Waddle is Moving

Waddle has packed his bags and he is moving his blog over to wordpress from blogger. We are now located here. He likes wordpress more since it has better features and a much nicer interface. This should become his permanent home, so no more new URLs. Waddle hopes you understand, and thanks for sticking with us.
                                                                                                      

The Management

Grand-Am 2008 Speculation Update 3

Waddle has been digging around for more news and conspiracy theories and he now believes that Porsche will be making quite a comeback for 2008. Waddle hasn't come up with a whole lot, but he has reason to believe that Porsche wants to flex its motorsports muscles even more in Grand-Am. TRG is now back with Porsche and it looks like they intend to stay with them. If running two cars in the GT class wasn't enough it looks like there is a good possibility of them running a prototype as well. Alex Job Racing looks like they will stay with their current program, and at this time it does not look like they will be doing anything in the ALMS in 2008. There are plenty more teams that look like they will be running Porsches and they will have a new engine if they want a V8 instead of the aging flat 6. Waddle will keep you posted as more information becomes available.

Grand-Am 2008 Speculation Update 2

It now looks like Waddle was correct in his original assumption that Sun Trust Racing was switching chassis manufacturers. They are not going to the ALMS, but rather going to be the front-runner for the new Dallara chassis. It looks like the rest of the top teams will be back, so the exodus to the ALMS isn't happening yet, though the 2008 grid will probably be smaller than the 2007 one.

Chip Ganassi Racing to the ALMS? Update 3

Well Waddle still thinks that Chip Ganassi Racing will be doing Gran-Am next year, he still has his hopes up for 2009. This is when Toyota will probably introduce their GT racing car it will probably have a Lexus badge. Waddle believes that Chip Ganassi Racing will be there to be the top runner for this car. Waddle also believes that Chip Ganassi Racing will switch to Toyota for next season in NASCAR. Waddle doesn't know for sure if this will happen, but he is fairly sure that we should see some kind of announcement soon.

Zytek 07S News and Speculation

Well Waddle has decided to try and take a shot at predicting what the future Zytek 07S will look like. Unlike the Radical SR9, the future of the Zytek 07S looks really good. In Waddle's opinion the Zytek is probably the second best of the LMP2 cars, even better than the Acura ARX-01a. The 07S is also raced in LMP1 by Arena International Motorsport, but they haven't had much success there in LMP1. For next year in LMP1 it looks like Arena International Motorsport will continue on by themselves with the Zytek in LMP1. Although Waddle still thinks that they will be racing, he doesn't think that they will do a complete schedule, with maybe doing two or so rounds. Fortunately for Zytek things look a lot different in LMP2 with the 07S. Just the other day Barazi Epsilon announced their intentions to run a two car team with the Zytek in LMP2. They are a good team and having two cars should really help Zytek, though Waddle has learned that they probably won't be the only team with Zyteks in LMP2. Waddle is fairly sure that Team LNT will have one if not two cars for LMP2. Waddle has also learned that with the way that the Zytek has performed in recent races they have a lot of interest in the 07S. They are already at work on building a new one, if not more than that. So we will probably see at least one if not two more than those that Waddle has already listed. That brings the total up to 1 possible in LMP1 and probably 4 if not 5 or 6 in LMP2. Unfortunately for those of us on the American side of the pond it doesn't look like any of these cars will be here for the regular season. So Waddle is looking forward to having several Zyteks on the track next year in the LMS and maybe some here for Petit Le Mans and Laguna Seca.

