Originally Posted by D.O.:
Russ that's a great comment except USAC doesn't own this series or make the rules. This complete deal has been taken over by Bruce Ashmore who redesigned the car and is building this first car with the new body.
Ashmore for those who don't know has worked for Lola, Reynard, as the desigener of their sports cars and Indy 500 winning cars.
Bruce Ashmore (born c. 1959 in Cambridge, England) is a race car designer who designed and developed 11 championship winning IndyCars with two different race car manufacturers, first with Lola Cars and then with Reynard Motorsports.
After graduating from Cambridge Technical University he started working for Lola Cars in Huntingdon, England. During his seventeen years with Lola he worked his way up from intern to chief designer. Bruce was a member of the design team for many race car projects and was the chief designer on the T8800, T8900, T9000, T9100, & T9200 Lola IndyCars.
Then, in 1993 Ashmore joined Reynard Motorsports to begin work on their first Indycar. Within two years Reynard overtook Lola to become the leading Indycar chassis manufacturer.
Bruce's role with Reynard Motorsport took him to the United States where he setup Reynard North America (RNA) and later built the Auto Research Center (ARC) in Indianapolis, Indiana. ARC became the Reynard North American Headquarters. Between 1993 and 1998, he served as Technical Director for RNA and later also for ARC and then in 1999 became president of RNA.
Ashmore joined Forysthe Championship Racing CART team in 2001. After two successful years with the team where he planned the Championship title bid in 2003 he left at the end of 2002 to start Ashmore Design. Ashmore Design has had contracts with Menard Competition Technologies, Menard Engineering, RuSPORT Champ Car team, Conquest Racing and more recently with C&R Racing Incorporated. Ashmore helped Chris Paulsen design the C&R Racing United States Auto Club (USAC) Silver Crown race car.
It's Bruce's deal and money doing this.
There are 23 of these cars owned by somebody, a couple of the owners are here on IOW and they like what is their future.
If this is Bruce's deal and money and not affiliated with USAC, what are all those mentions and logos for USAC? And if he has 23 of them sold, he should be at least approaching getting his money back. Looks a lot like a pretty standard sprint/midget/SC chassis with some extra body work.
While I don't disagree with those that say the car is ugly, I can get around that if they get a bunch of them and run regularly. I like short track modifieds too and not many people will say they are pretty cars.
Since most of the people that are going to be interested in a series like this are pretty much opposed to road courses, why even mention road courses before they have an oval race? A large percentage of what is left of the Indycar fan base thinks the current Indycar is ugly and slow. Does anyone entertain a notion that this series will attract any of them?
