PHOTOS: Capital City Speedway July 16, 2008 from Rick Young

 

 

David Ostella FBMW Lime Rock Report

Open-wheel rookie David Ostella had his best outing to date last weekend as the Formula BMW Americas Championship raced in support of the American LeMans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park. While he fell short of returning to the podium, the sixteen-year-old produced a pair of problem-free runs to collect a sixth and fifth-place finish.

 

“I think this past weekend was the best so far since I finished both races without problems,” Ostella said upon his return to Canada. “The track was a very fast one, and I figured out how to reach the ultimate pace more quickly, but I still have to get better at it going forward. I’ve just got to put it all together!”

 

The data once again supports his words as Ostella produced times of 59.839 seconds and 59.374 seconds in back-to-back qualifying sessions on Friday, improving by very nearly a half-second. Returning to the track early Saturday morning for race eight of the Championship, the teenager from Maple, Ontario, then had a quick time of 58.560 seconds on his way to running from eighth on the grid to sixth, eight-tenths better than his qualifying pace. “In the race I had a good start, lost one position on the second lap but then incidents happened on the track and I ended up sixth,” he said. “I was the fifth fastest car, which was encouraging.”

 

In the second start Saturday Ostella had truly found the zone as he turned the second quickest lap in the field and climbed all the way to fifth from tenth on the grid. “Off the start I gained one position and then we had a red flag when a driver hit the wall,” he said of race nine of the Championship. “At the same time a driver drove off and I was able to take seventh, and on the restart I stayed in my position until another driver had an off to give me sixth. I passed my teammate for fifth-place, and was still gaining time until the checker came out.”

 

Gaining time indeed. Racing in a three-pack for positions second through fourth, Ricardo Favoretto and Mikael Grenier were the quickest pair and set personal best laps on lap 21 at 58.70 seconds. Ostella set his best time on the same tour, a 58.38 second lap! It was a consistent pattern, with the young racer nearly reaching Grenier’s rear wing when the checkered flag waved. The checker also brought to a close the first half of the season, and overall Ostella says he is having the time of his life.

 

“I am having the greatest time in the world racing cars, Montreal was just incredible,” he said in summing up the first half events. “Overall though, the first half wasn’t as good as I would have liked, but I’m taking it all as a learning experience and staying positive about everything involved with the racing. I’ve got a great support team, a great race team, and just can’t wait to get back at it in the second half of the season.”

 

Next up for the Formula BMW Americas Championship is an official test session at Putnam Park before all head to famed Road America for three races early in August. David will once again be racing with support from Global Precast Motorsports, Alpinestars, and RAW Integrated Ltd. For more information visit www.davidostella.com

 

From Jason Holland

Yokohama Tire Opts for More Testing and Development Before Returning to ALMS

LEXINGTON, Ohio - July 17, 2008 - For the remainder of the 2008 American LeMans Series season, Yokohama Tire Corporation (YTC) will reduce its presence at races to concentrate on tire development and testing for the future. During this time the Mazda LMP2 team will be using other tires.

"Our short-term ALMS results with the Mazda LMP2 team have been a little disappointing, but we're confident our long-term goals will be fulfilled, including helping a team consistently reach the podium in the near future," says Mark Chung, YTC director, strategic marketing. "We're working diligently on tire development and will examine all ALMS options for 2009.

"Yokohama has a long history of international racing success, so we're going to take some extra time to focus on development, constructing new tires that will live up to our heritage of championship racing. In fact, more tire tests are planned in the coming weeks and we plan to continue until we can deliver the lap times and reliability we expect from our products."

Yokohama Tire Corporation is the North American manufacturing and marketing arm of Tokyo, Japan-based The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., a global producer and distributor of premium tires since 1917. Servicing a network of more than 4,500 points of sale in the U.S., Yokohama Tire Corporation offers a complete line of tires, including high-performance, light truck, passenger car, commercial truck and bus, as well as off-the-road mining and construction applications. For more information on Yokohama's extensive product line, visit http://www.blogger.com/www.yokohamatire.com. For details on Yokohama's environmental efforts, go to http://www.ecotreadsetters.com/.

Yokohama is a strong supporter of the tire care and safety guidelines established by the Rubber Manufacturers Association and the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration. Details can be found at the "Taking Care of Your Tires" section at http://www.blogger.com/www.yokohamatire.com.

Jacques Villeneuve to race in Montreal Nationwide Series race

TSN is reporting that Jacques Villeneuve will drive for Braun Racing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race, next Month, at the track named for his late father.

Ohsweken Speedway - World of Outlaws - July 22nd - July 23rd

If you missed this show last year, don't miss out again. Get your tickets today.

GM Canada VP plans to save money by cutting NASCAR sponsorship. Feel free to read that line again...

In a story in today's Toronto Sun, GM Canada VP David Paterson says the company's plan to save money includes "cutting funding for community programs it supports and also plans on trimming wages paid to salaried workers."

The item quotes Paterson directly as saying, "Instead of being 'Generous Motors' and sponsoring everything left, right and centre, we'll have to do less things (such as) sponsoring motorsports like NASCAR."

Huh?! What?!

Does Paterson actually think GM HAS BEEN sponsoring NASCAR in Canada the past decade? Or CASCAR? Or anything related to Canadian motorsports? If so, this explains a lot.

By my math, if GM Canada totally slashes 100% of its NASCAR / motorsports budget in Canada, they will save exactly.... nothing. Zilch. Bupkiss. Nada. As the song goes, 'nothing from nothing leaves nothing'... and that's what they'll save.

I couldn't stop laughing/crying long enough to finish the reading the rest of the story, but I imagine some of Paterson's other cost-cutting measures to fix GM include things like ending funding for their invisible car program and their "cars for Martians" charity program.

GM has had nothing to do with Canadian racing for years... and their VP blames some of the red ink on their mythincal "generous" sponsorship of NASCAR? In our opinion, GM would easily have sold more cars to the 100s of thousands of Canadian racing fans if they hadn't ignored them for the past decade.

Wow.

p.s. - The story also noted that none of GM Canada's white collar staff would be affected. Shocker.