Champ Cars & Indy Racing League Merger

[Ron61]

Joe,

How long before Nationwide sells out to another company? I just received my tax forms from the broker yesterday and learned that I had some deductible foreign tax and I didn't even know I had any stock in a foreign company, I don't really. It seems that Lucent Technologies was bought by a French company and I got some stock from that. Darn, I can't keep up with what companies own which ones any more.

Ron

[Wayne Maybury]

It was just plain stupidity that the IRL / Champ Car series split up in the first place. Open wheel racing has never been all that popular in the US (except for the Indy 500) then they fragment their product into two competing race series. The only thing that surprises me is that they have lasted this long.

As far as the sponsorship of NASCAR goes, I think that we will continue to see sponsors pull out as NASCAR becomes more of a show and less of a competition. Beyond the locked in 35 cars, how can the rest of the teams ask sponsors for millions of dollars when they don't have much of a chance of even starting the race.

By the way, isn't Rousch Racing cutting back one team next year?

Wayne

[Ron61]

Wayne,

Yes, that was another NASCAR rule. No team may have over 4 cars. I wouldn't be surprised to see him cut back to three. Ray Everham has sold most of his team and said he is not going to be very active as he has just gotten burned out by the continual crap. Give NASCAR three more years of their no racing and all show crap and they will be hunting for a way to survive.
Throw out that dam top 35 rule, let the teams get cars from any dealer and make them safe and then do whatever work they want to make them better like they used to so the team that makes their car the best wins. Do away with the dam yellow phantom caution flags so they can get in their TV commercials and race. Next step will be NASCAR will script who is to win which race. I don't even like it any more and didn't watch any of the stuff so far except the 24 hour Sebring race.

Ron

[Don]

Wayne: Rousch Racing from 5 Teams to 4 Teams, no choice, to conform to the NASCAR mandate that the maximum number of Teams with one owner is 4. Believe their reasoning was to potentially reduce the influence on competition of the high dollar Teams. Realistically, could also be that NASCAR did not want any one dominant Team in a position to challenge the race series rules.

IRL/Champ Car merger: The Indy 500 would also regain some of the past prestige, within the last few years, only 33 cars were available, some at the last moment, for the race. Qualifying was not a concern, missing was the suspense of being on the bubble

NASCAR: With all the cons and dislikes, still remains the dominant race series in the US. Why would Speed have programmed ,with sponsors, 100 hours of coverage for the Daytona Speed Week events ?

Business conditions, marketing reasons and financial concerns change for the race series business sponsors , Craftsman is dropping the sponsorship for the Truck series next year. Anyone's guess whether there will ever again be a sponsor that remained as long as Winston. As much as I enjoy ALMS, the series has a long way to go to have 100,000 + or - fans attend the races and on-going TV coverage by any of the 4 major networks. This year the Rolex 24 had 6+ hours of caution laps, 25% of the race

Included with the specs of the COT is an attempt to level the playing field, time will tell. Joe Nemechek qualified 3rd for the 500 as a single car Team based in OK or NE using a Hendrick engine, sponsored by Furniture Row. Mentioned was their Team had a permanent staff of 4. Robby Gordon is another single car Team, uses Everham engines. After the practice wrecks, Teams were using for this past weekend Saturday night race, their medium/short track cars at Daytona, which would not have been possible with the race cars prior to COT. Johnson's # 48 started at the back and finished 3rd, with a non-super speedway car. Maybe there is some logic that the COT approach will either reduce or stabilize the cost to build a car. But, Teams are also utilizing experts which adds to cost. Michael Waltrip has a PhD aeronautical engineer on his staff to determine the settings of the front splitter and rear wing.

Baseball had it's down times, but recovered, even in Boston which has one of the highest ticket prices of any baseball Team. With Dale JR's win Saturday night, the NASCAR's PR and Marketing Dept's must have been elated.

Will be interesting to revisit the topic in November. Kyle Petty struggled to make it to the top 35, but supports NASCAR's direction to reward those making a commitment to run the entire race series.

[Don]

AutoWeek.com 2/19 Update:

Reports of a deal between the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series have reached their highest peak ever.

Champ Car teams were told to stop working on their Panoz chassis and prepare for delivery of the Dallaras they will use in the IndyCar Series in 2008 within days.

The first Indy-car test of the new season is scheduled for Feb. 27-28 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida, where Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Tony George is expected to hold a news conference if he hasn't already done so by then.

So many questions now abound, from the number of Champ Car castoffs that will make the switch to the IRL to the number of Champ Car races George will add to his series. But there's a lot of work to be done if the deal comes to fruition.

"There is so much to do I haven't been able to sleep," said Brian Barnhart, the IRL president in charge of competition.

The IRL's existing guard has 16 car-and-driver combinations set, with a couple more possible. Champ Car figures to bring as many as eight, including two from Newman-Haas-Lanigan, two from PKV Racing, two from Forsythe Racing and one each from Walker Racing and Conquest Racing. Dale Coyne is likely to field at least one car; it is unclear what the rest will do. Regardless, it should be the largest IRL field since the league's earliest days.


AutoWeek | Updated: 02/19/08, 9:01 am et

Article URL: Dare to dream: Champ Car/IRL deal appears close to done - AutoWeek Magazine

[427sharpe]

A benevolent dictatorship was what open wheel racing needed...I just am not sure Tony George is the right dictator!
NASCAR seems headed the way of WWE, 'Sports Entertainment'. The artificial 'debris flags' always annoyed me, but the engineered finishes have just made me lose interest. I really hate dash to the cash crap at the end of the season. If you want to play rules, make winning more weighted tham finishing, circular file the restrictor plates and move the engines into something relevant to today (fuel injection, multiple cams, etc) and let the track wizards have at it. I for one would love to see 3-4 hours of actaul racing on the superspeedways....
It's really too bad, because NASCAR was once a great racing series...Petty in his prime, Pearson, Parsons, Elliott; good memories.

IndyCar officials have confirmed a press conference scheduled for Friday at 11 a.m. in Indianapolis, where they will announce that the long American open-wheel racing war has come to an end.
IndyCar resolution to come Friday - IRL - Yahoo! Sports
wow, I can't believe it really is going to happen. There will be one happy family and Robin Miller won't have much to complain anymore