Sports Car Racing: Basically Like the Periodic Table

Remember when you were in school, either in high school or university? There was often a time where a teacher/professor would ask you to memorize a series or list of things and then you’d regurgitate them back for the sake of getting a good grade.

Sports car racing is the motorsports equivalent of the periodic table of the elements. I say that because throughout my own educational career, there were numerous times I’d need to memorize the 100-plus element table, and it’s why to this day elemental symbols like 79-Au for Gold and 47-Ag for Silver still stick. Or 25-Mn for Manganese, but who’s counting.

It’s with that as a reference point that sports car acronyms could be as confusing as the periodic table. Because for all the classes there are that exist in North America (or worldwide, but let’s take this one step at a time), the acronyms do match the name of the class.

There’s just so many that they rival the table in sheer volume and, easy confusion unless you take a substantial amount of time to study them.

So, here we go with “Acronyms 101: A Guide to 2014 Sports Car Racing in North America, and Maybe the World if We Have Time.” Remember, there will be a test on this later.

The first element/acronym that applies to more than simply one championship is BoP (#1). That stands for Balance of Performance. That’s what sanctioning bodies (FIA, IMSA, SCCA, etc.) use to help equal widely varying cars that could range anywhere from V10-powered SRT Vipers to smaller V6 turbos, and anything in-between. It’s not an easy task, and it’s a thankless job … because anyone who doesn’t get the necessary BoP will bitch about it constantly.

Now, we’ll move to the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, or TUSC (#2). TUSC is the amalgamation of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS, #3), and GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series (no acronym here, because it never caught on. People just called it “GRAND-AM” or “Rolex Series”). TUSC is the merged series for 2014 … yet is still in a marketing/branding identity crisis because it began as United SportsCar Racing (USCR, #4) before TUDOR entitlement sponsorship and is also colloquially referred to as TUSCC (#5) in case folks don’t identify SportsCar as one word. Sanctioning body IMSA is #6 on the Sports Car Table of Elements, and has been through several iterations.

So, we’re through six acronyms and we haven’t yet got to the classes yet. Ready, set, go…

The lead class is P (#7), which combines Daytona Prototypes (DP, #8), LMP2 (P2, #9) and the radical DeltaWing (DW, #10) into one class. The DPs are not ACO (#11) homologated; P2s are ACO homologated, and the DeltaWing doesn’t fit into any technical set of regulations. But it has perpetually spawned “Ace and Gary” jokes for the life of its existence given its shape. ACO, we’ll get to again later.

PC (#12) is the second prototype class, combined of spec-ORECA FLM09s, which were introduced to ALMS in 2010. They require a pro-am lineup and have a lower cost than the flagship class; P2 is also cost-capped but not a spec-chassis.

GTLM (#13) is the ACO GTE class racing in America, but because we don’t have enough acronyms, the American series has adopted this name for the TUDOR Championship. Lucky #13 combines GT – for Grand Touring, but that’s not an acronym on its own because it fits into so many other acronyms – with LM for Le Mans. Most of these cars can go to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is run by the ACO, if they so choose.

GTD (#14) is not a GTE class, but instead GT Daytona, which combines 2013 Rolex Series GT class teams and 2013 American Le Mans Series GTC (#15) class teams. Rolex Series GT cars, except for the Porsche GT3 Cup, were eligible to continue into this class, as were ALMS GTC teams except not with their Porsche GT3 Cups. Porsche created an all-new car for this class, just for North America, the aptly named Porsche 911 GT America. This is a pro-am class and has the highest number of cars entered, north of 25, for the 2014 Rolex 24 at Daytona. GTC continues, but in other championships around the world and not limited to the aforementioned Porsche GT3 Cup. GTC in the ALMS stood for “GT Challenge.”

