Autonet.ca

It feels like Christmas at the FAZZT Race Team shop in Indianapolis, with all the trucks coming to the door unloading the four beautiful Dallara race cars, the pit stands, fuel tanks and all the furniture and supplies it takes to run an IZOD IndyCar team.

As I view the pictures of the move-in, I realize there really is a lot of equipment needed to get this team on the road ... well, track ... and Rob Edwards, our General Manager, and the guys are really working hard with the build out of the cars in preparation of our first test in early 2010.

Our team has hired Allen MacDonald as Chief Engineer and Don Oldenburg as Crew Chief. Allen has great experience from his eight year stint at Andretti Green Racing. He has worked with some very good drivers and I’m sure he will bring some very good ideas to make our FAZZT Race Team car very fast. And Don has such a depth of experience from his years in open-wheel that I know the car and equipment will be in tip top shape. It is all really exciting since we will finally have the consistency and equipment to be competitive with some of the larger, more established teams.

I feel like we have always done a good job with what we have and have gotten the most out of our efforts, even though our team was smaller and didn’t run full seasons. So, I’m trying to keep my expectations for our first season in check as I feel with an opportunity to run a full season and with such good people on board, I really want to be competitive from day one.

I’m trying not to be too unrealistic in my expectations and remember that we are a brand new team with new equipment; inevitably, things will go wrong so I have to be ready to accept some bumps in the road. But still, I’m a racer. And whenever I think about the 2010 season, that little voice in my head says ‘I want to win! And be fast every time I’m in the car!’

This weekend is a little slower since it is Thanksgiving in the U.S., but I can guarantee the guys will be in the shop more days than not because they are all very excited to get the cars ready to roll!

You can keep track of the progress on the FAZZT Race Team website (www.fazztraceteam.com). Also, if you sign up as a member of website, you can get special offers and inside information on what we are all doing at the shop and at the race track, as well as any deals coming up with our sponsors.

Hey, it would make a great Christmas gift for your favourite FAZZT Race Team fan and you won’t even have to leave your computer to get the shopping done!

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Follow Alex’s progress toward each race throughout the 2009 season on autonet.ca/tagliani, or on Facebook or Twitter.

I was so excited to be running the NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Phoenix International Raceway and the MacDonald Motorsports team was really pumped up as well.



The weekend started off pretty decently. When I got in the #81 car, we had some work to do to make it faster but MacDonald Motorsports crew chief Dave Ingram and I were able to work through some changes and we jumped up quite a few spots by the 2nd practice session Friday afternoon. The team made some small changes Friday night to prepare the car for Saturday qualifying and I felt we conceivably had a top-20 car. Unfortunately, during my qualifying session, the car got loose in Turn 4 and I ended up in the wall. To compound our misfortune, the only spare car we had was a speedway car set-up for Homestead the following week. That makes it rough, as the car isn’t built for a track like Phoenix.

The MacDonald Motorsports crew guys had worked so hard and they were so motivated that the turn of events was a huge disappointment for everyone. When I got out of the car after qualifying, I didn’t know what to say to the guys and the real bummer is that we didn’t even push too hard in qualifying because we were already locked in.

So the reality was that I only got to run 14 laps in the race and then had to park the car because the speedway set-up just wasn’t going to make it on the short oval. So that is just a real bummer because we had such a good run in Montreal and I think we all felt like we had some unfinished business and we all had the expectations we would do well in Phoenix.

Even though it was my first time on an oval in a stock car, I feel like I adapted quickly and we had a good practice Friday, so what happened in qualifying was really unexpected. I know that for most of us open-wheel guys, the hardest thing to do when you get into a stock car is to not overdrive the car.

In an IndyCar, when you want to shave time off your laps, you drive the car a bit more aggressively and it is almost the opposite in a stock car. So I was happy that in practice, I was getting the feel of the car, which makes the crash in qualifying even harder to understand. It would be nice to have a “do-over” but that doesn’t happen too often in racing.

Now the MacDonald Motorsports team is on its way to Homestead for the season finale and I hope the guys have a good weekend. I’m going to be in Las Vegas working on my training and continuing to prepare for the 2010 IndyCar season.

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Follow Alex’s progress toward each race throughout the 2009 season on autonet.ca/tagliani, or on Facebook or Twitter.

It has been another busy week, in Montreal meeting with our sponsors and working with co-owners Andre (Azzi) and Jim (Freudenberg) on the FAZZT Race Team business side of things. We have been working really hard to get things ready for the 2010 IndyCar season and it is hard to believe that in just about six weeks we will have the car on track! I know the guys at the shop have been working very hard as well and I am starting to get very excited to strap into the #77 for our first shakedown test in December 2009.



The IndyCar Series also had a very busy week with its announcement that IZOD has signed on as the title sponsor for the series - it will now be known as the IZOD IndyCar Series, which is really fantastic. The league has announced that there will be a huge marketing and branding effort in partnership with IZOD and that is great for the series and all the teams. I am excited to work with a company as well known as IZOD and know it will bring its marketing talent to the series, which will help IndyCar continue to grow worldwide.

