Even as Dominguez was charging through the field at Long Beach, his team was working out logistical bottlenecks. (LAT photo) » More Photos

After an ’07-’08 off-season devoted to bolstering the Champ Car program, Tadevic and the Figges were prepared for PCM to be a force to be reckoned with in a 2008 Champ Car World Series that, of course, never happened. That spelled the end for the Figges’ cycle of investment, liquidation and re-investment . . . and the emergence of Tadevic as the new owner of the team.

“When Tom (Figge) saw the series was going away -- and, basically, all the assets that we had procured over the course of last year were going to become nothing more than paper weights, to be perfectly honest – our standard MO of liquidating assets and rowing those assets back into the company for the acquisition of new assets wasn’t a possibility. Furthermore Mr. Figge is a banker. A lot of his holdings are in the financial arena and when that market took the hit it took over the last few months, combined with what we had already spent and what we would have to spend to do it then – to put the cherry on top – there was really no desire on Mr. Figge’s part to put his son in a car that went around ovals. He and Alex decided they were going to take a step back from things.

“I was able to put myself as far in hock as my creditors would allow me,” Tadevic continues. “I scraped up the sums necessary to buy the company out. Mr. Figge was gracious enough to allow me to do so, and when we parted ways I sort of went all in. As I explained to everybody, ‘I’m all in on a pair of twos!’ I’m either gonna get another two on the draw or I’m gonna have to fold and find something else to do!”

Fortunately, Dominguez arrived with that missing two with a three to boot – as in a third-place finish in the Champ Car swan song at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. The deuce? That would be the Visit Mexico sponsorship.

“All kudos go to Mario,” says Tadevic. “He’s been working on this program with Mexico City and he was good enough to give us the opportunity to meet with those people. One thing led to another and several trips to Mexico City and many conversations later, we came to an agreement of how we could make it work.

“The program has a lot of potential going forward. We are extremely proud, not only to have Mario but to represent a city the likes of Mexico City. There are some short-term challenges owing to release of funds and making things work, just due to the bureaucracy of everything. But when we made the announcement in Mexico City, there were something close to 90 reporters on hand – with very short notice – and it was announced by the secretary of tourism himself. The program is in its infancy and we’ve accomplished a lot within three weeks time, but we really feel there is significant potential here.”

Ditto with PCM’s newly (yet again) configured race program. Even later to the IndyCar Series table that the other “transitional” teams, PCM will have to make due with two “used” cars that only arrived at its shop in Oxnard, Calif., the Wednesday before the Long Beach race. The team unloaded its two Dallara-Hondas from the transporter, loaded two Panoz-Cosworths and headed down the coast to Long Beach where Dominguez capped a highly competitive weekend with a fine third place.