Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Why is F1 still planning to race at Bahrain in 2013?

I have been A.W.O.L. this week and much of last, and I apologize. This thing I have called a job keeps getting in the way.

Lots to talk about, so here goes.

Red Bull racing director Helmut Marko says Fernando Alonso was too “political” in 2012 and that’s why he lost the title by three points to Sebastian Vettel.

I suggest having a Lotus nearly land on his head might have had more to do with it.

Marko, of course, is a master politician who took a shot at Mark Webber the day before he slandered Alonso.

Marko learned his lessons well from Flavio Briatore, who was famous for hiring the drivers he managed after first launching psychological warfare against the guys he already had.

There is no apparent connection between Marko and Nico Hulkenberg, his current choice to partner Vettel in 2014, but you can bet there’s a link somewhere.

The current F1 is a wasp’s nest of conflicts-of-interest that likely couldn’t happen in most other professional sports. We live with it, though, because there isn’t an alternative.

Talking of F1, the auto racing websites and specialty periodicals are full of the usual non-stories you find at this time of year (“Bernie will step down from F1 post if thrown in jail” – ya think?) when there is a very serious story that could be reported.

And that story is: Why is F1 still planning to race in Bahrain in 2013?

If you Google “Bahrain Grand Prix” and “news,” the first 10 entries are all dated April 2012 when racing and Bahrain were last together.

And there’s the rub. Both the New York Times and National Post published op-ed articles in recent weeks about the situation there, which is worse than it was the last time anybody bothered to take a look. Dissent of any kind is not allowed, more protesters have been killed (about 100 at last count) and the jails are full of people who’ve dared to publicly challenge the regime of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

Now, last year, F1 was kind of caught in the middle, in that the schedule was set, the race was on and the violent demonstrations pretty much came out of nowhere. There was great international criticism of F1 and the FIA for going ahead anyway but, as I said, I don’t think they had much choice.

But the 2013 race? Bernie and Jean Todt and the rest of them have had a year to figure out a way to not go there and they haven’t done a thing. They sat on their hands and they should be ashamed.

F1 was decisive in the 1980s and refused to race in South Africa after 1985 because of apartheid. The much-maligned Jean-Marie Balestre, who was president of the FIA at the time, made that decision.

Where is the leadership today? Are not Ecclestone and Todt aware of what’s happening in Bahrain? And if not, why not?

The Bahrain Grand Prix will be a much bigger story this year than it was last and the people who run F1 are courting disaster by still planning to go ahead.

Moving right along, I have a friend in the U.S. who made his living managing a string of 30 or so small-town radio stations throughout the Midwest. He did that for about 15 years. No, he did not have a “job for life,” but he felt pretty comfortable in his position.

One day, the president of the company called and said he’d sold the stations to Gannett. My friend knew instantly that he was out of a job. The new owners would send in their own people to do things their way.

Which is why I, along with many others, was worried about the future of sports car racing in North America when it was announced late last year that the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series and the American Le Mans Series would “merge” in 2014. Specifics about the class structures would be announced in January.

It turned out it wasn’t really a merger. It turned out the Grand Am Rolex Series, which is owned by NASCAR, had purchased the ALMS and I was concerned because of what happened to my friend: the new owners would want to do things their way.

I needn’t have worried. With the exception of the elimination of the poorly populated P1 class, everything else is status quo (GT classes in both series will continue in the new Grand Am, for instance) and I am very optimistic about the future.

NASCAR did not get to be the Goliath it is today by being stupid. I am confident the people in charge will do a good job with sports-car racing.

Short Takes:

— I’ll always think of it as the Busch Clash but that non-points, pre-Daytona 500 pole-winners-only invitational that went on to become the Budweiser Shootout will now be known as The Sprint Unlimited at Daytona. NASCAR calls it “the fans’ race.” Gee, I always thought they all were. . . .

— Carroll Shelby, Skip Barber, Bobby Rahal, Andy Porterfield and Bill Noble are the latest to be named to the SCCA’s Hall of Fame. . . .

—   A.J. Allmendinger and Regan Smith will split the driving chores at Phoenix Racing this Sprint Cup season. . . .

—   The Ontario Topless Sprints series, which was soft-launched a year or so ago, has an aggressive 2013 planned with five stand-alone events and a number of co-sanctioned races planned. The non-winged sprinters will start the season June 15 at the Chatham-area South Buxton Speedway. . . .

—   This in from Adam Saal, who handles PR for some of the drivers assigned to Woodbridge-based AIM Autosport:

“The No. 69 AIM Autosport Team FXDD and No. 61 R.Ferri AIM Motorsport Racing with Ferrari F458s wrapped up their first official event as a two-car GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series team with positive results this past weekend at the Roar Before the Rolex 24 At Daytona test. The No. 69 AIM/FXDD Ferrari F458 and drivers Emil Assentato, Anthony Lazzaro, Nick Longhi and Guy Cosmo ended up ninth fastest overall in the GT ranks at the end of the three-day test while the debuting sister No. 61 AIM/R.Ferri Ferrari F458 improved in every session. Full-season No. 61 teammates Jeff Segal and Max Papis will be joined by Ferrari stalwarts Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella for the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona later this month.”

Fastest driver at the test was Vancouver’s Michael Valiante, who was behind the wheel of a Daytona Prototype entered by Michael Shank Racing. Scott Maxwell of Toronto was fastest in testing for the Continental Tire support race. . . .

—   Despite rumours to the contrary, Danica Patrick will be front and centre in Go Daddy commercials during this year’s Super Bowl telecast. . . .

—   At least four young Canadian drivers have signed on to compete in the U.S. Formula 2000 Series this year.

Once upon a time, in the 1970s and ‘80s, the world came to Canada to race in memorable series like Formula Atlantic and the Porsche Cup. Except for the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, there is no national racing series in Canada – particularly a single-seat, open wheel series where these young drivers could hone their skills at home instead of heading for the U.S.

