IndyCar Committed to U.S. 500 Future IndyCar Newsclips
WEST ALLIS, Wis. (June 1) - IndyCar officials are extremely satisfied with last Sunday's U.S. 500 and are already planning for 1997."We will continue this race. We're absolutely committed to this event," said Andrew Craig, president and CEO of IndyCar.
Team owners are also in agreement as they distance themselves further away from Indianapolis.
"We're prepared to go and do it again," said Chip Ganassi, owner of Vasser's U.S. 500 winning car. "All the hard financial numbers aren't in yet, and the board is just kind of waiting until we get good, solid numbers before we talk about things like qualifying (on the same weekend as the race) and venue. We don't want a knee-jerk reaction."
There had been some rumors that the teams had given up their $20,000 per-race monies, which was adamantly denied by both Craig and Ganassi.
"The whole thing is self-financing," Craig said. "We had 16 corporate sponsors, ticket sales, concessions and souvenirs and hospitality."
"We weren't constrained by economic circumstances in any way," said Ganassi. "We're a very solid company financially. There was not one bit of guaranteed money or prize money from the rest of our season in that (Michigan) purse."
Lola Senior Designer Defects To Penske
It was announced Friday in Milwaukee that John Travis has left Lola Cars, Ltd. effective immediately.Travis will be replacing Nigel Bennett as Penske Racing's Chief Designer later this year.
It has been rumored that Penske Racing has not been all too happy with Bennett, especially after the Penske cars failed to qualify for the 1995 Indy 500.
Nevertheless, Bennett will be in charge of the design of the 1997 Penske cars. Travis will take over Bennett's position after the 1997 project has been completed.
