Shaky CART prepares for true test: start of the season

Paul Tracy wondered for a while last winter where -- or if -- he would be racing this year.

The man who dominated Championship Auto Racing Teams last season on the way to his first series title wasn't sure if CART, on the brink of bankruptcy, was going to survive.

"It didn't look good, but I never gave up hope," said Tracy, who will race Sunday at Long Beach, Calif., in the season opener of the series now under the banner Champ Car World Series. "I want to win another championship."

Thanks to CART team owners Paul Gentilozzi, Kevin Kalkoven and Gerald Forsythe, he'll get that chance starting with the Toyota Grand Prix.

The trio, determined to save the series, joined forces to form Open Wheel Racing Series LLC last fall. It took longer than they expected, but they succeeded.

"All that other stuff is behind us now and there is a nucleus of people who believe in Champ Car now," said Gentilozzi, a three-time Trans-Am Series champion.

A bankruptcy judge allowed OWRS to buy the assets of CART in January despite a larger offer from the rival Indy Racing League. The judge ruled in favor of OWRS after determining the IRL would cancel races, putting people out of work and taking revenue away from those cities. OWRS planned to continue the bulk of the Champ Car series.

At that point there was considerable speculation the series, which began in 1979, had raced for the final time last October in Australia. CART's scheduled season-finale in California was postponed to November, then canceled because of wildfires.

CART already was reeling from losing top competitors like Team Penske, Target Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Green Racing in the past two seasons. Things got worse last month, with longtime CART stalwarts Patrick Racing, Team Rahal and Fernandez Racing all leaving the series for the IRL.

Team owner Bobby Rahal said the series' future was too uncertain.

"We have people to pay and we have an obligation to our sponsors," said Rahal, a former CART champion who even spent some time two years ago as the interim president of the series.

But Gentilozzi and his partners have persevered.

"There was never a debate on our part that we were going to go forward,"GenZ [; 4 H ¼ 0420 0 6ot of the negative stuff was put into people's heads by outsiders, but we ew deal with Spike TV, a cable channel that reaches about 90 million homes, will help that effort.

There should be a good championship battle to watch, too, with eight of the top 10 drivers from last year returning. That includes series runner-up Bruno Junqueira, along with Michel Jourdain Jr., Sebastien Bourdais, Patrick Carpentier and Mario Dominguez.

Series officials are also looking for big things from rookies A.J. Allmendinger, whose championship Toyota-Atlantic team is moving up to Champ Car this season, and 17-year-old Frenchman Nelson Philippe, who will move up from the Barber Dodge Pro Series to drive for Gentilozzi's Rocketsports team.

"Nelson is very solid and has a tremendous personality and sense of style," Gentilozzi said. "We've got a great crop of young racers."

The series will also try an interesting innovation this year, allowing the drivers the opportunity several times in each race to push a button that will give their turbocharged cars a quick boost to help them pass.

"The car and the tires are pretty much the same, but I think the 'push to pass' is something that we're going to have a chance to use in the race that's really good," Junqueira said. "That's going to give more excitement for the race, I think especially the street courses where it's very difficult to pass.

"We're going to have to learn when to use it, though. That won't be so easy."

Another change for 2004 is a revised points system, with up to 20 finishers, instead of 12, earning points and the winner receiving 31 instead of 20.

"It is going to be a very competitive series this year and good finishes are going to be harder to come by, so this could make a difference," said Tracy, who won seven races last season. "All I wanted was to come back this year with a car to drive and a place to race it, and I've got that now."

AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service

Copyright 2004, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved