RaceSchool.com Podcast hosted by Larry Mason

Romain Grosjean is a veteran Formula One racing driver who transitioned into the NTT IndyCar Series three years ago. He joined Dale Coyne Racing for his rookie year where he impressed Andretti Autosport enough to hire him the following year. It’s been up and down for the man they call the “Phoenix” (after his fiery crash in Bahrain), especially this year where he’s qualified in the Firestone Fast...

Tony Kanaan is the 2013 Indianapolis 500 winner, 2004 IndyCar champion and 1997 Indy Lights champion. He’s won races for decades and has had real staying power in this tough and sometimes brutal sport. Off track, Kanaan is known for his supreme fitness. He’s dedicated himself to that by competing in numerous triathlons, including the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, twice! This year he joine...

Owen Snyder is the mechanical manufacturing and car assembly supervisor for Dallara (the chassis supplier to the NTT IndyCar Series). He also does race track support. Prior to joining Dallara, he worked for a number of different racing teams and organizations as well as with some great racing drivers. Two Indianapolis 500 victories are just part of what he’s experienced first-hand. In this intervi...

Santino Ferruci has had some strong finishes in the Indy 500 driving for a number of different teams both part-time and full-time. This year he’s full-time with AJ Foyt Racing. We had the opportunity to chat with him at the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach press luncheon. He’s very down-to-earth and honest in his approach to racing. He talks with us about his preparation for Long Beach and give...

Simon Pagenaud has an enviable record of winning the Indy 500, along with championships in the NTT IndyCar Series, and sports cars in ALMS. The 2023 season started with him earning a Rolex watch for the overall win at the 24hrs of Daytona, but so far, his Indy car season has suffered from a lack of competitiveness. We spoke with Pagenaud just off the red carpet at the “100 Days To Indy” reality TV...

Graham Rahal has been winning races since his very first race in the NTT IndyCar Series back when he was only 19 years old. That was a long time ago and his winning ways have been on hiatus for a while too. A super talented guy like that doesn’t forget how to drive fast and win. This series is super competitive and everything has to be perfect (or you have to be super lucky) to get on the podium t...

Officer Alec Pereyda is a Public Information Officer for the CHP and spent some time with us in the expo at the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. With the Fourth of July holiday coming up and lots of summer road trips, he was able to give us a lot of valuable safe driving tips including what to do if you see those flashing lights behind you. He also shares with us a crazy story about a high-spe...

Alex Palou is the 2021 NTT IndyCar Series Champion and is currently leading the points for the 2023 season based on three victories so far (as of June 18th). We had a chance to chat with him during the press day ahead of the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and in this wide-ranging interview he talks about his season so far, his adaptation from a road racing background to getting comfortable on...

Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden have both had strong starts to the season. We caught up with them just off the red carpet at the “100 Days to Indy” premiere at the Long Beach Convention Center on Wednesday evening just prior to the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. O’Ward talks about his focus after two, second-place finishes to start the year. Newgarden talks about how competitive the series i...

Pato O’Ward and Josef Newgarden have both had strong starts to the season. We caught up with them just off the red carpet at the “100 Days to Indy” premiere at the Long Beach Convention Center on Wednesday evening just prior to the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. O’Ward talks about his focus after two, second-place finishes to start the year. Newgarden talks about how competitive the series i...

In last week’s podcast, we learned how Lyn St. James started with humble beginnings and progressed to the highest levels of professional auto racing. This week St. James will tell us about the Women in Motorsports North America program. From the interesting origin of WIMNA, to where they’re going in the future. The bottom line is that this organization is designed to advance opportunities for wome...

Lyn St. James is an American icon in the world of professional auto racing. After humble beginnings racing in a showroom stock Ford Pinto, she would go on to set multiple world speed records and become the 1992 Indy 500 rookie of the year! We sat down with Lyn at the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach where she talks about how she progressed through her career. She also talks candidly about her b...

