Two years ago this week, Sam Schmidt was paralyzed while practicing at Orlando, Fla., in Fred Treadway's car for the upcoming Indy Racing League season.

Now they've decided to reunite for the 2002 IRL campaign.

After operating his own team the past two years, Schmidt is bringing his driver (Anthony Lazzaro), engineer (Jim Neff), equipment and sponsorship to Treadway's crew and Indianapolis shop.

The merger will be known as Sam Schmidt Motorsports.

"The bottom line is that I didn't want to be scrambling around for money like I was last year and this is a good deal for both of us," said Schmidt, whose life as a quadriplegic has failed to slow down his drive to compete or his enthusiasm for auto racing.

"I've got more money than I had last year but not enough to do it right and Fred lost his sponsor (Hollywood Cigarettes) but has a high-caliber team."

Schmidt has maintained his friendship with Treadway and says there aren't many owners with whom he'd want to partner.

"Tom Kelly and Fred are the only people I would consider opening up my marketing relationship to because they would never steal my employees or sponsor behind my back and vice versa," he said.

"I have a huge amount of respect for both those guys."

Treadway, who was traveling and couldn't be reached for comment, finally had a major sponsor in 2001 with Hollywood and rookie Felipe Giaffone. But the Brazilian cigarette company took their countryman to Morris Nunn's new IRL team for 2002.

Two-time Indy 500 winner Arie Luyendyk will again run for Treadway this May, but there didn't seem to be a full-time plan in place until Schmidt stepped in.

"I know Fred has talked with Al Unser Jr. and Ricky Treadway is trying to put a deal together but, as we all know, money is very tough to find right now," said Schmidt, who is switching from Ilmor Engineering to Speedway Engines.

"It would be very advantageous for Anthony to have a teammate and, between Fred and I, we have three Dallaras so we could run three cars at Indy and I'd like to get my guys from last year involved at the Speedway and then maybe compete in the new IRL Infiniti series."

While Treadway's team takes cares of the car, Schmidt will take care of business.

"One advantage I see is that I'll be out there trying to sell the performance of a team that's won the Indy 500," Schmidt said. "And this gives me the opportunity to quit nickel and diming stuff and do it right.

"Fred's got some talented people and I think Anthony is going to be quick. I'm looking forward to 2002."

Herta leaning toward Panoz
CART veteran Bryan Herta appears headed out of champ cars and into sports cars for 2002.

The 31-year-old Californian recently tested for Don Panoz at Road Atlanta and says he's seriously considering the Petite LeMans series in 2002.

"It's not a done deal yet but I'm leaning that way," said Herta, whose CART career began in 1994 and includes two victories and seven pole positions.

"I'm an open-wheel guy at heart but, frankly, there are no opportunities in CART at the moment and you've got to go where the work is."

Herta said his Panoz sports car had impressive qualities and that the deal would include the 24 Hours of LeMans plus an opportunity to return to the Indianapolis 500.

"Don is definitely talking about doing Indianapolis and driving his sports car was quite enjoyable," said Herta, one of only four Americans in the FedEx Championship last season.

"I had hoped to do some Formula One testing but that kind of stalled out when the man I was talking with (Craig Pollock of BAR) got fired. I'm still talking to a couple of F-1 teams and I'd still like to do it."

Rumors and innuendo