Weekend Schedule 7/23-24

Hey everybody, we have a big weekend of racing coming up.  (all race times are given in US Eastern time)


>Formula 1 will be running the German Grand Prix, this year the race will take place at the 3.2 Mile Grand Prix course at the Nurburgring.  Sebastian Vettel will be looking to take big points in front of his home crowd, and increase his lead in the championship.  However expect a push for good finishes by both the Mercedes works team and McLaren, who use the German engines.  Expect very quick qualifying times with the multiple straightaways benefiting the high top end of the cars this year.  Qualifying will be at 08:00 Saturday morning, and the race at 8:00 Sunday (tape delayed on Fox at noon, watch the twitter for a live BBC link).


>Grand-Am Will be returning to the New Jersey Motorsports Park this weekend.  As the highlite of NJMP's season, the track (facing financial difficulties) is hoping for a good showing.  Previously Grand-Ams visits here have been plauged by rain, most notably when Ricardo Zonta, a former Formula 1 driver took the backmarker Krohn racing prototype to the win in the wet. Will be on Speed Tv 13:00 Sunday.


>Indycar will be running on a revised airport circuit in Edmonton Canada.  As always with a new track, expect some of the young talent to have a good showing.  With a much more open layout than the race in the streets of Toronto last time, and a vow from race control to penalize overly aggressive incidents, expect a much cleaner race as well.  The race will be on Versus at 14:00, after the conclusion of the Tour de France.


>Also running north of the border, the American Le Mans series is running at storied MoSport in Ontario.  This 10 corner 2.5 mile track is the oldest surviving road course in Canada.  Since being opened in 1961 it has hosted club racing, ALMS, Canadian Nascar, and even CanAm, and Formula 1 in it's heyday.  With 31 cars entered, expect the Muscle Milk sponsored Lola-Aston Martin, and the Dyson Lola-Mazda Prototypes to be the contenders for the overall win.  It is anybody's game in the GT Class with Corvette, Porsche, and Ferrari all running well this season, chasing the so far unbeaten BMWs.  The biggest GT Story however is that this is the first race for the Panoz Abruzzi, product of the Series boss Don Panoz, and developed to be a direct link between the race car and it's road-going equivalent.  The race will be at 14:45 live on ESPN3.com with a televised replay on ESPN 2 at 22:00

The Abruzzi in GT trim, last seen running the Festival of Speed in Goodwood, UK.