:01.2991
 8  Graham Rahal        06   115.573   1:01.4573
 9  Dan Wheldon         10   115.183   1:01.6656
10  Mario Moraes        19   115.015   1:01.7552
11  Enrique Bernoldi    36   114.519   1:02.0227
12  Marco Andretti      26   114.011   1:02.2991
13  Ryan Hunter-Reay    17   114.370   1:02.1039
14  Danica Patrick       7   113.796   1:02.4171
15  Paul Tracy          22   114.122   1:02.2387
16  Vitor Meira          4   113.662   1:02.4907
17  A.J. Foyt IV         2   112.502   1:03.1346
18  Darren Manning      14   113.347   1:02.6644
19  Mario Dominguez     96   112.500   1:03.1359
20  E.J. Viso           33   112.879   1:02.9242
21  Hideki Mutoh        27   111.312   1:03.81
22  Buddy Rice          15   111.983   1:03.4276
23  Ed Carpenter        20   111.185   1:03.8825
24  Townsend Bell       23   111.610   1:03.6396
25  Marty Roth          25   102.865   1:09.0498
26  Jaime Camara        34   111.229   1:03.8572
27  Tony Kanaan**       11   no speed    -0.0001
*Wilson crashed on first lap of Fast Six
**Kanaan had engine failure in during the
   top 12 shootout, move to back of grid

Over half of the top speeds attained in yesterdays practice were from drivers in the old Champ Car Series. It seems they have a slight advantage over the drivers that were primarily seen on ovals. Paul Tracy, having been absent from the series, posted the 8th fasted speed for Thursday. Here are the combined practice times.

POS CAR DRIVER             TIME        SPEED    LAPS
 1    8 Power, Will        01:02.3404  113.936   55
 2    5 Servia, Oriol      01:02.3900  113.845   51
 3    3 Castroneves, Helio 01:02.5365  113.578   61
 4    6 Briscoe, Ryan      01:02.5831  113.494   58
 5   02 Wilson, Justin     01:02.6220  113.423   42
 6    9 Dixon, Scott       01:02.6685  113.339   59
 7   11 Kanaan, Tony       01:02.6806  113.317   63
 8   22 Tracy, Paul        01:02.6933  113.294   52
 9   06 Rahal, Graham      01:02.7528  113.187   49
10   18 Junqueira, Bruno   01:02.8760  112.965   20
11   10 Wheldon, Dan       01:02.8800  112.958   69
12   17 Hunter-Reay, Ryan  01:02.9395  112.851   54
13   19 Moraes, Mario      01:03.2856  112.234   42
14   27 Mutoh, Hideki      01:03.4577  111.930   55
15   26 Andretti, Marco    01:03.4684  111.911   53
16   96 Dominguez, Mario   01:03.5862  111.703   52
17    4 Meira, Vitor       01:03.8570  111.230   67
18   20 Carpenter, Ed      01:03.9548  111.060   74
19   14 Manning, Darren    01:03.9866  111.004   50
20    2 Foyt IV, AJ        01:04.1350  110.748   75
21   15 Rice, Buddy        01:04.1646  110.697   62
22   36 Bernoldi, Enrique  01:04.2360  110.574   54
23    7 Patrick, Danica    01:04.3010  110.462   65
24   34 Camara, Jaime      01:04.8655  109.500   68
25   23 Bell, Townsend     01:04.9073  109.430   46
26   33 Viso, EJ           01:05.4394  108.540    9
27   25 Roth, Marty        01:07.2098  105.681   55

July 10, 2008/ Canadian Champcar Champion and racing superstar Paul Tracy has been invited to participate in the Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England. There he will be joined by other racing greats NASCAR legend Bobby Allison, British Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton and British racing legend Sir Stirling Moss, NASCAR Executive Vice President Jim France and 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner Eddie Cheever.Tracy will be driving his 1997 race-winning Penske PC26 Champ Car as well as a 1966 Lola that two-time Formula 1 World Champion Graham Hill used to race on in Formula 1.

“I’m flattered and humbled by the opportunity to be invited to participate in a historic event such as Goodwood,” Tracy said. “This is an event that has included names like Fittipaldi, Andretti and Moss. Now my name will appear on that list and it’s very exciting. I can’t thank The Earl of March and Kinrara enough for asking me to be a part of what he?s doing.” Paul Tracy added, “People often ask me if I’m disappointed that Forsythe decided not to join the IRL, but this year has turned out to be very exciting for me. I’ve tested for Germain Racing, which is a championship team, in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and I’m also running the Las Vegas Truck Series race for Germain Racing on September 20th. Now I’m heading to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. I couldn’t write the script any better, and I’m having a great time.”

This years Goodwood Festival of Speed takes place on July 11th, 12th and 13th in West Sussex, England.