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SALINAS, Calif., May 14 - Paul Brown/Tiger Racing drivers Justin Bell and Dane Moxlow escaped injury in two separate accidents Friday during the Cadillac Sports Car Grand Prix SCCA?Pirelli World Challenge race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Bell, of Los Angeles, the GTS points leader going into this race, was running fourth in class and saving his tires for a run to the finish when his No. 50 eBay Motors Ford Mustang Boss 302S crashed on the frontstretch of the 2.238-mile, 11-turn road course with 19 laps complete.

There was a restart on lap 19 following a full-course caution and slower Touring Cars were mixed in with the GTS cars. Bell’s restart went fine but while he was dodging some of the Touring Cars on that lap and dealing with rubber pick-up on his tires he got off-line coming out of Turn 11 and hit the inner wall on the frontstretch near the far end of the pit area head-on. Tristan Herbert, who had won the pole in the TC class, had nowhere to go and he T-boned Bell’s Mustang too. "Readmore"  

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SALINAS, Calif., May 14 - Perseverance paid off for Project Libra Saturday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca as its Radical SR10 finished the grueling 6-hour American Le Mans Monterey Presented by Patrón.

Marking the debut of the Roush Yates Ford-based V6 twin-turbo 3.2-liter engine in racing competition, the car placed fifth in the LMP2 class with drivers Andrew Prendeville of Raleigh, N.C.; Rusty Mitchell of Midland, Texas and Duarte Félix da Costa of Cascais, Portugal.

The event marked the Garysburg, N.C.-based team’s first race in the series since 2010, the culmination of a great deal of development work and the beginning of what it hopes will be a successful season and future. "Readmore"  

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COVINA, Calif., May 9 - GTS points leader Justin Bell of Los Angeles will try to post his fourth podium finish in five races in the SCCA Pirelli World Challenge division when Paul Brown/Tiger Racing visits Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, Calif., for a 50-minute race Friday at 12:10 p.m. local time/3:10 p.m. Eastern.

Bell drives the No. 50 Ford Mustang Boss 302S that is sponsored by eBay Motors and Kenny Brown Performance. He will have a teammate for this race, as Dane Moxlow of Grosse Ile, Mich. has joined the team for the balance of the season. Moxlow drives the No. 48 Ford Mustang Box 302S sponsored by Trenton Forging, Bard’s Tale Beer Co. and Detroit Motion Co.

Team owner Paul Brown won the GTS race at Laguna last September, and clinched the division’s driver, team and manufacturer championships that weekend. He qualified on the pole with a new track record for the class of 1:34.178 (85.548 miles per hour), and led every lap of last year’s race. "Readmore"  

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GARYSBURG, N.C., May 8 — Project Libra announced today that Duarte Félix da Costa from Cascais, Portugal will join Andrew Prendeville and Rusty Mitchell behind the wheel of its Radical Ford in Saturday’s 6-hour American Le Mans Series race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, Calif.

“We are pleased to introduce another new driver to the series,” said Ian Dawson, owner of the team that competes in the LMP2 class. “Duarte tested with Andrew back in 2010 at our base at the North Carolina Center for Automotive Research [NCCAR]. He is an accomplished GT driver. This will be his first race in the United States.” "Readmore"  

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INDIANAPOLIS, May 6 - Seat time was what Team GDT’s Andrés Méndez needed and seat time was what he got as he drove on an oval track for the first time during a test of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear Saturday at Lucas Oil Raceway (LOR).

Méndez, 19, of Bogota, Columbia, recorded 254 laps on the 0.686-mile oval during five hours of practice in the Dallas-based team’s No. 53, which is sponsored by Datafile International SA and Grupo Kriterion.

There are three more hours of testing scheduled for the series at LOR on Friday, May 25 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. before it participates in the annual “Night Before the 500” tripleheader at LOR on Saturday night, May 26./p>

Méndez did 150 laps in the first session on Saturday, which ran from 9 a.m. until noon. His fastest lap was lap 124 when he tripped the timing lights in 21.316 seconds (115.857 miles per hour), which was 14th fastest for the session.

In the afternoon session, which started at 4:30 p.m. and ended at 6:30 p.m., he completed 104 laps and set his fastest lap of the day on lap 85 with a time of 21.246 seconds (116.238 miles per hour). That was 13th on the scoreboard. "Readmore"  

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TOOELE, Utah, May 2 - Wright Motorsports’ Madison Snow, 16, and Sean Johnston, 21, dominated both races in the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge by Yokohama series last weekend at Miller Motorsports Park.

