The New York Post, a tabloid newspaper in our biggest city, recently ran an expose on former Staten Island borough president Guy Molinari. The story centered on Molinari being paid $1.5 million in monthly installments of $15,000 from June 2004 to December 2006 by International Speedway Corp. Molinari’s job? Help gain government approval for ISC’s proposed 82,500-seat raceway on land for which it paid $100 million for the initial 440 acres. In addition, the story says ISC paid the Molinari Group (a public relations firm) an additional $35,000 monthly over the same time span to help gain community support for the project. Fierce opposition to the raceway surfaced in April 2006, which later led to ISC abandoning its Staten Island plans. Molinari and his public relations company were then terminated. More recently, Peter Vallone, a Queens Democrat turned lobbyist and former Speaker of the City Council, was hired to help ISC sell the now 675-acre raceway property near Goethals Bridge. The Post story reports Vallone is being paid $12,500 monthly by ISC. It appears Vallone’s help will definitely be needed, as part of the land is contaminated from once being an oil-tank farm, and a sector of it must be capped with dirt to make it safe, say local environmentalists. The property, reportedly the largest undeveloped parcel of land in all of New York City’s five boroughs, fronts on the Kill van Kull, the heavily trafficked body of water that separates Staten Island from New Jersey. Despite this expensive exercise, ISC and NASCAR continue to pursue their goal of an auto-racing facility within sight of the New York City skyline. Talks are currently being held with Meadowlands officials about a possible Dover Downs type facility, in which a 1.25-mile paved oval would surround the existing Meadowlands one-mile horse-racing track which is said to be doing poor business.

What of the Pepsi 400? That’s the second-biggest annual race at Daytona Int’l Speedway.  The Pepsi 400 name will no longer fit now that track owner ISC has signed a new long-term “pouring rights” deal with Coca-Cola for Daytona and certain other ISC properties after a long spell with Pepsi-Cola.

After a long wait, ye ed finally made it back to the Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, N.Y., for Saturday’s Nostalgia Night card. This historic track, now a DIRT MotorSports entity, attracted a huge field of cars but a skimpy crowd. The track management team, headed by Ken Sands, was on point all night, running events with alacrity and no delays. With a dozen races scheduled for its five classes of cars, racing began at 6 p.m. At two minutes past 7 p.m., fans had already seen five races unfold! The infield of the old half-mile oval was jammed with DIRT modifieds carrying 454-inch big-block engines, 358 modifieds and two-barrel carbureted sportsman class cars, all on Hoosier tires. Then there were the pro stocks, veteran pure stocks and amateur pure stocks sharing Cooper Tire and American Racing rubber exclusivity. Impressive was the energetic quality of track workers and the ever-ready gigantic water truck, which kept the track dust-free, despite its lap time of just more than one minute. The small crowd was of concern to this writer, who noted the entry list included two drivers from my hometown (40 miles distant), and a heat-winning pro-stock car was sponsored by a realtor from the same town, but nary a mention in my local paper of such activity. Many old faces and old friends were on hand, and the glossy 44-page “Hard Clay” program, which included up-to-date point standings for all classes on hand, provided by Steve Barrick of Program Dynamics, made keeping track very easy. I won’t wait so long to return.
            
Well-known ex-racing driver turned racing businessman Bill Simpson recently received approval from Hendricks County in Indiana to convert the 20-acre drive-in theater property across U.S. Highway 136 from O’Reilly Raceway Park in Clermont to a motorsports business park. Further approvals are needed, but Simpson says they are just a formality. His intention is to construct a 24,000-square-foot building for his own business, currently located in neighboring Brownsburg, and to provide space for new arrivals to construct like-size buildings. This would put Clermont in direct competition with nearby Brownsburg for motorsport business entities. Wayne Taylor Racing, which competes in the Rolex-backed Grand Am sports-car series, has announced it will relocate to larger quarters on Georgetown Road thanks to an incentive package offered by the City of Indianapolis. Taylor Racing says it will add 20 high-paying jobs.

An advance tip? The Indianapolis Motor Speedway recently sold nine JCB Loadalls, machines used to pick up and move disabled Formula One cars, to the U.S. government for military use in Iraq. The deadline for determining the future of F-1 racing at IMS has come and gone, so it looks like Bernie Ecclestone will have to find a new U.S. venue for his expensive Grand Prix series. At the moment Speedway officials are jockeying with MotoGP, the world motorcycle racing governing body, for a date acceptable to both parties. MotoGP has an 18-race schedule that includes a U.S. race this weekend at California’s Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca circuit. 

Making it clear. Commenting on the widespread interest shown in car No. 8, currently on the side of the DEI-owned NASCAR Chevy wheeled by Dale Earnhardt, Jr., NASCAR says it cannot be sold to Hendrick Motorsports — or to anyone else — reminding one and all that car numbers are the property of the sanctioning body and leased to car owners on an annual basis. If DEI does not renew, says NASCAR, then Dale, Jr. could request use of that car number. Prior to NASCAR’s founding, numbers on cars widely raced by other organizations were based on the driver’s finishing position in previous- year points, No. 1 going to the champion and so on down the line.

According to entry lists published by IMSA for its recent Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock, Conn., of the 53 drivers sharing the 26 ALMS sports cars which took part, 28 were foreigners and 25 were homebodies. In Formula BMW USA, 10 of the 17 drivers were statesiders, with seven from outside this country, while in the IMSA Lites field all 18 drivers were Yankees.

The Indy 500 far outpaces the U.S. Grand Prix when it comes to boozing. Police in Speedway, Ind., released arrest data for the June F-1 race. There were 12 arrests — most for public intoxication — whereas arrests during same time period at the Indy 500 totaled 67. In both cases the arrests came from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon.

Indy pay cut! The prize money won by this year’s rain-shortened Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti, $1,645,233, was $99,622 less than the $1,745,855 won last year by Sam Hornish, Jr. But Hornish had to drive 85 more miles than Franchitti.
 
Questions are now being asked after third-generation driver Kyle Krisiloff — a rookie — got the nod from Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to drive three NASCAR Busch series races in his JR team’s No. 88 Chevy. An explanation is needed as the Carl Haas Motorsports group had earlier announced Busch Series sponsorship for Krisiloff by Indiana-based Eli Lilly Co. and Walgreen’s, headquartered in Illinois. For both of these companies it would be their first auto-racing ventures. Krisiloff’s grandmother is Mary Hulman George, principal owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  

For those who follow the automobile business in this country, it had to be a surprise to learn the Volkswagen Group (VW and Audi) lost $827 million in North America in the first six months of 2007! And Ford is now using its new 540-horsepower KR Special Edition Mustang as an incentive for dealers to sell more F-Series pickups. Ford has 3,700 U.S. dealers and says production of the new hot-selling KR Mustang will end at 1,000 units (wanna bet?), so 50 of them will be offered as lottery prizes among dealerships meeting sales targets for F-Series pickups.

Autobooks-Aerobooks, that snazzy motorsports-oriented bookstore in Burbank, Calif., has changed hands, and longtime GM Doug Stokes is seeking new employment. We wish him well. He’s at Stokes28@earthlink.net.

Congratulations to our “fastest correspondent,” Donny Schatz, who now sports a beard, for his scintillating $50,000 victory in the 24th-annual running of the Kings Royal sprint-car classic at Tony Stewart’s Eldora Speedway in Ohio. The progressive banking on Eldora’s turns has been eliminated in favor of constant banking, a move drivers applaud.