Atlantics field

[rabbit]

I count 16 cars for Monterrey. Did I miss anyone?

1. Luis Diaz
2. Eduardo Figueroa
3. Michael Valiante
4. Joey Hand
5. Ryan Dalziel
6. Jonathan Macri
7. Alex Figge
8. Alex Garcia
9. Kyle Krisiloff
10. Eric Jensen
11. A.J. Allmendinger
12. Aaron Justus
13. Marc DeVellis
14. Danica Patrick
15. Romain Dumas
16. Philip Fayer

I thought the elimination of Indy Lights was going to give us 30-car grids in Atlantics. Here we are barely one year removed and only 16 cars?! I know for a fact there are drivers who have been offered rides with top teams if they can come up with some money (about $950,000 for a season). I'd like to see CART dip into its coffers to help put a few more cars on the grid.

[Lizzerd]

Agreed. That's sad. Why the small field?

[rabbit]

I'm sure the economy has a lot to do with it. One driver I talked to said almost every potential sponsor he talked too said, "If you would have asked us two years ago, we'd have been happy to help you."

[Dr. Corkski]

For $1mil you can do F3000, a series that Pook has pretty much indicated is superior for training potential CART drivers than Atlantics. That and the fact that Pook was openly bad mouthing Atlantics makes it hard for potential drivers to get sponsors interested in an inferior series. It would have been unreasonable to expect Pook to dip into CART's warchest to help Atlantics, but I thought it was not real smart of him to openly bad mouth the series.

[rabbit]

I'm hearing rumors of another possible car for Long Beach. I'll be able to tell you more tomorrow.