To add to the TUSC confusion, SRT Viper, BMW, Porsche and Ferrari are running cars with nearly the same nomenclature in both classes. There are two factory SRT Viper GTS-Rs and two factory BMW Z4 GTLMs that run in GTLM, and a solitary SRT Viper GT3-R and BMW Z4 GTD that run in GTD. Porsche, as mentioned above, has the new 911 GT America in GTD and the factory-run 911 RSR in GTLM. Ferrari seeks to be more confusing, because it has the Ferrari F458 Italia in GTLM and simply the Ferrari 458 in GTD. Easiest way to tell them apart is that the GTLM cars have red number badges and wing endplates; GTD’s are blue. The GTD cars are modified GT3 cars… GT3 (#16) is another animal in and of itself.

We’re not done, of course, with TUSC. Now we introduce the four driver rankings, which, this is perfect, nearly match up with four elements from the periodic table! These aren’t official acronyms but because we can never have enough acronyms, I’m just going to arbitrarily declare that Platinum (#78, Pt), Gold (#79, Au) and Silver (#47, Ag) match their place and symbol on the periodic table. No symbol exists for the fourth category, Bronze, but because it contains Copper elements I’ll give it the Copper number and symbol (#29, Cu).

The driver rankings system is a way of separating the pros from the wankers. For example, Anthony Davidson is an ex-Formula One driver who is now a factory shoe driving for Toyota’s Le Mans team. He’s a Platinum. The wanker who took him out in the below video at the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans, Pierguiseppe Perazzini, is a Bronze.

Determining Gold and Silver is a bit trickier, and for a couple years drivers with the Silver designation could race in more places because they met the “Am” driver requirement, even if they weren’t necessarily an “Am” driver. Because it’s sports car racing, and it’s complicated.

Now you’ll note here we’ve mentioned a few acronyms – FIA, ACO and GTE – that we haven’t elaborated on. So this will serve as a perfect transition into the FIA World Endurance Championship and its acronyms.

ACO (#11) is the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. They run the 24 Hours of Le Mans. They are French, and are kind of a big deal. The FIA (#17) is the Federation International d’Automobile. They are a slighter bigger deal, run most of worldwide motorsport and sanction several championships, including F1 and the WEC (#18). In 2012, the WEC succeeded the ILMC (#19), which was the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (2010-’11), as an FIA-sanctioned world championship for sports car racing. The ILMC not only didn’t receive that sanctioning, but it was a clunky name to begin with.

The WEC has four classes: LMP1 (#20), LMP2 (#21), GTE Pro (#22) and GTE Am (#23). LMP1, of course, because, this isn’t confusing enough, will see a new set of regulations enter in 2014 for both factories and privateer entries. Essentially, the factories have to run to a certain mandated fuel number while privateers won’t. And there are designations for hybrids versus privateers within LMP1. LMP2 is cost-capped and open-tire, unlike in TUSC, where P2 cars are still cost-capped but run on Continental Tires.

GTE Pro is the GTLM class in TUSC but with a different class name; GTE Am allows GTE-spec cars as runs in GTE Pro but they have to be at least one year old to be eligible, and requires at least one Bronze driver.

LMP3 (#24) was announced as a new 2015 class for the ACO, similar to PC as runs in America, but with different machinery.

(pausing for a gallon of water)

Now that those are straight, time to get to the dozens of other sports car acronyms.

Pirelli World Challenge (PWC, #25) is North America’s longest continually running sports-car championship. It celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2014. It allows full FIA GT3-spec cars (hey, there’s acronyms 16 and 17 together!) to run in its GT (#26) class, has created a GT-A (#27) subcategory (but not class) for gentlemen drivers, and also features the GTS (#28), TC (#30), TCA (#31) and TCB (#32) classes for 2014. More than 15 manufacturers are involved and more than 80 cars are projected to race. And there’s way more ways of denoting what those all entail, but I’m already at about 1,500 words.

IMSA also sanctions the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC, #33) which features the GS (#34) and ST (#35) classes. That’s a barnburner form of racing, usually on TUSC weekends, of more than 60-70 cars on average. Other series sanctioned by IMSA include Cooper Tire Prototype Lites, Ferrari Challenge, Lamborghini Super Trofeo, Porsche GT3 Cup USA and Porsche GT3 Cup Canada.

