April 10, 2007

From the limited perspective of the opening round of the 2007 Champ Car World Series it appears Champ Car fans are in for an intriguing season when it comes to on-track competition.

Although the teething issues associated with the Panoz DP01 continued in Glitter Gulch and certainly affected the final results, there was no question the right man – Will Power – and the right team – Team Australia – won the event.

Once they overcame some niggling problems of their own on Friday, they were the class of the field. On pole by nearly a second, the uncomplicated Aussie fell to second at the start, took advantage of a Paul Tracy bobble to claim the lead before the first round of pit stops and never looked back. An increasingly long brake pedal caused some anxious moments, but Power's margin of victory (16.787sec) was an accurate barometer of his dominance. That rookie teammate Simon Pagenaud ran in top five much of the day before encountering electrical problems underscores Team Australia's top flight form.

In contrast, Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing seemed out of synch on a weekend that Sebastien Bourdais make more unforced errors in three days than he's made in four previous seasons, the net effect being 16th on the 17-car grid and an early exit after wrecking the right front corner of the McDonald's car, having clawed his way up to third place at one stage. Rookie teammate Graham Rahal had a weekend to forget, pitching the Medi/Zone Panoz into the wall on his own Friday, then getting no further than Turn One on Sunday before doing the same – albeit with an assist from Dan Clarke's banzai run into the corner.

After much sturm und drang in the off-season, Forsythe Championship Racing showed up as they did in '06, with a two-car effort for Paul Tracy and Mario Dominguez. Tracy looked altogether more focused and competitive than at the end of last year. But for a problematic pit stop – when his Panoz rejected the 30+ gallons of methanol on offer – he might have given Power some real competition. Dominguez was there or thereabouts, settling in with a team that fired him last year and has only seen fit to give him a three-race contract to start this year.

The new amalgamation of Rocketsports and RuSPORT now known as RSPORTS looked surprisingly effective, with Alex Tagliani just a step behind Power and Tracy most of the weekend while Justin Wilson was slowed by inscrutable throttle problems.

Of the various European rookies, Robert Doornbos looked every bit the professional, keeping a little bit in hand throughout what was always going to be a learning weekend yet qualifying third and finishing second in the Team Minardi USA entry. Tristan Gommendy was altogether more effective than in his test with PKV at Laguna Seca while teammate Neel Jani had a challenging time in his Champ Car street circuit baptism, gradually coming to understand that muscle and brute force sometimes trumps finesse . . .

Then there's Dale Coyne Racing. After a Friday to forget, Bruno Junqueira looked like the Bruno Junqueira of old, perhaps better. Charging through the daunting Turn 11 chicane, carrying the Sonny's B-B-Q Panoz deep into Turn One, he was set for a possible podium before his car too suffered fueling maladies. And new teammate Katherine Legge drove a very heady race, bringing her car home sixth despite a long brake pedal of her own.

An interesting start, then, to what promises to be a fascinating season of racing. As for the event itself it's difficult to judge in the immediate aftermath of such an unusual happening, one that offered acres of free trackside access and which will live or die as much on the support (or lack thereof) it receives from the downtown Las Vegas hotel/casinos and its ability to revitalize the aging downtown core as its revenue from ticket sales and concessions.

So don't pay a whole lot of attention to the Cassandras who took one look at all those empty seats along the front straightaway and instantly announced the Vegas Grand Prix a bust (ignoring the fans – i.e. potential casino customers – lined wall-to-wall atop various parking garages overlooking the circuit) any more than to the cheerleaders who took the blue skies pronouncements of promoters Dale Jensen and Brad Yanover and Vegas GP president Jim Freudenberg (aka DDB Ventures) immediately after the race at face value.

All that can be said with any degree of certainty is that, thanks to the unprecedented cooperation of the city, the unparalleled expertise of "circuit manager" Chris Kneifel and a budget estimated by Jensen at between "$10 and $15 million," the Vegas Grand Prix set new standards for first time – heck for any – street races. Whether Jensen and Yanover see what they deem an acceptable return on their investment (a considerable portion of which can be applied to their Phoenix street race in December) won't be known until the casinos evaluate the event's impact on business on the traditionally "soft" Easter weekend and DDB Ventures tries to sell event sponsorships and hospitality suites for the Vegas GP II in '08 – or even until they can say whether the Vegas Grand Prix contributed to the rebirth of downtown Las Vegas.

David Phillips is a Senior Writer for RACER magazine.