Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse for Champ Car…
To sum a not-very-long story: last year’s Formula Atlantic champion Raphael Matos earned $2 mil from Champ Car as an incentive package towards a 2008 Champ Car ride.
In principle, this tidy sum is a great idea. Reward your best farm-league driver with money to move up to the big league. In a ride-buyer’s series like Champ Car, it is a very rare opportunity for a driver to get paid for his accomplishments.
The problem is, $2,000,000 simply wasn’t enough money to buy Matos a ride. The only offer on the table was from Derrick Walker, whose previous driver Simon Pagenaud - the last guy to win the Atlantics bonus - used up the last of his $2 million at the end of ‘07 and is now what is generously referred to as a “free agent.”
Matos’ agent, who represents Andretti-Green Racing as well, probably didn’t have to do too much persuading to get the Atlantics champ to start looking on the other side of the fence.
Faced with the choice of getting paid $2,000,000 to drive a Walker Racing car for (maybe) a full season and then get cut loose like former “It guy” Pagenaud and signing a contract with Andretti-Green Racing to drive an Indy Pro Series car, Matos picked the latter. AGR, of course, is one of the only teams in either series that actually has the money to sign drivers (thanks, Hideki Mutoh… your check has cleared!) and pay them to drive.
A lateral move? At best. Prospects for the future? Not much better than in a Dale Coyne car. But the ability to buy groceries without panhandling on the street? Priceless.
Matos’ $2 mil bonus apparently now goes to the next guy in line in the Atlantics championship, Franck Perera, who may be more of a gambler than his counterpart. Meanwhile, Matos goes into 2008 knowing that, flush with all of that Honda money, AGR will find him a place somewhere to race for at least the next couple of years.
Tallest midget arguments aside, it’s yet another PR victory for the IRL and another blow to Champ Car’s legitimacy. Never mind that AGR only has the money to pay drivers because they are Honda’s factory team (in a series that is not supposed to have factory teams). Never mind that the IRL’s track record for promoting its bush-league champs is much worse than Champ Car’s. As Tony George would probably tell you, you take your validation where you can get it.
1 Comment
January 19, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Tallest midget argument indeed.
If the talking heads at Champ Car are holding some winning cards close to their vest, they best consider playing them soon, cause the fat lady is warming up in the wings.
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