Series Hopes To Return To Las Vegas For 2009 Season

MEXICO CITY — Sebastien Bourdais never really saw eye-to-eye with Champ Car officials during his five-year career in America, and they clashed again during the four-time champion’s final weekend in the series.
Bourdais and his Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing teammate Graham Rahal had 22 of their 75 seconds of Power-to-Pass taken away as a penalty for making illegal practice starts in the pre-race warm-up.
“I was pretty hot and I saw it happen,” remarked Champ Car race director Tony Cotman. “It was a pretty clear decision. Fifteen other teams and drivers knew the rule and followed it. There was no excuse. Sebastien can take responsibility or not but, ultimately, it’s a team penalty.”
“Bull——,” Bourdais responded. “There is nothing else to say. I have been busted a few times this year for things I haven’t done and I’m really disappointed. This morning was the same crap, period. Yeah, I dropped the clutch on my (starting spot). I didn’t come to a stop. I didn’t do a start. The problem is Tony doesn’t seem to be able to put in writing what he thinks.”
Bourdais was also unhappy about a late-race full course yellow thrown to retrieve a small piece of debris from the track. The Frenchman lost a 12-second lead at the time.
“That was another good one,” he chuckled. “I guess it was getting boring and they had to do something about it.”

• RuSPORT Racing is set to close its doors on Nov. 15, and the rumor mill has already decided that driver Justin Wilson and sponsor CDW will transfer to Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing to replace departing series champion Bourdais. But Bruce Delahorne, CDW’s Senior Manager of National Advertising, says those reports are premature.
“A month ago, I thought we would have announced something by now, but we still have not made a decision,” Delahorne said. “We hope to remain involved in motorsports, but we are still talking to a lot of teams in several different series.”
The CDW/NHLR link-up seems like a natural, given that the two companies are based within about three miles of each other in suburban Chicago.
“We’d love to remain associated with Justin because we like him a lot and he has done a great job for CDW,” Delahorne said. “However, we are operating independently right now and we’ll have to see what happens down the line.”
Delahorne confirmed that preliminary discussions with IndyCar Series team Andretti Green Racing were terminated when Dario Franchitti chose to leave to pursue a NASCAR career. However, AGR still has a chance of landing CDW to sponsor its Acura ALMS sports car program because Delahorne likes the business-to-business potential in the manufacturer-laden ALMS.

• Will Power claimed pole position at Mexico City despite driving with two broken bones in his left wrist incurred when he crashed out of the last Champ Car race at Surfers Paradise, Australia.
Power practiced with a brace on the injured wrist but eschewed it for Friday qualifying. That turned out to be a mistake, because the Team Australia driver tweaked the wrist when his car whacked a curb.
On Saturday, Power set a new track record of 1 minute, 23.558 seconds, a solid 0.6 second quicker than Robert Doornbos. Bourdais locked up the outside front row starting spot with his 1:24.698 Friday qualifying lap.

• According to several sources, Champ Car hopes to return to Las Vegas in 2009 after leaving the street race through downtown Sin City off its 2008 schedule.
“The first thing I said was ‘Why aren’t we going to Vegas?’” said Paul Tracy, a Canadian who now resides in Las Vegas. “(Champ Car) said they have a deal with the promoter and are in the process of getting it from him without letting the IRL get hold of it. Michael Andretti (through Andretti Green Promotions) was trying to buy that race from the promoter.”
“We’d certainly consider returning to Vegas in the future, but really only under the right situation,” added Champ Car president and CEO Steve Johnson. “To make a long story short, we’re not prepared to work with (promoters Dale Janzen and Brad Yonover) again. Though we did consider different options for returning to Vegas in ’08, the tight timetable just didn’t allow it to happen.”

• Mario Dominguez of Pacific Coast Motorsports was the top Mexican driver, despite competing while suffering the aftereffects of pneumonia.
Dominguez finished seventh on the track, though he was later demoted to eighth place behind Bruno Junqueira as a penalty for essentially running out of bounds across a painted line through the final corner of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
“I caught the pneumonia two Tuesdays ago and I felt terrible — I had to sleep sitting up,” said Dominguez. “Thank God it progresses through the weekend and today I felt much better. It did not affect my driving at all.”
David Martinez ran as high as sixth for Forsythe Championship Racing until electrical problems relegated him to 14th place at the flag.