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Like I said before, wait, and you can have it all for free. Merger talk has been going on for 12 years. This time it's a done deal one way or another.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...or-bankruptcy/

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I thought they filed two years ago. I thought some tracks were witholding dates until Champ Car paid money owed. Guess Kokoven bailed em out then.

If I was Tony George, Id say we'll seriously look into some of your dates and probably agree to take on four or five of them (Potentially successful markets) but as far as Schedualing IRL existing takes priority.

Chuck, Who agrees with King Richard Petty, Without hometown hero's in the sport intrest will be lost. AND WAS!

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:applaud:

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Don't tell me that Kalkhoven & Forsythe ran out of money?:rolling:O: Arrogance finally did them in.:thumb

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RIP Champ Car!

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I'm glad that it looks as though Indy Cars will only have one series.

My question though, what was solved in major open wheel racing as a result of the split?

I am a huge fan of the IRL and I think the racing is fantastic. However there are still few grassroots open wheel guys getting rides, there is one engine supplier, a formulated car, more road courses, etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the original goal of the IRL to run on ovals, lower the costs, and give the Dave Darlands and Jay Drakes of the world a chance to run Indy Cars?

I'm all for unification of open wheel racing, but what did the split solve?

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Agreed. Even when this shakes out (1 way or another) the current state of Indy-type open wheel racing is no different than it was in 1995, especially when it comes to short-track drivers getting a legitimate shot at a ride...:thumbsdown:

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What Champ car fans? The majority IMHO realized without INDY. They had nothing

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[QUOTE=aussiemidgetfan;28960]-Drop St Petersburg, Infineon Raceway & Watkins Glen because nobody attends them.
-


aussiemidget - were you one of the 40,000 that were in the stands for the St. Pete Grand Prix last year? Or were you one of the few thousand
general admissions? - There were twice as many as when CART ran that race....How many were at Road America last time the Champ cars ran there? 25k if they were lucky? yes the Champ Cars are tricker...they just didnt promote the events like the IRL does...and this is the result....their leadership and direction was seriously flawed....now there will be multiple manufactures and corporate support back into openwheel....just not overnight.

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Nothing was gained by the split as we can see. The thought was to get back to what the Indy 500 used to be. A series could then be built around that. Obviously it didn’t work so here we are. I do think it had a chance to work if there had been one series.

Somewhere along the line, IndyCar owners started to think guys coming from grassroots open wheel cars couldn’t drive their cars so they stopped hiring them. History shows that to be false, but it didn’t matter. Foyt won on road courses, not because he was a great road racer, but because he was a great race car driver, period. You had to be a karting guy or a foreigner that had IndyCar style car experience. Owners didn’t want to spend the time to have a driver learn anymore. Popularity then started going down. Sponsors then started going away. Owners then had to hire some guys based on money they brought, not talent (almost every single Champ Car seat is like that now, IRL not as much but still happening)

I liked the old CART schedule personally. I do think an American series should be no more than 70/30 oval/road course split. Overall, Americans like oval racing better, that’s just a fact. Road racing is fine if done at the right track and not an entire race schedule. The only race I would keep for sure is Long Beach. I MIGHT consider some run on a permanent road course. The rest are garbage. There is NO WAY somebody goes to a street course race to see “racing” because there is none. It’s just a party for people to get drink and watch a parade. Sorry, but that’s all it is. The markets Champ Car was trying to get into shows that they knew their philosophy does not sell in America. Period. Sorry, but the problem with Champ Car WAS on track. Boring parades, drivers nobody in the US knows, all road racing, and 80% of races ran outside the US is not a good series to Americans. If that is supposed to be the main fan base, that doesn’t work.

I do agree Michigan needs to return. I’d like to see the ladder series be named Indy Lights. I always liked that name.

Take the top five USAC drivers in stockcars, add them to Indy Cars, they matter again. If not, everything stays the same on a national level. Unless you are a real fan, you don’t care. For oval racing, the IRL’s racing product is as good as any on the top level. The general racing population doesn’t care because of drivers in the seats. Unless that changes (which I don’t see it doing) it won’t change the popularity. The need of one series has to happen, but without some sort of a change in drivers it pretty much stays the same.

