Molson Indy organizers hope they'll be allowed to appear before the Senatecommittee hearings into Bill C-71 — the tobacco legislation that the federalgovernment is convinced will eliminate cigarette smoking in Canadacompletely and forever — to ask for an exemption that would allow them tocontinue to promote the annual races through the streets of Toronto andVancouver.

Otherwise, the events staged in the summer of 1998 will be the last forCART-sanctioned Indy-car racing in this country.

Finished. Over. Kaput.

Surprisingly, it has nothing to do — or very little — with the eventsponsorship. It has everything to do with the sponsorship of the individualracing teams and the drivers, many of whom are dependent on financialsupport from cigarette companies.

Brent Scrimshaw, president of Molstar sports and entertainment, acknowledgedyesterday that the Molson Indy races in Toronto and Vancouver were nottotally dependent on subsidiary sponsorship from Imperial Tobacco's Player'sbrand and could survive without it.

In fact, Scrimshaw and Molson Indy general manager Mike Smith both said thesearch for replacement sponsorship continues, and will continue right upuntil the end. But that is not the real point.

"We just won't have the cars in order to put on a race after 1998,"Scrimshaw said flatly. "We need the cars and teams first. Sponsorship forthe event can come later. But if there's not an exemption [which would allowcigarette brand names to continue appearing on the cars and drivers'uniforms], CART has said they won't come."

The frustration was evident yesterday. Molson's officials are convinced — asare officers of other companies connected with the Indy-car events and theFormula One Canadian Grand Prix race in Montreal — that the government doesnot understand the implications of the legislation in its efforts to stampout cigarette smoking.

Scrimshaw, for instance, said that a meeting had been held in recent dayswith officials from the Health Department in which some of Bill C-71's finerpoints had been clarified.

They discovered, for instance, that although it would be illegal (after thebill becomes law and there is a phase-in period, ending on Oct. 1, 1988) tohave the names Marlboro, Kool, Rothmans, Hollywood, etc. displayed on racecars in Toronto or Vancouver, it won't be against the law to televise imagesof those same brand names on the same cars as long as they're racing outsideCanada.

"This means we can take the whole Molson Indy and go 60 miles down the roadto Buffalo and run it there and it would be live on TSN and the CBC and thatwould be okay," Scrimshaw said. "But we can't do exactly the same thing inToronto."

Scrimshaw said the Molson Indy will ask the Senate for a qualified — and hestressed the word qualified — international exemption that would make itpossible for CART to continue racing in Canada.

"We're willing to work with the government, to leave the heart of thelegislation alone. We understand what this means for health, but we don'tthink they understand the negative impact the loss of these races will haveon the economy."

In the case of Toronto, the Molson Indy is estimated to pump about$28-million into the local economy. Likewise in Vancouver, and multiply thatabout twice for Montreal.

In Montreal, particularly, the summer festivals — the Grand Prix, the jazzand comedy festivals — are critical. Montreal, as anybody who has been thererecently will tell you, is in bad shape. Tourism is the pits (I mean, Quebechas been telling the rest of the country to get lost for the past 30 years,so there is not exactly a lineup of people wanting to go for a visit). Butpeople will go for the car race and the other attractions — damn thepolitics — so this legislation could be crippling.

It's possible the jazz and comedy festivals could attract alternativesponsorships, but the Grand Prix is in the same fix as the Indy-car races,perhaps more so because fully half the field in Formula One is sponsored bythe tobacco industry, and if they can't advertise their products oninternational TV, they're going someplace where they can.

Anybody who doesn't acknowledge this is balmy — and please don't cite Britainand France as examples of the F-1 cars running without cigarette logos,because that has nothing to do with what's at stake here. Canada is in thesame boat as Australia, where there are strict domestic laws against tobaccoadvertising that have two qualifiers: a three-day exemption for theAustralian Grand Prix and a similar one for the Indy-car race in Queensland.Otherwise, there would be no big-league auto racing Down Under because theteams just wouldn't go.

Scrimshaw and Smith also talked yesterday about the Vancouver situation — thesearch for another site outside downtown Vancouver now that development haseliminated many of the spaces where grandstands were situatedpreviously — but that will likely work itself out. It pales in comparison,anyway, with the cigarette sponsorship crisis.

They haven't heard back from the Senate yet about that appearance. We shouldall keep our fingers crossed that they get one.

Norris McDonald can be reached via E-mail: nmcdonald@GlobeAndMail.ca