Latest news with #FormulaFords
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Jupiter's Kyle Kirkwood loves racing in Florida but still figuring out Firestone Grand Prix
ST. PETERSBURG — Fans waited in a line as long as a football field, underneath a warm Florida sun alongside the St. Petersburg downtown waterfront to meet their favorite NTT IndyCar Series drivers Friday afternoon. The autograph session featured the full lineup of racers competing in Sunday's season-opening Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg – including Jupiter's Kyle Kirkwood, who greeted fans, autographed photographs and gratefully accepted words of encouragement from his supporters. 'I just feel he is very likable and I love his Florida lifestyle and how he's always posting fishing pictures and seems like he would be a fun guy to hang out with,'' New Jersey fan Roy Mutalik, 34, said of Kirkwood. 'And I love watching him on track, obviously. I think he's very talented and always has a good shot at winning, He's one of the younger guys and I'd love to see him do well.'' 'I'd wait an hour easily for his autograph, '' Mutalik said smiling, 'I'd wait a while longer if I could go fishing with him.'' Kirkwood, sporting a beard now, signed all sorts of photos and diecast cars and posed for selfies. He should get used to the ever-rising appreciation level. The 26-year old Floridian has been a champion in every level of open-wheel racing from Formula Fords to Indy Lights (Indy NXT) and now three years into a seat at one of the most decorated organizations in the sport – Andretti Global – expectations are understandably high in IndyCar. Last year Kirkwood, who drives the No. 27 Andretti Global Honda, turned in a career year statistically in laps led (121), most laps led in a single race (67 at Nashville), average starting position (10.1), average finishing position (8.7), and most importantly ranking in the championship standings (seventh). Although he did not answer his two-win 2023 season with a victory, he earned five top-five and 13 top-10 finishes in 17 races with a best showing of runner-up at Toronto. 'In racing it's frustrating unless you're winning everything, to be honest,'' Kirkwood allowed. 'But there were a lot of positives to take away. 'It was a good season from the standpoint that we had a lot of consistency. We finished much higher up in the championship and kind of gave ourselves an opportunity [to win] in the closing stages of the year. 'If you look back at the last couple years, you obviously see the two wins that came in 2023, but what a lot of people don't realize is that out of those two wins, we gave ourselves only two opportunities to win and happened to capitalize on both of them. 'Last year, we gave ourselves at least five opportunities to win but didn't capitalize on any of them. ' While the team's principal, world-renowned driver Michael Andretti, has stepped back from the day-to-day management duties of the team that bears his name, Andretti Global remains a perpetual race favorite. Kirkwood's teammate, 2021 St. Petersburg race winner Colton Herta won a pair of races in 2024 and is coming off a career best runner-up showing in the championship. Their teammate, Sweden's Marcus Ericksson won at St. Pete in 2023 with his former team and is also a former Indianapolis 500 winner (2022). The talent potential bodes well for Kirkwood, who in two IndyCar seasons with the team has absolutely settled in and is ready to produce the same kind of bold headlines. 'It's not as stressful I would say, you just understand the processes a lot more,'' Kirkwood said of his comfort level now with one of the most high-profile teams in the sport. 'You understand the cadence and you're not always on a knife's edge anymore with everything that you do. You kind of just get the rhythm and you feel a lot more comfortable when you get into the car. 'You start to click with everyone after a couple years. It just makes things easier in general.' Now to translate that overall team expectation into the 1.8-mile 14-turn course around the streets of downtown St. Pete. Kirkwood's previous best showing (10th) in three IndyCar starts in his home state, came last year. He won from pole position, and led every single lap, competing in the Indy Lights Series here in 2021. 'I love St. Pete,'' Kirkwood said. 'I'm always excited to race here but have never actually had good races here in the past three times I've been here in IndyCar. It's one of my favorite tracks but for some reason I just haven't done that well so it would be nice to have another opportunity at it. 'We've qualified well here in the past but haven't really had good races so hope to turn that around because it is a race I really enjoy. It's unlike other tracks. 'I always look forward to coming here.' Sunday's raceFirestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg12:29 p.m., Downtown St. PetersburgTV: FOX This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jupiter's Kyle Kirkwood wants to give himself a chance at Firestone Grand Prix