The Batavia, Ohio-based team had three drivers in the top-five positions in both races overall, and another one posted a class win and a second to cap an incredibly successful weekend for the powerhouse team.

Snow, of Lehi, Utah, led every lap of both races on Saturday and Sunday from the pole after he set a new track record in qualifications on Friday with his Porsche, which is sponsored by Universal Industrial Sales.

Johnston, who was also under the former track record in qualifying, started second and finished second in both events. Driscoll’s Berries sponsors the Mt. Shasta, Calif.-based driver.

Another Wright Motorsports driver, Fernando Pena of Minneapolis, finished fourth in both races with a Porsche sponsored by Colours, Inc. "Readmore"  

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TOOELE, Utah, April 29 — Paul Brown/Tiger Racing’s Justin Bell finished a solid tenth in the GTS division in Round 4 of the SCCA Pirelli World Challenge with his eBay Motors Ford Mustang Boss 302S Saturday at Miller Motorsports Park.

The car, which is also sponsored by Kenny Brown Performance, was strapped with reward weight after Bell won two of the first three races and finished second in the other one. His Mustang didn’t appreciate the area’s high altitude as much as the turbocharged cars did either, but Bell persevered and brought home a top-10 finish that will still generate important points towards the ultimate goal of helping Paul Brown/Tiger Racing repeat as the division’s champions.

Bell, of Los Angeles, qualified 12th on Friday with a time of 2:04.198 and an average speed of 88.349 miles per hour for the 3.048-mile, 15-turn road course near Salt Lake City. He had a terrific standing start and vaulted to eighth initially, and then settled into ninth place on lap two between two other Mustangs driven by Brad Adams and Dan McKeever.

McKeever passed him on lap three and Bell dropped one more spot on lap four when Alec Udell got by. Nick Esayian, who went on finish fifth, passed both Udell and Bell on lap five to drop Bell to 12th place. Bell ran his fastest lap of the race up to that point on lap six with a 2:04.760 (87.951 mph), although he would later surpass that in the event, which had a distance of 23 laps or 50 minutes of competition.

Bell remained in 12th place until lap 11, when he vaulted back into the top 10 after Bill Ziegler and McKeever slipped backwards. He spent the rest of the race in tenth position, trying to catch Udell. He drew as close as just 1.284 seconds behind the youngster but Udell was able to stretch the advantage out as the race continued with no full-course yellows. Bell continued to press hard, and he set his fastest lap of the race on lap 15 with a 2:04.313 (88.268 mph). "Readmore"  

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COVINA, Calif., April 27 — Justin Bell of Los Angeles will try to add to his point lead in the SCCA Pirelli World Challenge’s GTS division in Saturday’s Privacy Star Utah Grand Prix Presented by Bondurant race at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.

The race will be streamed live on-line at world-challengeTV.com and it will also be available live to Droid phone users. The on-line feed is scheduled to start at 2:25 p.m. Mountain/4:25 p.m. Eastern time Saturday. The race will also be shown on NBC Sports Network from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday, May 27.

Although Bell said he loves coming to the 3.048-mile, 15-turn road course near Salt Lake City, he predicts that this event will be the “toughest weekend of the year so far” for Paul Brown/Tiger Racing’s No. 50 eBay Motors Ford Mustang Boss 302S, which is also sponsored by Kenny Brown Performance.

“We have some ‘reward’ weight to deal with, but I have no problem with that because it means that we’ve been doing well,” Bell said. “But the high altitude here favors the cars with turbo engines. We’ve already seen that in practice here.

“But that doesn’t mean we won’t have a great race,” he was quick to add. “I’ll just be starting further back. The team has been working very hard on the car and we’ll do everything we can to move up. It might end up that we can shed some of that reward weight in the future, too.” "Readmore"  

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GARYSBURG, N.C., April 26 — Project Libra is pleased to announce it will enter a Radical SR9 in the American Le Mans Series’ next race, the American Le Mans Monterey Presented by Patrón, on May 10-12 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, Calif.

Open-wheel standouts Andrew Prendeville and Rusty Mitchell plus one other driver yet to be determined will drive the car, which will compete in the LMP2 class in the 6-hour endurance race.

The entry marks the debut of the Roush Yates Ford-based V6 twin-turbo 3.2-liter engine in racing competition. This new breed of engines is designed to achieve comparable power but better fuel efficiency and reduced greenhouse emissions than V8 engines.

The team intends to compete in all eightremaining races on the 2012 schedule with the car, which will use Dunlop tires.

