Pierre the Great Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/news/story?s...Id=1&id=2500033 Because of the split Nascar rose to insane levels. That cannot be disputed. I can't wait though. Champ Car has the better tracks and racing, while IRL has the better cars and Indy. Can't wait for the battle between Katherine Legge and Danica Patrick. Or Seabas and versus everyone else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffy Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 that is Wicked! In Van, we had the Indy for all of my life-time up until a few yrs ago, so that edmonton could get a race even though Van was one of the best attended races Champ Car had... but still, I held out, insisting that despite the poorness of Champ Car, it was better, and have refused for all my life to watch IRL despite knowing it was more powerful... Now, we will get the best of both worlds, and Nascar will be put where it belongs, non-existent in Canada and worse in ratings than hockey in the US! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanpuck33 Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Death to NASCAR! I don't like car racing in general, but IRL is better than NASCAR. Faster, more history, the Andretti family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted June 26, 2006 Author Share Posted June 26, 2006 Funny thing is all the NASCAR stars of today use to be open wheel guys. What could have been: Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman, Kasey Kahne, Casey Mears, Robby Gordon etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobRock Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 How's this for you: I haven't watched an Indy 500 since the IRL took over the race. Although I almost watched this year with Mikey back in the car. I can remember when Tony George first announced the IRL. He said that the main goal was to give American drivers an opportunity that were no longer getting in CART. They also believed that ovals were better for spectators than road courses, so they would be strictly an oval-race circuit. So turn the clock ahead, and where is Tony George's great vision for IRL? Well, it looks almost like a carbon copy of CART before he split. At least he's not racing on road courses, although he did try to pounce on CCRS's misfortunes last season and make Long Beach an IRL race. He got Roger Penske to switch pretty early in the game, and then Chip Ganassi. They took all their more popular drivers with them, of course. Dario Franchitti, Gil de Ferran, those underutilized American stars that George was trying to help. The only thing he didn't get was the fans, the buying public. Even the crowds at Indy aren't what they used to be, and we all know that CCRS was forced at one point to buy time on cable to air races. The three Canadian dates have been doing as well as ever, if not better, but that's three races out of 18 or however many there are. Neither side is winning this war, and now that they finally realize it, they've both decided to stop figthing. Turbo-charged cars, aero packages, chassis size, engine size, who cares? I wanna see Paul Tracy at Indy again. I wanna watch Marco Andretti end the curse and win the one that got away, for Mike and Mario. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 IRL is racing on street courses. St. Petersburg is a street course. Also when the two merge they'd have 2 woman drivers in Danica and the better driver Katherine Legge. Yeah if you look at it from a Canada perspective: Toronto Edmonton Montreal they should bring back Vancouver Long Beach Indy Road America California Mexico City Infineon Watkins Glen And why nobody has gone to Sebring is beyond me and they need to go back to Laguna Seca. Oh look all the tracks mention except indy where road courses, how funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetsniper Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 I remember back in 2004, they were close to bringing a race to Calgary and Edmonton. Never heard about that again though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huzer Posted June 28, 2006 Share Posted June 28, 2006 I don't think a reunification of the 2 open wheel series is going to do much to Nascar. Once again, sports is about marketing, and Nascar has done a superb job at that. I watch pretty much anything automotive. Nascar isn't going to lose fans to open wheel...more people will become spectators of both forms of racing. And to be fair, I don't consider the "stars of today" open wheel vets....midgets aren't exactly the in-series to Champ/IRL. Most of those guys are not veterans, or proficient, in IRL or Champ cars. I said most, not all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobRock Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 Robby Gordon raced in the CART series for years, and Tony Stewart came up through CART's development series in Formula Atlantic. Casey Mears only raced in CART for less than a year, I think. The rest of those guys mentioned, Kahne and Jimmie Johnson and the others, went straight to NASCAR, either the Winston/Nextel Cup or the Busch Series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mils Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 Stewart started at least one Indy 500. There could be a real killer schedule for open wheel racing if the two merged. The quality of racing would also go up. Here's hoping a deal gets done sooner than later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobRock Posted July 2, 2006 Share Posted July 2, 2006 (edited) If there was a merger, you'd definitely see a number of races cut, and most of them would probably be the newer ones, most of which are currently in the Champ Car series, i.e. Denver, Houston, Korea. I really doubt if they'd see any of the Canadian races cut because the bottom line is they do very well at the gate at all three, even the new race in Edmonton. And didn't Vancouver lose its date because they developed the land where the course was run and they couldn't design an acceptable alternate course to keep it? Edited July 2, 2006 by RobRock Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre the Great Posted July 2, 2006 Author Share Posted July 2, 2006 Yeah, when Vancouver got the Olympics they started to build the olympic village on the spot where the race was in false creek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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