There’s also NASA (#36) and ITC (#37), sports car organizations that exist but I’m not sure if anyone really knows much more about them other than their acronym. Maybe the competitors.

Worldwide, you have things like the Blancpain Endurance Series (BES, #38) and other GT-type series that widely embrace GT3 machinery.

You can’t know sports car racing without knowing Radio Le Mans (RLM, #39), led by the renowned voice of sports car racing John Hindhaugh, with responsible adult Eve Hewitt and the team that make their broadcasts around the world can’t miss. The flagship is the weekly Midweek Motorsport (MWM, #40) and the Midweek Motorsports Listeners’ Collective, that that has spawned.

RLM, unfortunately, has been passed over for MRN (#41) for TUSC radio coverage, which make RLM and many sports car fans around the world collectively SMH and ask WTF.

I haven't mentioned SCCA (#42) yet, so I am now. Apologies for the oversight.

The beauty of sports car racing is its variety, diversity of machinery and friendly, open paddock. The downside is that it is bloody confusing to keep track of. And I say this having covered it regularly for six years.

And even after all the above words, I know I’m almost guaranteed to have missed an acronym … or 12.

Here’s my completely unofficial recap:

Acronym #	Acronym	Description
1	BoP	Balance of Performance. Designed to level playing field
2	TUSC	TUDOR United SportsCar Championship: The official acronym
3	ALMS	American Le Mans Series: 1999-2013, part of TUSC
4	USCR	United SportsCar Racing: TUSC before TUDOR arrived
5	TUSCC	TUSC with an extra, stupid, unwanted C
6	IMSA	International Motor Sports Association. TUSC sanctioning body
7	P	Main Prototype class in TUSC
8	DP	Daytona Prototypes; part of P class in TUSC. Was in Rolex Series
9	P2	P2; part of P class in TUSC. Was in ALMS
10	DW	DeltaWing; part of P class in TUSC. Radical car from ALMS
11	ACO	ACO; head sanctioning body of the 24 Hours of Le Mans
12	PC	Prototype Challenge; spec P class in TUSC. Was in ALMS
13	GTLM	GT Le Mans; open GT class in TUSC. Was in ALMS
14	GTD	GT Daytona; modified GT class in TUSC. Combo Rolex/ALMS
15	GTC	GT Challenge; former class of ALMS, integrated into GTD
16	GT3	Most popular level of GT cars; modified for TUSC and PWC
17	FIA	FIA; head sanctioning body of WEC
18	WEC	FIA World Endurance Championship; world sports car chp.
19	ILMC	Non-FIA sanctioned forerunner to WEC
20	LMP1	Top class of WEC. Open to factories/privateers. New 2014 regs
21	LMP2	Cost-capped second prototype class in WEC, w/open-tire regs
22	GTE Pro	GTE-spec lead GT class in WEC. Open all around.
23	GTE Am	GTE second GT class, requires 1+ year older machinery
24	LMP3	Future class, because we don’t have enough classes
25	PWC	Pirelli World Challenge; sprint series in North America
26	GT	Lead class of PWC
27	GT-A	GT subcategory in PWC, open to gentlemen drivers
28	GTS	Grand Touring Sport, GTS open to Camaros, Kia, Porsche, etc.
29	Cu	Bronze driver ranking, to sync up with Copper of table
30	TC	Touring Car class in PWC
31	TCA	Touring Car A class in PWC, designed to lower cost
32	TCB	Touring Car B class in PWC, entry level professional racing
33	CTSCC	IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge
34	GS	Conti’s lead class
35	ST	Conti’s second class
36	NASA	Another sports car racing organization
37	ITC	International Trophy Cup, another NA sports car series
38	BES	Blancpain Endurance Series, races in Europe
39	RLM	Radio Le Mans, ace broadcasters of sports car racing
40	MWM	Midweek Motorsport, weekly show on Wednesdays led by RLM
41	MRN	MRN Radio, who are not RLM. NASCAR-owned radio station
42	SCCA	Sports Car Club of America. They do Runoffs and way more.
47	Ag	Silver driver ranking, to sync up with Silver in table
78	Pt	Platinum driver ranking, to sync up with Platinum in table
79	Au	Gold driver ranking, to sync up with Gold in table

End of a Season

Thanksgiving – it’s about as good a time as any to compose a proper recap of the year just past, the people met, the places visited and the memories made.

