Details on Sam Schmidt's 2005 IPS team

[rustyfan]

From SpeedTV:

IPS - Brazilian Joins Sam Schmidt Motorsports
Written by: Cassio Cortes

Brazilian driver Jaime Camara (KAHN-ma-rah) announced today his plans to contest the 2005 Infiniti Pro Series season with Sam Schmidt Motorsports team. 23-year-old Camara, who finished ninth in last year’s South American F3 championship, has already tested twice with his new team, at Kentucky last year and in Homestead’s oval and road courses earlier this month.

The youngster will have large shoes to fill, as he’s set to occupy the ride his compatriot Thiago Medeiros took to the 2004 IPS title in dominant fashion. “I can barely wait to get back on the Sam Schmidt car again,” revealed Camara. “I felt a great synergy between myself and the team during the tests we had. I want to make the best of this fantastic opportunity, learning as much as I can about oval racing and living in the United States,” he added.

“We’re very happy to sign Jaime for the upcoming season,” said team owner Sam Schmidt. “He’s shown a lot of potential in the tests we did, and so I’m positive he will be contending for the championship from the early races of the season.”

Camara will join former Toyota Atlantic driver Chris Festa and Travis Gregg, who ran three IPS races last year, in a three-car Sam Schmidt assault.

Good to see that Sam Schmidt decided to continue the three-car team he expanded to during the second half of 2004.

[Kicking-back]

Lets hope there will be 18-20 cars on the grid.

IPS has suffered from small grids thus far.

[rustyfan]

Yeah, but at least they had a steady field of 15 cars in the last three races of the 2004 season.

[BootsOntheSide]

15 still isn't enough for it to really be good preperation for the IRL though. Still, it's nice to see that Sam's team is doing so well, I'd love to have them back in the IRL.

[rustyfan]

It's better than the 9-10 cars that they had early on in the season.

[Hazza]

But IPS still suffers that unlike atlantics, a champion can set the world alight and still not be much chop in the big game. The IPS cars need a bit more HP to make them unwieldy That'll teach the wipper snappers

[N I Tram]

Originally Posted by rustyfan

It's better than the 9-10 cars that they had early on in the season.

Your point being? No matter how bad something is, something else exists that's worse. IPS is making progress, but not anywhere near as fast as it needs to.

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by N I Tram

Your point being? No matter how bad something is, something else exists that's worse. IPS is making progress, but not anywhere near as fast as it needs to.

Err, my point being exactly what I said - a seemingly steady field of 15 cars, which they had during the last three races of the season, is better than the average field of 9-10 cars they had in the beginning.

And yes, of course there are always something that can be worse, but I don't see how that has anything to do with what I wrote. Unless, of course, you somehow took my post as a stab at the IPS series (which it wasn't) and felt compelled to defend it.

[gomick]

are the ips cars doing the road course events

[rustyfan]

Originally Posted by gomick

are the ips cars doing the road course events

One more than the IndyCar Series, actually, as they will race on the Indianapolis road-course as a support-event for the US Grand Prix as well.


On a side-note, SpeedTV has posted a good in-depth feature on Sam Schmidt's most recent signing, Jaime Camara:

LINK - Introducing Jaime Camara

[Team Owner]

Rumor today has SSMS running 4 cars at Homestead.

[climb]

wow!