©1997 SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc.
by Peter Burke
Some extremely shaky (or shall I say 'silly') sources leaked the followingsilly season thoughts to SpeedCenter:Kool sponsorship moves to Hogan with Robbie driving, while Green runsParker/Honda. Franchitti unemployed next season. Further foolishnews: Fernandez to Forsythe for the second car. Wonder how that wouldmake the rest of the Players drivers in Lights and Atlantics feel.Plus - Players does have enough dough to run a 2 car effort in theirvery own colors, while Adrian comes in a red/green sponsor wrapper.But then, crazier news have turned out to be true...
Nigel to Patrick - probably more plausible than all the above.Fernandez would fit nicely into the team, except for a sponsorpackage clash with the expected Pennzoil cash flow that is to hit theteam in '98.
Adrian's Quaker State ties are pretty strong and a team with two oilcompanies behind them is unheard of. The bizarre scenario hat coulddevelop here places Adrian without a ride in '98 - a driver who won arace, has years of experience and enough potential speed to hold hisown in CART, plus he has a sponsor package ready to follow him into ateam ready to field a car for him. With so many teams already set forthe next year, his choices are reduced to teams not necessarily ontop of his wish list.
Chargin' Charlie Nearburg to buy Penske ride in '98 — not! But they doseem to be making a huge bet on a completely new car while hanging on totheir drivers who believe in the wildcard potential of a winningPenske chassis design. I guess I have been watching too muchsilouhette-racing lately, because this expectation of a superior car(and not driver skill) sounds like it borders on 'unfair advantage' — guess in NASCAR they'd make sure that them Penske spoilers be reducedto make 'em just as fast as them new Lolas or Reynards. You gottakeep the fans from rioting: they want close races...
The late seasonrumor that Unser Jr. was going to the IRL following a $1million perrace offer from IRL moneybags has never resurfaced (talk about apossible political blow against CART!). Recent statements by Unserand Tracy point at a '98 Penske lineup that's unchanged. Not too longago there also was some chatter about Unser going to Green to run forKool - maybe wishful sponsor thinking, because he's one of the fewdrivers who actually smokes?
And another strange story - only 48 CART fans elected to take part inour last edition of the photo gallery fan vote, meaning that thechance of winning a free original CART print in that vote was 1:47 -talk about the best odds to get free stuff on the web! The Milwaukeevote is on right now - and again only 3 dozen entries have beensubmitted with the closing date approaching fast. And you think theCART silly season is hard to grasp - try to figure out web sitereadership preferences!
Oh - and the production numbers of '98 chassis as of this week'sunofficial leaks forwarded to us are more like 40 Reynards, 10 to 20 Swifts and 5 Penskes.That would add up to about 65 cars - about the right number giventhat some teams have a dedicated testing chassis. No news on that'Lola factory Team' some other sources have written about. All I knowis that already in July, their engineers were handing out resumes...