Hear the 79's roar back to life as the 2029 season kicks off

What’s old is new again for the Retro Series this year. New rules, new drivers, same sweet classic car. The Lotus 79’s of the Lionheart Retro Series kicks off their season at the Sam Maxwell Customs Miami 200 form Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The first change to over this year is the team structure. In years past, each team scored points with up to 5 drivers. This year, it is down to 3 drivers per team maximum. Never fear for some of the powerhouse teams though, a new “organization” championship allows 2 teams to team up and earn points towards a separate prize.

It might be easier to say who is coming back then go over all the new faces in the Retro Series this season. One thing is for sure, this is undoubtedly the deepest Retro field in Lionheart history, despite all the rookies.

Raven Motorsports is back, with Jorge Anzaldo, Dustin Wardlow, Travis Jegerlehner, Ron Hacker Ryan Otis and James Paulson. Anzaldo, Wardlow and Hacker will be Raven Silver, while Jegerlehner, Otis and Paulson will be on Raven Black.

NLR Sim Racing also returns with Tyler Graaf, Marc Cohn and rookie Finian Dcunha, and Cody Eldred, Dylan McKenna and Joe Hassert on the other.

The final organization is Dragonfly Motorsports with Robert Blouin and Ryan Cornes will be with Dragonfly Racing, while Frank Bieser, David Altman and Chris Lanini will be on Firefly Racing.

Skidmark Motorports returns with Paul Jenkins, Nighthawk is also back with Alex Saunders and Greg West. Finally, No Limit Racing is back with Kris Walker.

Now for the new teams and drivers; and boy there are a lot of them! Bombshell Motorsports will have Eric Micke driving. Ridin Shotgun will have a 3 car team of Lionel Calisto, Taft Baldwin and Adam Young. Fat Dog Racing will have Mike Rigney and Justin Kirby. iRacing Today Motorsports will have Dean Moll and Chad Dalton. Total Downforce Racing will have Steven Schlacher, 10-50 Barbanera will have Nathan Lewis and SimPit Racing will be represent by David Clymer. Mitchell Mohler, Eric Block, George Sandman, Joshua Gayman, and Hacker will start the season as independents.

Finally, Former real-world IndyCar driver Richie Hearn brings his Elite West Racing and teammate Michael B Thompson to the series, while current IndyCar driver Sage Karam returns to the Retro Series this time with Coanda Sim Sport.

Notably absent from this list is 2018 champion Adam Blocker, who has chosen to focus solely on the IndyCar series this season, as the competition has also picked up in that series.
Early drivers to watch for round 1 will include last years championship runner-up Alex Saunders, and multiple race Sage Karam. These two drivers clashed a number of times during the season, and will look to renew their rivalry this season as each try to take hold of the championship from the beginning.

Richie Hearn, George Sandman, Joshua Gayman and Justin Kirby all showed speed throughout the all-star festivities, and will be looking to spoil the party up to of the standings.

And let’s not forget the oval specialists. Big Joe Hassert, Dustin Wardlow and Chris Lanini all showed speed in 2018 and could very easily sneak up on the title contenders to be a part of the championship hunt 18 long races from now.
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Lionel Calisto, Steven Schlacher, Taft Baldwin. The list of fast rookies in the Retro Series is almost endless, and there will doubtlessly shocks and surprises at every turn this season. So many that you can’t afford to miss a single round, starting with Round 1 this Thursday, March 14th, 2019 at 10:35pm Eastern only on the iRacing eSports Network brought to you by GSRC.