Long Beach Friday Notebook
04/18/09 Ran into Derrick Walker who is still hoping to someday get back into IndyCars. He is currently running Stefan Wilson in Indy Lights and he still has his Atlantic cars should an opportunity arise in that series again……..Tony Kanaan is running with Dr. Pepper soda sponsorship this weekend (see our photo pages)…….We hear Nelson Philippe may run for Conquest Racing in the Indy 500, a deal may be close and the team entered two cars in this year's 500……..The 2-seat IRL car could not negotiate the Long Beach hairpin, the turning radius of the car was too large………Ran into Stefan Johansson who may run the Zytek Hybrid LMP1 car later this year. The car has a V8 gasoline engine plus an electric motor. It is essentially the same system that Zytek developed for Mercedes in F1……Ran into ex-Cosworth man Ian Bisco who is still looking to land somewhere. Another Ex-Cosworth Racing employee, Ken Deagle is now running an auto repair shop and racing motorbikes……Did you know that the NY Times will have coverage of all IndyCar races this year? We hear Team 3G had something to do with that happening……IndyCar driver Stanton Barrett is the godson of Paul Newman and his father drove the original Skoal Bandit NASCAR Cup car……Paul Tracy says he is still hopeful of adding at least the Toronto and Edmonton IndyCar Series rounds to his deal with KV Racing. Tracy said Toronto and Edmonton will depend on sponsorship being in place. "Well, we're working on it," he said. "Obviously it's a tough economic time right now, and I'm fortunate enough that I've got good sponsors that have helped me through this economic time. I've got some personal sponsors with Monster that have stuck behind me. I've been able to put together some small deals to do a couple of little things."…….Tracy on Castroneves' acquittal. "That's a huge deal for Helio," Tracy said. "This has been a heavy-duty thing for him. I'm happy that he got off. I want to compete against the best guys and Helio is one of the best at Indy. I think the IndyCar Series is pretty short on personalities. There are a lot of young guys nobody has heard of in this series. Hopefully, I can bring something back to the table."…..Paul Gentilozzi drives again – he will race the new Jaguar GT2 ALMS car when it debuts but he has not picked who is co-drivers will be……He wanted to start the season at Sebring but the deal did not come together in time…….The Jaguar is an all-aluminum car and in street form is stiffer than his old tube-frame Trans-Am cars used to be. Look for the car to run E85 ethanol starting in 2010…….Kevin Kalkhoven only broke one rib skiing at Snowmass this winter so he had a good off-season so-to-speak. Recall that in recent years he shattered a shoulder and broke an arm skiing……Back in January Kalkhoven, an Australian, became a naturalized citizen of the USA……Al Unser Jr. won the pole for the Toyota Pro-Celebrity race on Saturday (more later). Actor Danny Way was the fastest celebrity. Last year's celebrity winner, TV pit reporter Jamie Little is now racing as a professional in this race…..Apex Brasil is a government agency in Brazil that has a 2-year deal with IndyCar to use the series to promote Brazil exports, including Brazilian ethanol. IndyCar races in Brazil are shown over the air on TV channel Bandeirantes…..If the IRL does race in Brazil (they are looking at it) we hear the possible venues are Rio, Sao Paulo, Brasilia or Ribeirao Preto……Ran into Robin Brundle, ex-F1 driver Martin Brundle's brother. He is now Managing Director of Lola Motorsport and he would like nothing better than to have a shot at a competitive bid for the next IndyCar chassis……..Graham Rahal spoke about his new engineer, Martin Pare, who formerly worked for Danica Patrick at Andretti Green Racing. "Martin came over from Andretti Green and, honestly, things just kind of clicked right away," Rahal said. "Things have been working extremely well so far. It's very important, it's key to have that good relationship with the engineer because of a lot of changes, they really need to understand what you mean when you say something." Mark C. reporting from Long Beach