Rumours and speculations on Forsythe Racing

[Muzza]

Dear Fellows,


According to a former Forsythe Racing driver, it would be likely - if not certain - that Paul Tracy would be the team's single entry for the majority of the 2007 Champ Car season. A second car, leased from the series organizers, would be raced in "some certain events".

It appears that Gerry Forsythe is losing the grip on Robert Doornbos, and that this involved the fact that Doornbos is contracted to Red Bull, who will be PKV leading sponsor in 2007. On the other hand, my source told me that Forsythe still have hopes of striking an agreement with Kalkhoven, Vasser and company that would involving "lending" Doornbos to the Indeck-"sponsored" squad. Doornbos would race only in weekends that not conflict with the Formula 1 Championship schedule (as he is Red Bull Racing's third driver in that series).

Aside Doornbos, Forsythe would be eyeing Andrew Ranger for a limited racing schedule as well. It is unclear whether Ranger would replace Doornbos when the Dutch is unavailable due to Formula 1 commitments or if the Ranger alternative would be an option to Doornbos altogether.

All this consider, I speculate what would be Paul Tracy's role in the future of this team. Forsythe's commitment to racing is clearly a shadow of what it once was, and my understanding is that there has been an accumulation of divergencies with Kevin Kalkhoven in recent times (which I have personally witnessed more than once). Forsythe Racing has many brilliant professionals on its roster – Nick Micklewright and Phil LePan of course are the first that spring to mind, but they are not alone – and I wonder if the best for the organization as a whole wouldn’t be for Forsythe to step down (either partially or wholly) and let others run it. Tracy, as we know, has been indirectly asked about it by Micklewright in the past, and has reputedly been offered a stake in the team as part of his compensation package (what, as far as I understand, he refused). But considering Paul’s deep attachment to Champ Car – like it or not, he is the series’ main ambassador today -, his love for racing and his experience managing his karting circuit in Las Vegas, he might emulate the steps Jimmy Vasser’s took at PKV rather well.

Regards,


Muzza

[Muzza]

P.S.: I just read my post above and I ought to make a correction - Micklewright's first name is of course Neil, not Nick.

[Fogelhund]

There is already a thread on Forsythe's drivers next year here.

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92494

It's been suggested for some time, that this may be a one car team, and only differing if someone brings money. Would Doornbos bring money to Forsythe? Ranger certainly could.

Note; there are only 8 out of 17 champcar races that dont clash with an F1 GP weekend.

[Rime]

First of all Doornbos will compete in all events, the friday-/third driver rule has been changed so Doornbos won't be doing any friday-testing for Red Bull anymore.

Second, Doornbos confirmed that he can choose between Forsythe and some other team (which is Minardi). Most likely he will drive for Minardi.

Verstappen also confirmed negotiations wiht both Forsythe and Minardi...

So, don't be surprised if Doornbos will race for Minardi and Verstappen will land at Forsythe (with some help of Kalkhoven).

[drewdawg727]

Doornbos has stated that he definitely wants to race in America somewhere.
I have not heard any rumors at all about Verstappen.

[carsten66]

Doornbos at least is backed by the Muremans Group... and time will tell if Red Bull is to be on hand to sponsor a second car...

[norman-normal]

Thats the way to under-wright the European leg.

[Snrub]

Muzza, any chance that you could elaborate on some of the GF vs. KK disagreements?

Can you elaborate on some examples of GF's decreased interest in racing beyond his unwillingness to personally fund two of his own entries?

I wonder if GF left the series if KK would be willing to foot the bill alone?

I also wonder if a merger with the IRL be more likely with GF out of the picture?

[racinthestreets]

Disagreements are healthy to a point. Public disagreements may or may not be staged. I went to several races last year, only as a spectator as I am not involved in any way with OWRS or CCWS or a media representative. As a fan, I saw KK everywhere - he is very visable at the races and interacts well wtih fans. He is not as involved with PKV as GF is with his team. Possibly what Muzza suggests, GF taking a less active role in GF Racing could translate into more of a role with OWRS and CCWS. It could not hurt in my opinion. Also, thanks for the post Muzza, I for one value your input as you do have access to information that is not yet public.

[indycool]

Basically, the money funnel is probably what Forsythe is backing off from....in the story at SPEED, Micklewright was talking about Forsythe not having a sponsor for three years and he's only going to run one car unless someone came up with $5 million.

The DP-01s were guaranteed by CC and turned around and are being leased to competitors. The new TV deal, airtime and production time, is probably costing $12-15 million and they just lost all the Ford advertising which was the primary cash flow into that program. The investment in CC is huge this year, perhaps more than any other year.