“After four days of testing covering 2,000 miles of trouble-free running following a joint development program with Roush Yates, I am happy to be going racing,” said Ian Dawson, the team owner and engineer. “We at long last can see that we can enter the balance of the 2012 American Le Mans Series season with a credible package to build on and with a new engine that we believe will be a strong contender from the outset. "Readmore"  

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INDIANAPOLIS, April 12 — USAC Traxxas Silver Crown driver Johnny Heydenreich was finally “back home again in Indiana” in mid-March, nearly four months after he left Indianapolis to attend the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show in Orlando, Fla.

By all accounts he’s lucky he made it back at all.

The Bloomsburg, Pa.-native was seriously injured in a traffic accident inNorth Carolina on Dec. 5 while he was driving back to his home in Indianapolis to prepare for another racing tradeshow, the International Motorsports Industry Show (IMIS) atthe Indiana ConventionCenter.

A sales manager for Seals-It in addition to being a race car driver, Heydenreich wastransporting the majority of Seals-It’s trade show booth to Indianapolis when the van hewasdriving and a tractor-trailer made contact near Greenville,N.C. in the wee hoursofthemorning, sending the van into the side of a bridge.

Heydenreich, a past winner of two of the most prestigious midget races in the country, the Chili Bowl and the Hut Hundred, was unconscious when rescue workers reached him. He regained consciousness while he was being airlifted by helicopter to Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville. His injuries included a broken right arm; six broken ribs on his right side; a bruised lung; a shattered right ankle; a broken fibula in his right leg and numerous cuts in his forehead that required nearly 100 stitches. Heydenreich’s head impacted the van’s windshield and his right ankle became lodged under the van’s dashboard during the crash. "Readmore"   photos: Dave Reininger/Ken Plotkin

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LEEDS, Ala., April 3 — Team GDT’s Andrés Méndez posted a 14th and a 17th-place finish in twin 30-minute races for the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park, but that 17th could have easily been severalpositions higher with a little better luck during a wild shootout at the end.

The first half of the doubleheader originally scheduled for Friday was postponed until Sunday afternoon due to rain. That madeSunday a marathon day for the second step of the Mazda Road to Indy, with races in both the morning and the afternoon on the 2.38-mile, 17-turn road course near Birmingham, Ala.

Méndez, 19, of Bogota, Columbia, is a rookie in the series. He drives the No. 53 which is sponsored by Datafile International SA and Grupo Kriterion.

It rained in qualifying on Friday afternoon too, and Méndez was 20th for the standing start on Sunday morning. A driver who was to start ahead of him, Jerimy Daniel, didn’t start the race and when Méndez got the green flag he blasted off and passed both Walt Bowlin and Larry Pegram to move from 20th into 17th by the end of lap one. "Readmore"   photo: Joe Jennings

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SNOQUALMIE, Wash., March 30 — The DirtFish Rally School is pleased to announce it will sponsor three-time Rally America Two-Wheel Drive Champion Chris Duplessis in Rally America and selected World Rally Championship Academy events.

As part of the new association Duplessis, 25, will be a guest instructor at DirtFish, one of only three rally schools in the nation. Located just 30 minutes from downtown Seattle, it is an ideal training facility for professionals like Duplessis; amateur rallyists; individual enthusiasts; corporate groups and anyone who wants to improve their driving skills or simply have a great time.

Duplessis, who drives a Ford Fiesta R2 with co-driver Karl Atkinson, won Rally America’s two-wheel-drive (2WD) championship in 2007, 2008 and 2010. He’s off to a great start again this year, as he won the 2WD division in the first two rounds of the 2012 Rally America series.

“We’re excited to have Chris represent us,” said veteran race car driver Ross Bentley, president of the DirtFish Rally School. A winner of the 2003 Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 1998 United States Road Racing Championship GT3 driver’s championship, Bentley also competed in the CART IndyCar series. He’s the author of the popular “Speed Secrets” books, the best-selling series of performance driving books on the market.

Bentley and his team of coaches offer instruction in the mental aspects of performance driving as well as the physical techniques itrequires. “I’m confident that our guests at DirtFish will enjoy getting to knowChris,” Bentley added. “They’ll be able to get tips from a rally champion, and his enthusiasm for rallying is contagious.” "Readmore"   photos: Marcin Rybak

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., March 25 — Rookie Ryan Tveter certainly got an indoctrination into the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear Saturday and Sunday at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

After he was punted from behind in the early stages of Sunday’s race the 17-year-old from Oyster Bay, N.Y. had the staring role in the doubleheader’s most dramatic accident. Luckily he was not injured when his car barrel-rolled through the air and into the outside retaining wall in Turn 1 of the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street course and then burst into flames from an oil fire.

