Washington DC

Hello Race and Blog fans. I have missed you all. We are back and preparing for another awesome season of A1 GP World Cup of Motorports. Our first race in Holland is less then a month away. We have completed our first test session and are scheduled to participate in the second test session in Silverstone, England on September 18. The test session will be followed by eleven exciting races. The crew has rebuilt, inspected and prepared our “We the People” car. I must say,  we have put together an amazing crew and driver line up for our third year of A1 GP.  We have most of our team back plus we have added two American mechanics to the crew. This has been a goal of ours from day one but European racing, we have found out, is very different and on a different level then American racing. We will also be combining race engineering with another A1 GP team this season [more on a later blog]. Today, we want to talk with you about the results of our test session and our driver selection. You all have probably noticed that there has been much written in the media lately about the tough but good choices in driver selection A1 TEAM USA is facing for this coming season.

Buddy Rice and Jonathan Summerton were invited to test for A1 TEAM USA.  During our test last week, it was interesting to note how Buddy and Jonathan worked with the team at Silverstone. Buddy is very techanical and thrives on the technology of what he is driving. He really loves cars - old, new, slow or fast. He sat down with our new race engineer Leon Gutfreund and spoke in great detail about what he thought the car needed to go faster, even specifying changes on certain areas of the track. Once he became comfortable and confident in the car, he became fluent in his feedback and requirements - all without being arrogant or demanding. Observing Buddy, I am reminded of why mechanics and engineers love to work with him so much. Buddy is a guy’’s guy in that garage. This team owner is really going to enjoy working with him. It’’s funny too - I don'’t think anyone at A1 GP has a clue as to how valuable Buddy will be to the Series for his involvement with A1 TEAM USA. I do not think A1 GP is familiar with the creditability of a former Indy 500 winner. Emerson, who is also involved in A1 GP, is more known for his success in F1 at A1 then Indy 500. When Buddy does well in A1 GP, I believe America will take notice. Maybe I am just a diehard Indy 500 fan that thinks the 500 is the best sporting event in the world!

Jonathan takes a different approach and works more on feel. He has no problem muscling a car around the track, albeit very fast. He explains the problem to Leon and lets Leon decide how to fix it. Very different approaches yet they both ran lap times very, very close. Very promising for A1 TEAM USA.

I was pleased with our test. We ran 200 laps, a total of 450 miles. The car ran flawlessly and Buddy and Jonathan returned the car in one peice. All of our seat time was important as we needed laps to try and “test” different set-ups for the soon-to-start season. For sure you want to go fast any time you are on the track, however, getting good information and developing winning setups is the primary goal of “testing”. I have to remind myself of this goal every lap we test.

The weather was fantastic. Buddy drove the first day. It was his first time in the “We the People” car and he was thirteen in the morning session and tenth in the afternoon session. He completed 98 laps. There were plenty of drivers with plenty of experience in the A1 GP car, like South African’’s Adrian Zaugg, France’’s Nicolas Lapierre, Great Britain’’s Oliver Jarvis and Malaysia’’s Alex Yoong. They have all won A1 GP races.

Jonathan drove the second day. He hasn'’t raced much since the 2006-2007 A1 GP season finale at Brands Hatch. It was good to see him again. He made a good effort for the team to be in Silverstone as he was testing for VW in Germany. He was eighth in the morning session, running 51 laps, and ran 15 laps at the start of the afternoon session. Jonathan had our fastest lap of the test in the morning session, but we expected him too. The track was cool, which helps grip, and there was more of our Cooper tires rubber on the surface than when Buddy ran, which also helps grip. It was a good feeling to see how competitive we were and how we continued to make improvements. Jonathan was four-tenths of a second quicker than Buddy’’s best the previous day.