I have also been spending time preparing for the 2009 Phoenix Nationwide race. I am excited to get back in a car and race again. I will be running with the same team that I ran with in the Montreal Nationwide race, MacDonald Motorsports. The MacDonald Motorsports team has been really working hard to get the car prepared and I think we have an opportunity to do quite well at Phoenix. Phoenix is a tough track but I have run Phoenix International Raceway many times in an IndyCar so I think I will be able to help the team get the car sorted out pretty quickly.

I think the team will bring a car with a good base set-up so once I get in to drive it will be a matter of providing good technical feedback. Our hope is that we can get a good race car prepared and I can bring home a good result for the MacDonald Motorsports team. I have been working very hard on my training both with cardio and strength training to be ready for next weekend. The NASCAR is a much heavier car to drive than the IndyCar so I have to be physically prepared as well as mentally prepared. I think that the work I have been doing with my trainer will have me ready and I will be in Las Vegas this week working out so I’m sure training in the heat again will help me for next weekend.

I am really excited to race with the MacDonald Motorsports team again and I always look at these opportunities as a good time to work on my racing resume and get to learn more about the different types of cars, which can only help me in the future.

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Follow Alex’s progress toward each race throughout the 2009 season on autonet.ca/tagliani, or on Facebook or Twitter.

It is hard to believe that it is already November! The time is going so quickly. Now that it has been decided that I am driving the Phoenix Nationwide Race on Nov. 14 for the MacDonald Race team, I have been busy talking with team owner Randy MacDonald, and getting prepared for our run on the short oval at Phoenix International Raceway.



It should be a good opportunity for me to get experience in the NASCAR Nationwide car, and also to give some good technical feedback to the team for their short oval program. I have run at Phoenix a number of times in the open-wheel cars and I think that I will have some good insight on how to get around the track and I hope that I can help the team improve its package for this type of track. The guys on the MacDonald team are very nice and very passionate about what they do, so it is very cool that I can help them out and also get some great driving and racing experience for myself. I’m really looking forward to being back in the race car and getting some seat time and additional experience for my racing resume.

This week was a busy one for me and our FAZZT Race Team as well. I traveled to Vancouver to participate in the grand opening of a new Driving Force outlet in Vancouver. Driving Force was a personal sponsor of mine at the 2009 Edmonton IndyCar Race and it was wonderful to be able to attend the new outlet’s opening and spend time with customers, staff and company president, Jeff Polovick. The new store in Vancouver marks 10 outlets for Driving Force in Western Canada and it looks as if the company’s expansion has been going very successfully.

Then, it was back to Montreal and an opportunity to channel my Jack Sparrow persona again! I think people thought Johnny Depp was in Montreal but I am wondering if I am having too much fun dressing up as a pirate; so, I guess it is good that Halloween has passed and I can go back to being Alex Tagliani, the race car driver.

And I, the race car driver, have a lot of work to do with my team owners Andre (Azzi) and Jim (Freudenberg). We have meetings scheduled to continue to organize the many details of the team that are still coming together and to also meet with potential sponsors. I’m looking forward to a very busy but very productive week!

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Follow Alex’s progress toward each race throughout the 2009 season on autonet.ca/tagliani, or on Facebook or Twitter.

This has been a big week of travel for me. After Fashion Week in Montreal, I travelled back to Las Vegas to attend to some business and then was back in Montreal 3 days later! So I feel like I have been living on an airplane these last few weeks but it is all good, as things are really coming together for FAZZT Race Team and our sponsors.



There is new video of our race shop in Indianapolis and it is really coming together. The shop is supposed to be done in about two weeks and when it is completed it will be 25,000 square feet! It is hard to believe that our first test is a little over six weeks away. There is still a lot to do, but all of the guys in Indianapolis are working very hard to get things in order and get ready for our first on-track outing.

In addition to all the work, this week has seemed like it has been one social event after another. On Tuesday it was my birthday and I spent it in Montreal with a nice dinner out with friends. I got a great little gift, a new HD video camera, which is going to be great for my chronicles and our website during the race season. I have already been having a lot of fun with it and once I get it all figured out I’ll get things uploaded. Over the weekend I was at a Halloween party at the home of friends Patrick and Annick Carpenter in Montreal. I decided to channel my inner pirate and go as Captain Jack Sparrow. We had the best time and it was fun to get dressed up and see how creative everyone got with their costumes. Some of the other attendees’ costumes got pretty outrageous.

I’m going to be in Montreal this week getting ready for some sponsor appearances and continuing my training in preparation for my next race which will be in the Nationwide car. Team MacDonald and I have decided that instead of running the Nationwide race at Texas Motor Speedway on Nov. 7, we will run at Phoenix the following weekend, Nov. 14. The team is hoping the Phoenix race will be a little easier on the equipment and since I know that track at Phoenix quite well, we might have a better opportunity at a good result. I’m looking forward to getting back in a race car soon and going racing.

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Follow Alex’s progress toward each race throughout the 2009 season on autonet.ca/tagliani, or on Facebook or Twitter.