RuSPORT was an auto racing team that competed in the Champ Car World Series. It was founded in September 2002 by Carl Russo.
RuSPORT was an auto racing team that competed in the Champ Car World Series. It was founded in September 2002 by Carl Russo.
Russo drove for the team then known as Performance Development and Racing (PDR) based in Fort Collins, Colorado (USA) which was owned by Steve Wulff. Russo competed in the Toyota Atlantic Series driving a car prepared by PDR in the 2002 season before he decided that team ownership suited him better than being a driver. Russo acquired the assets of PDR from Wulff in late 2002, which gave rise to RuSPORT. Wulff stayed on Operations Director and Gerald Tyler was appointed as Technical Director. Jeremy Dale, a longtime associate of Russo's, was brought on as President of the new operation.
RuSPORT competed in the 2003 Toyota Atlantic Championship Series with drivers Aaron Justus and A. J. Allmendinger. Allmendinger won the championship with seven victories from 11 starts.
RuSPORT and Allmendinger moved to Champ Car in 2004 along with a second car driven by Michel Jourdain Jr. The team quickly grew from a small Atlantic Series team to a two-car Champ Car team with more than 40 employees. The rookie team placed Jourdain and Allmendinger in the top-five numerous time en route to Allmendinger winning Rookie-of-the-Year honors. This was only the second time in the history of the Champ Car Series that a rookie team with a rookie driver accomplished the feat.
In 2005, Justin Wilson was signed as a replacement for 2005 for Jourdain, leading the team to their first wins. Wilson scored two victories (Toronto and Mexico City) and finished third in the championship. Allmendinger came close to victory, with four runner-up finishes during the season. For 2006 they were expected to be challengers to Newman/Haas Racing. Mid-way through the season & after 3 straight top 10 finishes, the team surprisingly replaced Allmendinger with 2002 CART champion Cristiano da Matta who moved over from Dale Coyne Racing. Allmendinger would win the next 3 races in a row for his new team. Cristiano da Matta was injured in a freak collision with a deer during testing at Road America on August 3, 2006.
On September 17, 2006, the team announced that it had selected Australian Ryan Briscoe, to fill in for the final two races of the 2006 season, Surfers Paradise, Australia and Mexico City.
At the conclusion of the 2006 season, Russo's time and energy were being increasingly directed toward his rapidly growing company, Calix, and he was forced to leave behind the team he created and the sport he loved. In November 2006 PKV Racing co-owner Dan Pettit purchased the team from Russo.
On January 22, 2007, RuSPORT confirmed the return of Justin Wilson and title sponsor, CDW. They reportedly signed Wilson to a multi year contract. [1] RuSPORT also formed a technical alliance with the Rocketsports team, and the team was dubbed RSPORTS. Wilson won at Assen and scored solidly enough to finish second overall, while Tagliani struggled and finished outside the series top 10. The alliance was however dissolved before the end of the 2007 season. The RuSPORT team dissolved as of December 31, 2007 [2] and Pettit merged his team ownership with Forsythe Championship Racing. [3] Forsythe would ultimately fold its team when ChampCar merged into the Indy Racing League for 2008.