Surely there is someone out there with the skill, drive, ambition and connections to get such a series off the ground again. Guys like  David Deacon and Jack Christie did it before; can they (or someone else) not do it again?

Auto racing: Ace photographer Cassese dies

For years, I did a contract job with first, the Molson Indy Toronto, and later the Molson Indy Vancouver and then the Champ Car World Series races at Edmonton.

They called me the photo manager. In short, I kept the photographers assigned to cover the event in line. I got to know them all and I was very protective. I considered those wonderfully talented people to be my friends.

Among them was a guy for the Toronto Sun who was an ace. His name was Mike Cassese and he was a two-time National Newspaper Award winner. I have the sad news of reporting today that Mike died Thursday of a heart attack at the terribly young age of 53.

Mike didn't work for the Sun any more. He'd moved to Reuters and it was another Sun-photog-turned-Reuters shooter, Fred Thornhill, who paid him the ultimate tribute, calling him the best at what he did.

“He worked in the industry for more than 30 years, he was my best friend for 20 and I worked with him for 15,” said Thornhill, in a Toronto Sun story about Mike.

“He was the greatest guy anyone could call a friend. In his profession he was the best at the game for as long as I can remember. I respected him as a professional and loved him as a friend.

“I remember him as having a big heart and his heart gave out because he gave it all to us.”

My good friend Paul Madder, another ace photographer, sent me the photo above of Mike in action. It's at one of the last Molson Indy races - likely 2004 - and Mike is in the blue shirt at right, shooting the winner, Sebastien Bourdais, being greeted by his wife just after he got out of his car.

Said Paul about Mike: "Always in the right spot at the right time; what a great guy."

Visitation for Mike Cassese will be held Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 2-4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. at the Jerrett Funderal Home, 1141 St. Clair Ave. West, near Dufferin. The funeral will be Monday at 10 a.m. at the St. Clare Catholic Church, 1118 St. Clair Ave. West, one block east of Dufferin.

Mike leaves two young sons.

Now, as promised, here is a roundup of recent auto racing news.

But first, a brief discussion of the difficulty in coming up with a Top Ten list.

As a true-blue Canadian, I have to include Canadian content. The government (and we all obey the government in Canada . . .) decreed years ago that one-third of anything had to be Canadian. (That’s why, when you tune into Golden Oldies radio stations in Canada, one-third of the time you will hear Canadian studio musicians singing and playing hits made famous by musicians who aren’t Canadian because it's the law. But I digress.)

In any event, that’s why at least seven of the Top Ten selections I make each year have to be Canadian. This year, it wasn’t hard because the renaming of Mosport and the cancellation of two major races were significant stories.

But my third Canadian choice, D.J. Kennington’s winning of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series in swashbuckling fashion, was a tough one because another Canadian, Bruno Spengler, won a pretty important national racing series in Germany.

But Kennington lives here and races here and a Canadian institution sponsors the series he won that races on tracks coast-to-coast in this country, so that was the tie-breaker for me.

When I posted the list, I cheated a bit by citing four racing stories that I said came close to making the Top Ten (Juan Montoya’s dinging of the jet dryer at Daytona, for instance) but they weren’t the only stories I agonized over.

The world lost an automotive icon when Carroll Shelby passed away in 2012. His death made some of the other lists but this is not a Top Twenty, so some things have to hit the cutting room floor and that was one of them when it came to mine.

Another story discarded was F1 test driver Maria de Villota’s loss of her right eye in a straightline test crash at a small airport in England when she ran into the back of a truck. Some will argue it should have been included.

At the end of the day, you try for a list that has significance and staying power. And then you cross your fingers and hope you haven’t forgotten anything.

Okay, moving right along . . .

- It’s interesting that in a very short period of time following Randy Bernard’s exit as CEO of IndyCar and Mark Miles’ ascension to the top job in the company that controls the series that Firestone signed on through 2018 as the series’ tire supplier.

Bernard did some things really well and he handled other things really badly and the tire supplier situation was front-and-centre in the really badly column.

Shortly after he took over, his procrastination in this area resulted in Firestone announcing it was leaving. After the car owners went crazy, Bernard was able to talk Firestone into returning but at a 40 per cent increase in the cost of tires, which did not go over well with the owners at all.

Rather than learning a lesson, Bernard was still screwing around with the tires and had been talking to Continental Tire about becoming the supplier prior to being asked to resign.

So he walks the plank and – bingo! – a long term contract is signed with Firestone. Think there’s a connection? Of course there is.

– The first big racing event of the 2013 season is not the Rolex 24 at Daytona but the Chili Bowl midget tournament indoors at the huge Expo Center in Tulsa, Okla., Jan. 8-12.

Many of the big names from all the big racing series (NASCAR, NHRA, etc.) attend and more than 250 entries are whittled down over four nights to where the final 24 go at it in the A Main on the Saturday night.

Tony Stewart will be there, as will Glenn Styres, owner of the Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford. In fact, Styres in the only Canadian I can find in the entry list.

He’ll try to battle his way into the fast 24 during qualifying and heats on Friday night, the 11th. Go Glenn!

The event is "owned" by the Swindell family, though. Sammy Swindell won the Chili Bowl in 2009 and his son Kevin has won it every year since. They’re both entered again.

– At that same time, Speed TV will start to broadcast live from Daytona Beach. First up will be Sprint Cup testing Jan. 10-12 and the channel plans 21 hours of coverage of the test divided between television, the Speed.com website, Twitter and Facebook.

This test will be the first time the new generation of Sprint Cup cars will be on track together and there are suggestions the sessions will be critical in determining whether one manufacturer or another has a bit of an edge.

The no-name Car of Tomorrow is gone, replaced by cars that actually look – a bit, anyway – like the cars we actually find in showrooms manufactured by Ford, GM and Toyota.

