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From SpeedTV.com
UPDATE: Open-Wheel Unification Deal

Written by: Robin Miller 02/22/2008 - 04:24 PM
Indianapolis, Ind.


It's a go - officials of IndyCar and Champ Car have agreed on a deal in principle to unify.
Tony George, Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe officially agreed Friday to bury the hatchet instead of each other.

The long-awaited unification of open-wheel racing got the signatures of the three principals and the stamp of approval from drivers, mechanics and owners on both sides of this costly 12-year war. A press conference will be held at Homestead, Fla. during next week?s IRL open test, probably on Wednesday.

Champ Car ceased operation at mid-afternoon and a press release was issued as George was flying back from Chicago where he visited Forsythe, who has owned Champ Car with Kalkhoven since 2004.

Kalkhoven had reportedly signed off early Friday morning on the agreement to put open-wheel under the Indy Racing League umbrella.

?I?m happy for open-wheel racing, its fans, sponsors and teams,? said George late Friday afternoon. ?Everyone has wanted this for a long time and they deserve it. I had about 100 emails when I landed, so obviously a lot of people are excited.

?There?s no reason for anybody to gloat or to feel down because, in the end, we?ve all come together.?

Tony Kanaan, who competed in CART from 1998-2001 before moving to the IRL with Andretti Green Racing, has long been an advocate of one series.

?It?s great, I?m very excited to race against some old friends and get everything back together,? said the 2004 IRL champion. ?To get some of their good teams and venues is all good.

?Now the people who claim they only watch IRL or Champ Car have no more excuses not to watch us because we?re are one. It?s not gonna fix all the problems but at least it?s back together.?

After the Champ Car teams were told earlier in the week to stop working on their Panoz cars because they would be receiving Dallara chassis to get ready for 2008, the negotiations seemed to bog down when, in fact, it was more a fact of attorneys on both sides trying to sort out the myriad of details.

?It?s been tough, but now the real work starts,? said George, who is expected to add Long Beach, Edmonton and Australia to the ?08 schedule, although Long Beach will likely have only the former Champ Car teams competing since Motegi, Japan is also being run.

It?s believed Newman/Haas/Lanigan (Graham Rahal and Justin Wilson), PKV Racing (Oriol Servia). Walker Racing (Will Power) and Conquest Racing (Franck Berera) are definites to join the IRL, with PKV and Conquest expected to field two cars.

Minardi Team USA, Forsythe, RocketSports, Dale Coyne and Pacific Coast Motorsports remain question marks.

None of the Champ Car teams will be ready for the oval-track test next Wednesday-Thursday and will have to scramble to make Sebring on March 3-6. But the IRL will give the Champ Car teams their own oval track testing next month prior to the March 29th opener.

Because Long Beach is operated by Kalkhoven and Forsythe, a skeleton crew of a half-dozen Champ Car employees will be retained through the annual street race fest. The remaining CC staff received four weeks severance pay plus an additional week for every year of service since 2004.

JetBlack5OC

I think this deal is going to end up pissing me off.

IRL :thumbsdown:

Rudy

I understand what you mean but I think it'll better than having two open-wheel series in the US. As much as I hate to say it, Tony won. We just have to get past that and hope that the common series can rebuild itself to look like something similar to CART in it's heyday...

JetBlack5OC

If it ends up being like Cart, that would be great. Cart was the perfect blend of street/road/oval races, but I have my doubts. When you see and hear Tony speak, he doesn't exactly look like the brightest guy.

There is one thing I will enjoy, watching Paul Tracy use his "chrome horn" on those IRL boys.

Rudy

PT should be fun to watch but I wonder how many more years he has left in him. I imagine he could retire to NASCAR like some of the others once the younger drivers in the IRL show him how hard it is to remain competitive at his age...

Rudy

Here's Derrick Walker's take on things:

February 22, 2008
Walker Racing Embraces Open Wheel Unification
http://www.walkerracing.com/media/display....414&lang=en

February 23, 2008
UPDATE FOR THE FANS: Back to the Future
http://www.walkerracing.com/media/display....415&lang=en

JetBlack5OC

The funny part is PT use to rip on IRL, he called their cars "crap wagons".

He is getting up there in age for an open-wheel driver. Put him in the right car, he could still win. I also can see him going to nascar in the future. If the nascar boys thought Montoya was aggressive, wait until they race with "The Thrill from West Hill".

JetBlack5OC

Thanks for the links.

Another team that will be interesting to watch switch over will be Newman-Haas, they are use to winning. I don't think many of the ex-Champ Car teams will be competitive the first year.

Rudy

You are correct but don't forget that N/H/L has been winning the past few years because they probably had one of the biggest budgets of all the Champ Car teams (in addition to having Bourdais.) Put them in the IRL and they aren't the richest anymore. It'll be interesting to see what (if anything) Paul Newman has to say about all this since he was very vocal in his displeasure of Tony George over the years.)

Clearly, there will be a learning curve for the newcomers, not just for the drivers but also for the engineers and crew.