Junior Open Wheel Talent

The Star Mazda drivers completed a two-day oval test in Newton, Iowa this week at the famed Iowa Speedway. The track features a 7/8's mile tri-oval with 12-13-14 degree compound banking, which is very different from Milwaukee (where they were testing last week). The Milwaukee Mile features a 1-mile oval with 9.25 degrees of banking. The track layout of each creates a very unique driving/tuning style specific to the individual oval. At Milwaukee, the drivers had to really work on grip as no one was able to run the oval flat-out. This week in Iowa was a bit of a different story as the Star Mazda cars were easily flat-out through the turns with the aide of the banked corners.

I decided to make the trip to Newton, Ia. for the second day of the two-day test at Iowa Speedway. The forecast for day-1 wasn't very promising and the cars didn't get on track and up to speed until about 1 PM. Fortunately for me, the weather and track conditions were much more favorable on Thursday, Day-2.

I have to start out by thanking the Star Mazda crew for all their assistance and hospitality. They are a great group and run the series very well. Secondly, I have to give props to the Iowa Speedway, as it's truly an amazing facility. If you have the opportunity to attend a race, I would make the trip a priority as you won't be disappointed.

As I drove through the tunnel, entering the speedway, the air was cool and quiet. The cars were not yet on track. After parking, while organizing my laptop and camera for the day's event, I heard the engines fire. Within a few moments, a couple of the cars had taken to the track. I decided to head over to pit-lane and snap some photos of the first cars on track. After walking the paddock and saying a few hello's, I jumped back in my car and headed for the scoring tower. I spent some time with the spotter's above the tower as well, which I might add, is quite the view.

The rest of my day was spent running back and forth between the scoring tower and the paddock to chat with drivers and teams. The view from above, offered a unique look at the varying line used by drivers entering Turn 1 (as pictured above). The turn 1-2 combo seemed to be the source of nearly every incident in the two-day test. If you look closely, you can even see the oil-dry from the center of the corner down into turn 2 from Ciao Lara's impact the day before. Something broke in the car near the end of the straight, forcing him into the largest incident of the test. Unfazed by the wreck, he helped the team rebuild the car and was back on track for part of Day-2. Obviously, Lara's incident in the turn 1-2 combo, was mechanical, but several of the drivers and teams were worried about a couple bumps on the racing surface in that region. Apparently, the track has a bump on each side of the surface above the tunnel, which was upsetting the balance of the car through turn 1 and entering turn 2. I'm guessing the varying lines of entry into that section was related to the fore mentioned bump. From an outside perspective, the tighter line appeared much quicker and proved so on the timing monitor (hint for any driver's reading this).

While in the paddock, I snapped a few photos that you might be interested in. The teams had different strategies for the test, some were tuning for longer runs, some were tuning for the conditions, while others stated, they were simply tuning to learn.