Just about all set!

Things are finally starting to come together for the Champ Car World Series. After a long off-season, the announcements are pouring in. finally. A lot of people think these kind of things should have been covered months ago. That it’s a lot harder to pursue sponsors and whatnot when everything is up in the air. Fair enough. But part of me kind of likes this momentum going into Long Beach. We’ve been very patient and quiet and all of a sudden there is this explosion of announcements, almost simultaneously. Ranger, Jensen, Scot Elkins (new director of Technology)! Suddenly the media outlets can’t get enough champ car news after months of mostly being quiet. I think this is great! Let ‘em take notice of what is happening and then bam! Long Beach is right there! One of the better city tracks in the world! 170 thousand people strong! I really believe that if everything would have been set in stone in December, that there would be very little momentum going into the first race of the season. To us diehard fans, we would have continued to wait in anticipation all the while frustrated because of all the NASCAR and IRL coverage with their seasons under way. But now, even though we are still a few weeks away from the first race of the season, we are continually in the news with all these announcements popping up. I think this is good for the series and especially the naysayers, who now can’t help but read and hear about this crazy thing called the Champ Car World Series.

To say that I am excited for Long Beach would be an understatement. My first ever Champ Car race was in LB. I remember I was hired by Players on Sunday and on a plane on Thursday heading to Long Beach. I was in awe the entire weekend. My favorite memory of that race was when my producer told me to go out and interview Paul Tracy after the race. Fresh out of school, an impressionable kid told three days after he got the job (which never mentioned anything about driver interviews post-race and about racing!) that he needs to run and get a Tracy interview following his retirement from the race. As I ran off with my cameraman to try and get Tracy, having no idea what I am going to ask him, my producer turns to me and says “by the way, he’s an a__hole”
Great, more pressure!! Still, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world and the interview turned out well enough under the circumstances and for the record, Tracy was not an a__hole. Not on that day anyway. :)

Bring on Long Beach!!