What happened to CART

[Dave V]

What happened to the CART races? I spent the day at Laguna Seca with the CART Series. No one was there. After attending races at Laguna Seca for over 15 years and it was the smallest crowd that I have ever seen for any event. There are maybe four hospitality tents with no one there. No sponsors, no crowd and very few cars. The Indy lights had like 9 cars running. I didn’t count but about 15 Dodge Barber cars, there used to be over 30.

There is no Marlboro, no Miller light, no Texaco, and no Bud cars. A bunch of foreign sponsors, Corona and Players and some I have never heard of. What's with a HMO (Pacific Care) being one of the fastest cars? I thought the HMO's were going broke, not sponsoring cars. It is no wonder this series is failing.

Anyway the racing was fast, as fast as Mario, Bobby Rahal and Unser. The weather is perfect. My private race. It will be fun again tomorrow.

Dave V
#96

[Excaliber]

I understand CART has so few cars now they may not be able to field a "series" next year at all. There seems to be little doubt that CART is virtually finished as a sanctioning body or whatever it has become. There is talk of Penske going IRL as well. Looks like Tony George won that little battle of the titans started some years ago.

Ernie

[CowtownCobra]

After that nonsense here at TMS a couple years ago where they decided at the very last minute the track was "too fast", and cancelled the race on a few hours notice, I would be surprise if there is a single CART fan left in Texas.

If it is unsafe, fine. But they had plenty of chances to figured that out before race day.

The IRL at TMS is THE best show in town!!

[Draco]

I enjoyed the balance of the old Indycar series. It had a good number of temporary circuits,street, track, and ovals. Cart is lacking a few ovals and IRL is purely ovals. Partial blame has to be taken by the owners like Ganassi, Foyt, Penske and Andretti who did not stick with cart to promote the american influence on the series. These are the guys who draw the american sponsors. The divide has created an "open wheel Nascar" (no slight to nascar). An absence of cart would leave few open wheel alternatives to the F1 parade that aren't oval racing. Don't get me wrong, oval racing is exciting but as I try to tell my wife "variety is the spice of life" but like my wife some of you probaly don't buy that either.

I makes you wonder if the sponsors are not driving the teams to the IRL as it's been said that there is more bang for thier buck when sponsoring an oval track event. Do they have the sports best interest in mind? I think not! I understand the drivers go to the bread and butter but what influence do the drivers have? When will the likes of Unser, Foyt, Herta, Ray, and Hornish sign for the pure love of racing without the influence of the owners.(maybe they have). I commend Paul Tracy for stating this publicly as he had the opprotunity to sign with F1 and the IRL but stuck to the product he believed in.

I went to the inaugral cart race in Montreal last year. The sponsor like Dodge, Players, Klien, and Molsons Breweries were front and centre. The fan support was phenomenal. Not bad for a bunch of F1 aficiados. Thank You Montreal, a job well done!

Being Canadian I respect some of the foriegn sponsors that keep the series going. Like Players who is sticking with Canadian racing development to the end even though they are being legislated out of the sport at the end of this season (Imperial Tobacco).The sport will miss thier commitment. They have developed racing in Canada and abroad for the likes of Tracy, Carpanthier, Tagliani and Villeneuve. The talented American drivers require the big sponsors like Miller and Bud, but without the support of the big american owners it just won't happen unless they are winning championships.

Yes the fans in Texas have every right to be upset with that cart fiasco. As a safety issue of the drivers passing out due to the excessive g's why did they not acknowledge the drivers when they complained months earlier during practice sessions?


Just a few thoughts from a racing nut who hopes that common sense will prevail and a balance will be found to create the most exciting open wheel racing series in the world!!( a little naive,Eh!)


Draco

[BANDIT 1]

CART is suffering from the Indy 500 being taken away from it. That is really the only advantage the "a$$hole" Tony George has. Mr. George has all by himself ruined CART and the $hity IRL. This idiot doesn't realize that the fans don't care about equally made cars (same engine manufacturer or two). Racing has always been about the fans wanting their favorite maufacturer (aka: Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, Ferrari, etc...) to win the race. That is the key behind the success of NASCAR.

[Excaliber]

It's a love/hate thing I have with T. George. I was sure getting tired of seeing a Penske car win virtually EVERY race back in the old days, boring! SOMETHING had to be done, I don't like the Oval Only format T.G. setup and many of the other aspects of the IRL as far as that goes.

