Yokohama driver and three-time SCORE champion Heidi Steele earned a third place finish in Class 6 for unlimited production mini-trucks at this year’s SCORE Baja 1000, off-road racing’s toughest test. Yokohama also sponsored several other racers in the event. The 43rd edition of the iconic desert race, which wound down Mexico’s Baja Peninsula from Ensenada to La Paz, took place Nov. 17-20.
Driving her customary Ford Ranger, Steele, the two-time defending Class 6 champ, and her co-drivers and Desert Assassins teammates Rene Brugger and Pat Dailey, finished the grueling 1061.69-mile course on Yokohama Geolandar M/T+ tires in 27:43:10. Japan’s Ikuo Hanawa, another Yokohama-sponsored racer, drove the entire race solo, finishing 14th in Class 1 (unlimited single or two-seaters) in 34:13:15.
“I think it’s a major accomplishment,” said Trophy Truck class veteran Cameron Steele, who is also Heidi’s husband. “He went 1,061 miles in 34 hours with no sleep holding on to 500 hp with no one else in the car. Amazing.”
Like Heidi Steele, Hanawa ran on Geolandar M/T+ tires. In July, he set a world record for electric vehicles at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. “It was a battle, and in the end, the No. 600 truck with Heidi, Rene and Pat brought home a podium finish and completed the season in second place,” summed up Cameron Steele. ‘Heidi was looking to defend her Class 6 championship and win her fifth championship overall. There were some bottlenecking problems on the course caused by other trucks, though, and they got stuck in the chaos that is the Baja.”
“The Geolandars performed perfectly,” Heidi Steele said. “Zero flats on a mean course like the Baja 1000 is a true testament of their toughness.” The San Clemente, Calif.-based Cameron Steele fought the Baja with co-drivers Cody Stuart/Justin Smith (Capistrano Beach, Calif.) and Pat Dean (Las Vegas). They piloted the No. 16 800-horsepower GMC Sierra, mounted with 37-inch Yokohama Geolandar A/T-S R tires specially engineered for extreme off-road conditions for a 27:12:44 time and 19th place finish in the Trophy Truck class.
Federal Tire Unveils New Motorsports Marketing Website
Specializing in motorsport-themed projects, Federal Tire Corp. launched federalmotorsports.com this week for worldwide motorsports fans to enjoy. Federal says the website has been designed from user’s viewpoint, making it easier to navigate and focus on the distinguishing tire features of our state-of-the-art technology. Using a combination of Flash animation and bold graphics, Federal has provided both professional drivers and teams with a powerful digital presence. Packed on the site are sections such as an in-depth product information, updated streaming news and press releases on the homepage, archived videos with real-time post during the season, an uploaded a gallery of photos taken at events, a forum that will allow motorsport enthusiasts to interact directly with each other, and much more.
In addition, the company’s brand portfolio also contains a broad array of products manufactured and distributed by Federal. The new Federal website will feature action video footages, wallpapers and literature, such as the motorsport catalogue that consists of slick, semi-slick, rally tires, and other extreme performance series for highly professional sporting events. Federal plans to expand its sports sponsorship programs and developing social initiatives to raise brand awareness within the pure racing-bred performance, federalmotorsports.com will be currently available in English, but will be developed to eventually include multiple languages to reflect Federal’s international growing presence throughout the world.
Michelin Gets Good Results at Fuji Sprint Cup 2010
Regular series races of the Super GT are competed over a 250 to 700km race distance, but this Fuji Sprint Cup includes two 100km races for the GT500 and GT300 classes respectively without a driver change and uses Japan’s pinnacle of production car racing competition, Super GT, and the highest category of domestic single-seat racing, Formula Nippon.
For the Friday qualifying sessions, each driver who took part in Race 1 and Race 2 runs separately for a 20-minute session. “Unlike regular series races, the regulations about tires are free in this event,” said Hiroaki Odashima, Motorsports Manager for Nihon Michelin Tire Co. Ltd. “As tires are not marked, we do not need to use the same tires in the qualifying session and the race. So, it is possible to use in the qualifying sessions super soft tires, which give only three or four laps of fast running. But we did not make any special tires. We brought the conventional ones, which were adapted to the temperature ranges of the races this weekend. So, the tires we used in this event are nearly the same as the ones we use for a stint of 150km in the usual 300km races of the series.
“In the Race 1 of the GT500 class, Benoit made a good start and used his skills to drive through difficult moments in the first laps successfully. Once the tires got warmer, he kept a very consistent pace. It seemed that our rivals chose much softer tires, so they were quicker in the beginning of the race but slowed down rapidly in their lap times in the middle stages to be slower than Benoit’s average laps.
“In Sunday’s Race 2, Motoyama drove at a steady pace from the middle stages of the race and his best lap time was quicker than Benoit’s best time. So, it can be said that the tires they used this weekend showed steady performance. In the GT300 class, we introduced tires which can deal with low temperature ranges. The No. 43 Garaiya showed a superb qualifying performance to take pole position for both Race 1 and 2, and in Race 1 the car kept the lead with the No. 74 Corrola in 2nd place at an overwhelming pace until lap 3. So, I think the tires had good initial function. These two cars were running on the same tires. The Corrola ran well to finish in 3rd place. Considering the advantage of the FIA GT cars on the straights, it was quite a good race. The jumped start was very regrettable for the Garaiya in Race 2. Because its lap times were under the 1 minute 45 seconds barrier, which was almost the same as the top runners. So I think it was the perfect package.
The temperature range over this weekend was nearly at the lowest limit of season races. In these conditions we showed stability in the races. I think this shows one kind of our progress.”
Goodyear Wraps NASCAR Season
While Carl Edwards won the 2010 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it was Jimmie Johnson that finished second in the race but first in the championship standings for the fifth straight season. Johnson, who broke the series record with his fourth straight championship last season, added to his legacy by clinching No. 5 this weekend. He is now only the third driver to have at least five career Cup titles (Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt have seven each).
Johnson and his Hendrick Motorsports team, led by crew chief Chad Knaus, were strong the whole weekend. After coming into Homestead 15 points behind Denny Hamlin in the standings, Johnson was fast in practice, he qualified sixth and ran inside the top-10 the entire race.
All the time, Hamlin and third-in-the-standings Kevin Harvick had several problems. Hamlin spun early and damaged the right-front corner of his car, then never truly contended for a top-10 spot. Harvick finished well, but was assessed a speeding penalty on pit road and later caused an accident with Kyle Busch.
Johnson just cruised along, eventually finishing second to the race's dominant driver, Carl Edwards. Edwards led 190 of 267 laps on the day, winning his second straight race to end the season. He also finished fourth in the championship standings behind Johnson, Hamlin (-39) and Harvick (-41).
Companion events: Kyle Busch swept the NASCAR support races at Homestead. Busch led 57 of 134 laps to win the Camping World Truck race on Friday, and led 153 of 200 laps to win the Nationwide race on Saturday. Truck series champion Todd Bodine went on to finish his race in fourth, while Nationwide champion Brad Keselowski was third.
“My compliments to our development organization on the new tire package at Homestead,” said Goodyear’s Greg Stucker. “All weekend long, the on-track action was phenomenal, with cars and trucks running multiple grooves from the bottom to the top of the race track. That caps off a championship season of tire performance.”