Interim CART President & CEO Bobby Rahal was a guest on
ESPN2's "RPM2 Night" last night and said he is focusing on
"just really getting up to speed with everything that's
happening" with the racing series. One of his "first
priorities" is the 2001 schedule, which he said is "fairly
close" to being completed. TV negotiations are starting and
Rahal added "there's this movie coming out [Sylvester
Stallone's "Champs"]." Rahal: "There's a lot of very
positive things going on, but for me, I got to get up to
speed with it." Rahal, on talks between the IRL and CART:
"I believe we will keep the window open to run at Indy.
Certainly the invitation, I believe, has been extended by
the IMS to the teams to go do that. As far as any kind of
reconciliation, I'm not sure there's much me or really any
of us at CART can do. I think that's really more a virtue
of whether [IRL Founder Tony George] and his staff want to
do something." Rahal, on racing in England and Germany: "I
don't believe any international race should come at the
expense of a national race. In other words, we should not
be getting rid of U.S. races for [international] venues. If
it's an international venue, it should be incremental, it
should be beyond what is available here. There are a lot of
strong opportunities for us in this country that we will
pursue aggressively." Rahal would "prefer not to" divest
himself from his CART team to be the series' permanent
President & CEO because "I've worked hard and there's a lot
of people that are depending upon me" (ESPN2, 6/21).
TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER: In Indianapolis, Robin Miller
writes that the "purge" of former CART CEO Andrew Craig "was
neither unexpected nor unnecessary. ... In the interest of
series credibility, overall progress and the possible
unification with Indy Racing League founder Tony George, it
was a must." Miller writes that the "best man" for the top
post "would probably be [Long Beach Grand Prix Association
President] Christopher Pook," while CART team Owner Steve
Horne would "also be a good choice." Rahal "doesn't profess
to be a savior: he's more a voice of reason and experience."
Miller: "Rahal could grow into this job, but only if he is
given proper power and gave up his team ownership. Both of
those seem like long shots" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 6/22).
