Happy Birthday to all round racer and current Daytona Prototype sports car driver Memo Gidley (born 9/29/69)

A round -up of some of the stories from the last week that caught my eye but didn’t get a full post.

FORMULA ONE

• After the takeover by the Spyker group it seems that former Midland Sporting Director and GP winner Johnny Herbert no longer has a place on the team. 
• Indian GP driver Narain Karthikeyan will stay at Williams in the test driver role for 2007.

NASCAR

• Ex F1 star Juan Pablo Montoya will make his stock car debut in an ARCA race at Talledega on October 6th.

CHAMP CAR

• It seems that a couple of European races are being lined up to fill the September gap in the previously announced 2007 schedule.

IRL

• The opening race of the 2007 Indy Car season at Homestead will be an evening event run under the lights.

GP2

• A series of four “winter” test sessions has been scheduled for the GP2 runners before the start of the 2007 season.

A1-GP

• A total of 23 teams and 42 drivers have been announced for the upcoming second season of the “World Cup Of Motor Sports.”  
• Dutch star Jos Verstappen pulls out of his national team at their home event in an apparent dispute over appearence money.

Rudolf Caracciola was one of the greats during the early days of Motor Racing prior to World War II. He started racing at the age of 22 while working as a salesman at the Mercedes factory. After three years of being a “weekend racer” he decided to enter the first German Grand Prix at the banked Avus track in Berlin, To the amazement of the 500,000 strong crowd after starting dead last and spending time in the pits repairing a misfiring engine he won the event. Caracciola fast developed a reputation for his prowess in the rain and soon earned the title of Regenmeister (Rainmaster).

He soon became famous throughout Europe for his skill behind the wheel of his white SSK Mercedes. As well as Grand Prix racing he also scored major victories in legendary sports car races such as the Tourist Trophy and the Mille Miglia (the first non-Italian to win the event). He also won the European hillclimb championship in 1930.

During the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix he was involved in a major accident which left him with permanent injuries and a pronounced limp. Yet he returned to racing and won several more Grands Prix as well as the “European Driving Championship (the precursor to today’s modern F1 World Championship) three times between 1935 and 1938.

During the War he stayed in exile in Switzerland but couldn’t resist the racing bug and after the end of hostilities he tried to qualify for the Indy 500 in the late 1940s but crashed during practice. He was still racing in the Mille Miglia as late as 1952 but age and injuries took their toll and he retired after breaking his leg during a Swiss sports car event.

Rudolf Caracciola eventually succumbed to his various injuries and died from a bone disease on September 28th, 1959 at the age of 58.

Happy Birthday today to former NHRA drag racers Gene Snow, (born 9/28/37)

and Mike Dunn (born 9/28/56),

sports car driver Ron Fellows (born 9/28/59)

ex Formula One driver Erik Comas (born 9/28/63) 

and ex-F1 World Champion and current DTM driver Mikka Hakkinen (born 9/28/68)

World Rally champion Sebastian Loeb broke his right arm on Tuesday after going over the handlebars of his mountain bike during a training session. The injury has been operated on, but Loeb will not be fit enough to participate in the upcoming Rally of Turkey and the Australian Rally may also be in doubt. His place on the Citroen team may be taken by ex-Ford works driver Toni Gardemeister.