Edmonton GP offers rare opportunity

The Grand Prix of Edmonton will showcase Champ Car and a NASCAR series under the same prairie sky this summer.

The newly formed NASCAR Canadian Tire Series was announced Thursday as an addition to Edmonton's premiere racing event July 20-22. The support series will take to the track at the City Centre Airport on the first two days of racing.

"I think it's the best of both worlds," said Grand Prix of Edmonton president and general manager Jim Haskins. "We have wonderful stock car competition with NASCAR and we have the North American premiere open wheel series with Champ Car, so our fans are going to have a lot of excitement for their ticket-buying dollar."

Along with the developmental Atlantic series, the Grand Prix of Edmonton has previously hosted Trans-Am and CASCAR races. NASCAR purchased CASCAR and announced its own Canadian series in September of last year.

Haskins said it took about three months of negotiations to make the deal work and is still in talks to possibly add another support series as the race date draws closer. But he expects the NASCAR Canadian Tire series to draw some attention and doesn't know of any other North American event that combines Champ Car and NASCAR in the same weekend.

"They own the series and I think you find when NASCAR owns something, they're very, very hands on," said Haskins. "It's their brand and they're very protective of that. So before they put their brand on anything, they have to make sure and are making sure, that the best drivers and the best cars are available and they've done that." More at Edmonton Journal