Junior Open Wheel Talent

Star Mazda
Peter Dempsey completed the perfect Friday at Iowa Speedway by leading both practice sessions, qualifying on pole, and winning the 100-lap race under the lights. The win moves him into the championship lead. Conor Daly had an excellent run to finish 2nd after starting 8th. Formula BMW graduate, David Ostella had his best finish of the year by rounding out the top-three.

The hard charger of the event was Michael Furfari who drove an incredible race. The 16-year-old race driver improved 13 positions to cross the stripe in 8th after starting 21st. This is Furfari's second hard charger nomination in as many race events.

Star Mazda
Iowa Speedway
Round 7- Complete Results
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Indy Lights
Sebastian Saavedra drove a near perfect race north of the border as the Indy Lights made their way around the streets of Toronto, Canada. Saavedra is now sitting in second place in the overall championship with 2 victories and 5 top-five finishes. Championship leader, J.R. Hildebrand added another solid finish to his resume by crossing the stripe second. Toronto native, James Hinchcliffe rounded out the top-three. This is Hinchcliffe's fourth podium finish in 2009.

The hard charger of the race was Daniel Herrington, who drove from 18th on the grid to finish 9th.

Indy Lights
Grand Prix of Toronto
Complete Results
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American Star Mazda driver, Joel Miller has left JDC Motorsports and will join Andersen Racing for the remainder of the 2009 SM season. He tested with the team yesterday at Autobahn in Joliet, Illinois.

The move may have something to do with Andersen Racing's recent success in the Indy Lights series. Miller has made it quite clear that he hopes to run in the IndyCar feeder series for 2010. His latest press release indicates that we may even see him in a Andersen FIL car later this year...

Just as a point of interest, Miller did test an Indy Lights car with Andersen Racing at Sebring last November.

The Star Mazda competitors completed their first oval race of the year this weekend at the historic Milwaukee Mile. Not only was this the first oval race of the year for the series, it was also the first oval race (ever) for many of the drivers. That said, the series held official test days at both the Milwaukee Mile and the Iowa Speedway earlier this year.

Due to heavy rain in Milwaukee on Friday, the afternoon qualifying session was cancelled. The grid was formed using the drivers practice times.

Anders Krohn, last year's F2000 Champion, won Saturday's 100-lap race after starting seventh. The event marked his first career oval race as well as his first Star Mazda win. It was a well deserved victory for the Norwegian driver. He has been working very had with Mundill Racing and Larry Nash, developing their Star Mazda program. It seems all of their hard work has finally paid off. You can listen to a post race interview with Anders Krohn here.

Adam Christodoulou earned the hard charger title of the race by improving 10 positions. The Englishman started 12th and finished the race in 2nd place,.... just 1.223 seconds behind Krohn. The final result bumps Christodoulou back into the championship lead after losing it last weekend in New Jersey, due to a mechanical failure that sidelined him for much of the race.

Louisiana resident, Alex Ardoin finished the race in third place. Ardoin has been extremely impressive in his last few race events. He crossed the stripe just off Adam Christodoulou's rear wing --- .0554 seconds back. He trailed Anders Krohn by 1.777 seconds at the finish.

Honorable mention

Canadian driver Michael Furfari also improved 10 positions---earning him a tie with Adam Christodoulou for the hard charger award. Furfari, who is currently the youngest Star Mazda competitor at 16 years-of-age, finished the race in 10th after starting 20th.

The fast lap of the race was set by Peter Dempsey- 28.652 seconds.

Click Here for Full Results.

(photo: Star Mazda)

Inside sources are reporting that Star Mazda points leader, Peter Dempsey will be changing teams for the remainder of the season. It has been fairly obvious that Dempsey has been struggling to come up with the necessary funds to run this season with AIM Autosport... as he has skipped numerous test days and pre-testing on race weekends. Even when he is on track testing, he can usually be found running on old tires that other drivers have discarded.

Juncos Racing has decided to give the Irishman a shot to continue his efforts and fight for the championship. He has signed a deal to run the remainder of the season with the Florida based team. Watch for an official release to be published shortly.

