FONTANA, Calif. -- Bridgestone did something here Saturday few other manufacturers have dared during the past year. It threw in with Championship Auto Racing Teams.

As reported last week on RPM2Night, the exclusive tire company of CART announced it would be the presenting sponsor of the beleaguered open-wheel series in 2003.

In a season of turmoil, where Honda, Chip Ganassi and Michael Andretti joined Toyota in defecting to the rival Indy Racing League next year, it was the first major positive announcement for CART in a long time.

"This is a significant development for us," said CART CEO Chris Pook, who took over the unenviable job of trying to stop the bleeding last December.

"I look at it from the marketing side and a very big building block has been put in place and that is very important when you are restructuring a company and setting a new course."

With Firestone aligning itself on the IRL side, there were rumors Bridgestone might not continue building tires for CART -- let alone become a sponsor.

Al Speyer, executive director of Bridgestone Motorsports, was asked if CART had been a tough sell with his management.

"It was more difficult internally," he admitted. "With the overall economic situation we all face, continuing investments in motorsports are always looked on with a fine-tooth comb and we probably looked at this as hard as we've looked at any involvement in the past 10 years.

"But I think we have a very good sense of where CART is headed and we see great strength in CART. We know there is going to be a changing of the guard and we're excited about some of the new blood that's coming in.

"We see a lot of strength in the street circuit races and those great crowds in Long Beach, Canada, Mexico and Australia."

Speyer said Bridgestone will increase its commercials to six per CART telecast, continue its advertising, ramp up its in-house promotions and be title sponsor for four races next year.

It was expected CART would announce two new associate or presenting sponsors and the 2003 Champ Car series would be called: "Bridgestone presents the CART Championship Powered by Ford."

CART cars will be exclusively powered by turbocharged Cosworth engines in 2003 and 2004 and Cosworth is owned by Ford, the lone engine manufacturer to be involved in CART since its inception in 1979.

Ford had supposedly verbally committed to join Bridgestone in this partnership and the official announcement was supposed to come weeks ago.

But ESPN.com learned that CART was tardy getting its proposal back to Ford and then a $300 million budget cut came down so now the process is evidently grinding through corporate headquarters in Detroit.

Ford's involvement is crucial for at least one team remaining in CART. Pioneer is Morris Nunn's primary CART sponsor and, because of Pioneer's business relationship with Ford, Nunn could stay and run as many as two cars next year. It's believed Ford still intends to become a marketing partner with CART but nobody seems to know when it will happen.

Drivers on parade
The paddock at California Speedway is overflowing with drivers from CART, IRL, Formula One and Toyota Atlantic looking for rides in 2003. Alex Barron, Townsend Bell, Memo Gidley, Bryan Herta, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Allan McNish, Rocky Moran Jr., Roberto Moreno, Hoover Orsi, Laurent Redon, Tony Renna, Jeff Ward and Dan Wheldon were pounding the pavement Saturday.

Redon, who spent last year with Eric Bachelart in the IRL, had a meeting with Pat Patrick, and McNish, cut loose by the Toyota F1 team, was in and out of several owner's motorhomes.

Wheldon is expected to be announced as a test driver for Michael Andretti's new IRL operation.

Also in attendance was longtime owner/driver Dick Simon, an IRL original who recently sold his marina and had a meeting scheduled with Pook.

Strange bedfellows
Bobby Rahal reunited with Kenny Brack, Don Halliday and Honda? The story of this weekend is that this unlikely foursome is headed for the IRL in 2003.

It's unlikely because Rahal was Honda's test team/guinea pig in 1993-1994 and parted company with the Japanese company on less than friendly terms before Honda got its act together and won CART championships from 1996-2001.

Brack, with Halliday as his engineer, led the most laps and won the most races and poles in 2001 for Team Rahal -- finishing second in the point standings.

Entering today's California 500, Brack has yet to win for Chip Ganassi's team while Halliday recently split from Adrian Fernandez, where he was co-owner.

Rahal is also expected to run Japan's Shinji Nakano and give Honda five cars to combat Toyota in the IRL next year. Dario Franchitti, Tony Kanaan and Michael Andretti are currently Honda's factory team -- and only official team.

The three-time CART champion's 2003 plans for CART remain up in the air and he's expected to be here today to answer lots of questions.

Spark plugs
Alex Tagliani has a contact with Player's/Forsythe for 2003 but no ride because the Canadian team will only run Paul Tracy and Patrick Carpentier next year. Tags wants to drive alongside Bruno Junqueira at Newman-Haas and there is also a possibility he could join a new team owned by Paul Gentilozzi, if the former Trans-Am champ decided to run CART. ... Cristiano da Matta, who clinched the 2002 CART championship last month, is sporting the No. 1 on his Havoline/Chevron Lola-Toyota because he won't have the chance next year when he's in F1 with Toyota. ... Budweiser could wind up being Andretti's major backer in the IRL next year, with Motorola moving to Franchitti's car and Kanaan with 7-Eleven. ... Scott Dixon doesn't want to go to the IRL with Ganassi in 2003 and he'd like to stay in CART and join Newman-Haas. Lawyers are looking at his contract.