Champ Car to team up with ALMS in ’07

UPDATE Along these same lines we hear the deal to replace Grand-Am with ALMS next year at Long Beach is all but done, with but a few details to be ironed out. ALMS will be the Saturday headline event. Seems with the France family Shenanigans against Champ Car, Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerald Forsythe told their Grand-Am series to go pound sand. Along those same lines, we suspect the Busch and Grand-Am series will also be told to go pound sand when their contracts in Mexico City are up. It's too bad, NASCAR (and Grand-Am) really wanted to be successful in Mexico.

09/25/06 Elkhart Lake – Champ Car will return to Road America next season, possibly as part of a doubleheader weekend with American Le Mans Series sports cars.

"That's been a consideration, and it might end up being that way, depending on what date this event is going to happen on," George Bruggenthies, president and general manager for the track, said Saturday on the eve of the Champ Car Grand Prix of Road America.

"It's going to be a full weekend, whatever happens."

Champ Car and its predecessor, CART, have raced at the facility since 1982 with the exception of a one-year hiatus last season. Although rain Friday and Saturday held down crowds, advance ticket sales for this weekend were ahead of target and ahead of 2004, Bruggenthies said.

"We had 500 people at the fan forum, and they were enthusiastic," Bruggenthies said. "I've been around the facility, and everyone is just very happy to see Champ Car back here at Road America. I wish we had better weather, but these are loyal fans here."

If Champ Car were to join the American Le Mans Series weekend next season, it would return to a mid-August date. ALMS has a contract with the track through 2008.

"They're both great shows," Bruggenthies said. "American Le Mans has history of running into the evening on Saturday, kind of more of that endurance race, so that would probably be the format, should they be paired up."

The two have raced together several times. Whether that happens at Road America is completely up to Champ Car, which plans to announce its schedule Wednesday in Las Vegas. JSOnline.com

[Editor's Note: The two will indeed team up in 2007 as long as the two European races fill up the Champ Car September calendar. If not then Champ Car would run Road America standalone in September again.]