Joe Heitzler Q&A

"When we formed the engine committee, we had several goals in mind. We wanted to reduce the horsepower and thereby slow the cars. In so doing, we were hoping to improve the quality of racing. Number two, we want to retain all of our present engine manufacturers and attract additional manufacturers to our series. The third objective was to reduce costs to the teams and to the engine manufacturers. Fourth, we wanted to insure a fair and equitable system of supplying engines; and finally we wanted to create an environment where CART had an engine formula that will be solid for the future. We believe this announcement serves those purposes and has unanimity of the CART team owners."

"The Indy 500 is something that our teams would like to compete in. Our teams came to us saying they want to run the CART FedEx Championship Series, and they want to compete in the Indy 500; that's how we provide value to our sponsors. But we'd like to do it with less cost."



"CART did not make this decision in a vacuum. There was a lot of input from all three of the engine manufacturers and additional engine manufacturers who were waiting in the wings to see if this was going to be a turbo environment or a normally aspirated environment.

"The engine committee worked very hard to get through a number of issues. We met on the Thursday before the Texas Motor Speedway weekend (April 26). This decision went through its natural stage. We probably advanced it by a week to 10 days; but in no way was this a response to what Toyota announced. This is a decision for CART, by CART."



"Derrick Walker and I hope to have something definitive to present to the engine manufacturers in the next 30 to 60 days. It's important to note that a normally aspirated formula is necessarily high tech. Formula 1 is a normally aspirated formula, and there's certainly nothing low-tech about Formula 1. So we are going to look at their world for a little bit of input to our development, and we'll look at the other open wheel series as well.

"It's obvious that commonality (with the IRL) is something that we agreed upon yesterday was important. However, we also intend to stay true to the high-tech formula of CART. Therefore, there will be a certain amount of R&D that probably hasn't heretofore been seen before in these normally aspirated power plants in this configuration. Essentially, we want to provide an environment for our engine manufacturers to do an adequate amount of development and research.

"I think we all understand that commonality is achieved through block and sump castings. With respect to power application, electronic development and all the other values that you have with this configuration, there will be differences, and that's something that CART is going to go through in the next 30 days to make sure that we're true to our formula of high technology.

"I think it's safe to say in terms of electronic engine controls, we would expect some simplification over what we currently have with the current turbo formula. However, there would be development parameters within the electronics that we believe would provide a certain amount of sophistication for the power plants within the 3.5-litre formula."



"I don't have anything in writing from any of the engine manufacturers assuring me of anything other than their concern for CART. The most important thing is that CART does what is best for its fans and best for its sport. And we would hope that Honda and Ford and Toyota have recognised that this can work for them too. I'm concerned, as any businessman would be concerned, about his product and who is going to support the product and in what fashion it will be presented to the public. The strength in CART is our actual on-track product, in the actual CART events themselves, our teams and our venues. To the extent that we are providing a quality world class entertainment product, we believe that there's a place here for multiple manufacturers.

"After all is said and done, the most important question to Honda, Toyota, to Ford and Motorola, Shell and Texaco is, 'Where is the value here?' If we can't prove, in a very demonstrable way, that there's value then there is no relationship. Value comes when two parties mutually benefit. And there have been some unrealistic economic environments in CART relative to teams. We need cars on the track to attract fans. And the economics associated with that dictate that we create an environment that's more affordable."



"It will be the most rigorous contractual environment, and those that are going to be partners with CART are going to sign those contracts. There are going to be issues in the contracts similar to a variable mortgage rate. We¹re going to have variable aspects of performance so that, if we're not living up to our end of the deal, they're going have some cure clause. And if they're not living up to their end of the deal, we've got a cure clause.

"We're putting all the guns that are pointed towards our feet away at CART. We're going to stop shooting ourselves in the foot."