JDC MotorSports is very pleased to add American Ashley Freiberg to its driver line-up for the 2012 Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear season. Seeking to repeat as series champion, the Minnesota-based squad will have the talented rookie behind the wheel in the Mazda Road to Indy series via the newly created TrueCar, Inc. ‘Women Empowered Initiative’.

In addition to always striving to win championships, JDC MotorSports has continually been focused on finding and developing talent behind the wheel. That continues in 2012, with the addition of Ashley to its Star Mazda Championship roster. Thanks in large part to a new driver advancement program by TrueCar entitled ‘Woman Empowered’, Ashley will join forces with the defending and three-time Star Mazda champion JDC MotorSports. The former Skip Barber Racing champion, who has four Star Mazda races on her resume, including a top-five finish in 2010 at the Autobahn Country Club, will contest the entire upcoming 18-race campaign, partnering fellow up-and-comer Juan Piedrahita under the JDC awning.

“We are really excited about working with Ashley during the 2012 season,” stated JDC MotorSports team principal John Church. “The opportunity to work with Ashley and TrueCar is a real honor, and we look forward to a great season.”
(...)
Read the rest of Star Mazda: JDC MotorSports Signs Freiberg for 2012 Rookie Campaign

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Post tags: ashley freiberg, jdc motorsports, rookie, skip barber, star mazda, true car, true car racing, woman empowered

(St. Petersburg, FL) — Compass360 Racing (C360R) released details of the first of their four-car Pirelli World Challenge program today with the announcement that Florida’s Shea Holbrook will join the team in defending its 2011 Touring Car championship. Holbrook will return to the series, which she’s competed in for the past two seasons, with her familiar Shea Racing #67 number plate on a brand new 2012 TrueCar, C360R Honda Civic Si.

“We’ve been talking with Shea since she sent me an email back in 2009,” remarked C360R Team Principal Karl Thomson. “She’s made great progress as a driver since then, and we’re really excited to welcome her to our squad as an integral part of our run for the TC championship this year. She first drove one of our cars at St. Petersburg last season and I’m just thrilled to have her with us for the full season.”

Holbrook, who last year became the first woman to win a Pirelli World Challenge Touring Car race (at Long Beach, California where she also won the Optima Batteries Best Standing Start award and the Sunoco Hard Charger award), will represent new sponsor TrueCar throughout the year. “For young people, and young women in particular, this opportunity proves that you should never give up on your dreams because you never know what opportunities are just around the corner,” said Holbrook. “It’s an honor to drive for a team that’s won so many championships and has such depth on the technical side, and to represent a sponsor like TrueCar that really understands racing.”(...)
Read the rest of SHEA HOLBROOK AND COMPASS360 RACING READY FOR WORLD CHALLENGE

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TrueCar to sponsor rising star in Lotus-powered Dragon Racing entry

INDIANAPOLIS, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012 – Talented international driver Katherine Legge, the first woman to win a major open-wheel race in North America, will compete in the 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series for Dragon Racing.

Legge will drive the No. 6 entry for Dragon, with primary sponsorship from TrueCar.  Her teammate will be four-time Champ Car World Series champion Sebastien Bourdais.

Both Legge and Bourdais will compete with Lotus power, as Dragon Racing was named as a factory team for the iconic sports car manufacturer that is one of three engine suppliers this season in INDYCAR.

The 2012 IZOD IndyCar Series season starts Sunday, March 25 at St. Petersburg, Fla, with the 101^st Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 27 as the marquee event of the schedule.

“I am very proud to be driving in the 2012 IndyCar Series for Lotus Dragon Racing , with the gracious support of my sponsor TrueCar,” Legge said. “Lotus, Dragon and TrueCar have put together an amazing programme that I have every faith will succeed and win races.

“Lotus has such a great heritage and racing background and will be an enormous strength to our program.  I am very much looking forward to working with all of those involved, and I am excited to get out on track now alongside a fantastic teammate in Sebastien Bourdais.”(...)
Read the rest of LEGGE TO DRIVE FOR DRAGON RACING IN 2012 IZOD INDYCAR SERIES

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Katherine Legge is on the verge of becoming an Izod IndyCar Series driver.

The former Atlantics, Champ Car and DTM series driver has sponsorship for a full-time ride next season with a team to be determined later this week. Her deal with the team, when signed, will be two years with an option for a third.

Legge, 31, competed in Champ Car in 2006 for PKV Racing and in 2007 for Dale Coyne Racing. She won three races in Atlantics.(...)
Read the rest of IndyCar: Katherine Legge set to return to U.S. open-wheel racing in 2012

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They say it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” a race car driver has a crash.  In a game of calculated risk, high speed, and mechanical chunks of metal in a whirl of momentous velocity, one has to expect disarray to occur at some point in time.  Being on the edge is certainly an exhilarating experience, but when things go wrong they go wrong very quickly.

I’ve seen a lot of crashes in my relatively short history of driving and working in motorsports.  It’s a painful thing to watch, whether it’s a professional race or a club-level event.  Crushed cars may draw a spectacle, but it also draws someone’s bank account.  The racing community is largely a tightly woven network of people where, if you stay involved long enough, it’s hard for others not to know who you are.  Likewise, when things go wrong it doesn’t take long for the news to travel.  In a lot of instances, racers come together in support of each other during the challenging times.  The story I’m about to share with you is another example of how helpful the racing community can be, and how imperative car preparation is in this sport.

