Final practice, air demonstrations and music acts round out schedule Friday, May 24 at IMS. Read More>
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The Indianapolis Motor Speedway prides itself on its fire rescue and medical response teams that arrive to the scene of an accident within seconds. But how do they get that good? On Behind the Bricks, IMS President Doug Boles takes you through the annual Motorsports Safety Training at IMS, which features specific training scenarios for INDYCAR, NASCAR, IMSA and more to make sure every driver at IMS is safe. Watch Video>
On this episode of Doug and Drivers, 2022 Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson sits down with Doug Boles to talk about the pain of coming so close to scoring back-to-back wins, how he wanted to compete on ovals after his Formula 1 career and the transition to Andretti Global. Watch Video>
Why does Scott McLaughlin move his hands around so much in the car? What "button" is he pushing? What's the pressure of the iconic Yellow Submarine like? We cover that and so much more with Scott McLaughlin on the latest Doug and Drivers. Watch Video>
January 12, 2012 | By Marshall Pruett - SPEED
Courtesy of Speed.com
SPEED.com has learned that Jay Penske's ambitious plans to revitalize Dragon Racing could receive a major boost as four-time Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais and Katherine Legge are close to forming a two-car team for 2012. Penske was unavailable for comment on Wednesday, and a formal announcement confirming the lineup is believed to be imminent. Penske’s team struggled through the 2011 season after a last-minute split with co-owner Gil de Ferran, fielding limited programs for Paul Tracy and Ho-Pin Tung, but as he shared in December, expanding to two full-time entries was his ultimate goal. An off-season move from the team’s Indiana base to southern California marked the first major change for Dragon, and with funding apparently in place from a number of internet-based companies to cover the acquisition of Bourdais and Legge, Penske has authored one of the most impressive year-to-year turnarounds in the IndyCar paddock. Formed in 2007 by Penske and Steve Luczo as Luczo Dragon Racing, the team showed promise with drivers like Ryan Briscoe, Tomas Scheckter and Rafa Matos behind the wheel. With de Ferran’s ALMS program winding down at the end of the 2009 season, the two-time CART champion joined forces with Penske under the renamed de Ferran Dragon Racing banner in 2010. The team announced the signing of Tony Kanaan at the end of the year, but the deal soon fell apart, resulting in significant debts and the team’s closure. Penske rekindled the program as Dragon Racing in time for the Long Beach Grand Prix, where Tracy made the first of five starts for the team. Penske spent most of the season digging out from the financial problems that were left behind from the de Ferran Dragon Racing association, and with a clean slate to work from, targeted two of the more recognizable names in open-wheel racing to lead the charge. Provided deals with both drivers are finalized, Penske, who is expected to use Lotus power this season, will have plenty of new crew positions to fill at his SoCal base. Bourdais is coming off an impressive part-time campaign of road and street courses for Dale Coyne Racing, earning four top 6s along the way during the abbreviated IndyCar program. A veteran of 29 Formula One and 73 Champ Car starts, the Frenchman dominated the final four seasons of Champ Car driving for Newman/Haas Racing before leaving to drive in F1. After a brief stint in F1, Bourdais concentrated on sports cars with the Peugeot factory team before receiving an invitation from Coyne. The Le Mans native provided an instant boost for Coyne upon his arrival at St. Petersburg, and after a mid-season change in engineers to Neal Fife, he and Bourdais turned the team into a serious competitor. For 2012, and with the driving/engineering duo of Justin Wilson and Bill Pappas returning to lead Coyne’s team, Bourdais and Fife became free agents. Like Bourdais, Legge’s journey back to open-wheel racing has taken plenty of twists and turns. She left Champ Car when it folded at the end of the 2007 season, and when a drive in the IndyCar Series failed to materialize, returned to Europe to drive for Audi in the DTM. After three somewhat frustrating years in the DTM, Legge returned to the United States in 2011 to search for sponsorship to continue her open-wheel career, and those efforts appear to have paid off in her favor. With the peerless Bourdais as a teammate and a tailor-made team to work with, the Briton has created the second shot in Indy car she’s always wanted.