We made some changes before and during the lunch break but Jonathan was not able to match his best morning time in the afternoon. Then, Buddy got into the car and after undoing the changes that Jonathan had just made to the car before lunch, on lap 36, ran virtually the same time, .007 of a second slower then Jonathan’’s best time in the morning session. We think we will have a good car for the opener in Amsterdam and will confirm this during our second test on the 18th.

Overall, our team worked well together and with the drivers. It is important we all have the same goals and expectations. We are in sync! Leon had a plan and stuck to it. He calls his plan “putting tools in the tool box.” We are in real good shape on the team front. The business side of A1 GP is a bit more curious. More on that in a later blog.

We stayed at a nice hotel, the Whittlebury, that was near Silverstone and we enjoyed our time in the English countryside but this was certainly a working trip - as they all turn out to be for some sad yet necessary reason. The days, from 7 AM breakfast, track time from 9 to 5 PM and then on to 9 PM business dinners, made the four days in London fly bye. Buddy and I departed straight from the track after the second day of testing and checked into a hotel close to Heathrow Airport to spend the night. We were both scheduled to leave London early in the morning and the traffic in London can be brutal so we wanted to be close. Buddy and I had a quiet dinner together discussing A1 TEAM USA, the crew, the schedule, the car, the other teams, the other drivers, sponsors, the IRL, the Indy 500, A1 GP and his interest in the Series. He has expressed much interest in driving for A1 TEAM USA. The three hour dinner seemed like three minutes. Buddy headed to Detroit for his IRL race [which he was leading at one point but ended with a great result of seventh place - congrats Buddy!] and I went home to Washington DC. We successfully completed our first test session for the third season of A1 GP. It will be an interesting season and we expect to be in the top five!

We will strive to post frequent blog entires in order to keep our fans up-to-date on our progress. Please send comments and/or questions. Talk with you soon,  Rick Weidinger

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Beijing is a beautiful city but proved to be a tough race. Although there were several changes to the street course during the days leading up to the race, the bottomline for me is that it was a HISTORIC race for China and A1 GP - the World Cup of Motor Sport. I am proud to have been a small part of it. Mr. Liu [owner of Team China] and his company did a wonderful job presenting the open-wheel race to the world. I know he is already focused on the A1 GP Shanghai race scheduled for  April 15, 2007. Mr. Liu and I spent some quality time together after the Beijing race and have decided to combine the commercial operations of Team China and Team USA. We can now sell into each others markets regarding sponsorships etc. More on this later. We also got a chance to visit the Great Wall [took a chairlift up to the Mutianyu Great Wall section and a toboggan [sled on wheels] down 1580 meters to the foot of the Great Wall]. Thanks Andy for convincing me to go and joining me for another day in China that I will never forget. Racing down the Great Wall with you was a blast my friend! I admit, the second time down you were the fastest.  Andy is a part owner of Team China and has made our friendship and business with Team China develop and grow.

This weekend we have a race at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia. It is a tough and challenging circuit for the drivers. We did well in Malaysia last year with Bryan Herta [IRL and ALMS] driving for A1 TEAM USA.  Phil will be driving for A1 TEAM USA this weekend and is busy studying the circuit and collecting data on it. I hope Bryan and Phil have discussed the circuit together. We will be reporting back to you all through our pictures and press releases over the race weekend.

From a media perspective, we are still waiting on the conclusion of the Speed Channel TV deal. We understand there are current conversations between Speed and a third-party sponsor of the broadcast. I am still planning my December 6, 2006 Speed Channel party. In Beijing, we had a film and sound crew follow TEAM USA around on Sunday race day. They were with us and filmed the entire day including the Sunday evening Podium Party at the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing. We provided the film and sound crew full and unfettered access. We will be editing and producing a short clip for our web site and a 15 minute trailer for networks and certain publications with the objective of giving them a real, complete “insider’s view” of the strategy of performance, business and fun of A1 Team USA and A1 GP Series. Stay tune. If Speed Channel likes the trailer we will be prepared to produce 15 to 30 minutes on an exclusive insider’s look for them during each race weekend.