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how come the scab(quote a.m.f) didnt file for bankrupcy?

better product?
better buisness sense?

either way thier still here,i cant even find champ car on the t.v

st.pete- i went they had big crowds.nice layout alot of fun

f-the paddock i go to the pit's

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If only ChampCar would have hired aussiemidgetfan to run their series, they would be the number one sport in the universe right now.:rolling

If you want to know about the original "split", go back about 30 years and see who the real scabs were. Do you remember that? USAC lost 8 officials in a plane crash and some greedy people swooped in while they were at their lowest point and took advantage of them. It still upsets me to this day.

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Well said and true. Also the loss of Tony Hulman six months prior to the airplane crash made it even easier.

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LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Other than Cleveland (and that's only because it's always good for a 1st lap, 1st corner, 12 car pile-up:)).. All the rest :sleep::sleep::sleep:

P.S: Well said Seadog!

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I would hate to see the :loser: CCWS die -- their TV broadcasts assured me of quite a few good naps over the course of a season. Guaranteed to put you to sleep from sheer boredom!
Now you really must excuse me, old chaps. I must be off to having a bit of wine and cheese in the paddock, all the while holding my pinky finger aloft from my remaining digits.

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aussiemidgetfan,

The 1996 Indy 500 played to a full house and the only empty seats the last few years have been the less desirable ones down low in the backstretch/turn three area. There were more empty seats at the Allstate 400 this past year than the Indy 500.

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The split did what exactly what TG wanted. He has complete control of Indy style racing in America. That was his one and only intent from the beginning, it just took longer than intended.

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Exactly, if you want to know what little was gained, that is it. You go from a group of guys pulling the series in a thousand directions to one person in control. I'm not saying that one person is going the right way...but at least he's going somewhere.

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I think the real problem, is that both series have ran off and left there fans, and sponsors..... To make Indy Car Racing what it was will take not 1 but several Big Steps Back. A rule package that incourages individual inginuity. Give them safty rules, a weight rule, an engine displacement rule and completly do away with turbos and blowers and what not. Get the engines and cars back to were they can be developed in the small shops and garages that built the sport. The Reward for these guys use to be just the Chance to take a Car to Indy, even if there idea didnt work. Competition spawns inginuity and genius. Thats what built racing. Todays cars are designed on a computer. Not much grease under those guys finger nails, not much sweat either. With todays rules you add so much cost to things that you have to have a small, "oil rich country" behind you to compete. If you get the thing back within the realm of reason cost wise, you can run Ovals and Road courses because you'll have 50 teams again, instead of 5 or 6 with 4 drivers each. If a team is good at Ovals and not Road races, it dozent have to go, and of course thats why they will because of the competition.
I think about all Americans would like to have an American hero to root for. I'd love to see Dave Darland and Brian Tyler and several others get there chance at Indy. Who knows, maybe the guys bailing on Champ and the IRL for Nascar might end up being a good thing. If we work on making more seats here, so much of our talent won't be in such a hurry to find finders.......

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Aussie fan you must be smoking some really good sh*t if you think that places like Long Beach, Toronto, Edmonton, Cleveland, Portland, Laguna Seca, Road America are what built champ car racing! :rolling You want to know what a real "Champ Car" is then look now further than the roots of the USAC Silver Crown Division! "Champ Car" racing was built around INDIANAPOLIS! The IRL a failure? Hardly! Yes they haven't lived up to the initial intent of the series to give grassroots racers a shot at Indy but they put on a better show than NASCAR and CART ever will. WHo wants to watch borrow a*s street racing where it is follow the leader all day long with the exception of maybe two or three cars passing somebody? Not me! RIP CARTand Champ Car!

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Personally, I like oval racing and road course racing. I have been following sprint cars, IRL, F1 and sometimes champ car for a while now. Needless to say, my tastes are varied.

I am excited about the possible merger/CCWS bankruptcy. If only it could result in the perfect schedule. 10-12 ovals (bring back michigan), 1 or 2 street course races (Long Beach & St. Pete), and 6-8 road course races (laguna seca, road america, miller motorsports park, infineon, cleveland airport, road atlanta, mid-ohio, Barber..... lime rock, sebring....) The problem with some of these road courses (mid-ohio, lime rock...) is that they are ancient facilities that haven't invested much in updating the facilities. An emphasis on newer facilities would be good.

