Mi-Jack Conquest Racing moving forward

This season will be one of change for the Champ Car World Series. Several teams are still finalizing their 2004 sponsor and driver line-ups and one of the teams that has been the focus of plenty of off season speculation is Mi-Jack Conquest Racing.

The team recently tested with Nelson Philippe and Mario Haberfeld at Sebring International Raceway and it seemed as though things might be falling into place.

"We'll have at least one car, but maybe two or three," Team Onwer Eric Bachelart told Crash.net, "My sponsor, Mi-Jack , is a very supportive partner of the team and there was never any pressure to move back to the IRL. We are a business, though, and, at some stage, you have to look at other alternatives in case the Champ Car series was not going to run. But this is really what we want to do and we feel very good about the series."

Crash.net contacted MiJack Conquest Racing to find out if recent negative rumours circulating about the team were true. Specifically, we wanted to find out how they would respond to the rumour that the team was not going to be racing in Champ Cars at all in 2004.

"There is no truth to that," a team spokesperson told Crash.net on condition of anonymity. "We think we are getting there and hope to announce our plans in the near future. We recently tested at Sebring with two drivers and that test went very well."

There was also some speculation that team personnel may have moved on to look for other work after being unable to wait any longer for the team to finalize it's plans.

"That's also not true," said the team. "We have a fully staffed effort for at least one car at this time and are preparing for the season. At the end of last year, we did let some of our people go but we have enough people for one car."