CART comfortable about racing

Heitzler met with the 1,500 members of the travelling CART community on Thursday afternoon to address their questions about security and logistics.

"The purpose of our meeting was to commit to our CART family that we are together, and we are a family away from home when this tragedy occurred," Heitzler said. "We want to maintain communication with each other. There were some concerns voiced earlier today in a meeting with team management and we wanted to convey to them the sense of security and well-being that we have while here in Germany.

"We also wanted to deal with individual questions regarding logistics and travel and all the needs that we as a community have when we are this far away from home.

"The Embassy told us we are not in an area where we face any threat or any harm," he continued. "They recognise how many of us are here and pledged to help us in any way possible. They advised us of what to expect in the event of an extended stay, and generally provided good counsel in concert with the local authorities about how we should conduct and purport ourselves while we are here."

Heitzler said he hopes that staging a race will help the CART community focus on trying to return to a normal life after the appalling events that occurred on Tuesday in New York and Washington DC.

"Like our government leaders, we believe it is important for all of us to begin moving back to a normal course and we hope our race here on Saturday will help Americans and people throughout the world to do just that, while memorialising the victims from the tragedy that occurred in the United States on Tuesday," he said. "CART and EuroSpeedway officials have redirected the celebratory events planned for the inaugural running of the German 500 to focus on remembering those victims.

"We will be racing with a great sense of sadness and compassion, but also with a great deal of respect as we remember those affected by this tragedy."

EuroSpeedway general manager Hans-Jorg Fischer said 69,000 tickets have been sold for Saturday's event and he anticipates a big walk-up despite the rainy weather.

"I don't think it will affect the draw too much," Fischer said. "We had a good pre-sale and I hope people will show up on Saturday despite the weather and all the circumstances we are in the middle of. We certainly have big sympathy for those who feel they cannot attend the race in light of these."