Overheard at Long Beach Sunday

In case you missed it, ex-Champ Car PR boss Steve Shunck has taken a similar role with the Indy Racing league as PR VP of Operations………We hear that things are looking pretty good for the Baltimore Grand Prix street race to be added to the schedule in 2011, but we hear streets have to be widened, which is making the costs higher than your average street circuit. We spotted officials from the City of Baltimore watching and learning here at Long Beach…….Milka Duno was still off the pace 7.5s in morning IndyCar warm-ups but the IRL is still going to allow her to start the race……..We hear some folks referring to the new IndyCar as the Car of the Future which is analogous to NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow. Let's hope it turns out better than NASCAR's attempt at a new car. As for some team owners suggesting putting the new engine in the existing car that makes no sense as we previously stated. Why waste money on a retrofit kit for the existing car to hold it over when you might end up with less than the optimum engine for the chassis chosen. Better for the IRL to either wait another year or two for the entire new package when the teams are on better financial footing, or to include in the Request For Proposal that goes out to the chassis manufacturers to include the option for a team to either buy the new car outright, or a lease option for the teams that cannot afford it to buy the new car right now. That would require the manufacturers to team with a bank or leasing company as part of their proposal…….We chatted with HPD's Erik Berkman on the status of the new IndyCar engine. He told us that he's waiting on the June 1st deadline for the IRL to announce their new engine proposal. As we all know Honda has proposed a V6 to the IRL and it sounds like HPD has already gone to the 20% design level. "If they decide to go in a different direction and we still choose to participate then of course we will have to start over again," said Berkman. "And then I am not sure we can be ready for 2012. I think perhaps the IRL will want some time between when they announce the new engine specifications and when the chassis proposal is due because they probably want the chassis designers to know what the engine specification will be."……We spoke to another team owner, Eric Bachelart, about the third spring controversy and he is very upset. "It simply is not right," said Bachelart. "It increases the gap between the big teams and the small teams who do not have the resources to develop the third spring using the anti-roll bar. This is something that increases costs and does not do anything for the fans. After we design it then we have to go and test it I also cannot believe that a team was allowed to have it when the other did not. There needs to be more transparency from the rules makers in this league."……As we alluded to yesterday, some teams will test in Kansas later this week (starting Wednesday we think) and we hear there will be a rookie test on Friday for both Conquest Racing drivers (Baguette and Romancini) de Silvestro, etc……..We caught up with Graham Rahal regarding the rumor earlier this weekend when we said we heard the Newman Haas Lanigan deal may have fallen apart for Rahal and he pretty much confirmed it did. He did not rule out our other rumor that Rahal could possibly drive for the Rahal Letterman team. "I have not reached out to dad for help yet because I am trying to make it on my own, but he still has cars so anything is possible. This is my last race for Sarah Fisher's team and right now I have nothing for Kansas or even Indy and beyond." Mark C. reporting from Long Beach