Admittedly and apologetically I’ve neglected an update on this web space since the end of the last crazy, spring into summer blur from May through July. Since then, trips to Chicago, Mid-Ohio, Elkhart Lake (twice), Sonoma, Baltimore, Austin (twice), Houston, Fontana/LA/San Diego and Las Vegas have followed between the end of July and now a week ago here in November. I may have missed one spot in that point as it’s been a rather surreal stretch, mostly involving airports, security checks, hotel rooms and media centers.

Through it all I think this year I found a greater appreciation for each event I visited, rather than simply going through the motions. In January and February this year I didn’t know if I’d still be able to live my dream of covering motorsports and traveling the country to see it. By November, I’d had the most diverse year of my career, working with the greatest number of clients and the highest number of trips and races.

To recap, on site this year I covered Formula One, IndyCar, Pirelli World Challenge, NASCAR Nationwide, American Le Mans Series, GRAND-AM Rolex Series, countless support series and also squeezed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase Media Day in Chicago (with what was, I have to say, my personal “drive of the year” to get to Navy Pier in record time via back roads with less traffic. George Costanza would be proud). All told, 20 race weekends, three tests, the Chase Media Day and the SEMA Show in November made up the calendar.

What started as a surreal email in my inbox in Feburary, asking “if I’d be interested in writing for NBC Sports,” has borne greater fruit than I could have ever imagined. My MotorSportsTalk colleagues – Chris Estrada, Luke Smith and Keith Collantine – have helped to grow the site from day one to more than 8 million total page views as of this writing. And for them, they’ve grown as writers as well with this incredible opportunity. It’s been a privilege to work with them this year as we push ahead to 2014. It’s been awesome to see the support from our readers, too. To each and every one of you, I give thanks.

That’s also provided the invaluable opportunity to work with the NBC Sports TV and production teams. There’s a special bond shared by the people that make TV, and I can tell you from all the events I was at this year, a tireless dedication put in by each and every member of the team, from all the on-air talent to the production staff.

The second “new family” I joined and was so thankful to work with was the Pirelli World Challenge series. PWC features limitless potential and an incredible array of manufacturers that compete within the series’ GT and Touring Car classes. The racing is off the hook and like NBC, the PWC staff is a great family as well. I joined the team in midseason at Lime Rock and look forward to the series’ 25th anniversary season in 2014.

Add up the rest – the PR “baptism by fire” with the revolutionary DeltaWing team through May, the other PR races working with Adam Saal and his clients, a one-off with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dave Kallmann in June, and still occasional contributions to RACER Magazine, the ALMS website and Motorsport Illustrated News – and it was a whirlwind season where half the time I needed to tweet or Facebook what it was I was doing or who I was working with just to keep track!

Some places I visited really stole my heart for a few days. Austin, in particular, was amazing on two separate occasions. Having the opportunity to recapture the magic of being a fan, with my dad, for the ALMS/FIA World Endurance Championship weekend in September, was something I will cherish for years. The city itself, with the great food, great music and great atmosphere just drew me in to where I could not wait to go back for F1 in November.

And indeed, covering a Formula One race on site was the fulfillment of one of my last major unchecked items on my racing checklist. The big word of difference is “exclusivity” – you have to scan your pass in to the zones you have access to. Some spots are off limits! So it becomes a bit of a cat-and-mouse game to see where you can go… but you have to be careful so as not to piss off the overlords from FOM. That said, working in the TV compound was a unique, different and intriguing experience that I was fortunate to enjoy.

