ERIC MAUK: Welcome to today's Champ Car media teleconference.
We have a very exciting announcement concerning the 2007 Champ Car World Series
schedule. Most of you have seen the release in your e‑mail box. We are coming to
you from Las Vegas where we are in town for the Champ Car Winter Meetings where
we get together with our promoters and talk about the plan for the 2007 season.
source: champcarworldseries.com An Interview With: STEVE JOHNSON, JOHN CLAGETT, TONY COTMAN and BART RIETBERGEN Before we get to that, I would like to introduce the participants in today's teleconference. We are joined by Champ Car president Steve Johnson. We are joined by executive vice president of development planning and governmental affairs, John Clagett, vice president of operations, Tony Cotman and the promoter for our new events in Europe, Mr. Bart Rietbergen. Thank you for joining us on the call. I'd like to turn things over to Steve Johnson for today's opening remarks. STEVE JOHNSON: Thank you, Eric, and for our friends out there in the beautiful warm rest of the world, its 28 degrees here Fahrenheit; that's two degrees Celsius. So it's a little chilly in Vegas. We are pleased to be announcing today that the Champ Car World Series will be returning to Europe for the first time in Europe since 2007 with races in Assen in Holland and Zolder in Belgium. Today's announcement gives Champ Car its busiest schedule in four years and will provide a tough challenge for drivers and teams that hope to dethrone three‑time champion Sebastien Bourdais and Newman Haas Racing. Champ Car is very much an international entity as evidenced by the multinational makeup of our drivers over last year, as well as by the demand for news and information that comes from racing fans around the world. The events in Holland and Belgium will usher in a new era marking the first time that the series has visited those nations. That will at the same time serve as a throwback for Champ Car; both venues feature long and challenging road courses that take us become to the days like Mario Andretti and Parnelli Jones battled at Riverside or Watkins Glen, or more recently when Andretti went wheel‑to‑wheel with Mears and Rahal at Road America. I would like to congratulate John Clagett for bringing these events to fruition and bringing promoter Bart Rietbergen and his team into the Champ Car family. ERIC MAUK: Thank you, Steve. Mr. Rietbergen, your remarks? BART RIETBERGEN: We are very, very excited to get these events to Holland and Belgium, and we think this is really a new era of Champ Car where we really go international. I know you Americans talk about the World Series, but now really it is the world and we are extremely happy to be part of that. I think it's a very interesting series, quite different from what we know in Europe where we will see very close racing and our fans have the opportunities to get close to the cars, in fact, they can almost touch them and almost touch the drivers which is rather unique. We will see racing cars instead of big trucks. ERIC MAUK: Thank you very much and congratulations gentlemen. This brings the total of races for 2007 up to 17 events, the largest number of events on the schedule since 2003, the first time that Champ Car will race in Europe since the 2003 season when we went to Brands Hatch and Lausitzring in Germany. Q. I don't mean to play devil's advocate, but Mr. Johnson, the last adventure into Europe was not an entirely financial success. And I wonder how these new two races are going to prove any better, financially that is. STEVE JOHNSON: A lot of it depends on who your promoter is quite frankly. We are not self‑promoting these races. And with Bart who is a proven business professional in that area, he understands that market, he really understands the television aspect which comes into play as well. It's not that we are just going into that area for two races and leaving. Bart's got the television rights for the entire year for Champ Car to promote Champ Car throughout the year. He's got sponsors that are coming on board. So we feel we have chosen the right partner to lead us into Europe, and we think that's going to be the difference.
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