BTW. the U2 lyrics are from the song Kite - no one has guessed right yet. [This is a follow up from the last blog]

Happy Thanksgiving to all. This is one of my personal favorite holidays. Gobble Gobble!

All the best, Rick Weidinger

Yah. Its Sunday morning and I am sipping coffee and listening to “Sunday Morning” by Maroon 5. The acoustic version! My other favorite Sunday morning tunes are: Beautiful Day and Kite by U2. Actually, the song Kite has my favorite three sentence lyrics of all time. Can you guess?

We are looking forward to watching the Redskins play the Cowboys this afternoon. Huge rivalry. Redskins gotta win. Since we donated our seats to charity for this sold-out game, I am looking forward to watching it in the home theater all nestled in blankets and pillows.  Go Brandon, #85!

The A1 GP China race is less then six days away. I look forward to visiting Beijing for the first time. Last season Shanghai, China was awesome. We were able to spend a day with Mr. Liu [Team Owner of A1 GP China] after the race visiting wonderful sites in and around the city. It was an amazing and very special day for us. Mr. Liu is the best and a gracious host for sure. We fell in love with the people and the city.  I hope to return the favor when he comes to Washington DC next season. Regarding Beijing, I am a bit nervous about the street course but we are once again bringing our “A” Team with a new addition.

Phil Giebler will be driving for A1 Team USA again. He has been working out since the Czech Republic race and I trust has lost a couple of pounds. The pit stop in the Czech must have driven him to protein. It will be good to see him in Beijing. You should check out the pics from Beijing next week to see if you can tell whether he has lost a little weight or not. He really did not need to loose any weight, BUT every ounce does count in racing and he fully understands this. Good luck Phil!

We have a new addition for the China race. Ryan Hunter-Reay will be joining A1 Team USA for the trip. He will be driving in the Friday morning practice sessions. Ryan and I have been visiting since the Laguna race last March 2006. He came to Laguna to visit the team and wish us well. He has been really busy but we were anxious to get him in the USA car to see how comfortable he is and what he thinks of the competition in the A1 GP Series. We will report back to you next week regarding Ryan’s thoughts and experience. As you know, he is a very good and experienced professional driver. He started racing karts at the age of 12 in Florida. Since then he has accomplished much: won Surfer’s Paradise Champ Car race in 2003, won the Champ Car race in Milwaukee in 2004, youngest driver to win a street race and youngest American driver to win an oval race. We can go on and on. He can do it all. I look forward to getting to know Ryan better in China and listening to his feedback to our engineers Greg and Leon and our driver Phil. Good luck Ryan!

Well, I have just listened to the song “Sunday Morning” at least 4 times while I was writing this………….”Sunday morning rain is falling…….things just get so crazy………..Sunday morning and I never want to leave………..yahhhhhhhhh”.

As always, please write to say hello and tell us what you think. Send me those lyrics from Kite!

