On Saturday, the five-year-old IRL "faces its third --
and possibly final -- race at" Atlanta Motor Speedway (AMS),
a "huge market that has yet to embrace" the IRL, according
to the AP's Paul Newberry. AMS President & GM Ed Clark, on
the IRL series: "You can't say it's a start-up thing
anymore. We're to the point where we've got to show
progress." Newberry notes that one "stumbling block" for
IRL is the "financial arrangement" it has with Las Vegas
Motor Speedway and AMS for its races this year. Both
remained on the IRL schedule "after the IRL agreed to assume
much of the financial risk and drop its usual sanctioning
fee." For its part, AMS "is providing staff and promotional
support". Clark added that advance ticket sales for the AMS
race are up 30% over '99, "indicating a crowd larger than"
the 32,000 last year, but "short" of the 48,000 which
attended during the inaugural race (AP, 7/13). In Atlanta,
Kent Mitchell writes that Eddie Cheever drove his Indy car
through Atlanta streets yesterday to promote Saturday's
Midas 500 Classic at AMS (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 7/13).
NO CONCERNS OF IRL PULLOUT IN TX: TX Motor Speedway
(TMS) GM Eddie Gossage said IRL Founder Tony George "is too
big a guy" to "pull out" of a race commitment at TX Motor
Speedway because of TMS' new race agreement with CART.
Gossage: "From our standpoint, IRL is just critical. We
want to be the biggest part of the IRL schedule outside of
Indianapolis" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 7/13).
JOLLY GOOD: ESPN2's Matt Yocum reported that CART
Interim CEO Bobby Rahal "added two more venues to the 2001
schedule." The series has added September 16 race near
Berlin in Lausitzring, Germany, the same weekend as the
Italian Grand Prix. The following week, CART "heads to"
England's Rockingham Motor Speedway. Rahal: "I'm so excited
about the venue. I think it's going to be a fantastic
circuit, but just finally being able to show our style of
racing to all the great fans in England" ("RPM 2Night,"
ESPN2, 7/12). CART's 2001 schedule will have an "all-time
high" of 22 races (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 7/13).
