Wildfires force cancellation of races at California Speedway

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003 | 11:04 a.m.

CART this morning canceled its season-ending race at California Speedway, set for Sunday, due to the wildfires that are ravaging Southern California.

The move came a day after speedway president Bill Miller announced the race -- and Saturday's NASCAR Winston West Series series finale -- would be postponed.

Miller's decision on Tuesday was made without the blessing of CART and came after nearly six hours of contentious communication with CART officials in Indianapolis.

"We are 100 percent confident we made the right decision given the current circumstances that are going on here in Southern California," Miller said Tuesday evening of the postponement. "Where they (CART) were on the situation is they wanted to (race) this weekend.

"What took us this long to come up with this announcement was a difference of opinion on where we were as it related to this weekend."

With fires burning out of control as close as 5 miles from the speedway and local health officials warning resident to stay indoors, Miller said he was at a loss to explain CART's reluctance to go along with either canceling or postponing Sunday's King Taco 500.

"I've struggled with that all day today," Miller said Tuesday evening. "We had dialog with them (Monday) while people were coming back from Australia and they had some people here on the ground (in Los Angeles). To sit there and take the situation out here lightly, it was very surprising, very disappointing.

"I can't explain it. ... Maybe it was a beautiful day in Indianapolis, I don't know."

CART president and CEO Chris Pook said today that the series merely was trying to explore every option before canceling the event.

"Our diligence in pursuing the continuation of the race was only to ensure that we had exhausted every option available to us," Pook said in a prepared statement.

"CART Champ Car regrets that the event has been canceled and we offered to explore every possible avenue, including running the event on Monday or Tuesday at Phoenix International Raceway ... allowing us to run this race in a safe manner and have a proper end to the 2003 season."

Paul Tracy, the 2003 CART champion and a Las Vegas resident, said he was forced to drive home from Los Angeles on Monday after his scheduled flight was canceled.

"The most important thing is we need to think about the safety of the fans," Tracy said before CART announced the cancellation. "I drove through there (Monday) because I couldn't get a flight. The smoke is very heavy in the air and it's basically almost like being in fog.