It’s been just on four weeks since the chequered flag came down to signify the end of the 2006 Champ Car season. Since that final lap, where Sebastien Bourdais pulled off a daring move to pass Brit Justin Wilson in order to secure his seventh victory of the season, the Champ Car community have been far from resting on their latest season’s laurels.
* In late November Dan Pettit, Kevin Kalkhoven’s long-time business partner and the “P” in PKV Racing, ended weeks of speculation by purchasing the Colorado based RuSPORT team, after founder and owner Carl Russo decided to sell up due to increasing business commitments.
RuSPORT will remain based in Loveland, Colorado with Jeremy Dale continuing as team president. Contrary to speculation, Justin Wilson is not contracted to RuSPORT for next season and the team, whilst confirming a two car entry for next year, is yet to finalise its 2007 driver roster although Wilson remains firmly in their sights.
“Dan and I have been talking a lot about drivers,” said Dale, “and without question our number one priority now is getting Justin re-signed. The team love him, CDW [team’s primary sponsor] loves him and we don’t believe there’s anyone better out there. I’d say we were quite confident of getting him back; there has been a lot of positive dialogue. After that, we’ll think about the other car.”
At this early stage it is believed that Pettit will continue to be a part owner of the PKV Racing team.
* For the past couple of weeks a number of Champ Car teams have been busy testing at Houston’s MSR circuit using the soon-to-be-redundant Lolas.
With only three designated testing sessions scheduled for the new 2007 Panoz DP01 spec, teams such as Forsythe Championship Racing, Mi-Jack Conquest Racing, the graduating-from-the-Atlantic-Series Pacific Coast Motorsports (PCM), PKV Racing as well as defending Champ Car series champions Newman/Haas, all used the testing sessions as a means of evaluating possible new drivers.
Forsythe tested two of its 2006 Atlantic Series drivers Andreas Wirth and Richard Philippe, younger brother of two-time Champ Car Most Improved Award recipient Nelson Philippe, as well as Lawson Aschenbach, who spent 2006 competing in the respected SPEED GT Championship.
Mi-Jack tested A1GP champ Frenchman Alex Premat along with ex-Euro F3 regular Guillaume Moreau as PCM tested their 2007 confirmed drivers of American Alex Figge, and Scotland’s Ryan Dalziel. Dalziel being the only tester with current Champ Car experience having had a previous Champ Car start with Dale Coyne back in 2005 at the Toronto GP.
This past week saw Graham Rahal, son of three-time CART Champion Bobby Rahal, share the track with PKV Racing’s latest signing, Neel Jani. Rahal, this year’s Atlantic Series Runner-up, posted the fastest time of all the testing drivers and in fact smashed the track record by almost a second.
* An ocean away and on the other side of the world, Champ Car veteran Roberto Moreno piloted the first ever laps run by a Champ Car on Chinese soil. The Zhuhai International Circuit with a conglomerate of Champ Car representatives, City of Zhuhai officials and a throng of Chinese media, witnessed Moreno execute a number of trouble free laps in the 2007 spec Panoz race car.
“It was very important to everyone in China that we bring our 2007 Panoz DP01 to the Zhuhai Circuit to demonstrate the excitement of Champ Car,” said Champ Car President Steve Johnson. “It has been a very beneficial trip for us because we were able to meet with city and track officials as well as starting a media campaign for the Champ Car China Grand Prix.”
The Champ Cars make their official debut in China next May at the Zhuhai International Circuit.
* After five years of wandering around the broadcasting wilderness, the Champ Car World Series has returned home to the ABC/ESPN networks signing a multi-year contract beginning in 2007 where at least 11 of the Champ Car races will be shown on ESPN, ESPN 2 or ABC.
The Champ Car series was last broadcast by ESPN/ABC back in 2001 and has since spent time alternating between Spike TV and the Speed network. It is common knowledge that ESPN is received in far more homes in North America than what Champ Car’s outgoing 2006 broadcaster the Speed network is.
“We have been very happy with the treatment that the series has gotten from our television partners, but the opportunity to reach a long-term agreement with one network was attractive to us,” said series co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven. “There are a great number of reasons to be excited about the future of Champ Car racing and this television package will make the series even more enticing to teams, drivers and sponsors.”
It is still unclear how the International coverage, including Australia, will be distributed. Australia’s Channel 10 network has done an admiral job of broadcasting delayed telecasts of the Champ Car Series over the last decade or so, but many believe that after they lost the rights to telecast the V8 Supercar Series from 2007 onwards, their interest in televising motorsport may have waned somewhat.
The Channel 7 network has reportedly backed out of their commitment to broadcast the Surfers Paradise Champ Car race next October, opting instead to solely screen the V8 Supercars during the Surfers Indy Carnival.
It appears that any intention that Channel 7 may have had to cover the rest of the Champ Car Series could now also be in doubt.
Back in 2001, when ESPN/ABC last carried the Champ Car Series, ESPN International (carried by Pay TV providers Foxtel/Optus/Austar here in Australia) also aired the Champ Car races live.
This scenario of “Champ Car races on Pay TV only” is now looking more and more likely “Down Under” for the upcoming season, and although the homes that do receive ESPN International would be fortunate enough to view Champ Car races live, they are far outweighed by the number of households who receive the ‘Free To Air’ only services of the likes of Channel 7 and Channel 10.
On the surface this appears to go against the grain from the current Champ Car way of thinking based on their new ESPN/ABC North American broadcasting deal.
One can only hope that a deserving “Free To Air” Australian network picks up the Champ Car Series coverage in readiness for the season opener next April 8th in Las Vegas.
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