Reluctantly crouched at the starting line...

March 28, 2015

Tony Kanaan & Helio Castroneves

Tony Kanaan

 

Will Power

Reluctantly crouched at the starting line...

The opening of the 2015 Indy Car racing series is finally here after what seemed like an interminably long off-season. The first race of the new season kicks off as it has for the past few years on the street course in St. Petersburg and as usual I made the trip up to be in attendance, flying in to Tampa and getting a hotel downtown in St. Pete with-in walking distance to the track.

I arrived in plenty of time before racing activities began and was able to take a day and make the quick drive over to Orlando to make use of my annual Walt Disney World pass and visit Epcot Center and Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I love Epcot at this time of year because they are hosting their annual Flower and Garden Festival and the entire grounds are even more festively decorated than usual.

They have all sorts of garden displays, vendors and special food vendors as well, though I found myself eating in the German Beer Garden again. I next headed over to the Animal Kingdom where I watched the bird show for the first time, it was pretty impressive as they had all sorts of birds from Toucans, to raptors like Bald Eagles flying around the stadium. It was a cool show. 

  

After a nice day at the parks, I was on my way back to St. Pete, but not before stopping at what is arguably the best microbrewery in the state of Florida, Cigar City Brewing. It was my second visit to their awesome location and I was able to taste a number of their wonderful beers, including a few special seasonals that are only available at the brewery itself. 

Will Power

Hinch

The next day was the opening practice session of the 2015 Indy Car season and I was on hand with my shiny new Indy Car Hard Card which gave me unprecedented access to just about everyplace including the pits, paddock, victory land, on track in the photographer’s areas and such. It allowed me great access and opportunities to get up close and personal with the cars, teams and drivers.

Robin Miller & Simon Pagenaud

Luca Phillipi

Gabby Chaves

Ed Carpenter & Luca Phillipi

There are a lot of exciting new changes this year in Indy Car, starting with the new Aero-kits which radically change the look of the new cars with both Chevy and Honda creating their own distinct versions that look much different from last year. Lots more body work on the cars. Also there were the usual driver changes between teams. One of my favorite drivers, James Hinchcliffe moved from Andretti to Sam Schmidt Motorsports, replacing Simon Pagenaud who joined team Penske as their fourth driver.

Jack Hawksworth

Will Power with St. Pete mayor.

Kirsten & James Hinchcliffe

The initial practice went well, though a light rain wiped out the second practice later in the afternoon. They did get in some of the support races including a WC sports car race and Indy Lights practice. The Indy Lights cars are all new as well and they look great and really racy. It was a really good day to start the season and weekend off and I was thrilled to be back at an Indy Car race.

Bob

Justin Wilson