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
The Late, Great Gene Hackman Was a Proper Race Car Driver
Award-winning actor Gene Hackman was found dead on Thursdayalongside his wife, Betsy Arakawa, late last night in their New Mexico home. The two-time Oscar winner was 95 years old. Serving as a more regular, familiar voice among the haute Hollywood scene, Hackman made his mark with films like Unforgiven, Bonnie and Clyde, A Bridge Too Far, and Mississippi Burning. But it was his work in William Friedkin's New York-based neo-noir film The French Connection that earned him his first Academy Award, for Best Actor as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle — who engages in a weaving race with an elevated New York City subway car after he commandeers a 1971 Pontiac Le Mans. Hackman, however, was also a racing driver, who competed in numerous endurance races alongside the likes of the legendary Dan Gurney. "Would I have chosen racing over acting? I've thought about it quite a bit. I have a feeling I wouldn't have stayed in racing. I don't think I have the personality to be a real racing professional," Hackman told the Los Angeles Times in 1988. "You can learn some of the skills of racing, you can learn all the mechanical things, but there's a certain part of it that really no one can teach you — that killer instinct. You have to be very competitive. You need to have that edge about you. The good ones all have that." Hackman said his driving interests were piqued when he was invited to compete in a celebrity race in Long Beach in the mid-1970s. Then, the California-born actor took to Sports Car Club of America events, specifically driving Formula Fords at Bob Bondurant's driving school in North California, before joining Gurney's team on the endurance racing circuit. Hackman was slated to enter the 1978 and 1981 24 Hours of Daytona, but dropped out from both teams before the start of the race. He made his IMSA GTU debut in February 1983 at Daytona behind the wheel of Dan Gurney's All American Racers, sharing a caged, striped, and stroked 1983 Toyota Celica sporting the number 99 with two Japanese drivers, Masanori Sekiya and Kaoru Hoshino. The notchback Celica racers made around 300 horsepower from a 2.1-liter inline-four paired with a five-speed manual transmission, though the 1983 entrant retired from Daytona due to a gearbox failure. Hackman returned to the Celica later that season, racing the number 97 car at Riverside Raceway. "You must be extremely careful. You have to think in a very orderly fashion. What you do is try to slow everything down instead of getting yourself all excited and expending a lot of energy. Instead, you try to slow it all down so you can go quicker. It's a very strange process," Hackman told the Los Angeles Times. 1984 marked another year of IMSA racing for Hackman, this time inside the number 55 Mazda RX-7 for Preston & Son Enterprises at 12 Hours of Sebring. Hackman and art director and collector Whitney Ganz shared the car at Sebring and then later in the season at Riverside, though both races resulted in DNFs. These hiccups didn't trouble Hackman, as the actor continued driving in celebrity series, and managed to win numerous Toyota ProCelebrity races at Long Beach and Watkins Glen. Even so, Hackman admitted that the racing schedule and mindset took a toll he wasn't willing to pay forever. "At what point did I realize I was good at it? Well, I won a couple of races and I thought I could do it," he said. "But, then, I realized that if I wasn't really serious about it, and if I couldn't commit to 15-18 races a year, that I couldn't really compete at a professional level. At least at a decent national-class level. I never went through a period when I felt I could really do it." Despite his understanding of his racing aspirations, Hackman's stint in performance driving shaped his relationship with danger and with regular car ownership. Hackman said that the stunt driving in The French Connection, which he claims he did about 60% of, was much more frightening than any sort of track driving. (Notably, director Friedkin and his team declined to close the surrounding Brooklyn streets during filming, and didn't even have permits.) He also owned Ferraris and Porsches before he started racing, but swapped the sports cars for Toyota and Nissan pickup trucks afterwards, claiming it was easier to stick to the speed limit in a pickup. Hackman is survived by his three children — Christopher, Elizabeth Jean, and Leslie Anne— whom he had with his former wife, Faye Maltese, who died in 2017. You Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car
