GETTING A LEG(GE) UP AT LONG BEACH

Katherine Legge & the Queen
©2005 Phil Sedgwick LAT

The 2005 Season is underway, and I’d like to give a hearty “thank you” to all who came out to LB to send us on our way. Because we actually knew we had a season ahead of time this year, there was a great turnout. Special thanks from all of us in the Champ Car family for those who came from Canada, Texas, Florida, the Midwest and even England and the Netherlands, who combined with Ceci Smith’s dependable crew of Southern California flaggers to put on another fine show. We all participated in an historic day on Sunday as Katherine Legge became the first female winner of a Champ Car sanctioned race in her first go, toughing her way to the top in a rough-and-tumble Atlantic Race.

I did my best to put together a spotter’s guide from what I knew and from what the cars looked like at Sebring testing, but totally abandoned it after looking at the cars on Thursday. Too many changes. Thanks to Bob Griffith for again completing his “verbal” spotter’s guide at the 11th hour. Kudos also to all our comms who suffered through the 60 cycle hum from hell on the land line and the non-working backup radios as we got things going on Friday morning. Palmer Audio found a simple little loose connection about an hour into the day and it sounded sweet the rest of the weekend.

I wasn’t as sweet however!! I was rough and rusty around the edges. Kinda thought I would be. I knew Friday would be tough, and we had a lot to respond to on track. When multiple calls come in that fast (which was good,) it took me some time to keep up with it all (which is bad.) Harumph. But with one busy day under my belt, Saturday was easier, which leads to our supreme compliment of the weekend.

Tony Cotman, our new Race Director for CCWS, listened in a bit to the land line on Saturday and spent the rest of his time in RC within easy earshot. It was his first weekend in RC as an official, after putting in 15 seasons as a competitor and a team manager in both CART and the IRL. “Jim,” he said, “I had no idea that you get that much quantity, quality and accuracy from your people out on the corners. The information we get from them is astounding.” So there… as I mentioned before the event, Tony is very impressionable at this point as he comes to terms with his new role, and we made a damn good impression our first time out.

The idea that recently got let outta the bag by Robin Miller, about Champ Car and the IRL sharing a common chassis, was a vision that Tony Cotman shared with us at the RC meetings in March. You can read mor e about it at www.champcarworldseries.com We’ll see where it goes. My take is that the press has it right that CHAMP CAR is the side that’s really trying to make this happen, and teams and fans on both sides of the split can see that…

T’sabout all I’ve got to say right now. The Long Beach crowd really know how to put on a street race. We should know in 60 day if we will be back next year as our contract to run there has expired. Rest assured that if we don’t, that there is a plan B. Monterrey is next, I think on Speed TV. I will listen to the land line en Espanol, and talk to the room in English. With the help of Fritz Herrmann and his merry band of Hermanos, it's always a pleasure.

See the rest of you at the race track!!

JHS

LONG BEACH BUZZ

Remember that this is the first year in quite a while that NBC will broadcast our Long Beach race. As part of our pre race promotion, look for PAUL NEWMAN and SEBASTIEN BOURDAIS to helicopter up to the NBC studios in Burbank on Friday night for an appearance on NBC's TONIGHT SHOW with Jay Leno. Plans are to feature the two-seater with Leno as the passenger, and apparently it will be the first meeting between PLN and Jay. Ahhh, Hollywood...

I have also received a number of emails regarding the status of our two support events at the LBGP.

The TRANS-AM Series expects 24 0r 25 cars at Long Beach. The Race Director for the series will be Beaux Barfield and will operate with the same Race Control team that run Champ Car. The pit lane and series race staff have no major changes from 2004.

The TOYOTA ATLANTIC Series expects 15-20 cars at Long Beach. Race Director KC van Niman will operate with the same pit lane and series officials as he did last year.

Looking forward to another great Long Beach Grand Prix. Away we go for 2005!

JHS

LINEUPS! GET YER NEWLY REVISED LINEUPS!

