Pook Seems to Be Popular Choice to Succeed Rahal

Former driver Bobby Rahal, CART’s interim president and CEO who is headed for Formula One next season to run the Jaguar team, said the search for his successor was well underway and that a new CEO could be named as early as Nov. 15.

That successor may very well be Chris Pook, founder and longtime promoter of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Pook is believed to be the popular choice and would seem to be available, since the Long Beach race was sold several years ago to Dover Downs. Pook has since been serving as a consultant on the LBGP.

A field of 20 candidates has been reduced to eight, most of whom have been interviewed, said Rahal, who will continue to field his two-car team in CART besides his FI involvement. Pook may be interviewed this week.

Rahal wouldn’t name names but said, “Two or three of the candidates are involved in racing. The others are successful in other sports or entertainment.”

And there, Rahal suggested, is the way of CART.

“It’s clear that the future of this sport is entertainment,” he said. “When you look at our most successful events, they’re more than just races. Our events have to be happenings [he mentioned the Long Beach race as a prime example]. . . . If we don’t consider ourselves first and foremost entertainment, we won’t grow--because every other sport realizes it.”

Rahal moved into the CEO’s chair in midseason, when longtime boss Andrew Craig was cut loose.

Rahal said that he had spent most of his time as CEO mending fences and that his successor “will have an opportunity to take this sport into realms where it’s never been before. The future is very bright for our next CEO.”

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Veteran CART champ car driver Adrian Fernandez announced the formation of Fernandez Racing, a two-car Honda-Reynard team which will compete next year on the CART FedEx championship series.

Tom Anderson, managing director of Chip Ganassi Racing, will be co-owner of the team. Shinji Nakano, who has driven a rookie season with Walker Racing, will become Fernandez’s second driver.

“With the first race next year in Monterrey [Mexico], we have great expectations,” said Fernandez, who is driving this year for Pat Patrick. “This has been my best season so far, with Patrick, and I will always be grateful for their support. It will be a great challenge, but it is one I look forward to meeting.”

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Max Papis, one of Rahal’s drivers, escaped injury in a crash during morning practice. He and Roberto Moreno touched wheels in Turn 2 and Papis spun into the wall, hitting it hard with the rear of his Reynard-Ford. Papis was examined by Dr. Steve Olvey at CART’s mobile medical facility, then sat out the rest of the morning session.

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Driver Bryan Herta, two-time winner at Laguna Seca, will be back in racing full-time next season, after having sat out most of this season because of his car owner’s ongoing dispute with CART.

Herta will be one of two drivers on the newly formed Zakspeed Forsythe team, a German-American venture. Zakspeed owner Peter Zakowski, who has long run successful racing teams in Germany, and Gerald Forsythe, longtime CART car owner, will be 50-50 partners. The team’s second car will go to a German driver to be selected.

Forsythe will continue to run his other two-car team, Players/Forsythe racing, whose drivers this season have been Canadians Patrick Carpentier and Alex Tagliani.

Forsythe had planned to run a separate team, Forsythe Championship Racing, with Herta driving but CART ruled early in the season that Forsythe was in violation of a rule limiting an owner to two franchises. As a result, Herta was left without a regular ride, although he drove six times this season, five times as a fill-in for injured drivers. His best finishes were a fourth at Laguna Seca as defending champion and a fifth at Long Beach.

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Times staff writer Shav Glick contributed to this story.