Cairo, NY—Assuming no significant changes in the technological/venue-related aspects of the Champ Car World Series for 2008, there are still a number of creative ways to stimulate more competitive, interesting, and true-to-concept racing. Doing so might help to increase car count, if not the number of teams competing in our beloved speed sport.

Rule changes are submitted here for your consideration:

• Participating teams may begin sending car/driver announcements to Champ Car Central via e-mail on January 2, 2008. The time-verified order of receipt of announcements will translate into the starting order for the season opener at Long Beach on April 20, 2008. Qualifying sessions for the Long Beach Grand Prix will, therefore, be eliminated and replaced by three hour-long open testing sessions. Last-minute entries will start from the back of the LBGP grid in the order in which they join.
• Qualifying will be conducted as in the past for the remainder of the season. However, the car — not the driver — will be assigned a grid position. Multi-car teams may switch their drivers to any of the team's qualified cars on race day. One additional championship point will be awarded to a race winner who has switched to a car qualified by another driver. One additional championship point will also be awarded to the driver who qualifies a car driven by another driver that goes on to win from the pole position.
• As in the past, one championship point will be awarded to the driver with the fastest time in Qualifying Session #1 of each event. One championship point will also be awarded to the driver who qualifies the pole position car.
• Championship points will be awarded to drivers for the following finishing positions: 1st Place = 12 points; 2nd Place = 10 points; 3rd Place = 8 points; 4th Place = 6 points; 5th Place = 4 points; 6th Place = 3 points; 7th Place = 2 points; 8th Place = 1 point. One additional championship point will be awarded in each race to the driver who gains the most positions from his/her original starting grid slot.
• "Power to Pass" will be functional only for cars that qualify in positions 12th to last. P2P will be limited to three presses or 30 seconds, whichever occurs first. No championship point will be awarded for the quickest race lap.
• Pit stops may be made at any time (no minimum/maximum number of stops) except when race control deems pit access to be unsafe. Alternative strategies will be encouraged by allowing teams to use their allocations of tires and fuel (t/b/a by Race Control before each race) as they see fit.
• Every race will be "Distance Certain." Event ticket holders will see every lap as advertised, except when races must be shortened due to weather and/or safety concerns.
• All televised races will be pre-recorded and subject to editing for TV time. Races will be aired in a specific continuity-sensitive time slot. Example: 120-minute broadcasts Sundays at 2PM EDT.
• No commercial messages will be aired during the last ten minutes of the race portion of any TV broadcast. Sponsorship for the un-sponsored portion of the telecast will be actively solicited.
• Each race telecast will feature two pre-produced one-minute formatted driver profiles.
• Decisions of the Champ Car Czar are final and binding.

Copyright © 2007 by Ed Donath and Deep Throttle. All Rights Reserved.