I attended the Sunday CASCAR drivers' meeting, in Mississauga.
The Super Series schedule still lists a TBA date in late August. It's for the Montreal ChampCar weekend. Whether or not that happens, it was announced yesterday that there will be an 11th Super Series race in '06.
Based on the 10 announced dates so far, and based on 2005 attendance figures for those 10 events, the drivers were told that they will race in front of at least 355,000 live fans in 2006, as opposed to the 255,000 the series actually raced in front of last season. This helped to soften the blow for many of the drivers who are eager to find positives to put in front of their existing and prospective sponsors.
People who asked about why Delaware isn't on the sked were invited to "call Delaware".
Richard Buck said CASCAR didn't "pull the hammer" on either Delaware or the T.O. Indy. They said the CASCAR biz. model no longer includes paying for track time and that they want to be a desirable part of a race weekend, and not "treated like a pain in the butt" (Richard Coughlin's quote) as they were in Toronto. Richard Buck invited people to "read the papers" to see that people are upset that there are no Canadian properties at the Toronto ChampCar weekend.
It was said that things are looking good for a return to Calgary in 2007.
Richard Coughlin also said there are "exciting things happening" with regard to the CASCAR races at Cayuga. Richard Buck said "we have some partners working on the track." No other details were offered, other than Tony Novotny's denial that CASCAR or NASCAR were planning to purchase Cayuga.
The Sportsman Series was released. Five races so far. Expect a sixth, in late August.
- June 17 Mosport Oval
- July 1 Barrie Speedway
- Aug. ??? TBA Barrie Speedway
- Sept. 2-3 Cayuga
- Sept. 16-17 Kawartha.
Lots of talk about working toward a "NASCAR Operational Level" in terms of event management, safety and communication. Some drivers commented that their main frustrating during the winter was a lack of communication from CASCAR and they would welcome the change.
Several drivers repeatedly pushed for a timeline for a sale and whether or not they can use the NASCAR brand to sell their programs to sponsors. They were told there is no timeline and that they can't use "NASCAR". Period. This left some frustrated, given that they said that last summer they were given assurances that the sale of CASCAR to NASCAR would happen. And they passed those assurances on to their sponsors. And now those sponsors are asking them 'what happened?'.
But on the other hand, there was lots of talk about NASCAR demonstrating its committment to CASCAR by their investment in Richard Buck playing a major role in running CASCAR. Buck said, "I can't tell you that NASCAR is coming to Canada. You don't make an announcement about an announcement.... I pushed [NASCAR] as hard as I could without losing my job and your resource."
Regarding CASCAR's future with NASCAR, new race director Trevor Hambly invited attendees to "read between the lines" ... "If you can't see what's going on here, you're blind" ... and "Don't lose focus on where we're going."
At the start of the meeting, Tony Novotny said, "Our relationship with NASCAR thickens as the days go on."
When all was said and done, Novotny took the microphone, saying he had to restrain himself from doing so at several points during the Q&A. He urged the competitors to leave the meeting with a positive message. He said the future has never looked so bright for CASCAR and that he feels even better about things than he did last fall at the banquet.
He urged the drivers and anyone associated with CASCAR that "this is not the time to sell your stock."
This post has dealt mainly with the business and schedule side of CASCAR. Richard Buck gave a lengthy demonstration on new safety initiatives, including a video on head and neck restraint systems and safety belts. I am not a techie, so maybe someone can pick up on this and what it will cost to institute these new safety initiatives. Ed & Jamie Hakonson were on hand with a display of available equipment.
Please feel free to chime in with any other comments or things that I may have missed.
Greg.
No comments:
Post a Comment