Toronto and Baltimore were probably my other favorite stops this year on the racing calendar, for the mix of on-track activity, people I got to see and food I ate. Honorable mention goes to the week in Southern California for Fontana, LA and San Diego… and the Ontario hotel was probably my best value pick of the year.

The least favorite? Without a question, it was Houston. It was a trying weekend for IndyCar with track and schedule issues in the early part of the weekend, then rain on Sunday that threw another monkey wrench into things. Dario Franchitti’s awful accident - which eventually led to his forced retirement - was just the icing on the cake. Add in the bad traffic and it was a place that left a less-than-satisfactory first impression.

Quite honestly this year was one to forget though from the injuries and deaths standpoint. It seemed every month there was another shock death that just jolted the racing community. There was Dick Trickle’s suicide, Jason Leffler in a sprint car accident, Allen Simonsen at Le Mans, Maria de Villota due to complications from her testing accident in 2012, and lastly, Sean Edwards in a private coaching accident in Australia.  October just sucks for the racing community with the latter two fatalities joining Dan Wheldon, Greg Moore, Marco Simoncelli, Rick Huseman and “Iron Man Mike” Wanser for losses during the tenth month of the year.

The Edwards and Simonsen deaths hit me the most. Simonsen’s was entirely preventable as he went off at a section of the track where there was just a guardrail with trees behind the catch fencing; in modern day racing, such a safety vulnerability is unacceptable. Edwards’ loss is about the sports car equivalent of Moore’s death in 1999; a massively talented, young rising star who was destined for greatness but never had the chance to achieve it.

Lastly in this look back, there’s the people. I mentioned it with two of the specific “work families,” but this is a fraternity of travelers that do this for a living. We bond, share drinks, dinners, form memories and hopefully, try to enjoy the fact we’re outside soaking up sunshine, blowing out our eardrums and avoiding the daily grind of cubicle life.

For all the ways racing can get you down – the long hours, frequent travel, constant politics, the confusion of “which class, which drivers, which series,” the endless negativity from perpetually miserable onlookers – it still kicks ass most of the time.

Time to load up on the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, pass out from the tryptophan and wine and give thanks to a mostly awesome year just passed. Cheers.  

When two months feels like two weeks

It's been a while since I posted anything on here. Getting back home Monday from Canada marked the end of a manic two-month stretch where I spent nine of 10 weekends either working and/or traveling. Here’s a recap, in bullet points:

·      

May 7-13, Monterey, CA, DeltaWing PR

o   Positives: Team’s first podium, good media outreach, great to work with Katherine Legge, Andy Meyrick (drivers) and team led by David Price. A successful sign-off for me, because it made sense for both of us to move in other directions after my first two races.

o   Negatives: We broke with 20 minutes remaining of four-hour race while trying to hit 70 percent mark for points, which led to a flurry of backlash on social media. Also, missed my connecting flight in DTW from SFO and spent night in an airport Holiday Inn Express “In the D.”

·    

May 17-18, Minneapolis, MN, road trip with Mom to a convention of hers

o   Positives: New city, got to experience the Mall of America for the first time.

o   Negatives: It pissed like hell for the entire five-six hour drive there, and the hotel didn’t have NBCSN for Indy 500 qualifying. Luckily, NBC Sports Live Extra streaming, Twitter, and INDYCAR 13 app came to the rescue.

·       

May 22-30, Indianapolis, Indy 500 for NBC Sports

o   Positives: It’s Indy. The race and its record lead changes. Monday morning pic with winner Tony Kanaan. First Mug ‘N Bun experience. Coffee with Alex Lloyd where we solved the world’s problems.

o   Negatives: I guess I made it rain at the Night Before the 500 at LORP, and I forgot what a shitshow Broad Ripple is.

