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Townsend Bell




Townsend Bell (born April 19 , 1975 in San Francisco ) is a motor racing driver.

He won the last Indy Lights championship in 2001 and was given two starts in a Champ Car in a joint effort between Patrick Racing and Dale Coyne as a test for a full-time seat in 2002. He earned Roberto Moreno 's seat at Patrick that year and while much was expected, he underachieved scoring a best finish of 4th before he was dropped midseason for Oriol Servia .

His efforts shifted to Europe and in 2003 he was team mate to series champion Björn Wirdheim in International F3000 competition. Bell's moment of glory came with a podium at the Hungaroring and he finished 9th overall in a field covered with future Formula One talent, Wirdheim, Giorgio Pantano , Patrick Friesacher , Vitantonio Liuzzi and Nicolas Kiesa among them. Despite earning a test with British American Racing at year's end, Bell returned to America where he replaced Mark Taylor for Panther Racing in the Indy Racing League midway through 2004 . He started one race as an injury replacement for Tomáš Enge in the same car in 2005 . He made his first Indianapolis 500 appearance for Vision Racing in 2006, qualifying 15th and finishing 22nd.

He has also substituted for David Hobbs on Speed TV 's Formula 1 broadcast team when Hobbs was out due to the death of a family member.