Radical SR9 News and Speculation

When the Radical SR9 was first introduced it was hailed as possibly one of the best LMP2 cars out there, and having a real shot at winning championships. Well things didn't quite turn out that way as Radical had hoped. It has hardly been the championship winning car, and it has been outclassed by the other LMP2 cars. Waddle has decided to try and find out what has become of this car and what its future looks like. Here in the ALMS it looks like it will be just Van der Steur Racing with one car, and probably just a few rounds if any. Things are better over in the LMS, but not much better. Since Embassy Racing dropped its Radicals and decided to make its own car things are going to be a lot worse next year than this year. Embassy was probably the best of the Radical teams, so this is a major blow to Radical. They are building their own prototype that is similar to the Radical SR9 so this could lure most customers away from buying a new SR9. This leaves Bruichladdich Radical, Damax, and Melchester with plans to race the SR9 next season. Bruichladdich Radical is kind of like a factory team (the owner of the team is a top man at Radical) so they will probably bring their SR9 to most of the rounds. Damax and Melchester have both announced intentions to race Radicals next season in the LMS. Waddle is not sure if their program will happen, but even if it does it will probably not have any real success as they will just be using second hand cars from Embassy andRollcentre. Waddle has learned that Radical hasn't sold any new car, despite offering them at bargain prices, so don't expect to see any teams with new cars. Maybe it is about time for Radical to start work on a new LMP2 or LMP1, because the SR9 is going nowhere fast.

News on Other RS Spyders Update 2

Waddle has now found another candidate which could be one of the rumored two car, ex-Indycar teams. This team is Lowes Fernandez Racing. They have been strongly rumored to be switching manufacturers next year. Zytek was one of the names that was thrown out, but Waddle thinks that they may be getting Porsche RS Spyders. They are an ex-Indycar team that would certainly be good enough to be getting the famed Porsche race car. It is no secret that they have been disappointed with this years package so a change for next year seems very likely. Waddle will continue to keep you posted as this 2008 ALMS season gets closer.

Speculation on Grand-Am 2008 Update 1

Waddle has previously said that he thought that SunTrust Racing would be switching manufacturers, but now Waddle believes that they could be switching to the ALMS. Their two top drivers Wane Taylor and Max Angelelli were present at PLM. This probably wouldn't mean anything, but SunTrust Racing is selling both of this years cars. Both of them are fairly new, and still very competitive. Though Waddle has learned that they are going to use one of them for the 24 hours of Daytona. They could easily do both Daytona and ALMS if they wanted to. This is what Waddle knows so far, and if they do make the switch to ALMS he doesn't know what car they would be racing, though it would probably be a prototype or a possibly GT1.

News on Other RS Spyders Update 1

Waddle now has strong reason to believe that one of these two car teams will be a Red Bull backed Cheever Racing. This combination would be perfect, as it perfectly fits the criteria that was laid down for these teams. Cheever Racing is an ex-Indycar team, so it passes that piece of information. Cheever Racing has strong links to Porsche, and they currently run a Porsche DP in Gran-Am. The question is where the money will come from, and Waddle believes that it will come from Red Bull. Cheever Racing and Red Bull have been partners before, and like Waddle has said Red Bull would be a perfect fit on a RS Spyder. Waddle really believes that this will happen, don't bet your life on it, but Waddle might.

New Blog Member

In case you haven't noticed we have added a new team member to this blog. He is Master Jedi Dan, and he will be serving as an editor for the blog. We welcome his help, but he is a big Corvette fan, so Waddle has his doubts about him. Thank you for reading.

The Management

Don't forget, anyone can leave a comment, so please feel free to do so. Also if you have a question for Waddle you can email him by selecting his user profile and then clicking on the link labeled email.

And What About the CET Solari RS Spyder? Update 1 and News on Other RS Spyders

In the wonderful wide world of sportscar and gt racing, Waddle has come up with some more information on this subject. Some of it is updates, and some more beloved speculation. The update is loosely related, which is that it has been leaked that there will be at least two new two car teams running RS Spyders next year. Both these teams have supposedly run IRL teams before, which really narrows down the teams that it could be. Waddle strongly believes that one of these teams will be Red Bull Racing which would perfectly fit the model that we have leaned of. This would eliminate them as being one of the potential customers of the CET Solari RS Spyder, because they will probably just buy two all-new cars. This means that the CET Solari car is still out for sale, but Waddle is almost sure we will see it next year in the ALMS. This bring the total number of RS Spyders on the grids next year that we know about to eleven car. The Empire truly has struck back.

