RaceSchool.com Podcast hosted by Larry Mason

Conor Daly has enjoyed racing success on the Road to Indy and has exhibited a tough determination to find his place in the NTT IndyCar Series. After multiple seasons of driving for multiple teams, Daly found a full-time home in 2022 with Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR). He spoke with us about that, his simulator set-up at home and how it has changed, and how he’s looking forward to working with the same...

Sebastien Bourdais captured four straight championships in an Indy car and has won in numerous other classes too. Going into the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach would be the first time he’s been to the event not racing an Indy car. He spent time with us at the pre-race media luncheon to talk about the Cadillac DPi car and the differences with Indy cars, LMP2 cars and World Endurance Championsh...

Madison Snow is no stranger to Victory Lane. In fact he enjoyed spending some time at the top step of the podium at the 2021 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. That was then when he was racing a Lamborghini. A late switch to the BMW M4 GT3 GTD car in 2022 caused his Paul Miller Racing Team to miss the opening race of the season at the Rolex 24hrs of Daytona. However, the team got the car in time for...

Alex Lynn spent his early racing career on the road to Formula One. A mid-career switch to sports cars and Formula E continued to prove his driving worth to teams as wins and good results followed. He made the switch to Chip Ganassi’s IMSA WeatherTech DPi Cadillac program for 2022 and scored a victory in the grueling 12 Hours of Sebring. Coming into the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend, we g...

Connor De Phillippi raced a BMW M4 for Rahal Letterman Lanigan in the GTD Pro category in 2022. This was the first year for that class as he had been competing in the IMSA GTLM category before that class was phased out. In this interview taken on the Thursday before the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, he talks about his early open-wheel career versus GT racing, how GTD differs from GTLM and h...

Simon Pagenaud has won the Indianapolis 500 and an NTT IndyCar Series Championship. He’s also been a champion in the ALMS Series and Champ Car Atlantics. He started 2022 off in Victory Lane at the Rolex 24 hour race at Daytona in an IMSA prototype. We caught up with him in the paddock at the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach and what started off with a bit of small talk morphed into a fascinatin...

Chuck Lessick is a chaplain with IndyCar Ministry and travels to almost every race of the year. This is his seventh year doing this and he is truly passionate about what he does. As this ministry has evolved over the years, they found that it’s more conducive to attract people to them on race weekends by cutting down their length of service. Lessick calls it a “Pit Stop Devotional” and about 30 pe...

Frank Rico is an expert in auto racing simulators. His company Ricmotech Racing Simulators has supplied sim units to drivers in the NTT IndyCar Series, NASCAR and many other professional racing series. In Part 1, we learned about how Rico got started in the industry, the basics of sim systems, how it benefits drivers and how it’s evolved over the years. Here in Part 2, we’ll take a deeper dive int...

It goes without saying that racing is expensive. It’s also clear that there’s no substitute for seat time – or is there? The use of racing simulators has been increasing over the last few years and really exploded when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The beauty of using a racing simulator is that you’re still able to get “seat time” but at a substantially lower cost than actually hitting the track. Not...

Romain Grosjean is a multi-time champion in European junior formulae, multi-time Formula One podium finisher, and after sustaining burns in a fiery crash at the 2020 season ending F1 Bahrain Grand Prix, moved to the NTT IndyCar Series where he’s also scored multiple podium finishes. Grosjean has always been quick in a race car - provided that his race car was up to the task. This interview took pl...

Rinus VeeKay is a rising star in the NTT IndyCar Series. Driving for Ed Carpenter Racing (ECR), VeeKay got his first victory in May of 2021 at the Indianapolis road course. Less than a month later, his season was interrupted by a cycling accident that broke his collarbone and caused him to miss one race. We spoke with him at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach to get an update on his condition, his...

Colton Herta won the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach in September, 2021 after starting 14th (due to a crash in qualifying) and having contact early on in the race. He came back to the 2022 version and promptly dominated every qualifying session by turning times well under the track record. The race was going well until he pushed too hard and made contact with the wall exiting Turn 9 ending his race...

