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©1999 SpeedCenter Publishing By Dan Proudfoot
Player's believes a step away from Atlantic racing can be a step toward the CART FedEx Championship. The end of the Player's-sponsored Atlantic team, announced yesterday as its current drivers Lee Bentham and Alex Tagliani were in Florida auditioning to move up to the CART team, will free up $1.7 million US for the tobacco company's big-league effort in 2000. As a result, Patrick Carpentier will enjoy more resources in his championship campaign than did Greg Moore, who was favoured by many insiders going into the 1999 season but stumbled. Moore is moving on to drive for Roger Penske's team in 2000. "Basically we gave (Player's/Forsythe vice-president, operations) Neil Micklewright a blank page and we said, 'What do you need to win the championship?' " Player's communications/marketing director Mark Thorne said. "He (said) the team needs more wind-tunnel work, more research and development and the addition of a test team. We decided we're in this to win the championship, so, essentially, we're upping the ante." Scratch Atlantics Team = More Money for CART Effort When Player's upper management refused to increase the overall racing budget, the Atlantic team was sacrificed to fill Micklewright's requests. Player's has been a driving force within Atlantic racing, the support series in which Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser, Scott Goodyear and Jacques Villeneuve developed before moving on to CART. Before moving into CART, Player's began its race team in 1993 in the Player's Toyota/Atlantic series with Barry Green and Gerry Forsythe campaigning Villeneuve and Claude Bourbonnais. They won 12 of 15 races, although David Empringham won the championship in a Canadian Tire-sponsored car. The tobacco company is scaling back its racing involvement anticipating the government ban on tobacco companies' sponsorship of sports and cultural activities. The Player's driver-development program, which partially funds promising drivers (currently, Andrew Bordin, Marc-Antoine Camirand and Aaron Povoledo), could be the next casualty. "Internally, the board of directors views anything with a life of only four years as something we should be out of," Thorne said. "I am going to fight to maintain the development program, but there has been no decision, it is in question for next year." The development program also contributes a $20,000 prize fund for the Canadian Formula Ford Championship, the first step beyond karting for this country's aspiring race drivers.
Source: Canada Online, used by permission |
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