Redline Muldoon's Racin' Roundup

7 August 1997

Numbers? You want meaningful numbers?  Stats that show the fantastic 
popularity of auto racing?  Though the stick and ball sports garner all 
the sports page banners, no one can ignore the fact that in the past few 
weeks:

  Over 250,000 fans attended the Brickyard 400
  100,00 were at the CART Michigan Speedway race.
  97,000 people saw a regional vintage car event in Tustin, Ca
  60,000 straight-line race fans saw the NHRA do its thing at Sonoma, Ca
  20,000 watched trucks at IRP
  32,000 race fans watched the Toyota Atlantics at Trois-Rivieres
  73,000 open wheel racing advocates saw the night IRL race at Charlotte.

Over last weekend there were 19 TV shows on the tube re
cars/motorsports The first two weeks in August there are 42 fairly
heavy duty, well organized points races taking somewhere around the
U.S. That doesn't take in SCCA events or the various neighborhood bull
rings.  There are 46 racing organizations with points chases and here
again that doesn't take in all the SCCA classes and a lot of the
smaller ovals.

And yet the American League leading Los Angeles (Disney) Angels drew a
mere 22,000 baseball fans for a game last week against the Milwaukee
Brewers.  You figure.

The SCCA announced they will stage a Trans-Am race on the streets of
Grand Rapids, MI, July 24, 1998. It will be named after popular CART
driver Scott Brayton.

Formula One litigation is heating up re Bernie Eccelstone's control of
TV rights. A German court is looking favorably on taking the rights
away from Bernie and let producers bid for the rights. This has
happened in England re Soccer TV.

Alex Zanardi after winning the Michigan 500 was asked if the CART
championship was foremost in his mind and he replied that it is not
something that he wants very badly. Sure Alex.

Zanardi's Target team has donated $26,000 to the St. Jude charities so
far this year.

Truck racing is big biz and now the trucks have found their way into NHRA 
racing and the Pro Stock trucks ran at Sonoma last week.

Last week 18 CART teams tested at Mid Ohio for this Sundays points
race.  In F-1 Giancarlo Fisichella will drive for Benneton in 1998,
Villenueve will stay with Williams (for now) and Honda motors may come
back to the sport before long Damon Hill is asking for a pay raise to
$10 mil.

In the CART silly season Billy Boat will stay with A.J. Foyt and Dale
Earnhardt will sponsor Gregg Hills IRL car next year. Riley Scott
showed off their new IRL chassis at Charlotte and it will race at New
Hampshire, Aug 17 with Olds power. Mark Dismore will drive. It costs
$220,000

Cale Yarborough's crew chief Tony Furr appealed his 50 grand fine for
messing with the carburetor in John Andretti's Ford at the Pepsi
400. He lost.

Ford unveiled its NASCAR racer for 1998: the two-door Taurus and it
meets all the NASCAR specs for safety, downforce, motor placement,
window rake, etc.

The Willy T. Ribbs/Pat Boone IRL announcement was premature. Boone
says "race? Me? What's this all about?"

Redline Muldoon -- The Auto Channel