Scott McLaughlin is a multi-time Supercars Series champion and Bathurst winner. He’s part of the three-driver lineup in the powerful Team Penske organization in the NTT IndyCar Series and got his first win in St. Pete at the first race of the 2022 season. He narrowly missed backing that up in the second race of the season when his teammate just pipped him to the line at the high-speed Texas Motor...

A six-time NTT IndyCar Champion, Indianapolis winner and pole-sitter, not to mention plenty of other wins throughout his career, Scott Dixon is a very humble yet extremely talented race car driver. Always a good interview, Dixon took time to tell us about his season so far at the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach (another race he’s won) and also his thoughts about going back to Indianapolis to h...

Lucille Dust is a writer for the website AutoRacing1.com and has worked in the IndyCar paddock for many years working a wide variety of jobs that has helped her understand the nuances of the sport. In this interview she talks about her background and how she ended up where she is today. She also mentions one of the drivers whose car was featured in a previous RaceSchool.com/blogs podcast. She is a...

A four-time Indianapolis 500 winner on track, Dancing With The Stars champion off-track, Helio Castroneves is known for being an effervescent ambassador in the world of auto racing. After racing full-time for Penske Racing in the NTT IndyCar Series for nearly 20 years, Castroneves was given the option to race the Acura DPi sports car for Penske in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship. He won that cha...

Marie Fornoro works in public relations and also manages the social media accounts for the A.J. Foyt Racing Team. During the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach we had the opportunity to talk with her about how she came into this role with the team and what she does to highlight the drivers, sponsors and team overall. Of course every team at this level does something in this realm so it was intere...

Zoey Edenholm is a high-fly act in the Stadium Super Truck Series put on by Robby Gordon. In this interview taken right after her first race of the weekend during the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach she talks about what happened in her race and how she’s looking forward to future races. With an extensive background in open-wheel and sports car racing, she also has advice for up and coming fema...

A four-time Indianapolis 500 winner on track, Dancing With The Stars champion off-track, Helio Castroneves is known for being an effervescent ambassador in the world of auto racing. After racing full-time for Penske Racing in the NTT IndyCar Series for nearly 20 years, Castroneves was given the option to race the Acura DPi sports car for Penske in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship. He won that cha...

Danielle Shepherd is a race-winning engineer on the number 2 Cadillac DPi-V.R prototype car for Chip Ganassi Racing in the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship. At the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach we got to spend some time with Danielle in the race transporter where she gave us her background and she was also kind enough to answer a bunch of RaceSchool.com listener questions from a data...

Kate Davis came from the NASCAR world to join the NTT IndyCar Series in 2019. In this interview, taped at the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, she discusses her roles and responsibilities and how that can be ever-changing throughout the weekend. It’s interesting to find out how pre-planning can help tackle multiple scenarios throughout the weekend. It’s also important to be flexible and be rea...

Will Power is a former Indianapolis 500 winner and is now a two-time NTT IndyCar Series Champion. This interview was conducted during the weekend of the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. He’s won at Long Beach twice and was inducted into the Motorsports Walk of Fame in front of the Long Beach Convention Center. A very successful veteran of the sport driving for Roger Penske, Power is more relax...

Marie Fonoro works in public relations and also manages the social media accounts for the A.J. Foyt Racing Team. During the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach we had the opportunity to talk with her about how she came into this role with the team and what she does to highlight the drivers, sponsors and team overall. Of course every team at this level does something in this realm so it was interes...

Tatiana Calderon is the first female driver to campaign for the A.J. Foyt Racing Team in its 56-year history. She brings a tremendous amount of experience into the cockpit. She’s been a test driver for the Alfa Romeo F1 Team for the last four years and has also raced in British and European F3, F2, GP3 and Renault Series Formula V8 3.5 where she became the first female to stand on the podium in 20...

Felix Rosenqvist has been winning races and championships in a wide variety of cars throughout his career including being a winner and multiple pole-winner in the NTT IndyCar Series. Fresh off of his first oval pole position at Texas Motor Speedway for his Arrow McLaren SP racing team (AMSP), he spent some time with me before the 2022 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach (where he qualified fourth and f...