Officials from the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) looked about Hutchinson
Island and saw potential amidst the overgrown thatch and along an empty pit road so
different from what it was just over a year ago -- when it teemed with activity and roared to
life with the sounds of engines at the inaugural Grand Prix at Savannah Harbor.
But despite Tuesday's preliminary site inspection by ARCA, any plans to bring a race back
to the still rustic island are hardly out of the woods.
"For us to come here, we want to be confident that we will be here for the long haul," said
ARCA president Ron Drager. "At this moment, (API Championship Group) still has some
issues to clear up that aren't related to us. Our timetable for any agreement is based on
what they do."
API Championship is a large sports promotion and marketing firm interested in taking
over the debt-ridden contract of Colonial Motorsport Group to host races on Hutchinson
Island. CMG lost more than $3 million after putting on the 1997 Grand Prix, which
featured Indy Lights, the official developmental series of Championship Auto Racing
Teams (CART).
CMG has filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11, seeking protection from creditors. The
local group also sought out API Championship to take over management of future events
in an effort to pay off creditors.
API Championship managing director Ardy Arani and director Thomas Swanson spent
most of Tuesday meeting with Drager and ARCA competition director Joe Wells, but still
are undecided as to whether API Championship will offer a reorganizational plan to
Federal Bankruptcy court in the coming weeks.
"This is another step. This is another part of our due diligence," said Arani. "If we do
decide to offer a plan and take on this event, one step would obviously be to have a
sanctioning body in place."
ARCA, a 49-year-old stock-car series, is running a 22-race schedule in 1998, including
short- and dirt-tracks as well as NASCAR's Super Speedways. A race on Hutchinson
Island's 10-turn, 1.965-mile road course would be the first ARCA road race since an
outing in Topeka, Kansas two years ago.
"We feel like we're the most diverse of series out there," said Wells. "Our drivers are tested
on dirt, on short tracks and on the Super Speedways. A road course would really be the
final piece of that test."
ARCA cars are similar to cars from NASCAR's Winston Cup and Grand National series.
Each weighs about 3,400 pounds with limits on engine size and compression. No
computer technology is allowed. Without restrictor plates, which are required on Super
Speedways such as Talladega, ARCA cars can generate 650-700 horsepower.
Whether that power is unleashed on Hutchinson Island should be determined by the end
of summer at the latest so that proper time can be given to the promotion and marketing of
a 1999 event, Arani said.
The wide, sweeping first turn of the road course, which is a county road built to serve the
Hutchinson Island Maritime Trade Center, a golf course, hotel and other future
development, is reminiscent of an oval racetrack and Wells said he believes only minor
adjustments would have to be made to make the course ready for ARCA.
"It's wide enough to handle some two-wide racing of bulky stock cars," said Wells. "I
think we could put on a good show here for the fans ... It wouldn't take much to be able to
go racing."
Like Indy Lights, ARCA is a support event for other high-profile racing series much of the
time. And like Indy Lights, ARCA would have be a feature race in the Savannah market --
something appealing to Drager.
"That's what we like about coming to a market like Savannah -- where we can be the
marquee series," Drager said. "Right now, our schedule is about half-and-half -- half
day-before races and half main."
Off the track, the "issues" API Championship needs to settle are primarily financial.
Swanson has been identifying sponsorships from Savannah's private business sector over
the past several months and said he is about one-third of the way toward his goal.
Swanson said he has recruited "eight to 10" members of a Circle of Champions, which
would be a large portion of the financial backbone of the event, and has commitments of
about $200,000 toward a $500,000 goal. He said he has also had unsolicited contact from
three potential title sponsors for the race -- if it happens.
"When those goals are met -- at that point Ardy and myself are willing to take the risk and
commit our firm to this," said Swanson. "But we have to get to that point." |
