Vince Neil...rock star, party monster..indy lights driver?

[Otto-Matic]

I just thought about this the other day looking at old Indy lights stats on Wikipedia. does anyone remeber that Vince Neil, from Motley Crue, drove some Indy Lights races in '92? i vaguely remember this, but i was pretty young at the time. was he any good? i think he was sponsored by a Say No To Drugs campaign or something to that effect (hows that for irony).

[nigelred5]

Yeah I remember him driving, but I don't remember how he did. There used to be quite a few people that would try to get into indycars back in those days. Either crossing over from acting, other forms of sports, or other forms of motor racing. It used to have that kind of pull.

[DBell]

I just thought about this the other day looking at old Indy lights stats on Wikipedia. does anyone remeber that Vince Neil, from Motley Crue, drove some Indy Lights races in '92? i vaguely remember this, but i was pretty young at the time. was he any good? i think he was sponsored by a Say No To Drugs campaign or something to that effect (hows that for irony).

No, he wasn't any good. Not Milka slow, but not much better either. I didn't remember that he was sponsored by a "Say No To Drugs". Wonder if that was part of plea bargin. :p : Good thing for him they didn't urine test back then.

[bblocker68]

Was he faster than Frankie Nunez??

[gm99]

Yeah I remember him driving, but I don't remember how he did. There used to be quite a few people that would try to get into indycars back in those days. Either crossing over from acting, other forms of sports, or other forms of motor racing. It used to have that kind of pull.

Like Jason Priestley of BH 90210 fame who did some races in the Infiniti Pro Series in 2002 and nearly managed to get himself killed at Kentucky.

[Otto-Matic]

Like Jason Priestley of BH 90210 fame who did some races in the Infiniti Pro Series in 2002 and nearly managed to get himself killed at Kentucky.

I may sound like a huge dork, but I was rooting for Jason to succeed. I like the underdog, and I used to be a fan of Kelley Racing, who ran him in Infiniti PS. Tony Renna was his driving coach i believe.

[chuck34]

I seem to remember Jason Priestley being an ok driver. Maybe not winning all the time, but getting top 5's every now and then?

[gm99]

I seem to remember Jason Priestley being an ok driver. Maybe not winning all the time, but getting top 5's every now and then?

I just checked his results and it seems your memory isn't too far off:
Priestley finished second (to Foyt IV) in his first IPS start, beating the likes of Ed Carpenter and Luyendyk Jr. Prior to his accident, he was sixth in the overall standings (well ahead of a certain Marty Roth), although of course the field wasn't particularly strong.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Priestly used to run with Scott Maxwell with Multimatic in IMSA with the "Silver Hammer" Mustang in GTO (what was to become GT1). He used to hold his own and be competitive in that, and considering their car was a glorified TransAm Car, it did alright over all too.

Priestly wasn't a joke, and he ran in the touring car series up here at the time too, and did ok at that. I think OW racing though was pushing the envelope of his talent. Yes he did ok for a while, but lets face it, we were not talking the next Paul Tracy or Greg Moore. We were talking someone who had the talent to be a journeyman driver.

Nothing to sneeze at....but not the guy Roger Penske was going to tap on the shoulder either.

[chuck34]

Yeah, I'm not saying that Penske was gonna sign him or anything. Just a good mid-pack type of guy. Maybe a bit like Bryan Herta, or Vitor Mira maybe?

[bblocker68]

Herta won races, so I'd put him in a different category.

[garyshell]

Herta won races, so I'd put him in a different category.


Only when he didn't choke under the pressure, which occured more times than his wins.

Gary