With less than three weeks to go before the inaugural race of the football-themed Superleague Formula racing series, new teams are still being added and drivers are being chosen.
The newest football club to join is the first from England, Tottenham Hotspur FC, while Britain’s other team, Glasgow Rangers, has chosen ex-Champ Car driver Ryan Dalziel to pilot its entry.
Although Superleague Formula sells itself as ‘football at 300km/h’, the clubs are not supporting their racing teams financially – so the Spurs entry will be managed not from White Hart Lane but from Spain.
The car will be run by Valencia-based GTA Motor, which competes in Spanish F3 and was also runner-up in last year’s International GT Open Championship.
Team owner Domingo Ochoa said: “Superleague Formula is a tremendous opportunity for our team to grow into what is going to be a very important championship. Tottenham Hotspur SF Racing Team was a perfect choice for us.
“We have begun our search to find a competitive driver and we have a responsibility to Spurs fans to find someone who is going to be the best man for the job.”
Whoever does drive for Tottenham, they will find themselves up against Ryan Dalziel in the Rangers car.
While no official announcement has appeared on the Superleague Formula site, the Scotsman took the car out in recent tests and told a friend on the social networking site Bebo that he had got the Rangers drive and would be at Donington.
Dalziel, who drove for most of Champ Car’s final season for Pacific Coast Motorsports and has also had a successful career in sports cars, drove the Rangers car for its first testing laps, but was eight seconds off the pace of more experienced teams.
The 2008 Superleague Formula season begins at Donington Park on August 30-31, then continues at the Nurburgring on September 20-21, Zolder on October 4-5, Estoril on October 18-19 and Vallelunga in Italy on November 1-2 before finishing at Jerez on November 22-23.