October Schedule for Driver Capsules
Who I intend to write about next month.
Here is who I plan to write about for the month of October. As usual, I tried to write about drivers on their birthdays as much as possible, but I had to move a lot of drivers around because there were certain days on the calendar that had multiple drivers who were locks and others which did not. Additionally, my decision to write about all of the NASCAR knockout playoff championships in the week leading up to Phoenix along with writing about all the Daytona 500 winners who didn’t win NASCAR titles in the run up to the Daytona 500 along with writing about Indy 500 stars only in the run up to the Indy 500 and likewise for the weeks leading up to the 24 Hours of Daytona and 24 Hours of Le Mans forced me to move a lot of other drivers around. I tried to write about drivers on an important day in their career if I didn’t write about them on their birthday. I will be writing about Ted Horn, Sean Edwards, Dan Wheldon, Hermann Lang, and Greg Moore on the anniversary of their deaths, Dick Johnson, Rickard Rydell, and Bob Jane on the anniversary of their Bathurst wins, Nick Tandy on the day of his 2015 Petit Le Mans win (which was probably his best drive), Gilles Villeneuve on the day of his 1979 United States Grand Prix win (ditto), Gil de Ferran on the day he set the fastest qualifying lap in history (which is not the closed-course world record, even if it’s usually misreported as such), Jeff Burton on the day of his final win, and Damon Hill and Michael Andretti on the day they won their F1 and CART titles respectively.
I was going to write about Larry ten Voorde on his birthday (which is October 2) but I’ve decided to wait until October 21, which is the day after the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany season ends. Ten Voorde, who is probably for most race fans a strong contender for “the best driver you’ve never heard of”, is clearly a lock and since he has already won the Porsche Supercup title this year and looks like he’s going to win the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany title as well (he could also win the Porsche Carrera Cup Italy title, giving him three titles in one season) is likely trending for a position in my global top five this year and he has announced his retirement after this season, so I should wait until the Italy and Germany seasons are over before I write about him I think. I couldn’t come up with anything for October 2 so I slid Colton Herta in there because I now consider him a lock after he was in my opinion the best IndyCar driver this year (even though I didn’t think he was a lock prior to this year) and Edoardo Mortara for October 29 (because I had nothing for that day either and he was one of the best Formula E and DTM drivers for years even though he has not yet won either title). I chose Herta and Mortara over a lot of other active drivers because the IndyCar and Formula E seasons are both over while most other series are still racing. I don’t remember why I picked those specific days for Omar Martinez, John Surtees, and Jimmy Bryan but I wanted to get this out there with only a handful minutes left in this month…
October 1: Dick Johnson
October 2: Colton Herta
October 3: Nick Tandy
October 4: Rickard Rydell
October 5: Klaus Ludwig
October 6: Bob Jane
October 7: Gilles Villeneuve
October 8: Bill Elliott
October 9: Paul Radisich
October 10: Ted Horn
October 11: Jeff Burton
October 12: Ned Jarrett
October 13: Damon Hill
October 14: Jason Plato
October 15: Sean Edwards
October 16: Dan Wheldon
October 17: Kimi Räikkönen
October 18: Pascal Wehrlein
October 19: Hermann Lang
October 20: Michael Andretti
October 21: Larry ten Voorde
October 22: Omar Martínez
October 23: John Surtees
October 24: Richie Evans
October 25: Jimmy Bryan
October 26: René Rast
October 27: Dick Trickle
October 28: Gil de Ferran
October 29: Edoardo Mortara
October 30: Wilbur Shaw
October 31: Greg Moore