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It looks like the IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights might have a new testing place in Southern Florida.  Palm Beach International Raceway, formerly known as Moroso Motorsports Park has completely renovated their facility.  Vision racing tested their Daytona Prototype on the old road course a week prior to the Rolex 24 hours of Daytona with John Andretti, Vitor Meira, AJ Foyt IV, and Ed Carpenter behind the wheel a year ago.  The new 2.034-mile, 11-turn, 6/10t -mile straightaway road course is boasting to have some of the fastest and most challenging corners, elevation changes and straightaways offered by any track in North America.  It makes sense since their are not many places in the country where the IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights can test in the winter.  I am thinking this will be the potential replacement for Sebring this off season.  The road course is still currently waiting FIA approval.  This might be the second test location other than Homestead Miami Speedway.  According to Homestead Miami Speedway’s web-site The IndyCar Series is set to test there February 23-26.

Video of Kyle Petty in Daytona Prototype at the new PBIR road course

Wow! Who would have thought that the 2008 IndyCar season would be as eventful as memorable as it turned out to be. It will definitely go down in history as one to remember. From the last minute Champ Car merger weeks before the season opener at Homestead Miami Speedway all the way through Helio Castroneves drive from last place to first place at the season finale at Chicagoland Speedway. This year has also been a year of firsts. Graham Rahal went on to become the youngest winner in open wheel history with his first IndyCar Series start on the Streets of St. Petersburg. Danica Patrick went on to be the first female in open wheel history to win an event, doing so at Twin Ring Motegi when she passed Helio Castroneves with just a few laps left in her 50th IndyCar Series start and Ana Beatriz became the first woman in the Firestone Indy Lights to win an event at Nashville Superspeedway. It is going to be tough to top the eventful history making 2008 season.

It was a long trip for IndyCar Series teams for a non-points race in beautiful Surfer’s Paradise Australia. The teams and drivers did not hold back at all on the 2.795 mile street circuit. Ryan Briscoe pulled off a first place victory followed by Scott Dixon and Ryan Hunter-Reay rounding up the top 3. The question is, will the IRL return to Surfers Paradise next season. The racing proves to be fast and the teams love being there. The only negative side to this would be the cost. The IRL already travels overseas to race at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan. Having two overseas races might sway teams from trying to start an IndyCar program. If these smaller teams were to not attend these races they would lose out in the IRL’s TEAMS program. Many have even called the race at Twin Ring Motegi, Honda’s corporate picnic. If the IRL does decide to keep an overseas venue, then perhaps they should go with Surfers Paradise and scrap Japan. Let’s not forget Motegi almost did not happen this year due to rain. The fact that it is an oval only allows for racing in dry conditions. Australia, which is a street circuit, can be run rain or shine.

Don’t change that channel. The IndyCar Series championship season might have come to a close, but we still have one more stop on the 2008 schedule. The IndyCar Series is off to Surfers Paradise Australia on October 26, 2008. ESPN Classic will be airing the race live at 10:30 p.m. e.t. Dario Franchitti will be joining the field replacing Dan Wheldon in the #10 Target Chip Ganassi entry. It is rumored that Wheldon has already replaced Vitor Meira at Panther Racing and he will be driving the #4 in Australia. This final race to close out the season comes after a long break since the Chicagoland race. Since this race cost the teams quite a bit since it is on the other side of the globe and their are no points involved, one would think if the drivers and the teams are going to push the cars to the edge of the envelope, or if they are going to be a little more lax about it.  I know what the fans would like to see, the same intense racing they have seen all season.  This final race to close out the season comes after a long break since the Chicagoland race. We look forward to a safe, exciting race and a well deserved off season.

Given what Brendon wrote about in this post and that Chris commented that:

Seems kind of weird that he will get no penalties for that transponder not being in the right place? If that had happened to another team in a different race I feel the league would have penalized the driver. Just my 2 cents.

I have to say that while I don’t want to play tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist I can’t help but think that something is most definitely afoot.   (more…)