Rolex 24 Viewer's Guide for the IndyCar Fan

The Rolex 24 at Daytona is one of the most prestigious sports car endurance races in the world. Held on the road course inside the famed Daytona International Speedway, the race was established as a three-hour event in 1962 before eventually expanding to 2000 kilometers in 1964 and taking its current form in 1966.

Most sports car events are much shorter than the Rolex 24, especially within the Rolex Sports Car Series that has contested the event since 2000, and only require two or three drivers. But the days of a two-man team competing in a 24-hour event are long gone; teams now look to four or five drivers to contest these lengthier events.

Some of the added drivers come from within sports car racing, drivers who don't have a full-time job but provide safe options for teams looking to fill out their rosters. NASCAR drivers have also joined the field in recent years, especially since Grand-Am took over the event in 2000; Grand-Am founder Jim France is the son of NASCAR founder Bill France, and the two sanctioning bodies have merged their communication resources for the past few years.

But IndyCar drivers past and present may be some of the most popular additions to driver lineups, primarily in the top-tier Daytona Prototypes, for this prestigious event. For each of the past five years, and seven times in the past decade, a driver with significant IndyCar, CART, or Champ Car experience has taken the overall victory as part of a team. In fact, 2006's winning team was composed solely of Scott Dixon, Dan Wheldon, and Casey Mears, the former two full-time IndyCar drivers and the third an ex-CART and current NASCAR competitor.

This year is no different, as over two dozen drivers with open-wheel chops will appear at Daytona once again. Need help keeping up with who's where? Look no further:

Open-Wheeler Super Teams: It's no surprise that Chip Ganassi would employ five current or former open-wheel drivers between his two Daytona Prototypes. Ex-CART driver Scott Pruett has been his lead driver for years now, in the No. 01 car, and will drive with Graham Rahal. Ganassi's second car is traditionally reserved for his NASCAR and IndyCar drivers, and this year is no different; Scott Dixon, Dario Franchitti, and CART champion-turned-NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya will wheel that vehicle.

Michael Shank Racing will follow the same strategy as Ganassi did in 2006 with their No. 6 entry, pairing current IndyCar competitor Justin Wilson with two open-wheel-turned-NASCAR drivers: 2006 Champ Car third-place finisher A.J. Allmendinger, and 2004 Star Mazda champion and ex-Champ Car driver Michael McDowell.

Current IndyCar Drivers: Rahal, Franchitti, Dixon, and Wilson aren't the only current IZOD IndyCar Series competitors to land a drive. Ryan Briscoe will work with Wayne Taylor Racing, which has a history of fielding Team Penske drivers in the event. Meanwhile, Ryan Hunter-Reay will return to Level 5 Motorsports, with whom he competed in a handful of American Le Mans Series events last year. Joining him there will be Raphael Matos, whose 2010 Rolex 24 drive at Brumos Racing no longer exists as a Daytona Prototype.

CART, IRL, and Champ Car Alumni: Many open-wheel drivers migrate to sports car racing when their careers at Indianapolis end. Often times they become sports car champions as well. Action Express Racing, which has in effect taken over the Brumos Daytona Prototype operation as that team shifts to GT, has hired three drivers who have followed this career path: 2004 Indianapolis 500 and 2009 Rolex 24 winner Buddy Rice in the No. 5, and 2002 Rolex 24 winner Max Papis and 2004 winner Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 9.

But they aren't the only ones. Ex-PacWest driver (and now IndyCar driver Mike Conway's agent) Mark Blundell will drive in the No. 23 for United Autosports, which is running in partnership with Michael Shank. Shank will also have Michael Valiante, once a budding open-wheel talent but now a seasoned Grand-Am vet, in his primary car, the No. 60. Meanwhile, Starworks Motorsport will employ Jan Heylen and Ryan Dalziel, two competitors in Champ Car's final season, in their No. 7 and No. 8 cars, respectively. Ex-IRL driver Tomas Enge will join Dalziel, who won last year's Rolex 24, in the No. 8.

