Kenzie Ruston on right track to follow Danica Patrick’s road to racing success

By Sep 19, 2014, 6:45 PM EDT
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Kenzie Ruston can relate so well to NASCAR star Danica Patrick.

Just like when Patrick was working her way up through the racing ranks early on in her own career, Ruston has also had to outwork other male drivers for virtually everything she’s achieved up to now.

“When I was younger, (fellow racers) thought of me as a girl first and then a racer,” Ruston told MST recently. “I feel that the older I’ve gotten, you race more older guys and they kind of understand. Once you earn their respect, they respect you and they kind of race you the way you race them.

“It’s definitely gotten easier. Back then, I used to just got taken out instead of raced. I feel nowadays, I actually get raced. I may get raced tougher at times, but you earn their respect and they race you with respect.”

Not surprisingly, Ruston has patterned her career after Patrick. But while the pride and joy of Roscoe, Ill., took a path to open-wheel and eventually IndyCar racing first before moving to NASCAR, Ruston is focused solely on making it to the Sprint Cup world.

Patrick has given her great advice on what to expect, and Ruston has put those lessons into practice.

“I just asked her all she went through, how difficult it was, how she handled some situations because being a girl,” Ruston said of the first time she met Patrick two years ago. “You sometimes have to handle things a little bit different than the guys.”

Not only has she applied Patrick’s advice to her own career, the K&N Pro Series East driver is now finding herself being somewhat of a mentor to other young girls coming up through the racing ranks.

“Girls in go-karts, Legend cars and all that always ask me for advice,” Ruston said. “I just tell them that there’s a lot of people that are going to tell them they can’t do it, so I’ve always told them just not to let that get to them or into their head and use that as fire.

“Instead of fueling the fire, just use that to fight for what you want. That’s always been my goal, to prove everybody wrong.”

The 22-year-old El Reno, Okla., native has come a long way in a relatively short period of time, having started racing at the age of 13.

“I grew up around racing,” Ruston said. “My dad grew up racing motorcycles, dirt bikes and stuff, and that’s what I wanted to do. But he never would let me on a dirt bike, so when he remarried, my stepmom’s grandfather raced dirt cars. I was always around the track, scraping dirt and all that. I was always hands-on and I told my dad this was something that I really want to try.

“We went to a track in Texas where you can rent a school car for like $20 bucks for 10 laps. A funny story, some guy came up to my dad and said, ‘Hey, your son would be really good if he was in a (race) car.’ My dad told him, ‘That’s not my son, that’s my daughter.’ I was 13 back then. I got my own (Bandalero) car a few months later and started racing.”

Her apprenticeship was admittedly rough not just due to oftentimes rough treatment from male drivers as well as her own mistakes. But once Ruston got the hang of things, she began advancing quickly.

After moving to the ranks of Legends cars at the age of 16, she enjoyed outstanding success.

“That summer I got like 39 wins or something,” Ruston said. “I won the national championship and I told my father that I thought this was something I wanted to pursue and to make it my career. I moved to Charlotte the next year when I was 17 and I’ve been chasing the dream ever since.”

She’s definitely on the right track.

Last year in K&N Pro Series East, she finished sixth in the final standings, the highest finish by a female driver in series history. She started 14 races and finished with four top-five and six top-10s.

This season, with one race remaining next week at Dover, Del., she’s eighth in the standings after 15 races, with three top-fives and seven top-10s.

She also became the highest-finishing female driver in K&N Series history when she finished runner-up at Iowa Speedway last month.

She’s in good company: she’s racing this season for Ben Kennedy Racing. Kennedy is the great-grandson of late NASCAR founder Bill France, Jr., the grandson of the late Bill France Jr., and son of International Speedway Corporation president Lisa France Kennedy.

Ruston, who turns 23 next month, is the only female member of this year’s NASCAR Next class, but with the racing chops she has acquired over the last decade-plus, she’s at home with other young up-and-coming drivers such as Ben Rhodes, Erik Jones, Gray Gaulding, Brandon McReynolds (son of Fox Sports NASCAR analyst Larry) and others.

Ruston expects to return to the K&N Series for a third straight year next season, but definitely has aspirations of moving up from there and eventually into NASCAR’s three pro ranks.

“I’ve never wanted to move up too fast,” Ruston said. “I’ve never wanted to go faster than my abilities. I’ve always wanted to prove myself at every level.

“My ideal next five years, I’d like to run one more season in K&N while also running five or six Truck races and then maybe a full Truck schedule the following year, stay in Trucks for a couple of years, and then move on to the Nationwide Series.”

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‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
IndyCar Detroit downtown
James Black/Penske Entertainment
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DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

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Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and two red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500