John Shiels

For the first time since 2000, Champ Car will open and close its 2007 season in the USA, add as many as four new venues and won't have any ovals unless its teams compete at the Indianapolis 500.

Although nothing officially has been announced, it appears the '07 campaign will start with a street show in old downtown Las Vegas in April and close with a date on the streets of Phoenix in November.

"We'd like to run 16 races next year," said Champ Car president Steve Johnson.

In addition to those new tracks, Champ Car is likely to trek to Zhuhai, China next May to a venue originally built for Formula 1.

The team owners in Champ Car had a meeting last Saturday in Toronto and reportedly voted not to leave the month of May open for the Indianapolis 500 but race instead. This past May, they raced at Houston and Monterrey, Mexico.

But there is still a chance Champ Car could leave two weekends open for any teams willing and able to contest Indy.

It's also been learned that a potential street race in San Antonio has been offered to Champ Car.

The Indy Racing League had been trying to get a race in San Antonio with ex-CART president Joe Heitzler but apparently another group, led by former CART CEO Chris Pook, convinced city officials to go with Champ Car.

The casualties on the '07 schedule will be Milwaukee, Montreal and Monterrey, Mexico.

Without Milwaukee, Champ Car will have no ovals for the first time in its 28-year history.

"When open wheel fans show they want ovals back, then we'll go back to them," said Kevin Kalkhoven, co-owner of Champ Car. "The past few years have shown us that's NASCAR's domain."

It's expected that the IRL will assume the traditional week-after-Indy date at Milwaukee's

xsiveone

I don't like the direction that Champ Car is taking. I'm not a huge fan of ovals, but I'd like to see at least one oval on the schedule. Also, I'm not a big fan of street races either with the exception of races like Long Beach. Not running Montreal is a big mistake too. It's a fantastic track and there are a lot of open wheel fans up there.

The only positive that I see in the season is that they are running Road America again. That will be the one bright spot on the calendar. I sure hope that they don't cancel it again though.

BrianCunningham

Likewise, what I liked about CART was their diversity. Road, street, and ovals.

xsiveone

I know.. I loved CART. In its heyday, I even liked it better than F1. A very nice mix of street, ovals and road courses. The cars were powerful and had a lot of technology, but weren't over technical so it didn't inhibit on track competition. I even liked the point system. It wasn't like NASCAR where you get 500 or so points a race, so it seems or like F1 where there is only a 2 point gap between first and second place.

Off topic, but did you hear that Champ Car is going to a Panoz chassis that has a lot of its downforce created by the under body? It's supposed to limit the need of the wings for downforce and create closer racing and passing opportunities. That should be interesting. That's the one good thing about having one chassis manufacturer in the series.