Rolex Sports Car Series… (HD) • 2:00pm
  • Media
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Check out the latest SPEED podcasts on iTunes
  • Mobile
This could be your avatar!
Username
Password
Register
david_phillips's avatar
Author:
David Phillips
Login For More
Rate this article:
  • 0/5 Stars
SPEEDtv.com Store
REVIEWED: “Rust In Peace” By Malcolm Tucker
Malcolm Tucker delves into the photographic archives of the celebrated motoring historian Mike Worthington-Williams
Our Price: $49.00
Visit Button
Buy Button
"Le Mans", Starring Steve McQueen
The greatest racing film of all time! Dramatization of a man's tentative participation in the Le Mans race
Our Price: $14.99
Visit Button
Buy Button
“Monaco Grand Prix"
A photographic portrait of the world's most prestigious motor race.
Our Price: $75.00
Visit Button
Buy Button
Signed Bobby Allison Coca-Cola 1/24
1/24-scale die-cast replica is now available and personally autographed by Bobby Allison on the windshield!
Our Price: $54.95
Visit Button
Buy Button
Man-Made Thunder
Examine how the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has transformed from a performance-based sport into a personality-driven enterprise.
Our Price: $49.00
Visit Button
Buy Button
Footer Bg
  • Zoom More Photos Button
  • Camera Icon
PHILLIPS: Third Time a Charm?
Written by: David Phillips
SPEEDtv.com   http://www.speedtv.com
01/15/2007 - 07:00 PM
Pittsburgh, Pa.
 
Exciting spectacle provided by the likes of Danny Ongais in '78 wasn't enough to make USAC's European tryout a worldbeater, and CART's efforts fared little better. Will things be different this time around? (LAT photo) » More Photos

With today's today's long-anticipated announcement of Champ Car races at Assen and Zolder in September, American open-wheel racing makes a third stab at establishing a toehold in Europe. The first was a half-baked foray to England by the United States Auto Club in 1978 for a pair of events at Silverstone and Brands Hatch. The second was a more concerted, multi-year effort featuring purpose-built speedways in England (Rockingham) and Germany (EuroSpeedway aka LausitzRing) as well as a reprise visit to the Brands Hatch club (aka Indy) circuit.

For a host of reasons, neither of the previous European forays succeeded. The USAC races were poorly promoted, and while the few spectators and media who did turn out were wowed by the prodigious – if brutish – speed of the cars and charmed by fan-friendly icons of American racing like A.J. Foyt, Johnny Rutherford and a young Rick Mears, the experiment went the way of USAC's earlier extra-North American adventures in Japan ('66) and Argentina ('71) and quietly slipped beneath the waves.

Of course, by '79 USAC had more pressing issues on its plate than reprising its Silverstone and Brands Hatch sorties. The upstart Championship Auto Racing Teams had upset the American open-wheel racing status quo and races in Europe were hardly at the top of anyone's agenda.

Coincidentally, American open-wheel racing's penchant for self-destruction played a role in CART's failed European "invasion," as the races at Rockingham, EuroSpeedway and Brands Hatch came at a tipping point in the CART/IRL schism, when CART had managed to squander its once manifest advantages over the IRL, and manufacturers and teams were poised to jump to the rival series. In any event, none of the events was ever in any danger of becoming a runaway financial success, and when Champ Car's Gerald Forsythe, Paul Gentilozzi and Kevin Kalkhoven acquired the CART's assets they focused on more pressing priorities than continuing a couple of white elephant events in Europe.
Champ Car racing oval-style proved a tough sell at Britain's Rockingham Speedway and Germany's Lausitz. (LAT photo) » More Photos

Obviously, Champ Car's business plan has since evolved. For several years the organization has pursued events in Asia, and if Korea was a two-time non-starter, the race slated for Zhuhai, China in mid-May appears to be the real deal. Similarly, Champ Car has been exploring its European options for some time with a variety of locales from Athens, Brno, Valencia and Le Mans' Bugatti circuit rumored to have been on the radar screen.

In the end, Champ Car settled upon Assen and Zolder. Champ Car's "A to Z Benelux Strategy" offers some intriguing dimensions, not least of which is the fact that both events are being promoted by a single entity in the form of Bart Rietbergen. As well the two venues are located approximately 150 miles apart, which affords Rietbergen a fair
amount of synergy in that he can offer two event packages to sponsors and spectators alike, not to mention that, with the television rights to the Champ Car World Series in the Netherlands and Belgium he can promote the events.

While staging two events in such close proximity (at least in American terms) on successive weekends might appear to be a challenge in that it's asking the same people to shell out to see the same "show" twice in eight days, Reitbergen claims the tracks draw from different populations with Assen looking to Holland and Germany's Ruhr Valley, while Zolder appeals to Belgium and northern France. We shall see.

There's also a potential subplot involving Paul Stoddart, new owner of Team Minardi USA, who has long had commercial and personal ties in Holland. After acquiring a controlling interest in CTE/HVM Racing in December, Stoddart said with one breath that he would have no involvement in any European races "in 2007" and in the next that Dutchmen Jos Verstappen and Robert Dunbros were in the frame for a ride with team Minardi USA . . . and that Dutch real estate magnate Harry Muermans (who sponsored Belgian Jan Heylen's Champ Car ride with Dale Coyne Racing last year) is a good friend. Not so coincidentally, perhaps, Reitbergen said today he has sponsors for both the Assen and Zolder events and that we can expect to see their colors on the side of "a Champ Car" throughout the '07 season . . .

One of the problems CART faced in its international expansion was the blowback from American-based sponsors less than delighted to see upwards of 1/3 of their teams' budgets spent on races outside these fifty United States. The likes of KOOL and Target had little or no presence in Brazil, Japan, Australia, England, Germany and even Canada; nor did the U.S. marketing VPs of those firms and brands with an international presence such as Marlboro and Shell cotton to allocating money from their domestic budgets to race in lands where motorsports marketing needs were covered by their by Formula 1 programs.

A cynic might note that Champ Car doesn't face such problems, thanks to the current dearth of commercial sponsorship. On the other hand, what may be in play is an effort to attract those European-based sponsors keen to penetrate the American market without spending mega-Euros on an F1 sponsorship or those seeking to reach the non-NASCAR crowd who, for all the hype, are still in the majority of Americans.

For any of that can happen though, Rietbergen and Champ Car must do what USAC and CART failed to do: stage commercially successful events in Europe. Will the third time be a charm for Champ Car? Stay tuned.

David Phillips is a Senior Writer for RACER magazine. To learn more about RACER, click here for subscription information.