Prior to his dramatic — and quick — exit Tveter had been off to a rousing start. He nailed the standing start on Sunday and had already passed four cars and was sizing up the fifth one when the accident occurred at the start of lap 3. "Readmore"

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., March 25 — Team GDT’s Andrés Méndez improved his finishing position from Saturday by one spot and his teammate, Ryan Tveter, made the video reel with a dramatic barrel-roll flip in Round 2 of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear Sunday at the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Tveter, 17, of Oyster Bay, N.Y., was not injured in the crash even though his General Datatech No. 33 barrel-rolled through the air, hit the outside wall in Turn 1 hard and then burst into flames when oil from the gearbox caught on fire. The accident occurred after another driver hit his car in the rear as they were working lap 3 of the 20-lap race.

Before his run ended so dramatically Tveter had gotten off to a terrific start. He vaulted from 19th to 15th on the standing start and was preparing to pass Ashley Freiberg for another position when the accident occurred. "Readmore"

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., March 24 — Team GDT’s rookies got their first Star Mazda race under their belts Saturday afternoon at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix..

Nineteen-year-old Andrés Méndez of Bogota, Columbia, ended up starting 18th instead of 19th and he finished 15th. He drives the No. 53, which is sponsored by Datafile International SA and Grupo Kriterion.

Seventeen-year-old Ryan Tveter of Oyster Bay, N.Y. started 14th and finished 21st in the No. 33. It carries advertising for the team’s primary sponsor, General Datatech, L.P. "Readmore"

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., March 23 — Team GDT’s rookies placed 14th and 19th during Peak Performance qualifying for the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear Friday afternoon at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix.

The qualifying session determined the starting line-up for Saturday’s 40-minute race, which starts at 1 p.m.

Ryan Tveter, 17, of Oyster Bay, N.Y. qualified 14th in the team’s No. 33 car advertising the team’s primary sponsor, General Datatech, L.P., with a time of 1:12.585 and an average speed of 89.275 miles per hour for the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street course. His best lap came on his 15th lap of 16 competed in the allotted time. "Readmore"

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SEBRING, Fla., March 23 - Wright Motorsports of Batavia, Ohio had three drivers in the top fivein both halves of the IMSA GT3Cup Challenge by Yokohama doubleheader Thursday and Friday, March 15-16 at Sebring International Raceway, which was the best overall result of any team competing.

One Wright Motorsports driver - Fernando Pena - was on the podium both days. He was joined by one of his five teammates - Sean Johnston - there on Friday.

The doubleheader supported the 60th anniversary Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh from Florida, the season opener for the American Le Mans Series. "Readmore"

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., March 22 - Thursday night’s 30-minute practice session for the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear could play a significant role in determining the outcome of the series’ two races at the St. Petersburg street course Saturday at 1 p.m. and Sunday at 10:05 a.m.

Tire strategy and how quickly its two rookies can come to terms with the 14-turn, 1.8-mile street course were topics foremost on the minds of members of Dallas-based Team GDT Thursday. Although team owner J.W. Roberts won the Expert Series race-within-a race here last year enroute to earning his second championship in that division, its other two drivers - 17-year-old Ryan Tveter of Oyster Bay, N.Y. and 19-year-old Andrés Méndez of Bogota, Columbia - are making their first Star Mazda start ever this weekend. Roberts drives car number 65; Tveter is number 33 and Méndez is number 53.

A new rule in Star Mazda this year limits each entry to one set of used Goodyears and three sets of brand-new tires to use for all the sessions each weekend. How each engineer and driver choose to manage that allotment may end up playing a role in qualifying and the races’ outcome, since more rubber on a tire usually translates to faster lap times. "Readmore"

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LEEDS, Ala., March 21— All three of Team GDT’s drivers improved their lap times on Tuesday during the second and final day of “Spring Training” for the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear at Barber Motorsports Park.

The drivers came away with valuable experience and the other team members accomplished important homework in preparation for the Star Mazda doubleheader at Barber Motorsports Park March 30-April 1 during the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama presented by Legacy.

Corey Lewis of Nazareth, Pa., put everything he learned to excellent use and set the team’s fastest lap on the very last lap he ran during the two-day test. Lewis’s best flyer was posted in the heat of the day and he ended up seventh in the final practice session with a time of 1:22.457 for the 2.38-mile, 16-turn road course. Lewis, 20, an instructor at the Monticello Driving Club in New York, hopes to come on strong at the end in the races at the end of the month too. A Bell Helmets representative, he hopes to find additional marketing partners so he can compete in additional Star Mazda races with Team GDT this year too. "Readmore"

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