Barber Motorsports Park Tag

By Road to Indy Now in its 32nd season and firmly established as the final stepping stone for drivers who aspire to compete in the Verizon IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500, Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires will celebrate its 400th race on April 23 at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Ala. The major milestone will occur on Sunday in the second of two races at the challenging, 2.3-mile road course which will comprise the Mazda Indy Lights Grand Prix of Alabama Presented by Cooper Tires. “It is aRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer During the recent Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Ed Carpenter Racing’s JR Hildebrand suffered a broken bone in his left hand that required surgery. While still in recovery, the Speedway, Indiana team has called for the services of Zach Veach to fill in Hildebrand’s No. 21 Fuzzy’s Ultra Premium Vodka Chevrolet for the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park while Hildebrand recovers. While this is Veach’s first IndyCar race, it is not his first experience in anRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer The third place driver in the Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires championship, Pato O’Ward earned a fifth and a third place finish in St. Petersburg for the opening races of the 2017 season. However, he was uncertain about whether or not his season would continue. After speaking with Motorsports Tribune, it might be a good idea to pencil in O’Ward as an entrant. “As everyone knows, it’s a long championship so anything can happen here in a couple of months, but I’mRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter Will Power logged the quickest lap of today’s Verizon IndyCar Series open test at Barber Motorsports Park during a wild final hour. With the help of the push-to-pass, the driver of the No. 12 Verizon Chevrolet and two-time Barber winner led a flurry of activity and unseated Max Chilton in the final seconds of the test with a blistering lap of 1 minute 07.7518 seconds around the 2.38-mile road course. The lap was nearly a half second quicker than Takuma Sato’s fast time posted in theRead More

To say that Colton Herta was born to be a race car driver is probably not too far off the mark, as the son of 1993 Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires champion (and two-time Indianapolis 500-winning car owner) Bryan Herta began racing soon after he learned to walk. Swiftly moving from karts to open-wheel, including the Pacific F1600 series (which he won in 2013), Herta first joined the Mazda Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires in 2014. He missed the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda seasonRead More

By Christopher DeHarde, IndyCar & Road to Indy Writer One of the more storied teams in the Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires will close the garage doors as Schmidt Peterson Motorsports confirmed they will not be fielding a team in the 2017 championship. Despite nearly winning the 2016 championship with Santiago Urrutia, the team will be centering its focus on the Verizon IndyCar Series program after winning seven championships in the final step on the Mazda Road to Indy ladder The team had tested 2016 Pro Mazda standout PatoRead More

By Conor Daly, Verizon IndyCar Series Driver Well, the last two races certainly didn’t go the way we wanted them to. We have the race pace which is encouraging, and the team is making progress, but the results are just not there for us and to be honest it can get a little frustrating. That said, we’re going to keep on fighting and at some point it will all come together for us. I really looked forward to going to Long Beach. It’s one of my favorite places and races.Read More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Josef Newgarden was hoping a return trip to Barber Motorsports Park would mean a return to Victory Lane, but when the checkered flag flew the young American came home with a third place finish. Newgarden maintained a consistent pace for much of the day, always hanging among the top five before charging late. The 25-year-old made a daring move on the inside of Will Power in the closing stages of the Honda Grand Prix of Alabama, and began to hunt down the wounded Honda of GrahamRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Simon Pagenaud dominated early and came back late to score back-to-back wins in the Verizon IndyCar Series. Capturing his first win for team owner Roger Penske last weekend at Long Beach, the Frenchman scored the pole at Barber Motorsports Park and extended his championship lead in what has been a phenomenal start to the season following a thrilling finish in the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama. A spin on the pace laps by Mikhail Aleshin followed by a run-off by Jack Hawksworth delayed the startRead More

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Patricio “Pato” O’Ward is still working to secure a full-season drive with Team Pelfrey in the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires, but he certainly aided his quest this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park by winning both 40-minute races which comprised the Mazda North American Operations Presents the Pro Mazda Grand Prix of Alabama. Teammate Aaron Telitz chased O’Ward home for the third time in four races this season, while Garett Grist finished third for the second race in succession for Juncos Racing. O’Ward took fullRead More