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The Preferred Line - World Challenge Wednesday



4/19/2006

- The Preferred Line - Road racing news and commentary
SPEED World Challenge Wednesday (April 19, 2006) By Jim Bourn

PHOTO: Jon Prall and his BMW lead Charlie Putman's Mazda and Hugh Stewart's Dodge SRT-4 through the streets of St. Petersburg during a practice session.
"We're thrilled that Team Cadillac won the first World Challenge race held in Long Beach. This event has a terrific heritage, and we're proud to have the opportunity to put on an exciting race for Southern California fans. We'll remember this one for a long time." - Team Cadillac Team Manager David Spitzer

Can Open Wheel and World Challenge street racing take them all to a higher level?

If I learned nothing else from the 2006 World Challenge season thus far is that street races are where it's at and they would seem to be the definitive future for road racing and open wheel racing as well as the omnipresent NASCAR 300 pound gorilla doesn't seem interested in or capable of playing on temporary street tracks.

The street venues bring the race the race cars and the race drivers to the fans. It brings it right to their streets while offering the casual fan to chance to wander within the paddocks and byways of the tracks to witness auto racing up close and personally all within a carnival like atmosphere which screams entertainment.

The package works as street venues seem to be wildly popular to a broad demographic. Of course the only down side to street tracks is the extensive cost of building, maintaining and tearing back down the facility but based on attendance if the city in question sees the benefit in tourism then a street race should be a home run for everyone involved.

The street venues have also kept the Champ Cars alive as all of their premier venues are on street tracks. With what would seem to be a merger of Champ Car and the IRL imminent open wheel racing should increase in strength and it would seem logical that street venues would highlight their schedule.

I know that the schedule for World Challenge as a part of these programs usually sucks but the exposure is excellent and the World Challenge cars and the high powered open wheeled racers of the Indy Racing League and Champ Car would seem to be a great marriage and a promoters dream.

Hopefully the IRL and Champ Car will be able to keep the egos in check enough to bury their past differences, create a working formula for the cars and build a stronger racing body that can bring back open wheel racing to the force it once was and flourish in North America.

And the street tracks would seem to be the ideal presentation medium for this form of racing. I know the IRL seems married to oval track racing but with the exception of Indy the street venues seem to far out draw the oval track venues.

Again I would hope that SCCA Pro Racing can become part of this package, at least for the street track venues, as this would create a dynamite racing package for the fans seeing exotic high performance GT cars and really hot Touring Cars that mirror the cars they drove to the track on the same program with wickedly fast single seaters racing before their eyes and ears on their own city streets.

The SCCA's World Challenge Championship Series can give open wheel racing what it needs, two great second series to balance their own. There is no car over lap just a diverse racing package with something for each and every racing fan. This is all such a no-brainer that my glass-half empty side sees anything less as a failure on everyone's part!