·       

May 31-June 4, Detroit and Indy again, NBC Sports

o   Positives: Holy cow does Roger Penske put on a first-class event. Conway and Pagenaud winning, Jakes starring. Absolutely loved this race weekend. And how can you beat IHOP for dinner near our hotel? Coffee back in Indy with Martin Plowman, who went onto win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in LMP2 with Bertrand Baguette and Ricardo Gonzalez a couple weeks later. Gotta love the positive juju.

o   Negatives: Not many if I’m honest, but I will say there are definitely certain parts of Detroit you don’t want to be in at the wrong time of day.

      June 12-15, Milwaukee IndyFest, NBC Sports

o   Positives: Great race advances (lunches, celebrity bartending, go-karting, Street Fest) by Andretti Sports Marketing. Sitting in the Turn 1 grandstands for the race. Will Buxton’s fever for the city, the race, and his epic goldenrod pants.

o   Negatives: Anytime you’re sat next to “Chinzilla” in the media center, you do everything you can to spend as little time there as possible.

·       

June 22, Road America Nationwide, Journal Sentinel

o   Positives: Getting the opportunity to work with Dave Kallmann, AJ Allmendinger scoring a popular win and Billy Johnson’s post-race quotes to me. I have yet to get a sound bite better than his bit about growing up in LA traffic and using it to his advantage to slice through the field. Oh, and SJB stand, double brats and Spotted Cows.

o   Negatives: Deadlines! Man do I have a lot of gained respect for NASCAR print and other deadline writers. The race wrapped at 7:30 p.m. and our deadline was 8:45. I haven’t had such a mad rush to get quotes to make a deadline since my Marquette Tribune days.

·       

 June 27-July 3, July 7, Cousin’s wedding, New Jersey

o   Positives: All of it. Food, family, ambience, location, music, ceremony, reception. Just perfect in every aspect. Oh, and surviving my first trip to the Jersey Shore was also a bonus.

o   Negatives: Trenton-Mercer Airport. Literally, there is just one gate. It is hotter than Hades in there. There’s no air conditioning, no bathrooms past security and just one airline, Frontier. The parking lot is twice as big as the terminal. It might be in the running for the worst airport in America. That said, it was cheap and convenient, so I’ll cross it off my airport bucket list.

·       

July 3-July 6, Lime Rock Park, Pirelli World Challenge

o   Positives: New work opportunity and fun dinners, great series car and driver content and seeing the sports car paddock once again.

o   Negatives: Zero cell service, long drive to/from hotel, cramped paddock space. Oh, and Thursday with eight on-track sessions for my first day. Here’s your baptism by fire, Batman.

·      

July 11-15, Toronto, NBC Sports and PWC

o   Positives: Where do I start? My first trip ever to Canada more than lived up to expectations: the downtown, the public transportation, the food, the drinks, Porter Airlines and arriving into Billy Bishop Airport, the track, the hospitality, Timbits and a double-double, were all phenomenal. Seeing Turbo and following it up with Chipotle with Josef Newgarden on Thursday wasn’t bad either.

o   Negatives: The time in T.O. ended too soon, and I didn’t get outside the media centre very much. Also, it took a little longer than anticipated to enter the country to pass border security, but all was well at the end of the day.

Oh, and that doesn't even factor in seeing Sir Paul McCartney on Tuesday. But in a word, wow. At least one home weekend this weekend and possibly back on the road for another three in a row next week. As for now, I’m out. Cheers. 

Racing: There's still room for appreciation

View from the stands - among fans - during the ALMS race in Long Beach

For most racing fans, racing is an escape – a divergence from the normal monotony of day-to-day life in the office. You know, doing things like TPS reports and cover letters, all while dealing with memos coming from corporate.

For those of us fortunate enough to work in the sport, we don’t spend near enough time appreciating the quality of what’s offered. The grind of writing, working on the car, chasing sponsorship to compete, or trying to drum up interest for your entity can totally wear you down.

