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

The Week In Racing

Both NASCAR and the WRC were active this weekend, so for the most part I'm still waiting for the seasons to begin. The countdown to the Formula 1 season continues; I can't wait for the lights to go out at the Australian GP. With all the changes (see last week's blog post on racing), this season could possibly be one of the most interesting in recent history.

NASCAR
There was some good racing at Daytona this Speedweeks. Congratulations to Kevin Harvick on his Busch and Nextel Cup wins and to Jack Sprague on his Craftsman Truck Series win. The finishes of the Nextel Cup race and the Truck race were terrific, although the Cup race was a bit on the boring side through the middle.

Several drivers were very impressive throughout Speedweeks. First, David Gilliland performed wonderfully through the week; not only did he win the pole for the Daytona 500 but he raced skillfully, showing very well for a rookie. Of the veterans, Tony Stewart, the Busch Brothers (although I was less than impressed with some of Kyle's driving in the 500), Kevin Harvick, and Jeff Burton were on top of their game. Conversely, with the exception of the Duel 150 win for Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson and Jeff Gordon have to be wondering what happened (The 25 team seems to have taken up where it left off).

Despite the humiliation of the fuel controversy, the 55 team put on one heck of a performance. They came back from the brink of disaster by putting a car together just in time and then racing it into the Daytona 500. What they accomplished after having two top team members thrown out of the track and under incredible pressure was perhaps the most impressive performance of the week.

WRC
I haven't been able to catch up on the action in the Rally Norway yet, but I have seen that Mikko Hirvonen won and that Ford came in First, Second, and Third. Quite impressive.
Gronholm leads the points and one has to wonder what has happened to Loeb.

Champ Car/IRL
Unite.
Please.


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

The Week in Racing

WRC
Once again, the WRC isn't shown in the United States. Luckily I have found that the WRC puts out podcasts of the races, thus allowing me to follow it. They also advertise an online radio station where you can listen to the action live, but I haven't had the chance to try it yet (but I will!). Anyway, it was wonderful for the monotony of Sebastien Loeb victories to be broken; congratulations to Marcus Gronholm on his victory in Sweden.

NASCAR
Yates Racing took the front row for the Daytona 500 and some are heralding the resurrection of the team. In the words of Lee Corso (where's my pencil?), "Not So Fast." Yates cars have always had a lot of horsepower, so it is not surprising to see them run well in single car, two lap qualifying. Thursday will better show whether or not they are improving when we see how they do on full runs in a large pack of cars. All of that aside, congratulations to David Gilliland for winning the pole, it is still a great accomplishment for a rookie. Congratulations also go to Juan Pablo Montoya on his 4th place in qualifying. He did quite well in the ARCA race at Talladega last year so I'm looking forward to watching him on Thursday and Sunday.

Toyota remains a question mark. They did manage to get two cars in the top 20, which is not bad for a first run. The question remains of how much they have concentrated on the super speedway program this year; perhaps they concentrated more on the rest of the season due to the fact that there are only 4 super speedway races. I'm not going to judge Toyota's performance until after both California and Las Vegas. Personally, I think Michael Waltrip was in a good position to do a lot of testing and development last year, but didn't do it. Instead of running an unsupported Dodge, he should have sat out a year and done nothing but test Toyotas. Perhaps it would have led to better performance not only for his teams, but the other Toyotas as well. Scott Pruett's similar move when Firestone returned to open wheel racing comes to mind as an example.


Formula 1
Only one more month until the F1 season begins. I can't wait for this season to start. With Schumacher retired, Alonso moved to McLaren, Raikkonen moved to Ferrari, and Bridgestone as the common tire, F1's pot has been mightily stirred. This year's championship could well be a wide open affair.


Champ Car/IRL
Unite.
Please.


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net