And What About the CET Solari RS Spyder?

Waddle was just thinking on what would happen to the Porsche RS Spyder that CET has, but are apparently not going to race. Some people think that it is going to go to Europe, Waddle thinks that unless it has already been sold it will probably stay here in America. If it has already been sold Waddle thinks that it was to Horag racing, which it was leaked today that they will be getting a RS Spyder for next year. If it is still here in the states, Waddle thinks that it is probably just a matter of time before it is sold, if it is not already. The only way that we won't see it on the 2008 ALMS grid, is if CET sold the car back to Porsche Motorsport North America. Waddle thinks that this is unlikely because CET could get a lot more money selling it to another team that to PMNA. Conzus Motorsport is strongly rumored to be getting a RS Spyder for next year, but this is probably a chassis that they bought strait from Porsche in Germany. So this leaves one major option, and that is CET Solari selling it to another team. Since we have seen the RS Spyder do so well there are plenty of teams that would like to get their hands on that car, but it is going to cost them a whole caboodle of cash. One such organization which can come up with this kind of money is Red Bull. Waddle is surprised with the strong links between Red Bull and VW Group and Porsche AG that there isn't already a Red Bull RS Spyder. Red Bull has more than enough dough to race a RS Spyder at a very competitive level, and PMNA would have no problem assisting them due to their already close ties. This seems to be the only team that would have a very good chance of getting this car right now, but Waddle will keep you posted as this story develops.

Speculation on Grand-Am 2008

Well now that the 2007 season is over, Waddle decided to try and come up with what he could, to try to figure out what will happen in the 2008 season. Now it looks like Chip Ganassi Racing is going to stay for now, and Waddle doesn't think that many teams if any will jump ship to the ALMS. The real big news is that there could be at least two new chassis in the Gran-Am series. One would be a Lola, and the other a Dallara. There are probably going to be some new engines next year, like the rumored Porsche V8, and maybe another. With these new chassis and engines next year, some teams will probably be moving around to a different manufacturer. Waddle doesn't know that names of these teams yet, but some high level teams may be on the move so they can be the number one of their manufacturer. Waddle has seen some evidence that Suntrust could be one of those team, but he does not know for sure. Murphy the Bear thinks that since the Gran-Am series will have a few support races for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, that some big NASCAR teams may want to start a Grand-Am team. There is a possibility of this since the Pontiac engine can also be badger as a Chevrolet, and Ford has some engines already in the Gran-Am and has been reportedly been working a lot more on them. And since Roush-Yates engine shop does practically all the Ford engines, including the Gran-Am spec engines, there could be a real possibility of a Roush or Yates team in the Grand-Am series. Also if Chevy paid RCR or Hendrick enough they would start a Grand-Am team. So it looks like Grand-Am will probably survive for a while longer, but at the cost of becoming more, and more a stock car racing series.

Waddle Goes to the Fair and Learns Something that he is not Supposed to While he is There

