Competition This Week.(Brief Article)

More casualties of the new regime

When CART was searching for a new CEO last fall, many insiders hoped the successful candidate would be someone willing to swing the ax. Well, despite his fondness for buzzwords such as ``team building'' and ``consensus among associates,'' new CEO Joe Heitzler seems more than willing. First it was the chief financial officer, then the director of marketing. Now, two of CART's top racing officials are cleaning out their offices.

Hal Whiteford, CART's president of racing, and Dennis Swan, vice president of logistics, will have been shown the door by the time this is printed. An announce- ment was expected as early as April 23.

Swan, a longtime CART employee, was rumored to be on his way out since former CEO Andrew Craig was fired halfway through the 2000 season. Whiteford is a different story. He left his job as vice president of operations, Mercedes-Benz North America, after working his way up from dealership mechanic, then relocated from New Jersey to the Detroit area to take the newly created job of president of racing early in the 2000 season. And while he was hired under Craig's watch, he had the solid endorsement of interim CEO Bobby Rahal, who guided the CART ship while a permanent chief executive was recruited.

Officially, Whiteford and Swan are leaving under ``a reorganization of the racing department.'' The reorganization is ongoing, and no replacements will be named immediately. Tim Mayer, CART's senior vice president of racing operations (rumored to be a pink-slip recipient himself for some time), will run the racing side of the business in the interim. One CART executive characterized Heitzler's position vis-a-vis Whiteford and Swan this way: ``A difference in attitude and objectives.''

A big difference, apparently, given the timing. White-ford leaves as CART is grappling with a new engine formula, the series' most important technical issue since the CART-IRL split.

This much is clear. Like former director of market-ing Pat Leahy, Whiteford was an outsider, a gun hired to bring order to the streets. His tenure as sheriff didn't last long.