Observations from Assen

It's an overcast day here in Assen, with an intermittent light drizzle falling. The forecast is much the same through the weekend…….We now hear that over 50,000 tickets have been sold for Sunday and the suites are all sold and this race has many more suites (we are told three times as many) as any other venue Champ Car races at. A large walk-up crowd is expected as well, assuming we don't get heavy rains…….We counted 50,000 seats on our track walk this morning……Word is that the Zolder promoter is satisfied with the Sunday 25,000 attendance given it was a first year event………There is a lot of Bavaria Beer (Title sponsor) and Trust sponsor signage around the track…….Many in the Champ Car paddock are taking the news of the Phoenix race being cancelled rather hard……What was surprising was that a businessman like Dale Jensen gave the reason that he couldn't get sponsors for cancelling the race. Worse yet, we're more surprised that he threw Champ Car under the bus like that…..instead of saying logistics, timing, etc. Instead he just came out and said the race couldn't get any corporate support and only sold 1,000 grandstand tickets so far……This has caused much damage to Champ Car – can a lawsuit by Champ Car be far behind? In normal circumstances that would be the case, but Champ Car still has to deal with Jensen in Las Vegas (assuming that race isn't dead as well – see rumor page)……..The track itself is long, a bit narrow in places, but no more so than any street circuit. The main straight and pit lane are plenty wide. Mark C.