DeltaWing Ready for West Coast Swing - Speedway Digest

Following a successful two-day test last week, the Claro/TracFone DeltaWing Racing Cars team heads west for the first of two TUDOR United SportsCar Championship events in the Golden State – Saturday’s Tequila Patrón Sports Car Showcase at Long Beach.

While the 100-minute race on the historic Long Beach circuit marks the first street race for the DeltaWing, drivers Katherine Legge and Memo Rojas have had their share of success here. Legge won her first race in the United States in 2005, the Formula Atlantic event in Long Beach, becoming the first woman to win a major North American open-wheel race. The DeltaWing Coupe will be the fifth different chassis Legge has raced at Long Beach (Atlantics, Lola Champ Car, Panoz DP01 Champ Car and DW12 IndyCar), a feat very few drivers can claim. Rojas won the first TUDOR Championship event in Long Beach last year, his first trip to the famed street course.

The event also marks the first race for new race engineer, Catherine Crawford. Currently the senior project manager at Crawford Composites in North Carolina, she has a record of success as an aerodynamicist and engineer with numerous sports car and open wheel teams, including Starworks, Team Sahlen, Dragon Racing (working with Legge at Indianapolis in 2012) and Jordan F1. She succeeds Alan Mugglestone, who has moved on to new opportunities in Europe.

Quoteboard

Katherine Legge
“I’ve been very lucky to have driven some amazing cars at Long Beach. You learned something you can take forward from each one of them. This place is very close to my heart, as it was the scene of my first win in America, and that really catapulted my career. It’s a fantastic circuit in a gorgeous location and it’s such a storied track. Every time you race there is special, but this time will be even more so, since it’s the first time the DeltaWing will race there. I think the car will run well, with the long straights and tight corners. It will be great to work with Catherine again. I have a great deal of admiration for what she’s achieved. Alan has been great, we’ll really miss him but it’s always good to have a fresh set of eyes looking at things.”

Memo Rojas
“The test was very successful, getting rid of some of lingering issues. And it was a great chance to work with our new race engineer; I’m very excited to work with her. Long Beach has so much history with so many drivers and so many classes, from Formula One and IndyCar to sports cars. Growing up, it’s one of the tracks you want to race at and win at – and I’ve been lucky enough to do both. This is the first street race for the DeltaWing, but I think the acceleration and the tight corners will suit the car just fine.”

Team Manager Tim Keene
“We haven’t started out the year the way we hoped and we’re still searching for that good result. We hope that starts in Long Beach. We had a good test last week, worked on mapping mostly, and everything is moving in a positive direction. And it was a good chance for our new race engineer to get up to speed. We know what the car is capable of and Long Beach has the potential to be a good circuit for us because the car is so good under braking and acceleration. Long Beach is one of the races you want to be at. The Saturday crowd is so huge; it feels as though we’re playing in front of as many fans as you did in the first two races combined.”

Race Engineer Catherine Crawford
“This is very interesting to me because you actually get to do design work, which you don’t get to do much of in sports car racing anymore. The DeltaWing still has a good amount of development that’s possible. I was at the test last week and it was definitely a learning experience! It’s such a different car. So it was a little bit of feeling my way around and asking questions. By the second day, I got my feet under me a little. I’m still asking questions; I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but I still need to learn.”

The Tequila Patrón Sports Car Showcase will be broadcast live on IMSA.com from 7:05 – 8:45 p.m. ET Saturday, with a replay on FOX Sports 1 Sunday, April 19 at 4:00 p.m. ET.

Author
Recent Posts

Adam Sinclair

NHRA, IHRA, Motocross and other forms of motorsports Staff writer
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.