IRL

Honda To Sponsor Mid-Ohio IndyCar Series Event
American Honda Motor Co., Inc. announced that it will be the title sponsor of the IndyCar Series event at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course next July. The July 22 race - the 12th of 17 on the IndyCar Series calendar -- marks the return of Indy-style competition to Mid-Ohio for the first time since 2003. The race weekend, which will also feature an American Le Mans Series event, is poised to become the largest and most significant motorsports event in Ohio, and has the potential to become the world's largest gathering of Honda associates. Honda operates three manufacturing plants in central and western Ohio with more than 15,000 workers, approximately two-thirds of all Honda associates in the United States.
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IRL

Kite Offers Fans Chance To See 2007 Races
IndyCar Series veteran Jimmy Kite has found a unique way to combine his passions - racing and the hobby industry - while working to continue his driving career. The five-time Indianapolis 500 starter recently opened JK Hobby World in Farmington, Mo., where he lives during the racing season. Kite's store carries models, games, train and slot car sets as well as an extensive list of radio controlled cars, planes, tools and supplies. He also offers customers a chance to win tickets and pit passes to every IndyCar Series race in 2007, including the 91st running of the Indianapolis 500.
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Indy Pro

Schmidt Inks Lloyd For Indy Pro Series Seat
Two-time Indy Pro Series race winner Alex Lloyd will drive for Sam Schmidt Motorsports in the Indy Pro Series in 2007, the team announced. Lloyd, who turns 22 in December, won two races and recorded six top-five finishes in nine starts for AFS Racing in 2006. He finished seventh in the championship point standings despite missing three races. Lloyd debuted in the Indy Pro Series in the doubleheader event on the streets of St. Petersburg, Fla. After qualifying on the front row, he recorded 10th- and third-place finishes. Lloyd's victories came on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he passed for the lead with two laps to go, and at Infineon Raceway, where he moved from fifth to first in the first eight laps.
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Champ Cars

Sebastien Bourdais Picks Up Champion's Check
As part of the bounty for winning the 2006 Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford title, Sebastien Bourdais was awarded a new Ford Edge at Saturday’s Champ Car Awards Banquet. The vehicle would come in handy by the end of the night as Bourdais would fill the new Ford with a myriad of trophies after winning his third consecutive series championship. Bourdais received Ford’s newest crossover vehicle via a video tribute delivered by Ford Chairman Edsel Ford, who congratulated Champ Car and Newman/Haas Racing before telling Bourdais that Ford settled on the Edge as an appropriate gift not only for Sebastien, but for his wife Claire and their soon-to-be-delivered baby girl.

The Frenchman also scored his third Vanderbilt Cup and the $500,000 prize that went along with it, as well as the Hole In The Wall Camps Lap Leader Award, which is given to the driver that leads the most laps of competition over the season. The three-time series champ also earned the season-long Bridgestone Pole Award, leading the series by winning seven of the year’s 14 pole positions.

Champ Cars

Bridgestone To Provide Champ Car Tires Only
Bridgestone Firestone will no longer be the presenting sponsor of the Champ Car World Series but will remain the sole tire supplier for the open-wheel racing series. The company announced a multiyear extension of its contract to provide tires for the series Saturday night. "While the restructured contract does not include provisions for the Bridgestone brand to remain presenting sponsor ... our ongoing commitment to design, develop, produce and deliver the highest quality tires for Champ Car racing has not and will not change," said Al Speyer, Bridgestone's North American director of motorsports. "The Bridgestone brand will be very visible to the fans and teams." Terms of the new deal were not disclosed.(fortwayne.com)

Sprint Cars

Leffler Will Run Turkey Night
Jason Leffler of Long Beach, Calif. hopes to join Ron Shuman and Billy Boat as the only drivers to win the prestigious “Turkey Night Grand Prix” three times in its 66-race history. He will have that opportunity Thursday night at Irwindale (Calif.) Speedway as the USAC National and Western Midgets compete in the 100-lap classic. Shuman won an amazing eight times and Boat won three in a row at three different tracks, while Leffler is the defending champion and also won in 1999. Leffler will pilot his Team ASE/Kaeding Performance Pleasure Craft/Esslinger Ford against the top driver from across America, including fellow NASCAR drivers Casey Mears and Bobby East.

