After a forty year gap a US Grand Prix returned to the raod racing scene in America, this time with an event at the Riverside International Raceway in southern California. The 1958 United States Grand Prix was an unofficial non-points scoring event that wasn’t associated with, or sanctioned by, the FIA as an official Formula One World Championship event. In fact the event was for sports cars and counted as part of the USAC road-racing championship. It was won by Chuck Daigh driving a Scarab-Chevrolet. Daigh was one of the Scarab engineering crew before stepping into the drivers role. He would go on to compete in six official F1 points scoring GPs during the 1960 season. He remains the last American driver to have won a “United States Grand Prix.”

The Riverside course of the late 1950s was a fast and dangerous course that included a back straight just over a mile long.

I’ve been sick for most of this weekend, so I ended up slumped on the sofa in front of the TV a lot more than I usually do. As a result I ended up watching about 10 hours of the SPEED TV coverage of the Rolex 24 Hours race from Daytona.

In no particular order, here are a few random thoughts that occured to me while watching the coverage.

•  I love modern enduranc racing, thanks to the improved car  strength the reliabilty runs of the past have been replced by every hour being run as if it were a 50 lap sprint. There was more action here than most Grands Prix and NASCAR (whatever it’s called this year) Cup races.
• Can SPEED have Bob Varsha and David Hobbs call every major race they cover?
• Pit reporter Calvin Fish asks some great questions, but does he have to call everyone he talks to “mate.”?
• This was a true International Race of Champions, it would have been even better if we’d had a few of the top F1 guys there too.  How about the FIA, NASCAR and the IRL get together and  mandate that the top three finishers in their respective championships have to run the following year’s Daytona 24 Hours. – Ah I can dream.
• I give it 2 years before Roger Penske is dominating the Rolex 24.
• Congratulations to the Chip Ganassi organization for their third straight victory. It was well deserved.

For the second year in a row it was a Chip Gannasi owned car that crossed the finish line first to take overall win at the Rolex 24 Hour race held this weekend at Daytona. While the owner, car and sponsorship may have been familiar from last year, it was a different driver line up with veteran sporst car racer Scott Pruett being joined by Rolex rookies Juan Pablo Montoya and Salvador Duran.

Montoya’s win means he becomes the first person to win the Rolex 24, the Indy 500 and the Monaco Grand prix. A good start to his new career on the American racing circuit as he prepares for the upcoming Daytona 500 and the new NASCAR season.

The trio’s Lexus Riley (below) was strong contender all through the event leading the majority of laps. After 24 hours of racing the 01 winning car finished just 1m15.842sec ahead of the No. 11 Pontiac Riley driven by Milka Duno, Patrick Carpentier, Darren Manning and Ryan Dalziel.

With just an hour to go there were three cars still on the lead lap, but the third placed No. 10 Sun Trust Pontiac Riley of  Jan Magnussen, Max Angelelli, Wayne Taylor and Jeff Gordon suffered brake problems which dropped it out of contention, but it still limped home in third place two lpas down.

Happy Birthday to sports car racer, Champ-Car team owner and sometime actor Paul Newman (born 1/26/25)

(and that number 80 on the side of the car – that was his age – and he won the race!)

Happy Birthday to NASCAR legend Buddy Baker (born 1/25/41),

drag racer Gary Bolger (born 1/25/44),

sports car racer Doc Bundy (born 1/25/46),

and ex-Grand Prix driver and long time Ferrari test driver Luca Badoer (born 1/25/71).