A frustrated open wheel fan speaks out
Many of us who worked for the original "Indy Car," CART, and Champ Car have been extremely quiet and underground regarding the hostile takeover by the IRL. We were asked to remain quiet by those with a higher pay grade and many choosing not to be openly critical in hopes of landing a job with the IRL.
Many hardworking and dedicated people have lost their jobs in motorsports, and the merger has really been vetted out as a true hostile takeover. A merger would take the best of both and blend to form a new and improved product or organization.
That has not happened. The Champ Car teams are forced to use the flying lawn darts/"crap wagons", race at all of the IRL venues with a few exceptions, all of the IRL staff and infrastructure remains intact, and the IRL retains total control for tech and rule making.
I know we will hear the excuse that this is just a transition period and there is a new car in the works that will level the playing field and all the teams will have the same learning curve.
What is wrong with the new Champ Car? After all of the research and development it is trashed. With a few modifications for ovals, it may have been a better car than the future IRL crapwagon. We will never know.
Many will count this as "sour grapes" and I will agree that it is what it is!!!
Remember who caused the great divide in open wheel racing and sought the destruction of CART with the admitted help of The NASCAR Cartel, none other that the newly proclaimed messiah, Tony George.
Where is Robin Miller, Gordon Kirby, Mark Cipolloni, and others who told it like it was for years and why open wheel was headed for a doomsday meltdown?
We need your voices more than ever and this is an absolute failure for open wheel. Dan Gurney must have had a stroke!!
CART was right and did have the right business model and plan. They just forgot one thing, INDY. It has always been about INDY and will continue to be about INDY.
The IRL was failing and on the verge of collapse. Bang! Blinding flash of the obvious. Let's copy CART/Champ Car. Foreign drivers are cool, foreign engine makers are the hot ticket, road courses and streets are where we need to be, and Bam!
CART is re-born as the new Indy Car series.
It is a sad and tragic journey filled with lying, cheating, deceit, treachery, and dishonor. The CART owners are culpable for allowing the IRL to ever get off the ground by selling them old cars and engines. CART should have sued the Speedway to allow their teams to race at The 500, and they should have sued to keep the INDY CAR name and logo. It is on all of my old CART uniforms. For such a bunch of brilliant people, they made so many blunders.
CART sold out on so many levels.
Champ Car tried and every step forward was met by 10 steps back. I don't believe any sport has ever been attacked and sanctioned by so many opposing groups.
Is it not amazing that sponsors are coming out of the woodwork now that Champ Car is gone. They were so close so many times and always seemed to fail at the last second.
I give you the Phoenix Grand Prix. We were in Holland when we were notified that this race was canceled. What the hell??
How does a race get canceled right before the event was set to go due to lack of corporate sponsors?
Phoenix is a huge sports town. Another engineered black eye for Champ Car and a corporate embarrassment.
I really hope the true fans of motorsports "not the Danica fans" remember who destroyed this amazing sport and will take their support, dollars, loyalty, and allegiance elsewhere.
This CART reincarnation does not deserve your support regardless of how many letters Old Men who are to blame write extolling the virtues of the new Indy Car series.
With baseball season starting, the NBA finals approaching, and the Stanley Cup gearing up, hopefully Indy Car will continue to remain invisible.
Indy is now a shell of its former past and not even Gene Simmons and his tongue could help it.
One wish is that those who helped destroy the best and purest form of autoracing will be dead and gone never to see open wheel regain its glory.
And many of those who have the blood on their hands are long in the tooth and gray in the head and meet the criteria above.
CART was the best and purest autoracing with some of the best race drivers ever to strap on a helmet.
They truly had the "Cars and the Stars." Feel the Speed. The King is Dead, Long Live The King…….
Name withheld "for so many reasons."