Wednesday, March 17, 2004 | 9:22 a.m.
Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at [email protected] or (702) 259-4089.
Adrian Fernandez created a stir in open-wheel racing last week when he announced he was moving his single-car team from the struggling Champ Car World Series to the rival Indy Racing League IndyCar Series.
The move, which came one race into the 2004 IRL season and five weeks before the start of the Champ Car season, was made when Fernandez said Open Wheel Racing Series, which owns Champ Car, couldn't make several "assurances" about the viability of the series.
And one of those assurances, Fernandez strongly maintained, had nothing to do with financial support from the series' new owners. Last year, Fernandez Racing received a reported $2 million from CART to field his team. OWRS principals said when they took over the series that they would not continue to pay teams to participate.
"Any money owed or not owed to Fernandez Racing -- we knew that in December," Fernandez, who also drives for the team, said Tuesday during a conference call. "Do you think I'm going to wait all this late and let the first (IRL) race go away and in the last little minute, present my car in Long Beach and after that go to my sponsors ... and tell them my story and move them to the IRL because of money?"
Fernandez, a native of Mexico City, said he took a huge risk in switching series because two of Champ Car's most successful races are staged in Mexico and Mexican companies Tecate and Telmex, as well as Quaker State, sponsor his team.
"The risk factor of doing all these things would be huge if I was doing it for the money because our sponsors have been hit tremendously in Mexico because of (us not being able to race in) the two Mexican races," he said. "This was a serious decision so people who think that I did that, they have to think about that I also have partners, and that's our sponsors, and this was not an easy decision."
Fernandez said he made the difficult decision to leave Champ Car late last week after he attended the series' season preview and fan festival in Long Beach, Calif. -- site of the 2004 Champ Car season-opening Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 18. Fernandez said he was not convinced the series would survive the season after meeting with series owners last week.
"We needed some confidence, we needed some assurance of what the new group of owners of Open Wheel Racing were going to do and those things were not happening," Fernandez said. "I made my decision on the facts that we had presented to us in Long Beach, five weeks before the first race.
"To be honest, I hope they have 25 cars in Long Beach and the Mexican races will be as successful as ever. For me, it's a big hit and I feel very sad for not being able to race in Mexico and I would do anything to race those races but what we got presented and what we saw (in Long Beach) didn't give us the confidence that (the season) would happen."
The defection of Fernandez Racing to the IRL prompted speculation that other teams -- most notably Team Rahal and Newman/Haas Racing -- would follow and lead to the collapse of Champ Car before the season opener in Long Beach. The series has only 12 cars confirmed for the season opener and its contracts with race organizers guarantee minimum fields of 16 cars.
Steve Kinser was denied a chance to earn his 500th career "A" Feature victory when World of Outlaws Sprint Series officials postponed last Saturday's feature program at Lone Star Speedway in Kilgore, Texas, due to rain. The Outlaws next race is March 26 at Thunder Valley Speedway in Louisiana. ... Henderson resident and former open-wheel driver Richie Hearn has hired 23-year-old Brazilian Raphael Matos to drive one of his three Hearn Motorsports entries in the 2004 Pro Formula Mazda Series. Hearn will announce his other two drivers at a later date.
archive
