Canadian Announces Champ Car Team

[Mosport67]

http://speedtv.com/articles/auto/champcar/15974/

I was thinking of the date of this as an April Fool joke until I found this:
"Canada Gets Champ Car Team
Mandeville Motorsports Marketing is launching a Canadian based Champ Car team.

Toronto, Ontario (PRWEB) March 30, 2005 -- Mandeville Motorsports Marketing is launching a Canadian based Champ Car team.

The team will be located in Ontario. Mr Mandeville is currently discussing with drivers from Formula One.

This strategy comes as part of an Automotive based manufacturing venture that is very exciting for Canada. Strategic partners have been put in place. This venture comes as part of Mr Mandevilles racing venture. Champ Car is a great series that is on solid footing. Mr Mandeville is in contact with companies that have Global concerns and have shown serious interest in Champ Car. Mr Mandeville is a strong supporter of Champ Car.

Mr Mandeville is also very keen on developing the first truly based North American Formula One team. With it's manufacturing facilities within North America.

Several of the key components and strategic alliances are already in place to make this happen. Several top F1 engineers are on board and ready to make this happen. The next key component is to get the loyalty of US and Canadian corporations to make this happen for the long term. Several US and Canadian Drivers would be considered. The key to a North American team would be to have a North American driver and North American based manufacturing facilities. Many USA based corporations have shown serious intent."

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/3/emw223871.htm

[StickShift]

It looks like the racing equivalent of vaporware...

[icemachine]

I think this might well be another april fools joke. Emediawire is part of PR Web, a company that will "release" a PR bulletin for anyone for a few dollars. I googled "Mandeville Motorsports" and the only results i get are this PR bit

[Mosport67]

I think it is likely a joke one way or another.

I was surprised to see it on the Speed TV site.

[Ac.]

Definitely may be a joke. Strange that it appeared on the web yesterday though, perhaps emediawire screwed up the release date.

[Snrub]

It isn't on CC's website, so I don't know what to think. I don't know what to think. If it's a joke then it seems kind of silly, jokes normally have a bunch of details like "Mansell returns to CC and will be powered by Lauda a engine."

[GTRMagic]

Wasnt Roger Mandeville a large part of Mazda's racing program in IMSA/GT for many years... is it a play on the name to get this ticking along?

[Snrub]

Yeah I think he was. I looked through some books and couldn't find his name so I gave up. I'll look again, hang on. Edit: I feel really stupid now, he's the co-founder of Racing Beat. In '83 he won the GTU (<2.5L)title. He won the GTO (2.5L+) title in '84 with a 13B (1.3L, not sure what the equivilancy formula was, but I think they used the "worst case" 2.6L), which is really quiet surprising. In '86 he won 8 times, but Kendall won the title. Apparenty TK's car had one the GTU championship five times with three different drivers. RX-7s won the GTU catagory 8 straight years 80-87. Keep in mind that Roger and Ken are two different people.

[jjspierx]

Snrub - You should be ashamed of yourself. You're not worthy of your avatar.

[Dov]

This story has been posted on a couple of different forums for 2-3 days now, but I think it was an early April Fool's Day joke. We need to focus on Jensen Motorsport and let this story die.

[racefanatic]

AR1 still considers this speculation, but:

"Another Canadian Champ Car team announced UPDATE #3 Perhaps we will be proven wrong, and in this case that is a good thing. "We are talking to some drivers with Formula One experience," Mandeville said in a telephone interview with the Toronto Sun. "This is no April Fool's joke. I am serious about doing this." Mandeville said he is a long way from announcing a launch date for the Champ Car part of the deal. "It definitely will not be in place by Long Beach (Champ Car's season opener April 10)," he said. "But possibly by the first Mexican race (Monterrey, May 22). He also called this "an initial step" toward the formation of a Canadian F-1 team. We have added this team to our 2005 Champ Car silly Season page."

It would be pretty awesome to have another new team though...

[TedN]

Here is the Toronto Sun article.

Ted

[Snrub]

Originally Posted by jjspierx

Snrub - You should be ashamed of yourself. You're not worthy of your avatar.

Yes I should be ashamed of myself, but I was really tired and the avatar is a picture of me. Plus, my brain has had a substantial decline in it's function!

Generally Mandeville's team sounds like a bit half baked. Who wouldn't like their own F1 team? Don't get me wrong, it would be great if it happends.

[Dov]

^ Snrub, how fast were you going in that Avatar and be honest?

[Snrub]

Sorry to go off topic: That was @ Shannonville, which for those Ontario memebers who aren't aware is between Belleville and Kingston, and it's not a very fast course. I think that picture was taken going into the at the end of the back straight. You come out of a hair pin and accelate down the straight, which in my car (2700lbs, 220hp with non-R compounds) would be braking from ~160km/h to I *think* ~90km/h.

It's pretty affordable to do lapping days at Shannonville. Essentially you need any car, a helmet (although the psychos I've done that with a few times doesn't even require that!), a set of tires to ruin (I think non-Rs get ~8 hours of on track time @ 10/10ths, but most people only run say 2 hours in a day), most cars would also need a front brake pad improvement (say Hawk HPS or HP+) and some Ford Spec Dot 3 brake fluid (cheapest stuff, 550C dry boiling point). So: $150 enterence fee + $100 pads + $15 brake fluid + $100 Motorcycle helmet (one time) + tires ($100-200 average day wear). It's the time of your life and the best bang for the buck for entertainment you'll ever get. It's pretty hard to wreck the car because it's in an open field.