Milwaukee Mile

(West Allis, WI) -- A large crowd gathered around the Mini-Milwaukee Mile for the showdown that saw AJ Allmendinger win in convincing fashion over Katherine Legge, second 10 laps back, with Nelson Philippe third, shadows of things to come? He finished third the next day in the Time Warner Road Runner 225, his best career finish. Justin Wilson trailed his teammate at RuSport by 13 laps to finish fourth.

The afternoon was a total success and could not have come off at all without the extraordinary efforts of Tom and Chris Spehert and their work on getting the rebuilt Mini-Mile together much earlier than anticipated for this annual event. Big thanks to Larry Rotter for once again being indispensable as the "go-to" guy when it comes to getting a track wired up for an event. Mark Walczak was "johnny on the spot" with the camera to catch these pictures. Mike Fitzlaff and Dan Margetta were also right there to make sure everything ran smoothly, including Dan's amazing traveling TV/VCR/DVD player, which, like at the banquet allowed us to watch the fun from the season just concluded.

###

HO Champ Car at Milwaukee Mile A Huge Success (2005)

WEST ALLIS, WI (June 3, 2005) -- The HO Champ Car World Series on hand at the Champ Car, Driver's Autograph Session Friday evening was a huge success for the long time slot car version of the series. Dozens of Champ Car fans, fresh from getting signatures from their favorite driver's then jumped into the 1/64 scale version of the series' cars and ran 2 minute races. HO Champ Car fans stopped by as well, getting a chance to meet their favorite driver's, like Larry Rotter, Dan Margetta, Amy Butler and Mark Walczak. Finally, to cap off the event Champ Car drivers themselves stopped by to grab a controller and take to the Mini Mile. For details see the following story.Big thanks to everybody who made this event happen, all the HO Champ Car folks, especially the Speherts, Tom and Chris for getting the track to the Mile and Chris as well for painting up a bunch of cars to get them to look like current Champ Cars. Mark Walczak for painting cars and helping set up and tear down.

Champ Car Drivers Race At Mini Mile

WEST ALLIS, WI (June 3, 2005) -- HO Champ Car brought the Mini Milwaukee Mile to the real thing Friday night and gave Champ Car drivers the opportunity to drive their HO equivilent.

RuSport drivers AJ Allmendinger and Justin Wison and Forsythe driver Mario Dominguez as well as Rocketsports' Ryan Hunter-Reay all took the challenge. The RuSport guys and Dominguez faced off in a two minute challenge that saw Wilson win, Dominguez second and Allmendinger third. All three enjoyed themselves with AJ vocally upset with his perfomance.

Hunter-Reay would challenge three youngsters in a race that saw him finish second to a child of about 5, though sand-bagging can't be ruled out.

Thanks to the drivers, Champ Car and the teams' PR people for allowing the drivers a few minutes of unscheduled fun. And especially to Mark Walczak for keeping his eyes open and dragging the guys over just as the autograph session broke up.