JULY 27, 2004

Schumacher to compete in Race of Champions

Organizers of the Race of Champions competition have done a deal to get Michael Schumacher and World Rally Championship leader Sebastien Loeb to take part in the end-of-season head-to-head competition in identically prepared rally-raid cars.

Organizers of the Race of Champions competition have done a deal to get Michael Schumacher and World Rally Championship leader Sebastien Loeb to take part in the end-of-season head-to-head competition in identically prepared rally-raid cars. The event will move from the Canary Islands to Paris's Stade de France and the two World Champions could be up against Moto GP's Valentino Rossi if he agrees to join the party. The Race of Champions has also featured stars from NASCAR in the past and it is quite likely that Jeff Gordon has received an invitation and will be joining in the fun.

The event will take place on December 4 and there are likely to be 70,000 people present to watch the show, which will take place on a kilometre figure-of-eight parallel course designed and built especially for the occasion. Schumacher will represent Germany in the contest which is billed as a Nation's Cup with teams of two drivers per country.

"I have seen it on TV before," Schumacher said. " It looks like a lot of fun."