Happy Birthday to sports car racer, Champ-Car team owner and sometime actor Paul Newman (born 1/26/25)

(and that number 80 on the side of the car – that was his age – and he won the race!)

According to a report on Autosport.com, The Champ Car World Series will return to Europe in 2007 for the first time in four years. There will be a race in Assen, Holland on September 2, and at Zolder, Belgium, on September 9.“It took a while to finalise,” commented Champ Car President Steve Johnson, “but it was important to us all to persist. We have about five times the number of European drivers as we do US drivers in our series, and so we have a great number of fans in Europe. At some venues, it takes a while to build up a strong fanbase but I’m confident that these races at Assen and Zolder will be huge successes right from their inaugural events.“

As expected Paul Stoddart has been confirmed as a Champ Car World Series team owner for 2007. The Australian, who owned the Minardi F1 team from 2001 to 2005, before selling it to Red Bull last year, has bought a controlling interest in CTE Racing-HVM to form a multi-car team called Minardi Team USA.

No word on driver line-up as yet although it seems that drivers with past Minardi connections may top the list. Names being linked with possible Minardi Team USA seats include Jos Verstappen, Katherine Legge, Robert Dornboos as well as last year’s CTE drivers Dan Clarke and Nelson Philippe.

In other Champ Car news 10 teams recieved an early Christmas present today as they took delivery of the first new Panoz DP01 race cars in preperation for next season.

Happy Birthday to former Trans-Am racer Jim Derhaag (born 12/17/50),

ChampCar star Paul Tracy (born 12/17/68),

all-round Native American racer Cory Witherill (born 12/17/71),

and open wheel racer and current A1-GP Team USA driver Ryan Hunter-Reay (born 12/17/80)

Happy Birthday to former ChampCar star and recent NASCAR recruit A.J. Allmendinger (born 12/16/81)