Finally, Pruett and Montoya aren't the only former CART drivers appearing in the event to somehow be affiliated with Chip Ganassi. Nicolas Minassian, who drove the team's No. 12 car briefly in their 2001 rebuilding year, has competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the past few years and step into Krohn Racing's No. 76 for this year's event. But unlike years past, the 1996 CART champion for Ganassi, Jimmy Vasser, will not step into the No. 99 for Bob Stallings Racing.

GT Class: Four Atlantic Championship alumni will compete in GT cars in this year's event. 2004 fifth-place finisher and ex-Champ Car driver Ronnie Bremer will drive in Stevenson Motorsports' Chevrolet Camaro, while 1998 third-place finisher and former CART supersub Memo Gidley will step down from the Daytona Prototype of Doran Racing to a Mazda RX-8 with Team Sahlen.

The other two drivers will run Mazda RX-8s with SpeedSource. 1999 Atlantic title winner and longtime Grand-Am competitor Anthony Lazzaro will drive the No. 69. Jonathan Bomarito, the 2008 series runner-up, had been on the fast track to Champ Car until the series folded; now, he's found a home in SpeedSource's Castrol-backed No. 70, in which he finished fourth in last year's points.

A list of all open-wheel affiliated drivers, sorted by car number:

• Scott Pruett (#01 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Graham Rahal (#01 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Dario Franchitti (#02 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Scott Dixon (#02 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Juan Pablo Montoya (#02 Daytona Prototype, Chip Ganassi Racing)
• Buddy Rice (#5 Daytona Prototype, Action Express Racing)
• A.J. Allmendinger (#6 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Michael McDowell (#6 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Justin Wilson (#6 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Jan Heylen (#7 Daytona Prototype, Starworks Motorsport)
• Ryan Dalziel (#8 Daytona Prototype, Starworks Motorsport)
• Tomas Enge (#8 Daytona Prototype, Starworks Motorsport)
• Christian Fittipaldi (#9 Daytona Prototype, Action Express Racing)
• Max Papis (#9 Daytona Prototype, Action Express Racing)
• Ryan Briscoe (#10 Daytona Prototype, Wayne Taylor Racing)
• Mark Blundell (#23 Daytona Prototype, United Autosports)
• Memo Gidley (#42 Mazda RX-8, Team Sahlen)
• Ronnie Bremer (#57 Chevrolet Camaro, Stevenson Motorsports)
• Michael Valiante (#60 Daytona Prototype, Michael Shank Racing)
• Anthony Lazzaro (#69 Mazda RX-8, SpeedSource)
• Jonathan Bomarito (#70 Mazda RX-8, SpeedSource)
• Nicolas Minassian (#76 Daytona Prototype, Krohn Racing)
• Ryan Hunter-Reay (#95 Daytona Prototype, Level 5 Motorsports)
• Raphael Matos (#95 Daytona Prototype, Level 5 Motorsports)

IndyCar Season Review: Raphael Matos

Raphael Matos could have used some better luck in 2010.

The 2009 IZOD IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year headed into 2010 looking to continue a three-year streak of winning awards in every series in which he competed. He had won the 2007 Champ Car Atlantic title, and followed that up with the Firestone Indy Lights crown in 2008 before scoring his IndyCar rookie award last year.

One of the hottest young drivers in the sport had a new advisor, as former Indianapolis 500 champion and countryman Gil de Ferran bought into the Luczo Dragon Racing team, renaming it de Ferran Dragon Motorsports in the process. The team also added a limited program for Davey Hamilton, who brought Hewlett-Packard funding to the team full-time. Both driver and team set goals for a top-10 points finish this year after running 13th last year.

Matos opened the season in his native country of Brazil, where he took a career-best fourth place finish, second-best among Brazilian drivers in the event. He followed that up with three laps led and an eighth place run at St. Petersburg, where he had crashed out in 2009. Through the first quarter of the season, Matos maintained ninth place in points, easily within the team's goal for the year.

