Miami Notebook – Saturday (Rahal lands ’11 ride)
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| Graham Rahal |
The Rahal deal mentioned below is a two-year sponsorship deal with the TBC Corporation, which owns several automobile tire distributors. The two-year contract will provide primary sponsorship for an IndyCar, but does not specify which team will provide and operate the car. TBC’s president, Bob Crostarosa, said only that Rahal and TBC are shopping for a team that can “run up front." There has been much speculation that Rahal would be driving for Target-Ganassi in 2011. Ganassi has won seven IndyCar championships: 1996–1999, 2003, and 2009-2010. Other teams mentioned include Newman-Hass Racing, Rahal-Letterman Racing, which is owned by Graham’s father, Bobby Rahal, and Panther Racing.
10/02/10 The fans began arriving early for tonight's 2010 IndyCar season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway where Will Power and Dario Franchitti will do battle for the IndyCar title. Temperatures were 91 degrees at 2 PM but are expected to drop into the 80s by race tires……..TBC Retail Group announced that they will sponsor Graham Rahal in 2011 in a full-time ride. TBC's brands include Service Central, Merchants Tire, Tire Kingdom, NTB and Big O Tires all of which sell automobile tires as well as provide other car services. The deal is for personal sponsorship as well as to be a primary sponsor on the car. Service Central was with Sarah Fisher Racing this season as the sponsor of Jay Howard's car. Company officials said Rahal, 21, is the kind of driver it wants to be associated with. They are talking to teams that can run up front and this puts Graham Rahal in the catbirds seat to land a top open seat in 2011. We hear the Newman/Haas team is one of the teams Rahal is talking to and if we had to bet we would predict that is where he will end up. The team has a lot invested in Rahal, but there have been rumors that Ganassi may run him as a 3rd driver…….Cafe do Brasil (Coffees of Brazil) and Apex Brasil announced their commitment to stay involved with the IndyCar Series because it has been extremely beneficial to them. The Brazilian presence in the INDY IndyCar Series confirms a privileged opportunity to facilitate the entrance of Brazilian products and services into the US, especially in those regions where the markets are not properly attended by traditional methods of commercial promotion in order to target the desired customers. “Formula Indy is a sport that moves different segments of public opinion and, on top of the contacts with large corporations that are involved in the events, it provides great exposure for the Brazilian companies taking part of the project, improves their branding and strengthens de image of Brazil within the American market," says Alessandro Teixeira, President of Apex-Brasil. Brazil is the largest producers of coffee worldwide by a factor of 3, i.e. they sell 3 times more coffee worldwide than the 2nd largest producing country……Hearing that the new IndyCar rules are almost finalized with engineering staff at HPD, Cosworth and others having been given the chance the review and comment on them……..Hearing that Mazda is still insisting that this year's Star Mazda champion, Conor Daly, run in the Grand-Am GT series next year. We are hearing that the Conor camp refuses because Conor is doing so well in open wheel cars that is the path he needs and wants to continue on. Mazda of course fields cars in the GT series. We hear that Daly will soon test for the Status GP3 team in Spain. With nothing available to him in the USA next year, can you blame him for looking at Europe. And to think, Star Mazda was supposed to be on the Road to Indy development
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| With sparks flying and close racing the IndyCars make NASCAR Sprint Cup cars look like sleds |
ladder. If we were running IndyCar we would tell Mazda to go take a hike and if we were Daly we would tell Mazda to keep their money. One of the finest young Americans running in saloon cars is preposterous. Estimated crowd for Saturday night's race was 15,000. Too bad because the IndyCars put on a spectacular show at this track, a show so much more entertaining than NASCAR. As we made our way through the grandstands to talk to fans they expressed real disappointment that IndyCar will not be back next year and one fan said these cars make NASCAR look like sleds. The Indy 500 Centennial Tour of U.S. military installations in Europe and the Middle East in January 2011 will include IZOD IndyCar Series driver Graham Rahal, Firestone Indy Lights driver Martin Plowman, Johnny Rutherford and Al Unser Jr. – who have five Indianapolis 500 victories between them – on the multi-stop tour to support military personnel. The group will disembark from Indianapolis Jan. 12 to Landstuhl Medical Center and Ramstein Air Base in Germany in addition to military bases in Iraq, Turkey, Spain, Qatar, North Africa and the United Arab Emirates. The trip is being coordinated through Armed Forces Entertainment, a Department of Defense agency, and Morale Entertainment Foundation. Mark C. reporting from Miami