Street Smarts
There’s no hiding the problems that CART is facing.
The Champ Car series, resurrected from near dead by president Chris Pook, has terrible TV ratings, a dearth of big-name stars, few American drivers, uncertainty about future engine rules and questions about big-dollar sponsorships in a tough economy.
Jimmy McGee remains optimistic, though.
Patrick Racing’s general manager is in his 44th year of Champ Car competition and has the most victories of any manager-chief mechanic with 89.
The record includes four Indianapolis 500 victories and nine national championships. He is the only person in American open-wheel racing to have won championships in four decades -- the 1960s through the 1990s.
“Sure, there are still problems to overcome, but CART’s created a new life for itself, I think,” said McGee, whose team will field a Lola-Ford for Oriol Servia in Sunday’s Long Beach Grand Prix.
McGee is a big fan of Pook, who took over CART at the end of 2001.
Pook has secured backing for the series from Ford and Bridgestone, lured several new teams to fill what has been a depleting field, established a business plan and put a professional staff in place.
“When you look at what Pook’s done here in the last year, it’s pretty impressive,” McGee said. “He entered into a situation where the thing was on its knees. There was just no organization.
“He’s got it now where there is a good organization. They’ve cut back, trimmed out, kept some good people.”
McGee said much of the negativity in the last few years came from within the series itself, officials, team people and drivers who didn’t believe in the future of CART.
“It’s like having employees that didn’t really want to be there,” McGee said. “Sometimes, you’ve got to get rid of them, but, in our case last year, you couldn’t because they were part of the series.”
New team owners in the series this year include Trans-Am champion Paul Gentilozzi, former Formula One and CART driver Stefan Johansson, former F1 team owner Craig Pollock and longtime F1 and CART racing star Emerson Fittipaldi.
CART’s decline was directly related to the formation of the rival Indy Racing League, which began competition in 1996, splitting what was already a shrinking open-wheel fan base in the face of NASCAR’s growth.
The IRL is an all-oval series, with the Indianapolis 500 its big show.
CART remains the most versatile championship in the world, racing on long and short ovals, road and street courses. But Pook has placed an emphasis on temporary street circuits in major markets to help the series grow.
He added St. Petersburg, Fla., this year to established street events in Long Beach; Toronto, Vancouver, Denver, Miami and Surfers Paradise in Australia, as well as races in Monterrey, Mexico, Portland, Ore., Cleveland and Montreal, which are temporary circuits that don’t use public roads but are in the city.
McGee pointed out that before CART was formed in 1978, the most successful open-wheel events run by the U.S. Auto Club, its predecessor, were also city races.
“Our big races, besides Indianapolis, were the fair dates and the places where we went where there was kind of an event besides the racing,” McGee said. “When you go into these street courses, you create that excitement, whether it’s the Rose Festival [in Portland] or when we go to Australia. It has that festival environment that draws the fans.
“Through the years, Milwaukee was a huge race at the state fair, Springfield, Du Quoin, the Trenton State Fair. These races where we went, we were additions and people knew we were coming there because the state fair came and the state fair advertised us.”
He said that wasn’t true at most stand-alone oval events.
“There was no promotion because nothing else was going on,” McGee said. “It was just that event. Evidently, the promoters didn’t feel like they could afford to do that kind of promotion to put people in the grandstands.
“Street courses, you look at St. Petersburg, you look at Mexico, going to Long Beach. These are well-promoted events, happenings. They cause big disturbances in the towns we go to because they’re putting up bridges, blocking streets, putting up fences. I think that’s what our series has going for it right now.”
If there is a renaissance for CART in the next few years, McGee, 63, wants to be around for it.
“I still enjoy it,” he said. “I have my health and enthusiasm, and you hate to walk away from anything that isn’t successful.
“If CART was real successful and robust right now, and they had a good car count and everything was looking good, it would be a lot easier to walk. But I think we need everybody now that’s been involved, that has some experience that can help open some doors, so to speak, to hang in there.”
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THE FACTS
* What: CART Toyota Grand Prix at Long Beach
* When: Today, Speed Channel, 1 p.m.
* Where: Long Beach Street Circuit (temporary road course, 1.968 miles, 11 turns).
* Race distance: 177.120 miles, 90 laps.
* 2002 winner: Michael Andretti.
* Next race: Brands Hatch, May 5, Kent, England.