All the best,

Rick Weidinger

Hi Everyone — Tim Tuttle, who covers motorsports for many national publications, recently did an interview with me, so I wanted to share our Q&A with you …
Question: What are your expectations for A1 Team USA this season?
Weidinger: In this sport, you have to expect to win every time those engines fire up no matter where you are positioned on the starting grid. Truly anything can and does happen in motor sports. Expect the unexpected. We have started the second season of A1GP well and fully expect to carry that momentum throughout our 12-race series. Our objective at A1 Team USA is to win the championship and create great partnerships and sponsors.
Question: Phil Giebler drove in four races for A1 Team USA last season and you brought him back. Will he be your driver the entire season?
Weidinger: The driver selection is a very interesting and unique element of this A1GP Series. Also unique is the fact that all cars have the same chassis and engine–equal equipment equals a level playing field. The important ingredient and relationship for success in A1 is the driver and race engineer. If you get that combination correct, there is a high probability you are going to do well. This is a team championship, so theoretically we could select a different driver for each race. Last season we engaged three different drivers and they all scored points for A1 Team USA. This year we tested Phil in September at Silverstone and he did very well. Phil and Greg Wheeler, our new engineer, have been very effective together. Phil has performed well in the first two races, so as long as he is happy and continues to perform there may be no need to change. We will see but Phil and I talk regularly about this selection process.
Question: What attracted you to becoming an owner in A1GP?
Weidinger: The level-playing field and business model. Having been a prior professional motor sports owner, it seems odd to discuss racing and business model in the same breath. However, I believe that A1GP–the World Cup of Motorsport–is the best product in racing and contains an achievable, viable business model. In my second season with A1, I have pretty much defined my racing costs going forward and the only variable cost is a function of our revenue growth. I have a chance of achieving eight different revenue sources on top of a defined business cost. Bottom-line, even before all the economics line up, the biggest attraction to me personally is the nations versus nations form of competition. I am fortunate enough to own a racing team that represents the United States of America all around the globe. We expect sponsors to be highly attracted to this product.
Question: Will A1 Team USA enter the Indianapolis 500 again?
Weidinger: We expect to. Again, we are preparing to put Al Unser Jr. together with GEICO–a winning combination that was very successful last May at the Indy although the box score did not show it. We met our A1 Team USA objective and surpassed GEICO’s objective. Under promise and over deliver is what we like to do. We went from 27th to 9th place last Indy before the unfortunate event of debris from another car taking us out. Al truly feels as though he can win that race again and so do we.
Question: What is the status of A1GP being on television in the United States this season?
Weidinger: We are pleased to announce that the A1GP races will be broadcast on the Speed Channel this year. The people at Speed are great to work with and obviously have a tremendous understanding of motor sports and how to promote it on television. It’s a major improvement from last year. People turn to Speed to watch worldwide racing. They can find us there. A1GP produces the telecast and they do a first-class job. It’s a competitive, thrilling and enjoyable broadcast. There are at least 28 cameras around the track with multiple in-car cameras as well.
Question: When will Speed begin broadcasting A1GP?
Weidinger: Speed will begin broadcasting the A1GP races on Dec. 6, 2006. The first telecast will be the Zandvoort, The Netherlands race where Team USA finished second to Germany in the feature race. The broadcast will be weekly at 4 p.m. every Wednesday. By January, Speed Channel will be current with the A1GP race schedule. For example, they will broadcast the New Zealand race of Jan. 21 on Wednesday, Jan. 24. The invitations for my “Speed Channel” party on Dec. 6, 2006 will be going out soon!
Question: What is the status of A1GP having a race next season in the USA?
Weidinger: We are working hard for the approval of a street race in September 2007 in Washington, DC. We have a lot of heavy lifting to do; but it will be well worth the effort. This will be a world-class event in the nation’s capital. The possible street courses we have looked at are amazing and I believe the demand for a nations versus nations motorsport event will be high.
Question: How has A1GP been accepted as a major racing series worldwide?
Weidinger: It is gaining traction and has done amazingly well considering it is only one year old. I believe we have over 12 million viewers per race and growing. We continue to work hard on increasing the awareness of the A1GP Series in the USA whereas, in China and Europe it has already been accepted and becoming part of the fabric of those nations. This season we will have two races in China and three in Europe. Next year I hope to have two in the United States. Our sponsors and fans will make this happen.
Question: What are A1GP’s prospects for success in the long term?
Weidinger: The sky’s the limit. The management of A1GP has focused and improved the marketing, promotions and venue selection of the business in season two. This is critical to the long-term success of the racing series. It has also been successful in raising the necessary start-up capital from team owners and institutions. We expect an IPO next summer for the series. This will validate everything.

