2010 Ricardipus Racing Awards

Once again, in what is becoming an annual tradition around here, I give you:

The Third Annual Ricardipus Racing Awards!

[cue sounds of crickets chiriping]

Well, these may not be as exciting as the official series awards, but in late August I again trekked out to Mosport International Raceway for the 2010 edition of the American Le Mans Series race weekend, the Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport. History will record that the race was won by a rather speedy Porsche RS Spyder, at the hands of previous Mosport Trans-Am winner Klaus Graf and 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans champion Romain Dumas, on loan from the factory Audi team, more or less.

But, once again, the Ricardipus awards are emphatically not about the race winners - they're about silly things not related in any way to the podium.

So - here we go:

Loudest Vehicle: #3 and #4 Chevrolet Corvette C6.R (tie). The two 'vettes rumbled their way to a win in this category, for the third year running. Nothing else came close, although the Lotus and one of the Porsches from the World Challenge race earlier in the year would have given them a run for their money.


The noisy end of the Corvette.

Friendliest Drivers: Patrón Highcroft Racing - Simon Pagenaud, Marino Franchitti, David Brabham. Truth be told, most ALMS drivers are pretty friendly, but this crew just edged the competition slightly (Romain Dumas from the Cytosport team losing a point or two for talking on his phone a lot). Pagenaud was a co-winner of last year's "Most Cheerful-Looking Driver" award, so this is kind of a double for him. Honourable mention to Paul, Lord Drayson for being generally friendly, cheerful and a lot more available than your average member of the British Peerage.


Brabham (foreground) also wins for "silliest sunglasses", in a tie with series rookie Frankie Montecalvo.

Best Livery Featuring Teeth and Mermaids: Green Earth Team Gunnar. In a surprising development, there was only one entrant in this class, which replaces last year's "Nicest Paint Highlights" category, ably taken then by Melanie Snow's pink-detailed Porsche.


It's also got seashells and fish on it.

Silliest Doors: Drayson Racing Lola B09/60. Just edging out last year's winner, the attractively re-painted Dyson Racing Lola (see below), the Draysonmobile wins by virtue of its reflective silver window coatings - attractive, but undeniably silly.


Also the unofficial winner in the "looks like a space-ship" category.

Special Award: Best-looking Car That Tested on Friday, Crashed on Saturday, and Didn't Race on Sunday: #61 Risi Competizione Ferrari 430GT. Last year, they managed to crash the sister #62 in qualifying, but started the race after an all-night rebuild. This year, although the #62 raced, they weren't able to put Humpty Dumpty (below) back together again in time.


Fun trivia - the driver who crashed this car was Pierre Kaffer, who had trouble with the same turn in a Porsche two years earlier.

And, finally:

Special Award (Public Relations and Marketing category): Best Job of Re-Painting a Car in a Popular "Classic" Livery to Avoid Association with a Company that Just Flooded the Gulf of Mexico With Crude Oil: Dyson Racing. Last year's green-and-white BP livery mysteriously disappeared earlier in the season, in favour of the perennially-popular Castrol colours. The cognoscenti were not fooled - Castrol is, of course, a BP brand.


Great-looking vehicle, in any colour scheme.

So there you go. I'm slightly heartened by these awards being only marginally sillier than the ALMS's "Tightest Firesuit" and "Mr. Modesty" awards, which you can read about here. And, as always, you can see more of the race weekend by heading over to Flickr for the full set of photos.

See also:

2009 edition, featuring loud Corvettes, Gil de Ferran driving through the grass, and pink details on a Porsche.
2008 edition, with a smiley Aston Martin, some horrid day-glo yellow paint highlights, a Ferrari hiding behind a post, and a slightly bent Porsche.

Second Annual Ricardipus Racing Awards

One advantage of being settled in a state of more-or-less Status Quo is that it becomes very easy to recycle blog posts from one year ago. In the spirit of which, I give you the Second Annual Ricardipus Awards, for participants in the 2009 Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport. Once again I refer you, if you're actually interested in the race results that is, to the official document. For the record, the Patron Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-02a, piloted by drivers Scott Sharp and David Brabham, won outright, and in the next class down, the rather pretty Acura ARX-01b of Luis Diaz and Adrian Fernandez clinched the season championship.

But these awards aren't about the race winners. They're about other silly categories that I dreamed up last year, and maybe a few new ones to boot.

So, with no further ado, here they are:

Loudest Vehicle: #3 and #4 Chevrolet Corvette C6.R (tie). In a repeat of last year's performance, these two shook the ground when they went by, despite having significantly less horsepower than last year.

There was lots of local interest, with a GM plant nearby.

