SEASON PREMIER.(Competition)

The new Champ Car World Series is being unveiled as this issue of AutoWeek went to press, with a preseason event for fans and media at the Long Beach, California, convention center. With a couple of exceptions, this "Season Premier'' is shaping up with few surprises, and no better indication than before as to which teams and drivers might complete the Champ Car grid.

The three men behind Open Wheel Racing LLC, which recently acquired CART's assets, were expected to confirm their team plans. Gerald Forsythe's Forsythe Racing will return with cars for Patrick Carpentier and 2003 CART champion Paul Tracy. As reported previously, Paul Gentilozzi was to announce a second car at Rocketsports Racing, for 17-year-old Nelson Phillipe, who joins Alex Tagliani. Kevin Kalkohoven will add a second car at PK Racing, but F1 veteran Mika Salo, who finished 2003 for the team with its best runs ever, will not be back. Instead, PK will field entries for 1996 CART champ Jimmy Vasser and Mexican driver Roberto Gonzalez, who managed a couple of starts last season.

Herdez Competition was set to confirm two cars, but it was not expected to announce a teammate for Mario Dominguez. Beyond that, the confirmations were old news. Fernandez Racing will field one car for owner Adrian Fernandez, while Team Rahal will return with Michel Jourdain Jr. The new Rusport team was set to unveil the colors that 2003 Toyota Atlantic champion A.J. Allmendinger will carry in Champ Car in 2004.

Newman-Haas was set to confirm that its 2003 drivers, Bruno Junqueira and Sebastien Bourdais, would return this year. Yet the team was the source of one of the few surprises expected from the Champ Car Season Premier: McDonald's as one of its primary sponsors for 2004. The sponsorship is with real money, and marks the first big-name, national consumer product to sign with CART-er, Champ Car-in years.

Beyond that, persistent rumors about teams from Dale Coyne, Emerson Fittipaldi, Eric Bachelart and others preceded the event. Nonetheless, Champ Car's big media splash was expected to come and go with nothing firm on new entries beyond the 13 cars just about everyone already knew about. Five weeks before the season opener in Long Beach, the series was still five cars short of the 18 promised by OWRS.

And, finally, where Champ Car will race

Speaking of the season opener, Champ Car's 2004 schedule still isn't set in stone, but at least it's official. Series officials were set to release a race schedule at its Season Premier with 14 confirmed dates, from mid-April to early November and two possible additions to be announced at a later date.