It was the last race of the season, excluding the 25-hour and 6-hour races at Thunderhill in the NASA Northern California region, and was scheduled to take place at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma.  I had just moved to the area four months prior and since then had only raced a few events. In comparison to Arizona, my connections in NorCal were merely in their early stages of development.  Luckily my professional work in motorsports this past season, including Grand-AM and World Challenge, essentially brought everything full-circle and had allowed me to reconnect with drivers and crew I’ve met a long the way.

Despite being new to the area I was fortunate to have pitted with a great group of Spec Miata drivers, including the NASA NorCal Spec Miata Championship Series Director—Dean Thomas, his wife Laura, as well as Jaime Florence and Aaron Braverman.  They were some of the first Spec Miata drivers I had the pleasure of meeting, aside from professional driver Ken Dobson—who not only has extensive experience with Spec Miata, but had become instrumental in my progress this past year.

With the recent rains in Sonoma, first session out was a grab-bag of grip, slip, and eminent slide.  Following sessions were qualifying for Spec Miata, then Performance Touring (PT) races.  With the Spec races moved to Sunday, I was more or less focused on sorting the car (and the driver) per the track conditions, with plans to run the PT race for extra seat time.(...)
Read the rest of Not IF but WHEN – Miata Crash at Infineon Raceway, Blog from Geri Amani

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Last week at PRI (full blog about that soon) GoRacingTV.com interviewed three of the lovely ladies we cover here on the site. Click below to watch them. There is several interviews with other people on there as well you can skip over them if you like.

Beth Chryst

Sloan Henderson

Collete Davis

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I thought once Petit Le Mans was over my life my calm down a bit, boy was I wrong!  Things with Chryst Motorsports have been crazy busy. Between the holidays and potential testing days my off season is coming to an end quickly!

Each winter we like to sit down and make a list.  You know, like a “Honey Do List”.  We try to prioritize everything on the list from must complete to we would like to if we have the time/money.  Winterizing the car is the first thing we do.  Draining the water since we aren’t allowed to run antifreeze, place the battery on the charger, and other odds and ends.  I thought I felt the clutch slowly start to go away so during this off season we are replacing the clutch.  In order to get to the clutch you must drop the transmission so that has been removed as well.  A dear friend of the family used to be a Ford Mechanic so we take our transmissions over to him to make sure all the pieces are good or that need to be replaced.  He has been a huge supporter of my racing from day one so we really appreciate his help.  We also encountered a bit of body damage throughout the season so currently Miss Scarlet has no nose, no front fenders, and no doors.  Poor thing I hope to get her body work on her soon before it gets too cold P(...)
Read the rest of Off Season…. Why do they call it Off?!?!!?

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TrueCar Becomes Driving Force in Auto Racing with “Women Empowered” Initiative

Company makes multi-year commitment to support women in auto racing through primary sponsorship of top professionals and rising stars 

TrueCar, Inc., creators of the intelligent automotive marketplace that benefits both buyers and sellers has announced an extensive, multi-year commitment to support top female race car drivers in premier racing series, along with young rising stars across several developmental racing series.

(...)
Read the rest of TrueCar signs Shea Holbrook and Ashley Freiberg

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Post tags: ashley freiberg, shannon macintosh, shea holbrook, true car, true car racing, verena mei, women empowering

As I headed out to Buttonwillow from Vegas, 90% of the drive was in the rain… and all I could think is, “I hope it rains all weekend at the track!”.  The forecast showed sunny for Saturday and rain for Sunday and I just kept my fingers crossed.  Buttonwillow is always a pretty challenging course and knowing I have only done the #1 CCW configuration I knew I had a lot to focus on.   The first time I ran this configuration with the tC my best time was a 2:20.0 so that was my starting baseline to improve from.

On Saturday it was sunny all day, everyone got some good track time and the real battle was in our last time trial session.  We had some very close times and I had been in the lead in the morning, but we had a new comer jump in and place first just ahead of my fastest time of a 2:17.1 with his 2:16.2.  I was happy with my results, my improvement was obvious and I had beaten my competition that I was aiming for all day.  The 2^nd place finish felt great, but I still wanted more.  (...)
Read the rest of Michele Abbate locks in First Place Finish!

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]]> http://femaleracingnews.com/road-racing/michele-abbate-locks-in-first-place-finish/feed/ 0 http://femaleracingnews.com/road-racing/frn-interviews-beth-chryst-on-motoiq-radio/ http://femaleracingnews.com/road-racing/frn-interviews-beth-chryst-on-motoiq-radio/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:00:29 +0000 Amanda http://femaleracingnews.com/?p=5158

Last week we informed everyone that we would be on MotoIQ Radio. We were joined on the broadcast by Ms. Beth Chryst. We invited Beth to come onto the show with us because she had just wrapped up her Rookie season the in MX-5 Cup and we wanted to see how she felt and what her future holds. It was our first radio interview so we were a little bit nervous but by the end everything was great. It was a great time and we had some pretty interesting questions to ask Beth. We also talked a little after the interview with the host Will about our day job. Follow the link below to listen to the interview, Beth is up at about the 55 minute mark!

http://www.motoiq.com/magazine_articles/articletype/articleview/articleid/2203/motoiq-radio-episode-15-ask-a-driver-and-female-racing-news.aspx

 

You can follow MotoIQ Radio on Twitter @MotoIQRadio, follow Beth, @BethChryst and don’t forget us @FemaleRacing!

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