Wonder what the TFers think about this?

[rabbit]

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/News/Article.asp?ID=9486

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/content/photos/2005/By400/20050804P_0001.jpg
http://www.champcarworldseries.com/content/photos/2005/By400/20050804P_0003.jpg
http://www.champcarworldseries.com/content/photos/2005/By400/20050804P_0002.jpg

[Wabbit]

Why is ChampCar wasting money sponsoring this car?

[racer2c]

Why is ChampCar wasting money sponsoring this car?

It's worth $2K to piss of the IRL. :)

[cameraman]

Why is ChampCar wasting money sponsoring this car?

Because Gerald Forsythe wants to.

[indyfan31]

It's worth $2K to piss of the IRL. :)
That would be my line of thinking. I'd do it in a minute.

[TKGAngel]

Because Gerald Forsythe wants to.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if PT's NASCAR ride at Michigan didn't have a CCWS sticker on there somewhere.

[rabbit]

Why is ChampCar wasting money sponsoring this car?Because a lot of people in a lot of places watch the WoO,

and what r2c said. :)

[racer2c]

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if PT's NASCAR ride at Michigan didn't have a CCWS sticker on there somewhere.

That would rock but it will probably be only on his driver suit.

[Sean O'Gorman]

Why is ChampCar wasting money sponsoring this car?

I don't think it is a waste. I think it is awesome. :thumbup:

[Andrew Longman]

I wonder what Bridgestone and Hoosier feels about the car wearing Hoosier shoes.

At Cleveland they had on display a half dozen or so Supermodifieds, all with a CCWS sticker or two on it. I thought that was interesting too.

[JoeBob]

I'd hardly call it a waste - WoO is AWESOME. Anyways, here's the full story.

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/News/Article.asp?ID=9486


You'd think a guy who spends his days as a crew chief for a championship-caliber Champ Car team would pretty much have his fill of racing when quittin' time rolls around. Not Forsythe Championship Racing's Dave Brozowski.

Once his day's work of overseeing the care and feeding of the Ford-Lolas o f Paul Tracy and Mario Dominguez is done, he switches gears -- literally -- to focus on his role as team manager for Larry Woodward's World of Outlaws sprint car team.

It's not exactly a hands-on job. After all, Brozowski would have to don a cape and a uniform with the letter "S" emblazoned on its chest to fulfill his responsibilities on Gerald Forsythe's Champ Car team AND turn wrenches on the Volcano Joe's Coffee sprint car, one that races upwards of 100 nights a year.

No, most of Brozowski's work for Woodward is conducted over the telephone. And the long distance charges must be pretty substantial given the fact that the WOO schedule stretches from Australia to Florida from January to October and Woodward's home base is in Hawaii (where he has organized a consortium of local coffee growers to create the Volcano Joe's brand). Nor is it as if Brozowski is up to his elbows in torsion bars at Eldora and Knoxville or consulting driver Joey Saldana on what stagger to run at Volusia County or Pamarrata City Speedways.

"Forsythe Championship Racing is my job, it's how I make a living," says Brozowski. "The Outlaw deal is just for fun. I enjoy it, the team is based in Indianapolis so the shop is basically two miles from my house. And Larry, being in Hawaii, relies on me to kind of oversee things."

Racing three and four nights most weeks, Woodward's three man crew has more work than any ten normal men would have overseeing the Volcano Joe's Coffee machine, let alone attending to issues like routine (and not so routine) engine rebuilds, parts procurement and the paperwork involving the team's transporters.

"Transporters and all those legality issues, they're registered to me, since we're in Indiana," says Brozowski. "And I'm the mediator for anything that's related to the engine builder. The team's calling me after every event, telling me what's going on, if they have issues. So I'm probably a little more involved than I need to be."

But not so involved that his day job suffers.

"Everyone (at Forsythe) is fully aware of what I do," he says. "But the Outlaw deal does not have any affect on my job with Forsythe. I won't let it interfere with my job. There have been times where it's come close to stressing me out and I just have to shut it out, and say to myself 'The Champ Car team is my focus, the Outlaw team is just a hobby.'

"And Larry knows that. He's constantly after me not to take on too many burdens, to make sure the Outlaw deal doesn't interfere with my real job.
Basically I only do what I want to do. Put it that way."

Still, it's not as if Brozowski is an "absentee" team manager. He makes upwards of 25 WOO shows a year, traveling to any races in the vicinity of Indianapolis on Champ Car World Series "off" weekends. Nor is there anything terribly new about that. Born and raised in southern California, Brozowski has been following sprint cars since he was a kid hanging around Ascot Park. In fact, that's where he and Woodward first became acquainted.

"My dad and Larry's dad were racing in the old days at Ascot," he says.
"Then eventually Larry got his own car and he used to sneak me into the pits, so I've known him since I was a kid, basically. We've gone off again, on again because we've take our different paths, but since Larry's sprint car thing came together we're constantly in contact now."

And Brozowski knows sprint cars from the ground up, having wrenched for sprint car owners since high school, including the legendary Laverne Nance, before finding his way into Champ Cars in the mid-1980s.

If there's one thing that experience taught Brozowski, it's that sprint car mechanics are among the sport's hardest workers. It's no coincidence that Mike Briggs, who joined the Forsythe team last year, is a Volcano Joe's alumnus. Nor that Jeff Buxton, mechanic on Tracy's Champ Car, came to Forsythe from Randy Hannigan's sprint car team.

"Sprint car people, all they know is hard work and not a lot of money,"
says Brozowski. "So if they come here and make good money, they're already happy. And the work isn't nearly as hard. And drag racers. Those guys work their butts off. They make good people here too. Drag racing and sprint cars. In my experience, that's where the best people come from."

You'll get no argument on that score from two race team owners named Gerald Forsythe and Larry Woodward.

[pchall]

There were a couple of Champ Car drivers in a Ford Focus 2.0l powered midget race last year sometime around the LBGP.

[JoeBob]

At Cleveland they had on display a half dozen or so Supermodifieds, all with a CCWS sticker or two on it. I thought that was interesting too.

Supermodifieds also had a presence at San Jose. Pretty good cross promotion with local racers.

[oddlycalm]

Hope Champcar gets more out of it than Volcano Joes Coffee does. They have the name on the car, but the only way to get the coffee outside of a store that just happens to carry it is to find the web page (singular) and call "Larry's" (Woodward I assume) and talk to woman that has no idea what kind of coffee they have or whether they can ship it... :gomer:

I'm not adverse to sending a pound of Kona blend through my liquid concentrate maker so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Wrong.

oc

[stroker]

Well, if they ever get serious about selling coffee (ship a boatload to the mainland, 'cuz mailing coffee from HI is gonna be big $$$$ retail...) then that livery would look good on a Champ Car.

Maybe they could do a one-off sponsorship at LB?

[mueber]

It's a good idea no matter what. Boy George has invested a ton in trying to convince the public that all roads lead to Gomerville and that nothing else matters. The idea is to, of course, contend that CART was irrelevant and champ car is irrelevant, 'cuz it's all about Gomverville, baby.

Although that's never been true, and most short-track types can see right through Boy George, anything Champ Car can do to broaden its appeal outside of "traditional" base is a good thing.

I haven't been to a dirt-track race in awhile, but I understand that what they do is a lot more demanding then driving around on a high banked oval in a car my grandma could drive. It won't hurt Champ Car to show a little apreciation for those guys.

[Tony George]

I saw those boys last week. If you haven't seen the WoO cars, do yourself a favor and go check them out!!! :thumbup:

[Jervis Tetch 1]

It's worth $2K to piss of the IRL. :) :thumbup: My thoughts exactly.