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No this article is not about music or about the delightful sounds of a 16,000 RPM turbo Champ Car engine, it is more about the abundance of Brazilian drivers in the Champ Car series and the drop-off of Americans.
The 80's drew a much different picture. American drivers dominated the CART series, but when the series went international, drivers from others countries started chasing their dreams through CART, especially Brazil, a hotbed for young racing talent. Are the drivers of other nations better than their American counterparts? Certainly not! Then how did we get where we are today?
The lack of American enthusiasm for CART and F1 is quite simple really.,. There was a time when American drivers took part in Formula-1 World Championship. When Phil Hill and Mario Andretti became the Formula-1 World Champion Americans followed F1 with a lot of interest. Even Canada has had their share of glory in Formula-1. However, slowly the influx of drivers from America dwindled (and with it American interest) and now there is only one F1 driver who comes from North America (Jacques Villeneuve). CART has a similar problem
According to Carl Haas, Co-Owner of Newman/Haas racing there is certainly no favoritism to foreigners in the selection process in CART. The teams pick the best and the quickest possible driver in the world. Recently, many of these drivers have come from a European racing background, a prime breeding ground for open wheel racecar drivers. Too few American drivers race in Europe because they have so many career options in the USA..
There have been certain instances recently where the drivers have hopped from CART to Formula -1 instead of the other way around. There can be no denting the fact that Formula-1 team owners are beginning to look at Champ Car drivers seriously. Hence, many drivers from Europe are now considering Champ Cars as their launch pad to F1. This means more competition for seats that American drivers are vying for.
At present there are several European drivers in Champ Cars like Mark Blundell, Dario Franchitti, Oriol Servia and Max Papis. So, the American drivers not only have to fight against their Brazilian counterparts but also against the recent European surge. Since CART requires good road racing skills, and many of America's lower series are oval-track based, road-race bred European and South American drivers are a hot commodity. Although many Champ car drivers have come out of the Indy Lights and Toyota Atlantic programs, not all have been Americans. Both of those series are loaded with non-Americans as well.
Only Jimmy Vasser and Michael Andretti are currently full time American drivers. Memo Gidley, Alex Barron and Bryan Herta have had occasional drives, but that's it. Another factor working against CART was the parting of ways between IRL and CART. Much of the American talent switched to IRL because of the predominance of oval racing in that series. With the range of circuits one can find in CART winning the Championship can be quite challenging and rewarding. Some say CART is the equivalent to Formula-1 in the States. An advantage that CART possesses over Formula-1 is less sophistication with more emphasis on driving skill.
Another issue that has hurt American enthusiasm for CART is the switch made by drivers like Scott Pruett and Robby Gordon to NASCAR. In essence, CART has many battles to fight and too few big guns to fight them with.
Carl Haas adds that though at the moment the starting grid is over populated with Brazilians and Europeans, the Indy Lights and Toyota Atlantic Series have plenty of young American drivers in the pipeline. These drivers consider Toyota Atlantic and Indy Lights as a stepping-stone to CART and some of the drivers who have made it to CART through the Indy Lights series and Toyota Atlantic series include Cristiano da Matta and Oriol Servia. Ironically, this year the Indy Lights Championship is being fought between Scott Dixon and Jason Bright, a Kiwi and an Aussie respectively. However, most of the critics consider Buddy Rice, a young American competing in the Toyota Atlantic Series as a strong future prospect for CART.
According to Memo Gidley, for the drivers to make it to CART they need sponsorship and the foreign companies get behind their drivers competing in the CART championship, hence more US companies need to do the same for young Americans. But the future looks good as many young American drivers now compete in the US Formula-3 Championship and also Go-Karting is taken in a serious manner. Hence, in the future there will be certainly lot more American drivers vying for a drive in the CART championship provided they have the right kind of financial backing.
Back to the fans point of view, traditionally Americans have been patriotic and can be seen in large numbers supporting their heroes. However, with the slow and steady decrease in the number of American drivers in CART the crowds have also started to decline. If one compares a NASCAR crowd to a CART crowd it's not hard to see how much more enthusiastic and vociferous the NASCAR crowd is. Ditto for a F1 crowd, especially the Ferrari fans. NASCAR and F1 crowds have passion, something CART needs more of.
Besides the US and Canada, CART visits Japan, Australia and Brazil. Starting next season CART sets its foot in Europe, Germany and England to be specific. If the strong crowd of 100,000 that packed the Lausitzring circuit in Germany when Walker Racing tested their car at the circuit is any indication, we may be in for huge surprise when CART visits Europe. According to several critics CART will be well received in Europe amidst the European fans.
It is up to CART to sell their series as a true international championship and get the fans excited about all the drivers irrespective of their nationality. If CART continues to draw better overseas than at home, CART might be well served dropping more American races in favor of overseas venues. CART's schedule must be 22 very strong races. If that means dropping American races in favor of overseas event, so be it.
The world is a VERY big place and F1 can't satisfy all the world's desires to have a top-level open-wheel race to their country. I'm from India. We would love to have a F1 or CART race. It's highly unlikely we will ever get one, but our country has so many starved race fans, it would be a success if we ever did. China is another example of a country where CART or F1 might draw more people than the Indy 500 does.
As long as CART wants to be primarily an American-based series, it had better get more American drivers. If however, it wants to play in the world market, it just needs a few more European drivers and a few less Brazilian drivers to even the mix a bit.
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CART 3/4-Season
Report 9/13/00
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