Championship Auto Racing Teams, Inc. has named OMEGA as the official timekeeper of the PPG CART World Series.

Announcement of a multi-year agreement was made during a luncheon at the Rose Room of the Plaza Hotel on Monday afternoon in New York City. Michael Andretti, the 1991 PPG Cup champion and all-time CART career victory leader, with 35, was on hand to help CART make the announcement.

Andretti’s image will soon appear in OMEGA’s national consumer advertising, joining such luminaries as Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher, golfers Ernie Els and Bernhard Langer; models Elle MacPherson and Cindy Crawford and tennis sensation Martina Hingis.

OMEGA will provide timing and scoring services for each of the 17 events comprising this year’s PPG CART World Series. The season opens with the Marlboro Grand Prix of Miami Presented by Toyota on March 2 in Homestead, Fla. and concludes with the Marlboro 500 Presented by Toyota on Sept. 28 in Fontana, Calif. In between, the series will visit three other countries (Australia, Brazil and Canada) on three continents (Australia, South America and North America).

"We are pleased to add OMEGA to our family of official sponsors," said CART Executive Vice President Randy Dzierzawski. "The OMEGA brand is a symbol of excellence and perfection. We are confident that those characteristics will be a part of the timekeeping and high-level professional data processing that OMEGA will provide to CART."

OMEGA, founded in 1848, has been timing sports events since the beginning of the century. The world-renowned Swiss watch company will keep track of CART events through utilization of a state-of-the-art system of electronic time photography known as "Hawk Eye."

"Hawk Eye" is a compact version of OMEGA’s famous "Scan-O-Vision," which was introduced at the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville, France. "Hawk Eye" has an electronic eye which will scan the finish line, even in poor lighting conditions, with accuracy to within 5/10,000ths of a second.

"Scan-O-Vision" and "Hawk Eye" are just two more in a series of OMEGA timekeeping innovations. Others include the first photo-finish camera, accurate to within 1/1,000 of a second; the world’s first electronic timing, and the OMEGAscope, which superimposes elapsed race time on the television screen. OMEGA also is the inventor of the giant video matrix scoreboards installed in the most modern sports stadiums around the world.

OMEGA is part of SMH, Swiss Corporation for Microelectronics and Watchmaking Industries, Ltd., the world’s largest watchmaking group.