Forsythe shuts down second team

Forsythe has run the single-car outfit alongside his main team, Player's Forsythe Racing, for the last three years, but the decision has been taken to close the team from the end of this month, leaving driver Bryan Herta without a drive.

Neither Forsythe, nor team manager Tony Brunetti were available for comment, but both team personnel and Herta are thought to be aware that the squad has been axed.

"I knew there was a deadline," Herta told Speedvision.com. "I knew that a deadline had passed and I knew that Jerry told them that if the deadline passed, he'd close it down. If there had been a sponsor, he'd have called me, and he didn't."

The team was formed out of the ashes of the Tasman outfit in 1999, when Forsythe ran Tony Kanaan in a car backed by fast food giant McDonalds. A switch to the struggling Swift chassis for the 2000 season was aborted before the first round, but Forsythe resurrected the team for a one-off race at Laguna Seca for Herta towards the end of last year.

German team Zakspeed took over the running of the outfit for 2001, but a lack of sponsorship resulted in Forsythe and Zakspeed splitting halfway through the season. Forsythe continued alone until the end of the year.