Dan Siegel is just one of the many people who work in the NTT IndyCar Series in the technical inspection area. At the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach he shared with us the procedure of how they inspect the race cars, how they inspect safety equipment before and after a crash and also how they ensure a fair, competitive platform, so that the teams can have a level playing field going into the race c...

Kyle Kirkwood is the only driver to win consecutive Road To Indy ladder series championships consecutively. He spent 2022 driving for AJ Foyt Racing where he had a best finish of 10th at Long Beach. This year he’s racing for Andretti Autosport and he started the year off qualifying in the Firestone Fast Six at St. Petersburg. At the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, he qualified on pole and led...

It was another successful and classic (in more ways than one) Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The Grand Prix Association of Long Beach reported that it was the best crowd (192,000 fans) since the reunification of CART and the IRL. The last of the remaining grandstand seats sold out Saturday night. What started off as a cold and drizzly week, morphed into mild and mostly sunny weather that helped k...

TJ Fischer started out in racing as most drivers do today – in karts. He made the jump to cars in SCCA road racing in a Formula Mazda. Now racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup, Fischer is enjoying success in this highly competitive series and is hungry for more. We spoke to him just after the conclusion of his second race at the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach to find out his background and how h...

Kay van Berlo started his racing career in Europe and is now enjoying success in here in the USA. We caught up with Kay at the media luncheon just prior to the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach where he was entered in the Porsche Carrera Cup event. He fills us in on his background, his approach to his first street race in this car and plans for the future. He had a sensational race weekend at th...

Kay van Berlo started his racing career in Europe and is now enjoying success in here in the USA. We caught up with Kay at the media luncheon just prior to the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach where he was entered in the Porsche Carrera Cup event. He fills us in on his background, his approach to his first street race in this car and plans for the future. He had a sensational race weekend at th...

Matthew Brabham has a last name steeped in motorsports history and glory. Matt himself has racked up a pretty good racing resume’ himself. We chatted with him in the Stadium SUPER Truck garage in Long Beach last year and he talked to us about a number of things including how he manages crossing over from Indy Lights to the trucks, his ambition to win the Indy 500, along with his fitness and simula...

Robby Gordon gives us a quick intro/cameo where he talks about the logistics of why he’s getting the trucks back to the United States from overseas. His son Max Gordon is a chip off the block of his dad, Robby. At only 14 years of age, he’s been racing for years. We caught up with him at the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach where he was racing in the SPEED Energy Stadium SUPER Truck Series. He...

Robby Gordon has been winning races in a wide variety of racing cars and trucks for decades. These days, you’ll still find him racing in his Speed Energy Stadium SUPER Trucks Series. These high-flying trucks put on an exciting show wherever they compete around the world and they are truly a fan favorite on the streets of Long Beach during the grand prix weekend. We talked to Robby at the media lun...

Tom Long has been racing sports cars successfully for many years. He worked his way up from SCCA Spec Miata to become a factory driver for Mazda in their DPi class, he’s driven an incredible array of race cars over the years. We caught up with him at the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach where he was getting ready to get behind the wheel for the first time in the amazing Mazda RX-792P IMSA GTP c...

Jimmy Vasser is known in racing circles as a championship winning driver (IndyCar 1996), and as a teammate to some of the most well-known racing drivers in the world, including Alex Zanardi and Juan Pablo Montoya. After retiring from his extremely successful career as a driver, Vasser became a team owner (with Kevin Kalkhoven) and won the 2013 Indy 500 with Tony Kanaan as their driver. Now with co...

Jimmie Johnson came into the 2022 racing season as a sophomore NTT IndyCar Series driver after spending most of his first year competing on road and street circuits. This season he would compete at every round. Coming off of his open-wheel career best finish at Texas Motor Speedway (sixth), he came into the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach with a bit more confidence than before. He talks with us abo...

Kyle Kirkwood came into the 2022 season with a lot of promise as he’s the only driver to win all three championships on the Road to Indy ladder system in consecutive years. We chatted with him prior to the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach about his preparation for this year’s event, the Indy 500 and how he’s been able to learn from veteran Sebastien Bourdais who was in this seat last year. Driv...