2008 October 02 | Roslan-Racing Blog

Archive for October 2nd, 2008

Stanton Barrett: Mourning Mentor Paul Newman; Making His Move To Indy Racing

Oct 2, 2008 NASCAR

This week has been a series of highs and lows for California extreme sports enthusiast Stanton Barrett. His high came when he announced his move to the Indy Car series in 2009. But his exciting announcement was overshadowed by one of the lowest moments in his life, the loss of his mentor and godfather Paul Newman.

Barrett is one of the most multi-talented sports enthusiasts ever. He was born on

December 1, 1972 in Bishop, California. His immediate family and heredity has played a mighty role in his sports interests and developing expertise.

Stanton’s grandfather, Dave McCoy, was an avid skier and coached the US Olympic Team. His mother, Penny, was also a champion skier, and a member of the US Olympic Team.

Father Stan was a stunt man in Hollywood, and also a race car driver. He was the first person to beat the speed of sound in a car. He raced in the then Winston Cup series for ten years, from 1980 to 1990. Stan Barrett was also good friends with Paul Newman, who encouraged his racing career and Hollywood endeavors.

With this genetic background, it was only a matter of time before young Stanton Barrett became involved in athletics. He began go kart racing as a boy, winning 21 of the 28 races in which he was entered.

Barrett then moved on to make his NASCAR racing debut in 1992 in the then Busch series (now Nationwide series). For his very first race, he started on the outside pole.

But the years after that brilliant start have not been so kind to Barrett. He has moved from team to team and struggled to retain critical sponsorship dollars. Barrett bounced from the Nationwide to the Cup series, trying to find that one ride that would get him into the show on a full-time basis.

In 2005, Stanton attempted to run another part-time Cup schedule under the banner of Front Row Motorsports. When that endeavor failed, he reconstituted the team under his own name, Stanton Barrett Motorsports.

From 2006 to 2007, Barrett continued to struggle, trying to make races and find sponsorship dollars. This year, he decided to run a limited schedule of four races for his own team in the Nationwide series.

After fifteen years of chasing the NASCAR racing dream, Stanton Barrett recently announced that he would be making a major move to the Indy series in 2009. While he will continue to run a very limited NASCAR schedule, he has hooked up with Greg Beck and Steve Sadler and will focus on driving the number 90 Curb/Agajanian, backed by Dallara-Honda, in 2009.

While thrilled about his new racing opportunity, Barrett continues to experiment in other areas of extreme sports. He is an avid snowmobile and motocross racer. Stanton is also passionate about extreme skiing.

While most drivers focus solely on racing, Stanton Barrett has followed in his father’s footsteps as well, becoming an expert stunt man himself. He has done stunts in over 150 movies and has doubled for many Hollywood actors. Some of his better known film credits include The Dukes of Hazard, Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, Rat Race, Batman, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

This Hollywood connection is no doubt how Barrett met his father’s friend, Paul Newman, who became such a special part of his life, acting as godparent. Newman most certainly was a prime role model for Stanton’s career, including movies, racing and other sports.

But there was another significant way in which the legendary Paul Newman influenced Stanton Barrett and that was in the area of philanthropy. In his lifetime, Newman established his own business, donating millions of profits to charity.

Stanton Barrett has followed closely in Newman’s charitable footsteps, forming the nonprofit 4Caring.org. The mission of the charity is threefold; the first being to fund programs that comfort people in crisis, like children waiting in ICU or critical care rooms.

The second aspect of the charity is to raise money to support bobsledding teams that are having difficulty raising funds to compete.

The third area of support of the 4Caring.org charity is to provide hunting and fishing opportunities for handicapped children. This multi-dimensional approach to helping others is simply a reflection of the many and varied aspects and interests of Barrett’s own life.

This week, Stanton Barrett must certainly have been celebrating his newest venture into Indy car racing. But that celebration must have been short-lived, with the shattering news of Paul Newman’s passing.

Just as Paul Newman impacted so many, so too will Stanton Barrett, in the next chapter of his life. Stanton certainly has big shoes to fill. But whether he is racing cars or raising money to help others, Barrett will no doubt do his godfather Newman proud.

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Marcos Ambrose to team up with MWR for 2009

Oct 2, 2008 NASCAR

A “technical alliance” if you will.

According to jayski’s website, this afternoon will see an announcement that, for the first time since before the millennium ticked over, Marcos Ambrose will not be racing for the blue oval in 2009, as JTG Daugherty Racing will share technology with Michael Waltrip Racing.

While owner Brad Daugherty says otherwise, there will more or less be a fourth MWR car. Ambrose will still be using the No. 47 and still have the Little Debbie sponsorship, it just will be with a Toyota badge rather than a Ford one.

Under the agreement, JTG Daugherty will get the same chassis, engines, and techno-info-sharing that Waltrip receives from TRD. Daugherty reckons this deal will put them about two years ahead of schedule, since they would have been relying on, most likely, the Nationwide Series notes that Ambrose has picked up the past couple of seasons (which would be very rough, since the cars are not even remotely similar anymore).

Based on the recent performances by both Waltrip and David Reutimann, this may prove to be a good move for Ambrose who, as he proved at both Watkins Glen and Dover (until damage, he was running in the top 15), can run with the big boys and will surely be a huge help to MWR with its road course program.

I must say that I feel better about this than Ambrose running by himself…and—no disrespect to the Wood Brothers, who have helped Ambrose enormously since 2006 when he entered the Truck series—he might wind up being a little more competitive than I previously thought.

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Spice Up Formula 1 Friday Practice With $1million Jackpot

Oct 2, 2008 Formula One

If any of you have been to a Friday practice session you’ll know its a bit boring. The cars run tbree laps to see if the set-up is good, they then leave the track and make a few changes. Then the process starts again. This is the same for all 10 teams.

So, how do you spice things up for the crowd? Why not introduce a $1 million (£580,000) jackpot for the driver who does the fastest lap in a short shoot-out after the practice.

Well this is one of the idea’s thought up by the F1 teams at a recent meeting. With current Friday practice sessions lasting two and a half hours, fans who turn up to the track to watch the cars are finding it a little boring.

The main idea proposed is to introduce a shoot-out session in which a driver can win $1,000,000 if they post the quickest lap. I personally find this ludicrous.

Do the drivers need more money? Will the richer ones just not bother and let the lower paid drivers shoot it out? What if they crash on Friday, and can’t race on Sunday, would they take this risk? How about donating the money to charity? What about a jackpot for a lucky fan?

This isn’t the only idea proposed by the teams. They have also thought about cutting it down to 45 minutes in the hope teams will use the time for more testing rather than tweaking, or introduce a different tyre compound, an ultra soft or hard which they all have to run, and then see who sets the fastest lap.

Is this is all an idea to boost ratings and attendance? Do you think it would work?

Another idea could be to give each driver an identical car to race round the track, and have a mini-race. The car’s could change at each race, from a mini to a high performance track car such as an Aerial Atom. Do you prefer this idea?

The teams will meet again and have a creative session between China and Brazil.

I want to hear your ideas to make F1 Friday practice sessions more exciting for the attending fans, lets see if you can do better than the teams…

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Mexico joins Team GBR on missing list

Oct 2, 2008 A1GP

Team Mexico has become the second A1GP squad to withdraw from the opening round of the fourth A1GP World Cup of Motorsport, citing delays of the new car’s build schedule

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Vermeulen aiming for podium at home

Oct 2, 2008 MotoGP

Suzuki rider Chris Vermeulen is confident he can score a podium finish at his home race at Phillip Island this weekend, adding to the two he has already notched up this season in Germany and Laguna Seca.

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