(If you think this is true, seek medical attention immediately.)
The Champ Car World Series Powered by Cosworth is pondering a "mystery driver" promotion that will "get everyone over their fixation on having individual drivers assigned to individual teams."
Champ Car insiders said recently that since most of the drivers technically work for series owner and sugar daddy Kevin Kalkhoven, the plan to keep drivers' identities secret just might work.
Talk of the "mystery driver" plan sprung up to fill the void in team/driver announcements. Many teams have yet to announce drivers for the 2007 which theoretically begins in April 8 in Las Vegas. Drivers for test sessions have been seemingly assigned to teams at random.
With the MSR Houston open test approaching on February 12 and 13, nobody seems to know who is driving for whom, with a few exceptions. Insiders said team assignments for that test were actually made at random using an elaborate lotto-style machine.
"All I know is that Kevin (Kalkhoven) has a bingo-style machine that has one ball for each team on one side and one ball for each driver on the other side," said a Champ Car operative. "A ball from the team pops up, a ball from the drivers pop up, and that's the paring for the test. It's like something out of Minority Report or something."
If the same system were used in the regular season, all Champ Car drivers would wear identical helmets and black fire suits with logos of the series' eight legit sponsors on them. Each driver would keep his or her helmet on and drive all race without revealing him or herself. Voice modulators would be employed so car-to-pit radio traffic wouldn't give identities away.
Then, at the end of the race, drivers would get out of their cars and remove their helmets.
"It's kind of like the Bridgestone reds (alternate tires), a way to inject some drama into the street races," said an insider close to the situation. "We could even have side betting on who is driving what car. We'd also see what someone like Sebastein Bourdais could do with a Dale Coyne Racing car, for example."
Insider said the mystery driver plan was far from a done deal. "It may end up that Kevin just sits down with a pencil and paper and decides who goes where, maybe in between rounds of golf or something."
In other news, Justin Wilson, world's tallest open-wheel driver, denied rumors that he'll soon join the New York Knicks as a power forward "if all the sponsorship pieces come together."
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