
I don’t understand why NASCAR hasn’t yet figured out a better way to deal with qualifying rainouts. Magically, you can qualify Nationwide and Craftsman Truck teams just hours before they race. But reschedule Cup qualifying with a two-day window? Impossible!
Front Row Motorsports actually found sponsorship from Weber Grill. You think the Weber marketing crowd is feeling giddy about pursuing the next step after being jettisoned without even getting a qualifying lap?
Roush-Fenway’s marketing arm is free to seek sponsorship for Yates entries. But the question is whether the sponsors already affiliated with Roush-Fenway paid additional money to be on the Yates cars, or whether any of that sponsorship money came from existing contracts with Roush-Fenway. And if so, would diverting those funds count as one team underwriting another, thereby violating the rule?
A Roush-Fenway spokesperson said that issue should be addressed by Yates Racing personnel. And Yates Racing’s response through its PR staff was, “We do not disclose any terms of our sponsorships to media nor other teams,” later adding, “All of our activities with Yates Racing are in compliance with NASCAR rules.”
But what exactly are those rules?
Unless some of the Saturday night hot-shots start getting some time in the IndyCar feeder series we are soon going to see the Indy Car TV ratings and attendance numbers go the same direction as the zipper on Danica’s firesuit.
Fulfilling the sponsor obligations of the current contract can make inking the next one darn near impossible.
“Absolutely. If you can’t get to the office, there’s no way you can sit down and work out details,” said Biffle, who added that the deal might have gotten done this week if not for the trip to LI. “So that’s been one of our things. In May, I had one day off in May. We had something going every day. So it makes it difficult to actually get to sit down and think about it and look it over.”
Six months ago, during the negotiations between Indy Car and Champ Car to merge the two series, many were saying “don’t get your hopes up” because unification would not result in some “magic bullet” that would instantly catapult American open-wheel racing back to the prominence of yesteryear. And while that still might be true, two things we now know for sure is unification has already shown significant positive results and the people at the Indy Car Series offices are feeling very good about their prospects for the future.
Let’s look at a few of the positive trends that are shaping American open wheel racing since “the split” ended:
Formula One ace Lewis Hamilton took on the force of a 530mph Learjet as a publicity stunt at the Farnborough International Airshow.
Watch The Video!
Team Suzuki Alstare rider Fonsi Nieto finished the first day of qualifying at Brno today for round nine of the World Superbike Championship with the sixth fastest time and was the quickest of the Belgium-based squad.
Yamaha Racing
Troy Corser (Yamaha Motor Italia WSB Team) enjoyed a competitive start to his Brno race weekend by scoring second best time behind local favourite Jakub Smrz, on the recently resurfaced 5.403km Brno circuit.
India will start construction of a Formula One circuit near New Delhi in October and is on track to host its first grand prix in 2010, Force India team owner Vijay Mallya said on Friday.
The Airwaves Ducati team returned to Oulton Park today for Round 7 of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship. Both Airwaves Ducati riders continually improved their times during the day, posting their fastest laps during the second practice session.