New Stock Car Series/Race track in Canada/Cup drivers to race: A new stock car series was announced in Canada, International Stockcar Alliance, with six $1-million first-place purses being offered by the series in 2003. The launch of the ISA yesterday also came with the announcement that Kawartha Downs soon will break ground on a three-quarter mile superspeedway to seat 48,000 fans at its track near Peterborough where three ISA events will be held. And Bob Singleton, vice-president of Molson Sports and Entertainment and general manager of the Toronto Molson Indy, said the ISA will take over the Saturday headline show from the CASCARSuper Series at both Toronto and Vancouver in 2003. Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch joined eight other drivers yesterday in lauding the formation of the ISA and its grand plans for stock car racing in Canada. ISA president Mitch Mortimer outlined just how he plans to make that a possibility in his series. “The ISA will present a special format for six of its events,” Mortimer said. “The Super Six, as they’ll be called, will offer a prize of $1 million to a driver and a race fan matched up before the race.” Like the Winston No Bull Five Million in NASCAR, ISA will select six drivers and six fans before each of the Super Six events with title sponsor Exide batteries. If the selected driver wins the race, he and a fan will win $1 million each. This format was the deal maker in getting the Toronto and Vancouver Molson Indys involved. The other four events with the $1-million promotion are Kawartha Superspeedway, which will have two events, Sanair Speedway in Montreal and Race City Speedway in Calgary. Besides Kenseth and Busch, the other Winston Cup drivers who will race in the big-money ISA events are Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Dave Blaney, Dale Jarrett, Johnny Benson, Jeff Green and Ken Schrader. Leading the pack of Canadian drivers in the series is former national CASCAR Super Series champion Kerry Micks and his #02 Ford team. A unique part of the ISA will be the introduction of import cars into stock car racing. On display was a racing chassis equipped with a fuel-injected 4.7-litre Toyota engine that will power Toyota Corollas in the series.(Toronto Sun)(10-4-2002)
