what was that?

I always find it bizarre when news stories are able to get away with “an unnamed source” or “I have it on good authority”. Name your source!! If they are so confident with their statements, come out and show your face!! Okay, that may be a little extreme. There are many reasons why they want to remain anonymous, often for security or safety reasons. Fair enough. But now the reporters use that sentence as a tool. I have nothing against speculating, but no good report should have its source as “a little birdy told me”.

Why am I bringing this up anyway? There’s nothing new in what I’m saying. Its no big secret that some outlets pander to a demographic and write whatever they can to keep that demo. But recently, it caused a genuine, albeit brief, concern in the world of Champ Car when some reports came out that Gentilozzi unceremoniously dumped Alex Tagliani in order to acquire German racer Timo Glock. Initials report had Gentilozzi as the bad guy and Tag as the victim. Initial reports had them fighting, had screaming matches. Tagliani was shocked!! The fans were hugely critical of Gentilozzi. All of a sudden, there was this frenzy in the wonderful world of Champ Car. Some called for Gentilozzi’s head!

A few days later, tag landed a ride at Walker and admitted to never have spoken to the reporter who had first published the story. In fact, nobody had. So, despite this reporter being correct in the departure of Tagliani from Rocketsports, its malicious connotations and implications were what stood out. Had the reporter mentioned any real sources, then someone could have been held accountable for blowing this story way out of proportion. But, nobody is ever accountable anymore and the reporter can brag that he was correct in this “scoop”.

Its happening again this week in Toronto with NASCAR being in town to visit potential sites for a race as early as 2007. Trust me, I love the idea of the good ol’ boys coming up to Canada. I will be the first one to attend, no question about it. But everybody’s talking like it’s a done deal and now talk of ‘replacing’ the Indy in Toronto or Norman Legault (Montreal track-guy) dumping Champ Car to hold a Nextel Cup race. Again, this is all hearsay and speculations without a trace of evidence beyond a NASCAR official saying something like “we’d love to come and race in Canada. Our market is always expanding and there is lots of potential…blah blah blah”. From that: “NASCAR REPLACING INDY”. After the success of the Busch race in Mexico City, all of a sudden NASCAR is expanding all across North America and its going to happen next year!! Hey, they only have 36 races on their schedule, why not easily just add three more (Mexico and two in Canada! What the hell!). logistically it would be so easy to pull off!!

Coming off a seemingly successful Busch race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the word I read from the media (hee hee. actually it was crew chiefs and managers) was that they still needed to pull off a few more Busch races over the next couple of years before sending down the boys of Nextel Cup racing. And this is on one of the nicest and better tracks in North America. They are talking about Mosport as a possibility now. If you’ve been to Mosport, you love it. It’s a great, fun track. But how many Busch races would need to be hosted there before Nextel came to town?? If the track in Mexico needs more ‘prep’ time with the Busch series, then Mosport would certainly need as many if not more ‘prep’ time. Don’t get me started on the Molson Indy Toronto track. Cause that thing can be built in a day or two!! Plenty of testing available there! And let’s not forget that we don’t have the weather that Mexico has!

I know I’m sure some NASCAR people told reporters that it was feasible, blah blah blah and reporters naturally jumped on it. And why not? Its big news. Nextel Cup Racing in Toronto in 2007! Problem is, its not news. Its speculation. Vague speculation at that!

And I won’t even bother with all the IRL-Molson Indy Toronto gossip!

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!!

love this picture Bourdais being called out by my dad in St Pete's in 2003. A polite, yet clearly confused Bourdais, wondering who this french old man talking to him is!

a little about me...not too much I promise!

My first ever blog!

Don’t really know what blog means to begin with, but it seems to be the way to go these days. :)

My name is Eric Gagnon and I am the traveling PA Announcer for the Champ Car World Series. That is why my blogs will mostly deal with motorsports, though I may throw in a social commentary here and there. I will also be getting a digital camera and plan on taking many pictures of my race weekends to share with everybody. I often notice peculiar things going on during the weekend, so with a camera in hand, I will be able to capture them and bring them to you!

We’re going to have some fun here. I will post new articles when I think of new stuff to talk about. My life is chaotic order, this blog-thing may as well be the same. :)

On top of being the announcer for the 2005 season, I am also trying to bring back some of the videos I used to do when I worked at Forsythe Racing. Some of you may remember “Overheard at the Track” and the other nonsense we used to do. I hope to bring something like that this year for the official website of Champ Car. So far we have made good progress in my attempts, but its not approved yet. The good news is that we got the approval from all the PR reps, which leads me to believe that most of them have never seen Overheard at the Track. :)
But, it’s still a question mark at this point. I’m sure a few emails thrown their way in support of the idea couldn’t hurt. Wink wink.

I’m going to concentrate on Champ Car naturally, but I will talk about NASCAR, ALMS, the IRL. May even throw in some CASCAR! My primary goal is to share my race weekend experiences with you folks. Sometimes I think people who work in Champ Car (or any major motorsport league) take it for granted how fortunate we are to attend all these fantastic events when the average fan gets to attend one or maybe two events in a year. I am first and foremost a fan of the sport and blessed to be able to work in it. I hope I can bring little bits of my weekend to you!

Take these articles for what their worth! Just a race fan talking about the sport he loves.