Like the title proclaimed our little friend Waddle did go to the fair, and he did learn something that he wasn't supposed to while he was there. Despit how much fun the fair is, the pull of all things automotive was too strong for Waddle to resist, and he started his quest to find something automotive. He was orriginally hoping to find some kind of dirt-track racers, but alas no he did not find anything of that sort. But in his desperation he came upon a large Toyota Tundra setup and since his hatred for Toyota he had to go over and do his thing. After looking at all the trucks that they had there, he decided to talk with a salesman to see how much he knew. Waddle was hoping to talk to one of the official-looking people with the nice polo shirts, but he had to settle with the cowboy looking guy with a rub-on tatoo on his arm. Waddle decided to get strait to the point and asked the salesman about one of the comercials that was playing on an anoyingly loud, high-def, big screen TV. Waddle already knew that the comercial was rigged, and the wording had to be very specific in order to be true. Waddle then changed the wording, to the wrong that most people understood it as, and asked the salesman about it. The salesman completely skirted around the question, and used a bunch of random facts to make it seem like he had an answer, even though he didn't. Waddle understood all that he was saying even to the point of hearing the contradictions that he spurted out. Waddle then figured that he can't get a strait answer on any of the many flaws of the Tundra, so he moved on to what was probably more important questions. Waddle then asked him about the rumored heavy-duty versions of the Tundra that Toyota has been trying to hide. To his suprise the salesman went strait to the point and told Waddle that Toyota had told him that they are going to make the heavy-duty versions of the Tundra. After discovering how lose lipped he was Waddle decided to get some specifics of the heavy-duty trucks. Waddle learned that Toyota will make a 1ton diesel version, but no 3/4 ton version. The 3/4 ton will be made up for by a factory or dealer installed supercharger for the horsepower and torque increase. The salesman was so confident in the fact that Toyota would be doing all this that he was telling people to go to their local dealership and reserve theirs today. So even though there was no motorsport related stuff, Waddle did have a good time uncovering what he could, and he is already thinking of what he can get from some unsuspecting salesman next year.

Chip Ganassi Racing to the ALMS? Update 2

After losing the championship on Saturday in the Grand-Am series, it now appears that Chip Ganassi racing will be back in the Grand-Am series for 2008. So now if they go to the ALMS it looks like it will be a 2009 GT2, probably based off the Toyota sports car that the rumors are getting stronger for every month. Unless they are getting enough money to run a complete schedule both, or run part-time in both it looks like they will be just doing the Grand-Am series for 2008.

Please feel free to leave a comment on any post.

Name Change

By some time next week our little author Waddle will change thew name of his blog from www.zacbauer.blogspt.com to www.thepenguinwaddle.blogspot.com. Zac Bauer is the loving and caring owner of Waddle, and he has decided to let him name his blog after himself. Thanks for your cooperation.
The Management

Speculation on News From Silverstone

This is Waddle's speculation on what will happen after the announcements made at Silverstone today. The LMP2 form Embassy Racing, he expects it to do well, the Radical has done well without the best of everything, but he does not think that it will be quite on pace with the other top runners in the grid, unless it has as much development time and money as the Porsche RS Spyder has. It seems like Embassy is intending to sell their cars to other teams, but for next year we will probably just see it in the LMS with at most, four cars. The really big one is the new alliance between Courage and Oreca. They said at the press conference today that they are developing a new LMP1 prototype together. It will probably be a coupe, possibly with a road car manufacturer's name plate on it. If it does have the road car manufacturer's name plate on it Waddle is guessing that it will be Honda/Acura, or some French manufacturer like Renault or Citroen , because both Courage and Oreca are French. The prototype will be ready in either 2008 or 2009, but with the way manufacturers operate it may do some races at the end of 2008, but we probably won't see it until after the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This means that Oreca will probably keep the Saleens for a short while longer. This is what Waddle thinks will happen with these new cars as next season looks very promising for fans of all the Le Mans racing series.

News From Silverstone

Today at Silverstone, there were two big announcements that will probably have a greater impact on sports car racing than the race there, the Silverstone 1000k. First Embassy Racing made their big announcement about what they will do for next season after they made the very bold remark about them competing for the win each time. They will build their very own prototype, though it will not be started from scratch. It will be a continuation of the Radical SR-9, which is the car that they race now. The head designer from the SR-9 project was also the chief designer and engineer for this new prototype. It will be called the WF-01, and use a Zytek engine. The second big announcement was that Oreca the team that has done so well with their Saleen S-7Rs has bought out Courage Competition. It is unclear they will operate together if Oreca continues to use the Saleens. Speculation from Waddle on what will become of these situations is soon to come.

