This is the Statt Mann Baby!! Time to Scatt a little bit.

I have some special friends like Tim in Michigan who are especially saddened about the last Champ Car race today in Long Beach.

They’re hardcore fans of the series and hate to see it go away. In fact, so do I. There was a window in the early 90s when the Champ Car series – or CART – was maybe the best racing in the world.

In fact Tim and I talked this week about those years, especially when Nigel Mansell, the reigning F1 World Champion, arguably the best driver in the world at the time, came to the U.S. to compete in a Champ Car. The series had that much cache.

What it’s been reduced to is painful; an illustration of what can happen when greed and ego overcome grace and elegance. At one time, the racing in Champ Car was brutally graceful and rudely elegant. It was the best.

Those races and those racers are long gone though. It’s just as well that this series, like a pet that’s old, feeble and in pain, be put to sleep, put out of its misery.

Well, for Tim and the rest, I have these few moments as we say goodbye to the Champ Car World Series and the beautiful sound of the Champ Car turbos.

Peace.