Sunday mornings seem like a perfect time to correspond with readers and just may be my favorite time of the week. Typically, by Sundays, the hyperactivity of the business and racing week has finally calmed and everyone is scrambling to get ready for church. However, during the NFL season I am looking forward to watching my favorite football player Brandon Lloyd play for the Washington Redskins. Brandon is a good friend and was an honorary pit crew member in our run at the Indy 500 this year. Look for him at an A1 GP race this spring and again in 2007 at the Indy 500. With his leadership skills, Brandon will probably be “captain” of the pit crew. I think he eventually wants to become our driver [great eye-hand coordination]. Look for his pictures at the Indy on our web site. I would like to update you on the progress of a number of important developments to our racing team.

1) Televising the A1 GP races in the United States:  stayed tuned on December 6, 2006. As a result of the efforts of A1 GP in partnership and agreement with A1 TEAM USA it looks as though we will conclude a deal with Speed Channel this week to broadcast the A1 GP races beginning December 6, 2006.  Speed Channel will be a good TV partner for A1 TEAM USA. It looks like Speed will begin broadcasting the first A1 GP race from Holland [event was on October 1, 2006] on December 6 and each race every Wednesday afternoon until they catch up to the live races.   I know I am personally planning a “Speed Channel” party at a local restaurant on Wednesday, December 6 to watch A1 TEAM USA secure its first podium finish at the Holland race – I hope you all do the same. Send us pictures of your party and we will post them on our web site.

2) A1 GP Race in the United States: we are busy discussing, developing and planning our efforts to gain approval for a street race in our nation’s capital -Washington DC for September 2007. We would love this to be the first race of the third season of A1 GP. An A1 GP representative was in Washington DC this past week mapping out potential street courses. I enjoyed driving around with him suggesting the more scenic routes. Washington DC is a beautiful and very unique city. This would no doubt be a world-class event and we would make sure it benefits a good cause – like contributing proceeds to better the DC public school system. Although by no means done, we are all motivated to have some sort of A1 GP race in our home city. There are several other USA venues we are looking into for the 2007/2008 A1 GP Season. 

3) Myspace.com/a1teamusa: go to our new myspace site: www.myspace.com/A1TEAMUSA. Although I am very new to the use and concept of myspace, I see it as another media avenue to spread the name and increase the awareness of A1 TEAM USA. A1 TEAM USA is America’s team in the best product in motorsports – A1 GP – the Worldcup of Motorsport.  The Myspace demographics are excellent for A1 TEAM USA. Check it out and tell us what you think. Become a friend to the team – I think that is right and how this works? Also, we will be launching an update to our web site: a1teamusatv.com this week. We have done some cool things with pictures and music. Our success depends on you. 

4) Al Unser Jr. and A1 TEAM USA: I have known Al Jr since 2004. I consider him a friend and advisor. I learn more about racing in a 2 hour lunch with Al then I do eight months at the track [and in fact, his wife Gina knows and understands more about racing then any one]. He drove for A1 TEAM USA in September at the Silverstone, UK test. He came away from his experience saying how competitive the A1 GP Series is. It would be a privilege to have him as part of this team. We are planning to intensify our efforts and approach to our sponsorships after the Beijing race November 12, 2006. If you know of any one or business that may be interested, please let us know. Our goal at A1 TEAM USA is to create great partnerships and sponsors for America’s team in the Worldcup of Motorsport. Please send me comments and suggestions: rick@a1teamusafan.com

All the best, Rick Weidinger 

October 22, 2006,  Washington DC�

I apologize for my late entry regarding the results from our second race of the season in beautiful Czech Republic. My excuse for the delay is the long return trip back to the good ol’ USA, catching up with my family [having been gone 14 days] and re-focusing on certain business matters that were time sensitive. Also, it has taken a bit to get over the heart-breaking pit-stop in BRNO [67 seconds] that pushed securing a second podium [in two races] to 17th place [expain why 17th place later].