But next on the schedule were Kansas and Indianapolis, two tracks at which the team had failed to finish in 2009. Matos survived Kansas in 16th place, but for the second year in a row failed to complete the sport's biggest race. Not long after losing a wheel in the pits, Matos slammed the outside wall on lap 73, and his day was done. His crash, combined with Hamilton's first-lap incident, meant the team would scramble to prepare a single car for the next two oval events.

It took a return to the road courses for a reversal in Matos' fortunes, as another fourth-place finish came at Watkins Glen. But Toronto saw an accident with E.J. Viso kill any momentum the team may have had.

Mid-Ohio saw Matos' fourth and final top-10 of the season, as he came home seventh, but the rest of the year wasn't much to write home about. Back-to-back DNFs at Sonoma and Chicago were less than conducive to maintaining his position in points, as he dropped all the way down to 15th in the order. In each of the final three races, the team finished outside the top 15 as well.

When all was said and done, Matos finished 14th in points, despite qualifying no better than 10th all season and producing half the amount of top-10s he had in 2009.

Indeed, declining qualifying performance was a decisive factor in Matos' 22-point decrease from his rookie season. 2009 saw Matos start no worse than 18th, as he qualified in the top 10 seven times for an average of 11.8. This year, Matos started 20th or worse five times, never making it to the Firestone Fast Six as he had in 2009, resulting in a 16.5 average start. His average finish also dropped to 15.7 from 12.8 in 2009.

With the hopeful addition of a full-time teammate and mentor for 2011, Matos' prospects may improve markedly, but only if the team is able to expand and thus retains him. With Tony Kanaan on the market, there have been rumors that Matos may be replaced, as nobody knows the status of Matos' multi-year contract with the team. But the addition of the fellow Brazilian and former IndyCar champion to the team, if in a second car, should help Matos improve as a driver dramatically next season and beyond.

IndyCar Race Preview: Honda Indy Toronto

The IZOD IndyCar Series makes it first foray into the Great White North of the season with this weekend's Honda Indy Toronto, an event won by Dario Franchitti last year.

Each of the past eight races held on the 1.755-mile Exhibition Place street circuit have been won by different drivers; the last driver to successfully defend his victory was Michael Andretti in 2001. Andretti is the all-time wins leader at the circuit with seven victories, a factor in his decision to purchase the race's assets in mid-2008 and rescue it after that year's running was cancelled due to the demise of Champ Car.

This weekend's event, as well as the Edmonton airport race two weeks from now, are widely celebrated by the Canadian fans, and are especially welcomed by the Canadian members of the circuit. Alex Tagliani and Paul Tracy, the two active Canadian IndyCar drivers, will each be running special paint schemes in the race - Tagliani a new Hot Wheels-backed livery, Tracy an equally impressive car backed by the Canadian arm of the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Toronto Blue Jays.

But the drivers aren't the only ones returning to their home country this weekend. In fact, two of the engineers on the de Ferran Dragon Racing team, lead engineer Eric Zeto and performance engineer Scott Raymond, call the province of Ontario home. The team hopes to build on their momentum from Watkins Glen, where driver Rafa Matos finished an impressive 4th despite losing his in-car telemetry in the middle of the race. Matos finished 10th at Toronto last year.

Matos has certainly shown the speed this weekend, with his best lap in the second practice, a 62.3984-second run, good for fifth in that session. But 13 cars - half of the field - were within a second of that session's leader, Ryan Hunter-Reay, who turned a 62.1433-second lap.

Within those 13 cars, seven different teams are represented - Andretti Autosport, Dreyer & Reinbold Racing, Team Penske, de Ferran Dragon Racing, FAZZT Race Team, KV Racing Technology, and Chip Ganassi Racing. This suggests not only a close battle for pole position, but also a mammoth struggle just to make the Firestone Fast Six.