The test will kick off Speedweeks in the Daytona area, where most of the attention is centred on the big track but where there’s all sorts of other action at places like Volusia County (sprint cars) and New Smyrna (late models, modifieds) speedways.

Speed TV’s plans for the Rolex 24 include going live on Speed from 3 p.m. till 11 p.m. on Sat., Jan. 26; live streaming video on Speed.com from 11 p.m. till 9 a.m., and then from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. back on Speed TV.

Bob Varsha will host the coverage. Play-by-play will be provided by ex-driver Brian Till.

– Richard Buck, who was a mechanic with Roger Penske’s IndyCar operation for 11 years and was crew chief on five of the Captain’s Indy 500 winning entries, has been promoted by NASCAR to managing director, Competition Grand-Am and manager director, Touring Series NASCAR under which the Canadian Tire Series is organized.

Brad Moran, who’s been director of the NASCAR Canada series, is now director of Touring Series, NASCAR, and will report to Buck.

- Who says the Ontario government’s bone-headed decision to kill horse racing in this province (I mean, can anybody explain that?) by eliminating slots at race tracks has claimed its first stock-car racing victim.

According to Mike Davies, writing in the Peterborough Examiner, there will not be a summer Friday night stock-car racing series at Kawartha Downs and Speedway in nearby Fraserville as there has been for the last 14 or 15 years.

The owners say they'll rent out the track for special events (the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series finale will be held there Sept. 21, 2013) but there won’t be regular racing.

- Hey, want a job in motorsport? Go to speedsportjobs.com, a new service website launched just before Christmas by a Canadian company.

In a release, H3R Human Resources Services of Toronto says it hopes to bring the global motorsports community together in one place where employers can find the talent they need.

First up are three positions being advertised by AIM Autosport of Woodbridge, which is expanding to two Ferraris for the 2013 Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

– Sad news from Niagara. Stan Friesen, a legend in the Canadian short-oval, dirt-track racing industry, died at his home in St. Catharines last Sunday of cancer at age 79.

Originally a driver of big-block modifieds, Friesen owned speedways and promoted races for most of the last 40 years, starting with the purchase of Merrittville Speedway outside Thorold in 1970. He eventually sold Merrittville to concentrate on owning and promoting the track in Ransomville, N.Y.

The business was a family affair and he was helped by his wife Diane; sons Jamie, Joel and Alex, daughters-in-law Yvonne and Trish and grandchildren Stewart (now a dirt Modified star in his own right), Heather, James-Michael, Russell and Curtis.

Jamie and Joel Friesen (Alex died in 1996) plan to continue owning and promoting Ransomville Speedway.

- Norris McDonald

Merry Christmas to all race fans

To the people who read this blog, I wish you all - critics and friends alike - a very Merry Christmas and a great 2013.

With luck, we can look forward to great races and racing in Formula One, NASCAR, IndyCar and sports cars (not to forget the dragsters and the short tracks), as was the case in 2012.

Talking about sports cars, the announcement everybody has been waiting for following the sale of the ALMS to the NASCAR-owned Grand-Am Series will come on Jan. 4 in Daytona Beach when the class structure will be unveiled and explained.

Fingers crossed on that one.

In a day or two (it is the holidays, after all) I'll post a roundup, with comments, of all the important racing news that's relatively recent.

I'll also discuss the difficulty of coming up with a definitive Top Ten Stories of the Year list.

Meantime, enjoy the day. Joy to the World.

Oh, before I go, in case any of you missed my annual Christmas story that was published last weekend in Toronto Star Wheels, entitled When Murphy met Baby (it's about a taxi driver who hooks up with a hoodlum for a drive to Rochester), here's the link.

I think you'll like it. 

- Norris McDonald

Roundup: NASCAR stock cars to join trucks at Old Mosport

Canadian Tire Motorsport Park has announced its major event schedule for 2013 and the really good news is that two of Canada’s finest racing series will be on the program next Labour Day weekend with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

The NASCAR Canadian Tire stock cars and the Canadian Touring Car Series sedans will be sharing the legendary road circuit north of Bowmanville, formerly known as Mosport, with the Camping World trucks, which make up one-third of NASCAR’s top travelling series, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide stock cars being the other two.

The NASCAR Canada stock cars will actually be racing at Old Mosport three times next year. The Canadian Tire Series will headline the annual, traditional, Victoria Day SpeedFest on the road course that will also feature the Trans-Am Series, the Canadian Touring Cars and the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada.

And in addition to Victoria Day in May and Labour Day in September, the stock cars will also race at the Old Mosport oval on June 22.

Other big events at Canadian Tire Mosport Park (heh, heh) next summer will be the American le Mans Series on July 18-21, making its last stop before unification with the Grand-American Road Racing Series the following year; the Canadian Historic Grand Prix on June 14-16 and the Canadian Superbike Doubleheader Weekend in August.

More information and tickets can be found at: www.canadiantiremotorsportpark.com.

Meantime, the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada has announced a special ticket package for next June that will allow a person to purchase a reserved seat in a different grandstand for each day of the three-day event.

Quantities are limited, so if you want in you’d better get cracking. Ticket combinations come in three packages - gold, silver and bronze and are on sale for $485, $449 and $267.50, respectively. More information at 514 350-0000 or 1-855-790-1245. Or go to www.circuitgillesvilleneuve.ca.

And tickets for the 2013 Honda Indy Toronto will go on sale next Monday, Dec. 10. And remember, the event will now feature two official, fully-sanctioned IZOD IndyCar Series races, one with a standing start on Saturday and a second with a rolling start on Sunday. Each event will be full length, with full points and full prize money.

The promoters are making changes to some of the grandstands. They plan to build three new “super-structure” grandstands – one at Turn 10 (consolidating three grandstands), a taller structure at Turn 11, and a Turn 3 Grandstand that will see the addition of 15 rows.