But in the meantime, I am jazzed about April 5 at Eldora and April 19 at L-burg. Can't wait to see the new track in action!!!! Ahh, spring is such a wonderful time of year. When the Colts dropped their home playoff game, I went up stairs and put on my clay covered eldora hat and announced "it's racing season."

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I don't think that there was ever a split. Seems to me that the IRL was formed with the teams that only ran the INDY 500 and a few start up teams that didn't have the $$$$$$$ or the desire to run with cart. Patrick and Penski hatched the idea (cart) at the small airport in Jackson Michigan to form their own club of owners when they did not like what USAC was doing. They did not even give USAC a chance to recover after the plane crash. Hence, the long memories, bad feelings towards cart that some of us still have. Yes, make no mistake that this war started the day cart was formed. Pat Patrick said in the Jackson paper that the IRL was just trying to get back what we took from them (USAC).:usac:

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It's all a conspiracy. After the demise of Champ Car finally occurs, the IRL will hold a press conference announcing the disbanding of the IRL as a sanctioning body and that USAC will henceforth sanction all future IndyCar and IPS race. Then there will be a collective 'head smack' from the press in attendance. :doh:

USAC will then announce that the dwindling Silver Crown series will be folded in favor of running Dallara's on the 1 mile dirt ovals.

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2009 SC series will feature the new gen cars the old school cars and the panoz chassis' that are left over after champcar folds you will be required to run the same car on both dirt and pavement

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What did the split accomplish? Tony George is now in control, which is what the split was about in the first place. He wanted a seat on the CART board and since he wasn't a team owner (Championship Auto Racing Teams), they told him no. He said, "Fine, I'll take my racetrack and go play by myself". End of story. It had NOTHING to do with American cars, drivers, or tracks. It was nothing more than a spoiled brat getting his way. So now we have the CART series of the 90's with TG at the helm. Which is what he wanted.

To quote GW "Mission Accomplished".

*oops, didn't see Sprintcar64's post. Just restated what he said. But it's worth repeating anyway.*

And for the record, tracks I'd like to see on the combined schedule: Phoenix, Dover, Mid-Ohio, Road America, Long Beach, Cleveland, Indy (of course), Iowa, Watkins Glen, Homestead, Daytona (road course), Michigan, Milwaukee, Texas, Pocono, Richmond, Vegas (oval), California (oval), Kentucky or Nashville but not both, and on a dream, Darlington.

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I don't see this as a bad thing. Does it hurt me to see that the Jay Drakes and the Dave Darlands are still not going to get a shot, sure, it does, and it royally sucks. But how is getting possibly 20+ races a year a bad thing? I see this as huge progression, but the biggest thing I like is the purse structure. Now a team doesn't necessarily have to run up front in order to make all the money to survive. Hemelgarn didn't get out for any other reason than money, same with Schmidt, and the rest of them. Who knows, maybe Menard, Hemelgarn, Schmidt, Blair, and many others may come back because of this? Who knows, we can only hope.

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Looks like it's done:

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...car-deal-done/

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GREAT NEWS! Hopefully open wheel racing at that level can go about mending the fences and getting the crowds back it once used to have. Indy cars are my first love.... so this is news I have waited a long time to see. With NASCAR seeing it's ratings and crowds drop I think this could bode well for the IRL to move in and get some of those disenchanted with NASCAR into their fold. This year should be an EXCITING year!

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Dream on! I know a few people who might watch one on TV if there is nothing else on, but I don't know a soul who will go out of his way to attend one (except for the 500). I've been a race fan for over 50 years and have subscribed to at least one weekly racing paper for all that time. During the roadster era, I knew the drivers, and had seen them run in both champ cars and sprint cars. Now, although I rarely watch a Cup race (and then it's via TiVo so I can fast forward through the dull parts), I know the names of more Cup drivers that I have seen run sprints or midgets than IRL/CC drivers.

They have to do two things to pique my interest. 1) Race cars that can be built and maintained by mechanics (not engineers), and 2) hire drivers that I have seen run on short tracks.

Dick.

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I would say you were on the ball. We will see how things turn out.

Jerry #66j
www.joshspencer.com