In a year where Penske is running two teams with no Sponsors, the long time owner of the IRL doesn’t have a team or job anymore, and Newman-Haas has been relegated to a prep shop for ride buyers we welcome any signs of hope or good news.

Today we got some. Young Rahal will be driving for Rahal Letterman Racing at Indy this May.  I’m sure working for your dad will have the some challenges as it would for anybody but they’re a stellar team and having the two team up for the month of May is sure it make it more interesting to watch.

In honor of this announcement and as I’m sure his tweets will get more interesting as this month unfolds we are now make Graham following Grahams Tweets on our Twitter widget on all pages of ARF.  Enjoy!

The full press release from Rahal’s site can be found here.

Tony George doesn’t run the IRL anymore, he’s not on the Board of the Hulman-George Companies, and he’s shuddered Vision Racing. Newman-Haas-Lanigan appears to be a ride buying prep shop for 2010 which leaves Graham Rahal in the dirt (A recent Tweet from Graham mentioned that he was still working out regularly in case an opportunity were to arise). Penske and Ganassi are still around with their powerhouse drivers. Penske is actually expanding to a three car effort with Will Power which is excellent news. Danica is staying with AGR as is ever popular Tony Kanaan. So there is some good with the bad.

Overall though I’m having a hard time not just staring straight at the bad. Tony G has been ousted or removed himself from all contacts to the series and The Speedway. This appears to be directly related to his family getting tired of how much money he’s spent propping up the IRL since 1996. So now if he’s gone and the family members left in charge aren’t interested in pumping money into the series any longer what is going to happen? I’m going out on a limb here and saying, Nothing Good!

No one has made any specific statements of course and no public goals have been set for the series but it seems that unification in itself didn’t heal the wounds of open wheel racing in America. Many of us were naive enough to think that two series with more than 10 or so teams would merge to result in a series with 20 teams and 30+ cars for each event. That didn’t happen.

We also thought that merging the two groups together would allow for sponsors to finally see a single series that was more easily recognizable by the American public. That doesn’t really appear to have happened either.

What about new and interested folks wanting to start IndyCar teams? Not so much. Although some new teams pop up hear and there they usually fade into the woodwork pretty quickly.

I love Indy Car and will continue to watch. I’ll go to races and recommend others do as well, but you gotta be concerned at the state of affairs as we await the start of the 2010 Indy Car season.

It appears that the A1GP series has pulled out of their season opener at Surfer’s Paradise this weekend.  A Racer.com article attributes the pull out to “that series ongoing financial problems”.  This is very bad for A1GP but could prove to be excellent for the Australian V8 SuperCars as they are now the headliners.

First CART, then Champ Car, then Indy Car, and now A1GP. V8 Supercars will headline the show at Surfer's this weekend. Photo Credit: kevgibbo

I’ve always liked the Tin Tops from down under.  I really think its what NASCAR should hope to be someday.  Well at least in so much as the cars should resemble actual production based cars and use technology more modern than that of the Cub Cadet in your garage.  I know that ovals are NASCAR’s thing and I’m cool with that to some extent, but to have real cars that represent actual makes and models with production based power plants would be awesome.  But enough about that for now.

Photo Credit: Jon Ovington

The leadership of the V8 Supercar Series and a number of Australians have said for some time that the true draw of the weekend on the Gold Coast were the V8s and not the open wheelers.  It make perfect sense to me.  It is the local series, it is stocked with Australian drivers.  It has been the mainstay at the event while numerous open wheel series came and went. 

Racer.com also quotes John Griffin, IndyCar VP of Public Relations as stating that IndyCar is still interested in Surfer’s but would need to agree with the promoters on schedule (IRL wants to end their championship on home soil) and a reasonable sanctioning fee.  Griffin states in reference to the sanctioning fee that, “…it would take around $20 million for an IndyCar return to be viable, whereas North American-based races can be run for between $3m-$5m.”. 