The track in BRNO is very beautiful and interesting. A highlight of my race weekend was walking the track on Thursday with Phil and my partner Rusty Lewis. The walk took over 90 minutes but worth every minute. I only wish Rusty and I would have had a cigar for the walk … next time. The BRNO track has corners in pairs. Time is gained by a good exit from the second of each pair which leads onto a long straight. Jonathan [our rookie driver for BRNO and Holland] again drove without error. We are working on his feedback to the team but for an 18 year old, he has amazing presence and maturity. At 18, I had no clue what I was doing in life - he clearly is on a mission and if we can help him in the future we will be happy to do so. We will not see Jonathan in Beijing but maybe Malaysia.

Now to qualifying. We had a disappointing first qualifying run with Phil having problems with the bump in turn 1. On used tires, the second run was ok. However, in the third qualifying run, Phil set the world on fire in sector 1 and 2, then slid wide in turn 10 [sector 3] but finished with a good time - could have been a great time. Q4 qualifying was basically the same as A1 TEAM USA ended up qualifying 7th but rising to 6th when the British car was found to be too wide after its qualifying run. Knowing Tony C., Wade C. and John Surtees [owners of TEAM GBR], I am sure this was an innocent oversight by the British Team. It is always fun to be with Tony and Wade during a race weekend. Although every one is competitively silent, we do have good conversations about the racing and share thoughts about the Series and how it can be improved etc. It was nice seeing Emerson F. at the race and we hope his mother is doing better.

We had a good start in the Sprint Race [20 minutes] and finished 6th for a point in the championship. For the Feature Race [70 minutes], we started with 30 gallons of fuel - heaviest we have ever run. The Team had Phil practice a start twice before the race. Mexico had a great start moving from 8th to 3rd. I have becoming increasingly aware of the critical importance to a good start in this competition. We were running 4th and 5th when the heartbreak occurred. A1 TEAM USA pitted on lap 10 ahead of Czech Republic and Mexico. Our clutch, perhaps reeling from too many practice starts, would not release fully, and the rear wheels kept spinning. Eventually, we had to turn off the engine to get the rear tires changed. We lost 35 seconds over a standard pit stop. Phil did not make any mistakes and kept his composure. Amazingly so. As Phil was shaking his head [in disbelief not disgust] as he pulled out of pit lane, he recorded the fastest lap of the entire Feature Race. Phil passed several cars over the next several laps [coming out 18 but moving up to 11] but the TEAM decided that since this was a championship of points we would pull Phil in for a change of new tires with 8 laps to go to try to record the fastest lap for both the Sprint and Feature Races which means one more point. We got close but no cigar….thus the 17th place result. Alex Yoong of Malaysia recorded the fastest lap during the Sprint race which was faster then Phil’s fast lap in the Feature Race. So, shoulda, coulda once again, with a standard pit stop we would have been on the podium again. A1 TEAM USA has invited Phil to Beijing on November 12.

The individual who took the long pit stop the worst is Dick Bennetts. He is the principle owner of West Surrey Racing - our racing support team. I have been very pleased with the mechanical expertise of his guys Steve, Marc, TJ, Orlando [had to handle the rear spinning wheel - thanks, you did a great job in a difficult situation], Bob, JP, and Tippa. I am confident they will look over the data Leon provides them and figure out what happened to the clutch and why. Greg Wheeler is an excellent engineer with passion and great communications skills. Phil and he have already developed a good relationship which I believe is the most important relationship on the track. Back to Dick - Dick is very competitive and maybe that is why he has been so successful. He is always carrying a piece of paper full of statistics. He seems to enjoy calculating racing ratios and figures in his head - always with a smile on his face. He has a great eye and is always keen to pick a spot some where on the circuit and watch and record cars go by. I enjoy my conversations with him so much because they are so peaceful and full of statistical information.  Dick is truly the gentleman of motor sports in my book.

Our challenges right now at A1 TEAM USA are to secure sponsorship, TV, and broadband viewing in the USA. Once the Series decides what the business and financial structure of the Teams and Series will be we can focus on these issues with results.  

