American Open Wheel Civil War OVER! (IRL and Champ Car merge)

Jonny Arson

Friday, February 22, 2008

George, series owners sign unification agreement
By Dave Lewandowski
indycar.com

Indy Racing League founder and CEO Tony George and owners of the Champ Car World Series have completed an agreement in principle that will unify major American open-wheel racing for 2008.

Gerald Forsythe, co-owner of Champ Car, signed an agreement in principle Feb. 22 in Chicago, joining his partner, Kevin Kalkhoven. George signed the agreement Feb. 21.

Details of a news conference regarding unification and ancillary questions will be forthcoming. When scheduled, the news conference will be shown live on indycar.com.

"I'm happy for open-wheel racing, its fans, sponsors and teams," George said.

Discuss it in Talkback

The Indy Racing League, sanctioning body of the IndyCar Series and Indy Pro Series, is poised to absorb teams and potentially '08 race events. George had offered free Honda engine lease programs and free Dallara chassis to teams, plus the incentive of the TEAM (Team Enhancement and Allocation Matrix) program, which pays a minimum $1.2 million to full-season teams.

Indy Racing League officials and IndyCar Series teams have been assisting prospective teams get ramped up for competing under the IndyCar Series banner on a challenging mix of ovals and road/street courses.

"Now the work begins," said Terry Angstadt, president of the Indy Racing League's coommercial division, in a meeting with league personnel shortly after the announcement.

No transition teams are expected to participate in the IndyCar Series' first Open Test of the year at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Feb. 27-28. The test (4-10 p.m. ET both days) is open to the public free of charge, with viewing from the fourth level of the main grandstand. Timing and Scoring will be available on indycar.com. Some teams from the former CCWS might be ready to participate in an Open Test on the Sebring International Raceway road course March 3-6.
IndyCar Series Merchandise

1/18 Scale Helio Castroneves Car By Greenlight.

"It's great that we've all got together for the future," said Will Power, who is expected to compete for Team Australia in its first year in the IndyCar Series. "This will give the sport a big boost and allow it to grow in many areas. Having one series will put all the best open-wheel drivers in the United States in one series and it's going to be a really tough and exciting field."

There have been two open-wheel racing series in North America since 1996, when the Indy Racing League conducted its first event at Walt Disney World Speedway. On March 11, 1994, George announced plans for an open-wheel racing series -- with the Indianapolis 500 as its cornerstone -- as an alternative to the sanctioning Championship Auto Racing Teams. That series went bankrupt in 2003 and emerged as the Champ Car World Series in 2004.

"This is a huge day for the IndyCar Series and for our sport as a whole, for sure," said Andretti Green Racing co-owner Michael Andretti, a former CART season champion. "Over the years, whether I was in the role of driver, team owner or promoter, I have always wanted a unified sport. That has been my only goal throughout this entire process and I applaud everyone who played a role in making this happen. So many people have worked tirelessly, both publicly and behind the scenes, to get this done. Everyone can now focus on taking the IndyCar Series to new heights for the good of our sport and everyone involved in it."

Andretti's sentiments were shared by competitors, promoters and suppliers to the IndyCar Series.

Said four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt, whose team, A.J. Foyt Racing, has competed in the IndyCar Series since its inception: "I'm glad that they were able to get it done. It'll eliminate the confusion for the race fans and the sponsors because there'll be just one type of car and one type of motor and everyone will be running together. May the best team win."

Said Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage, whose facility hosts the Bombardier Learjet 550k under the lights June 7: "The fans have won and we have to give Tony George and the Indy Racing League credit for making a generous offer to resolve this issue."

Said Sarah Fisher: "As a driver, I am extremely excited about the unification of open-wheel racing from an opportunity standpoint. This gives us the opportunity to compete against the very best in open-wheel racing. It will combine two great fanbases and grow a different fanbase that has not previously watched us on either side. In addition, there will be less confusion for casual fans and potential sponsors in the future. We have a clear vision with a clear goal and objective as a series moving forward."

Honda, which began CART competition in 1994, moved to the IndyCar Series in 2003. Its Honda Indy V-8 engines, fueled by 100 fuel-grade ethanol, will power all the cars this season.