In the race itself, don't be surprised if Will Power and Justin Wilson challenge for victory. They are two of only four former Toronto winners in the field (the others being Tracy, who won it in 1993 and 2003, and Franchitti, who won in 1999 as well as last year). Power and Wilson were right on Franchitti's tail last year, finishing third and fifth, respectively, after starting second and fourth.

Television coverage of the Honda Indy Toronto begins on Sunday at 12:30 PM EST. The race will be shown on ABC.

The Cooldown Lap: Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

A collection of thoughts sparked by Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach:

GOOD TO SEE: Ryan Hunter-Reay score a victory and bring Andretti Autosport back to the top step of the podium. Everybody deserves a little job security - the ability to run the full season - and maybe this win will either A) bring in the necessary corporate sponsorship, or B) convince team owner Michael Andretti to fund RHR out of pocket.

DISAPPOINTED NOT TO SEE: More passing. I love Long Beach. It's one of my favorite tracks on the IndyCar schedule. But for Will Power to basically give the win away because he hit the pit road speed limiter was kind of sour.

BIGGEST SURPRISE: Mario Moraes finishing sixth and picking up where he left off at the end of last year. I predicted that he'd have a breakout season this year... and so far I've been wrong until now.

LEAST SHOCKING: Jimmy Vasser, Moraes' team owner, winning the Pro/Celebrity Race. I mean, come on, the dude's actually won the open-wheel race before, he knows what he's doing.

THE ESTROGEN REPORT: Long Beach was not a good weekend for the ladies of IndyCar; Danica Patrick finished an abysmal 16th, racing Simona de Silvestro for the last two spots on the lead lap. Sarah Fisher lost a car to an accident. And let's be brutally honest, Milka Duno hasn't done anything all season to merit her inclusion in the series. They had all better hope for a better race at Kansas.

UNDER THE RADAR: Raphael Matos is ninth in points. He's less than 20 points off of the lowest Team Penske car, beating two Andretti Autosport drivers, and is ahead of former series champions Dan Wheldon and Panther Racing. But because Matos' de Ferran Luczo Dragon Motorsports team is one of the series' smaller outfits, we hear very little about Rafa. So here's a shout out to the little team that could... though it certainly helps that a former Indy 500 winner (Gil de Ferran) and Roger Penske's son (Jay) are involved.

IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS: I'd have run Paul Tracy at Long Beach. Hey, four wins and a second place (and an Indy Lights win in 1990) seem to suggest that he knows the place better than, oh, I don't know, Milka.

NEXT YEAR'S RACE: ...will be just as beautiful, highly attended, and obsessed over by the fantastic Long Beach crowds. But I'd like to see less than a five second gap for the win next time.An

IndyCar Season Preview: de Ferran Luczo Dragon Racing

Raphael Matos won the 2009 IZOD IndyCar Series rookie of the year award, following his 2008 Firestone Indy Lights and 2007 Atlantic Championship titles, in a Luczo Dragon Racing car last year. The season was a modest success for both, as Matos kept his trophy streak alive and Luczo Dragon proved reasonably competitive in their first full-time IndyCar season. Matos even had a shot at winning the Indianapolis 500 before a crash in turn one ended his day.

Despite a hard crash at St. Petersburg (that launched a spectator out of a porta-john outside of the retaining wall) and three other DNFs in his first seven races, Matos completed all of the last ten races on the schedule in 2009, and scored eight top-10s on the year. His best finish was a sixth place run at Milwaukee. While he did not approach his 2008 Indy Lights success, he still managed to establish himself as a consistent driver who could bring the car home in one piece.

This season, however, more will be expected out of Matos and the team. Luczo Dragon Racing merged with former sports car team de Ferran Motorsports, and former Indianapolis 500 winner and two-time CART champion Gil de Ferran will now be Matos' driver coach. De Ferran, who nearly won the American Le Mans Series championship last year as an owner/driver, will attempt to move his Brazilian countryman up the ranks.

