Fresh off a fourth-place finish in the GTD category yesterday at the Rolex 24, IndyCar Series rookie Mikhail Aleshin will get back to open-wheel work tomorrow at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he’ll take his rookie oval test.
The driver of the No. 55 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda, a product of various European series such as Formula Renault 3.5 and the GP2 Series, has never competed on an oval before. Needless to say, tomorrow should be an interesting day for him.
“It will be very important for me because I never have tested on an oval so I am looking forward to it,” he said. “We had some time working on this test with the team at the shop so I’m quite happy to say that the team has really helped me a lot to get all the details fast.
“Ovals will be something really special for me. I’m looking forward to the start of the season.”
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When IndyCar Series team owner/driver Ed Carpenter won the pole position for last year’s Indianapolis 500, he became the first Indiana native to pull off the feat since Pat O’Connor did it in 1957.
Now, Carpenter has an award that’s named after O’Connor, who lost his life one year later at Indianapolis in a first-lap accident. Carpenter was given the Pat O’Connor Award from the Hoosier Auto Racing Fans group during a banquet ceremony yesterday.
The award is voted on by the group’s executive board and is given to a driver for the Midwestern U.S. that in turn gives “devotion, cooperation, and constant effort to make auto racing the sport of which they are proud.”
Past winners of the award include NASCAR superstar Jeff Gordon, former Indy 500 champion Eddie Cheever Jr., and another current IndyCar team owner, Sarah Fisher.