According to a release, the switch to larger grandstands will result in an important additional benefit: greater track-side access for General Admission ticketholders and fans who might wander around looking for multiple viewpoints. Tickets start at $35 for General Admission. For more information, go to www.hondaindy.com.

Here’s a change of pace: The Canadian Motortsport Hall of Fame has launched a new, redesigned, website — www.cmhf.ca

This easy-to-navigate website details the history of motorsport in Canada and features biographies, including photos, of more than 150 inductees.

Said general manager Sid Priddle: “Thanks to the development efforts of highly respected freelance journalist (and Wheels Insider) Gary Grant, CMHF is able to bring you this new look. Gary is also responsible for the creation of our Facebook page.”

As is the case with any new project, the website is a work in progress. However, the hall hopes to keep the site informative and current.

And the CMHF is looking forward to your feedback. Just click on “contact” and submit any comments or questions.

Meantime, Andretti Autosport introduced its drivers lineup for 2013 on Wednesday and it’s the same as 2012 with two minor twists. Series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay will carry the No. 1 on his car instead of his familiar 28 (although “28” is included in the livery) and Marco Andretti will drive car No. 25, instead of 26. They have their reasons. James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, meantime, will continue aboard the No. 27 Go Daddy car.

Conor Daly, the son of ex-F1 and Indy car star Derek Daly who cut many of his racing teeth on the Ontario Formula Ford circuit driving for Brian Graham, will test for A.J. Foyt's IndyCar team at Sebring soon. Daly had designs on a career in Formula One but the IndyCar test would indicate he’s going to Plan B. He’s smart. You have to be the absolute best and have all the connections and the money needed to get into F1. That’s a triple whammy and very few young athletes have all three. It’s why I really hoped Guelph’s Robert Wickens would have taken a crack at IndyCar a year ago when his path to F1 was blocked. Believe it or not, it might be too late now.

Here’s not very good news. The Star Mazda Series is for sale and whether a buyer can be found in time for the 2013 season is questionable. In a letter to drivers and sponsors, Star Mazda owner Gary Rodrigues said the series would fold if it can’t be sold.

It seems that it doesn’t only cost a fortune to go racing these days, it costs as much or more to build a platform for racing.

Here are the nominees for the Mario Andretti Trophy as the SPEED performer of the year:

2010 SPEED Performer of the Year Sebastian Vettel (F1), Fernando Alonso (F1), Brad Keselowski (NASCAR), Jorge Lorenzo (MotoGP), Casey Stoner (MotoGP), Ryan Hunter-Reay (IndyCar), Antron Brown (NHRA), Kyle Larson (USAC), Sammy Swindell (WoO), Sebastien Loeb (World Rally), Andre Lotterer (WEC), Max Biaggi (World Superbike), Scott Pruett (Grand-Am), Donny Schatz (WoO), Josh Hayes (AMA Pro Superbike) and Ryan Villopoto (Supercross).

Andretti will present the trophy, a 100-pound sculpture created by bronze artist Elie Hazak, as part of a SPEED Center special on Jan. 27.

Any guesses who'll win?

NASCAR will use sports cars to fight IndyCar, F1

If you are in the ketchup business, you are in it to dominate the market. If need be, you will do just about anything and everything to put your competition out of business.

Same with beer, soft drinks or politics: if you’re a winner, your attitude is that this town ain’t big enough for the two (or more) of us.

Like it or not, this is also the way it is in big-league auto racing.

I’m not talking about the drivers, who obviously are out there to beat each other.

I’m talking about sanctioning bodies and I think this is the thinking behind NASCAR’s purchase recently of the American Le Mans Series.

There’s more to this than a simple buyout. Much more.

The competition for auto racing sponsorship mega-dollars, primarily, and bums-in-the-seats is heating up in the United States.

For years, NASCAR has had the No. 1 position all to itself but the ground is shifting.

Formula One is returning to the U.S., with a vengeance. After a promising start, F1 racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway stumbled badly: people really didn’t take to race cars going the wrong way at the fabled facility and the tire fiasco in 2005, when only six cars “raced,” and Michael Schumacher’s dumb attempt to “tie” with teammate Rubens Barrichello in 2002 turned the event into a joke.

After the 2007 race, F1 left the U.S. again — this time with its tail between its legs.

Next month, F1 returns to the States for a race at a purpose-built circuit outside Austin, Tex., and you can almost feel the excitement in the air all the way up here. There are only a few tickets left for the inaugural event. It is going to look fabulous on television. The Circuit of the Americas will rank right up there with Abu Dhabi and some of the other, newer, GP venues in the world.

And in about seven months, a second U.S. Grand Prix will be held, this one through the streets of several picturesque towns in New Jersey with the New York City skyline in the background.

This will be a powerful one-two punch.

Talking about television — there was a reference several paragraphs ago — Formula One has just signed a new deal with NBC to take race, qualifying and practice coverage away from the Fox-owned Speed Channel, starting in 2013. Bernie Ecclestone is delighted, and said he expects NBC to “promote Formula One to a level not seen before in the United States” across three platforms: over-the-air, cable and digital.

Although it has had its ups and downs, NBC is the most powerful and influential television network in the U.S., followed by its two old-time rivals ABC and CBS. Fox and its subsidiaries are way off in the distance.

Meantime, after years of struggle because of a civil war and coupled with bad management, the IZOD IndyCar Series has regained its sea legs and is embarking on an expansion program in 2013 that will see double-header races promoted in three of North America’s largest markets: Detroit, Toronto and Houston. Led by CEO Randy Bernard, IndyCar is making serious waves again.

The return of Formula One with not one but two races in a little more than half a year and a rejuvenated IndyCar series spells bad news for NASCAR.