Chip Ganassi Racing to the ALMS? Update 1

Well our little friend has been searching all over the place for information, and it seems like he may have found something. It now seems like the outcome of the last race in the Grand-Am series this Saturday will play a big role in what Chip Ganassi decides to do next year. If the #01 car wins the race, they will win the championship then there is a good chance that they will leave for the ALMS in 2008. If they do not win the championship then they will probably decide to stay in the Grand-Am series for at least another year so they can try again to win the championship. This is what Waddle has learned so far, but it may not be for a few months that he has another update.

Chip Ganassi Racing to the ALMS?

One thing that has been bothering our fair little penguin is the possibility of Chip Ganassi leaving Grand-Am for the ALMS. Contrary to many others beliefs on this topic, Waddle believes that this will happen. The big question is will it be a venture with Toyota, probably with the Lexus nameplate, or with some other manufacturer. The program would probably take place in either 2008 or 2009 with the later more likely. If it was 2008 it would probably be a LMP2 prototype. This way Toyota can compete with Acura and Porsche. Acura is a big rival to Lexus, and with their supposed high performance cars that they will be coming out with soon Lexus hopes to be considered a rival of Porsche. If it is 2009 it will probably be a GT2 car, the car will probably be based on the IS-F coupe that is supposed to compete with the BMW M3 which is going to return to GT2 that year. This is probably what will happen if they do decide to go with Toyota. An indicator of Ganassi's relationship with Toyota is whether or not he will sign with Toyota when his current contract with Dodge is up in NASCAR. If he does not go with Toyota, I think that he will race a Radical SR-9 in 2008, although the engine manufacture might be a new one that he gets a contract with. This is all that the Penguin knows knows now, but he will keep you updated on what he knows on this very potent situation.

If you have any thoughts, concerns, or the hebetebejebies on this topic please feel free to leave a coment.

Porsche 997 911 GT3 RSR vs. Ferrari F430 GT

In GT2 racing in all the series that it exists in these are the only two competitive cars that are fighting for the win in each race. The Ferrari has a big advantage in that it started racing last year, and the Porsche didn't start to race until this year. Earlier this year, the Ferrari won all the races, until the Porsche won at Valencia in the Le Mans Series in Europe. After that the Porsches have had a lot of good luck when the Ferraris have had all the bad luck. At 24 Hours of Le Mans the Ferraris lead for most of the race until the morning when the leading Ferrari went over an oil spill and the Porsches took the lead and the class win. In the two most recent ALMS races the Flying Lizard Motorsport Porsches have won, though they were fast they probably would not have won if the Ferraris didn't have bad luck. There was one race that the Porsches didn't have to rely on good luck to win and that was 24 Hours of Spa where Porsche took 1-2-3 podium sweep in GT2. Even though the Porsches are winning they are probably still slower than the Ferraris and we will have to wait for next year when both cars have been out for a while to see which one is the better GT2 car.

Please feel free to leave comments on any post.

Marco Andretti in F1

There has been a lot of rumors going around about Marco Andretti trying to eventually to get a ride in F1. He is currently in the IRL, which still has most of its courses as ovals, instead of road courses. He is better on road courses than he is on ovals, which is a good thing if he is trying to get a ride in F1. There are reports that he has had two test drivers for Honda F1. Honda F1 has not been very competitive this year, unlike they were last year. With Rubens Barchello getting old, and Jensen Button looking to leave Honda because of their lack of speed in F1 this year, it is likely that a seat could open up there soon. But he has had very little experience in F1 with just the two test drives, when compared to Honda's test drivers, and the Super Aguri F1 drivers. Super Aguri is now basically the Honda B team, so Honda may want one of their drivers to come up to their team. This means that he could get a seat at Super Aguri F1, which could be a stepping stone to get onto a better team. Because Sebastian Bourdais will probably go to Toro Rosso F1, he will be vacating a seat at Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing in Champ Car, and it is rumored that Marco will take his seat. Gram Rahal is the other driver there, and he is also a young American looking to get into F1, so Marco would fit right in with that team. If Bourdais does really well in F1, then F1 teams may start looking more to Champ Car for drivers, which if Marco is there on one of the best teams, he could get a spot on a decent F1 team such as Williams or Renault. Right now Marco is younger than all the drivers in F1, so he still has a long time to develop his skills, and chose what course is best if he wants to get into F1.

