Porsche to cut sports car program, move monies to IndyCar?

UPDATE As we have rumored previously, Porsche participation in the dumbed down Grand Am Series is in doubt. Motorsport.com has reported that Porsche will withdraw their engine, and any factory support from the Grand Am Series due to competitive issues. This comes off the back of Pontiac's withdrawal from the Series. It is thought that Brumos will re-engineer a Cayenne engine for the back of their Daytona Prototype machine.

Penske, on the other hand is a bigger question. The team that withdrew from ALMS competition because of no factory dollars will surely withdraw from Grand Am with no factory dollars. But this may come back to their participation in other sportscar competitions.

Audi, closely linked with the Porsche family have been rumored to come back to the ALMS in 2010.

07/19/09 According to the Porsche Club of America's official monthly magazine "Panorama", Porsche will not be returning to the ALMS P1 or P2 class in 2010, and when the Penske Grand Am deal runs its course Porsche will only "race" its 911 type cars.

Meanwhile, according to German publication Der Spiegel, the two competing families, Porsche and Piech, that now own Porsche will agree on Thursday to accept VW’s offer, which would pay off part of Porsche’s more than $14 billion in debt.

Volkswagen would initially purchase a 49.9 percent stake in Porsche and acquire the rest at a later date, Der Spiegel said.

Porsche spokesman Anton Hunger disputed the Spiegel report, telling Reuters on Saturday that the company has received no information of such a decision, and that the German publication’s report was no more than speculation.

This deal, over a year in the making (Porsche tried to buy VW, but that failed and now the roles have reversed) and may be delaying VW's decision to enter IndyCar Racing. It could be that after the acquisition, VW will race the Porsche brand and come to IndyCar with its favorite Porsche factory team – Penske.

However, we doubt Porsche will want to compete their "elite" brand against Honda, which the consumers equate to econo-boxes. Perhaps Acura will have to replace the Honda brand in IndyCar for that to work.