Hey Everyone:

With a little over a week to go, most teams have completed their “unofficial” Spring Training at Sebring, our Race Control personnel lineup is set, and marshal assignments are already made to staff the Long Beach Grand Prix. Spring’s in the air and I smell race cars.

IN RACE CONTROL...

TONY COTMAN will be our Race Director. He brings many years of race-winning experience in two series to race control, and will now jump into the job of looking after 18+ cars during a race rather than just one! Tony has shown us very quickly that he will be a positive, forward-thinking and hands-on VP of Operations, and sensed that there was no better way to be immersed in the operation of Race Control than to run it himself. After meetings with Tony and all of our Race Control staff in Indianapolis, I and the team are very happy about his approach, and he will continue with the framework that Chris Kneifel created over the last two seasons.



MR. HAPPY HIMSELF, TONY COTMAN


BEAUX BARFIELD returns as Steward, and has spent the winter – as usual – committing our 2005 leaned-down rulebook to memory. He will be joined by a returning GARY BARNARD, who will assist Tony and Beaux with rules interpretations and will look after our Intellex replay machine.

Playing in front of this officiating “backfield” will be the “front five” or the operational core of Race Control. PAUL LEYTON returns for his third season as Operations Communicator, and is our link to pit lane officials and race teams. JOANNE JENSEN is back for another season as Safety Communicator, and will dispatch and relay info from our Safety Team. TARA SILLERT begins her second full year as Data Analyst, our direct liaison with Timing and Scoring who gathers and informs us of data collected from the various electronic time-lines around the course. A new addition will be Champ Car Manager of Technology STEVE SEWELL, who will be our Pace Car Dispatcher. Steve has plenty of RC experience going back to the days when he operated Race Control for the Barber Dodge Pro Series, and he was our Ops Comm in Australia last year when Paul couldn’t make the trip. I will be stepping up to my third season in your collective ears as Clerk of the Course.

As mentioned in an earlier post, CHRIS KNEIFEL has assumed the duties of Circuit Construction consultant, which is an outgrowth of a function he spent lots of time on last year. He has a seat on the FIA Circuit Safety Committee whenever they meet in Paris. He was involved in all of our planning over the winter, and will continue to be a welcome and valuable reference source for Tony and the rest of us. JD WILBUR continues as our Starter, and KC VAN NIMAN, known to many of you, will be the Race Director for the Toyota Atlantic Series, operating with our same Race Control Team.

Also added since my last post is a new Director of Technology, SCOT ELKINS, who comes over from NASCAR's Robert Yates Racing where he was Chief Engineer. Haven’t met him yet, but Tony assures us he’s the man for the job! You can read more at http://www.champcarworldseries.com/News/Article.asp?ID=8755

...AND ON THE TRACK

We are just about there with having all 18 cars announced for Long Beach. (Confirmed drivers are in BLUE)

COYNE
#11 Oriol Servia
#19 TBA??

FORSYTHE
#3 Paul Tracy
#7 Mario Dominguez

HVM
#4 Bjorn Wirdheim
#55 Ronnie Bremer

MI-JACK/CONQUEST
#27 Andrew Ranger
#34 Nelson Philippe

NEWMAN/HAAS
#1 Sebastien Bourdais
#6 Bruno Junquiera

PKV
#12 Jimmy Vasser
#21 Cristiano da Matta

ROCKETSPORTS
#8 Timo Glock
#31 Ryan Hunter-Reay

WALKER/TEAM AUSTRALIA
#5 Marcus Marshall
#15 Alex Tagliani

RuSPORT
#9 Justin Wilson
#10 AJ Allmendinger

JENSEN
#? TBA

So I think that’s about all I have to say for the winter of 04 – 05. The rest of the car/driver combos will flesh out soon, maybe even something that isn’t on this page yet. Keep watching http://www.champcarworldseries.com/ for updates. Those of you who can’t make it to Long Beach, please watch our event, LIVE on NBC, the first one for many a year. Rick Benjamin, Derek Daly, Jon Beekhuis and Calvin Fish will be our on-air talent, with help during the season by Ralph Shaheen and Chris McClure.

Looking forward to seeing you all again soon!!

JHS