Pierre the Great Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 but i think its too little too late. idiots. http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?s...&id=3253353 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mils Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 but i think its too little too late. idiots. http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?s...&id=3253353 Would they all have been better off negotiating something 3 months ago? Definitely. They would have been best served never splitting to begin with. So, yes, idiots. However, this is the best thing to happen to open wheel racing in a long long time, suppose it actually happens and Champ folds into the IRL. Given the past, I am thrilled that they are working together moving forward. I am ecstatic, and I will tell you why. With Sam Hornish, Dario Franchitti, Patrick Carpentier, Juan Pablo Montoya, A.J. Allmendinger, and Tony Stewart (he was in open wheel a decade ago) leaving open wheel for Nascar since the IRL-Champ Car split, open-wheel [non-formula 1] racing was not going to be legitimate for long with two supposedly top series's. Since the split, the Indy 500 has not been the same as both series have struggled for traction and recognition while nascar took off. While IRL and Champ Car were bickering and fighting for the attention of open-wheel race fans, Nascar grew their sport, and brought the drivers and the sport (Yes, it's a sport. We can argue about athletic. But if baseball is athletic, so is top level auto-racing. If you want to argue with me about this, start a different thread.) to those who were once indifferent to it or didn't understand it. I hope they run a 26-30 race schedule with an even mix of ovals and road courses. Both are fun to watch, and it would create parity among the drivers because the Wheldons and Castroneves' out there would dominate the ovals, while the Junquieras and the Powers would throw down on the road courses. In the more extended future, I cannot wait for this years' Indy 500. (I've been to the last 3, and am going again.) Instead of the usual 3 teams (Penske, Ganassi, AGR) competing for all of the awards, and only about 35-37 drivers compete for a spot on the starting grid, there will be much more drama about who gets in the field, and new teams will being new competition. Very exciting to me, considering there could reasonably be almost 50 drivers competing for the 11 rows of 3 in Indianapolis. This means that the guy in the 33 spot is probably a skilled enough driver to be in the front or middle of the pack instead of, as has been the case recently, replacement drivers and guys with no legitimate shot (P.J. Jones) were starting in the back 3 rows. The article speculates that as many as six teams could join the IRL for the coming season, as I understand it, with regular entries. This means (as the article confirms) that there could be in excess of 25, maybe as many 30 entries in the individual events (In IRL this year by itself, there should be 18-20 drivers per event.) Considering that the champ guys use Bridgestone Tires, a Cosworth Engine, and DP01 Chassiss and IRL almost all use Firestone Tires with a Honda engine and a Dallara chassis, (maybe 2 or 3 still use the Panoz... but not many, and maybe even then just on road courses) we could finally see some of the parity that we saw in the open-wheel world back pre-split. Take a look at the engine/chassis combos back in the early-mid 90s, and you have some pushrod engines. Oldsmobile, Mercedes, Ford, Chevrolet, and Cosworth were all making engines. It made for great competition because the skill of the whole team and the strength of the car all contributed to a winning effort. On the down side, you aldo had a lot of guys go out of races on blown engines, but you don't see that so much anymore. Plus, it appears that the teams coming over will use the Dallara/Honda combo... so it's a non-issue... the parity would still be cool to see again. I guess the IRL has an exclusive deal with Honda. It might be interesting if open-wheel and nascar got together and put on big-time race weekends with Nascar and open-wheel running races at the same tracks on the same day or the same weekends. Maybe at Daytona when Nascar runs their second race there? Or do the Indy 500 and th nascar race at the Brickyard on the same weekend. (I know, there are scheduling issues and whole host of other problems that make that idea unworkable, I'm just thinking out loud. It would be a lot of fun for race fans from all over to get together around one weekend. It would do a lot to grow both sports.) There isn't an agreement yet between IRL and Champ, but I trust that if ESPN is reporting on it, then it must be darn near close. If this materializes, I'll be like a kid in a candy store this summer watching the best open-wheel drivers (again, not including F-1, they're in a league of their own. A comparison would be apples to oranges.) compete against each other. Guys like Paul Tracy and Sebastian Bourdais can make a return to Indianapolis, and we get to see if the oval experts can compete when road courses are thrown in there. Hopefully the folks at the Twin Ring are willing to reschedule, and not stand in the way of the merger. I am really excited. Hopefully this is the beginning of the strengthening of open-wheel racing back to where it was around 1990. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted February 20, 2008 Author Share Posted February 20, 2008 I hope so too and don't forget Casey Mears, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon and Scott Speed. All open wheel guys who have switched. That is the big if, add the awesome street races and road course races that champ car had with the ovals. Patrick would have competition in the women's driver department. Robin Miller is the guy who has all the enough (speed channel guy) if he's saying it is happening, it's happening. People want and need open wheel again, Nascar has lost its purpose for racing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mils Posted February 20, 2008 Share Posted February 20, 2008 I hope so too and don't forget Casey Mears, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon and Scott Speed. All open wheel guys who have switched. That is the big if, add the awesome street races and road course races that champ car had with the ovals. Patrick would have competition in the women's driver department. Robin Miller is the guy who has all the enough (speed channel guy) if he's saying it is happening, it's happening. People want and need open wheel again, Nascar has lost its purpose for racing. I did forget Casey Mears and Scott Speed. I didn't know the other two started in open wheel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted February 20, 2008 Author Share Posted February 20, 2008 Casey Mears is part of the Mears family. Of course he was in open wheel. Scott Speed last year was on team red bull in F1. If the split had not of happened. Jeff Gordon would of gone to CART but Bill Davis convinced him he'd be a star in Nascar where he'd just be another driver in Cart lol, the rest is history and without him going to Nascar, basically the majority of the drivers now and most of the drivers in development would not be in Nascar. they're all open wheel guys. Tony Stewart (well known about his true love of open wheel) Jimmie Johnson (motorcycles and off road) Kevin Harvick (grew up on karts) Brian Vickers (world karting then in '98 moved to nascar) Regan Smith (World Karting) Kasey Kahne (he was in toyota atlantic- ChampCar) Ryan Newman (USAC) A. J. Allmendinger (ChampCar) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobRock Posted February 24, 2008 Share Posted February 24, 2008 Tony George is a dickhead. He started IRL by kidnapping the Indy 500, made simple by the fact that he was preisdent of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He said he wanted a racing series focused on American drivers (CART was getting too international) and oval tracks, then all the teams that went with him brought over the same drivers they had in CART, with the same results. Once the engine and chassis manufacturers saw the fight, they stayed on the sidelines or did something even smarter and hooked up with NASCAR which had the ratings and crowds neither open wheel series could keep. Both sides suffered over an issue that, in actuality, the fans couldn't give a rat's ass about, and it turned many of them off both circuits, myself included. I haven't watched the Indy 500 since George stole it, and I haven't watched ChampCar in two or three years because, basically I couldn't find the races. Coming back together is their only hope of getting open wheel racing back to the popularity it once enjoyed in the mid 90s, but it remains to be seen if the fans will even bother at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted February 25, 2008 Author Share Posted February 25, 2008 only saving grace the re-married series have is that nascar is waining in popularity, tv ratings down, interests down, toyota pissing off the traditional southerners... Only problem is packaging. Fox knows how to package a race series. Nascar has become entertainment. the soon to be named new series needs to ditch the ovals. But will they? no. It's tony george. Only reason why I continue to watch nascar is to root on toyota and there's nothing else on. (Unless tiger is in contention on sunday). There's an opening for this series but i don't think the people commanding this ship know what they are doing. In all honesty ChampCar had the right idea but of course its Tony George's series now and he wants nothing to do with these festival style weekends that ChampCar was good at cultivating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted February 25, 2008 Author Share Posted February 25, 2008 speaking of idiots, nascar is going to run a race at 2am et time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted February 27, 2008 Author Share Posted February 27, 2008 just watched the unification press conference, i'm getting excited! woot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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