It’s not that it won’t hold its traditional audience but the potential for NASCAR to grow is substantially limited in the face of increased competition, particularly in the boardrooms of Madison Avenue.

And anybody who knows anything about business is aware that it’s not good enough to just make a profit any longer; it’s the rate of growth and ability to attract new business that counts.

Now, NASCAR has the oval track crowd in its pocket. But the road-racing audience — that’s another kettle of fish.

NASCAR created the Grand American Road Racing Series in 1999 and took the Rolex Sports Cars Series under its wing in 2000 when the U.S. Road Racing Championship went out of business. Much like it's handled its Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World truck series championships, NASCAR concentrated on cost-effective sports car racing rather than high-tech. The result was club racing. The people doing the racing had a fine time but the product was not particularly spectator-friendly. This year’s Daytona 24 was a fine example: a good race with zero people there to watch it.

The Grand Am has been in competition with the much more exotic and high-tech American Le Mans Series, which puts on good races in front of sizable crowds. But much like the Indy car war, sports car racing was stymied when it came to growth because of two series instead of just one. As IndyCar has benefitted from unification, so could sports car racing — if some one or some thing wanted to make it happen.

Don Panoz, who started the ALMS, told me once that he had talked to NASCAR about unification but had balked “because they wanted to run everything." NASCAR finally made Panoz an offer he couldn’t refuse and unification will happen in 2014 under the Grand Am banner.

Since the announcement, many people have speculated about the makeup and direction of the new series and there has been an underlying suggestion that NASCAR will “dumb it down” so it’s much like the present Grand Am Series.

I thought so initially too. I’ve since changed my mind — and here’s why.

NASCAR bought the ALMS in order to be in control of what will eventually be a very high-tech sports car racing series to compete directly against the IndyCar Series and to blunt any inroads Formula One might have designs on making into the boardrooms of corporate America.

To do otherwise would be folly. And NASCAR has already indicated it will be going in that direction by meeting in Paris with officials of the Le Mans-centric Automobile Club of the West, which organizes and makes the rules for the annual 24-hour race.

NASCAR can revert to being a growth-oriented corporation by being as upscale and as high tech as it can in sports car racing.

And by so doing, it can cut IndyCar and F1 off at the pass.

Stunning news: No NASCAR in Montreal in 2013

WILL WE SEE NASCAR AT CANADIAN TIRE MOTORSPORT PARK NEXT YEAR?

This has not been a good year for a Montreal promoter of automobile racing in Canada.

In September, Octane Motorsports Events, Inc., cancelled the 2013 IZOD IndyCar Series race in Edmonton and filed for bankruptcy.

Today - Friday - Octane Management informed NASCAR that it would not promote the August, 2013,  Nationwide Series weekend at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal that over the last six years has also featured the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series and the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

As Octane Management holds the rights to auto racing at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, there is no immediate hope that NASCAR could find another promoter to continue racing in Montreal.

Octane promotes the Formula One Grand Prix of Canada and has a contract that runs through 2014.

There was one year remaining on the Indy race contract with the City of Edmonton when Octane Motorsports Events, Inc., announced the cancellation and filed for bankruptcy. Court papers in Montreal showed more than $5 million owing.

Octane Management operated on a year-to-year contractual basis with NASCAR, so no contract was yet in place for 2013.

Dave Stubbs of the Montreal Gazette reports that NASCAR was caught by surprise. As reported by Stubbs, NASCAR senior vice-president of racing operations Steve O’Donnell said from Daytona Beach:

“We certainly feel like we’ve had a great run in Montreal and certainly anticipated being back next year, if not many years beyond that. That was our intention.”

Stubbs reports that O'Donnell said Octane Management head François Dumontier told NASCAR he wanted a Sprint Cup race by itself or for the Nationwide race to be on the undercard of a Cup race in order to keep the event alive.

Said O’Donnell to the Gazette's Stubbs: “Canadian fans are huge supporters of NASCAR and it’s very important for us from a national-series perspective to be there. So we’ll certainly explore all avenues to do that. Who knows what the future brings? But it’s unfortunate it didn’t work out in Montreal.”

The 2013 Nationwide Series schedule has still not been issued. There is now officially a hole in it in August.

I was at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last Saturday for the CASC-Ontario Region Celebration of Motorsport races and can report that work is progressing on the new Corporate Centre on driver's left at Turn Ten. All will be ready by spring and just about everything else about the legendary circuit formerly known as Mosport - sight lines, pavement paddock, RV parking spaces, and so-on - has been spruced up.

I suggest there is a very good chance that the Nationwide Series race originally scheduled for Montreal next August will just be moved 470 kilometres west.

We should have word on that very soon - in fact, maybe sometime this weekend.

One last thing: this will not be good news for the Indy car race(s) at the CNE next July.

Auto racing is all about buzz, and I can tell you where the buzz is going to be around here next year and it ain't gonna be at the Ex.

Grand Am buys ALMS, wins sports car war

The announcement today – Wednesday – of a new North American sports car racing series could either be good news for the sport or bad news and I’m betting it will be more the latter than the former.

The American Le Mans Series and the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series will officially become one when the announcement is made. Although initial reports talked about a merger, it has since been confirmed that what’s happening, in fact, is the sale of the ALMS to Grand Am.

A merger is one thing. A merger is when two parties come together to create something that includes the best of both. A sale is when one party purchases the other and gets to call all the shots.

Much has been written in recent days about what the idealists in the crowd would like to see happen with this new series. The idealists kinda like the way the ALMS has been working and would dearly love to see the GT Class, in particular, included in the new series.

But I have news. The new series will be the present Grand Am Series with maybe – maybe – more participants. The Grand Am organization, which is owned by the France family/NASCAR, is not going to throw any of its current competitors under the bus in order to make anybody on the "other side" feel better. It’ll be the Grand Am way, or the highway.