The team also has a better sponsorship package this year, with Hewlett-Packard, McAfee, and Bell Micro all signed on. As part of the HP deal, Davey Hamilton (who has carried their sponsorship for a few years now) will run a limited schedule for the team in a second car. That will allow the team to gain even more information at Indianapolis, Texas, and another oval to be announced, information that will hopefully make Matos' car even faster at those tracks. Hamilton will also attempt to complete a race at Texas for the first time since a career-threatening crash in 2001 that required 21 operations to reconstruct his feet. (Coincidentally, Hamilton's car will carry No. 21 this year.)

Anything short of a top 10 in points for Matos and DFLDR this year will be a disappointment, especially considering that all parties involved have seen some success in the past few years. Matos should score his first top five finish this season, at the very least, and score more top-10s, although a win might require a little luck.

2010 Atlantic Championship Cancelled

Sad days endure in American open wheel racing, as the long-standing Atlantic Championship is no more.

Series owner Ben Johnston and team owners made the decision yesterday to cancel this year's season, according to Auto123.com. The season was set to open in just over two weeks at Sebring, but only one driver and team combination had been announced, although a news release on the series' official website from last week suggested that 10 teams were in place.

As with many recent failings in the motorsports world, this cancellation was driven by economic factors, particularly the loss of many sponsorship programs. The series lists primary sponsorship deals with Cooper Tires and Mazda on its website, but only three contingency sponsors. Many of the teams that competed last year only had minor sponsorship deals.

To make matters worse, last year's championship team, Newman Wachs Racing, left the series, taking champion driver John Edwards with it to sports car racing. Second-place Jonathan Summerton sits on the sidelines looking for a ride in any major professional series.

Johnston has, however, laid out rough plans for a Winter Series towards the end of the year, if financially viable for the organization and its team owners. In a best case scenario, the Winter Series would lead to a relaunched championship in 2011.

The series was first established in 1974, and has always been recognized as an affordable development option for young open-wheel talent. From 1985 to 1990 two separate championships were conducted on the east and west coasts. The series provided the stage for some of the top North American drivers of the past thirty years to establish themselves, and launched many drivers into successful CART (and later Champ Car) careers.

Because it did produced driving talent of a similar caliber and at a similar rate to CART's Indy Lights series, it was adopted as the official feeder series to CART in 2002, with Indy Lights being cancelled. In response, a handful of old CART Lights teams switched series. Beginning in 2006 the series offered a $2 million scholarship for its champion, put towards securing a ride in the Champ Car World Series, CART's successor. That year, Simon Pagenaud took the deal and went to Walker Racing. However, 2007 champion Raphael Matos passed on the money to drive in the IRL's Firestone Indy Lights.

With Champ Car's dissolution in 2008, and the presence of Indy Lights, the Atlantic Championship became a stand-alone feeder series for the past two years, launching talent but dropping off in terms of car count and popularity. Johnston purchased the series in late 2008 after previously attempting to start a "Green Prix" series that would have utilized former Champ Cars in an attempt to build an environmentally-friendly racing series.

The series persevered with some interesting scheduling choices over the past two years, mostly supporting sports car races, but with a few feature events thrown in. A makeshift calendar was drawn up in 2008 after Champ Car's dissolution, as most Atlantic races were run in conjunction with that series, and many race weekends were cancelled. Unfortunately, as was the issue with Champ Car, many races that the Atlantic folks scheduled themselves fell through over the past few years, such as a potential support race with Formula 1 in Montreal, Canada in June of this year. To fill out the schedule, a number of race weekends (especially the features) were designed as doubleheader events.

Combine those scheduling issues with the lack of direct sanctioning, and the Atlantic Championship's demise is easy to understand. Sadly, its 36 years of history - making it the longest running feeder series in North America - looks to be a closed book for now, with no driver set to add his name to the illustrious list of Atlantic champions in the near future.