**update** the official release is out now.

Star Mazda- Milwaukee Mile

Dave Kallmann of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reminds stock car fans to keep an open mind for open wheel.

Indy Lights- Iowa Speedway

Dave Lewandowski of IndyCar.com writes a preview entitled Another Short Challenge.

Dan Davis of the Newton Daily News put together a nice piece on the history of the Indy Lights series.

Indy Lights driver Charlie Kimball talks about his return home after racing in Europe as well as his diagnosis of Type-1 diabetes in 2007 in this week's Des Moines Register. You can listen to the live chat with Kimball here.
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Well that's all for now. I'm off to play a quick round of golf and pack my bag for Iowa. Have a great weekend everyone.

The Star Mazda competitors were in New Jersey this past weekend as part of the Mazda Formula-X event. The drivers completed Round 4 & 5 of the championship, which was broadcast live on HDNet.

The hard charger of Round 4 at New Jersey Motorsports Park was Irishman Peter Dempsey. Dempsey improved 9 positions----which turned out to be the most of all the open wheel competitors over the weekend---to finish 6th after starting 15th. Overall, the weekend wasn't one of Dempsey's best, but he did finish both races inside the top-ten... which moved him into the overall lead for the points championship. Conor Daly had a breakthrough weekend, taking his first Star Mazda win. Daly won the race by 1.292 seconds over Adam Christodoulou. Canadian driver, Mikael Grenier finished third, which marks his best career Star Mazda finish. I was very impressed by Mikael this weekend, he improved 5 spots (8th-3rd) to obtain his first career Star Mazda podium. (he repeated the result in Round 5--see below).

The hard charger of Round 5 was Kevin Toledo who drove from 23rd to 16th...improving 7 positions. Englishman Richard Kent returned to his winning ways and claimed the top spot in Sunday's race. Kent ran a near perfect race but was followed closely by Louisiana's Alex Ardoin. Alex ran a great race and, once again, impressed everyone with his speed. Mikael Grenier returned to the podium for the second time in as many races. Adam Christodoulou had a suspension failure early in the race which sidelined him and ultimately dropped him from the top spot in the overall points.
(photo: Eric McCombs/Star Mazda)

Star Mazda
Thunderbolt Raceway (NJMP)
Round 4 Results
Round 5 Results

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.

Good morning. I am just getting loaded up and departing for Iowa Speedway's Star Mazda test. Due to heavy rain and moisture on the track, the drivers failed to get up to speed until later in the day yesterday. Today looks to be a different story with a beautiful forecast in store. I'm not sure if I will have Internet access on site---with this being a test day only. I will do my best to post updates to my Twitter account throughout the day. So make sure to stay tuned.

When time permits, I will also write up a summary of the test and post it here at Junior Open Wheel Talent.

Thanks for reading.

**update** Combined Results are listed in the comments section below. Stay tuned for a full report later tonight or tomorrow.

British driver Adam Christodoulou set the fastest lap of today's Star Mazda race at Miller Motorsports Park enroute to his second win of the season. Irishman Peter Dempsey finished 2nd, 3.874 seconds back. American Joel Miller found his way to the podium for the second time in 2009 with a 3rd place finish. Honorable mention should go to Alex Ardoin, who led part of the race until a rare mistake caused him to drop back to sixth place at the finish line.

Denis Navarro had an impressive drive from 17th on the grid to finish 8th overall, earning him the hard charger of the day honor. The 22-year-old Brazilian driver improved nine positions in 22 laps.

Full Results: Round 3 Miller Motorsports Park

Take a lap a Miller Motorsports Park with Peter Dempsey in his AIM Autosport entry. He completed the lap on old tires.

Irishman Peter Dempsey took Round 2 of the Star Mazda Championship by a narrow margin over Alex Ardoin at Virginia International Raceway. American Joel Miller crossed the stripe in third to claim the final spot on the podium. Polesitter Adam Christodoulou set the fastest lap of the race at 1:46.998, but dropped back to finish 7th in the race.

