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plus some other juicy rumors
By Peter Burke
Unlike our spoof Penske photo in the Laguna test story (some people actually took this one seriously!), this news/rumor item is based on pretty solid sources:
An important and trustworthy Brazilian motor sports columnist announced in a respected Brazilian newspaper (note: I am trying to regain my readers' trust here... ;-)) that despite there has been no official announcement, Emerson Fittipaldi may indeed be already working on setting up his own team for the 1998 season. Helio Castro Neves is mentioned as the driver, and the package is aPenske-Mercedes (no mention about tires).
In the same article, the Brazilian columnist adds that according to Emmo, who hear it directly from Roger Penske himself, the new Penske car tested at LagunaSeca about 1 second faster than the 98 Reynards.
From another reliable source I hear that Tasman will go ahead and run a two car team, no matterwhat Honda decides regarding supplying the second engine. They are expected to makean official announcement on the second driver on January 15. Last year, Tasman ran two differentchassis — will they run two different engines in '98? Tasman has four Reynard chassis on order.
And while I am in the silly season rumor mode, a few more items: Davis Racing is believed to havea Swift on order - which would make their team a Ford/Swift/Goodyear outfit for '98, the samepackage Newman/Haas is running. Sounds feasible.
Talking about Swift: at Laguna all spy lenses were aiming at Andretti, but what they got was the1997 car with the new gear box and rear end. The '98 car will probably not be seen until mid January.