racing_fiat_500 

Motorsports | August 02 2013

Fast Fiats: Pair of 500s race in World Challenge series

Jack Murray racing a Fiat 500 in the Pirelli World Challenge

The Fiat 500 attracts attention wherever it goes – including the race track.

A pair of Fiat 500s will challenge the curves and hills of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course this weekend, competing in the Touring Car B-Spec class of the SCCA-sanctioned Pirelli World Challenge race series. The World Challenge is a support event for the IndyCar event at the track this weekend.
Of the 32 entries in the class, the cars from the independent Scuderia Team Fiat of Cape Coral, Fla., are the only two Fiat 500s battling in the series.
At the wheel of the Fiat 500s are a pair of rookies in the World Challenge, 18-year-old Jack Murray of Montgomery, Texas, driving car No. 11, and Australian Jim Cleveland, 56, in car No. 78, who got his start racing karts in the 1980s and has returned to racing after a decade break.

Fiat 500 race driver Jim Cleveland

The Touring Class B-Spec cars run at least two 25-minute races at each event, and both Murray and Cleveland posted top-10 finishes at the previous event in Toronto in mid-July.

“The Fiat 500 handles great, it’s a blast to drive,” Murray said at the Mid-Ohio track. “We’re able to out-handle every other car in our class.”
With its sharp handling the Fiat 500 is able to run flat-out in most curves, Murray said. That makes twisty tracks such as Mid-Ohio well-suited for the car.
Cleveland said the Fiat 500 is popular in the paddock, too. “It’s the little car that everybody loves. We’ve signed thousands of autographs as our pit is always busy with people who want to see the car.”
At Mid-Ohio, the schedule calls for the Fiat 500s and the other B-Spec class cars, along with the Touring Class cars, to race Saturday, Aug. 2, at 5:20 p.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern. The races will be streamed live on the Internet at www.world-challengetv.com.
After Mid-Ohio, the World Challenge series and the B-spec cars are scheduled to wrap up the season with stops in Sonoma, Calif., on Aug. 23-25 and in Houston on Oct. 4-6. Info about the World Challenge series is at  www.world-challenge.com.

Dale Jewett

Do you know your blood type? Mine is 100 octane (not your standard blood bank classification). At any given moment, I’m thinking about cars – driving one, fixing one, buying one or (in my dreams) restoring one. So I love to tell stories that involve horsepower, brake and wheel diameters
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Do you know your blood type? Mine is 100 octane (not your standard blood bank classification). At any given moment, I’m thinking about cars – driving one, fixing one, buying one or (in my dreams) restoring one. So I love to tell stories that involve horsepower, brake and wheel diameters and 0-to-60 times – and the people who make it happen. Because behind every awesome vehicle are amazing people with vision and the desire to make it a reality. I cover Mopar, Dodge, SRT and motorsports for Stellantis Digital Media. I learned to drive on a 1973 Jeep CJ-5 with the rare Super Jeep option package and three-speed manual transmission. I still belong to the dwindling club of people who prefer to shift their own gears, and think the best way to drive is with the top down!