The line-up for next weekend's Lexmark 300 will feature a few new faces on the Champ Car scene; and miss some who have become familiar source: cart.com - David Phillips Little-known Fabrizio del Monte reprises his one-off at Long Beach, joining HVM in place of the newly "at-large" Bjorn Wirdheim. Team Australia is poised to announce a powerful new addition to its lineup, and now comes word young Mike McDowell will make his Champ Car debut in the Rocketsports Ford/Cosworth-Lola campaigned by Ryan Hunter-Reay throughout the season. RHR's absence from Surfers Paradise is unfortunate, not least because he won the race back in 2003 in what turned out to be the swan song of American Spirit Team Johansson. In many ways, RHR's win at Surfers was not the most impressive showing of his rookie campaign; most observers felt his brilliant race at Mid-Ohio -- where he showed a clean pair of heels to vastly more experienced teammate Jimmy Vasser and gave Forsythe Racing's Paul Tracy and Patrick Carpentier all they could handle (and in a decidedly unfashionable Reynard to boot!) was his seasonal highwater mark. No doubt about the highlight of '04 for RHR. That came when he blitzed the opposition at Milwaukee to the tune of taking pole and leading from start to finish with the Herdez Competition team. As for '05, well there were no highlights. RHR's deal with Paul Gentilozzi's Rocketsports team went from middlin' to worse and, it's fair to say, both parties grew increasingly disenchanted with one another as the season progressed, or digressed as the case may be. So while it's unfortunate that Surfers Paradise won't be able to welcome back one of its past winners, it's also readily apparent RHR and Rocketsports had zero future together and it was time to move on . . . Mr. Phillips complete article at cart.com
Recent Articles
|
Racing Multimedia
Recommendations |