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Editor's Note: Mr. Marguerite is a CART fan from France,
and writes to tell the story of how CART is viewed overseas,
where NASCAR and the IRL aren't even on anyone's radar screen.
 Paris,
France - The CART FedEx Championship series
is currently (and by far) America's No. 1 motorsports series
in the World, lapping NASCAR, the Indy 500, the Superbowl and
the NBA in terms of worldwide popularity and potential for
further growth.
And that was before this
season.
That was before 4 big races were
added to this years Champ Car schedule, legendary race tracks
such as Mexico City, Montréal, Miami and Denver - places which
are favorites and which complete a fantastic World Tour for
CART Teams and Drivers.
Mexico City is sure to become
one of the biggest attended races ever, with hundreds of
thousands of Mexican fans cheering for their drivers competing
in the most diverse and competitive series in the World.
Add this too Monterrey, and CART delivers the top two cities
in Mexico.
Montréal is another great new
venue where drivers like Mario and Michael Andretti, Emerson
Fittipaldi, Jacques Villeneuve have raced. CART now has the
top 3 Canadian (Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver) cities on its
schedule.
Miami is new this season as
well. Champ Car racing is returning to the city for the first
time since 1995 in grand fashion. Fans will enjoy a big
week-end with the addition of the high-tech cars of the
American Le Mans Series. Champ Cars raced in front of 90.000
people in 1995 and this years fans will cheer for American's
Michael Andretti, Jimmy Vasser and Townsend Bell battling the
worlds top Brazilian drivers Cristiano da Matta, Christian
Fittipaldi, Tony Kanaan and Bruno Junqueira.
After a ten year hiatus,
Denver is also returning this season. This big sport city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains
delivers CART into a new market and the fans will enjoy the
great downtown location..
The CART schedule is now the most complete and powerful of all
the motorsport series.
The NAFTA market is well represented with USA venues in the
top markets (Long Beach, Fontana/LA, Miami, Denver, Portland,
Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, Laguna Seca/San Francisco ...as
well as Houston and St Petersburg/Tampa in 2003), plus the top
3 Canadian cities and the top 2 Mexican cities.
The European Union is also well represented with a race in
both Germany (third economic country) and in the UK (fourth).
Asia is represented in Japan.
Australia completes the World Tour.
With a strong presence around the globe, and 2 billion people
watching the races worldwide, it's clear that the CART FedEx
Championship series is the biggest American Sport in the world
and a true World Championship, unlike Major League baseball,
which likes to call it's big playoff the World Series.
Try USA Series. Over here in France we get a big laugh
out of that. Some Americans think they are the only
people who matter.
The CART FedEx Championship series (and the ALMS) are currently
the only American Sport which is recognized as an
International Championship by an international sanctioning
body (the Federation International de l'Automobile (FIA) for
motorsport which sanctions the successful Formula One
Championship).
Champ Car drivers come from
around the World to win the Vanderbilt Cup, one of
motorsports oldest and most prestigious trophy's.
American drivers Michael
Andretti, Jimmy Vasser and Townsend Bell are defending the US
honor against the top World drivers including Cristiano da
Matta from Brazil, Paul Tracy from Canada, Adrian Fernandez
from Mexico, Kenny Bräck from Sweden, Scott Dixon from New
Zealand, Oriol Servia from Spain, Dario Franchitti from the
UK, Max Papis from Italy, Tora Takagi from Japan, just to name
a few.
The CART FedEx Championship series is a 20 race World
Championship, on race tracks from the mile oval and the big
super speedways to the street circuit and the road courses,
requiring the best skills and providing a real champion.
The Champ Car drivers sometimes race or test in other racing
series such as NASCAR, Grand-Am or Bush to keep focused on
racing when there is not a CART race, before returning on the
Champ Car rocket ships.
Mr. Excitement, NASCAR's Jimmie Spencer recently stated after
he sat in Ganassi's Toyota/Lola Champ Car : "I was sitting on
a bullet".
A Champ Car can reach zero to
100 mph in less than 5 seconds and reach a top speed of 250
mph on a superspeedway. That sort of speed requires the very
best drivers, and those who can't make it, end up in series
that require less talent like the IRL or NASCAR.
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Ricardo
González
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