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
