PK Racing......

[Dov]

From Cart.com:http://www.cart.com/News/Article.asp?ID=7257

Some Quote's From The Article........

It’s been a long, winding and often frustrating road for PK Racing in its rookie season of Champ Car racing. Founded by Kevin Kalkhoven and Craig Pollock late last year, the team benefitted from a tight, if small, nucleus of survivors from the days of a PacWest/PWR Championship Racing that ceased operations midway through the 2002 season. That camaraderie was more than offset by a frequently changing cast of characters, including no less than three different race engineering regimes and four drivers, with Patrick Lemarie, Bryan Herta and Max Papis preceding Salo in the cockpit of the PK Racing Ford-Lola.

"A new team takes time to develop relationships and cohesiveness within the group," says Cameron, "and we’ve had a lot of transition this year. That’s been our biggest problem. We had an engineer who came and went and we had to do three races in the first part of the season without an engineer, just myself and a junior engineer who had no experience in the series.

"That probably wasn’t too fair on Patrick (Lemarie). In Germany we had a pretty good car and just got unlucky with an accident in the pit lane. Going on from there we ended up pulling in John Ward (as an engineer) who has a vast amount of experience with these cars and CART. So he’s been a great addition but it took him some time to come to grips with this Lola. We learned an awful lot about it through the mid part of the summer, but we kind of starting feeling like the car was getting quicker but we weren’t seeing the results. We spent five days over the summer at the seven post rig to learn more about our dampening, so I think there were some significant gains made there. For sure we’re starting to get a car that’s more together front and rear and can produce grip much quicker.

“This is PK Racing. This is a new team. Of the twenty-three people that are employed here, I think five of us have come from the PacWest days.

But I think we’re pretty focused on the right issues here at PK – we haven’t spent a lot of money on hospitality equipment, or marketing and PR this year. We want too build a race team that performs and that’s our first focus. It’s unfortunate that we’ve had so much transition this year because I think we should have been able to do this by mid-season. We’re behind schedule but I now think we’re kind of on the right track."

Surely Salo’s arrival helps? A veteran of the Ferrari, Sauber, Arrows, Tyrrell and Toyota F1 teams, he took over from Papis at the Denver race.

But as his pedigree suggests, Salo is not only able to hustle a race car of any kind around a race track of any kind, he provides his teammates with excellent feedback on how to improve the car’s performance.

It’s no secret that, if Kalkhoven, Pollock and Cameron have their way, PK Racing will add a second car to the program in 2004. But only if all the pieces to the puzzle are in place.

"We’re working hard towards (a second car)," says Cameron. "But in the spirit of building this team correctly and not getting ahead of ourselves, we want to build this thing slowly and build a solid foundation. Spending money is probably the easiest thing to do in racing, but we want to build it properly. We want the advantage of a two car team. Technically it gives you such an advantage over the single car guys. So that’s our first motivation for doing so because we want to bring a guy in here with some talent to put with Mika in 2004, and we’re currently planning some tests in early December to select a driver for the second car. We hope to have one in place but we’re looking for two things: talent and the proper funding.

"So many times we came close to running a second car because it would help us get up to speed so much easier. We have the facilities, we have the equipment, but the key ingredient that is missing is the people, and you can’t overlook that – it’s more important that any of this stuff. And we don’t want to do this half way; we want to do it right."

"We’re currently working with a pretty big sponsor for next year that we’d like to get pulled-in; it’s Kevin’s home race, if you will. And it’s just important for our team to build momentum for 2004.

[macdaddy]

I'll eat my hat if PK isn't a 2-car operation next year. Many thought they would have been running two cars as early as LongBeach of this season!

And I kinda feel bad for Lemarie, I didn't realize that he ran three races without an engineer.

[GTRMagic]

Um, maybe I am a bit dense but why would a race team even try to run a race without an engineer??

[BootsOntheSide]

It wasn't part of the plan of coruse. They simply had to carry on until they could find soemone to take over. But it's true that Lemarie didn't get a real shot at things - Herta only managing to finish 11th at Laguna where he's frequently beaten much better fields, and took 4th on a one-off there 3 years ago, proved how weak the car was a the time.

If they can get a big sponsorship deal, it'll be nice to see them run a second driver out of choice - a certain Canadian will be linked, but other names like Franchitti, Papis and Davidson will be in the frame.

[Jordi]

Will Davidson be available or will he stay as BAR's 3rd driver?

[Hazza]

What we'd all like to see, and lets be brutally honest here, is a a certain Pollock Managed french canadian driving there next year...isn't that so?
(i know he said no, but you never know )

[zerO]

Little "Food for Thought" here:

Sometime between April and May, Herr Dietrich Mateschitz of RED BULL had talks with CART and Craig Pollock & Kevin Kalkhoven. Originally, Red Bull was looking towards sponsoring a race this season (Miami was the preferred one), but (ofcourse) TG put a stop to it - he doesn't want to see same sponsors in other series. So, two things have evolved from those Spring talks: one is a "handshake agreement" with PK Racing to spnsor their cars in 2004 should Red Bull pull out of the IRL - and that looks pretty much like it's going to happen (Cheever Racing has one foot in a grave at the moment), and the other thingy is - Red Bull is also interested in becoming CART's "series title" sponsor or at least a race or two next year ?!?!

Hopefully we'll see Red Bull in CART next year.

zerO

[macdaddy]

Juicy!

[BizTeacher]

I'll drink to that!

[brightline]

great insight zerO! Red Bull would be a big energy boost to CART.

[Russfeld]

Keep to topic Russfeld.

Ben

[Russfeld]

If you have problems with editing, do not hesitate to use the PM system.

Ben

So let me do one, just for fun. Hollywood to sponsor two cars at Newman-Haas in CART in 04.

[GTRMagic]

Red Bull has been linked to every team in every paddock in the motorsport world, bikes, cars, rally, anything

There is so much hype around the brand that even the most ludicrous seems possible. Hence the driver ladder thing getting a run.... oops, you mean they actually wasted their money on that

[zerO]

Originally posted by Russfeld
It is on topic. This guy posts whatever random thought pops in his head with no source or credentials.

Hey Russky,
those who know me know very well that Herr Mateschitz and his shenaningas I follow like a hawk for over two years now. And sources I have plenty.

Just because you don't like hearing it - it doesn't automatically make it unbelieveable. Enjoy the exciting and picturesque offseason that TG and his little toy series shall have. The only hope Eddie "the Mouth" Cheever has is if Honda buys his butt - Red Bull is kissing his butt "good-bye" ?!
zerO

[Jay]

That's the not the first rumour I've heard about Red Bull and PK Racing coming together...but what GTRMagic says is also true... Even if it came from the one of the people directly involved, it's still just a rumour, and possibly wishful thinking... Remember, after Indianapolis (the F1 race), Craig Pollock also said that Jacques Villeneuve had many offers and would definately be in F1 in 2004 - granted that's not settled yet, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Still, it's better to hear positive rumours than negative ones, even if they don't all pan out.