"We are elated that the sanctioning bodies have elected to combine into a single, cohesive and powerful IndyCar Series," said Erik Berkman, president of Honda Performance Development, the wholly-owned motorsports subsidiary of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "We welcome the opportunity to provide our Honda Indy V-8 racing engines to all participants in what we believe will instantly be a larger, stronger and even much more competitive field; and we eagerly look forward to what surely will be a very exciting 2008 racing season. Not only is this unification good for all the teams and sanctioning bodies; most importantly, it is great for fans of open-wheel racing, whose loyalties have been divided by two competing racing series."

http://www.indycar.com/news/story.php?story_id=10557

magnificent news, should have happened back in 2004 when CART when bust but better late than ever.

too much damage has already been done to take indycar racing back to the heights of the 80s and 90s but this is a step in the right direction and hopefully people will actually work together or there will be nothing left.

my only gripe is that despite champcar teams drivers moving over to the 'new' series it looks too much of a continuation of IRL, takeover instead of merger to be a better word. only 3/4 champ car tracks will be in the new series and they will still be running the Dallara-Honda IRL cars for the foreseeable future so that means the Panaz DP-01-Cosworth is gone, no more turbocharged engines

the only major sticking point for the merger is the Long Beach and Motegi races are scheduled for the same weekend. both races cannot be moved under any circumstances and there is talk of running both races as planed as point scoring events with the champ teams running Long Beach in the Panoz for one last time and the Indycar teams running Motegi, bit of a mad idea but a its better idea than no merger

aidan_dunne

Yep, I've been following this story closely the past couple of weeks when the rumours first started flying around that a deal was about to be struck. As you say, it's more of an IndyCar/Tony George takeover than a proper merger but, with the way Champ Car has gone the past couple of years (and the last few months in particular), Gerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkoven didn't really have much of a choice left but to accept the deal George laid on the table.

Such a shame, as you say, that it's going to be all Dallaras now because the Indycars are some of the ugliest racing cars ever created. The DP01 isn't the prettiest racing car ever built either, it has to be said, but it's a darn sight better looking than the Indy chassis. Such a shame they can't go back to sexy looking IndyCars like the Lolas, Reynards, Penskes and Swifts of the 90's. The current crop of Indy racers look horrible and even worse so on street and road courses where they look like elephants on rollerskates lumbering around or something!

I know everybody is going to be banging on about how Tony George has finally "won" the war and how he shouldn't have caused it to begin with, blah, blah, blah. However, I read a great article somewhere there last week which suggests that Tony George wasn't completely to blame for the split and that it was, in fact, NASCAR's Bill France who played a much bigger part in the whole thing. Seems that when they were negotiating NASCAR coming to race at Indy in the early 90's, France took George to one side and kind of metaphorically put his arm around his shoulder and said something along the lines of, "You know what, Tony? Those team owners who run CART haven't a goddamn clue what they're doing. You can't run a race series with a committee like that, you need one guy at the helm calling the shots. Now, what you need to do is take control of the situation and tell those team owners that you're calling the shots from now on and, if they don't like it, they can go to hell and you'll set up your own series." France knew all along, though, that any split in open-wheel racing would tear the whole thing apart and, when that happened, he was ready to jump in and force IndyCar/CART off the top of the tree and make NASCAR the number 1 racing series in the States. So it seems that, whilst Tony George might have been just considering the split at the time, it was Bill France who really jumped in and talked him into doing it, knowing he could then take full advantage of the situation. And, sure enough, look at the situation we have today.

You've got to admit, it was a pretty clever thing to do, even if it was evil and conniving! Then again, the likes of France or Bernie Ecclestone don't get to where they are by being nice guys, do they? :D

Tragedy

I'm sad its mostly a continuation of IRL though. Always liked the champ cars cars(?) more and city courses were a lot more fun to watch

djimi

Its a shame that it is mostly IRL races with just a couple of the Champ Car tracks. I think that if they had made it half and half between speedways and road courses it would be a lot better. I really love the speedways, but some of the road courses are magic as well. Should be an interesting season tho.

kaizersoze

Forsythe shutting down.

Forsythe, who in November of last year announced the Dan Pettit - formerly the ‘P’ of PKV Racing - as new co-owner of his team, announced today that his team will not be taking part in the IndyCar series and is to close his team with immediate effect.

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/080228195452.shtml