CART officially kills Rio round

[KC]

Today, CART board members reluctantly removed the Rio race from the 2001 schedule. Apparently the Mayor of Rio has continually cancelled face-to-face meetings with CART officials in Brazil and failed to return all phone calls and has apparently forced CART's hand. CART is also upset that they may not be able to re-schedule the event at Curitaba or Brasilia, who have both been in contact with CART, because of their 5 year contract with Rio. The city does not currently owe CART any monies for last year, but CART may seek legal methods to secure what has been guaranteed by contract.

hopefully an accomodation can be found with one of the other Brazilian venues. The Brazilian fans deserve a chance to see some of their top talent racing in a high profile series.

[DNQ]

Brazil definantly deserves a round. What tracks are there though? Apart from street tracks, I can only think of Intergalos.

[Jay]

Although my country seems to be starting a trade war with Brazil , I am very disapointed to see this race go.

It is a peculiar track, but one that seems to produce interecting races. Like last year with a little rookie called Tags, and in 98' with a spectacular final few laps with Greg Moore and Alex Zanardi.

Too bad...

[Liz]

With more and more races being scheduled in overseas venues, it was really the only response Champ Cars could make to this baldfaced attempt at extortion. Perhaps next year, now that it is seen that Champ Cars is serious, some more reasonable people can be found to get this race back on the calendar.

I'm sorry Gil won't be able to race in front of his home crowd this year. He'll just have to win again in 2001!

[Nuvolari]

A real pity. I always looked forward to this one.