Pook Quickly Puts His Stamp on CART

Kenny Brack left team owner Bobby Rahal for Chip Ganassi, and legendary owner Roger Penske and sponsor Marlboro left Championship Auto Racing Teams for the Indy Racing League, but the biggest off-season move for CART was Chris Pook’s. He left the Long Beach Grand Prix Assn., and became the sanctioning body’s president and chief executive officer.

When the CART season begins today in Mexico with provisional qualifying for Sunday’s Tecate Telmex Monterrey Grand Prix, Pook’s fingerprints will be all over.

In his three months of leadership, he has delivered a new competition formula for 2003-2006, saved the race in Chicago, added a race in Miami and set down rules for this season that should increase interest for a full three-day weekend, instead of only Saturday and Sunday.

“Everybody seems to like the way Chris is directing things,” said Cristiano da Matta, who won last year’s season opener at Fundidora Park, as well as the last two races of the season at Surfer’s Paradise and Fontana--the latter under a yellow-flag finish.

“It’s very exciting for me and I’m sure I speak on behalf of the other drivers, it’s very exciting for everybody to see that the credibility of the series has grown so [much] higher than where we stopped last season.”

Among the on-track changes:

* The use of traction control.

* The return of Friday qualifying for road races, with Friday’s provisional pole winner getting a championship point and a guaranteed spot in the front row.

* All cars will qualify in one group, instead of two, which were typically a fast group and a slower one.

* Borrowing from Winston Cup procedure, CART has committed to red-flag stoppages for late-race incidents to try to eliminate yellow-flag finishes. Extended full-course caution flag periods will be minimized and local yellows will be used whenever possible.

* Teams must pit during specified pit windows, which should ensure more flat-out racing, not fuel-saving economy runs.

“I like what CART is doing, that they are trying different things,” Dario Franchitti said. “It shows that they are thinking about making the series better and trying to make progress.”

Brack likes the changes too.”It’s going to be more difficult for a back-marker team to luck out with pit strategy,” he said. “If you’re doing a good qualifying effort and you have a good car, the race result should reflect that. In the previous years, you can sometimes--by pure luck--basically get the race win. We saw that several times last year.”

There have been business changes as well. CART announced this week that it will lease Chicago Motor Speedway’s one-mile oval and promote the fourth Grand Prix of Chicago, the first time it has promoted an existing event. The race originally was among events canceled when track principals suspended the track’s 2002 schedule because of operating costs.

CART has also announced the addition of the Grand Prix of the Americas, Oct. 4-6, to be run in conjunction with the American LeMans series in downtown Miami.

“I can honestly say that six months ago, I worried considerably about the future [of CART],” said Rahal, who has given Pook the thumbs up.With Penske and his drivers, two-time champion Gil de Ferran and fourth-place finisher Helio Castroneves, gone, Brack, Michael Andretti, da Matta, Max Papis and Franchitti are the highest-finishing returning drivers. Brack and Papis, teammates last season with Rahal, are with new teams, as are Oriol Servia and Michel Jordain Jr. California native Townsend Bell and Mexican driver Mario Dominguez have been added, Mauricio Gugelmin retired, and Roberto Moreno and Bryan Herta are without CART rides this season.

A longshot who might be worth watching? Scott Dixon, who finished eighth last season in his rookie year.

And who could be champion?

“So far, [da Matta] looks good and the Players cars [of Alex Tagliani and Patrick Carpentier] look strong,” said Adrian Fernandez, one of three Mexican drivers in Monterrey this weekend. “So far, they have the speed, but it’s a matter of them having consistency. But that’s testing. You never know what will happen when everyone gets together.”

Indy Racing League

In his first oval race, IRL rookie Tomas Scheckter--son of 1979 Formula One champion Jody Scheckter--finished sixth in the Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead-Miami Speedway. That would have been fine if he hadn’t run his boss, owner-driver Eddie Cheever, into the wall after only two laps.

“We talked about this until I was blue in the face. ‘Take your time,’ we said to him,” Cheever recalled. “I would be just as angry right now if he had done that to somebody else, but to do it to your teammate, that’s just asinine.”

*

Penske found his first IRL rival in front of him. Defending champion Sam Hornish and Panther Racing dominated the race, lapping everyone but Penske drivers de Ferran and Castroneves.

“The Miami race clearly demonstrates the level of competition in the Indy Racing League,” Penske said. “We’re taking it step by step so that we’re there at the end.”

Grand Am Series

When Dale Earnhardt died Feb. 18, 2001 at the Daytona 500, NASCAR put the famed No. 3 Chevrolet into storage and it was weeks before law enforcement agencies had a chance to examine it.

According to Detective Juan del Castillo of the Miami-Dade Police Department, the car Grand American sports car driver Jeff Clinton, 38, was driving when he was killed during practice March 1 at Miami-Homestead Speedway was examined by traffic homicide investigators that day and later released.

Off-Road

Dan Smith and David Ashley, both of Riverside and driving in the featured Trophy Truck division, won their fifth consecutive desert race, the 16th Tecate SCORE San Felipe 250, finishing the 227.7-mile course in 3 hours 45 minutes 7 seconds in their Ford F-150.

Attempting to win the race for the fourth consecutive time, Ed and Tim Herbst of Las Vegas finished fifth after encountering electrical problems and flipping their Ford five miles from the finish line.

Last Laps

Funny Car driver Del Worsham and his wife, Connie, became parents of twin girls on Monday in Laguna Hills....

The 43rd Goodguys March Meet, the first stop on the Goodguys Triple Crown vintage drag racing series, runs today through Sunday at Famoso Raceway, 20 miles north of Bakersfield off Highway 99. Sunday eliminations begin at 10 a.m....

Irwindale Speedway will have an open house on Saturday, the final weekend before the half-mile oval begins its fourth season. Admission is free, with pits open at 10 a.m., and practice from 1-6 p.m. Drivers in all seven track divisions will practice. The racing season begins March 16....

Perris Auto Speedway continues its dirt-track season Saturday with the third appearance by the Sprint Car Racing Assn. J.J. Yeley of Indianapolis and Mike Kirby of Lomita won the first two races. The field on Saturday will include the 2000 USAC sprint car champion, Tony Elliott.