First came the Atlantic transporters and then, later in the afternoon, the IndyCar trailers began to slowly roll onto the cement of the Edmonton city centre airport.
The largest field for the three years of Champ Car racing in Edmonton was 18 cars. Saturday’s IndyCar race has 27 cars entered, including those for drivers Paul Tracy of Toronto, Indianapolis 500 winner and current IndyCar points leader Scott Dixon, driving for Target Chip Ganassi, Team Penske’s Helio Castroneves, who gained fame by winning TV’s Dancing With The Stars competition last winter, and Justin Wilson, who won here in 2006 and will be trying to extend Newman-Haas-Lanigan’s three years of podium success.
“Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing is looking forward to coming back to Edmonton, where we have had great success,” said Carl Haas. “The fans in Edmonton are some of the most dedicated and knowledgeable fans we have encountered while racing around the world and they have always welcomed us. In return, we take pride in putting on a good show for them.”
Not here is Milka Duno of Dreyer & Reinbold Racing so there won’t be any carryover from the verbal altercation of last weekend between herself and Patrick.
Also not racing here is the third woman driver in IndyCar, Sarah Fisher. She’s in town Wednesday for a speaking engagement but couldn’t obtain the sponsorship to bring her car to Edmonton. She’s formed her own racing team this year and last weekend announced she had obtained sponsorship to run in three of the final five races after Edmonton.
Although this is the first year for the IndyCar Series in Edmonton, eight of the drivers entered have made a combined 18 Champ Car starts at the circuit in the last three years. Mario Dominguez, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Bruno Junqueira, Will Power, Graham Rahal, Oriol Servia, Tracy and Wilson each made at least one start at Edmonton.
| 
|