The Hard Charger of the Day is Anders Krohn--who improved 9 positions--finishing 6th after starting in 15th. Honorable mention should go to Toshi Deki and Carlos Conde who also improved nine postions each. Deki went from 26th to 17th, while Conde went from 27th to 18th.

Full Results

(photo: www.peterdempsey.com)

Mikael Grenier of Stoneham, Quebec, Canada, has signed a one-off deal to drive for Andersen Racing this weekend in Round 2 of the Star Mazda Championship at Virginia International Raceway. The 16-year-old hopes to put together enough funding to do a few more events with the team down the road, but this is the only one on the radar for now.

Grenier spent last season in the Formula BMW-Americas series driving for Apex-HBR. He did quite well last year claiming 6 podium finishes-- a number that puts him on the podium in 35.3% of his FBMW-Americas starts in 2008. He may have been better suited to run a second full season in Formula BMW, rather than jumping to Star Mazda in 2009, but he has certainly shown that he has the ability to drive a race car. It will be interesting to see how he adapts this weekend.
(photo: www.mikaelgrenier.com)

Richard Kent who currently sits in second place in the Star Mazda standings after Round 1, will not compete this weekend at Virginia International Raceway after breaking his fibula. Apparently, he tripped crossing the street--according to the Andersen Racing press release-- he will return to the drivers seat for Round 3 at Miller Motorsports Park. This is truly unfortunate for Richard, but I guess accidents do happen (even if they involve tripping over a curb). In the meantime, we wish Richard the best and hope to see him back in the car very soon.

This unfortunate story reminds me of an NHL report last year, when the St. Louis Blues No. 1 pick (2006) Erik Johnson, ended his season by stepping off a golf cart. It leaves the rest of us sitting here saying.... Did this just happen?

Ashley Freiberg, of the Skip Barber National Series, spent last weekend in a GDT-prepared Star Mazda car at the SCCA Oak Tree Double National Race held at Virginia International Raceway. The 17-year-old Illinois resident was using the event to garner additional seat-time in preparation for this weekend's Skip Barber National race at VIR.

The experience turned out to be a very positive one, as Ashley managed to qualify 4th and finish the race in 5th. She hopes to carry this momentum over to the Skip Barber car this weekend.

Anders Krohn spent the weekend in Texas, testing his Mundill Racing Star Mazda car. From all accounts, the test went very well as he broke the Eagles Canyon lap record with a 1:39.993 lap. The previous record was set by Christiano Da Matta in a Grand Am DP car @ 1:40.400.

You can ride along for Ander's record setting lap here.
(photo: www.anderskrohn.com)

The Star Mazda Championship has aligned itself with the Racing For Kids Program once again and will be making five scheduled stops at children's hospitals in 2009.

The current schedule for hospital visits is as follows...

• Salt Lake City, Utah (Miller Motorsports Park)
• Joliet, Illinois (Autobahn Chicago)
• Trois Rivières, Quebec (Trois Rivières)
• Atlanta, Georgia (Road Atlanta)
• Monterey, California (Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca)

Ten drivers have signed up to participate in 2009:

• Alex Ardoin
• Toshihiro Deki
• Ryan Booth
• Chris Cumming
• Billy Goshen
• Taylor Hacquard
• Kristy Kester
• J.C. Kester
• Caio Lara
• Joel Miller

I will conclude by saying it's great to see this list of young drivers taking an active role to help better the lives of others. Star Mazda has done a nice job over the past few years working with the Racing for Kids foundation... hopefully this is a tradition that we will see for year's to come.

I'm looking at some new options for race coverage in 2009. Obviously there are plenty of sources out there offering race results, most of which have better resources available than I do, and most of the series have their own live timing available as well. Your typical Internet race report provides you with the winner (rightly so), but you don't always get the details of who had a great weekend. So, in an effort to separate the coverage at Junior Open Wheel Talent from that of several other racing websites and to help promote drivers showing improvement, I've decided to try a weekly "hard charger" section featuring the driver/s who advanced the most positions over the race weekend.

We will kick off this segment with the "hard-charger" or most improved drivers from Sebring. I sifted through these results fairly quickly, so feel free to correct me if I missed something, but here are the numbers I came up with....

Most Improved Driver/s: (Positions Improved in Parenthesis)

Skip Barber National
Race 1: Mike Vincec (5), Sage Karam (5)
--Race Winner: Connor De Phillippi
Race 2: Felipe Polehtto (8), Mike Vincec (8)
-- Race Winner: Connor De Phillippi

Formula BMW
Race 1: Joao Victor Horto (4) -- Race Winner: Gabriel Chaves
Race 2: Gianmarco Raimondo (5) -- Race Winner: Gabriel Chaves

Star Mazda
Conor Daly (13) **Hard Charger of the Week**
-- Race Winner: Adam Christodoulou

Atlantic Championship
James Winslow (5) -- Race Winner: John Edwards

It was announced early today that Adam Christodoulou has signed with JDC Motorsports for the 2009 Star Mazda Championship. The late announcement came as a bit of a surprise, as most expected Adam to sign with Andersen Racing after completing a few tests with the team earlier this year.

The addition of Adam to the JDC line-up will, without a doubt, make JDC Motorsports one of the deepest teams competing in the 2009 Star Mazda Championship. Adam was extremely impressive in his tests with Andersen Racing, where he consistently topped the time charts. Christodoulou will partner Joel Miller, Alex Ardoin, and Caio Lara under the JDC tent.

The nineteen-year-old Litchfield, England resident had a tremendous year in 2008, winning the Formula Renault 2.0 UK Championship with 7 wins and 11 podiums; driving for CR Scuderia. During the off-season he also participated in a World Series by Renault test at Circuit Paul Ricard with Fortec Motorsport.
(photo: http://www.adamchristodoulou.com)

Atlantic Championship
After a successful test at Palm Beach, Frédéric Vervisch has signed with Genoa Racing for the Sebring International Raceway season opener. Vervisch was actually looking for a World Series by Renault ride, but decided the Atlantic Championship was a better bang for his buck. At this time, he will only run the opening round at Sebring. In 2008, the 22-year-old race driver won both the German and the Asian Formula 3 Championships. As stated earlier, he looked very impressive in his first test with Genoa at PBIR.

British standout James Winslow has signed with Conquest Racing to run the full 2009 Atlantic Championship. He will partner Harald Schlegelmilch at Sebring. Winslow won the Australian Formula 3 Championship last season with 5 wins and 9 podiums. His average finish in the championship was 3.56, including one DNF. That said, the competition he will face this season looks to be much stiffer.

Star Mazda
Former Team USA Scholarship winner Joe D'Agostino has signed with Andersen Racing to contest the opening race at Sebring International Raceway in the Star Mazda Championship. As part of the Team USA Scholarship in 2004, Joe spent several years in the European ranks, competing in British Formula Ford, Formula Renault, as well as running in the historic Formula Ford Festival. He finished fourth in the 2004 Formula Ford Festival and 3rd in the 2005 British Formula Ford Championship. It will be nice to see Joe back in a car, even if it is only for one race. I know he is still working on putting together the funding for a full season, so if he puts up some decent results in Sebring, ...I wouldn't be surprised to see him back for a few more races in 2009.

Formula 3 Euro Series
Christian Vietoris has re-signed with Mucke Motorsport to run the 2009 Formula 3 Euro Series. Vietoris has shown flashes of speed in his past endeavors which include winning an A1GP race for Team Germany as well as winning the Formula BMW ADAC Championship in 2006. Last season, in the Formula 3 Euro Series, he had some real solid results in his first ten races. At the midpoint of the season, his luck seemed to turn around as he logged 4 DNF's in his final 10 races. He was also DQ'd during the final weekend at Hockenheim. If the 19-year-old is able to put together a consistent season, he should do quite well in the overall championship.