Also, Forsythe backing off is why KK probably got his buddy Pettit to keep RuSport going and dealing in Stoddart in to the play.

[climb]

On the whole, I keep my opinion that CC's conditions are even worse than IRL's

[Snrub]

I don't know if the cash costs this year are the largest, but they'd certainly be up there.

The cars themselves are not that expensive $200k x 20 = $4M. NH and some of the better teams probably didn't lease the cars from the series so that figure is probably less. GF and KK probably pay for their cars personally. Rocketsports and RuSport are owned by minority series owners so that may be the case with them as well. (although it would appear that Rocketsports has been in sorry financial shape)

I think the current owners made the venues better able to survive without massive cash subsidization. The events promoted by the series such as LB and TO likely bring in a little money rather than lose it.

It's hard to say what the cost of the TV time is, but there's no question that Ford was a key part of it. One has to believe that Ford were getting a pretty good deal on their TV time so I imagine even the old TV deal was operating at a loss.

[norman-normal]

I have observed, with my own eyes, that Ford has not stopped advertising.

[D.R.T.]

Originally Posted by climb

On the whole, I keep my opinion that CC's conditions are even worse than IRL's

Not sure why you feel the need to make such comparisons in this forum Climb? Poor form. Maybe there could be a sub forum on say AOW in general where you could elaborate on your "opinion".

[marcus]

oh yeah that would be a fun forum to moderate LOL

anywho if Climb wants to elaborate on that comment , that is fine but it should have nothing to do with the Indycar series because they are 2 seperate series and have nothing to do with each other.

[Breck]

I thought I would add a picture to your comments on Forsythe Racing. I took it last year at Long Beach -- what a blast!

This is my first time here, so if the image doesn't come up, here is the link to it on my site. http://www.breckrothage.com/champ438.htm.

OK, can you give the tip on "embedding" an image here rather than giving the link?

[norman-normal]

Welcome Breck, nice pic. I'm not much help with that "embedding" stuff, wrong generation I suppose.

[Snrub]

Let's see if this works:


I can't recalling a website that won't let let you right click on the page in order to copy the image, the image address or view the source code for the page. Fortunately you can view source from the toolbar.

See in the quick reply box at below all of the posts how there is a icon with a mountain? Click on that and then enter the web address where the image is stored. What you did was just post an .htm link (which is the format of a web page) instead of the .jpg link (which is an image file format). Or you can just type in "[IMG]" (ignore the quotation marks) at the start of the address and "[/IMG]" at the end of the address. Simply pasting the link for the image may work too. That seems to depend on the Forum software.

[Breck]

Thanks Snrub,

Here is another try at pasting "where the image is" — with another picture. This, if it comes through, is AJ Allmendinger in RuSport—one of my favorite pics.

I tried to paste the code in but had no success. Correct me and clarify what should be inserted (either after the http:// ... or is it instead of?) (<img src="images/cars/LongBeachGP/Champs/0363web.jpg" width="500" height="350" border=0 alt="">)

Here is the link to the page:
http://www.breckrothage.com/champ363.htm

Also, how do I place a picture on the left-hand side below my name, like you and others have?

Thanks!



I'm the generation "between" you and NormalNormal.

[Snrub]

I typed in "{img]http://www.breckrothage.com/images/cars/LongBeachGP/Champs/0363web.jpg[/img}". (I used non-square brackets to avoid posting the image again) In other words you need an http://. That "<img src= ..." stuff is HTML code. Darn GenXers.

We're hijacking the thread so we shouldn't do this stuff in this particular thread. In the future the best idea would be to start a new thread and post your pictures. Don't be surprised if a moderator does that for you in this case. Welcome aboard though, we're always happy to have fresh blood.

[Breck]

After viewing the source code of "this page" (which is a zillion lines of code via the software), I found how it needs to be place. Let's see if this works.

A.J. Allmendinger racing for RuSport.



Hot digidee! It worked!

[norman-normal]

Now! f I could only..........ooooooh S*** tahellwithit

[marcus]

welcome Breck and thanks for the pictures

seems you have worked the code out fine with the help of Snrub

I will leave them here in this thread (Ok lets say Im too lazy at present to put them in a new thread) certainly very good shots and if you would like to post some more then feel free to start a new thread with your pics

Welcome to Ten Tenths.
Marcus

[Dudley]

Originally Posted by carsten66

Doornbos at least is backed by the Muremans Group... and time will tell if Red Bull is to be on hand to sponsor a second car...

Indeed, given that the very first thing Minardi did was confirm Meurmans' involvement with the team it seems a very small step of logic to assume that's where Doornbos will be.