Don’t get me wrong I love IndyCar and have enjoyed the open wheel races at Surfer’s in the past.  But in my opinion this tight circuit which always seems to have  surprise winner just isn’t cutout for Indy Cars.  I wish the V8s the best of luck this weekend and am throwing out the prediction that the Surfer’s SuperGP will have a long and successful future with Tin Tops getting top billing from this day forward!

IndyCar.com is reporting that Dan Anderson has announced an agreement between his company Anderson Promotions, LLC and the Indy Racing League that will not only bring back the famed open wheel feeder series but will have it sanctioned by the IRL. 

Anderson is quoted as stating that he invisions a 12 event schedule in 2010 with some double header weekends, an emphasis on road and street courses, but also mentions the possibility of 2 ovals being on the schedule is out there.

I think this is excellent news.  The open wheel feeder system has been a bit lacking as of late.  The USF2000 Championship should fit nicely in that niche that falls just below Atlantics and Indy Lights.  Although Star Mazda exists there now I believe a 2nd tier feeder series with a solid affiliation to IndyCar is critical to grooming talent for the future of the series.  Not to mention that it could foster the creation of development programs at even early stages for young drivers. 

If the majority of the 10 races coincide with IndyCar weekends not only would it promote IndyCar teams participation in the feeder series it would make for more track events during those weekends.

You can check out the full story here:  http://www.indycar.com/news/?story_id=15341

I think Indy Car could learn something from the success of the Daytona Prototype class. Photo Credit: Wartermarked Photography

On the About Us page of the Grand Am website they refer to the Daytona Prototypes (DPs) as an “extremely raceable and relatively affordable format”.  DPs cost between $400,000 and $500,000 and are available from five separate constructors and have approved power plants from seven different manufacturers (both import and domestic).  Each of these seven engines can fit into any of the 5 approved chassis, so that gives you the possibility of 35 different chassis / engine combinations just within the current rules.  From an engine perspective Grand Am also states that, “manufacturers are welcome to submit any production-based engine for approval in the series, but turbos and superchargers are not permitted”.

 With this Grand Am has created an environment where the rulebook is very structured and strict on how cars can be designed and then parity is built into the rulebook by managing the homologation of engines into the series.  Seems reasonable enough, sound familiar at all?

Now let’s turn our attention to Indy Car, that bastion of engineering ingenuity where anybody with the desire, money, and brains to do it can build a car to the rulebook and may a go at the Indy 500.  Err, well, wait a minute.  The series that was once the epitome of motorsports creativity, the race that in 1967 saw Parnelli Jones race a gas turbine powered car, now is made up of a single chassis and a spec engine.  I won’t mention tires because after the debacle at the US Grand Prix in 2004 I don’t so much mind having a single tire manufacturer (Tony Stewart may disagree with me on this, but I’d argue it with him over some beer and what would probably be a ton of chicken wings and I’d win).

The IRL seems to believe that a single manufacturer for both cars and engines will bring down the costs for the teams. 

Seems like a little variety could do Indy Car some good. Don't you think? Photo Credit: cmakin

 Yet, I don’t see the Grand Am teams complaining about costs.  I also don’t see the Grand Am fans complaining about snooze-fest fuel mileage races or 200 MPH parades.  I know some recent rule changes have made an impact on those problems from earlier this season but seriously why can’t the Grand Am DP model be transferred over to Indy Car?

Now understood that Grand Am is in cahoots with NASCAR and many of the engines used are very similar to NASCAR engines.  This doesn’t really account for Porsche, BMW, Infiniti, Honda, and Lexus though, does it?  The IRL had their manufacturers’ summits recently and although they did get more interest than I expected it wasn’t nearly enough.  Why can’t they draw Chevrolet, Porsche, Ford, BMW, Lexus, Infiniti, or Honda like Grand Am did?  Well what’s in it for them?  Perhaps they should worry less about the manufacturers and more about the engine builders.

