Gentlemen, Start Your Hype-Engines!

As Houston draws nearer to the Champ Car World Series/American LeMans Series races here, the hype pendulum is ramping up.

In 1998-2000, the Texaco/Havoline Grand Prix of Houston ran a temporary street circuit through downtown Houston, Texas. Reliant Center will handle the needs of this event, an area outside of downtown Houston. Champ Cars were, as today, the most powerful and fastest automobile racing in the United States, which is somewhat of a feat, considering the competition:

Last year, the Numero Uno racing series was the Indy Racing League, drawing the most fans through the gate of any racing series with the exeption of NASCAR. Open wheel's' most celebrated series, the IRL has the crown jewel of all of motorsports worldwide, the Indianapolis 500 on Labor Day. Tony George seemed to hold the cards as Champ Car raced towards an uncertain future several years ago. Funding for the ever more expensive competitive American formula series was difficult to achieve for many teams, and longtime partners of Champ Car such as North America's fastest permanant road course, Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wi. had to withdraw from the schedule. Then it was Mid-Ohio and Laguna Seca who couldn't support the yearly races and went missing. It was when Long Beach, the glitteriest date on the Champ Car calendar was in jeapardy of being wooed away by none other than Tony George that the newest principle owners of the series said enough was enough, and launched a counter-offensive aimed at re-launching Champ Car not only to the fans of the United States but to other nations as well.
2005 Champ Car schedule saw expansion and withdrawl. They no longer went to Road America, Mid-Ohio and Laguna, but now were slated to go to new street circuits in Edmonton, San Jose, Korea and Denver with Denver being a proven success, along with longtime street circuit stalwarts such as Long Beach, Toronto and Australia's Surfer's Paradise. Combine with that two new races at permanant road courses in Mexico, again at Monterrey but also at the newly opened, Mexico City's Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Gone in 2006 is Las Vegas, one of the only two ovals left on the schedule (Milwaukee is the other), but Champ Car has added once again Road America and will revisit the Circuit de Gilles Villenueve in Montreal, Canada, a permanant road course used by Formula One.
Ansan, South Korea sounds intriguing because of the permanant road course venue that will be visited. Uncertainty arising from 2005's cancellation of this race places it late in the season.

Most notably for Champ Car is the return of the most contentious battle for supremacy in any and all premier series. For the second year, Sebastien Bourdais proved he is the worthy champion over the will of Paul Tracy. After courting NASCAR at the end of last season, Tracy is appearantly ready for another CCWS title run with, hopefully, no distractions.

Combined for the very first time will be Champ Car World Series and American Lemans Series.
Last year, ALMS presented a brilliant points contest in televised sportscar racing. Unknowing fans may mistake The Rolex Sportscar Series with ALMS. ALMS gets it's pedigree from its namesake, the pinnacle of all sportscar racing, 24 Hours of LeMans at the Circ De laSarthe in LeMans, France every year. All of the best teams travel to France for this event every year. The biggest event of all sportscar competitions' calendar, 24 Hours of LeMans is the culmination of many, many teams yearly aspirations.
Last year, for instance, Renault, the National Automobile Maker of France, spent tens of millions to field one team. The Pescarolo/Judd entries, driven by, among others, World Rally Champion Sebastian Loeb, didn't get the luck it needed to remain in the field and had to retire early. Champion Audi, whose two-car team dominates American LeMans, won the title again last year, and , no doubt, will be there next summer to defend it's back-to-back titles with two driver tandem Frank Biela and Emmanuel Pirro. Tom Kristenson will probably be the third driver again this year completing the return of the entire 2005 Championship team.


ALMS is unique to American racing due to it's four different classes sharing the track at one time. Normally, different classes are put on track at different times to keep the disparate speeds apart. This is the factor that makes ALMS so exiting. There is action on track at every turn, every lap and at almost every moment. Passing, defending and survival make ALMS the ultimate in American sportscar racing.
The ultimate sportscar, the LeMans Prototypes or LMP, the slightly smaller LMP 2, Grand Touring sedans such as Corvettes and Aston Martins, and Grand Touring 2 made up mostly of Porsche 911's with some competition from the Panoz entries: all on-track at the same time-
well, it's surely a spectacle.

ALMS news: The winner of 2005's Star Mazda Series, another series that will race on the same weekend in Houston, earned the right to drive the Mazda Factory entry in LMP2. Raphael Matos won the Star Mazda '05 Points Championship and will join two other Star Mazda graduates in the Mazda Courage LMP2 entry.

Post script: (or 'He might be doing something right' category) Tickets will go on-sale Monday for the May races here in Houston, but driving isn't the only thing I do fast. A local radio station is giving away tickets to callers and, yea, I won a pair. Guess the wife can come with me now!

-Katykarter