Uncertainty surrounds Champ Car yet again

UPDATE #2 Another reader writes, With all due respect to John Costello, if you want AN open wheel series, supporting TG through buying a Brickyard 400 ticket is a step in the wrong direction. What has become of the IRL has proven the reasons for splitting the sport were wrong. TG's series is nothing more than a crappy, lowbrow version of CART, and like a Chinese toy, is dangerously flawed. A 'stupid' car (thanks Mario) is put on tracks never designed for AOW cars, let alone cars that exceed 200 mph. Where is NOSHA on the IRL car, on the IRL, period?

I say this in all seriousness as it is inevitable one of those flying IRL cars lands in the grandstands, kills a bunch of fans, and ends AOW outright. What is going on in Champ Cars pales in comparison to the irresponsible management of the IRL that puts not just AOW but all of motorsports in serious jeopardy. And now you are going to put money in the pocket of AOW's version of Darth Vadar? Perhaps if I read your name as the man who was arrested for spitting in TG's face I might understand. But to give money to AOW's biggest terrorist, wow, that really plays into the forces that turned AOW into the very thing that you are now turning your back on. Think about it at least. Andy Fogiel, Lansing, MI

01/11/08 A reader writes, I've been since my youth (age 17) to Riverside (hot, ugh), Laguna Seca (5 times in '80s), Long Beach ('84 to present) and Denver once. I've even got in a yelling match with a media guy from LB who hates Champ Car and is now working for a national paper (USA Today I think). I'm done. I'll do LB on Saturday (the best day) … but my 12 year old son and I are going to the Brickyard 400.

Hopefully in my lifetime (age 45) we will again have AN open wheel series… that is about racing and not the midget girl from Phoenix. How sad is it that in my life we have gone from Mario (World Champ, 78 LBGP F1 winner and multiple LB champ car winner) to the Miss Prissy Mouse who has NEVER won a race above go-carts.

Ugh. When is Daytona? John Costello, Long Beach, CA

01/11/08 Beyond a doubt, Champ Car is its own worst enemy. As pointed out in this ESPN.com article, we are in another off-season period and Champ Car is yet again fraught with uncertainty over who will drive in the series in 2008. With teams inability to land sponsorship themselves, the series once again is waiting for ride buyer checks to arrive before announcing their driver lineups. The drivers are this sports athletes, and the athletes inevitably are around which every successful sport is based. Without a stable staple of drivers there is no basis for the series. They tried the' festival of speed' concept trying to fool the paying public that they were buying a ticket to a party instead of a professional sporting event. That failed and drove TV ratings below that of infomercials. Then the focus was on the new car, like that was going to draw in new fans, but again they found it isn't the car that attracts real race fans, it's the drivers.

You cannot run a successful race series that way, yet Champ Car management apparently cannot see it……as the series continues to flounder like a wet fish laying on the cutting board groping for air as it awaits the filet knife. The biggest news of the off-season has been the possible departure of Champ Car's biggest star, Paul Tracy, to the rival IRL. While that never happened, it's sad when the only real news is bad news about the athletes around which the series should be built. And so we have our latest 2008 Champ Car Silly Season page lined with much uncertainty (speculation) and many unanswered questions; questions that must be answered before any real marketing effort can be made for the 2008 season, just three short months away.