June 15, 2020
On Friday, June 5th, Road America had a very nice track day for charity. For the past 16 years "Drive" has been a closed track charity event benefiting various charities with Make A Wish joining in this year for it's first time. Lemons of Love has been a great participating charity for a few years.
Make A Wish has been special to me since 1987 when I was the house photographer at Alpine Valley Music Theater. Jon Bon Jovi and the band played one night back then. Jon and drummer Tico Torres were so nice to some awesome kids for Make A Wish. They put them under their wings all day and seemingly had a great time. That was so nice and certainly more than what bands typically do.
Back to the event at Road America Lemons of Love is a great charity that helps to support cancer patients with care packages and so much more. These packages help to make chemotherapy sessions and the whole ordeal just a little bit more pleasant and tolerable.
This event was limited to 35 participants because of the COVID-19 social distancing rules. It was nice for the drivers because there was not much congestion on the track.
A nice boxed lunch was provided and as we were all social distancing and eating, many stories were shared about cars and racing. We also talked about Lemons of Love. It really is quite wonderful what they do! Check out www.lemonsoflove.org for more information and to learn how you can help.
Enjoy a look at some of the beautiful cars, even Ferrari's, that ran the track that day.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
May 4, 2020
Being ordered to stay at home because of the COVID-19 virus, we are all starving for some real racing, at least I am! The iRacing events with drivers using simulators in their homes is interesting, but it just won't do.
Both the Indy 500 and the Kentucky Derby have been postponed this year. That has not happened since WW2. I suspect we will all remember this time period for the rest of our lives. The children will most likely remember the home schooling on personal computers.
For a blog this week, let's look at Arie Luyendyk through the years. I don't have photos of Arie during his IRL days here because my IRL files are buried in the closet and in time I will put them on my website. Here though are some good examples of Arie and his early days in CART and Indy Car.
At the time these photos were taken, I was a contributing photographer for Indy Car Racing Magazine. The magazine office was less than a mile away from the Milwaukee Mile track. The photos are from the Milwaukee Mile and Road America. See if you can figure out the year of each car for fun!
I like the style of these cars so much more than our present day Indy Cars. For sure they were not as safe as the current cars but wow, they were fast and good looking race cars!
Stay safe everyone and let's hope we have Indy Car back in action at Road America in June, with social distancing of course.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
August 12th, 2019
Summer is in full swing now and wow there is a lot going on!! Been so busy I haven't had enough time to catch up from photographing and work! I retire from work soon though so then I will have time to catch up!!!!
Enjoy a look at the IMSA weekend at Road America where the Mazda and Acura battle was something to witness. There was not one caution flag and it was a very fast race.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
June 24, 2019
What a fun and busy weekend with Indy Cars at Road America! I even ended up on the radio at 105.7fm, The Final Inspection show on Saturday!! Check it out at radio.com in the "on demand" section.
Colton Herta and Alexander Rossi were the stories of the weekend. Colton at 19 years old won the pole position for the Indy Car race!
For the race, Colton only led the first three turns and then it was Alexander Rossi all day to win the race!
I let the photos tell the rest of the story.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
October 1, 2018
Time to change your Rich Zimmermann Photography calendar. It's October already!! I better get going on the 2019 version, right? Have a few ideas going on for that and it will be available soon.
This blog has gotten delayed a few times because of some great rock'n roll commitments and blogs.
So, here is the IMSA race at Road America from August 4th and 5th, 2018.
The race was a rough one from the start. Robert Alon was on pole in the P1 class with Colin Braun and John Bennett getting the win due to fuel saving. The car ran out of fuel on the victory lap.
In GT Lemans, the Chip Ganassi Ford GT of Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe won with a battered up car.
The GT category was won by Patrick Long and Christina Nielsen in a Porsche.
My Acura people had some good racing but couldn't get it done.
Enjoy a look at some beautiful but battered cars.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
August 6, 2018
This is part three of my blogs on the Indy Car weekend at Road America. We look at images from Sunday here and mostly of the race.
It's amazing how hard these guys drive and how beautiful cars are. They have got to be true athletes to drive these cars the way that they do.
I also have a few images of the victory celebration from the Sunday morning Indy Lights race.
Enjoy some photos of a fun weekend.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann
July 23, 2018
Here is a look at the Indy Cars at Road America on Saturday, June 23 a few weeks back.
Bryan Herta had a great weekend winning one of the Indy Lights races on Saturday. A few photos here show him making donuts while celebrating in turn five!
Will Power is shown really pushing it during qualifying and going off track. He qualified P1 though.
Enjoy a look at some beautiful cars. Love the new body/aero kit on the Indy Cars.
Thanks,
Rich Zimmermann