But at the end of the day, whether it’s as a fan, a driver, a team member, a media member, a sponsor or other affiliated interest, a day at the track beats the hell out of most days in the office.

It’s now the month of May. I wrote a post for NBC’s MotorSportsTalk the other day about all the awesomeness that is on display this month. 

It’s easy to bitch, moan and complain about the micro details of racing. We all do.

The macro, though, is that there’s something that drew us to this sport once. It got us hooked. It kept us hooked. Even, hopefully, through the political morass and bullshit that so frequently tries to interrupt.

There’s still something to this thing called racing. Take some time this month to reflect on what drew you in. Enjoy the moments. The smell. The camaraderie. The variety of cars. The pomp and pageantry on race mornings.

The call to start engines and begin the run, however long it is. The checkered flag after a long day’s work.

This post is definitely guilty of being overly positive. There’s too much good, still, in this sport to have it be drowned out by the negativity. At least I feel that way.

That’s what I’m working on forcing myself to do this month. It’s all about embracing the opportunities and giving thanks for all this sport has given to me.

The next few months may be turbulent through all the changes that are to come in the racing landscape, across several series, but the power of the racing family should push everyone through. I hope it can. 

March Madness: TDZ edition

Earlier this week I tried an attempt at humor; today I figured I’d post something that’s actually serious. How I have the gusto to put another few hundred words together after the last month is beyond me. But, I digress, here’s why the last month has been as crazy as it has.

On the work front

Napleton Racing's Porsche Cayman

Essentially, a month ago, I stood at the crossroads of wondering what it would be like to not be in racing after a one-off PR assignment at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. That went well and one of our cars won in class, a  Napleton Racing-entered Porsche Cayman in the GX class.

The daily grind to find a “real job” is not for the faint of heart. You may think you know what you’re doing in the search process, but in many respects, you have no idea. It’s a tough market out there.

The biggest thing I could advise any soon-to-be graduate entering the market in May, once Easter break is through, is to make and maximize your connections, because you never know what may spring up. That’s what’s now led to going from having one bi-weekly commitment to that plus two major new opportunities.

My name was tossed in the ring for a new blog NBC was launching to complement its Formula 1 and IndyCar coverage, and that launched in late February. MotorSports Talk can be found online as part of NBC’s SportsTalk blog network at motorsportstalk.nbcsports.com.

Additionally, with a few changes happening behind the scenes in terms of equipment and personnel, I have also joined up with the fascinating, innovative and revolutionary DeltaWing project (right) as its PR representative.

The first month has been both exciting and challenging as we thrashed to get to and through the 12 Hours of Sebring. The frustrating element was having such an early engine failure in the race, but we learned a lot as a team, and I certainly learned a lot from my first full week as the lead PR rep for a team. The cliff notes version is that team PR is much harder than it looks. IndyCar blogger Bill Zahren, better known as Pressdog, wrote a good blog post on that topic here. 

On the travel front

What those commitments all meant was a month from February 27 through March 25 where I was home exactly three full days.

I’ve now been to Atlanta as many times in the last month (twice) as in the rest of my life prior to that. That discounts the countless times of actually flying through Atlanta, but with four trips in the bank, it’s now a city I think I know fairly well.

After Atlanta, we road tripped as a team down to Sebring, which was fun. The funny part of the place I stayed in Sebring – a very nice condo/villa that had been rented out for the week – is that the view was gorgeous, the channel lineup was plentiful (it had both NBC Sports Network and SPEED), but it didn’t have Internet! That little wrinkle made it even harder to get all the work done, as it needed to be finished at the track. On the upside, that ensured once I was back to the villa, it was time to put down the laptop and open up a beer.

Post-Sebring I was able to, for the first time, do the Florida double of Sebring, then St. Petersburg for IndyCar and Pirelli World Challenge.

The interim meant a few days up in Tampa, and with that, a chance to take in a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game with a friend. That might have been one of the most fun nights I’ve had in a while; I’d love to bottle that up and take it forward. Otherwise, a restful few days with work done from the hotel room.

