Newman/Haas to announce new sponsor

UPDATE AutoRacing1.com has learned that the Newman/Haas team will announce their new sponsor lineup for Sebastien Bourdais and Bruno Junqueira later this week or early next week. One primary sponsor will be returning (assumed to be McDonald's for Bourdais) and one will be new to Champ Car (for Junqueira). 02/17/05 Sources close to the scene tell us that the Newman/Haas team is close to announcing a new sponsor for Bruno Junqueira's car. Supposedly it is a big corporation that is new to Champ Car. At one point we heard PacifiCare might not be back but now we hear they will be, so it remains to be seen if the car sports two primary sponsors. As to why the team did not run a third car for da Matta, it turns out it was not about money, but about shop space and personnel. With the team shop located outside of Chicago, it's not like Indy where there is a large pool of experienced individuals to pull from. There was talk of running the third car out of a small shop the team has in Indy, but it is so small that idea was nixed. So in the end da Matta ended up at PKV Racing, which is good for that organization. Mark C.