I did an interview a few years ago with the saviour of Mosport (now Canadian Tire Motorsport Park) and the founder of the American Le Mans Series, Don Panoz. The ALMS and the Grand Am were both formed in the late 1990s as a result of the mess made of North American sports car racing by a guy named Andy Evans, and have been seen as competitors in much the same way as the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series were during their "civil war."

During the interview, I asked Panoz if he’d ever tried to "make peace" with the Grand Am so that there could be one, great, sports car series on this continent and he replied that he had.

"We’ve talked from time to time," he said, and then asked to go off the record. "They want to run everything," he said. "They want to do it all their way and I won’t go for that."

Apparently, Don Panoz has now reached a point where he will go for that.

Which is understandable, considering the way the ALMS has evolved in recent years and which has, as a result, undoubtedly cost him a lot of money.

Sports car racing is made up of classes, with the unlimited prototype class – called Prototype 1, or P1 – at the top of the heap. The problem is that for several years now, there has not been any manufacturer factory teams in P1 and the class has been propped up by privateers.

While the ALMS has prospered in the Grand Touring class, with factory entries from Corvette, Ferrari, BMW and others producing tight, exciting races, the lack of glamour-puss entries in P1 from manufacturers like Audi has hurt the series.

Although some might disagree, the decision to brand the ALMS as a "green" racing series has had mixed results. Auto racing is loud and gritty (despite the best efforts of F1) and is most popular when presented that way. Many people were put off by the goody two-shoes promotion of the series as being "clean racing."

And then there was the disastrous decision two years ago to put all of the races on the Internet, rather than continue on live television. Suddenly, the ALMS became an invisible series to all but truly hard-core fans.

It didn’t help that the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series races were all broadcast live on Speed Channel.

Now, it’s always been apparent that the ALMS is a bigger draw than the Grand Am when it comes to people actually going to the races. Last January’s Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona Grand Am race at Daytona Speedway attracted exactly zero spectators. None. Two months later at the ALMS 12 Hours of Sebring, the crowd was so big that it was difficult to get inside the circuit.

So the Grand Am organization might be inclined to accept some ALMS help in the area of marketing and promotion of the new series, but that’s about all.

Sure, some of the ALMS tracks – Canadian Tire MP, Lime Rock, etc. – will be part of the new series, but other than that, the ALMS as we’ve know it will soon be nothing but a memory.

And although there might be some platitudes mouthed about continuing the great traditions of the ALMS and its connection to the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, there is no way NASCAR will be taking direction from anyone, much less some sports car club in France.

Grand Am/NASCAR is the big dog now and they’ll do things their way. They won the war, so we’d better get used to it.

Did Woodbridge seal AIM deal with Ferrari?

When I enjoyed my first conversation of the 2012 season with AIM Autosport of Woodbridge team principal Ian Willis, it was in February at the Canadian Motorsports Expo and he was telling me how thrilled he was to be running full-time in the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series with – wait for it – a Ferrari.

Willis and AIM are no strangers when it comes to big-league sports car racing, having campaigned a Daytona Prototype for years with drivers like Mark Wilkins, Bruno Junqueira and Burt and Brian Frisselle.

But the Ferrari deal came out of the blue when an old friend, Grand Am driver Nick Longhi, telephoned Willis to chat.

"I’ve known Nick since he was an instructor at the Bridgestone Racing School," Willis said. "He called to say that he and others were working on a deal to run a Ferrari in the GT class of the Rolex series.

"Nick operated the Ferrari driving experience up at Mont Tremblant and is very well connected within the Ferrari network. He thought of us because he knows we’re capable of winning in the Grand Am series (two Daytona Prototype victories in 2008, for example) and he figured we would be a great fit.

"He’s also worked with (AIM drivers) Emil Assentato and Jeff Segal and so everything just seemed to fall into place."

 

 

Willis said it wasn’t a slam-dunk, though; that other teams were in the mix. In the end, it was the municipality where their business is located that might very well have sealed the deal for them.

"Ferrari is Italy’s team, it’s Italy’s brand," he said. "Woodbridge, where we're based, is 50 per cent Italian-speaking and that really opened the door for us."

He said he and the drivers went to Italy to get the car and they did a shakedown test at Fiorano, the official Ferrari test track.

"It’s hallowed ground," Willis said. "Emil (Assentato) sent me a note afterward and said it was like a country priest visiting the Vatican. Me? I just kept pinching myself."

So that was in February. The next time I talked to Willis was a month or so ago on Bayview Ave. in midtown Toronto. He and his sweetheart were out for a stroll with their young pup dog in tow, or the dog had them in tow, I’m not sure which. In any event, we talked about the season to date.

"Our goal is to win the championship," he said at the time (as of today, with two races remaining, both in September, Segal and Assentato are in first place in the GT driver standings, AIM is in first place among teams and Ferrari leads all manufacturers ).

"We’re on a one-year contract and our long-range plan is to grow to two cars for 2013. We’re working toward a Canadian sister car for the one we have now, which has an all-American lineup (Assentato is from New York and Segal is from Miami and Philadelphia).

"The nice thing about being Canadian is there are a lot of good Canadian drivers to choose from. Daniel Morad drove for us. There’s also Robbie Wickens, James Hinchcliffe, Andrew Ranger, Jacques Villeneuve, Mark Wilkins. They’re all good drivers.

"But right now, that’s pretty far way. Our focus is to get a championship for this car and our drivers. That’s our priority. Hopefully, the rest will fall into place."

The last race of the Rolex season is at Lime Rock, Conn., the weekend of Sept. 28-29. After that, Wilkins might know more about next year.

I’ll phone him up then and find out. And I’ll bring you up to date, too.

Racing roundup: On Danica, Jimmie Johnson and others

Musings, ramblings and confessions after a weekend of auto racing:

– You have to laugh about everything that’s happened to poor Danica Patrick this year, her first full-time season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. She’s done just fine qualifying and the speed is there but Murphy’s Law has never been more clearly defined than when applied to her when she's road-course racing.

