This is good because we have seen far too many attempts to unify American motorsports fail at the door of Tony George which the general press now view as the major hurdle in bringing back American OW racing to anything which resembles her former glory. Now that the leadership of ChampCar has finally laid to rest any future with the track or it's owner, we can finally move on with a new approach which may or may not work but seems to be having a good impact on the track at places like Denver, Edmonton and many others.
Team sponsors are coming in - but in a sort of new manner. While some teams have managed to pick up full sponsorship, many teams are lining up local (but large) sponsors for 1 -3 races and then moving on to new sponsors for other events. And while it sounds like a real pain in the ass it's certainly better then no sponsorship at all.
All the events are finding major sponsorship and thus far the crowd totals have surpassed 1.5 million which is right on target. And although ratings are still in the shitter, it is a pressing issue which ChampCar's new Management (former SCCA President Johnson) is dealing with aggressively.
New ChampCar President speaks.
Some bits:
- 35+ Entries for the Atlantic Series (ChampCar ladder).
- $2 million purse for Atlantic Champion.
- New Chassis out in 2 weeks (supposedly more nibble, lighter and slightly less wide).
- TV package TBA shortly - rumor is more major coverage.
- Two new ChampCar TV Shows - ChampCar Garage (SPEED/Mondays) & Race Car Driver (WGN Superstation/Wednesdays) and features Paul Tracy and the Forsythe team as they travel to each race. The latter is the best by far and really gets into the technical side of setting up the cars and running the team.
- Justin Wilson signed for 06 link
- Management/Ownership changes @ Road America may bring ChampCar back.
- EuroInternational (2 car team) returing in 2006.
- Lexmark renews ChampCar Surfurs Paradise through 2008 link
- Two new Atlantic Teams announced late last week including American Richie Hearn (former Atlantic Champ and ChampCar driver). Both teams will field two cars each.
Also on the blocks:
- RedBull possibly heading to Title Sponsor of thee Atlantic and/or major sponsor for the RuSport Team (they already sponsor American AJ Almendinger). There is also rumors on the same front which have them departing the IRL Cheever racing team (which they are the major sponsor of).
Dr Helmut Marko, godfather of Red Bull's racing programs around the world. Former F1 driver Marko oversees the European race team aspects of Danny Sullivan's Red Bull F1 driver search program and is a key consultant to Red Bull in determining their racing sponsorships. I talked to Dr Marko in Denver after he completed a meeting with Kevin Kalkhoven and Dick Eidswick.
"The Champ Car World Series is a great series," Dr Marko asserted. "There's a lot of excitement around the series. The crowds are looking good and the atmosphere around the series is really exciting. We like the atmosphere and the direction the series is heading. It's a much more exciting and attractive environment for us than some other racing series, including Formula 1. The ambience around the series and the way the fans are treated and embraced is what we like to see. You can be sure you will see us doing some very good things in this series."
http://www.champcarw...cle.asp?ID=9558
- Many IRL drivers are looking towards other opportunities...
http://www.speedtv.c...adracing/19604/
- Possibly a Twin Turbo V-8 for ChampCar in 2007.
- ChampCar leadership may finally approach the IRL's poaching of teams, drivers and venues with legal action link ***It's about time on this one.
- 07 may see multiple manufactures for the chassis (which may drive the price down even further). Both Panoz and Dallara have expressed interest along with Lola which is distributed by ChampCar team owner Carl Haas in America.
- Possibly a 3 car team for Newman/Haas.
- Eric Jenson's Team Canada possibly returning (1 car effort). Rumor the Atlantic deal is done for 2 cars already.
- Bobby Rahal has ordered 1 chassis for Atlantic next year for his son Graham Rahal and Mario Andretti is publically suggesting that Michael Andretti do the same for his son Maco who is currently in the IRL ladder series known as IPS (Infinity Pro Series). IPS BTW is in the crapper this year and may not even be around for 06 so unless Andretti moves Marco to SportsCars or the NASCAR ranks, I would expect Marco to be in Atlantics as well.
Things are looking up for ChampCar it would seem. Heck even if you hate the series you cannot deny that Atlantics should be awesome in 2006.
All they need now is a few ovals and some of those road courses back
hasnt shown his face in this thread telling us that Champcar will soon go bankrupt or loose more races or teams....
back from vacation. 
Champcar needs a couple more American drivers to mix in with the Euros and the border nations and it will be a great nations point fight. Also added interest to who trains the better drivers.