Please contact me with any questions and/or comments and I will try to respond to them all.

Next up - Beijing November 12, 2006.

Wow! What a race weekend for A1 TEAM USA. The first race of the (second) season of A1 GP - The Worldcup of Motorsports (115,000 attendance). The Zandvoort Circuit in Holland is challenging and full of character. We began our race weekend by introducing a rookie driver, Jonathan Summerton, to the TEAM for the friday afternoon rookie practice session (I still don’t think that there should be an age limit of 25 for a rookie - big discussion among Team Owners at the moment - but I do think that the Series should play a big role in developing drivers whatever the age). He performed well recording the seventh fastest lap for the rookie practice session. We then put our feature driver, Phil Giebler, in an uncomfortable car (please read our friday press release for more) and had a disappointing session. This is the first race with our new support team - West Surrey Racing and race engineer Greg Wheeler. We knew we had a good combination with Leon Gutfreund (data engineer who has been with me in most of my racing enterprises) and Phil Giebler (drove for TEAM USA four times last year). The car felt new and comfortable to Phil during the Saturday morning practice session (crew worked late friday making adjustments) as we recorded the fastest lap time in the session. We were ready for qualfying. We qualified sixth (go to our saturday press release for more).
In the Sprint Race, we finished seventh just out of the points but the Feature Race was another story. My favorite place to watch the “We the People” car compete is our pit “perch”. We have built a fiber-composite “dashboard” with four monitors. During a race, Greg (race engineer), Dick Bennetts (WSR ), Mike Ewan (WSR), Leon (data engineer) and myself (and some times an invited guest) watch the monitors constantly. We are watching lap times, circuit sector times, video feeds and standings etc. Greg and Dick are passionately writing all the important numbers down in their notebooks while Leon punches constant key strokes into his laptop. We try to feed the important information at the correct time to our driver through our radios and headgear. Fascinating place to be be during a race. I wish all of our fans could spend a practice session with us up on the perch.

Anyway, Phil ran a brillant race and made a gutsy decision. He demonstrated courage and patience, for sure. The weather turned for the worst and it began to rain on the circuit. While other Teams decided to pit and change their tires to wets the USA TEAM trusted Phil’s decision to stay out on slicks. After several laps, the weather got better and the sun came out - just like in our prayers. The track dried up and we found ourselves leading the race. As the track dryed our laptimes improved. It was amazing to watch this progression on our monitors. Germany eventually overcame us with fresh tires (at this point we had about 30 laps on our tires and Germany had I think 5 laps) but we zipped across the finish line and made our first podium visit securing second place. The silver trophy plate, medallion and champagne were awesome. I was so proud and happy for Phil because I know how hard he has worked for this and how much this means to him. The TEAM USA posse’ (five buddies from Virginia, Dallas, NYC and London) were with us for the first race and they definitely made themselves heard with celebration. Thanks guys for sharing the first race of the season with us. It was great having you. I think the TEAM was scolded by A1 GP officials for climbing the fence during the poduim presentation. I will probably get fined but it will be worth it. To see some of the crew (Steve, JP, Marc, TJ, Orlando, Simon and Richard) climb the fence in their USA pit uniforms with their hands clinched in the air shouting USA - USA - USA is a sight I will never forget. Thanks guys!
This is my first blog. My objective is to give you - the A1 TEAM USA fan - a close and inside view of our racing season. I want to share the good times and not-so-good times (that’s motor sports) with you as well as my perspective regarding the personalities, drivers, other team owners involved in the Series, the lifestyle and parties of the Series and the outlook for the future of this Series which I believe is the best product in motor sports today. It is our goal, at A1 TEAM USA, to compete for championships and create great partnerships. I will be writing this blog myself with no editorial assistance so it may be rough but always honest. I will try to write twice a race weekend (before and after race) and once a week on non-race weekends.
I hope you enjoy reading the entries and I hope you respond at: rick@a1teamusafan.com.