A. J. Allmendinger (2003–2006)
Ryan Briscoe (2006)
Cristiano da Matta (2006)
Michel Jourdain Jr. (2004) Aaron Justus (2003)
Justin Wilson (2005–2007)(key) (results in bold indicate pole position) (results in italics indicate fastest lap)
| Year | Chassis | Engine | Drivers | No. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Pts Pos | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | LBH | MTY | MIL | POR | CLE | TOR | VAN | ROA | DEN | MTL | LAG | LSV | SFR | MXC | ||||||
| Lola B02/00 | Ford XFE V8 t | Michel Jourdain Jr. | 9 | 11 | 11 | 3 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 2 | 9 | 14 | 6 | 4 | 11 | 17 | 9 | 12th | 185 | |
| A. J. Allmendinger | 10 | 12 | 17 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 11 | 3 | 13 | 5 | 5 | 15 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 6th | 229 | |||
| 2005 | LBH | MTY | MIL | POR | CLE | TOR | EDM | SJO | DEN | MTL | LSV | SRF | MXC | |||||||
| Lola B02/00 | Ford XFE V8 t | Justin Wilson | 9 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 17 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 17 | 3 | 11 | 7 | 1* | 3rd | 265 | ||
| A. J. Allmendinger | 10 | 8 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 12 | 14* | 17 | 3 | 9 | 13 | 2 | 2 | 5th | 227 | ||||
| 2006 | LBH | HOU | MTY | MIL | POR | CLE | TOR | EDM | SJO | DEN | MTL | ROA | SRF | MXC | ||||||
| Lola B02/00 | Ford XFE V8 t | Justin Wilson | 9 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 14 | 5 | Wth | 2* | 2nd | 298 | |
| A. J. Allmendinger | 10 | 16 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 3rd | 285 | |||||||||||||
| Cristiano da Matta | 5 | 14 | 5 | 18 | 2 | 15th | 134 | |||||||||||||
| Ryan Briscoe | 11 | 14 | 21st | 17 | ||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | LSV | LBH | HOU | POR | CLE | MTT | TOR | EDM | SJO | ROA | ZOL | ASN | SFR | MXC | ||||||
| Panoz DP01 | Cosworth XFE V8 t | Justin Wilson 1 | 9 | 5 | 1* | 2 | 10 | 2nd | 281 | |||||||||||
Cristiano Monteiro da Matta is a Brazilian former professional racing driver. He won the CART Championship in 2002, and drove in Formula One with the Toyota team from 2003 to 2004.
Justin Boyd Wilson was a British professional open-wheel racing driver who competed in Formula One (F1) in 2003, the Champ Car World Series (CCWS) from 2004 to 2007 and the IndyCar Series from 2008 to 2015. He won the first Formula Palmer Audi (FPA) in 1998, the International Formula 3000 Championship (IF3000) with Nordic Racing in 2001, and co-won the 2012 24 Hours of Daytona for Michael Shank Racing.
Ryan John Briscoe is an Australian-American professional racing driver from Sydney who has predominantly raced open-wheel and sports cars in Europe and America.
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Gerald (Jerry) R. Forsythe is an American businessman and auto racing magnate, best known for being one of the three men that owned the Champ Car World Series. Forsythe also owned a racing team, Forsythe Championship Racing, that competed in the Champ Car series. In the area of numismatics, Jerry Forsythe is known for owning the finest 1913 Liberty Head nickel and the number one ranked sets for mint state and proof Liberty Nickels as ranked in the PCGS Set Registry.
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RSPORTS was an auto racing team that competed in the Champ Car World Series. It was founded officially in 2007 as a technological partnership, but started out originally as two different teams owned by former race car drivers Carl Russo, who owned RuSPORT, and Paul Gentilozzi who founded Rocketsports.
Newman/Haas Racing was an auto racing team that competed in CART, Champ Car, and the IndyCar Series from 1983 to 2011. The team operations were based in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Newman/Haas Racing was formed as a partnership between actor, automotive enthusiast and semi-professional racer Paul Newman and long-time auto racing owner/driver Carl Haas. The duo were competitors in sports car racing during the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1983, they joined forces to enter the ranks of Indy car racing. Newman/Haas was one of the most successful teams in Indy car racing during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The team won 105 CART/Champ Car races and eight season championships, followed by two race wins in the IRL/IndyCar Series.
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| 2008 Champ Car season | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NHL | Forsythe/Pettit | Minardi | Australia | Rocketsports | Coyne | PKV | PCM | Conquest | |
| 1 Wilson 2 Rahal | 3 Tracy 7 TBA | 4 TBA 14 Doornbos | 5 Power 15 TBA | 8 Bernoldi | 11 TBA 19 TBA | 21 TBA 22 Servià | 28 TBA 29 Figge | 24 Perera 34 TBA | |
| Long Beach - Houston - Laguna Seca - Zolder - Jerez - Cleveland - Mont-Tremblant - Toronto - Edmonton - Portland - Road America - Assen - Surfers Paradise - Mexico City | |||||||||