But I prefer that over seeing yet another billion dollar Penske car in winners circle knowing there is NO WAY any other team has a prayer of winning. Hmmmm,,,,kind of like what been happening with F1 the last few years. I'm sick of seeing Ferrari in the winners circle, again.

Ernie

[427sharpe]

Penske went to the IRL a couple of years ago..
As far as burying CART, give Pook a chance. He is still relatively new to the head chair, and the plans he recently unveiled seem like a solid step forward. It's amazing to me how the IRL has cloned itself to be just like CART was...TG's idea was all ovals, American driver's, etc.. and now most of the top drivers are foreign and there is talk of a few road course events in the near future. IMHO, TG just felt that there was too much bickering going on in CART, and the INDY 500's dominance of the series was beginning to wane...hence IRL! He really just took a page from Bernie's book on Benevolent Dictatorship's!
And yes, the IRL does put on a great show at Texas Motor Speedway! I wish I could have seen the CART cars there......

[Dave V]

A few observations from Sunday. The quality of driving, first to last, is much better than the old days. I think that there were over 25 laps gone before the slowest car was passed. In the early 90's it was closer to 6 or 7 laps. No crashes but some decent passing. Jourdain was forced to start 13th and finished fourth and had better times than the leaders at the end. Some good bumper to bumper driving a couple of times during the race. A very entertaining race even if the winner had the lead, start to finish.

The crowd was larger on Sunday with 28,000 listed in the paper. As I remember there were over 60K back in the early 90's. Laguna Seca has undergone some management changes, a new GM Last November and a lot of new people. I was a volunteer so I was able to see how unorganized they were. Most of the sponsors were Mexican Companies and so the crowd had a large Mexican contingent.

I think the new Laguna Seca management will be more squared away for the Historics. It will get better and new people will have good new ideas. I think CART has a good product but is (or was) badly mismanaged. They need to get American sponsors and do a better job of promoting the drivers names.


Just my 2 cents.

Dave V

[sambrozy]

People like to see their favorite driver or car win. YOu have to promote the event and like the Historic's make available other interesting activities at the events. I watched the race on Speed channel and I thought the race was excellent.

Stan

[Draco]

Here's a good article over Cart ownership just out today.



Tuesday, June 17, 2003
CART finally up for sale

By DEAN McNULTY, Ottawa Sun


After more than a year of denying it was up for grabs, the CART Champ Car World Series announced yesterday it had commissioned an investment banking firm to find a buyer for the open wheel sanctioning body.

It shouldn't have to look far as Player's/Forsythe co-owner Gerry Forsythe, Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone and F1 team owner Craig Pollock have publicly expressed interest in taking over the series.

Ecclestone and Pollock met with CART boss Chris Pook at the Grand Prix of Canada in Montreal on the weekend, where the sale of the series was discussed.

"CART is obviously looking for other investors to take it off the (New York Stock Exchange) and privatize it," Pollock said. "I am not denying there is a possibility I could be one."

A year ago, CART dealt with the loss of key teams to the rival Indy Racing League by insisting it could continue unabated because of a huge cash reserve. But it is believed that reserve has been nearly depleted. Records released yesterday show CART will be forced to promote seven of its own races this season, denying it lucrative sanction fees that earned CART $36.6 million US in 2002.

"We have conducted two CART-promoted events so far in 2003 -- Brands Hatch, England and Eurospeedway Lausitz, Germany," CART revealed in a financial disclosure yesterday." The preliminary financial results from the two CART-promoted events resulted in losses of about $3.1 million. Based on its experience to date, the company believes losses from all of its self-promoted events will range from $4.8-$7.8 million for 2003.

Next season the series faces another huge loss when Player's, the Canadian tobacco giant, leaves because of federal legislation banning such sponsorships by tobacco companies.

The annual investment by Player's in CART teams and the three events in Canada is believed to be close to $100 million a year.

The series is still a valuable property according to Pollock, who, as well as being a major shareholder in F1's British American Racing, co-owns P-K Racing, which recently signed Max Papis to drive its CART team car for the rest of the 2003 season.

"CART is a very valuable brand," Pollock said. "It needs a benevolent dictator to run it, the way Bernie runs F1."

Asked if he considers himself to be that man, Pollock simply shrugged and said "anything is possible."




Draco