The Time is Here For Unification in American Open Wheel Racing

Earlier this week I downloaded Real Live Roadrunning by Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris. Listening to one of my favorite Knopfler songs, "Speedway at Nazareth" (which essentially tells the story of a CART season from a racer's perspective), I longed for the heyday of CART. It was time when the series was a great one. It was a series in which a racer had to be proficient at short and long ovals, street courses, and road courses. Neither Champ Car or the IRL currently or have come close to approaching that level. Over the last few years, Champ Car has been more or less a Sebastien Bourdais benefit and the IRL last year was a competition between Penske and Ganassi. Instead of one great series we now have two lackluster and substandard series, each of which is more less a spec racer series with only one choice of chassis in Champ Car and essentially only one choice of chassis in the IRL. Each series also has only one engine choice.

Over the last few weeks, I've read reports about how few entries there currently are for the 2007 Champ Car series. Apparently they are nowhere close to having a full field with only a month to go before the season opener. This week there have been reports on SPEED TV and on F1 Weekly that Panoz has been told to cease production on the new Champ Car after only 25 chassis have been produced. It doesn't take a math whiz to figure out that given most teams are 2 car teams, they aren't going to have a full field. If you take into account teams ordering spares, the picture is even worse.

Over the offseason, Champ Car also dumped the Ford pace car program in favor of Paul Stoddart's 2-seat F1 car program. As a result, the Champ Car series lost it's primary backer and sponsor, Ford Motor Company. I may not be a business major, but I have enough common sense to know not to dump my primary sponsor. The financial decision makers of Champ Car must be questioned given that decision. Why should Champ Car be promoting F1 cars anyway?
Were they bribing Stoddart and Minardi into Champ Car? If so, is it worth losing a primary series sponsor to gain one team?

It currently seems that the IRL has both the better car count and the better financial standing of the two series. As much as it pains me to say so, because I am not a Tony George fan, it is time for for Champ Car to sell out to the IRL. Perhaps it is time for open wheel to try the NASACR style of leadership; love or hate NASCAR, the France family command of NASCAR has succeeded on the business level. Perhaps having one person or entity in charge rather than a group of team owners can work, even if it is Tony George. For the sake of open wheel racing in the United States, it is time. Spare us the embarrassment of failure by one of the series, which at the current time appears to be Champ Car. Spare us the watered down competition of each series by pitting Newman-Haas against Penske and Ganassi. Perhaps teams such as Andretti Green and Forsyth can become resurgent and contend as well.

My hope for such a series would be a return to having a choice between two competitive chassis and at least two competitive engine choices. Unfortunately, unless there is only one series on a solid footing, I don't see manufacturers making the business decision to fulfil that hope.

It is time to put pride, ego, and personal animosity to the side and unite the series even if it is not an even basis. If it means selling Champ Car out to the IRL, do it. Let's hope the leadership of Champ Car and the IRL come to their senses soon and do the right thing. I'm tired of watered down racing.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net