The IndyCar Series is very close to broadening its reach in a big way by adding a race in Brazil, the South American homeland of five of its regular drivers.
"I'm 90 percent there," Terry Angstadt, president of the Indy Racing League's commercial division, said on Saturday. "It's that close, but we don't confirm them until they're signed.
"They have a sanctioning agreement in their hands, so they've got the documents."
"They" is the Brazilian authorities that would host the race, and Angstadt said he met with the president of APEX-Brazil, an Ethanol company that provides the fuel for IndyCars, on Friday in New York and was assured the company and Brazilian government are excited.
"Everybody wants it to happen, that's why I feel pretty good that it will," he said.
Angstadt said he's made six trips to Brazil in six months and is scheduled to go back in a few weeks. A venue hasn't been chosen, but he said it will likely be a street course.
The race would also probably be the first of the season for the series, which started this season on April 5 at St. Petersburg, Florida. Angstadt said the season starts too late.
"It's summertime down there when it's cold up here, so it's great," he said.
The prospect of heading out of the country has received mixed reviews among the drivers.
The Brazilian drivers, not surprisingly, seem to love the idea, while Danica Patrick and others wonder if the series would offend its core audience. The series already has two races scheduled in Canada and one in Japan, and has raced in the past in Australia.
"Wherever I race, I'll be excited to go to each event," Patrick said. "But, I think that it's also important to think about your core audience and that's here in America. To leave and go to another country and be in another time zone and miss the national news exposure, I think, is a risk, but I don't really know the situation and there might be a lot of reward."
Scott Dixon, from New Zealand, thinks it's a great idea.
"It's definitely an area that you've got to look at," he said after qualifying on Friday. "The series gets a lot more money to run at venues like that and that helps the racing and helps the series and helps the drivers. It helps everybody."
Helio Castroneves and Tony Kanaan, two of the most popular drivers, love the idea.
"That's what the series needs and being a Brazilian, I'm very happy to go race in my country and hopefully we can do that," Kanaan said, with Castroneves echoing his words.
And series rookie Raphael Matos, another Brazilian, said it makes sense.
"It would be good to build up a fan base there. We already have a pretty good fan base there, especially Helio and Tony," he said of what Brazilians refer to as "Formula Indy."
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BRISCOE CRASHES: Ryan Briscoe started the SunTrust Indy Challenge as the only driver to have completed all 1,288 laps in the first seven races, but that streak ended quickly.
The series points leader, who started fourth, spun and crashed coming out of the second turn on the 27th lap and his Team Penske car had to be towed off the track.
Briscoe also entered the race as the only driver to have been running at the finish of all seven previous races, although teammate Helio Castroneves had been running at the finish of all six of his starts. He missed the season-opener while on trial for tax evasion.
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TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL: Mario Moraes made a wardrobe adjustment to honor Michael Jackson before the SunTrust Indy Challenge, and tweeted to let his fans know what he was doing.
His twitter posting: "Hey guys ! I have a SILVER right hand glove for the race ! hope have a good luck on this ! RIP Michael !" Maraes, who qualified 19th out of the 20 cars in the field, crashed in late practice Friday and started in the back in the race.
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LUG NUTS: Jacques Lazier, who was the pole-sitter for the first IndyCar Series race at RIR in 2001 and is making a comeback, crashed in the first turn on the first lap of the race.
