Press Snoop: Al Jr, Weidinger promote A1 US pride.

AL UNSER Jr is running his 18th Indianapolis 500 race this year, more than any other driver in the field. Unser, however, is not the oldest driver in the field, as that honour goes to EDDIE CHEEVER.

Unser, known as 'Little Al', will start 27th in Sunday's 90th running of the traditional Memorial Day event at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Unser is racing for RICK WEIDINGER, who is using the Indy 500 to promote his A1 Grand Prix team and the concept of celebrating one's national pride through motorsports. Weidinger owns and runs the A1Team USA, which ran the 2005-2006 inaugural season of the international series. Weidinger christened his car 'We The People', with bold patriotic graphics designed by STEVE KAUFMAN, featuring a stylised American flag and the words 'We The People' in many languages.

The A1GP series was founded by His Highness The Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum of the Royal Family of Dubai. The Sheik will be Weidinger's guest at the Brickyard for the race.

The concept of A1 Grand Prix, which Weidinger calls the World Cup of Motorsport, calls for an identical car/identical technology format, with each country's franchised team featuring local drivers. The A1 name stands for unity and excellence. A is the first letter of the majority of the world's continents, and the number one signifies the unity between them. In most languages, including English, A1 means the best.

Weidinger thinks there is 'no better motorsports product in the world than nation versus nation'. He considers it an excellent way to promote the USA on an international level, promote American businesses abroad, and build relationships with other countries, such as China. Chinese businessmen have visited Weidinger in American to explore the possibilities.

The A1GP format calls for each nation to have a franchised team, with local drivers who can be swapped during the weekend or during the season. It's all about national pride, said Weidinger. At each race, a driver has to be nominated by a specified deadline for qualifying, and for the sprint race and for the feature race. A1GP has two races each weekend, a sprint race with a rolling start, and a longer feature race, with a standing start. There aren't many standing starts found in auto racing these days, with Formula One among those to hold a standing start at every event. A1GP competes at many of the F1 tracks, which makes it a good development series for F1.

Weidinger has A1Team USA involvement and participation from minority partners and friends RUSTY LEWIS and BILL DEAN. Weidinger owns the TV rights for the American broadcasts of the series, which this season were telecast on Outside Living Network, or OLN. He also owns the merchandising and broadband rights.

A1 has branding guidelines and control, spelled out in the Franchise Manual, but Weidinger says A1 is flexible with input from the owners.

Weidinger is very much involved not only in his own team, but with promoting the concept in general. He is looking forward to next month's proposed Owners' Meeting, possibly in Portugal. A1 Management scheduled the meeting with much encouragement from the owners, and already held a recent meeting of 'the holdings' at a game reserve in South Africa. Weidinger looks forward to discussions on several subjects including two engines per car; the venue for the American race, and each team having a private test in its own country. The testing concept was broached already, and would require an official from A1GP and engine supplier Zytek at each private test.

Weidinger and other team owners think the now obsolete Formula 3000 cars are the closest to the A1 cars and would make good test cars. Owners are scouring Europe for them, now that the F3000 series no longer exists on an international level, although it does still run in Italy.

Present A1GP rules call for two three-day open tests, which were held this season at Silverstone and Paul Ricard, one of the finest test tracks Weidinger has seen.

The first A1GP season started out with each team having two Zytek engines per car. Then the engine allotment was cut back midseason to save costs. This caused a problem in Mexico when the host country had engine problems and couldn't race. This brought about a late-season rule change, allowing the host country to have two engines. So, when A1Team USA raced at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Weidinger had two engines... just in case.

Weidinger is involved with the American A1GP race venue, and is looking at a couple of new locations. Under consideration are a street race in New Orleans, or introducing A1GP to an American oval track.

This year A1GP had 25 teams, and could accommodate up to 28 countries this next season. Weidinger has heard of six more countries showing interest in the series, and he thinks Pakistan is coming back, but isn't sure about Russia. This inaugural season had eleven races, and there could be twelve in the second A1GP season, which runs from Fall to Spring, the so-called 'off-season' for motorsports. The first second-season race is in Holland, in October, and is already sold out.

Presently, the A1GP rules call for the series to run the same car for three years. They have Lola chassis, Zytek engines, and meet FIA crash standards. Weidinger said the cars are reliable, resilient and responsive. They are sensitive to 'tweaking' which makes a good engineer paramount.

Weidinger's A1Team USA engineer was GERALD TYLER, and his team was run by David Price Racing of England. IndyCar driver, SCOTT SHARP, is a consultant to the team, with a title of director of operations. Sharp and Weidinger met when Weidinger was involved with Kelley Racing in the 2004 IRL season with Sharp as driver. Sharp was unable to accept Weidinger's offer to race for A1Team USA, due to his IRL commitments, and also to running selected races in the Grand American Road Racing Rolex Series, with his father-in-law, GREG PICKETT.

Weidinger ran three different drivers this A1GP season, starting out with SCOTT SPEED, who has since moved up to Formula One with the Junior Red Bull F1 team Scuderia Toro Rosso; PHIL GIEBLER - who finished 14th on Friday in the IRL Indy Pro Series Freedom 100 race; and BRYAN HERTA, who was able to run several A1GP races in between his commitments to the Andretti Green Racing Team, with whom he races in IRL. Herta is qualified 16th for the Indy 500 in #7 XM Satellite Radio Dallara/Honda.

Weidinger likes the idea of having two veteran drivers and one aspiring young lion development driver for his A1 team. He is considering holding a tryout of sorts, a la JACK ROUSH and his 'Gong Show', for five or so drivers.

Weidinger is very enthusiastic about the A1GP concept and about promoting his team. After the Indy 500, he will turn his focus to his A1 team and the race venue in the United States for the second A1GP season.