Earlier this year, at Road America, she was less than a half-lap from a top five finish when Jacques Villeneuve forgot to brake and knocked her off the track.

Last week at Watkins Glen, she was on the inside going into Turn One when a car that went flying past her on the grass re-entered the track right in front of her and stopped. She had nowhere to go and hit it dead-on, knocking her out of the race.

Saturday at le Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, she qualified fourth and was leading the race - leading - when somebody threw a shoe on the track and she hit it. I mean, really. She had other mechanical problems but when she hit that shoe her race went south, so the timing couldn’t have been worse.

One of these days, she will win and that will get the monkey off her back. There’s no doubt the talent’s there; she’s just got to get it all together – speed, strategy, race craft and, most important for her, luck.

Justin Allgaier won his first road-course race at Montreal and the third of his Nationwide career, with Sam Hornish Jr. second and Jacques Villeneuve third. Details here

Now, it has been suggested by some that NASCAR kept throwing yellows so that a "regular" could win the race instead of a ringer, particularly if said ringer happened to be the son of the guy the Montreal circuit’s named after.

If not for the phantom yellows that left him low on fuel, or so go the the theories, Jacques Villeneuve would have won the race.

Now, JV denied that he was running out of gas on the final lap (although he did run out on the cooldown lap) and lost the race because Allgaier ran into him. Maybe. But there’s no doubt he was worred he was going to stall out because he was running noticeably slower on the last lap than the eventual winner.

Having said that, Allgaier didn’t have any fuel problems, so if NASCAR was playing fast and loose with the yellows, it didn’t appear to hurt him.

And nobody was shedding any tears for Villeneuve anyway. The Danica punt in Wisconsin was still fresh in everybody’s mind and he turned Alex Tagliani around late in the Montreal race. The fact that he was angry after being hit by Allgaier was really very amusing. Did somebody say it was like the pot calling the kettle black?

Two other quick notes: For the last fillup, Allgaier pitted later than the others, which explains why he had more fuel when the race got down to the short strokes. And why did he do that? Because at Road America in 2011, he ran out of fuel on the last lap. He obviously learned a lesson.

Oh, and Ron Fellows, Mississauga’s most famous athlete, finished fifth a week ago at Watkins Glen and was fifth at Montreal on Saturday. He is an absolutely incredible race driver.

– NASCAR hasn’t got a clue about yellows on road courses, period, as we saw at Montreal, and they sometimes over-react on ovals, too. David Gilliland lost control early in the Michigan Sprint Cup race Sunday afternoon and went flying through the infield grass but then got straightened out and went back on the track, albeit half a lap behind.

But he didn’t hit the wall and there was no damage or debris anywhere. But as soon as he started sliding, the yellow was on and there was really no need for it.

It’s a good excuse to close up the pack, though. Isn’t it . . . ?

– In the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at Montreal, J.R. Fitzpatrick of Cambridge won, with Andrew Ranger of Roxton Pond, Que., second and Robin Buck of Campbellville third. Scott Steckly of Milverton was fourth, he’s the defending national champion, and the leader of this year’s championship chase, D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas, finished fifth. Next race is at Barrie Speedway Sept. 8.

- As NASCAR doesn’t have a clue about yellow flags on road courses, neither does it have a clue so far as passes for the lead on road courses are concerned. Their rule is that in the case of a yellow, the order of finish from the last completed lap will be the order for the restart. Fine on ovals, stinks on road courses.

Ranger had passed Fitzpatrick fair and square and was clear and away in front of him when somebody spun at the back of the pack and since they all hadn’t completed the lap, the order had to revert to the previous . . . yada, yada, yada – you know what I’m saying, eh? – and when they restarted the race J.R. was back in first and Ranger was second and that is not fair, not fair, not fair. (I sound like Jack Lemon as Prof. Fate in The Great Race. . .)

– Okay, moving right along, I apologize for making the same mistake over and over. Every time I write anything about Lewis Hamilton, I say he’s won two world championships. Of course, he’s only won one but that hasn’t seemed to penetrate my thick skull. The latest example was in a story I wrote on the weekend that appeared on wheels.ca and in Toronto Star Wheels. I could change it online but not in the paper. Sorry.

It’s like every time I go to write 1996. It always comes out 1969. Why?

– They say auto racing has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We saw both in the Sprint Cup race at Michigan Sunday.

With nine laps to go, Jimmie Johnson took the lead in the race and the TV cameras showed his crew chief, Chad Knaus, fist-pumping with delight. Three laps later, his engine let go and Greg Biffle went blowing by him.

Biffle went on to win the race and Johnson drove straight to the garage area. He passed a dejected Knaus, who was walking in the same direction. Details here

Remember that Grand Prix of Monaco a half-dozen years ago, in 2006, when Kimi Raikkonen dropped out while in second place and he got out of his car and was so angry that he kept his helmet on while he walked around the course to his yacht in the harbour, where he disappeared below decks?

Well, Johnson got out of his car yesterday and didn’t take off his helmet. He walked from his car, between several transport trucks and through the hospitality area on the way to his motorhome.

He was obviously so upset that one of his PR aides, a woman, started to follow him and then thought better of it, staying behind in the garage area.

It's not often that you see Jimmie Johnson so browned off.

– By the way, while the Nationwide stock cars were at Montreal, the Camping World Truck Series was the support race for the Sprint Cup cars in Michigan and that race Saturday was won by Nelson Piquet Jr.

Piquet, who was forced to leave Formula One after admitting to participation in the conspiracy to fix the Singapore GP in 2008, would appear to have completed his rehabilitation. Look for him to move up to Sprint Cup before long.

– Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas won the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race at Montreal on Saturday. Paul Tracy was third (with others). Alex Tagliani finished seventh. John Edwards and Robin Liddell won in GT. Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato driving the AIM Autosport of Woodbridge Ferrari were second in GT. Paul Dalla Lana of Toronto, who was featured in Wheels last weekend and who won the GT class at Watkins Glen a week ago, had a miserable race in Montreal and didn’t finish. There were only 21 cars in the Montreal race – and people can make as many excuses as they want but it’s the border. Americans competing in semi-professionals series like the Grand Am Rolex and the American Le Mans Series and who are field-fillers will run all the races in the U.S. and skip the ones up here. It’s a shame.

– At Road America, where 35 cars showed up for the American le Mans Series race (as compared to 26 that started the ALMS race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport in July, see?), the closest finish in the history of the series took place with the P1 Lola-Mazda entry of Chris Dyson and Guy Smith defeating Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr in their Muscle Milk HPD ARX-Honda by 0.083 seconds.

Tony Burgess of Toronto (and others) was third overall. Martin Plowman and David Heinemeier were first in P2, Tom Kimber-Smith, Jon Bennett and Alex Powpow were first in Prototype Challenge (Kyle Marcelli of Barrie, and others, who was on pole in PC, finished third in class and seventh overall), Bill Auberlen and Jorg Muller were winners in the GT class and Cooper MacNeil and Jeroen Bleekemolen were first in GT Challenge.

By the way, P2 driver Scott Tucker finished 11^th and 12^th overall in the race and third and fourth in the Prototype 2 class. How?

He teamed with Christophe Bouchut in one car – he did the first stint of driving – and with Luis Diaz in the second – he drove the final stint in the second car.

– In Canadian Touring Car Championship action at Montreal, Sasha Annis won the first race in Super Touring, with Jocelyn Hebert tops in Touring Class and Karl Wittmer in B-Spec. In the second race, Marc-Antoine Camirand was the winner in Super Touring, Damon Sharpe won Touring Class and Wittmer repeated in B-Spec.

The Touring Car championship will wrap its season over Labour Day weekend at Calabogie Motorports Park.

– Robbie Wickens of Guelph and Toronto had his best weekend in the German Touring Car Championship since he started his rookie season in the spring. He qualified ninth and finished seventh at the Nurburgring driving for Mercedes. Canadian driver Bruno Spengler won the race in a BMW.

– In World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series action, Sammy Swindell got over his disappointment at missing out on starting the Knoxville Nationals by winning the feature at Grand Forks, N.D., at the weekend.

In other sprint car news, Dustin Daggett of Grand Ledge, Mich., won the Northern Summer Nationals Championship by finishing first in the feature at Chatham-area South Buxton Speedway Saturday night.

- And two weeks out from the Budweiser Oswego Classic 200 for supermodifieds, Joe Gosek won his 42nd feature at the famous northern New York Oswego Speedway, which puts him fourth on the all-time win list behind Eddie Bellinger Jr., Bentley Warren and Jim Shampine.

And by finishing fifth in the super feature, Otto Sitterly of Canajoharie, N.Y., won his fifth Oswego Speedway track championship. I think Sitterly has one of the neatest names in all of auto racing, right up there with Parnelli Jones. I also think Otto has the talent to go to Indy. His sometimes-supermodified teammate, Davey Hamilton, could help pave the way.

Versatile Tagliani wins NASCAR pole in Montreal



You hear the question again and again: why can’t open wheel drivers make the transition to stock cars? Why can’t winners in Indy car racing, say, transition over to NASCAR and win?

The people who ask those question, of course, are primarily NASCAR reporters and fans who love sticking it to the Indy car drivers.

Although Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish Jr. haven’t exactly set the world on fire in NASCAR, and the jury is still out on Danica Patrick, they conveniently forget that Tony Stewart did it (from Indy car champion to NASCAR champion is pretty good) and they are currently overlooking another guy who’s pretty good at it too.

His name is Alex Tagliani, who’s a top-level Indy car star who’s driving in stock cars as well as sports cars this weekend in Montreal as the Nationwide Series makes its annual visit to le Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

In fact, in today’s Nationwide race, he’ll start on the pole. Horish will start beside him, with old friends Jacques Villeneuve and Danica Patrick beside him on the second row.

(An aside here: I earlier wrote that for the first time that I can remember, there is not one regular Sprint Cup driver in today’s race. At the last moment, Kyle Busch flew in from Michigan and planned to start at the back of the field.)

In any event, "Tag" is on pole and he seems to do really well every time he climbs into a stock car. In fact, years ago he saved his Indy car career when he won a NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race in Edmonton and demonstrated in front of the Champ Car World Series owners that he still very much "had it."

This is not the first time that a hometown hero has won the pole in Montreal. Carpentier did it in 2007 and Villeneuve sat on it last year, but that didn’t mean Tag wasn’t overjoyed.

"I want to dedicate this pole to the fans who come and make this event so special," said Tagliani, while pointing to the grandstands. "I feel that there was still a tenth or two left in the car. I wanted to do a third flying lap with the tire pressures and temperatures at their best but my crew chief, Trent Owens, wanted me to save fuel so we have one more lap to go in our first stint in the race."

After the Nationwide race, Tagliani will have to change driving styles because he'll be driving in tonight's Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series race, also at Montreal.

All of these races - plus a tape of the Canadian Tire race which was held this morning (which was won by J.R. Fitzpatrick, after a thrilling duel with Andrew Ranger) - are on TV today. Please check George's TV listings For Race Fans  on this site for times and channels.

One last thing: unless she's winning the race, don't be surprised if Patrick delivers a little payback today to Villeneuve for the incident at Road America  several months ago where he got into the back of her car on the last lap and robbed her of a fifth-place finish.

These things happen in racing but it was his "not my fault, I don't care" response later that annoyed people, including his sponsor who went so far as to issue a statement critical of the one-time F1 world champion.