{"id":16753,"date":"2013-03-22T02:57:24","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T02:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=16753"},"modified":"2013-03-22T03:05:35","modified_gmt":"2013-03-22T03:05:35","slug":"m1-racings-acosta-ready-to-tackle-the-streets-of-st-petersburg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/featured\/m1-racings-acosta-ready-to-tackle-the-streets-of-st-petersburg\/","title":{"rendered":"M1 Racing\u2019s Acosta Ready to Tackle the Streets of St. Petersburg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/20130321-2301291.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/20130321-2301291.jpg\" alt=\"20130321-230129.jpg\" class=\"alignleft size-full\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>DALLAS, March 18 \u2014 With a fourth-place finish in the season opener under his belt, Juan Camilo Acosta of M1 Racing is ready to tackle his first street-course races ever this weekend as the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires supports the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg IZOD IndyCar Series season opener.<\/p>\n<p>Two 40-minute Pro Mazda races are on the schedule for the 1.8-mile, 14-turn street course beside Tampa Bay: one at 1:10 p.m. Saturday and the other at 3 p.m. Sunday. Acosta will be in the beautiful yellow and white Studio F\/Ela Special No. 11 fielded by Dallas-based M1 Racing.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ll be the last two races Acosta competes in as a 22-year-old, as the rookie from Cali, Colombia will turn 23 on March 31. Most of the circuits he\u2019s facing in his first season of racing in North America are totally new to him, but Acosta attended this race in 2009 so he has an idea of what he\u2019ll face when two 30-minute practice sessions are held at 8:35 a.m. and 4:25 p.m. Friday prior to one 30-minute qualifying session at 8:35 a.m. Saturday morning.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest challenge will be to find the limit of the car without hitting the walls,\u201d Acosta said. \u201cI feel I\u2019m very well prepared to fight for a top-five positions though; I\u2019ve been working on the mistakes I made at Austin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow that I already have completed one event, I think I\u2019m a little bit more experienced,\u201d he noted.  \u201cI\u2019m focused on doing everything I can to earn points for the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fans are encouraged to meet Acosta at an autograph session at 10 a.m. Saturday in Fan Village. He is also hoping that his family is able to attend this event.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsually my family isn\u2019t with me on race weekends because they\u2019re always working and it\u2019s not easy for them to be with me,\u201d he said.  \u201cI\u2019m excited for this race because I think they\u2019re going to be with me.  They love racing, and even if they aren\u2019t able to come they keep abreast of all of my races and tests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fans are also encouraged to follow the team via its website at M1Racing.co and to interact with its members via Facebook at M1 Racing &#8211; Pro Mazda or Twitter @M1Pro Mazda.<\/p>\n<p>Live timing and scoring is planned for the series\u2019 website at promazdachampionship.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DALLAS, March 18 \u2014 With a fourth-place finish in the season opener under his belt, Juan Camilo Acosta of M1 Racing is ready to tackle [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-racing-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16753"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16782,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16753\/revisions\/16782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}