The race marked the end of a couple of eras for Penske. It was the last race for Marlboro after seventeen years as Penske's primary sponsor and the end of a twenty-two-year run for the cigarette maker in CART and IRL. And too, the race was the last for Team Penske as a resident of Reading, Pennsylvania. Penske has been based in Reading for forty years, going back to his team's formative years in the CanAm, TransAm and long-distance sportscar racing, but will now move his IRL team down to North Carolina. All of Penske's race teams - NASCAR, IRL and ALMS organisations - will be consolidated in Mooresville under Tim Cindric's overall direction and more than a third of Penske's IRL employees have decided not to make the move south from Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, testing of the new Panoz DP01 Champ car continued at Sebring over three days last week and the car will run for five more days this week. Driven by Roberto Moreno, the car is running extremely well, completing no less than six hundred miles in one day alone last week.
The new Champ car is beginning to attract new teams and drivers into the series, starting with Bob Gelles' announcement six weeks ago that he'll expand his Atlantic and Formula
BMW operations to include a Champ Car team next year. Then last week, Pacific Motorsports announced it will join Champ Car next year with rookies Ryan Dalziel and Alex Figge. With this year's Atlantic standouts Graham Rahal and Simon Pagenaud also looking likely to move up to Champ cars next year and rumours persisting about Dario Franchitti's imminent return to the series, Champ Car is beginning to build some momentum.
"There's another two-car team that will be announced very soon," Jerry Forsythe said last week. "I believe we can get to twenty-four cars and we'd like to have twenty-six. That would really make a statement."
It may be that the pendulum in American open-wheel racing in 2007 will swing clearly in Champ Car's direction.