The USAC Western Sprint Cars and Ford Focus National Midgets are also part of Thursday’s “tripleheader.” The Sprint cars are slated for 40 laps around Irwindale’s 1/2-mile paved oval, while the Focus Midgets will determine their National Champion in a 50-lapper on the 1/3-mile. Nathan High of Goodyear, Ariz. won Saturday night’s 30-lap Western Midget race at USA Race Park in Tucson, Ariz. He led the final 23 laps after passing Rik Forbes on lap eight. Shane Stewart finished second ahead of Forbes, Robby Flock and Brad Kuhn.

Jerry Coons Jr. of Tucson, Jerome Rodela of El Monte, Calif. and Tony Hunt of Lincoln, Calif. lead their respective series standings into Thursday’s USAC finales at Irwindale. Coons leads defending champ Josh Wise by 54 points in the National Midget Series, while Dave Darland is only 58 back of the leader with 66 available. Rodela has an insurmountable 132-point lead over Chase Barber in the Western Midget points, while Hunt leads Mike Murgoitio by an insurmountable 11 points in the Western Sprints.

Dave Steele of Tampa, Fla., who teams with Darland in the Nine Racing Team Toyotas, holds the 1-lap and 100-lap Irwindale Midget track records. The 1-lap standard of 108.722 mph and the 100-lap mark of 84.678 mph were both set in 2003. Steele is also the defending winner of the “Turkey Night” Sprint race, beating Murgoitio to the checkered flag last year.

Sprint Cars

Ganassi Development Driver Nominated ROY
Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) development driver and USAC National Sprint and Midget Car Series star Bryan Clauson was recently nominated for RACER Magazine’s Rookie of the Year Award which will be presented during this year’s SPEED Performance Awards. Clauson’s nomination pits him against the best young talent motor racing has to offer worldwide, as evidenced by the selections of Marco Andretti (Indy Racing League), Colin Braun (Grand American), Dan Clarke (Champ Car), Denny Hamlin (NASCAR) and Robert Kubica (Formula One). At just 16 years of age, Clauson (now 17) became the youngest driver in USAC history to win both a National Sprint Car Series and National feature Midget race– topping a list of USAC’s all-time greats including Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.

After an injury in September in Wheatland, Mo. sidelined him for the remainder of 2006, Clauson still finished in the Top 10 in both Sprint and Midget points. He also won selected USAC Regional Midget Car Series events in 2006. The RACER Rookie of the Year winner will be featured in the April edition of the magazine. Beginning this week, SPEED will present nominees for the fan-vote categories, allowing viewers to vote for their favorites at SPEEDtv.com. The winners will be announced as part of a 60-minute special in February.

Also, CGRFS recently signed 16-year-old open wheel standout Brady Bacon to the team’s driver development program. Bacon has been the feature driver at Keith Kunz Motorsports, filling in for Clauson as he continues to recover from his aforementioned accident. Bacon is the 2006 Southern Midget Racing Series champion, and recently finished third in the USAC National Sprint Car race in his first outing at Eldora Speedway in Ohio.

Champ Cars

Katherine Legge Has Surgery
PKV Racing’s Katherine Legge had surgery to insert two screws in the joint of her right thumb yesterday, November 16 at Ortho Indy Medical Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. Legge, who complained of pain in the thumb following last weekend’s Gran Premio Telmex at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, Mexico, was diagnosed at the Champ Car Medical Unit on-site with a fracture in the joint of the right thumb by Dr. Chris Pinderski. The injury occurred during a first lap incident, which forced Legge to pit for repairs. She returned to competition and was running at the end of the 66 lap contest. The surgery was performed by Dr. Dickie and according to medical reports the injury will not affect any future use of the thumb nor will it affect Legge’s ability to drive in the future.

