Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

CART series missing American drivers

CART used to be filled with famous names, most of them the biggest racing stars of America.

Andretti, Andretti ... Unser, Unser ... Rahal, Mears and Sullivan drove for the red, white and blue. Now, after the retirements of the 1990s, only Michael Andretti remains.

Champ Car racing on ovals, distinctly American, inexorably linked to grass-roots sprint car, midget and dirt racers, is now diversified and has grown beyond the United States.

More than half of the CART races are run on road or street courses, and open-wheel racing stands in disarray. CART is out of the Indianapolis 500, since 1996 the centerpiece of the all-oval but low-profile Indy Racing League.

Combined with the overwhelming success and visibility of NASCAR, these factors have harmed open-wheel racing in the United States.

CART has become a bastion of foreign drivers, weaned on road racing. Falling TV ratings and lukewarm attendance show that stars from South America, Europe and Canada are not winning a broad U.S. audience.

Twevle countries were represented among the 25 drivers - only four of them Americans - to race last Sunday in Long Beach, Calif. Only former series champions Andretti and Jimmy Vasser have regular rides among Americans.

But Vasser, in 1996 the last American to win the title, doesn't see the foreign influx as a reason to panic.

"It's just a coincidence right now that some of the teams that Americans were on thought they needed changes for sponsors of whatever," Vasser said. "I don't think there's anything against Americans in this series."

In fact, it was Vasser's car owner, American Chip Ganassi, who helped create the imbalance. Since Vasser won the title, Ganassi got two of his unprecedented four straight championsips from Italian Alex Zanardi and one last year from Colombian rookie Juan Montoya.

"I think Chip started a trend looking for talent in pools outside of America with Zanardi and Montoya, who had quick success," Vasser said. "Now, other team owners are looking in those pools for the same kind of success."

Bobby Rahal retired from driving after 1998, and replaced himself with Italian Max Papis. Then Rahal fired American Bryan Herta and hired Swede Kenny Brack, the 1999 Indianapolis 500 winner and former IRL champion.

Rahal, a three-time CART champ, considers Herta and Vasser the only really talented Americans to break into the series in the last decade.

"Certainly, you want to have Americans, but a team can't afford to have an American just to say you've got an American," Rahal said. "You have to have people who can win races.

"You have to have the confidence that the fellow you're hiring can compete and compete equally with a Montoya or a Brack or a Papis."

Although several Americans are prominent one level down on CART's Indy Lights circuit, Gil de Ferran sees hiring foreign drivers as more than a trend.

De Ferran - who with fellow Brazilian Helio Castro-Neves drives for the once very-American Team Penske of Rick Mears, Al Unser Sr. and Jr., and Danny Sullivan - sees growing worldwide enthusiasm for the series.

"The focus on this series is not as big here as with people from overseas," said de Ferran, one of seven top-notch Brazilians. "Young American drivers take a strong interest in NASCAR. Some of them take an interest in IRL."

Papis, who won the season-opening race last month in Homestead, Fla., sees the diversity of this country as a factor.

"The United States is like a supermarket," he said. "When you go there, you have 25 choices of milk and I don't know which one to pick. There are too many choices sometimes."

But, worse, he says, is the CART-IRL warfare.

"I really think that the split is the most detrimental thing that is happening at the moment," Papis said. "There should be only one single-seater series."

He would like to race against IRL champion Greg Ray, an ace of the ovals.

"But he is out there, and I am here," Papis said. "I may never have a chance to race him."

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On The Net:

CART: http://www.cart.com

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