Skip Barber-Trained Drivers Make Weekend Headlines

Tuesday, May 31, 2005 This past weekend's full slate of top level racing, including the Indy 500, saw an equally full plate of success for Skip Barber-trained drivers. Following are some SBRS "highlights" from the weekend's races… Indy 500 Former Barber Saab Pro Series champion Bryan Herta took third and 2002 Barber Dodge competitor Danica Patrick was a headline-grabbing fourth. Racing School and Race Series grad Scott Sharp was seventh. It's also worth noting that we put 500 winner Dan Wheldon into a Formula Dodge R/T 2000 for some lapping sessions and Skip Barber driver-coaching at Laguna Seca -- a track he'd never seen -- prior to his Toyota Atlantic race there, in 2000. Wheldon went on to win that race…

Danica Patrick scored 35 points in just five races in Barber Dodge 2002, including a seventh place here in Cleveland.

Coca-Cola 600 Jimmie Johnson just edged out SBRS grad Bobby Labonte for the win. Jeremy Mayfield was fourth and Ken Schrader ninth. Formula 1/European Grand PrixJuan Pablo Montoya scored points at the Nurburgring (seventh), while GP2's Scott Speed -- despite having mechanical problems in race 1, which relegated him to the back for race 2 -- set fastest-lap in both races and sits second in points to Heikki Kovalainen. Speed is very likely to be named Red Bull Racing's third driver for the Canadian and U.S. Grand Prix race weekends (back-to-back, mid-June). In 2002, School graduate Speed won two races and finished third in the Skip Barber National.

Scott Speed (c., after one of his race wins in the Skip Barber National) is taking charge as he leads Red Bull's efforts to get an American in F1 a.s.a.p.

In support-series news, both Joey D'Agostino and Charlie Kimball made it a "memorial day" for Americans in the U.K. Never before had an American driver won both races of a British F3 weekend until Kimball did it this weekend (and he had taken the pole for both races to boot). In Formula Ford U.K., D'Agostino not only earned his fifth then sixth consecutive pole position, he won both races to move himself into second in the title chase, just 12 points behind Charlie Donnely.

Joe D'Agostino starred in the Skip Barber Southern Series (2002 champion) before heading to the U.K. to get on the F1 track. In the amazingly competitive British Formula Ford series, he's doing what no American driver has done before.

Charlie Kimball with his Dad Gordon, who just happened to be Ayrton Senna's engineer while at McLaren.

Rick Roso