No set date for Coyne return....yet

Dale Coyne Racing/Team PRG still intends to return to the CART Fed-Ex Series sometime this year but no specific date has been targeted for the team's return after several prospective outings were shelved.

There was a great deal of dismay in the CART paddock when the amalgamated team of Dale Coyne's eponymous squad and Andreas Leberle's Project Racing Group announced that they would be withdrawing from the Championship through lack of funding shortly after round two of the 2001 series in Long Beach. At the time Coyne and Leberle predicted that the team would be back on the CART scene four races later in Milwaukee but there is now no firm date for the squad's return, nor any confirmation on drivers.

PRG's 2001 driver Luiz Garcia Jr and CART rookie Michael Krumm began the season under the Coyne banner but both retired in Mexico before Krumm scored his first career CART finish in Long Beach when he came home 15th. However both cars were unsponsored on both occasions after Garcia's 2000 backers Hollywood elected to throw all their funding behind Tony Kanaan and when no sponsor was immediately forthcoming, Coyne and Leberle had little choice but to suspend operations.

After the team failed to materialise in Milwaukee, Cleveland was another mooted return date but again the team were not present leading to some doubts over whether the team will return at all. Coyne and Leberle have both been much in evidence throughout the CART paddock at most events but neither would be drawn on whether Garcia and Krumm, who was not signed for a full season in any case, were still in contention for the drives.

Barring a last minute miracle the team will not be in Toronto for the Molson Indy this weekend leaving eleven races, including the expensive trips to England, Germany and Australia, left on the calendar and less and less time to allow the team to regain valuable momentum and get back on terms with the rest of the CART grid.

Although teams cannot run on thin air forever, Coyne is a battle hardened campaigner and has competed in CART since 1984, rarely with a major budget. Last season he fielded two full-time entries for current Minardi Formula One driver Tarso Marques and at different times, Takuya Kurosawa, Gualter Salles and Alex Barron and both Barron and ex-Formula 3000 driver Andre Couto were slated for a drive with Coyne's two car team in 2001 before money problems beset the drivers.

PRG fielded a singleton entry for Garcia Jr last season in conjunction with Frank Arciero but team co-owners Leberle and ex-Formula One and CART river Christian Danner planned to run a two car operation this year with Garcia and Krumm. However Krumm was not signed on for a full season owning to his Japanese GT commitments and when Hollywood's money disappeared PRG and Coyne joined resources shortly before the start of the year.

The really sad part of the story at the moment is, after a winter where the CART grid swelled to almost 35 potential starters at times, a lot of people did not put up the necessary money for a variety of reasons leaving the Fed-Ex field no bigger than last season. In addition to the disappearance of Della Penna Motorsports and PPI Motorsports from the CART scene over the past year, the current sponsorship dearth affecting the NASCAR Winston Cup and Busch Grand National Series appears to be having an impact on CART, a situation not good for a series attempting to expand and move up even further in the racing world.