I was pleasantly surprised by St. Pete. The city’s nice without being flashy, the track is fairly compact so you can get to most of it quickly, and the racing was pretty solid across all the divisions going on. Great food and drinks with the “racing family” enhanced the experience; it was a very fun weekend.

Josef Newgarden's car on the grid.

IndyCar can’t catch a break

Three of the drivers I’ve been lucky to “grow up with” in my motorsports writing career, as they have progressed up the ladder, all made headlines in St. Pete – two of them for very good reasons. James Hinchcliffe scored a popular and well-judged first win, Simona de Silvestro starred all weekend and was unlucky to finish sixth despite podium pace, and JR Hildebrand… has made better moves in his career.

It was one of the better curtain-raisers in recent years and yet no more than a couple hours after the race, NASCAR was making all the headlines with its last lap contretemps at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin were crashing, Logano and Tony Stewart were fighting, and Hamlin was sitting in his car, shaken and stirred. Suddenly another IndyCar race, where the pure racing was the star, took a backseat to the entertainment in NASCAR… and come Monday, it was the NASCAR race that made the rounds on the talking heads shows. This never surprises me but it never ceases to frustrate me, either.

Marquette’s magical run

Until its dud this Saturday against Syracuse, when all the magic ran out, it has been a remarkable ride for my Marquette Golden Eagles this year.

This was a team picked to finish seventh in the Big East, with an obvious lack of talent compared to the Big East big dogs and two major departures in 2012 BEAST POY Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom, “DJO.”

Buzz Williams did everything and more with this bunch, where Vander Blue emerged as a breakout star after two lackluster seasons and the rest of the team all seemed to improve in one or more areas. Some games were heartbreakers, notably Rotnei Clarke’s miracle three for Butler in Maui.

But more often than not, Marquette pulled it out – from Junior Cadougan’s prayer to send the UConn game into overtime, the Georgetown miss on the third free throw, Jake Thomas (!) and his four-point play against Syracuse, a road-and-home sweep of Pitt and Vander’s buzzer beater to beat St. John’s and clinch a share of the regular season Big East, ensured this was a magical season.

This team had no business playing as well as it did and going as far as it did. But what a ride and what a testament to Buzz and his staff’s coaching effort. I was so happy to be back in Milwaukee from late December to witness it.

LINKED IN CHAINS - TDZ AND RAPPER JOIN FORCES FOR 2013 RACING MEDIA TOUR

LONG BEACH, CALIF. (April 1, 2013) – As part of an innovative, collaborative effort, racing writer Tony DiZinno and rapper 2 Chainz will attempt to fuse rap and racing for the remainder of the 2013 season.

At future racing events where the artist now known simply as “TDZ” attends, he’ll be wearing a massively large, oversized gold chain around his neck. He has modeled it here to give an idea of what he’ll be wearing in media centers around the country.

“I mean, you need to figure out a way to stand out in a crowded media coverage market,” TDZ said. “Wearing a big ass gold chain is one way to do so. This is clearly different than what other reporters would do. I’m excited about this partnership and look forward to rocking this chain at the races I’m attending later this year.”

2 Chainz is using racing as a new means of expression beyond his rap career, which in recent years has included his name change and his debut studio album, “Based on a T.R.U. Story.”

“It’s a great way for me to keep getting my name out there, the fact that I could roll with a guy who would actually wear this type of gold chain,” said 2 Chainz. “The racing world is fast-paced. These racing guys are dropping lap times faster than I’m dropping beats. It’s a natural partnership.”

TDZ dismissed suggestions the gold chain will impact the writing he plans to do at the remaining events he’ll cover this year.

“Anyone that’s seen me type knows very few things can interrupt my furious, mad, typing skills,” he said. “A massive, ridiculous, oversize, gold link chain will be no different.”

TDZ won’t be at the next IndyCar race at Barber, but plans to premiere the chain on the mean streets of the LBC – or the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, for those not keen on acronyms.