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Usually, the IndyCar season begins in March and the venue is St. Petersburg, Florida, but due to COVID-19, we are a month late and about 625 miles north and west near Birmingham, Alabama for…
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The Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama
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The place is the beautiful natural road course at Barber Motorsports Park. Built for motorcycle racing, Barber should be too curvy and too narrow for great IndyCar racing but the track has consistently delivered great races from the first time IndyCars showed up in 2010. With a brand new re-pave, the recent tests for both IndyCars and the Road to Indy series have shown the track to be faster than anytime in the past. Records will likely fall, this weekend.
The 2.38-mile course has 17 turns and features a roller-coaster-like 80 feet of elevation change that challenge drivers and engineers alike. In fact, some of the early turns are known as the “Alabama Roller Coaster.”
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The king of Barber among current drivers is Josef Newgarden for Team Penske who has WON here 3 times, including his very first IndyCar WIN in 2015, but teammate Will Power has 2 WINS here as does Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay.
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The great news is there will be fans in attendance at Barber this weekend and they are in for a GREAT slate of racing, with no less than 12 races to watch. They include:
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- The Radical Cup - 3 races on Friday and Saturday
- Porsche Sprint Challenge - 2 races on Saturday and Sunday
- USF2000 - 2 races on Saturday
- Indy Pro 2000 - 2 races on Saturday and Sunday
- Indy Lights - 2 races on Saturday and Sunday
…and of course, the IndyCars will race on Sunday.
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Let’s look at all that support racing -
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The Radical Cup features purpose-built SportsCars that are fast, reliable and cheap enough to be accessible and that’s the whole idea: Bring real racing to as many speed freaks as possible. Radicals come in three main types and all three will be racing here at the same time. However, no IndyCar guys will be among them so we will wish the Radicals safe and happy racing and not follow them.
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Porsche Sprint Challenge is a stepping stone on the Porsche Motorsport pyramid between the Clubsport/club racing entry stage and the Carrera Cup North America. Broken into three classes of GT3 and GT4 cars, the better drivers at the end of the season will be looking for rides in the top Carrera Cup the next year. However, no IndyCar guys will be among them so we will wish the Porsches safe and happy racing and not follow them.
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continued…
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