Honourable Mention: de Ferran Motorsports Acura ARX-02a. Although various other cars were nice and loud, this one gets the nod for a divine combination of engine noise and ridiculous backfires into turn three, all day long.

Simon Pagenaud, going really really fast.

Most Cheerful-Looking Drivers: Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud. An honourable mention goes to Gunnar van der Steur and Adam Pecorari, whose rather pretty car was eventually excluded (disqualified) for a technical infraction. They looked happy before the race, though.

They weren't smiling like this when they signed autographs for me...

Nicest Paint Highlights: Melanie Snow's #56 Porsche 911 GT3 from the GT3 Challenge support race. There really just isn't enough pink in car racing.

Melanie Snow is very fast, but Simona de Silvestro is even faster.

Friendliest Driver: Barrie, Ontario native Kyle Marcelli, who tore up the track in the IMSA Lites support races. I suspect it was the nice chat he had with my brother and I that inspired his performance.

He came second in this race, and first in the previous one.

Silliest Doors: Dyson Racing's Mazda-Powered Lola Coupes. These cars probably also win my awards for "Best Looking" and "Hardest to Photograph at Speed".

This car would have a bit of a crunch in the race.

Best Save: Gil de Ferran. Gil fell off turn two while leading the race, put his foot down, and drove around the corner through the grass. Most people would have spun and crashed. Olivier Beretta gets an honourable mention for doing exactly the same thing later in the race.

He's probably still doing well over 100 kph.

Special Award: best-looking car that spent last year in the shed: Robertson Racing's Mark VII Doran Ford GT-R. Last year, they blew up the engine in testing.

What a looker.

And, finally:

Best Performance Rebuilding a Car to Race on Sunday After the Driver Smashes it up on Saturday Afternoon: Risi Competizione. The team stayed up all night, rebuilding the left side of the car, which ultimately finished second in its class after starting from the very back of the grid.

Sleep? Who needs sleep?

So there you go. As before, lots more of this kind of thing over in the relevant Flickr set.

And the award goes to...

Well, the 2008 Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport has been over for almost a week now, and I think it's high time somebody handed out some awards. Not for the race-winning Audi R10 TDI, which has enough hardware already, nor for David Brabham and his best-in-class Patron Highcroft Acura. Not for the Corvettes that keep dominating the GT1 class, nor even for the Risi Competizione Ferrari that finally had a GT2 win this season. If you want those results, have a look at the news article, or for real fans, the race results.

No, I'm talking about some awards I've dreamed up, having spent the entire day at the races with my brother, fully tooled up with cameras. I've come up with some new classes, and these are my picks of the winners:

Loudest Vehicle: #3 and #4 Corvette C6.R (tie)

When these two went past in tandem, the ground shook.

Honourable mention: Panoz Esperante GTLM, seen here with its bits hanging out.

Loud as hell, slow as molasses.

Car that looks most like it's smiling at you: Aston-Martin V8 Vantage

Too bad it was so slow.

Most egregious use of day-glo paint highlights: Tafel Racing #73 Ferrari

Sorry, I was a long way away. Their other car had orange ones.

Worst attempt at hiding behind a post: Risi Competizione #62 Ferrari F430GT

I can seeeeee you.

Most attractive car without wheels: Robertson Racing Doran Ford GT-R

I was looking forward to seeing this one race, but apparently they blew it up in testing.

And finally, a special award for Best attempt at turning corner 2 while missing a wheel goes to Marc Basseng and the VICI Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR.

He was fine. The wheel in question is sitting off in the distance.

More of this silliness, including a picture of the fastest ambulance in the world, a Corvette showing its naughty bits, and a guy who just looks like he should be driving an Aston Martin, are in this Flickr set. There may be even more - I haven't developed the film yet.

Can't wait 'til next year...

--

EDIT: THIS JUST IN! A special award suggested by Dawn:

Car most likely to crash: #22 Porsche 911 GT3, from the IMSA Challenge GT3 Cup support race.

Please, head on over to the Flickr page and leave your own Vista pun there, if you will.

Revisiting an old idea

Some time ago (February 29, if Blogger is to be believed), I posted about putting art on my office wall, and Debi even asked me to post a photo of the final arrangement.

Six months later, I got around to taking the picture. So here it is.


Yes, I know they're not quite square to each other.

Sorry for the brevity of this post. Lots to do - gearing up for another consulting project, a quick trip to Washington, DC on Monday, and a day at the American Le Mans Series race at Mosport tomorrow, with my brother. Should be fun, first time I will have ever been there, even though it's only about an hour away.

If you're interested, this video tells you a bit about the race and the place. I'll be fully tooled up with two cameras, two memory cards and a roll of film, so with a bit of luck I might have a few good photos to post. Or possibly a bunch of really, really blurry ones.