Roush-Yates is building Ford engines for Grand Am. Why, you say?  Because someone is paying them to build them!  Teams buy engines from engine builders or they build there own engines.  They don’t have to lease them from the manufacturers.  I’m not sure if the IRL has noticed but the vast majority of their teams already have machine shops in their facilities.

So, lets bring this back around to something useful and not just me ranting on and on about this.  Here is what I believe Indy Car needs to do to bring more attention to their fine version of motorsport:

• Create a proposed set of specifications for the next generation of Indy Car chassis.
• Open the submission process for designs to be approved by the IRL.  Look to specific manufacturers if necessary such as Lola, Dallara, Panoz, Riley, Swift, etc.
• Look for production based engine packages that could be built with the necessary horsepower, durability and size and solicit current manufacturers / engine builders to participate in the homologation process.
• If possible, look to include both import and domestic engine manufacturers 

Will this be easy?  NO.

Will it put more burden on the league to update and enforce the rule book?  YES.

Will it bring better competition?  YES.

Will it bring more attention through a more diverse set of manufacturers and constructors?  YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT IT WILL!!!

Now that’s just my 2 cents but Grand Am just tested at Indy a couple weeks ago and you can bet you’re ass if they run a 12 hours there that I will be the loudest shirtless guy standing on an ugly bus right in the middle of that hot mess! 

Keep it up Grand Am and get on the stick Indy Car!

My relatively random thoughts on this past race weekend 9/18 – 9/20/2009:

The Good

• Mark Martin won another race.  That is always cool.
• Juan Pablo Montoya won the pole and  finished 3rd in the race.

It was a great weekend for JPM and his team.  A win would have been great but you can’t complain about being on the pole, leading some laps, nailing a 3rd, and moving up 7 positions in the points.  JPM is my pick to win the Chase this year. 

• Graham Rahal scored a podium finish @ Motegi and Castroneves was the only Penske car in the top 10.  Good work young Rahal and NHL!  Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m a big Roger Penske fan and his team is in no doubt superior to the remainder of the field save Ganassi, but I’m very bored with his team doing so well.

• The Grand Am race in Utah was exciting and the points race between Gainsco, Suntrust, and Ganassi continues with only 10 points separating all 3 teams.

• Briatore and Symonds leave Renault F1.  In the midst of the “Crashgate” scandal Renault F1’s Managing Director (Briatore) and Director of Engineering (Symonds).  I guess that should open up Briatore’s calendar for scoping super models.  Both have since been banned from FIA sanctioned events Symonds for 5 years and Briatore indefinitely.  Wild to think that people operating at the highest level of motorsport would not think asking a driver to crash deliberately would get out after he was released from his contract.  Seems as likely as Peter Windsor getting brushed off by a driver on the pre-race grid.

Bad News

• JPM got a solid 3rd but didnt’ win @ New Hampshire.  It was his Birthday this weekend so a solid win for the man would have been nice.  I suppose the pole was pretty good though.
• Scott Dixon won @ Motegi and Dario Franchitti finished 2nd.  Now don’t get me wrong, these are two of my favorite IndyCar drivers.  But come on, aren’t we all getting a little tired of the same guys up on the podium.  As I said above about Penske I want to see these guys do well but the dominance currently on display is about as interesting as listening to Robin Miller talk about Spring Cars.

The Ugly

• I didn’t get to watch the IndyCar race @ Motegi because I DirecTV dropped VS.  I have a dog in this fight but I’m not getting involved.  I wouldn’t dare to say that they just need to figure it out and maybe even the IRL should drop by the VS office and put in a good word for DirecTV.  Not that it would probably help but we all know in the battle of DirecTV vs. VS. the loser is IndyCar.  No question.

Grand Am has posted a video of some drivers thoughts on the test at Indy. It’s worth checking out.

Come on 12 Hours @ the Brickyard!