Edmonton Rexall Indy 2010

The city of Edmonton has confirmed that it will run the 2010 Rexall Edmonton Indy despite large financial losses in the first two years of the event under IRL sanctioning.

Edmonton City Council has voted unanimously to run the race in 2010 to fulfill it's contractual obligation to the Indy Racing League. Mayor of Edmonton Stephen Mandel has even gone so far as to say that losses are expected to be less then 2009 citing poor sponsorship and luxury box sales that will be remedied in 2010.

"Every councillor realizes that we can't be a city that doesn't honour our commitments," said Coun. Kim Krushell. "Yes, we're moving forward with 2010. Are we happy about losing dollars? No."

Will Power won the 2009 version of the race for Penske Racing, leading from start to finish.

I'm happy to see the race return. Seeing Edmonton pay the fees to cancel the race would leave a blackeye on the IRL and would hurt all the good vibes we have going on right now. On top of that, I think we do not have enough races north of the border (ahem, Montreal or Vancouver, Vancouver would fill in the Northwest nicely).

Team Stargate Worlds to Indycar?

According to Autoracing1.com Simona de Silvestro will be testing with HVM this week at Sebring.

Team Stargate Worlds of the Atlantics Championship is apparently taking a look at running Izod Indycars in 2010 and is keeping a close eye on this test to see if Simona can handle the Dallara-Honda.

Team Stargate Worlds ran both Simona de Silvestro and Frankie Muniz in the Atlantic series in '09. Simona was leading the series until the final event where she was knocked out of the race by Marcus Niemela ('08 Atlantics Champion).

With Frankie Muniz' looking to move to up (as he thinks he is ready, but let's face it, he isn't) maybe he moves up to the ICS with Simona and helps fund a two car effort with Team Stargate Worlds in 2010.

Either way, if Simona enters the ICS in 2010 with either HVM beside Robert Doornbos, or with Team Stargate Worlds, it would be an added car and another beautiful female driver which can't hurt the series.

Edit: I've just gotten confirmation that HVM is testing Simona de Silvestro at Sebring on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Many people don't trust AR1 so take it from me instead.