Commenting on the surgery Legge, who is currently recovering at home in Indianapolis where she resides, said, “I just can’t say enough about Champ Car medical staff. They do a great job and it is very comforting knowing they are there for the drivers. I also want to thank Dr. Dickie, who performed the surgery. He did a fantastic job. I have a bit of pain right now, but that is to be expected. The good news is that when I recover I will be 100%.”

Legge, a Champ Car World Series rookie, made 14 starts for PKV Racing driving the #20 Bell Micro – PKV Racing Ford-Cosworth/Lola/Bridgestone entry. The native of Britain earned four top-10 finishes in the 14 races placing a season, and career, high sixth at Milwaukee, eighth in her Champ Car debut at Long Beach eighth in Cleveland and ninth in Denver. She qualified in the top-10 twice (eighth on the oval in Milwaukee and on the Road America road course). Legge finished third in laps completed (1094 of 1185) and ninth in laps led with 11. She placed 16th in the final championship standings with 128 points and fifth in the Roshrans Rookie of the Year race.

Legge established a number of Champ Car records this season. She is the first female to start a Champ Car/CART race since Lyn St. James at Michigan in 1995 and the first female to lead a Champ Car race (Milwaukee, 12 laps). Her sixth place finish at Milwaukee set a new Series high for a female driver (her eighth in Long Beach and Cleveland give her the three best finishes) surpassing a ninth place finish by Janet Guthrie at the 1978 Indianapolis 500. Legge won three races and finished third last year in her rookie season in the Atlantic Championship Series. Her victory in her debut Atlantic event at Long Beach made her the first woman to win a major open-wheel race in North America.

Champ Cars

Champ Car Partners With ABC/ESPN
The Champ Car World Series today announced the formation of a new television partnership that will see the events of the Bridgestone Presents The Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford carried on ABC/ESPN beginning in 2007. The multi-year agreement will cover the Champ Car World Series as well as the Cooper Tires Presents The Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda and includes Spanish-language broadcast rights as well. ABC/ESPN will begin its partnership with Champ Car and Atlantic events in 2007, and will be become the exclusive broadcast partner for both series beginning in 2008.

ABC/ESPN partnered with the Champ Car World Series as far back as 1983 and was a mainstay of the series through the 2001 season. Many of the great moments in the history of the series were seen live on ABC/ESPN including Alex Zanardi’s 1997 win in Cleveland where he introduced the world to victory doughnuts and Mario Andretti’s final Champ Car win at Phoenix in 1993. As part of the deal, Champ Car and ABC/ESPN will also pursue strategies to exploit digital media applications as they pertain to the Champ Car World Series, including internet and wireless media opportunities. The full, detailed schedule of events with television networks and air times for both the Champ Car World Series and the Champ Car Atlantic Championship will be released in the near future. The 2007 Champ Car season begins with the Grand Prix of Las Vegas April 6-8. The first of 11 Champ Car events to be broadcast on ABC/ESPN will come with the April 20-22 Grand Prix of Houston.

IRL

Foyt Hires Darren Manning
A.J. Foyt has signed Darren Manning to drive the No. 14 ABC Supply Dallara/Honda in the IndyCar Series next year. Larry Foyt has been named Team Director. These changes are two of several that Foyt is making in his team's operations to improve its chances of winning in what will be a signature season for Foyt: his 50th anniversary in Indy-style racing. "Next year is a big year for our team," said Foyt. "We're doing everything we can to get our program where it needs to be. My son Larry is a great asset to our team on the management side, and we've worked hard to put together a solid plan for 2007. Part of that plan is hiring a driver who is experienced on ovals and road courses and who will work well with our sponsor ABC Supply.

Larry Foyt began taking a more active role in his father's team in September when he moved back to Houston from North Carolina where he'd been living the past five years. Although young Foyt has not given up his hopes of returning to the cockpit, he is focusing his management skills on his father's Indy car team. "We've been busy getting ready for next season," said Foyt, 29. "We're bringing in new people to join our crew, and hiring Darren Manning is part of that. We're thrilled to have Darren as our driver next year. I can't wait for Homestead to see how all of our changes play out."