2005 should be an interesting year

Happy New Year, all you race fans out there! 2005 should be an interesting year in Motorsports (there is an ancient Chinese curse that says, "May you live in interesting times").

The Indy Racing League will be making its first foray into road racing, thereby drastically increasing costs for its teams, many of whom are operating on a relative shoestring already. In fact, Mo Nunn has closed his shop for the holidays and may not reopen. Nunn has told his team members that if they get a good job offer they should take it.

Champ Car, after a near-death experience, seems to be on the upswing again, with a number of Formula 1 hopefuls considering the series as a viable alternative. Both series have suffered from the open-wheel "war" however, and may never regain a significant position in American Motorsports. As the New Year begins, the IRL has barely 18 sure entries for its season opener at Homestead, with a top potential of 24. The pending departure of General Motors' Chevy-badged engine program has affected several teams and loss of sponsorship has made several others iffy.

I don't think even a bump "day miracle" will fill the 33-car field at Indy this year. On the CART side, only 14 cars are firm for 2005, with another possible six making 20 entries the best-case scenario, despite the series having acquired a captive engine manufacturer with the purchase of Cosworth Engineering.

However, the juggernaut that is NASCAR continues to gobble up market share and TV ratings, despite fan unrest with innovations like the "Chase for the Championship." As I mentioned in a recent column, there are format changes for 2005 that will probably not sit well with traditional fans and track owners. NASCAR has become much like the government, doing what it wants without much regard for its constituents. But I guess you can't argue with success.

One welcome change to NASCAR's procedures was announced last week that will eliminate an officiating anomaly that has been a sore point among teams penalized by it.

Instead of using a stopwatch to determine if a driver is speeding on pit road, NASCAR is finally joining the 20th century (five years into the 21st, if you're counting). Electronic scoring sensors will be installed at all NASCAR tracks for '05 which should eliminate any doubts about pit road speeds.

For those who, like me, are fans of Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain on SPEED Channel, there's good news for the upcoming season. Beginning in February, Wind Tunnel will be expanded to two hours, and will air on Sunday night at 6 p.m. local time. The idea behind the switch is to get race fans calling in while they are still excited (and possibly upset) about the day's racing. As SPEED Channel Executive Producer Rick Miner said,

"It's no secret that the only thing more passionate than a race fan is a race fan on race day."

Despain agreed, saying, "We'll talk to the fans while they're still fired up from the racing weekend, and talk to the newsmakers while the news is still hot. Add the fact that the two-hour format will enable us to do a lot of things we simply didn't have time for in the past, and I think it will be a lot of fun."

During the week Despain will emerge from behind the desk and expand his exclusive interviews with racing's stars and newsmakers. Believe it or not, Wind Tunnel will hit the 250-show milestone early next season. It doesn't seem like it's been that long.

The disastrous Tsunami that hit Southeast Asia last weekend caused some anxious moments at Maranello, Italy, headquarters of Ferrari. Both team head Jean Todt and chief designer Rory Byrne were vacationing in the area. Todt was in Malaysia and Byrne in Thailand, but both survived the tragic event.

Tragedy also struck the Champ Car ranks last week. Two Herdez Motorsports team members, Kenny Ferris and Vitor Pinto, were killed in a crash during a snowstorm in Arkansas while returning to Indianapolis from the Mexican International Auto Show. The Herdez team, formerly owned by Tony Bettenhausen, had previously suffered another loss when Bettenhausen and other team members died in a plane crash in February 2000.

Roger Diez is the Nevada Appeal Motorsports Columnist. Contact him at racytalker@aol.com.