by Lynne Huntting


Champ Car is returning for the twenty-fourth consecutive year to Portland International Raceway. This year it's the Mazda Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland Presented by Joe's sports and Outdoor.

In addition to Champ Car's Sunday race, the Cooper Tyres Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Championship will run two rounds, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Also on the schedule for the three-day weekend are Star Mazda Championship, Mazda Mx-5 Cup Series and Formula Drift Championship Series. Something for everyone.

Champ Car has had a six-weeks hiatus and over the break there have been a couple of driver changes in the 17-car field. PAUL TRACY/#3 INDECK Forsythe Championship Racing is back after sitting out the Houston race to recuperate from a broken spinal vertebrae incurred during a hard crash in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in April. He was replaced by ORIOL SERVIA of Spain. Servia is back with the team, as Tracy's team-mate, replacing MARIO DOMINGUEZ of Mexico, who had a three-race deal with Forsythe.

Another new driver for this season is JAN HEYLEN of Belgium, driving #34 Conquest Racing for ERIC BACHELART, who is also from Belgium. Heylen is replacing MATT HALLIDAY of New Zealand, who had a three-race deal with Conquest.

A couple of other drivers who were on three-race deals this season are back, both with Dale Coyne Racing - KATHERINE LEGGE of England in #11 and BRUNO JUNQUEIRA of Brazil in #19.

The Champ Car field has two promising Rookies. SIMON PAGENAUD/#15 Team Australia, from France, is the 2006 Atlantic Champion and making good use of his $2 million championship prize. GRAHAM RAHAL of Ohio, son of legendary BOBBY RAHAL, drives #2 Newman Hall Lanigan Racing, with team-mate - 2006 Champ Car Champion, SEBASTIAN BOURDAIS of France.

The Atlantic field numbers 28 cars, with 20 Rookie drivers.

The weather Thursday afternoon is mild, with heavy gray and white clouds covering the sky. The forecast is for temperatures in the upper sixties Thursday dropping to fifty degrees F overnight. Friday's forecast is for partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid seventies. Showers could come Saturday but the temperatures won't be dropping much.

The Champ Car paddock is quietly busy, very low key. Several drivers are around, under the radar. By late afternoon most had closed up and gone home for the day, with most of the cars already through the Scrutineering process.

Friday's schedule calls for practice for everyone and qualifying for Atlantics and Champ Car.

Among the topics sure to be discussed this weekend are the fate of the Portland Grand Prix with Champ Car as its contract is up this year. Champ Car President, STEVE JOHNSON, reportedly said he wanted to keep coming back to Portland as the Pacific Northwest was a good market, but he wants to see how the people feel about it. He will be taking his own informal poll this weekend.

The fate of another race has been discussed also - the inaugural Chinese race on the 2.683-mile road course at Zhuhai International Circuit, Zhuhai City in Guangdong Province. It had been scheduled for 28 October 2007, but now is listed as TBD, on the calendar between the Australian street race at Surfers Paradise on 21 October and the Mexico City race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on 11 November 2007. The season ends with the inaugural Phoenix Grand Prix street race on 2 December 2007.