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To 2001 Schedule ©2000 SpeedCenter Publishing first-ever British CART race LONDON (July 12, 2000) – Rockingham Motor Speedway, Britain's newest motorsports venue, will host a round of the prestigious FedEx Championship Series as part of the premier American championship's expanded international race calendar for the year 2001. The race will take place on September 22, the highlight of the opening season at the new Rockingham track, now being built at Corby in Northamptonshire. Next September's race at Rockingham will be the first time ever that the 200 mile-per-hour-plus, single-seat racing cars – the engines, chassis and gearboxes of which are mostly built within a few miles of Rockingham - have raced on a banked oval track in the United Kingdom. “We are delighted to include Rockingham, England, as a part of the newly expanded calendar for the 2001 FedEx Championship Series,” said Bobby Rahal, interim President and CEO of Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc. “We are well aware of the huge following our sport has, particularly in the United Kingdom, both on TV and with British fans visiting our events in the USA. We're now looking forward to bringing the world's fastest form of circuit racing to Rockingham.” “America's premier motor racing series will be a huge spectacle, comparable to, but different from Formula One,” said Peter Davies, Managing Director of Rockingham. “As a premier motorsports venue with a unique level of spectator facilities, we always stated that our aim was to host a major international motor race within two or three years of opening. To host an event of the magnitude of the FedEx Championship Series in 2001, our debut year, is astounding and a real boost, not just to our investors and management team, but to Corby and to Great Britain. It reflects both the hard work by everyone on our team here, the support we have had from UK industry, and the leading position that Britain holds in the motor sports world.” Guy Hands, the majority investor in Rockingham Motor Speedway Limited, said: “The Champ Car race at Rockingham will be a key investment primer for the local East Midlands economy; it will form a landmark in the resurgence of the former steel town of Corby, providing significant numbers of new jobs. Rockingham Motor Speedway has taken a brownfield site and shown what can be done. It is noteworthy that this complex construction project has never received any local, regional or government aid, yet Rockingham provides a strong support for motor sport and high-technology manufacturing, an area upon which 50,000 jobs rely in Britain alone.”
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