Morale among CART team owners and employees "plummeted"
over the weekend when CART Exec VP/Marketing Carl Cohen
"characterized" the racing series as a "really tough sell,"
according to Dan Proudfoot of the TORONTO SUN. Cohen was
quoted in Saturday's Detroit Free Press as saying, "I'm not
going to lie to you. This is a great challenge because of
what you're up against. We don't have the history or
automatically built-in fan base as you have with NASCAR."
CART sent out a release yesterday stating that Cohen was
leaving the organization to pursue new opportunities.
Proudfoot, on his remarks: "To say CART has no history is to
erase the accomplishments of the likes of Al Unser Jr. and
Mario Andretti, not to mention Danny Sullivan and Rick
Mears" (TORONTO SUN, 7/27). Cohen also said of the open-
wheel series, "You can't have the emotion or the passion
without the awareness" (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 7/24). In
Indianapolis, Lisa Morin writes Cohen's remarks "seemingly
cost him his job." But Morin adds, "The series is in dire
need of a resuscitated marketing plan" (SPEEDNET, 7/27).