Survival of GT1

Recently the ACO released their plans for 2011 and the years following. The four classes that they currently have will be changed into what will probably be three classes. LMP1 will join GT1 and become one class called something like LMPC. The cars in this class will be prototype coupes, with styling similar to the road cars that the manufacture makes. This is the reason that GT1 will get killed off in the ACO sanctioned races. LMP2 will continue as it is, just without any manufactures. GT2 will be called GT and it will be a combination of what now know as GT2 and GT3. Because the FIA is still separate from the ACO there will be some problems as some of the manufactures in FIA GT1 will stop making GT1 cars and just make prototypes. Fortunately there are now several smaller supercar makers that are interested in making a GT1 car. These supercar makers are too small to start a large prototype team, so the FIA will probably rely on these makers to manufacture the cars for the FIA GT championship. So as long as there are small companies making GT1 cars, the GT1 class will probably be able to survive.

Junior's New Ride at Hendrick

In the past few weeks Jr. has signed a new contract with Hendrick motorsports, so he will race for them in 08, and probably longer. One of the reasons that he was able to get a ride with the best team in NASCAR is simply because he is the son of Dale Earnhardt, who is still regarded as on of the best NASCAR drivers in history. Although, I don't think that he is anywhere as good as his father was, and he really isn't that great of a driver. His teammate Martin Truex Jr. is further ahead of him in the rankings, which shows that he does have a competitive car. The real reason that Rick Hendrick brought him to the team, is because he sells more merchandise and gets more sponsorship money than any other driver in NASCAR. This way Hendrick can make some money of this deal, even though he really just gets an average driver.

2008 Ferrari LMP2 Bio-Diesel

There has been a lot of talk about Ferrari returning to Le Mans racing with a Bio-Diesel powered LMP2 race car. Apparently because it is a Bio-Diesel its fuel type is classified as Bio fuel and not diesel. Diesels are baned in LMP2, so because of the fuel classification that it has, it will be able to compete legally without any rule alterations. The chassis is going to be made by Pilbeam, a company that has been building LMP chassis for a few years. Unfortunately for Ferrari Pilbeam has so far been uncompetitive, and they have only raced in Europe, which means they have not come to the gladiator fight that is happening in ALMS LMP2. The reason that ALMS LMP2 is critical to Ferrari's plans is because that is where the Porsches are right now, and they have stated that the reason that they want to come back to prototype racing is so they can challenge the Porsches. There is supposed to be a privateer team running Porsches in Europe next year, so if they decide to go there they will still have to face the Porsches. The engine for the race car is supposed to come from an Alfa Romero production based diesel. This engine is supposed to make about 400 horsepower, but without the smaller restricters that they are going to have at Lime Rock the Porsches are making 480 horsepower, with the smaller restricters I estimate that they will have about 450 horsepower. 50 horsepower is a huge difference in modern racing, and the only way that it can be made up for is with the better fuel economy that the Bio-diesel will have. Unfortunately Bio-diesel is not as efficient as normal diesel, and if we look at the results of the 2007 24 hours of Le Mans we can see that having more economy and power don't win you the race. In the photo of the car that was provided it seemed that Schumacher himself was driving the car, but many people say that it was altered. Even with Schumacher was one of the drivers, the difference is too great to make up. If this car does get the support and the backing it needs for running in LMP2 for next year, I think that it will probably just embarrass the Ferrari name that is so well respected in motorsports.

First Post

Hello, this is my first post on my new blog. My main interest is in motorsports so this is probably what I will write about in this blog. Hopefully I can put some stuff about the author Waddle so you can get to know him.