Nice numbers. The new 10-year TV deal the Indy Racing League has struck with ABC/ESPN and Versus starting in 2009 calls for Versus to pay $6.7 million annually for its share of events over the deal’s length while ABC/ESPN will pay $4.2 million each year for its annual five-race package. Let’s hope their directors give up showing things like drivers kissing Indy’s famous Yard of Bricks and Carl Edwards’s backflips. Ye Ed has a problem with the TV package, as Versus is not available in my apartment. Will I have to move? 

The one-mile ovals at many state fair properties have long been a staple of the U.S. national championship auto racing circuit. But, one by one, they are disappearing. Now we learn the most famous one-mile state fair oval of all, Milwaukee, is in jeopardy. A Wisconsin legislator has proposed that the state shutter the fair and sell the property, which is now surrounded by businesses. Let’s hope this does not happen.

Sunday’s European Grand Prix at Formula One’s newest stop, the waterfront city of Valencia, Spain, street circuit, may have been a commercial success, but it was a far cry from an artistic success. It was a no-passing day with Ferrari-mounted Brazilian Felipe Massa winning again, this time by 8.5 seconds over McLaren-Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton of Britain, the World Championship leader. The highlight of the race telecast was seeing Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari engine blow up. 

Movie magazines are saying actor Paul Newman — a partner with Carl Haas in an IRL team — has only weeks to live. The 83-year-old, award-winning thespian is suffering from cancer and has reportedly taken to his Westport, Conn., home to live out his last days with Joanne Woodward, his actress wife. There are reports his daughters are already fighting over his estate. His son, Scott, died in 1978 from a drug overdose.

Another motorsport notable said to be deathly ill is Californian Phil Hill, this country’s first world driving champion. Wheelchair-bound in recent months, Hill reportedly suffered a recent relapse. What few know is that Hill, famed for his road-racing successes, began his racing career at the wheel of a midget.

Serving as Grand Marshal for the start of the 90th year of auto racing at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Middletown, N.Y., recently was a rare delight. The old half-mile dirt oval was in perfect condition all night, despite the pounding of 230 laps of racing by the 128 cars on hand that evening. There were 22 rapidly run races, which began at 6 p.m. and finished well before 10 p.m.! Counting cars, we noted 28 modifieds, 22 small-block modifieds, 37 sportsman cars, 15 pro stockers, nine veteran machines and 17 amateur class cars. The covered 5,000-seat grandstand looked half full and track officials seemed happy. Asked about prize money, we were told the nightly top-class modified winner gets $2,500; the 358” mod winner $150; sportsman victor $500; pro stock $200 and $100 to the pure-stock winner. BUT an unidentified fan had contributed $4,000 to the pro-stock gentry, to be paid out over four weeks at the rate of $1,000 weekly to that class feature winner. Asked about who conditioned this ancient raceway so well and was told a gent named Rotundo, now 71 years of age, and his family have manicured the track for years, using 112 bags (80 pounds each, I believe) of calcium chloride weekly to keep down any dust. Impressive was the constant checking on car legality, as a huge in-ground scale was used after each race to check the weight of top-placed cars. Fans paid $17 each for their tickets, with seniors getting a $2 discount and kids 12 and under admitted free with a paid adult. And there were hundreds of kids looking on. It was called Nostalgia Night due the 90th anniversary date and dozens of very old, old-timers showed up. Among them was Carl Van Horn, a 29-time feature winner, his first coming in 1956, present to assist a third-generation Van Horn in driving in the modified class. Checking on track management, I was somewhat surprised to learn the track’s operational entity is the World Racing Group, a public company controlled by DIRT Motorsports, which oversees things very well. Track officials, headed by the four-man steering committee of George Johnson, Ken Sands, Doug Dulgarian and Peter Reynolds, did a superb job of oversight and kept the show moving. Spirited announcer Tim Pitts kept the evening lively. Everything about the operation was impressive, including the $3 printed program, an informative and illustrated 52-page magazine with timely stories — including the previous week’s results — from Steve Barrick’s Program Dynamics. The night was far different from my first visit to the oval in 1934 for the Orange County Fair’s annual AAA big car race starring Johnny Hannon, Doc Mackenzie and Bob Sall. I’m planning a return Sept. 24 for the annual visit of the World of Outlaws sprint cars.

For fans in Central Pennsylvania who would like to see a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond (Va.) Int’l Raceway, the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing in York Springs, Pa. — 15 miles south of Harrisburg — is running a bus tour to the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at the three-quarter-mile track Sept. 6. The bus leaves the museum at 10 a.m. Saturday and will return following the race. The $170 charge includes round-trip bus transportation and a seat at the race. Interested? Call Joe Heisler III at (410) 303-4428. Have your credit card data handy.

Efforts to return auto racing to Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, N.J., are going forward. Proponent Ron Dennis has scheduled a free-admission Racing Expo at the stadium from 8 a.m. to sundown, this Sunday, Aug. 31. Present for interviews will be Hinchliffe regulars of a generation ago Frankie Schneider, Ronnie Kohler, Bill Claren, Neil Cole and Bob Crater. On display will be current and vintage racing cars, including midgets of the ATQMRA for all to see. Additional cars are wanted, so interested owners should call Dennis at (718) 344-0502 for specifics. Midget and stock-car racing at Hinchliffe drew large crowds in the years surrounding WWII.

Former Connecticut sports-car racer John Fitch, now 91 years of age, called off his plans to attack the production-car speed record this week at the Bonneville Salt Flats driving Bob Sima’s vintage Mercedes 300SL sports car, due to John’s being afflicted with Lyme disease. Over the years, Fitch has been to Bonneville three times and also challenged the Le Mans 24-hour race. He was the co-driver of the car that crashed into the crowd in 1955, killing 80-some people in the most devastating accident in auto racing history.